The weekend has proven to be a bit more eventful than usual.
Greece finally gets the bailout it has been waiting for. Reuters reports:
European finance ministers triggered a record 110 billion euro ($147 billion) bailout for debt-stricken Greece on Sunday after Athens committed itself to years of painful austerity.
After weeks of tough talk and procrastination due to fierce public opposition to handouts for the Greeks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel finally threw her full support behind the EU/IMF package, vowing to fight for parliamentary approval by Friday.
Euro zone ministers, meeting in emergency session, approved the three-year package of emergency loans and agreed the first funds would be released in time for Athens to make a big debt repayment to creditors on May 19.
In exchange for by far the largest bailout ever assembled for a country, Prime Minister George Papandreou announced further spending cuts and tax increases totaling 30 billion euros over three years on top of tough measures already taken...
The euro zone loans will carry an interest rate of about 5 percent -- just half the rate demanded by markets last week to buy Greek debt, but nearly 2 percentage points more than the rate on Germany's benchmark bonds.
Even as Europe is loosening its purse strings, China is tightening monetary policy. From AFP/CNA:
China Sunday told banks to increase the amount of money they must keep in reserve as it tries to rein in an explosion of new lending that has stoked fears of inflation and economic overheating.
The People's Bank of China said in a notice on its website that the reserve requirement ratio would be hiked by 50 basis points from May 10 -- the third reported increase since the beginning of the year.
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