Angela Merkel and David Cameron will try to resolve clashing views on the euro crisis on Friday with London accused of being selfish for opposing a tax on banks and Berlin touching off British sensitivities about transferring power to Europe. London wanted the prime minister's visit to be low-profile, but such hopes were dashed after

Asian shares fell for a fourth day in a row on Friday as Europe's funding difficulties intensified, with Spanish borrowing costs hitting an unsustainable level and premiums for dollar funds rising further. In a sign that global funding strains may spread to Asia, benchmark three-month euroyen interest rates futures fell to an eight-month low on

Dutch state-owned bank ABN AMRO on Friday slumped to a third-quarter loss due to a 500 million-euro writedown on Greek corporate loans and bonds. "Uncertainty as a result of the sovereign debt crisis and the impact thereof on the European economy, caused us to impair part of the 1.4 billion euro Greek Government-Guaranteed Corporate Exposures,"

Britain's banks have shrunk their lending exposure to peripheral euro zone counterparts by a quarter in just three months, the Financial Times reported on Friday. According to data compiled by the newspaper, used as the source for the article, the big four UK banks cut interbank loan volumes by more than 24% to 10.5 billion

Italy's new government has announced far-reaching reforms in response to a European debt crisis that on Thursday pushed borrowing costs for France and Spain sharply higher, and brought tens of thousands of Greeks onto the streets of Athens. Italy's new technocrat prime minister, Mario Monti, unveiled sweeping reforms to dig the country out of crisis

Greece's 2012 budget plan will forecast a budget deficit of 5.4% of GDP if a planned debt swap to reduce the country's debt maintenance costs goes ahead, state radio reported on Friday, without citing a source. Excluding the effects of the debt swap, also known as the "PSI", the draft budget predicts that the country's

Spain and France struggled with government bond auctions on Thursday, throwing into sharp relief the threat of larger euro zone economies succumbing to the debt crisis that began in Greece and is already lapping at Italy's shores. Madrid was forced to pay the highest borrowing costs since 1997 at a sale of 10-year bonds, with

Greece has 60 bln euros ($80 bln) in unpaid taxes because of tax avoidance and lack of compliance, a report by the European Commission's task force on Greece said on Thursday. The figure is equivalent to around 25% of Greek gross domestic product. Greece's total public debt stands at 370 bln euros, or around 160%