Headlines

François Hollande, the Socialist opposition candidate and opinion-poll leader, said that if he is elected France's president in May, he will seek help from the only institution he feels can salvage the euro: the European Central Bank, The Wall Street Journal reported. Speaking in an interview at his campaign's headquarters in central Paris, Mr. Hollande, 57 years old, said only the ECB has enough credibility and financial firepower to restore investor confidence and unravel the debt crisis that has been roiling the euro zone for two years.

Europe's banks are being squeezed from all sides, the Associated Press reported. They're holding risky government debt. They're struggling to get loans to operate. They're paying higher rates when they do borrow. And regulators want them to build bigger cushions against bad loans. The banks share the blame for Europe's debt crisis. They enabled governments to pile up too much debt. But they also provide the grease that keeps an economy running. Without them, there can be no recovery. A flurry of ominous news for Europe's banks has fueled fears about the ability of some to survive the crisis.

Struggling carmaker Saab suffered its latest embarrassment on Thursday as it was forced to name a new administrator a day after identifying another lawyer to take the key role, himself a replacement for a previous administrator who had quit, Reuters reported. The appointment comes days ahead of a court decision that could push Saab closer to bankruptcy. Sweden's Vanersborg District Court said Saab had put forward Lars Soderqvist of law firm Hokerberg & Soderqvist as its new administrator, having said on Wednesday another lawyer called Lars-Henrik Andersson would take the position.

Nikos Lekkas' team of tax investigators knew they were on to something when they found that a humble Greek farmer on the island of Thasos owned a red Ferrari and a Porsche, Reuters reported. Intrigued by how a farmer who had declared just 100,000 euros (84,000 pounds) in income over the past decade could afford such luxuries, Lekkas dispatched an undercover tax agent to the north Aegean island. The agent was back soon -- not only was the Thasos "farmer" earning far more than he had disclosed to the state, he was in an entirely different line of business: loan sharking.

Solon SE’s insolvency, the first of a publicly traded solar company in Germany, won’t affect its units in Italy, France and the U.S., Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The insolvency is for now confined to the holding company and its German units with 532 of a total 800 employees, said Moeller PR, which represents the administrator Ruediger Wienberg of law firm HWW Wienberg Wilhelm. Wienberg will contact customers and suppliers to maintain production and order processing, it said. Wages are secured through February.

Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank may ask shareholders and creditors to consider its second debt restructuring before year-end, according to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported. The people didn’t give details of the plan and declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.

The number of unemployed Britons has soared to the highest level for 17 years, increasing pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to do more to fuel growth and raising fresh questions about the wisdom of his government's fierce austerity drive, The Wall Street Journal reported. The jobless total rose 128,000 in the three months to October to 2.64 million, the highest level since the third quarter of 1994, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The jobless rate rose to 8.3%, its highest level since the three months to January 1996. Mr.

Ireland has made “important progress” in consolidating its finances and implementing structural reforms, a new report from the European Commission said today, the Irish Times reported. The reforms pave the way for Ireland to receive the third instalment of European funding, worth €4.2 billion, in January. However, the comission warned that the country was facing a number of challenges, including the weakening global economic outlook, which could impact exports, a strong driver of growth in the economy.

Cracks are starting to appear in Australia's housing market, The Wall Street Journal reported. The value of homes in Australia's capital cities has fallen 4% in the first 10 months of this year. By June, Merrill Lynch predicts, house prices will be 10% below the June 2010 peak. Those numbers might not look too alarming given the depth of recent housing crises in other parts of the world. But weakness in Australia's property sector could be especially acute because of a boom in investment-property ownership.

Ailing Swedish carmaker Saab and its court-appointed administrator Guy Lofalk want him replaced amid reports of disagreement as the company struggles to stay in business, a court said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The court is due to decide whether to keep Saab in a scheme which grants it protection from creditors while it secures itself a stable future. Lofalk, who applied to have the creditor protection scheme ended, now wants to leave his position.