G20 leaders head into trade showdown (AFP)

The world's 20 biggest rich and emerging economies intensified a war of words hours before the start Thursday of a summit devoted to recalibrating huge distortions in the global economy.The summit's South Korean hosts said negotiators were far apart on how to address imbalances that have worsened as China's dramatic growth kicks on and America endures a snail-paced recovery from recession."Considerable differences remain concerning the issues of currencies and current account imbalances," G20 spokesman Kim Yoon-Kyung told reporters.

The world's 20 biggest rich and emerging economies intensified a war of words hours before the start Thursday of a summit devoted to recalibrating huge distortions in the global economy.The summit's South Korean hosts said negotiators were far apart on how to address imbalances that have worsened as China's dramatic growth kicks on and America endures a snail-paced recovery from recession."Considerable differences remain concerning the issues of currencies and current account imbalances," G20 spokesman Kim Yoon-Kyung told reporters.

The world's biggest rich and emerging economies intensified a war of words Thursday, hours before the start of a G20 summit that will struggle to iron out serious distortions in global trade.The United States, struggling to recover from its worst economic crisis in decades, locked horns anew with exporting giants China and Germany over a plan to rebalance skewed commerce between deficit and surplus countries.

The world's biggest rich and emerging powers escalated a war of words over trade and currencies Thursday, as leaders opened a G20 summit struggling to iron out distortions that threaten global growth.The United States, striving to recover from its worst economic crisis in decades, locked horns anew with exporting giants China and Germany over a plan to rebalance skewed commerce between deficit and surplus countries.

G20 leaders vowed on Friday to avoid currency manipulation and trade protectionism, but bad blood between China and the United States blocked deeper progress in rebalancing the skewed global economy.After a stormy two-day summit, the leaders of the world's biggest rich and emerging economies agreed in a declaration to craft "indicative guidelines" to reorient imbalanced trade between surplus and deficit nations.