A look at latest developments in financial markets around the world:

Goldman Sachs cuts commodity forecasts
GOLDMAN Sachs, one of the two biggest commodity traders on Wall Street, dramatically cut its price forecasts across oil, base metals and grains on Monday, warning that crude prices could fall as a low as US$50 (S$74) a barrel.

'We have underestimated the depth and duration of the global financial crisis and its implications on economic growth and commodity demand,' its commodity markets research team lead by Mr Jeffrey Currie said in a report dated Oct 13.

But they also said that recent events strengthened their argument for a structural bull market, as commodity producers are 'highly dependent upon access to capital and were already struggling to grow production capacity before recent events'. -- REUTERS

S. Korea banks, firms can weather shock
WASHINGTON - SOUTH Korea's US$240 billion (S$354 billion) in foreign reserves and the sound fundamentals of its banks and firms will enable it to weather the global financial crisis, but prolonged world turmoil would cause exports to suffer, Finance Minister Kang Man-soo said on Sunday.

'Our commercial banks are very sound and our companies' situation - especially the debt/asset ratio - is relatively sound. Therefore, on the banking side and the real side, we can absorb the shock from abroad,' he told Reuters in an interview.

Australia's central bank pumps in more funds
SYDNEY - AUSTRALIA'S central bank on Monday pumped a further A$2.85 billion (S$2.85 billion) into the country's financial system in a bid to ease a grinding liquidity crisis.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) injected the funds to bridge a deficit of A$1.1 billion, leaving it A$1.75 billion better off, the central bank said.

The move came despite Australian share prices opening sharply higher after suffering its worst losses since 1987, buoyed by a government guarantee of all bank deposits for three years.

Like other central banks, the RBA injected billions of dollars into the country's financial system last week after a global credit crunch spiralled into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

EU to suspend 'mark-to-market' accounting
PARIS - EUROPEAN leaders have agreed to seek measures to suspend so-called 'mark-to-market' accountancy rules in order to stabilise bank balance sheets, a statement said on Sunday.

According to an action plan released by the 15 leaders of the eurozone single-currency bloc, equities held by banks will no longer be recorded at their current values on the world's severely depressed markets.

'Under the current exceptional circumstances, financial institutions should be allowed to value their assets consistently with risk of default assumptions rather than immediate market value which, in illiquid markets, may no longer be appropriate,' the statement said.

Thus, for example, the value of a futures contract that would not be clear until it reaches its expiry date will no longer be calculated at the current daily value of the stock when a bank calculates its liabilities.

The leaders hope that by suspending this requirement, banks balance sheets will look more healthy and the risks will be reduced that they be swept away by a run on the markets. -- AFP

World needs new multilateral system
WASHINGTON - THE global financial crisis underscores the need for coordinated action to build a better multilateral system, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Sunday.

'We need to modernise multilateralism for a new global economy,' Mr Zoellick said at a news conference in Washington. 'We need concerted action now to ... build a better system for the future.'

Mr Zoellick spoke on day two of annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, overshadowed this year by the global financial crisis that erupted in August 2007, evolving into the worst of its kind since the Great Depression.

Developing countries complained at the World Bank gathering on Sunday that the crisis will put their recent hard-won economic gains at risk while rich nations dwell exclusively on their own problems.

With donor aid programmes under pressure due to the financial crisis, the World Bank estimates that up to 100 hundred million people are at risk of falling into poverty because of higher food and energy prices. -- AFP

Soros slams 'ill-conceived' US response
WASHINGTON - BILLIONAIRE businessman George Soros lobbed criticism ON Sunday at the US administration's 'ill-conceived' handling of the global banking crisis, reserving especially harsh words for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

'This US$700 billion plan, if it had been better constructed, if they had thought about it earlier, if they would deal with the housing situation - the damage would be less,' Mr Soros told CNN in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

'The Paulson plan was ill-conceived,' he said. 'It was basically the same kind of financial engineering that got us into the trouble that they wanted to use for getting us out of it. And it was just the wrong thing,' he said.

The legendary financier added: 'The market is now collapsing. He just is not able to ... come to terms to what needs to be done.'

Mr Soros, one of the world's richest men, also had criticism for the overindulgence of US consumers.

'We have gotten into the habit of consuming six to seven per cent more than we are producing. And that game is finished. That was part of the bubble,' he said.

'America, as the centre of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. You know, China was buying government bonds. This is now over. The game is out,' he said, adding that the time has come for 'a very serious adjustment' in Americans' consumption habits. -- AFP