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International financial consortia have already squeezed local shareholders out of banks in El Salvador, and now they are expected to sideline the state, all of which will contribute to widening the gap between rich and poor.

A committee filled with business leaders and academics was created yesterday to consider changes in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other laws and regulations governing securities markets and companies, with the intention of improving competitiveness for American markets.

A "healthy" number of companies have admitted paying bribes under a new World Bank disclosure program, which encourages firms that have worked on bank-funded projects to report corruption or fraud.

A battle over Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s effort to get into financial services might derail the growth of company-owned banks, as well as Utah's ambitions to become to such lenders what Delaware is to corporations.

Drivers from low-income neighborhoods of New York, Hartford and Baltimore, insuring identical cars and with the same driving records as those from middle-class neighborhoods, paid $400 more on average for a year's insurance.

The poor are also the main customers for appliances and furniture at "rent to own" stores, where payments are stretched out at very high interest rates; in Wisconsin, a $200 television can end up costing $700.

A trial set to open here Monday is expected to be the first legal test of the wind-versus-water debate that has pitted thousands of Gulf Coast policyholders against their insurance companies since Hurricane Katrina.

In honor of this Award, World President James ''Bonds'' Wolfensohn will receive a low-interest loan to pay for his upcoming Toxic Tour of World Bank Project sites.