LONDON/SINGAPORE - December 1, 2011 - Manufacturing activity is contracting across Europe and most of Asia, data showed on Thursday, and a Chinese official declared that the world economy faces a worse situation than in 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Factory activity shrank even further in the euro zone, reinforcing the view that the debt-strapped region is in a Depession, while British manufacturing contracted at the fastest pace in two years, raising the risk the UK economy may suffer the same fate.

LONDON, England - November 30, 2011 - Britain’s banks have been told to prepare for the end of the Eurozone.

City regulator Financial Services Authority has told banks to ready themselves for financial Armageddon by running "stress tests" on their balance sheets.

NEW YORK - November 29, 2011 - Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. had long-term credit grades reduced to A- from A by Standard & Poor’s after the ratings firm revised criteria for dozens of the largest global lenders.

FORT WORTH, Texas - November 29, 2011 - American Airlines' parent company is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it seeks to unload massive debt built up by years of accelerating jet fuel prices and labor struggles.

NEW YORK - November 29, 2011 - Home prices across the nation are now right back where they were at the beginning of 2003. All that was gained is largely now lost, and the effect on home ownership could continue for decades.

TRENTON, New Jersey (PNN) - November 27, 2011 - The number of New Jersey residents receiving food stamps has doubled in the past four years and is at its highest level in more than a decade as the Depression continues to take its toll on the poorest residents of the Garden State, state and federal data show.

LONDON, England - November 25, 2011 - British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bailout, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.