By Mia Shanley and Balazs Koranyi STOCKHOLM/OSLO | Fri May 25, 2012 4:54am EDT STOCKHOLM/OSLO (Reuters) - Moody's Investor Service downgraded credit ratings of three large Nordic banks on Friday, citing their reliance on market funding, tough competition for retail loans, and their exposure to the spreading euro zone debt crisis. The downgrades come at a difficult time for the region's banks and could raise their borrowing costs, although analysts believe Swedish banks will continue to perform better relative to European peers due to their high capitalization.Moody's, which warned in February it could cut the ratings of 17 global and 114 European financial firms to reflect more fragile funding conditions, wider credit spreads, and a tougher operating environment, downgraded Nordea's (NDA.ST) and Handelsbanken's (SHBa.ST) debt ... Continue reading →

BERLIN | Fri May 25, 2012 6:22am EDT BERLIN (Reuters) - Greece has no need for external financing currently so it would not be a problem if the next aid tranche for the debt-plagued country were delayed by a few weeks, a German finance ministry spokesman said on Friday. "As far as I am aware, there is no current need for external financing up until beyond the first half of the year," spokesman Martin Kotthaus told a regular news conference in Berlin.He added that a delay of a few weeks would be "unproblematic."Earlier, Kotthaus said Greece's lenders would need a positive report on its reform progress before releasing a planned second tranche of aid worth around 4 billion euros at the end of June.Greece holds ... Continue reading →

By Valentina Za and Silvia Aloisi MILAN | Fri May 25, 2012 6:45am EDT MILAN (Reuters) - The euro zone needs to push ahead with its financial sector reform plans and create a centrally managed and funded body to handle troubled banks, a European Central Bank policymaker said on Friday. "Europe needs to move towards a 'financial union', with a single euro area authority responsible for the supervision and resolution of large and complex cross-border banks," ECB Executive Board member Peter Praet said."Decisive and far-sighted reforms like these, unrealistic until a short while ago, are now gaining support. Reacting to the pressure of events may seem unattractive, but it may also be the only way forward," he said in the text of a speech prepared ... Continue reading →

Jessica Harper has been accused of submitting false invoices “to claim payments totalling £2.46m to which she was not entitled,” the Crown Prosecution Service said. The CPS has authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge her with a single count of fraud. The charge relates to allegations of fraud between September 1, 2008 and December 21, 2011. Lloyds is 41pc state owned after the taxpayer rescued the bank with £20bn during the financial crisis, with the first bail-out coming shortly after the alleged fraud started – in October 2008. As head of fraud and security for digital banking, Ms Harper would have been a reasonably senior manager, four or five rungs down from the executive board, and is likely to have been on as much as ... Continue reading →

Fri May 25, 2012 6:22am EDT (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. So far, the 17-nation euro zone's downturn has been confined mainly to its periphery, but an index measuring broad economic activity across the monetary union in May showed its weakest outcome since mid-2009, during the global financial crisis.The composite PMI on Thursday indicated core nations such as Germany and France were being caught up in the downturn, even as they made contingency plans to deal with financial and economic turmoil in the event Greece quits the euro.Italy, which could be on the ... Continue reading →

By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON | Thu May 24, 2012 7:59pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), the Pentagon's top supplier by sales, began using temporary workers on Thursday in place of striking employees at its plant in Fort Worth, Texas, to help meet scheduled deliveries of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. Fewer than 10 temporary workers, hired through a contractor, were brought in to supplement the "contingency work force" that includes managers, said Lockheed spokesman Joe Stout. Another 50 to 60 temporary workers will be added on Tuesday, and the company will bring in more as needed, Stout said in an email.The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, or IAM, which represents 3,300 of 14,250 workers at the plant, has been on ... Continue reading →

By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS | Thu May 24, 2012 6:28pm EDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday renewed the mandate of the world body's human rights chief Navi Pillay, but she was given an abbreviated term as part of a compromise deal with the United States, which dislikes her criticism of Israel, envoys said. Syria also made clear it was not a fan of Pillay, a South African jurist whom the Syrian delegation described as "hostile" towards Damascus.Despite Washington's attempt to block a renewal of Pillay's mandate, a deal was reached after South Africa and others persuaded U.S. officials to back a two-year term for Pillay, instead of the normal four years, U.N. diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity."It ... Continue reading →

ROME | Thu May 24, 2012 6:06pm EDT ROME (Reuters) - Greece will probably remain in the euro zone, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Thursday, but demands made of Greece by its partners had been unrealistic and far reaching economic reform could take decades to achieve. "Anything can happen, but I think the most probable outcome is the one which is most positive for Greece and for all of us," Monti said on an Italian television talk show, when asked if he believed Greece would stay in the currency bloc.Greece's euro zone partners had been wrong to insist on a process of reforms and fiscal adjustment which was too fast for the country to withstand, Monti said."Europe has to learn how to not ... Continue reading →

By Kevin Yao BEIJING | Thu May 24, 2012 6:04pm EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China's new push to open state controlled industries may look bold after a decade of stuttering privatization progress, but Beijing faces stiff resistance from vested interests in its effort to extend its World Trade Organisation dividend. Beijing's leaders, its top think-tanks, the World Bank and private sector economists all largely agree that for China to build on reform-fired growth after its first decade of WTO membership, state firms must be more competitive and capital better allocated.The question is whether publication this week of detailed plans to allow private investment in highways, health care and railways will really help dilute state involvement in a range of industries where top executives enjoy ministerial ... Continue reading →