Bailout, Country Bailout | featured news

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.

By insisting that it receive collateral from Greece in return for aid, Finland threatens to upend an agreement that euro zone countries made in July to expand the E.U. bailout fund.

Under the plan, French banks would give Athens more time to pay back loans as they come due over the next three years.

Greece has secured a second bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, and it too will be on the order of €110 billion, Prime Minister George Papandreou said.

Prime Minister George Papandreou has vowed to stay on and fight to pull his country out of a crippling debt crisis, facing down a revolt in his Socialist party over new but widely unpopular austerity measures....

Portugal launched talks on Tuesday with European authorities and the IMF on a bailout the caretaker government said it needs to pay the country's dues from June, as politicians jostled ahead of a general election.

Ireland's parliament approved a multi-billion euro EU/IMF bailout package on Wednesday in the face of opposition threats to renegotiate the deal to force losses on some senior bondholders in Irish banks.