Economy, Europe | featured news

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has called an emergency meeting of top officials dealing with the euro zone debt crisis for Monday morning, reelecting concern that the crisis could spread to Italy, the region's third largest economy.

Thousands of South Asian migrants have left Greece in recent months to escape the country's growing economic crisis, community leaders tell the BBC.

Austerity measures being adopted by many industrialized world governments in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis are undermining economic recovery, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.

Eurozone finance ministers meet in Luxembourg, where they are expected to approve a 12bn-euro (£10bn) loan to debt-stricken Greece.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed that Europe's debt crisis must be contained.

Fueling the demonstrators’ anger is the perceived failure by politicians to alleviate the hardships imposed on a struggling population by a jobless rate of 21 percent.

Speculation is growing that Greece may need a second financial bail-out from the international community

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded two of the euro zone's most troubled member states, citing fears that the pair may have to restructure their debt after 2013.

Germany's economy in 2010 grew at its strongest rate since the country's reunification, propelled by exports and rising investment, the Federal Statistics Office said.

If we did not find ourselves smack in the middle of the Holiday season, I’d probably be talking about how the bull camp’s momentum appears to be waning and that we should be bracing for a meaningful pullback in response to the tiring trend, the overbought condition, and the overly optimistic sentiment readings. And while these issues are indeed present, it appears that the holiday spirit and the corresponding portfolio allocations may be the primary driver to what I will loosely term the current trend.