Irish officials reassured savers on Thursday that their deposits were safe amid fears over what a possible IMF/EU bailout would mean for the country's banks. Irish lenders have suffered outflows of corporate deposits, necessitating exceptional funding from the central bank, but Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent said this month that levels had
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Greece pledged on Thursday to hike VAT, freeze pensions and cut government waste further in 2011 to meet the terms of an EU/IMF bailout after admitting it will miss this year's targets. The deficit will shrink by 5.1 bln euros next year to 16.8 bln euros, or 7.4% of GDP, back in line with the
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Oil retraced part of a steep four-session drop on Thursday as worries about Ireland's debt crisis eased and a sharp crude inventory drawdown in top consumer the United States encouraged investors. Oil shrugged off U.S. data showing a small increase in claims for unemployment benefits, with U.S. crude oil futures up $1.37 to $81.82 at
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Six countries have declined invitations to the Deccember 10 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee told Reuters on Thursday. The six nations that declined are Russia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Morocco, Iraq and China itself. They gave no reason for declining, said Geir Lundestad, Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel
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General Motors Co shares traded up 7% on Thursday morning, in a dramatic market return for the top U.S. automaker that comes less than a year and half after it emerged from a government-funded bankruptcy. The shares opened at $35, above the initial public offering price of $33 and rose as high as $35.99 in
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A court in the northwestern German city of Muenster has banned a man from tattooing his pony with the logo of British rock band the Rolling Stones. The court came to the pony's emotional rescue after the owner shaved off a patch of its hair and pre-tattooed a pattern on its hindquarters of the "Tongue
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Europe's Mediterranean fishing nations have rejected measures to protect the endangered bluefin tuna proposed last month by the European Union fishing chief Maria Damanaki, EU officials said on Thursday. The decision late on Wednesday means the 27-nation EU joins international quota talks in Paris this week without a mandate for negotiating tough measures to conserve
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A shortage of raw materials has become a systemic risk for the global economy, the European Union trade chief Karel De Gucht said on Thursday. Speaking to the European Parliament during a hearing on raw materials, De Gucht said no country possessed all the raw materials it needed. "Everybody is affected as this is a
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British retail sales recovered in October after two months of declines but government borrowing hit another record high for the month, underscoring the need for tough fiscal retrenchment ahead. Thursday's batch of data — which included weak mortgage lending figures and a modest improvement in manufacturers' order books — did little to alter the view
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The cost of insuring Irish debt against default fell on Thursday as investors grew increasingly confident that a deal would be reached on aid to the country. Five-year credit default swaps (CDS) on Irish government debt fell to 495 basis points, down 30 bps on the day, according to data monitor Markit. This means it
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