Headlines

Greek state TV and radio were gradually pulled off the air late Tuesday, hours after the government said it would temporarily close all state-run broadcasts and lay off about 2,500 workers as part of a cost-cutting drive demanded by the bailed-out country's international creditors, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on an Associated Press story. The conservative-led government said the Hellenic Broadcasting Corp., or ERT, will reopen "as soon as possible" with a new, smaller workforce. It wasn't immediately clear how long that would take, and whether all stations would reopen.

Finland's central bank delivered a stark warning Tuesday that the prolonged euro crisis is beginning to drag the country into the same financial troubles that the Southern Europeans it helped bail out are mired in, The Wall Street Journal reported. Weighed down by weak demand for exports and a decrease in private consumption, Finland's gross domestic product is likely to shrink 0.8% this year, the Bank of Finland said in its biannual economic outlook. That would mark a second-straight annual contraction.

A U.S. judge Tuesday approved Arcapita Bank B.S.C.'s plan to gradually liquidate itself in a process that conforms with Islamic Shariah law, which generally prohibits borrowing money with interest, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Bahrain investment firm entered bankruptcy protection last year with a goal of restructuring itself but ended up with a plan to orderly liquidate its private-equity investments.

HMV-owner Hilco bought Ireland's largest film and computer game rental retailer Xtra-Vision on Tuesday, potentially saving close to 1,000 jobs after the firm sought protection from its creditors in April, Reuters reported. Restructuring specialist Hilco, which rescued Britain's most high-profile entertainment retailer HMV earlier this year, said it hoped it would be able to keep Xtra-vision's remaining 132 stores open following negotiations with landlords.

The Government has nominated six county registrars for appointment as specialist judges of the Circuit Court, creating a new cadre of judges in a move that has been sharply criticised by the judiciary, the Irish Times reported. The role of specialist judge was created under the Personal Insolvency Act to allow the Circuit Court to deal quickly with insolvency applications.

It has been billed by the British government as “a turning point” in the battle against tax evasion and avoidance. When world leaders gather in Northern Ireland next week, they will set out to end tax havens and stem the illicit flow of funds out of some of the world’s poorest countries, the Financial Times reported. The agenda – focused on the ‘three Ts” of trade, tax and transparency – is both technically and politically challenging.

Britain will give its strongest indication yet that it is ready to return part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland to private ownership later this month, political and industry sources said, Reuters reported. Chancellor George Osborne will signal the time is right to offload the government's 81 percent shareholding in RBS and a 39 percent stake in Lloyds in his annual Mansion House speech to financiers on June 19, the sources said on Monday. The government pumped a combined 66 billion pounds into the banks to keep them afloat during the 2008 financial crisis.

Greek business is awakening from a coma; the long-forgotten sound of drills and hammers can be heard on Athens construction sites again while customers queue calmly at banks to deposit cash rather than to withdraw it in panic, Reuters reported. Nevertheless, the government's declaration that an economic recovery is underway seems premature, with the hard numbers signalling stagnation rather than the robust growth needed to meet ambitious debt targets and reduce towering unemployment.

Greece’s privatisation programme suffered a severe setback when Gazprom failed to bid for Depa, the state-controlled natural gas supplier, as a deadline for binding offers expired on Monday, while only one offer was received for Desfa, which operates the country’s gas distribution network, the Financial Times reported. Gazprom, the only bidder, had been expected to offer about €800m for a controlling stake in Depa following months of negotiations with the Greek government on the terms of sale, said a person with knowledge of the process.

New rules to reduce risk in China’s financial sector and clamp down on illegal capital flows last month took some of the heat out of what had been a torrid year for borrowing, The Wall Street Journal China Real Time blog reported. But amid worries that a slowdown in lending could be risky as the economy also slows, some are asking why lending had been so strong to begin with.