The global economy risks skidding toward recession just three years after pulling out of the previous one, the International Monetary Fund warned, adding that fighting a renewed world-wide downturn will be much more complex than it was in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high," said the IMF's World Economic Outlook report, which was released here Tuesday ahead of the fund's annual fall meeting. It was its bleakest assessment of global growth prospects since the 2009 recession.

European finance ministers hailed Greece’s determination to cut the budget and reshape its recession-wracked economy, raising the chances that aid will keep flowing to stop the country from careening out of the euro, Bloomberg reported. European officials paired the encouragement with a demand that Greece commit to a list of 89 policy steps before an Oct. 18-19 leaders’ summit, and left open whether the next 31 billion-euro ($40 billion) loan installment would be paid out in one go or dribbled out in smaller pieces.

The U.K.'s leading supermarkets, in the midst of a double-dip recession and sluggish growth, are desperately searching for a way forward, The Wall Street Journal reported. Many of these companies have built their brands on the backs of the country's middle-classes. But this swathe of society, caught between recession-proof top earners and low-income households, has come to be described as the "squeezed middle" in modern-day, austerity Britain.

Aer Lingus is seeking pay restraint for a four-year period from staff in return for providing a once-off financial contribution to help address the substantial deficit that exists in a pension scheme for its general workers, the Irish Times reported. It also warned that current workers and deferred members of the scheme, which it operates jointly with the Dublin Airport Authority, would have received just 4 per cent of their entitlement had it been wound up on the basis of the €748 million deficit in the scheme that existed on May 31st.

Poland's state road operator has been hit with a 1.2 billion zloty ($385 million) compensation claim by Irish builder SRB Civil Engineering, the latest fallout from a troubled construction spree ahead of the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, Reuters reported. SRB said it was forced to walk away from a contract to build stretches of a key Polish highway because of failures by roads operator GDDKiA and wants to be compensated for losses it said it incurred. But GDDKiA said it was the contractor who was at fault and that it had to withdraw from the contract, not the other way round.

The euro zone is considering aiding Spain by providing insurance for investors who buy government bonds in a move designed to maintain Spanish access to capital markets and minimize the cost to European taxpayers, European sources said. One senior European source said the plan could cost about 50 billion euros (39.8 billion pounds) for a year. It would enable Spain to cover its full funding needs and trigger European Central bank buying of Spanish bonds in the secondary market. If the gamble succeeds, it would achieve two important aims.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on Thursday said the bank's new bond-buying program is ready to activate, and put the onus on vulnerable countries such as Spain to first seek and receive assistance from other euro-zone governments, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Draghi defended the bank's decision to make its new plan reliant on political decision-making in the euro bloc, saying the process gives governments the right incentives to pursue sound economic policies.

French engineering group Geci International's Sky Aircraft unit was placed under creditor protection on Thursday, giving it six months to find partners to save the project, Reuters reported. Geci said following the ruling by the commercial court at Briey in eastern France it would use the time to pursue all the options it was exploring to safeguard the future of the Skylander light aircraft. "Management and the company are mobilised to seek financing solutions and to assure a future for the Skylander programme as well as all its staff," Geci said in a statement.

British clean technology firm Ceres Power Holdings Plc said it has not been able to secure the funds it needs to run its operations and that it would continue to explore options, including a wind down of the business, Reuters reported. Ceres said the other options it was looking at included a sale of the business or cancellation of its listing. The company has faced repeated delays related to the launch of its combined heat and power (CHP) energy efficient boiler as a result of technical issues with the product.

Two Spanish investment firms that own 31 percent of French property company Gecina have filed one of the biggest bankruptcy actions in Spanish history after a bank refused to refinance a 1.6 billion euro ($2.1 billion) loan, Reuters reported. The potential bankruptcy is the latest chapter in Spain's debt saga since its 2008 real estate crash, which forced banks to write billions of euros off property investments.