The Director General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, on Wednesday approved the holding of a referendum in Greece on the rescue plan passed by the Europeans. All the latest news. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced the holding of a referendum in January in Greece, to check the public support for austerity plans adopted by the country.

9:56: "The Greek referendum can be won" according to Pascal Lamy.Interrogé France Inter on Wednesday morning, the Director General of the World Trade Organization has justified the holding of a referendum in Greece. On the one hand, it "is normal that the people decide." On the other hand, argues that it is not in "the interest of creditors dealer with a government" which may be weakened and not reversed its commitments. "Finally, he believes that" from what my friends tell me Greek, the referendum can be won.The Greeks are probably able to appreciate that this or something even worse. "He admits, however, that the collapse of the euro area is" not totally ruled out a possibility today. "

9:34: "China sincerely hopes the stability of the euro area and the euro," said Hu in an interview with Le Figaro on the eve of the opening in Cannes for a G20 summit, to be dominated by the issue of European sovereign debt. The Chinese president is silent, however, on specific measures that China could hang in helping Europe to solve this crisis, in particular its proposed participation in a relief fund for highly indebted countries.

Europe is moving towards an agreement on the sovereign debt crisis but "banks must now accept the necessary sacrifices," said Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the president of the Financial Markets Authority, in an interview published Tuesday by The Tribune.

"A lot of the success of the second meeting of the Eurozone is in their hands," he adds.

Finance ministers from the euro area opened Friday six days of intense negotiations, punctuated by an EU summit Sunday to a high of the euro area, where the outcome expected Wednesday is considered crucial for the future of the single currency.

For reassurance on the risks of contagion, "the markets want a political Europe even stronger. A battle will hopefully gained Wednesday, but not the war.It will be played on fiscal consolidation and real political integration, "the president of the AMF.

He said Germany is now "the business model and budget the most efficient in Europe."

Jean-Pierre Jouyet also known as the European Commissioner for Internal Market Michel Barnier to go further in reforming financial markets.

"Today there is an excess of power of financial markets on policy choices. It is time to regain control in the regulation of markets," said he.

Economic growth in Germany this year will be closer to 3% to 2.5%, on Friday said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The statement came after the German banking association BdB on Wednesday cut its forecast 2.8% growth in the country for 2011, while the RWI Institute said that the risk of a recession had increased.

While the EU finance ministers meet Friday in Poland to discuss among others the debt crisis, Merkel reiterated her opposition to Eurobonds and felt that Europe should consider the possibility of intervening in the medium term to States that fail to meet their duty of fiscal consolidation.

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage market in the United States may soon file a complaint against several major banks for their role in the subprime crisis, which weighed on bank stocks on Wall Street Friday.

The Federal Agency for Real Estate Finance (Federal Housing Finance Agency), which oversees the giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, accuses several major banks have given a misleading picture of the quality of mortgages bundled and sold during the housing bubble, said on Friday a source close to the matter.

These loans, said subprime, are the cause of the bursting of the real estate bubble in late 2008.Institutions making home loans had significantly eased lending standards to attract new customers and sell homes they had no way to pay, betting on a continued increase in the property market.

The existence of this complaint in a pending first was reported Thursday by The New York Times before being confirmed Friday by a source contacted by Reuters.

The source declined to name the specific bank, but according to the New York Times, citing three people familiar with the matter, the government agency will continue to include Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

By 1515 GMT on Wall Street, as BofA unscrewed more than 6%, yielding 3.5% JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs lost 4.6% while the Dow Jones fell by 1.6%.

Costly litigation

The complaint will be filed Friday or next Tuesday, understands the New York Times. Those responsible for BofA, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs did not wish to make comment.

"We can not express a complaint which we are not aware and has not yet been filed," said a spokesman for Deutsche Bank in the NYT.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost more than $ 30 billion mainly due to purchases of securities backed by real estate debt.It took public money to correct their accounts.

The federal agency in housing finance has already filed a complaint against UBS in July, seeking to recover at least $ 900 million and, according to those quoted by the New York Times, the new proceedings will be of a similar financial scale.

The major U.S. banks are already facing the possibility of having to pay tens of billions of dollars in settlement of disputes relating to their activity in the mortgage.

This scenario would further reduce their levels of capital, potentially paving the way for a credit crunch even though the housing market is at half mast and that the U.S. economy as a whole shows signs of slowing down.

Sign of anxiety about this, the U.S. Federal Reserve has asked Bank of America to present the measures it would take if business conditions were deteriorating, reports the Wall Street Journal Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The trade deficit the U.S. has grown against all odds in June to its highest level since October 2008, due to a decline in exports and imports indicate a slowdown in global demand, according to figures released Thursday by Commerce.

The trade balance posted a deficit of 53.07 billion dollars, while the market expected it to be reduced to 48 billion.

In May, the deficit had risen to 50.83 billion (50.23 billion in the first estimate).

Exports fell 2.3% against -0.5% in May, faster than imports (-0.8% after +2.9% in May).

The major European stock markets closed Friday up, welcoming the new plan of aid to Greece, even if the solution found yesterday by European leaders do not mean the end of the crisis.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index closed up 0.52% at 1108.90.

At the Paris Bourse, the CAC 40 was 0.68% (25.95 points) to 3842.70 points.For the week, the index gained 3.12% and returns to the green on his performance since the beginning of the year (1%).

In Frankfurt the Dax finished 0.50% progress to 7326.39 points, while the FTSE in London has been 0.60% to 5935.02.

Despite significant gains banks Greek, European financial stocks have returned mid-afternoon to end the trading session in negative territory as investors preferred to take profits before the weekend on fears related to the execution of Greek aid plan.

Stoxx index of bank stocks in Europe dropped 0.18% against a gain of 0.8% at midday.

UniCredit has lost 4.56%, 2.83% Intesa Sanpaolo, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas 0.41% 0.21%, compared to clinching more than 1% in mid-session.

The default situation declared by the rating agencies in Greece could also have consequences difficult to predict.The agency Fitch Ratings has already announced it will place the issuer credit rating of Greece in partial default on remand.

The euro meanwhile back on the foreign exchange market after surging the day before at a high of 1.4440 dollars in two weeks, investors dissecting the details of the plan of aid to Greece to assess its ability to prevent a contagion of debt to other countries using the euro.

German Bunds are in turn less desirable than bonds Greek, Irish and Portuguese, which rose in response to the new plan to help Greece.

The yields of the Greek loan to 10 years have gone below 15%, boosting their decline started the day before.Yields paper Greek neighborhood of two years now 28.2%, while they still exceeded 40% at the eve of the euro area.

The Paris Bourse falling off again in early trade Thursday, the rating agencies have struck again sovereign debt, and this time, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Around 9:15, the CAC 40 index lost 0.79% to 3763.27 points at the start of the day a national holiday in France that could be very active, stakeholders who have opted for a long weekend.

Moody's warned late Wednesday it may lower the rating of "Aaa" – the best – the United States if President Obama and the Republican opposition failed to agree on raising the federal debt ceiling to time wanted to avoid a default.Discussions between the President and the Republican leaders have been strained Wednesday, and do not seem on the verge of success.

Fitch, for its part, S & P as a month ago, degraded to "CCC" the note of Greece.

The banking and technology are among the largest declines the CAC 40, while Lafarge, which has entered the active phase of sale of its gypsum in Europe and South America, is the only value of the CAC 40 in green (1.69%).

Alcatel-Lucent (-2.44%) and Capgemini (-2.0%) recorded the largest declines in the index.

Company lost 0.75%, 0.49% Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas 0.2% after opening down more than 1.5%.

London was down 0.58% from 0.32% and Frankfurt.

Citigroup said Thursday an attack against computer networks, allowing hackers to access data on hundreds of thousands of cardholders.

According to Citigroup, access to such data for about 1% of its customers.The Financial Times wrote that the attack was discovered in May during a routine monitoring networks.

The hackers had access to customer names, account numbers and contacts, including e-mail, said the bank.

Other information, such as dates of birth, social security numbers and expiration dates and PINs of bank cards have not been compromised, however, assured Citigroup.

"We contact customers whose information has been affected.Citi has implemented improved procedures to prevent such events from happening again, "said the email spokesman Sean Kevelighan.

Many companies have been hit by cyber attacks lately, like Lockheed Martin, Sony, or Google.

The ISM services index in the U.S. rose more than expected in May but its activity component has slightly decreased.

The ISM index stood at 54.6 in May after 52.8 in April. Analysts on average expected index at 54.0.

The component of the tertiary activity came in turn from 53.7 to 53.6 in April and against a consensus of 54.0. It is at its lowest since January 2010.

The sub-index of new business amounted to 56.8 from 52.7 the previous month and that employment has significantly increased from 51.9 to 54.0 in April.The prices paid component reached its lowest level since December, standing at 69.6 in May against 70.1 in April.

The threshold of 50 marks the difference between growth and contraction.

After publication of these figures, Wall Street has reduced its losses.

The Economy Minister has officially announced it was seeking IMF management. The French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, the G20 finance here in Washington, April 15, 2011.

DSK's resignation from his post as IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde was regarded as a favorite candidate in the European camp to head the institution. She has officially announced its willingness to stand in the race. If investigations in the case Tapie, the minister said she will "maintain" his candidacy for the IMF. Christine Lagarde was "committed" on Wednesday to "respect" the tenure of Directors General of the IMF if she was elected head of this institution, five years.

Last Thursday, the New York Times had done from the outset the "favorite" of this estate. The influential U.S. daily quoted Kenneth S.Rogoff, former IMF chief economist and professor at Harvard, explaining that Christine Lagarde was received "almost like a rock star, worldwide.

The European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has already said he "fully supports" the candidacy of the IMF Lagarde

More information to come …