Headlines

Icelanders will take to the streets in the thousands tomorrow to protest the government's failure to clinch a $6 billion International Monetary Fund-led loan while countries in less dire economic straits jump the IMF queue, Bloomberg reported today. Weekly protests in downtown Reykjavik may swell to 20,000 soon, or 6 percent of the population, said Andres Magnusson, chief executive of the Icelandic Federation of Trade and Services. The Atlantic island, which had the fifth-highest per capita income in the world last year, needs the money to finance imports and revive the banking system.

The economy of the euro zone slipped into recession for the first time during the third quarter, the European Union’s statistics agency confirmed Friday, as the financial crisis continued to depress manufacturing activity and consumer demand, the New York Times reported today. Gross domestic product declined 0.2 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months in both the euro zone, which comprises the 15 countries that use the euro as their currency, and the European Union as a whole, according to an initial estimate published by the agency Eurostat.

The number of petitions to terminate businesses received by courts in England and Wales surged in the third quarter as the corporate sector continued to be throttled by the credit crunch, data showed Friday. Courts received 3,184 company winding up petitions between July and the end of September, 13% more than in the corresponding period last year and a 9% increase on the second quarter, the U.K.'s Ministry of Justice said. This was the highest quarterly total since the first quarter of 2007.

Japan will offer up to 10 trillion yen ($105 billion) to the International Monetary Fund to bailout nations reeling from the global financial crisis, The Nikkei newspaper reported Thursday. Japanese officials have repeatedly said Tokyo is ready to provide some of its ample cash for IMF loans if the multilateral group doesn't have enough funds for bailouts. But the ministers have not given an amount. The Nikkei, the nation's top business daily, said the amount is likely to be about 10 percent of Japan's $1 trillion foreign currency reserves.

Russian stocks plunged and Kuwait suspended trading as a slump in oil to below $55 a barrel roiled emerging markets and increased concern that Moscow will be forced to devalue the ruble, Bloomberg reported today. Russia's Micex Index fell as much as 17 percent and was 8.6 percent lower at 1:09 p.m. in Moscow after it reopened following a 30-minute trading suspension. A court in Kuwait ordered a shutdown as traders lobbied for support after a sixth day of declines.

The European Commission on Wednesday gave its green light to a plan by Italian investors to create a new Italian airline using the flight operations of the failed national carrier Alitalia, ANSA reported. Last August the Italian government changed Italy's bankruptcy laws to allow Alitalia's more profitable flight operations to be spun off into a separate company and sold while the carrier's remaining assets, referred to as a 'bad company', would be declared bankrupt and liquidated to pay for the airline's debts of over one billion euros.

Deutsche Bank AG has sued Lehman Brothers to recover $72.5 million it says was accidentally transferred to the failed investment bank after it had filed for bankruptcy, the International Herald Tribune reported. The lawsuit was filed late Tuesday in Lehman's Chapter 11 case. "DB asks this court to correct a simple but substantial mistake," lawyers for Deutsche Bank wrote in their filing.

Dubai’s six-year property boom appears to be over, with asking prices for some homes falling as much as 19% in October from the previous month, according to a closely followed survey, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The property market here isn't important just to buyers, sellers and lenders. The government, through a handful of big developers, is the largest player in the sector. A sharp slowdown could crimp its financing as worry grows about its ballooning foreign debt.

UBS suffered its heaviest blow yet in the investigation into its offshore banking activities for rich American clients as US authorities said they had indicted Raoul Weil, the Swiss bank’s head of global wealth management, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

China's industrial output grew at a slower pace than any economist forecast in October, stoking concern that the biggest contributor to global growth is running out of steam, Bloomberg reported today. Production rose 8.2 percent from a year earlier, the smallest gain in seven years, the statistics bureau said today. None of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News predicted such a small increase. Output grew 11.4 percent in September.