Europe, Europe Debt | featured news

Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday cut Italy's bond ratings by three notches, saying it sees a "material increase" in funding conditions for euro zone countries with high levels of debt.

World stocks hit a 15-month low on Tuesday and the dollar rose to a nine-month peak as fears over a major banking crisis in Europe mounted.

Stocks began the final quarter of 2011 on Monday the same way they ended the last one, falling amid pessimism over Europe's efforts to contain its sovereign debt problems and fears that a wider economic slowdown ...

Greece will miss a deficit target set just months ago in a massive bailout package, according to government draft budget figures released on Sunday, showing that drastic steps taken to avert bankruptcy may not be enough.

Policymakers have lost control of the economic crisis and financial markets are forcing the world into a depression, George Soros said on Friday, urging Europe to create a common Treasury, recapitalize its banks and protect vulnerable states.

Stocks rallied Monday as investors bet that European finance ministers would take action soon to prop up the region's unstable economies.

Europe is caught in an economic pincer: slow-growth assaults from one side; fickle financial markets from the other. One obvious way out — the China option — seems barred by geopolitics. There is precedent. Historians blame the Great Depression’s severity in part on poor international cooperation. Economist Charles Kindleberger found a vacuum of power: Great Britain, the old economic leader, could no longer lead alone; and the United States — a replacement — wasn’t ready to help. Is there a parallel today between the United States and China? Are we repeating the mistakes of the 1930s? Unsettling questions.

Greeks expressed their misery on Monday at the erosion of their daily lives by austerity measures demanded by international lenders in exchange for bailout funds, ahead of a key parliamentary vote on extra property tax.

Investors in Asia continued to sell off risky assets like stocks on Monday, as Europe's prolonged debt crisis and the possibility of a global recession caused investors to flee riskier assets like stocks.

The United States and China piled pressure on Europe on Saturday to get to grips with its debt crisis before it risks causing bank runs and pushing the global economy into ruinous recession.