Europe Debt | featured news

Thousands of students and teachers staged a strike across Spain on Thursday to protest government austerity measures and a planned new education reforms.

Cyprus' lawmakers approved on Tuesday a multi-billion bailout agreement with international creditors aimed at preventing the crisis-hit country from going bankrupt.

Germany's lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to grant Cyprus a 10 billion euro bailout that is designed to avert bankruptcy for the tiny Mediterranean island nation and keep it in the euro zone.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday shaved projections for global economic growth for this year and next to take into account sharp government spending cuts in the United States and the latest struggles of recession-stricken Europe.

EU finance ministers agreed to allow Portugal and Ireland to repay their bailout loans later than initially agreed, in a bid to help the two governments wean themselves off bailout money in the coming year.

Serving a frugal lunch in their kitchen not much bigger than a bathroom, Pedro and Elena Baptista spoon stewed chicken feet onto their boiled potatoes and leave the slightly meatier wings for their 12-year-old daughter, Vania, and 7-year-old son, Joao.

Some key data about bond purchases by Bank of Cyprus - now the focus of a controversial EU-IMF bailout - is missing, investigators have found. The gaps were found in computer records studied by a financial consultancy, Alvarez and Marsal, Cypriot media say.

Successive Slovenian governments have refused to privatize the country's banks, which made disastrous loans to politically connected business interests and now threaten to drag the country center stage in the euro zone debt crisis.

The International Monetary Fund will contribute 1 billion euros ($1.29 billion) over three years to the 10 billion euro bailout for Cyprus, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement on Wednesday.

Michalis Sarris resigned after announcing the final terms of a bailout for the nation’s banking system that imposed heavy losses on bank depositors in return for aid.