The Nikkei average dropped 1.7% on Monday, as fears of slowing global growth and the spreading impact of Europe's credit woes encouraged investors to pull funds out of risk assets. Japanese shares slumped along with equity markets across Asia, as well as crude and base metals prices and U.S. stock futures, suggesting the rout will

Greece and its EU/IMF inspectors have broadly completed negotiations about a further bailout tranche for the debt-laden country, its deputy finance minister said on Monday. "I believe (the talks) have essentially concluded," deputy finance minister Pantelis Oikonomou told television station Mega. "I think we have figured things out… we have covered all the main topics,"

Asian stocks extended losses, partly dragged lower by a plunge in Hong Kong shares, and the euro fell on Monday on deepening concerns that the euro zone's debt crisis will dampen global growth. Worries that a weakening economy will hurt industrial demand hit commodities such as copper, which extended losses for a fourth session in

Greece will miss a deficit target set just months ago in a massive bailout package, according to government draft budget figures released on Sunday, showing that drastic steps taken to avert bankruptcy may not be enough. The dire forecasts came while inspectors from the IMF, EU and European Central Bank, known as the troika, were

Euro zone finance ministers will discuss ways to leverage their EFSF bailout fund on Monday and put pressure on Greece to implement agreed structural reforms to try to get its economy growing again, euro zone officials said. Finance ministers from the 17 countries sharing the euro meet in Luxembourg after Athens acknowledged it would miss

Paris launches its first car-sharing project next week with the aim of clearing its traffic-clogged boulevards and delivering what its backers hope will be a major boost for electric vehicles. The Autolib system builds on the success of the Velib bicycle-sharing service and could provide a shop window for entrepreneur Vincent Bollore and his nascent

* Web firms' data proves irresistible to law enforcers * Demands to hand over user data have become routine * U.S. operators receive estimated 300,000 requests a year * Operators under pressure to collect data they don't need  Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information

Renewed fears of a slowdown in the global economy combined with the long-dragging euro zone debt crisis weighed on European stocks on Friday, as one of the most volatile and worst quarters since late 2008 came to an end. At 1125 GMT the FTSEurofirst 300 was down 1.7 percent at 917.11 points, after hitting an