Debt News

Athens - Greece's short-term borrowing costs tumbled on Tuesday, days after the crisis-hit country returned to medium-term international bond markets for the first time for four years. Athens paid 2.75 percent interest on 1.625 billion euros ($2.

Paris - France will stick to the country's EU-set budget deficit reduction target, the new finance minister insisted on Tuesday, dismissing earlier indications that Paris was angling for a delay.

Lisbon - Portugal on Tuesday laid out savings designed to strip 1.4 billion euros ($1.9 billion) from its budget in the latest step to trim its public deficit.

Athens - Greece will issue more bonds after last week's successful five-year debt sale that ended a four-year drought, the head of the debt agency said Sunday.

Frankfurt - The European Central Bank and the Bank of England on Friday called for easier rules regarding certain securities so as to get credit flowing again in the eurozone economy.

Paris - Ratings agency Fitch on Friday upgraded its outlook for Portugal to "positive" and maintained the country's credit rating at BB+.

Rome - Italy raised 7.5 billion euros ($10.4 billion) on Thursday in a sale of 12-month bonds with the rate falling to a record low of 0.589 percent, the Bank of Italy said.The rate at a similar auction on March 12 was 0.

Athens - Greece was set on Thursday for a milestone return to bond markets with a five-year debt sale which also sends a major signal that the eurozone debt crisis is fading.

Athens - A booby-trapped car exploded outside the Bank of Greece in central Athens Thursday but no one was injured in the blast, police said, as Greece was set to return to the debt markets after a four-year absence.

Washington - Six years after a wave of financial destruction crashed through the United States and then Europe, risks, some old and some new, still challenge the global economy, the IMF says.