ECB: Greece must fulfill reform targets ‘100%,’ cool on more timeBERLIN (AP) ― Greece must fulfill the targets of its austerity and reform program “100 percent” to stay in the euro, a top European Central Bank official said Sunday ― offering little hope of substantial wiggle room for Athens and questioning whether it can be given more time to comply.Greece’s new government wants to lower some taxes, freeze public sector layoffs and extend by two years the mid-2014 deadline for austerity measures

Jim Yong Kim, who took over as World Bank president Sunday, said his first task will be to help emerging markets keep expanding at a time of stress for the world economy. “We begin our work together at a crucial moment” as the global economy “remains vulnerable,” Kim wrote in an e-mail to the Washington-based bank’s staff obtained by Bloomberg News. “My immediate priority will be to intensify the Bank Group’s efforts to help developing countries protect growth and jobs.” The 52-year-old Kim, the

China’s manufacturing expanded at the weakest pace this year as new orders and export demand dropped, adding to evidence the nation’s economic slowdown is deepening, a government report showed Sunday. The Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 50.2 in June from 50.4 in May, the Beijing-based National Bureau of Statistics and China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said. That compares with the 49.9 median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 24 economists. A reading above 50 indicates expansio

QINGDAO (AFP) ― Chinese appliance and electronics giant Haier is aiming to expand into Europe with higher-end products, helping to upgrade China’s reputation for churning out mostly cheap, low-quality goods.However, experts say that even if Haier succeeds the country still has much to do before it emulates the transformation by neighbors Japan and South Korea over recent decades so that their top brands are now synonymous with class.Haier already has the biggest share of the world’s appliances a

TEHRAN (AFP) ― Sanctions-hit Iran on Saturday called for OPEC to hold an extraordinary meeting to rein in output going over its agreed total quota because oil prices have dipped to a “critical level” under $100 a barrel.“We have asked the secretary general to set up an extraordinary meeting as prices have become irrational,” Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi was quoted as saying on his ministry’s official news website Shana.He stressed that the last Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

WASHINGTON (AP) ― U.S. consumers spent no more in May than in April after seeing almost no gain in their pay. The lack of growth in consumer spending and wages suggests that a faltering job market is slowing the economy.The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending was unchanged in May. Income growth edged up 0.2 percent, but that was mostly because of gains from investments. Wages, the largest component of income, were essentially flat.Americans cut back spending on cars and other

Alan Greenspan, a former Federal Reserve chairman, Friday compared Europe to a “leaking boat” and said political consolidation is the only solution to the region’s financial crisis. “The problems in Europe are the fiscal deficits of all the various countries that are involved,” Greenspan said in an interview on CNBC television. “It’s like a leaking boat in which we keep bailing it out and we’re very pleased with ourselves that we’d be able to keep bailing it out. The problem is we haven’t fixed

TOKYO (AFP) ― Japan faces the same risks that plague financially-embattled European states, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda warned Saturday, days after he pushed through a divisive tax bill to chip away at the country’s mountainous debt.Noda’s statement comes a day after leaders from the 17 countries sharing the euro struck a deal to direct emergency measures at Italy and Spain and boost the ailing economy.“Countries like Italy and Spain have made desperate efforts” towards financial recovery, Nod

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― Google is making prototypes of its futuristic, Internet-connected glasses available for some computer programmers to try out.The company is selling it for $1,500 to people attending its annual conference in San Francisco for software developers. It will ship early next year and won’t be available for sale outside the conference.“This is new technology and we really want you to shape it,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Wednesday. “We want to get it out into the hands of p

BRUSSELS (AFP) ― EU leaders debate “a big leap forward” to strengthen their union and save the euro at a two-day summit starting Thursday, but divisions may scuttle efforts to bring the currency back from the brink.European Union heads of state and government gather from 3:00 p.m. as the debt crisis, now in its third year, widened this week.Cyprus and Spain have joined the earlier victims of contagion ― Greece, Portugal and Ireland ― in requesting aid.With Italy, the eurozone’s third economy, al

Company launches Nexus 7 tablet to challenge Kindle FireSAN FRANCISCO (AP) ―Google will sell a small tablet computer bearing its brand in a challenge to Amazon’s Kindle Fire.The Nexus 7 is designed specifically for Google Play, the online store that sells movies, music, books, apps and other content ― the things Amazon.com Inc. also sells for its tablet computer.Google’s announcement that it’s putting its brand on a tablet comes a week after Microsoft Corp. said the same thing. Both moves risk a

China’s commerce ministry said that the nation’s trade growth is improving, adding to a rebound in lending in signaling that a slowdown in the world’s second- biggest economy may stabilize. China can achieve a 10 percent gain in exports and imports this year if the world economy doesn’t worsen further, spokesman Shen Danyang said at a briefing in Beijing Tuesday. Trade growth improved in June and had “sound momentum,” Shen said. Global trade confidence is so far weathering Europe’s sovereign-deb