Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announces an unprecedented stimulus package — 4-trillion yuan (585.5 billion U.S.dollars) over the next two years — to combat the impact of the global economic crisis. Wen says he anticipates that China’s economy will grow by 8 percent in 2009.

In response to the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, Sudan expelled ten aid agencies from the country including Doctors Without Borders, CARE and Oxfam. The African Union says that it will send a delegation to the ICC to request a one-year suspension of the indictment to “give a chance for peace in Sudan.’’

The European Central Bank cuts interest rates to 1.5%, the lowest in the bank’s ten year history. The Bank of England of England cuts interest rates to a record low of 0.5%.