Debt Crisis

If you had told investors what was going to happen in 2012 - U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate-earnings growth - and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year. But that's just what they got. The markets all ended the year substantially higher, despite losing ground in the final days as fiscal-cliff concerns mounted. The Dow ended 2012 with a 7.3 percent increase, its fourth yearly gain in a row, having started the year at 12,217.

TORONTO - While still concerned about slipping back into recession, world leaders signaled Sunday that they have a new fear - that the deficit spending they used to stimulate growth could produce a crippling debt crisis that also could stagger the world economy. They pledged Sunday to try to cut deficits in half within three years, their fear of debt outweighing warnings from President Obama that cutting back too quickly risks starving the economies just as they are starting to recover.

We have entered the second decade of the Third World debt crisis. It was at the end of August 1982 that Mexico stunned the world by defaulting on the principal of an almost $20 billion public sector debt, owed to 1,400 foreign banks. Sixty-six Third World countries sought and got some form of debt relief in the decade that followed. Within months of the Mexican default, nervous bankers and aid officials were declaring the crisis over, hoping to raise the confidence of lenders and discourage further defaults.

WASHINGTON - Global finance officials pledged Saturday to take bolder moves to confront a European debt crisis that threatens to plunge the world into another deep recession. But sharp disagreements about exactly what to do can't offer much reassurance to markets rocked by uncertainly in recent weeks. The United States and other countries outside of Europe fear the economic fallout at home from the European crisis. They are raising the pressure on Europeans to settle their differences and agree on a plan to rescue heavily indebted European countries.

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised an "ambitious and humble" year as leader of the Group of 20 rich and developing economies, and he has a lot to be humble about. Despite a warning earlier this year from Christine Lagarde - then his finance minister, now International Monetary Fund chief - that a failure to address global imbalances would "lead us straight into the wall of another debt crisis," that is where the G-20 has wound up. Now the finance ministers and central bankers gathering for two days of talks here beginning Friday must explain how they let the global economy run straight towards the edge of a clearly marked cliff - and what they can still do to stop it from falling over it. It was only last February, when the mandarins of finance last met in Paris, that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said "The global economy - by almost every measure - is in the best shape it's been in at any time in the last two or three years.

ATHENS, Greece - Greece's beleaguered government said Thursday that it would start taxing minimum-wage earners and encourage local banks to help the state delay debt payments for bonds maturing as late as 2015. New finance minister Evangelos Venizelos also said the government was encouraging a deferment scheme under the so-called Vienna initiative, signing up private investors to voluntarily renew their debt holdings as they expire. The next big challenge for Greece is for parliament to approve new austerity measures before getting the vital next batch of loans, worth 12 billion euro ($17.1 billion)

Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d contended yesterday that his plan for managing the Third World debt crisis is working, despite complaints Sunday by Brazil's finance minister that the crisis is imposing unbearable strains on debtor nations. Their sharply contrasting analyses represent the opposite poles of opinion on the central issue dominating the annual meeting here this week of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Essentially, Baker's views echo the big banks', and Brazil speaks for the debtor nations.

FRANKFURT, Germany - A ruling by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court could trip up European leaders' efforts to calm the region's debt crisis. The court - akin to the U.S. Supreme Court - will decide Wednesday whether or not it will allow Germany to join the European Stability Mechanism - a new, permanent 500 billion euro (or $638.8 billion) bailout fund for the 17 countries that use the euro. Since July, the court has been considering a series of challenges to the ESM and a parallel treaty requiring governments to limit the amount of debt they pile up. A number of different groups are concerned that the measures limit Germany's constitutional powers.

NEW YORK - The problems that weighed down stocks all summer show no sign of letting up. U.S. stocks plunged Friday, erasing gains from earlier in the week, amid rising fears about fallout from Europe's debt crisis. Seeking safer investments, investors sent the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to the lowest in 50 years. The resignation of a key official from the European Central Bank revealed deepening divisions over how to solve Europe's economic problems and reflected fear that the European debt crisis would tip the world economy back into recession.

NEW YORK - Stocks rose sharply in the U.S. and Europe yesterday after French and German leaders promised to strengthen European banks. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 275 points, led by Bank of America. The euro rose against the dollar. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they would finalize a "comprehensive response" to the debt crisis by the end of the month. The Dow rose 275 points, or 2.5 percent, to 11,377 at 1:50 p.m. Bank of America Corp.

PARIS - The eurozone is now in its longest ever recession - a stubborn slump that has surpassed even the calamity that hit the region in the financial crisis of 2008-09. The European Union statistics office said yesterday that nine of the 17 EU countries that use the euro are in recession, with France a notable addition to the list. Overall, the eurozone's economy contracted for the sixth straight quarter, shrinking by 0.2 percent in the January-March period from the previous three months.

ROME - Center-left leader Enrico Letta forged a new Italian government Saturday in a coalition with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives, an unusual alliance of bitter rivals that broke a two-month political stalemate from inconclusive elections in the recession-mired country. The daunting achievement was pulled off by Letta, who will be sworn in as prime minister along with the cabinet Sunday. Letta, 46, is a moderate with a reputation as a political bridge-builder.

BRUSSELS - Thousands of workers protested in Brussels on Thursday to demand that European Union leaders gathering for a summit bring an end to austerity measures and instead focus on boosting growth and reducing unemployment. The demonstration vented frustration over years of austerity imposed by EU leaders that unions and many economists say is worsening the recession and driving ever more people into unemployment and poverty. Even the EU leaders acknowledge that swift action is needed.

FRANKFURT, Germany - The European Central Bank says Italian government bonds account for nearly half of its total holdings under a now discontinued bond-buying program launched in 2010 to ease the eurozone's debt crisis. The bank on Thursday detailed for the first time what countries' bonds it acquired under the so-called Securities Markets Program, which it started when the euro area's debt crisis flared in May 2010. The central bank for the 17 European Union countries that use the euro said it held bonds with a face value of 218 billion euros ($287 billion)

DAVOS, Switzerland - British Prime Minister David Cameron wants nothing to do with a United States of Europe, an idea that's gaining currency as the countries that use the euro struggle to fix their debt crisis. But what if it's a choice between a single country called Europe or a splintered continent? Cameron is determined to avoid that scary scenario. A day after he shook up Europe's political landscape by offering British citizens the prospect of a vote on whether to stay in the 27-country European Union, Cameron insisted Thursday that he wanted Britain to remain a part of the bloc, but that more unification would not be the answer.

Blast kills 13 in Yemen SAN'A, Yemen - A Yemen security official says an explosion in the province of Bayda has killed at least 13 suspected al-Qaeda militants. The official in Bayda's capital city, Radda, said the explosion went off in a house owned by a known al-Qaeda operative, Ahmed Abdullah Deif-Allah Al-Zahab. It appeared to be an accident. Residents were barred Sunday from approaching the scene of the incident by militants with links to al-Qaeda, the official said. The group is active in southern Yemen and has launched deadly attacks against the military since it lost control of key cities it overran in 2011.

If you had told investors what was going to happen in 2012 - U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate-earnings growth - and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year. But that's just what they got. The markets all ended the year substantially higher, despite losing ground in the final days as fiscal-cliff concerns mounted. The Dow ended 2012 with a 7.3 percent increase, its fourth yearly gain in a row, having started the year at 12,217.

ROME - Italian Premier Mario Monti announced Friday that he is heading a new campaign coalition made of up centrists, business leaders, and pro-Vatican forces who back his "ethical" vision of politics, aiming for a second mandate in office if his fledging reform movement wins big in parliamentary elections. After a four-hour huddle with his supporters, Monti ended weeks of speculation at home and abroad about whether the internationally respected economist, who was appointed to head a nonelected government a year ago, would seek a new term, this time given to him by the voters.

OSLO, Norway - The European Union received the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday for promoting peace and human rights in Europe following the devastation of World War II, and the bloc was urged to use that unity in its battle with an economic crisis that is causing suffering for many of its citizens. About 20 European government leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Premier Mario Monti, attended the ceremony in the capital of Norway, an oil-rich country that has twice rejected joining the EU. Not everyone approved the decision to give the prize to the EU, created 60 years ago as Europe was struggling to recover from a war that killed millions.

FRANKFURT, Germany - Until last weekend, Europe seemed headed for a quiet Christmas and New Year's. Then Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti unexpectedly announced he was going to resign, pulling the plug on a government that had boosted confidence in the country's ability to manage its debts. The prospect of a return to a shaky government and finances has suddenly put new strains on the leaders of the 17-strong group of European Union countries that use the euro and their efforts to bottle up the region's debt and economic crisis.