Headlines

The sharpest rise in British jobless claims in over two years is adding pressure on the government to boost the faltering economy at a time when the country struggles to regain confidence after riots hit major cities, the Irish Examiner reported. The number of people claiming jobless benefit rose by 37,100 last month, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday, the largest jump since May 2009. Some of the rise was still due to a change in benefit rules, though this could not explain all of the increase, the office said.

Sweden's debt enforcement agency is preparing to seize assets of troubled car maker Saab in an attempt to recover at least 4 million Swedish crowns ($625,000) owed to parts suppliers, Reuters reported. "We have contacted Saab's banks," Hans Ryberg, an official at the Swedish Enforcement Authority said on Wednesday. The agency can now seize assets, including any cash in Saab's bank accounts.

A committee representing so- called Pik note loanholders in Eircom has written to the board of its Cayman Islands-based parent stating they have every reason to believe the company is insolvent. In the latest twist to the Eircom financial saga, they have also questioned how the parent company intends to repay its debt. In addition, the committee has accused the directors of being in breach of their duty of care towards them and have warned they will take legal or other action if necessary to protect their position.

France and Germany on Wednesday increased the pressure on their euro-zone peers to improve fiscal discipline in the bloc with a proposal to cut off the region's wayward spenders from key European Union transfer funds, The Wall Street Journal reported. The proposal marks an effort to boost fiscal discipline across the euro zone by giving countries incentives to rein in spending and cut their budget gaps. But the idea is controversial and could be difficult to enforce, as well as to sell to the rest of the bloc.

Bad loans at Chinese banks will rise to “shockingly high” levels, eroding profits and slowing growth in the world’s second-biggest economy, said Vontobel Asset Management Inc.’s Rajiv Jain, who runs some of this year’s best-performing mutual funds, Bloomberg reported. China’s local governments are struggling to repay their debt and “frothy” real-estate markets may leave banks exposed to falling prices, Jain said in an Aug. 16 phone interview.

Europe has never found it easy to define itself, and now it is having more trouble than ever doing so, the International Herald Tribune reported. When the rules for the euro currency were first drafted 15 years ago, the leaders of France and Germany had to compromise even to agree on the name for the proposal: Berlin wanted a “stability pact,” emphasizing Germanic fiscal discipline, while Paris insisted on adding “growth” to the title to make it more palatable to French voters.

A Czech court gave the go-ahead on Wednesday to the planned sale of national lottery firm Sazka in a tender, court documents showed. The ruling means the receiver at Sazka, which was put into insolvency in March, can start the tender within days, Reuters reported. The receiver, Josef Cupka, told reporters on Wednesday that price would be the only criterion in the tender. The sale will be open to anyone who places a 500 million crowns ($29.6 million) deposit.

U.K. banks are taking stock of troubled companies they took over when private equity owners were unable to meet debt repayments on large loan packages taken out to finance leveraged buyouts during the boom, Dow Jones reported. Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC and Barclays PLC all own of hundreds of companies via debt-for-equity swaps, the preferred option to writing-off their investment when performance turned sour.

The economy of Germany, Europe’s headline performer, slowed to a virtual standstill over the past three months, according to new figures released Tuesday, a further blow to international efforts to contain the financial crisis on the continent, The Washington Post reported. The discouraging news came just hours before German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for closer European coordination in setting economic policy and new steps to impose discipline on governments whose lax budget practices prompted the debt crisis.

Nigeria's state asset management company (AMCON) said it expects five of the nine banks that were bailed out for $4 billion to call extraordinary general meetings by Sept. 30, so shareholders can vote on recapitalisation deals signed with investors. AMCON Chief Executive, Mustapha Chike-Obi, told Reuters on Tuesday he expected shareholders to accept the deals. If they did not, regulators would need to explore all options to protect depositors, employees and the financial markets.