December 1st is celebrated worldwide as ‘World AIDS Day’. It has always been considered as one of the most destructive epidemics in the history of mankind. The denizens of Kathmandu Valley in their own way are raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection by taking out rallies and conducting programmes to spread the message. The theme for the year is “Getting to Zero”- a widely acceptable saying to negate the effects of the deadly disease. If this was not serious enough business for you to reflect on, then read on for the major financial news on everyone’s mind at the moment.

The past 24 hours had seen a flurry of actions around the world, in response to the growing concerns about the euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis. The story begins in Europe where the finance ministers met to discuss the future of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) took some key decisions regarding the fund. The EFSF will be able to lever its meager 440 billion euro’s in capital in two different ways. Firstly, it will use its resources to guarantee 20-30% of the bond issues of struggling peripheral economies and secondly, by creating co-investment funds that will attract money from other investors which can be deployed to buy bonds.

Against the backdrop of these outcomes and the deteriorating financial situations, the central banks have once again come together to lend some breathing space to the brewing problem. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada and Swiss National Bank announced today their intention to coordinate action to ease liquidity conditions in the financial markets. The Fed will increase its dollar lending to other central banks which will do the same to other financial institutions which will reduce the cost of dollar borrowing. The major aim in this act is to defuse the growing trouble banks have had borrowing to finance their operations. The action has contributed to a surge in the equities markets, but the move is less significant than it seems. The central banks are extending and expanding programmes that were already available, and the focus now is purely on liquidity issues. However, these actions can delay a meltdown, but cannot, in the absence of other steps, prevent it altogether. Central banks have effectively provided some relief to the cancer patients in order to just buy more time before the ultimate demise.

It is a good sign that leaders around the world are behaving with an increasing recognition of the severity of the problem for now. However, the most significant near-term threat to the global economy-euro zone debt problem-continues to grow.