Eurozone Crisis

Investors should double the amount of gold they hold as the value of paper currency diminishes along with the prospects for global economic growth, said a senior executive at Coutts, the private banking arm of Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland.

The IMF prodded the world’s rich countries for swifter action on Thursday as Europe’s debt crisis drags on while the United States and Japan show scant progress handling their budget deficits.

The International Monetary Fundurged European policymakers to deepen the financial and fiscal ties within the euro area with some urgency to restore sagging confidence in the global financial system.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, the head of ILO warned that austerity measures in southern European countries risk having “quite harmful consequences”. He was more positive about the outlook in Britain.

The wave of social unrest that has recently hit Spain is a reflection of the growing rural/urban and north/south divide in the country. GENEVA (ILO News) – Unemployment in Spain is rising faster in rural areas than in urban centres and is fuelling social unrest, according to the latest statistics produced by ILO’s International Institute…

BERLIN, Germany – The head of Europe’s financial bailout fund, Klaus Regling, said the eurozone crisis could be over in “one or two years” if member states stick to their pledges, in an interview to be published Monday, September 3.

Unemployment across the 17-nation eurozone hit a record 18 million in July, the EU statistics agency says. Some 88,000 more people were added to the jobless total, but upwardly-revised data for June meant the unemployment rate remained at 11.3%. Eurostat said the 18,002,000 jobless total was the highest since records began in 1995.

German manufacturing declined in August Continue reading the main story The eurozone’s economy is set to contract by 0.5%-0.6% in the July to September quarter, tipping it into its second recession in three years, a closely-watched survey suggests.

PARIS — Signs are growing that Europe’s economic and monetary union may be fragmenting faster than policymakers can repair it. Euro zone leaders agreed in principle on June 29 to establish a joint banking supervisor for the 17-nation single currency area, based on the European Central Bank (ECB), although most of the crucial details remain…

There’s trouble in the European Union (EU) and the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. At the heart of the problem is the euro, the common and exclusive currency of the 17 nations that comprise the eurozone. The eurozone is not the EU, which has 27 member states. The 17 eurozone…

The four leaders also agreed to push for a pan-European tax on financial transactions Leaders of the eurozone’s four biggest nations have agreed in principle to measures to boost growth equal to 1% of the currency area’s economic output. Germany, France, Italy and Spain outlined plans to push for a 130bn-euros (£104bn; $163bn) package.

MANILA, Philippines – Amid tight security and sweltering heat, the 45th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Board of Governors opened  at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Manila, Wednesday.

Eurozone leaders have urged governments to focus on growth amid fears about the negative impact of austerity measures. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi called for a “growth compact”, to go with the balanced-budget pact agreed last year.

Countries throughout the world will experience an economic slowdown this year as the sovereign debt crisis in Europe continues to unfold, according to a United Nations report launched today that also warns that governments must urgently address high unemployment rates, particularly among youth.

A fundamental understanding of the euro debt crisis can be appreciated better if its historical background is told. Then, the euro is examined as an economic experiment in institution-building.

The euro debt problem caused much more economic uncertainty. Wild swings of stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities characterized recent world markets. And as felt in Greece, the same problem was seen as a big political drama as well.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick on Saturday warned of a “new and more dangerous” time in the global economy, as Europe struggles to resolve its debt crisis. Zoellick said the eurozone’s sovereign debt issues were more troubling than the “medium and long-term” problems which saw the United States downgraded by Standard and Poor’s last week,…

FRANKFURT/ATHENS (Reuters) – Despite bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Europe’s debt crisis may yet spread to core euro zone countries and emerging Eastern Europe, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN — The euro zone economy ended last year with stable growth, missing expectations as expansion rates in the region’s three largest nations fell short of forecasts and Greece and Portugal contracted.

LONDON — France and Germany are ready “to do everything, absolutely everything” to ensure the stability of the euro zone, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a speech in London on Thursday.

LOCAL share prices dropped for the third straight session as the pessimism of the week’s opening session spread to Tuesday’s trades. At the Philippine Stock Exchange, the composite index fell 80.21 points, or 1.95 percent to 4,032.37. The broader all-shares index lost 44.12 points, or 1.47 percent to 2,965.60.

Fate of the alliance could now depend on a willingness to implement major reform PARIS: Eurozone leaders have mobilized money and rhetoric to fight a debt crisis, but the fate of the alliance could now depend on a willingness to transform speeches and stopgap measures into a deep policy overhaul.

BEIJING: China, already the banker to the United States and a major investor in emerging markets, is now positioning itself as the potential “white knight” saviour to debt-laden Europe, analysts say.

Three complications exist, however. First, when a bailout is required, it is clearly because something has gone terribly wrong. In Greece’s case, it was out-of-control government spending with no thought to the future; in essence, Athens took that black card and leapt straight into the economic abyss. In Ireland’s case, it was private-sector overindulgence, which…

BRUSSELS (AP) — Europe and the euro will never be the same. The debt crisis is forcing governments to rewrite some of the eurozone’s most fundamental rules. While some see the current turmoil as the slow-motion wreckage of the common currency bloc, others maintain Europe will have the political resolve to keep it together and…

NEW DELHI: The chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday the debt crisis in Europe remained serious but he tipped Ireland to recover rapidly after its weekend bailout.

Yesterday’s blog entry was entitled: ‘The so-called bail-out: The EU and Ireland in a sado-masochistic relationship’. In fact the support being provided is a mixture of EU, national government and IMF support, and I used ‘EU’ as a short-cut.

After weeks of speculation and debate the deed has now been done. Ireland has received an overdraft facility of just under €70 bn provided jointly by the EU and the IMF in exchange for a tough austerity package.

PARIS, France—The financial cloud hanging over the eurozone darkened Tuesday, with the euro falling and Italy hit by rising borrowing rates as EU measures to control sovereign debt left investors uncertain and anxious.

The European Union warned Monday that the turmoil over eurozone debt is now a threat to growth, which will slow next year, as markets gave a cool response to a weekend rescue for Ireland.