European shares looked set to follow Asian equities higher on Wednesday and the euro steadied after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would resign, raising hopes the debt-ridden country would proceed with reforms that may keep Europe's debt debt crisis from spreading. An easing in Chinese inflation also soothed fears about the world's second-largest
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Italy looks set for lengthy political uncertainty after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's pledge to resign, with his centre-right party calling for elections and the main opposition for a national unity government. After failing to secure the majority in a vote in the lower house, Berlusconi said he would quit as soon as parliament passed budget
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China's annual inflation rate fell sharply in October to 5.5% in a further pullback from July's three-year peak, giving Beijing more room to fine tune policy to help an economy feeling the chill of a global slowdown. Inflation fell from 6.1% in September and marked the third straight decline since a peak of 6.5% in
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Losses on securities investments at the core of a scandal rocking Japan's Olympus Corp may have once exceeded $1 billion, the Nikkei newspaper said on Wednesday, as the firm's share price plunged due to doubts about its future. Olympus admitted on Tuesday it used M&A deals to hide losses dating back two decades, a revelation
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Chipmaker Nvidia Corp, rushing to stake out more territory in tablets and smartphones, said its new Tegra 3 processor delivers up to three times the graphics performance of its predecessor and uses 61% less power. Previously code-named "Project Kal-El", the new quad-core chip is in production and is Nvidia's latest bet to expand into the
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European Union finance ministers failed to agree on Tuesday how to shore up sagging banks and avert a credit squeeze, as rising borrowing costs for Italy threaten to unleash a new and more dangerous phase of the euro zone debt crisis. Against the worsening economic backdrop, European banks are finding it hard to borrow and
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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will resign following a humiliating vote in parliament on Tuesday, President Giorgio Napolitano said. The president said after meeting Berlusconi that the 75-year-old prime minister would step down as soon as parliament passed urgent reforms demanded by euro zone leaders to cut Italy's huge debt and boost stagnant growth. The
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy laid out a vision of Europe on Tuesday in which euro zone countries accelerate and deepen their integration while a wider and expanding group outside the currency bloc stays more loosely connected. Speaking to French students in Strasbourg, home of the European parliament, Sarkozy said the "two-speed" model for Europe was
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Plastic card spending by Greek Cypriots in the north and Turkey dropped by 13.6% over the year earlier in October to EUR 760,888 from EUR 880,314 in October 2010. Just like Turkish Cypriot spending in the south, the main drop seems to have been broadbased, with spending on clothes down to 20.3% to EUR 70,723
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** Falling Turkish lira to blame? ** Turkish Cypriot credit card spending in the south collapsed by 32.5% over the year earlier to EUR 1.28 mln in October, from EUR 1.69 mln in October 2010, according to data from JCC Payment Systems. The main reason seems to be a sharp reduction of 123% in airline
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