On the Brink

Continuing his award-winning reports for the BBC World Service, Michael Robinson looks at the increasingly desperate efforts to stave off a global economic slump and depression.

He visits Europe and Asia to identify the dangers that lie ahead and investigates how the present bail-out packages devised by leaders in rich countries will hit newly emerging nations.

Using techniques untried since the 1930s, politicians and policymakers around the world are now pumping vast sums of public money into their economies, hoping to get banks to lend again to desperate companies and consumers.

Michael find out if theses various leaders' efforts are to save their own economies, or will they end up threatening the global economy?

Globalisation, has in recent decades, boosted prosperity in much of the world but is that trend about to reverse?

Barack Obama and the leaders of the developed world all proclaim the virtues of free trade, and insist they have learned the lessons of the 1930s, where protectionism produced devastating economic and political consequences.

Join Michael as he returns to Eastern Europe and Asia to investigate how the present bail-out packages devised by leaders in rich countries will hit newly emerging nations.

First broadcast on 6th May 2009