Eurozone crisis meetings to begin

Eurozone finance ministers will meet later to discuss the region's debt crisis in the first of several meetings in Brussels over the next few days.

On Saturday, ministers from all 27 EU countries will hold talks.
EU leaders will gather on Sunday and at an extra meeting on Wednesday.
They need to agree a second bailout for Greece, how to recapitalise banks, and a stronger bailout fund, although there still appear to be deep divides between France and Germany.
In particular, the two need to agree on how to increase the firepower of the eurozone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).
'Collective action' A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister David Cameron said he had held a video conference with US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier on Friday.
"They all agreed on the urgent need for the eurozone to agree a comprehensive and sustainable solution to the eurozone financial crisis and Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy outlined the approach that was under discussion.
This crisis has underlined that the EU, in large part, remains a Franco-German union. The other members of the eurozone appear as bystanders whilst the French and German leaders determine the fate of their currency”

"They agreed to continue to consult closely ahead of the G20 summit in Cannes [in November] on collective international action to support global economic growth."

A deal on the euro had been expected to be signed on Sunday, but France and Germany said they would not be able to reach an agreement by then and announced that leaders would meet again on Wednesday.
Sunday's summit had already been delayed from 17-18 October because more time was needed to finalise a plan.
BBC business editor Robert Peston said he expects a deal to be announced to recapitalise Europe's banks on Saturday.
Greek losses A second hurdle in the way of any rescue plan is that negotiations have not yet begun properly with private sector lenders to Greece on a further reduction of what the Greek government will repay them.
Banks have already agreed to take a 21% loss, or "haircut", on their loans to Greece but there is growing pressure for them to accept higher losses.
President Sarkozy has called for talks with the private sector.
Previous disagreements between France and Germany about the bailout plans have centred on how much the private sector would have to contribute to any package.
Meanwhile, the head of Germany's second biggest bank has said that Greece should declare itself insolvent and restructure its debt in order to restore calm to the markets.
"It has to become clear that states have only two options," Commmerzbank chief executive Martin Blessing told the daily Bild.
"Either they service their debt as agreed or they declare insolvency with all the tough consequences. It is not enough to just take writedowns on bank balance sheets.