The Russian central bank on Tuesday said it was canceling the license of a leading commercial bank for the first time since the financial crisis broke in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The International Industrial Bank, controlled by Russian tycoon Sergei Pugachev, was losing its license for violating a string of regulations, the Russian Central Bank said in a statement on its website. The IIB had failed to report accurate data on its accounts and had been unable to satisfy its obligations towards creditors, the bank said.

Ireland’s economic outlook worsened on Monday as the country’s central bank cut its growth forecast for this year, with gross domestic product now set to increase 0.2 per cent against previous forecasts of 0.8 per cent, the Financial Times reported. The slowing economy will compound the challenges the Fianna Fáil-led government faces in framing this year’s budget, which is critical to restoring investor confidence in Ireland’s fiscal consolidation plan.

Across Spain, towns that once reaped the benefit of housing-boom revenues are slashing budgets, cutting services and racking up debt. Together, according to Spain's central bank, the country's 8,000 municipal governments owe companies some €13 billion ($18 billion), representing more than one-third of their €36 billion total debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. Economists say the situation is already suppressing Spain's economy and employment levels.

British-based oil drilling contractor KCA Deutag has appointed four restructuring experts as directors, just as debt renegotiation talks are set to intensify, sources close to the negotiations said, Reuters reported. KCA Deutag, owned by oil industry services company Abbot Group and trying to reach an agreement with lenders on $2.16 billion of debt to avoid a covenant breach, announced the new non-executives on Monday.

Two years after investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and the financial system faltered, world leaders are deadlocked over key proposals for ensuring that such a crisis doesn't happen again, and concern is spreading that the chance for common action has waned, The Washington Post reported. Officials at agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank say they're worried about the loss of momentum, and private analysts are warning that narrow national interests could undermine further reform.

Latvia's center-right government was poised to stay in power Sunday after voters backed its plans to continue painful reforms required by an international bailout program to fix the Baltic country's crippled economy, the Associated Press reported. With about 98 percent of precincts counted, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis' minority coalition had mustered more than 57 percent of the vote in Latvia's parliamentary election Saturday. That would likely give it more than 60 seats in the 100-member legislature.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered Greece a major vote of confidence on a visit to the debt-ridden European nation, saying China will continue to buy Greek bonds and announcing the creation of a $5 billion fund to help Greek shipping companies buy Chinese ships, The Wall Street Journal reported. The remarks represent some of China's most substantive support for the euro zone amid the region's debt troubles, and reflect the Asian giant's growing willingness to wield its economic clout to obtain wider international influence. Mr.

George Osborne will tomorrow vow to stick by his controversial plan to wipe out Britain's £109bn structural deficit in one parliament, saying the alternative of delay would only hit the poor and consign the country to a decade of debt, the Guardian reported. In his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, the chancellor will announce that every Whitehall department will have its head office staff cut by a third, promise to give the armed forces the tools to finish the job, and dismiss Britain's public service structure as designed for the 1950s.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich may take legal action against the Government over its decision to make subordinated bondholders in Irish Nationwide (INBS) pay part of the bill for dealing with the building society’s huge property losses, The Irish Times reported. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said that he expected bondholders in INBS and nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank to make “a significant contribution” towards meeting the cost of a bill of up to €40 billion for cleaning up their years of reckless lending.

Ireland's cost of borrowing slid on bond markets Friday as investors took a positive view of the country's latest efforts to take control of Europe's worst deficit and a titanic bank-bailout effort, the Associated Press reported. The interest rates, or yields, on 10-year Irish bonds fell in early trade to 6.4 percent, a two-week low and 4.2 percentage points above the yields of benchmark German bonds. Earlier this week the Irish treasuries were at a euro-era high of 6.9 percent and 4.7 points above their German counterparts.