Clouds gather over new eurozone deal

Eurozone leaders are struggling to preserve the optimism with which financial markets initially welcomed a new comprehensive deal to bail-out Greece and shore-up other high-debt countries announced on Thursday morning. Shortly after the agreement was made public, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters that China had "a major role to play" in ensuring the new emergency financial tools would work, Reuters reports. As of Friday, though, Beijing has yet to express any concrete commitment to continuing to buy bonds issued by the European Financial Stability Facility. Thursday’s agreement also failed to reassure investors about Italy, whose borrowing costs rose to record heights at a government bond auction on Friday. Spain was also under financial market pressure.

Reuters