BBC report.

A bomb blast at the offices of Greece's public order ministry in Athens has killed one person, police say.

Times report.

The Greek government has been advised by British economists to leave the euro and default on its €300 billion (£255 billion) debt to save its economy.

Telegraph report.

There is evidence that bets against the euro are being placed by important investors around the world, which last week took the euro to four-year lows on fears Greece, Spain and Portugal may be forced to leave the single currency.

From Stratfor.

Rumors, hints, threats, suggestions and information "from well-placed sources" all seem to point to the hot topic in Europe at the moment, namely, the reconstitution of the eurozone whether by a German exit or a Greek expulsion. We turn to this topic with the question of whether such an option even exists.

[...]

The resulting conundrum is one in which reconstitution of the eurozone may make sense at some point down the line. But the interlinked web of economic, political, legal and institutional relationships makes this nearly impossible. The cost of exit is prohibitively high, regardless of whether it makes sense.

Telegraph report.

Foreign holders of Greek and Portuguese debt have seized on emergency intervention by the European Central Bank to exit their positions, leaving eurozone taxpayers exposed to the credit risk.

Dan Roberts in the Guardian's CiF.

France threatens to leave the euro. German savers hoard gold. The Bundesbank works on a plan B to restore the Deutsche Mark. It's fair to say even a $1 trillion bailout hasn't been enough to stop the rumour mill dogging the European single currency this week.

Telegraph report.

President Nicolas Sarkozy slammed his fist on the table and threatened to pull France out of the euro at a meeting of European leaders deciding Greece's aid package last Friday, according to Spain's El Pais newspaper.

Edmund Conway on his Telegraph blog.

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, fears that America shares many of the same fiscal problems currently haunting Europe. He also believes that European Union must become a federalised fiscal union (in other words with central power to tax and spend) if it is to survive. Just two of the nuggets from one of the most extraordinary press conferences I have been to at the Bank.

Guardian report.

The shock decision to mobilise hundreds of billions of euros does nothing to fix the fundamental malaise plaguing Europe -- the vast macro-economic imbalances within the eurozone. But the package takes the pressure off, removes the short-term likelihood of sovereign debt default in southern Europe, buys time for struggling countries to get their acts together, and for Brussels, Berlin, and Paris to enact new policies.

Reuters report.

A $1 trillion global emergency package to stabilize the euro unleashed a spectacular rally in world stocks on Monday but analysts said EU leaders had only bought time to tackle deep-seated fiscal problems.

Reuters story.

Rioting protestors and burning banks on the streets of Athens have clearly grabbed the limelight the over the past week. But from an investor standpoint, they have simply underlined the growing skepticism about whether the European Union can save the euro zone from a Greek default and spreading debt meltdown.

Interesting diagram from the New York Times.

Banks and governments in these five shaky economies owe each other many billions of euros -- converted here to dollars -- and have even larger debts to Britain, France and Germany.

Sydney Morning Herald report.

Investors are increasingly concerned that the €110 billion ($A157.5 billion) rescue package for Greece will not work, resulting in a full-blown sovereign debt crisis. Yields on two-year Greek government bonds were running at more than 18 per cent - equivalent to so-called junk bond levels. Yields on Spanish and Portuguese bonds climbed overnight.

Independent report.

The UK was warned yesterday that it is among the European Union states that faces the risk of contagion from the Greek crisis, with "very real, common threats" to its financial systems.

As a stunned Greece, still struggling to come to terms with the deaths of three people in protests on Wednesday, approved cuts to address its financial crisis, one of the leading credit ratings agencies said British banks were "vulnerable" to shocks of the kind now reverberating around the eurozone.

Economist article.

[...] By slashing pay in the public sector, raising taxes and (hesitantly) starting to reform the labour market, the plan aims to reduce the budget deficit from 13.6% of GDP in 2009 to less than 3% by 2014. But it will deepen the recession that is already hitting Greece, with a drop in GDP in 2010 of at least 4%, and a further fall expected in 2011.

BBC report.

The protest became violent, with petrol bombs thrown at police, who responded with pepper spray and tear gas.

Protesters are angered by spending cuts and tax rises planned in return for a 110bn euro (£95bn) bail-out for Greece.