Goldman Sachs reported earnings of $3.4bn for the second quarter, driven by record revenues of $13.8bn. The firm, which paid back $10bn in taxpayer funds to the US government last month, earned $4.93 per share for the quarter, up from $4.58 a year ago and $3.93 for the previous quarter. Had it not been for a $426m dividend payment made in connection with the repayment of government funds, Goldman would have earned $5.71 per share for the quarter. Goldman Sachs statement Goldman executives sold $700m of stock Goldman rebounds from crisis of confidence Record fundraising buoys banks' earnings

The Securities and Exchange Commission has created a new group of examiners to oversee credit rating agencies, which came under sharp criticism for their role during the financial crisis. The SEC has already adopted a number of measures to increase transparency at credit rating agencies, which are paid by the issuers they rate. But greater oversight is needed with officials expected to conduct both routine and special examinations of their activities, Ms Schapiro is set to tell a Congressional oversight hearing on Tuesday.

Pay at Goldman Sachs this year is set to beat the boom levels enjoyed before the financial crisis, when top executives raked in tens of millions of dollars in year-end bonuses. The prospect of bumper pay and bonuses at Goldman, which on Tuesday reported surging second-quarter profits and is a bellwether for Wall Street banks, is likely to reignite a fierce debate in the US over bankers' pay.

Tim Geithner, US treasury secretary, sought to assure Gulf nations on Tuesday about their holdings of treasury bills when he told Saudi business leaders that his country "has a special responsibility to play" in defending the value of the dollar. He also said that the US is committed to maintaining the openness of its economy to foreign investment and to expanding international trade.

More than 50 heads of state from the developing world were gathering in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh today to discuss the impact of the global economic meltdown on their nations. Cuban President Raul Castro called for a new world financial order, saying the crisis had hit developing nations hardest in a speech at the opening session of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. "Every country in the world must seek just solutions to the global economic crisis," Castro told the 118-member body at the gathering at this Red Sea resort. "We call for a new monetary and economic world order... we must restructure the world financial system to take into consideration the needs of developing countries." ......Founded in 1955, NAM's 118 member states represent around 56 percent of the global population. NAM states consider themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. Set up during the Cold War, the movement sought to distance itself from both the Western and Soviet blocs, but today its raison d'etre is questioned after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing shift in power politics.

Abigail Thernstrom: Sonia Sotomayor's life story is a compelling one. She says Democrats haven't honored such humble beginnings in GOP nominees. She says Sotomayor's "empathy" may be code word for one brand of politics. Thernstrom: I'm concerned that judge may have more fidelity to activism than to law...Some justices have much more respect for the law than others, but if the opinions were not often judgments driven by political values as well, they would be less predictable. Most court-watchers thought (correctly, as it turned out) that the recent New Haven firefighters' case would come down four-four, with only Justice Anthony Kennedy's vote hard to call. The results of an exam for promotion within the New Haven fire department had been thrown out because, with one exception, all of the successful candidates were white -- the "wrong" color, according to the reasoning of the city and Sotomayor.

A former chairman of top Asian oil refiner Sinopec Corp <0386.HK> was sentenced to death on Wednesday with a two-year reprieve for accepting more than $28 million in bribes, one of the harshest penalties meted out to a senior Chinese official in years. Chen Tonghai, 61, held a rank equivalent to a cabinet minister before he was abruptly removed from the helm of the state-owned refiner two years ago. He took 195.7 million yuan ($28.6 million) in bribes, the official Xinhua news agency said, during a period when the company was rapidly expanding its plants. The reprieve, announced by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, usually means the sentence will be commuted to life after two years' good behaviour.

One of Britain's most respected conductors, Sir Edward Downes, and his wife, Joan, a choreographer and TV producer, have died at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, their family said today. Downes, 85, was almost blind when he and his 74-year-old wife, who had become his full-time carer, travelled to Switzerland to end their lives, a family statement released to the BBC said....The couple died at a clinic run by Dignitas, the Swiss organisation that operates a specialist euthanasia service.