Yet last week, Asian and European finance ministers reached no consensus on defensive measures.
Yields rose in response to increasing demand for a stock alternative as Asian bourses closed the week on a high note.
Mr Obama has now put off his decision until after he returns from his trip to Asian countries beginning this week, and may not make a choice until December.
Reports this week say good Asian physical demand for gold has surfaced following the recent decline in prices.
FORBES: Comex Gold Ends Higher in Choppy Trading; Safe-Haven Buying Surfaces
India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, refused to meet General Musharraf at an Asian summit in Kazakhstan this week.
News of the suspension came hours before she was to fly out for this week's Asian Championships in Japan.
During the first week of the Asian Tsunami in 2004, United Airlines' Mileage Plus members donated 40 million miles to help humanitarian organizations get support on the ground for the relief efforts.
Masahiro Kawai, an official at the Asian Development Bank, this week urged the region to prepare for a slump in the dollar, the probability of which he compared to that of a global bird-flu epidemic: it is far from a certainty but would have a tremendous impact if it happened.
ECONOMIST: The region's currencies stay strong amid the squalls
It also was a rare Asian market that declined for the week, down 0.8%.
Asian stock markets were routed last week, with Hong Kong falling to a three-year low.
Helping the nations devastated by last week's South Asian disaster stay off this track will be the real test of the world's charity in the long term.
But fiscal consolidation must continue: the Asian Development Bank pressed the point this week when it said that any new loans it makes will depend on this.
Hong Kong kicks off a set of Asian art sales on Friday, and next week the rest of the art world will descend on London's Frieze Art Fair for contemporary sales.
Last week, it rode out the Asian crisis, but only just: the stockmarket was down by more than 20% at one point, and the currency slid from 7.8 pesos to the dollar to 9.2.
News of more deaths from the disease in Indonesia helped push stockmarkets down in Europe this week, and rattled south-east Asian currency markets.
With him on the Shanghai riverfront last week were the presidents of three neighboring Central Asian republics -- Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgystan.
Last week, panelists at the second annual Asian MBA Leadership Conference at the Javits Center in New York, discussed the importance of corporate responsibility.
They must have been cheered last week when a closed-door conference for prospective Asian investors carried on with business as usual at Yangon's pricey Strand Hotel.
The IMF chief is currently enroute to the Euro-group meeting in Brussels on November 20, cutting short her Asian stay and another date of note to diarize for next week.
Some of the bond appetite last week was from investors hoping Japanese investors will flock into Asian bonds at some point, bankers said.
The London Stock Exchange has been wooing Asian flotations, such as that of Air China, due next week, with claims that it has less strict requirements than New York.
ECONOMIST: A reminder of the risks of investing in Chinese companies
The reaction of Asian markets when they open for trading Monday will indicate whether this week's slide is a limited event or the beginning of a broader contagion, says Bank of New York's Woolfolk.
Eddie Lam, whose Chinese restaurant had its grand opening this week, reports that at least four-fifths of his Asian customers order their food in English.
Henry serves up an inventive fusion menu inspired by Central American, Peruvian, Hawaiian, Californian and Asian street food, with four tapas-like dishes that change every week.
Italian Two One Two Bar and Grill and pan-Asian restaurant Ocean also make for an interesting curation by Friends of Restaurant Week, a group of bloggers, connoisseurs and sommeliers responsible for selecting the participating restaurants.
Mr Estrada's other problems were highlighted this week by a pair of reports from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, in which the Philippines is vying with Indonesia to turn in the slowest growth in the region this year.
Asian traders are awaiting a fresh batch of Chinese economic data due out later this week and during the upcoming weekend.
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