Topic: Economics

MADRID (Reuters) - Shares in Spain's fourth-biggest lender Bankia SA <BKIA.MC> were suspended on the Madrid stock exchange on Friday, ahead of an evening announcement when the bank is expected to ask the state for a rescue of more than 15 billion euros ($19 billion).

MADRID (Reuters) - Shares in Spain's fourth-biggest lender Bankia SA <BKIA.MC> were suspended on the Madrid stock exchange on Friday, ahead of an evening announcement when the bank is expected to ask the state for a rescue of more than 15 billion euros ($19 billion).

CAIRO (Reuters) - When he joined the race for Egypt's presidency just five weeks ago, Mohamed Mursi was mocked as the Muslim Brotherhood's uncharismatic "spare tyre" after its first-choice candidate was disqualified.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's new government will stick to this year's budget plan but aim to combine growth with austerity in 2013 by cutting personal income and sales taxes should it win an election in November, the prime minister said.

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal is wrongly following a policy of "austerity at any price" and will need at least an extra year to reduce its budget deficit to the target established under a 78 billion euro ($98.1 billion) bailout, the leader of the opposition Socialists said.

MILAN (Reuters) - Governments must restore confidence in their ability to sustain their public debts, and a look at debt servicing costs in countries like Italy, Spain and Belgium shows this is not hard to achieve, ECB Executive Board member Peter Praet said.

MADRID (Reuters) - Trading in the securities of Spanish lender Bankia <BKIA.MC> has been suspended "due to circumstances that may affect the normal share trading," stock market regulator CNMV said on Friday.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Voters in the highland African kingdom of Lesotho go to the polls on Saturday in a wide-open election that analysts say could end up without a clear result, as happened in 1998 when South Africa had to send in troops to quell major civil unrest.

(Reuters) - Europe's economic slowdown has hit the engine-room of the euro zone, including Germany, gloomy new indicators have revealed, adding urgency to the region's struggle to keep Greece's debt crisis from tearing the single currency apart.

YANGON (Reuters) - Five days of street protests over chronic power shortages present Myanmar's reformist government with a headache and an opportunity.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nearly three-quarters of Japanese companies support abandoning nuclear power after last year's Fukushima disaster, although a majority set the condition that alternative energy resources must be secured, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he will nominate Allison Macfarlane, an expert in nuclear waste, as the nation's top nuclear safety cop, seeking to turn the page on a period of bitter acrimony at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

CHICAGO/DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - After weeks of painting Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney as a job-slashing corporate raider, President Barack Obama and his re-election campaign are broadening their attack to include Romney's record as Massachusetts governor, arguing his policies hurt the state.

CHICAGO/DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - After weeks of painting Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney as a job-slashing corporate raider, President Barack Obama and his re-election campaign are broadening their attack to include Romney's record as Massachusetts governor, arguing his policies hurt the state.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate panel voted on Thursday to authorize $631.4 billion in defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year, blocking plans to cut the Air Force and ordering offsetting reductions in Pentagon civilian personnel to stay within the president's budget limits.