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What's the matter with Italy? By Laurence Knight Business reporter, BBC News Europe has placed its hopes in the new technocratic Prime Minister Mario Monti to do the necessary Italy has moved to centre stage in the eurozone debt crisis. While Greece generated a lot of noise, it is now seen as a sideshow. Greece's debt problems are already widely known and the immediate consequences of a Greek default largely anticipated. Moreover, the size of the Greek economy is small enough that the direct damage, if Greece stopped paying its debts, should be quite manageable for the eurozone. Instead, the big fear is "contagion" - that a Greek default could trigger a financial catastrophe for other, much bigger economies - in particular Italy and Spain. That is why European leaders announced in October a significant expansion of its bailout fund, the European Financial and Stability Facility (EFSF). And i...

What's the matter with Spain? By Laurence Knight Business reporter, BBC News The next Spanish government will find itself on the horns of a nasty economic dilemma Whoever wins Spain's general election on Sunday - and it looks likely to be the opposition conservatives - will face a potentially unsolvable economic dilemma. They may also face a major financial crisis. Because, with Italy having now joined Greece, Portugal and the Irish Republic on the eurozone critical list, it is looking like Spain will be next. The government's cost of borrowing money on the financial markets for 10 years - a popular barometer of lender fear - has risen to 6.3% . That's close to the level where other eurozone governments turned to their neighbours for a bailout. In comparison, Germany only has to pay an interest rate of 1.8% . Off-message However, Spain's descent into the financial abyss is importa...

Jacques Delors: Euro was flawed from beginning   Jacques Delors believes politicians are doing too little too late One of the main architects of the single European currency, Jacques Delors, has said the eurozone was flawed from the beginning. He told Britain's Daily Telegraph that the lack of central powers to co-ordinate economic policies allowed some members to run up unsustainable debt. As head of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, he played a key role in the process that launched the euro. The comments come amid growing doubts over the viability of the eurozone. In his interview with the Daily Telegraph , Mr Delors says the debt crisis stems not from the idea of a single currency itself, but from "a fault in execution" by political leaders who oversaw its launch. He says they turned a blind eye to the fundamental weaknesses and imbalances of member states'...

China overtakes US as world's largest smartphone market Low-cost smartphones by local manufacturers such as ZTE have contributed to the sector's growth China has become the world's largest smartphone market by volume after it overtook the US in the third quarter. Smartphone shipments to China rose to a record 24m during the period, compared with 23m for the US, according to research done by Strategy Analytics. The consultancy said shipments to China were boosted by "a wave of low-cost Android models from local Chinese brands". This is the first time that China has overtaken the US in smartphone market. "China's rapid growth has been driven by an increasing availability of smartphones in the retail channels," said Tom Kang, of Strategy Analytics. The company said that while shipments to China grew by 58% sequentially during the period, those to the US fell by 7%. 'Mobile computing boom' China is the world...

1 December 2011 Last updated at 12:31 GMT Legal row over Carrier IQ 'surveillance' app claims Mr Eckhart demonstrated his findings via a video on YouTube A hidden application found on millions of smartphones can log almost everything a user does, claims a US security researcher. Trevor Eckhart unearthed the Carrier IQ application that runs largely unseen on many smartphone handsets. Mr Eckhart said the software could log locations, websites visited, key presses and many other parameters. Carrier IQ denied its code was spying. It threatened Mr Eckhart with legal action but later backed down. Advanced skills Mr Eckhart said he found Carrier IQ via work he had done on a security program, called Logging Test, which spotted which apps were running on an Android phone. His analysis revealed that Carrier IQ could be set up to record almost anything and everything done on a smartphone. Mr Eckhart found the code on Android s...

2 December 2011 Last updated at 12:02 GMT US senator calls for answers on phone 'snooping' Carrier IQ has been given two weeks to explain its actions by a US Senator The maker of the smartphone software that triggered a snooping row has been called to account by a US Senator. Senator Al Franken has written to Carrier IQ asking it to explain the "troubling" findings of security expert Trevor Eckhart . Mr Eckhart claimed Carrier IQ software could log everything people did on their smartphones but did not ask for consent to record data. Carrier IQ said its software helped diagnose faults, not spy on users. Sensitive data The row blew up after Mr Eckhart posted a video on YouTube that he said showed Carrier IQ could record a user's location, keystrokes and the websites they visited. Carrier IQ tried to silence Mr Eckhart with the threat of legal action but backed down following the intervention of the digital r...