Greece | featured news

Greece's new government promised on Thursday to renegotiate the terms of the country's bailout without endangering its future in the euro, responding to intense pressure to ease mounting social tensions but also risking a showdown with European powers.

Greece's new government is to ask lenders for two more years to hit fiscal targets, responding to huge public pressure for a softening of an international bailout but setting up a showdown with its euro zone partners.

Euro zone paymaster Germany, relieved at a narrow election victory for Greece's pro-bailout parties, signaled on Monday it may be willing to grant Athens more time to meet its fiscal targets to avert a catastrophic euro exit.

Fears of an imminent Greek exit from Europe's joint currency receded Sunday after the conservative New Democracy party came first in a critical election and pro-bailout parties won enough seats to form a joint government.

Amid the gloom of a political and economic crisis, Greece's gutsy 1-0 win over heavily-favored Russia to advance to the Euro 2012 quarterfinals has at last given the country's crisis-weary citizens something to cheer about.

...Companies around the globe will be on similar high alert this weekend as Greeks prepare to vote in an election on Sunday that could decide the future of the European single currency.

A collapse of the euro could derail America’s fragile recovery and doom Mr. Obama’s re-election hopes. He may be running out of time to sway the German chancellor.

World stock markets rebounded Friday on anticipation that central banks will act to keep any political instability in Greece following weekend elections from destabilizing the global economy.

Greece looks close to bolting from the European Union with national elections this weekend. Spain’s banks were just bailed out, and Italy might be next. And, closer to home, Wall Street is still reeling about May’s crummy jobs report. So you’d think U.S. stocks would be tanking? Nope. Welcome to the bad-news rally: The Dow Jones industrial average shot up more than 160 points on Tuesday.

European finance officials have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario should Athens decide to leave the euro.