* Obama: both parties reach deal to reduce deficit Stocks rose while gold and the yen dropped on Monday as investors cut safety trades after Washington reached a last-minute deal to escape default, though the top U.S. credit rating could still be downgraded. After a tense weekend in which rival plans to lift the U.S.
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* Facing spike in international borrowing costs Standard & Poor's cut Cyprus's credit rating by one notch on Friday and warned another cut was possible, deepening economic gloom for the island struggling with its worst peacetime disaster and mounting speculation it might be forced into an EU bailout. Citing inconsistent commitments to spending cuts and
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* Economy on the brink of collapse * European member of parliament and former foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides has called for the president of Cyprus to resign in order to appease the public outcry from the worst economic and energy crisis to his the island in nearly four decades. He said that if president
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* On track for worst week since August 2010 * World stocks headed for their biggest weekly loss in almost a year on Friday as investors piled into safe havens on worries about sovereign debt crises on both sides of the Atlantic and after data showed meager growth in the U.S. economy. The Swiss
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The U.S. economy stumbled badly in the first half of 2011 and came dangerously close to contracting in the January-March period, raising the risk of a recession if a stand-off over the nation's debt does not end quickly. The Commerce Department data on Friday also showed the current lull in the economy began earlier than
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* Moody's issues negative review * Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodrigo Zapatero could call early general elections for November, four months early, the website of El Mundo newspaper said on Friday. General elections are scheduled to be held by March 2012. Zapatero is due to give a news conference at 1030 GMT after
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Libya's rebels said their military commander was shot dead in an incident that remained shrouded in mystery, pointing either to divisions within the movement trying to oust Muammar Gaddafi or to an assassination by Gaddafi loyalists. The killing of Abdel Fattah Younes, who for years was in Gaddafi's inner circle before defecting to become the
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Saboteurs blew up an oil export pipeline near the central Syrian city of Homs on Friday, the official Syrian news agency said. The explosion caused an unspecified amount of oil to leak from the pipeline, which links eastern oil fields to the Mediterranean coast, the agency added. Homs is home to one of Syria's two
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* Yen hits new 4-month low vs dollar * Tokyo stocks fell on Friday, losing ground for a third straight day as the deadlock over raising the U.S. debt ceiling pushed the yen higher while Nintendo plunged as much as 20% on a crumbling earnings outlook. Shares of Nintendo, a non-Nikkei component but around
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Global financial markets are likely to remain "awful" for some time to come, the finance director of British investment bank and brokerage Evolution Group said on Friday. "It's pretty awful at the moment. We see it as being awful for some time to come, in terms of liquidity and risk appetite," Andrew Westenberger told Reuters
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