IBT Staff Reporter

The strength of the euro masked underlying fiscal problems within the euro zone, the President of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy said in an interview published on Monday.

When South Korea is faced with a severe dollar shortage in the local swap market, currency swap deals with other central banks have a far stronger effect than using its own foreign reserves, a BIS report found on Monday.

European Central Bank board member Christian Noyer on Sunday said France's aim to bring its budget deficit down to 3 percent from 8 percent of GDP by 2013 was realistic.

Inflation in the euro zone is not a worry despite the slightly higher forecasts in the recent European Central Bank staff projections, Governing Council member Athanasios Orphanides was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Qatar is expected to be the largest source of global real estate capital during 2010, real estate consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle said in a report published on Sunday.

European Union leaders will make a new attempt this week to convince financial markets they can contain a debt crisis by agreeing how to tighten economic policy coordination and strengthen budget discipline.

Workers at a factory making locks for Honda Motors cars in China remained on strike on Sunday, two workers said, although Honda said the dispute had been resolved and production had resumed.

The leaders of France and Germany will seek to overcome deep-rooted disagreements on European economic governance at a meeting in Berlin Monday, setting the tone for a European Union summit later this week.

European Union countries will coordinate budget plans starting next year, rather than making their own national choices, Italy's Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Sunday.

Stock investors will keep a close eye on Europe this week, looking for signs the debt crisis may be stabilizing, while industrial production, housing starts and inflation data may offer more clues on the U.S. economic outlook.

BP Plc is unlikely to decide to cancel its dividend, a person familiar with the British energy giant said on Sunday, as the company faced pressure in the United States to suspend the payment to help pay for damage caused by a huge oil spill.

Most Greeks believe the country's political system cannot tackle chronic graft and think most politicians are corrupt, an opinion poll published on Sunday showed.

The global financial crisis appears to be in its final stages, although some countries are still experiencing a recession, Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer said at an International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting on Sunday.

Spain's biggest regional political party, the CiU, on Sunday criticized the government's draft proposal for labor reform as a slapdash job and said it would not support it in its current form.

Swiss authorities have already handed over 500 accounts of UBS clients to the United States under an agreement to end a tax dispute that has threatened the bank's existence, a paper reported on Sunday.

South Korea announced on Sunday long-anticipated currency controls, saying it aimed to curb rapid shifts in capital flows that were linked to short-term foreign debt and posed a risk to the world's ninth-biggest exporter.

U.S. lawmakers risk poisoning the atmosphere with China through proposed laws aimed at the yuan currency, China's official news agency said on Sunday, calling Congress members baby kissing incompetents.

Pilots at Spirit Airlines went on strike on Saturday after U.S.-mediated contract talks failed to reach an agreement, a small-carrier stalemate that could influence workers at bigger carriers.

The European Central Bank will maintain its bond-buying program until financial markets stabilize, ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny told Japan's Nikkei newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Japan's government will review some of the spending plans pledged by the ruling party as part of an effort to rein in the country's huge public debt, new Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Sunday.

Tens of thousands of Germans protested on Saturday against Germany's biggest austerity drive since World War Two, adding to pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel's increasingly unpopular coalition.

Proposed U.S. legislation aimed at punishing China unless it lets the yuan rise would not be in line with World Trade Organisation rules, China's Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday.

Germany's Finance Ministry on Saturday denied a media report that federal net new borrowing would be around 60 billion euros next year.

Pilots at Spirit Airlines struck the company on Saturday after mediated contract talks failed to reach an agreement, a small-carrier stalemate that could influence workers at bigger carriers.

A draft labor reform package due to be approved by Spain's government on Wednesday will help generate jobs and boost confidence in a struggling economy, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Saturday.

Britain's industry mediator has put forward confidential proposals to try to end a long-running dispute between British Airways and its cabin crew.

Gold prices extended gains while oil dropped at the end of this week's trade in New York. US gold futures for delivery in August gained $8, or 0.7 per cent, to $1,230.20 on the Comex in New York. The metal gained 1 per cent this week.

Proposed U.S. legislation aimed at punishing China unless it lets the yuan rise would not be in line with World Trade Organization rules, China's Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday.

Bentek Energy managing director Rusty Braziel sees a great divide developing in U.S. natural gas. Bentek are one of the leaders in tracking and analyzing American gas pipeline flows. Where gas is flowing, who's using it, and at what price.