GERMANY

It's not hard to come up with reasons for the euro zone's exasperating inability to get a grip on its debt crisis.

Pope Benedict urged 1.5 million young Catholics at a Sunday mass in an aerodrome to spread the gospel to others on the last day of a four-day visit to the Spanish capital marked by violent protests.

The U.S. Federal Reserve lent private banks about $1.2 trillion from 2007-2009 in order to maintain credit market liquidity, bank function, and prevent the U.S. economy from plunging in to a depression.

Germany strongly rejected mounting calls for the euro zone to issue joint debt at the weekend, but signaled it was open for the bloc to move toward a form of fiscal union, with the finance minister saying he personally supported a European counterpart.

Russia's Maria Sharapova will face Serbian Jelena Jankovic in the Cincinnati Open final after the pair enjoyed solid victories in their semi-finals on Saturday.

Economist Nouriel Dr. Doom Roubini, the NYU professor who 4 years ago accurately predicted the global financial crisis, said U.S./Europe policy makers must invest in a new, smarter social safety net to restore a balance between the free market and public goods. If it doesn’t occur, a systemic flaw will, at minimum, continue to hinder economic recovery.

Germany on Saturday rebuffed renewed calls that euro zone countries should issue joint euro-denominated bonds and have a joint finance minister, arguing that would only be possible if fiscal policy were collective already.

A European finance minister with sway over member states' taxes and budgets is needed to lead the euro zone out of its debt crisis, says the Chief Executive of Germany's second-largest lender, Commerzbank.

Pressure on Germany and France to take radical action on the euro zone debt crisis mounted on Friday, as financial markets sagged further and Belgium added its support to calls for the region to issue debt jointly.

The German State of Schleswig-Holstein has imposed a ban on clicking the Facebook “Like” button and has said state institutions should remove it from their Web sites or face a fine.

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein has ordered all government offices to remove the Facebook's Like button from their Web presence and shut down all Fan pages, stating that these things violate German and European data privacy laws reported Cnet News.

The state of Schleswig-Holstein released a statement saying Facebook's Like button violates some of Germany's privacy and data collection laws.

From dawn in Tokyo to dusk in New York on Friday, fear lifted gold to a record high -- its fifth such day in a row -- and boosted silver, too, as the world's investors succumbed to the accumulated effect of one emerging danger after another.

Medicinal Genomics successfully sequenced the marijuana genome in order to understand the plant's medicinal properties.

France's top AAA credit rating is likely to be downgraded and Germany could easily follow as the costs of bailing out weaker euro zone economies push up their own debt piles, says credit hedge fund firm Cairn Capital's chief investment strategist.

Shares in European software makers jumped in a falling market on Friday on hopes they were more likely bid targets after Hewlett-Packard's $11.7 billion bid for British enterprise search-software maker Autonomy.

Technology company Apple is now worth as much as the 32 biggest euro zone banks.

Gold mining company stocks jumped shortly after trading began Friday as the price of the yellow metal surged and the broader market resumed its downward spiral.

Gold vaulted 1.4 percent in the first two hours of trading Friday amid mounting concerns the U.S. economy is heading into another recession and as some European lenders faced a short-term funding crunch, highlighting the risk of a banking crisis.

Gold prices rallied more than 2 percent to a record highs on Friday as investors sought refuge from a second day of hefty losses on the stock markets, hurt by deepening concerns over slowing economic growth and the outlook for euro zone banks.

Gold prices rallied more than 2 percent to a record highs on Friday as investors sought refuge from a second day of hefty losses on the stock markets, hurt by deepening concerns over slowing economic growth and the outlook for euro zone banks.