US loses AAA credit rating, FM remains optimistic

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the world's largest economy, the US, from an AAA to an AA+ status. While US President Barack Obama told subdued voters, already tense because of a deepening debt crisis, "We are going to get through this," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations would meet for a common plan of action soon. Meanwhile Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee released a statement at New Delhi saying, "The situation is grave but our markets have the capacity to withstand the negative sentiments affecting the external world."