Headlines

Spain's clean-up plan for its troubled banks lacks some of the key ingredients that helped other governments restore faith in their financial sectors, restructuring experts said, pointing to a potential need for heavier state intervention, Reuters reported. Madrid told lenders on Friday to put aside even more funds against potential losses from dubious property loans, but limited its role in the rescue to providing high-interest financing for the weakest banks.

Some immigration lawyers have seen a new increase in the number of Chinese seeking foreign citizenship, a trend they suggest is tied to worries about political turmoil and economic slowdown in China, especially among businesspeople and politicians seeking to protect their families and wealth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The recent interest builds on a trend of growth in applications from Chinese seeking to emigrate to places like the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

KBC Bank Ireland will receive further capital from its Belgian parent this year as loan losses will fall but remain high, chief executive John Reynolds has said, the Irish Times reported. The Irish bank received €75 million from KBC Bank in the first quarter of this year as arrears rose on the Irish residential mortgage portfolio of €13 billion. This was the first cash injection by the Irish bank’s parent since 2008. KBC converted almost €300 million of subordinated debt loaned to the Irish unit into capital earlier this year.

Britain's closely watched austerity program is facing a difficult stretch in which its effectiveness and political viability will be tested, two years after the country became one of the first in Europe to announce tough debt-tackling measures in the wake of the financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported. That is because the majority of cuts are yet to come in a program that is due to run another five years.

Spain will be offered more time to hit the budget deficit targets it agreed with the EU but only if Madrid meets new conditions, including an independent audit of the restructuring plan for its troubled banks, the Financial Times reported. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has insisted on the extra conditions – which include ensuring more fiscal control over Spain’s profligate regional governments – before allowing Madrid to delay its 2013 deficit target by a year.

French President-elect Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have each been prescribing the same salve — growth — to ease Europe’s economic ills. But the medicines vary sharply on either side of the Rhine, The Washington Post reported. And though European leaders will meet later this month to try to work out their differences, the 17 countries that share the euro currency remain far from abandoning the debt-funding spending cuts that Germany has long championed. Hollande’s version of growth involves spending more money to stimulate jobs and economic recovery.

Greek political parties were engaged in a last-gasp attempt to form a government and avoid new elections on Thursday after voters rejected an international bailout and plunged the debt-ridden country into crisis, Reuters reported. Socialist PASOK party leader Evangelos Venizelos is the third and last political leader to try to form a government after Sunday's election, which left pro- and anti-bailout forces balanced almost equally.

As presidential rivals debated the roots of unemployment during the recent campaign, many companies held off on announcing job cuts to avoid inflaming an already fraught political issue. But now that voters have chosen Socialist François Hollande over center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy to be their next president starting on Tuesday, labor unions say many large French companies are preparing to announce large layoffs in the weeks and months ahead, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Insolvent Swiss oil refiner Petroplus owes Algerian state energy firm Sonatrach over $250 million in unpaid bills, an Algerian energy sector official told Reuters. Sonatrach has not received payment for several cargoes of crude it delivered to the refiner, the source said, without specifying what action, if any, the Algerian firm planned to take to recover the money. Late last year, Petroplus said lenders had frozen a credit facility which it was using to buy crude for delivery to its refineries. It filed for insolvency protection in January.

The evidence of businessman Seán Quinn, his son and nephew denying contempt of court orders restraining them from putting property assets beyond the reach of Anglo Irish Bank is "fantastic" and "incredible", the High Court was told Thursday, the Irish Times reported. Shane Murphy SC, for the bank - now Irish Bank Resolution Corporation - argued it has proven beyond reasonable doubt the three Quinn family members breached court orders of June and July 2011.