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The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it is unlikely to raise interest rates before late 2014, extending a period of record-low rates by more than a year.

The Fed says it is keeping rates low to help lift a weak but modestly growing economy.

The new timeframe hints at details in the Fed’s quarterly economic forecast, which will be released later. That will show in what year policy members expect the first increase in the Fed’s benchmark interest rate. The Fed has kept its key interest rate at a record low near zero for three years.

In a statement released after its two-day meeting, the Fed said the economy is growing moderately, despite some slowing in global growth. It held off on any other new steps to boost the economy.

The statement was approved on a 9-1 vote. Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond regional Fed bank, dissented, saying he objected to the new time period.

The extended timeframe is a shift from the Fed’s previous plan to keep the rate low at least until mid-2013. The change is intended to reassure consumers and investors that they will be able to borrow cheaply well into the future. And some economists said it could lead to further Fed action to try to invigorate the economy.

The forecast on interest rates will be released along with the Fed’s updated projections for economic growth, unemployment and inflation. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will discuss the forecasts and Fed policy at a news conference later Wednesday.

Beyond the adjusted outlook for interest rates, the January statement tracked closely to the Fed’s previous comments about economic conditions personal business card.

The central bank used the same language in describing Europe’s debt problems and the impact on the world economy.

The economy is looking a little better, according to recent private and government data. Companies are hiring more, the stock market is rising, factories are busy and more people are buying cars. Even the home market is showing slight gains after three dismal years

Still, the threat of a recession in Europe is likely to drag on the global economy. And another year of weak wage gains in the United States could force consumers to pull back on spending, which would slow growth.

The Fed has taken previous steps to strengthen the economy, including purchases of $2 trillion in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to try to cut long-term rates and ease borrowing costs.

The idea behind the Fed’s two rounds of bond buying was to drive down rates to embolden consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more. Lower yields on bonds also encourage investors to shift money into stocks, which can boost wealth and spur more spending.

Some Fed officials have resisted further bond buying for fear it would raise the risk of high inflation later. And many doubt it would help much since Treasury yields are already near historic lows. But Bernanke and other members have left the door open to further action if they think the economy needs it.

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Turkey’s foreign minister has called for the immediate resumption of talks between Iran and major world powers to end the standoff over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Ahmet Davutoglu also said at a joint news conference with Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi that Turkey was ready to host and “make any other kind of contribution” to talks between Iran and six countries leading negotiations _ the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Salehi said the six powers should enter talks without conditions, otherwise “it is a sign that they do not approve of the negotiations.”

The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its efforts are designed for civilian power generation and research.

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Gold fell, capping the longest slump since October 2009, and silver tumbled to a three-month low as Europe’s deepening debt crisis drove commodities and stocks lower.

The euro dropped to an 11-month low against the dollar as lending to financial institutions sent the European Central Bank’s balance sheet to a record high. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 raw materials and the MSCI World Index of equities were poised for the biggest declines in two weeks.

Platinum approached the lowest since November 2009, and palladium dropped almost 3 percent.

The ECB said lending to euro-area banks jumped 214 billion euros ($276.9 billion) to 879 billion in the week ended Dec. 23, bolstering credit to the economy during the financial turmoil. Gold has slumped 19 percent from a record $1,923.70 an ounce on Sept. 6, partly on sales to cover losses in other markets.

“What’s going on in Europe is very worrying,” James Dailey, who manages $215 million at TEAM Financial Management LLC in Harrisburg, Pa., said in an e-mail. “The dollar’s strength is working against all commodities, including gold.”

Gold futures for February delivery declined 2 percent to settle at $1,564.10 at 1:47 p.m. on the Comex in New York. The price dropped for the fifth straight session, the longest slide since October 2009. The commodity headed for the first quarterly slump since September 2008.

Silver futures for March delivery fell 5 quick guaranteed personal loans.2 percent to $27.234 an ounce on the Comex. Earlier, the price touched $27.10, the lowest since Sept. 26. The metal has plummeted 45 percent from a 31-year high of $49.845 on April 25.

Gold imports by India, the biggest consumer, may drop as much as 50 percent this month after the rupee plunged, according to the Bombay Bullion Association. China restricted gold trading in spot and futures contracts to the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange to crack down on illegal buying and selling of commodities.

Platinum futures for April delivery declined 3.2 percent to $1,392.40 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, the price touched $1,388.60. On Dec. 15, the metal declined to $1,376, the lowest since Nov. 13, 2009.

Palladium futures for March delivery slumped 2.9 percent to 647.15 an ounce on Nymex, the biggest drop since Dec. 14.

This year, gold has advanced 10 percent, heading for the 11th straight annual gain, on demand for an alternative investment amid slumping equities.

“Gold has been one of the best performers this year, so it comes as no surprise that we are seeing some end-of-year profit-taking,” said Ronald Stoeferle, a commodity analyst at Erste Group Bank AG in Vienna.

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Traders doubled bets on Israeli interest rate cuts in the past two weeks, speculating the central bank will act to insulate the economy from a global slump as inflation slowed to a one-year low.

The Bank of Israel may lower the 2.75 percent key rate 41 basis points over the next 12 months, compared with 21 basis points of cuts priced in on Dec. 8, according to interest-rate swaps, an indicator of investor expectations. Policy makers review borrowing costs today, with 12 out of 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecasting a 25 basis-point reduction.

Rescue workers are searching for 49 men in freezing, remote waters off Russia’s east coast after their oil drilling platform capsized and sank amid fierce storms Sunday.

By nightfall, four men had been confirmed dead, and 14 others had been plucked from the churning, icy waters by the ship that had been towing the Kolskaya platform. But the search for the remaining men was hampered by freezing temperatures, a driving blizzard and strong winds.

Dmitry Dmitriyenko, governor of the Murmansk region in Russia’s north-west where 33 of the men come from, urged friends and families not to lose hope late Sunday, but admitted the chance of the men surviving in the one degree Celsius (33.8 Fahrenheit) water is approaching zero.

“This is a terrible disaster which took the crew unawares,” he said in a statement. “But there is still a chance.”

The Emergencies Ministry said that 67 people had been aboard the platform as it was being towed about 200 kilometers (120 miles) off the coast of Sakhalin, a large island just north of Japan in the North Pacific, that until the late 19th century was the Russian Empire’s most remote penal colony.

Airplanes and helicopters patrolled the area Sunday, but called their search off just after sunset. Ministry officials said two boats will continue the search throughout the night, and the air search team would return with another two ships in the morning.

The Transportation Ministry said the platform started sinking after a strong wave broke some of its equipment and the portholes in the crew’s dining room.

One 5-meter (16-foot) wave washed away its lifeboats, leaving the crew with no escape, and several hours later it sank, officials said.

There were no immediate reports of environmental damage _ unlikely as the platform was not drilling for oil when it capsized and carried a negligible amount of fuel.

The Kolskaya was built in Finland in 1985 and is owned by Russian offshore exploration firm Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka.

Sakhalin is a largely undeveloped area, dominated by pristine nature. Russia, United States, Europe and Japan have worked off its shores for a nearly decade, producing oil and gas. There have not been any previous significant accidents in the region.

As oil and gas fields in Eastern Siberia are becoming depleted, Russian oil and gas companies are starting to shift their focus to offshore projects, unveiling ambitious plans to tap the riches of the Arctic.

Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil and Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft teamed up to jointly explore oil and gas fields in the Kara Sea with Exxon pledging $3.2 billion of investment on only three fields.

The Investigative Committee on Sunday opened a probe into the accident and said that it might have happened because of a breach of safety regulations, or due to the harsh weather conditions.

Alexei Knizhnikov, an energy policy official in Russia for the World Wildlife Fund, told the RIA Novosti news agency that energy companies ought to learn from the accident.

“This disaster should highlight the high risks of offshore projects,” he said. “It’s very difficult to conduct efficient rescue operations, whether it’s rescuing people or dealing with oil spills, in the weather and conditions of the Arctic.”

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An attorney for Bank of America says 13.2 million customers may be eligible for a settlement in a lawsuit claiming the bank charged excessive overdraft fees.

The final tabulation came Monday as a Miami judge considers whether to finalize a $410 million settlement during a hearing to consider any objections or other issues related to the deal reached in May.

The class-action lawsuit contends the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank processed its debit card and check payments in a way that triggered more overdrafts and therefore more fees. Even though it agreed to the settlement, the bank insists the overdraft system was proper.

The lawsuit covers people with Bank of America debit cards between January 2001 and May 2011.

New bank regulations prohibit this type of debit card fee unless customers approve.

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China’s high-flying economy is starting to lose altitude. The big question is whether the world’s economic superstar will descend gradually _ or so fast that it harms a fragile global economy.

China’s comedown is being engineered by its policymakers. They want to slow its growth rate just enough to cool inflation without sapping job growth.

It’s a delicate task.

“Nobody can say with any confidence” if they’ll succeed, says Barry Eichengreen, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

China’s explosive growth remains the envy of developed nations like the United States. It grew faster than any other major economy in the April-June quarter, according to The Associated Press’ latest quarterly Global Economy Tracker. Only Argentina’s much smaller economy matched China’s 9.5 percent annual growth rate.

By contrast, the U.S. economy grew at a 1.3 percent rate in the April-June quarter, before expanding 2.5 percent in the July-September period.

The AP’s Global Economy Tracker monitors economic and financial data in 30 countries representing more than 80 percent of global output.

Economists worry that China’s economy could suffer what they call a “hard landing.” A sudden plunge in China’s growth would harm the economies of the United States, Europe and small countries that need China to buy their coal, copper and other raw materials.

On Tuesday, a Chinese government group said manufacturing grew in October at the slowest pace in nearly three years, partly due to weak export orders. It forecast that the economy would slow further the rest of the year.

The threat from a slower-growing Chinese economy comes as the United States is still struggling to recover from the Great Recession of 2007-2009. And an agreement last week to ease Europe’s debt crisis might not prevent the continent from sliding back into a recession that would ripple through the United States and other countries.

When surveyed this year by the Society of Actuaries, corporate risk managers in the United States, Canada and elsewhere said a slowdown in China posed the greatest threat to their business.

A hard landing wouldn’t just squeeze U.S. and European exporters. It could also destabilize Chinese society. And it could escalate global trade tensions.

Hampered by inflation above 6 percent and slowing exports, China’s growth is expected to decelerate from 10.3 percent last year to 9.5 percent in 2011 and 9 percent in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF expects the global economy to grow 4 percent this year.

Developing countries emerged faster than other nations from the Great Recession. They’re now growing much faster than rich countries. According to the AP’s global tracker:

_The three fastest in the April-June quarter were China (a 9.5 percent annual growth rate), Argentina (9.5 percent) and Indonesia (6.5 percent).

_The laggards are from the industrialized world _ Japan (down 1.1 percent), Norway (up 0.3 percent) and Britain (up 0.6 percent).

_Growth is slowing worldwide. It weakened from a year earlier in 19 of 26 countries that reported April-June data.

China’s gaudy growth doesn’t mean much to Xie Jun, who runs a factory in the southern Chinese boomtown of Dongguan. He’s enduring a tough year.

His company makes and exports headphones, cell phones and computer accessories. It’s paying 30 percent to 50 percent more this year for chemicals, fuel and other raw materials. Labor costs have nearly doubled.

Xie’s customers are reducing orders, forcing him to lay off more than 10 percent of his staff at Dongguan Jincai Real Co. and leaving him with about 100 workers.

“I just feel hopeless,” Xie, 45, says. “It’s hard to say if it will get any better next year.”

China will likely account for nearly a third of global growth this year.

Exporting countries depend on China’s demand for raw materials and consumer goods. Mines in Australia and Chile supply coal, copper and iron ore. General Motors sells more vehicles in China than anywhere else, including the United States. China was the No. 3 destination for U.S. merchandise exports last year, behind Canada and Mexico.

China’s trading partners are watching warily to see whether it can avoid a hard landing. Economist Nouriel Roubini has defined a hard landing as a drop in annual growth to 5 percent or less. He says China must expand 8 percent a year just to keep enough people employed to “maintain its social and political stability cash advances pay day loan.”

Eswar Prasad, professor of global trade at Cornell University, puts the odds of a hard landing in China at 50-50.

Other analysts say they’re confident China’s policymakers will manage to reduce inflation gently without stifling growth too much.

The authorities “are well-aware of the risks,” says Bob Mark, who runs Black Diamond Risk Enterprises and has advised Chinese banks. “It’s not like they’re going to be blindsided.”

China’s central bank has raised interest rates five times since mid-2010 to try to shrink inflation. Even so, consumer prices jumped 6.2 percent from August 2010 to August 2011. That was fifth-fastest among the 30 countries in the AP’s global tracker. In the United States, by contrast, prices rose 3.8 percent in the 12 months ending in August.

News that China’s growth dipped to 9.1 percent in the July-September quarter from 9.5 in the April-June period was met with relief by some economists. Rajat Nag, managing director of the Asian Development Bank, says it suggests a soft landing ahead.

Eichengreen notes that Beijing’s communist authorities “have lots of levers they can pull, unlike U.S. authorities.”

Senior bureaucrats in effect run the economy. The government owns most of the biggest companies and banks. It controls the currency.

Officials can, for example, suppress the value of China’s currency, the yuan. A lower yuan makes Chinese goods cheaper overseas. The United States has long accused China of keeping its currency artificially low to give its exporters an unfair edge.

Chinese policymakers can also order state-owned banks to lend if the economy slows much. They can command local governments to keep workers busy building roads and bridges.

Roubini, a New York University economist who runs a research firm, thinks China’s authorities will use all those tools to keep the economy growing briskly through 2012. They’ll want to ensure a smooth transition next year, when a new president and premier will come to power.

But Roubini and others worry that the outlook after that is bleaker. He thinks China’s growth could sink to 5 percent or less in 2013 or 2014.

At the heart of the problem is how China has stoked its expansion. It hasn’t encouraged its consumers to drive the economy with their spending, as Americans do. Instead, it’s juiced growth by pushing exports and investing in factories, roads, railways and real estate.

Such investments account for about half of China’s gross domestic product, a broad gauge of economic activity. That is a wildly lopsided share that suggests China is investing in far more construction than it needs.

In most major countries, consumer spending, not investment, drives the economy. Last year, for example, consumers accounted for more than 70 percent of GDP in the United States, 63 percent in Britain, 58 percent in Germany and 57 percent in Japan. In China, consumer spending represented just 39 percent of GDP.

Behind China’s investment boom are bank loans that might never be repaid, because the projects aren’t expected to throw off enough revenue.

Roubini’s research firm estimates that China has wasted $1.4 trillion since 2008 on investments that will likely end up as bad debts.

Optimists say China is merely planning for the future. A growing middle class will eventually occupy the new houses, ride the new trains, fly from the new airports and drive new cars on the new highways. The new factories will make goods to meet rising demand at home and abroad.

But demographics pose another problem. China is aging fast. Largely, that’s because of population control policies that limit most families to one child. This year, 8.9 percent of Chinese were 65 or older. By 2021, 12.9 percent will be.

“A significant slowdown is coming because their labor force is aging,” Eichengreen says. By 2015 or 2016, he says, China’s growth could slow to 5 percent or 6 percent.

Economists have urged China to rely more on its consumers and less on exports and dubious investments. In Dongguan, factory owner Xie would agree.

“I am thinking about focusing more on the domestic market next year,” he says. “At least we have 1.3 billion people. It is a big market.”

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TORONTO

China and the European Union on Friday called off a summit of their leaders next week so European officials can remain at home for talks on the continent’s debt crisis.

The one-day meeting planned for Tuesday in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin will be rescheduled to a later date, the Chinese government and the European Council announced.

The meeting was scheduled to include Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, EU President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other officials from the two sides. Several hundred European and Chinese businesspeople also were to have held a conference while the leaders met paydayloans.

Friday’s cancellation came after European leaders scheduled meetings through the weekend to seek a solution to the continent’s debt crisis.

In a phone call with van Rompuy, Wen said the most important thing is to prevent the debt crisis from spreading and “a serious economic recession,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

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A political consultant stole more than $1 million from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg because he wanted to buy his father’s house, a prosecutor said Monday.

Republican consultant John Haggerty didn’t have the money to pay for the house, but he did have “access to one of the largest mayoral campaigns this city has ever seen. … And with it, the mayor’s money,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Brian Weinberg told jurors as Haggerty’s trial opened.

Prosecutors say Haggerty got Bloomberg to underwrite an elaborate 2009 poll-watching effort run by the state Independence Party but then mounted only a meager operation and used most of the money instead to buy the house. Haggerty says he did the job he was paid for and didn’t do anything illegal guaranteed unsecured personal loan.

Bloomberg, an independent, was running for re-election and was the Independence Party’s top candidate.

Defense lawyer Raymond Castello said the campaign used Haggerty as a scapegoat after questions arose on whether the campaign had followed campaign-finance law.

He said the mayor donated over $1 million to the Independence Party in order to maintain a distance from what could be seen as a questionable practice.

“This case is about winning at all costs,” Castello said. “That’s what Michael Bloomberg is all about.”

Bloomberg is expected to testify in the trial.

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