VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann has warned Angela Merkel's cabinet that a Greek exit from the euro zone would rip billions of euros out of the German budget, German business daily Handelsblatt reported on Sunday, citing government sources.

With a $1 cup of coffee, Avi Katz is starting to do something Israelis have been demanding for years and politicians have failed to achieve -- lower the cost of living.

China's stock markets may be facing a make-or-break week after officials rolled out an unprecedented series of steps at the weekend to prevent a full-blown stock market crash that could threaten the world's second-largest economy.

China froze share offers and set up a market-stabilization fund on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal said, as Beijing intensified efforts to pull stock markets out of a nose-dive that is threatening the world's second-largest economy.

Factory worker Satomi Iwata has new co-workers, a troupe of humanoid automata that are helping to address two of Japan's most pressing concerns - a shortage of labor and a need for growth.

Japan said on Saturday it would extend around $6 billion in development aid to Mekong region countries, as China prepares to launch a new institutional lender seen as encroaching on the regional clout of Tokyo and ally Washington.

China's top securities brokerages said on Saturday that they would collectively buy at least 120 billion yuan ($19.3 billion of shares in a bid to stabilize the country's stock markets after a slump of nearly 30 percent since mid-June.

China's response to wild swings in its stock markets risks an embarrassing setback to the country's push to internationalize its financial system, according to investors.

A senior U.S. official told China on Friday that its legal imports of ivory act as a loophole for illegal traders, and that it needs to understand the importance of wildlife NGOs.

Oil prices dropped on Friday as a rising U.S. rig count stoked more concerns about global oversupply while an investigation by Chinese regulators into suspected stock market manipulation further unsettled the market.

JetBlue Airways Corp said it began direct charter flights between New York and Havana on Friday, the first major U.S. carrier to fly the route following U.S. President Barack Obama's decision in December to normalize relations with the Communist-ruled island.

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be finding it hard to contain a wry smile as the European Union struggles with Greece's debt problems.

India's dominant services industry contracted for a second month in June as new business again declined, suggesting Asia's third-largest economy is struggling to maintain growth, a survey showed on Friday.

Cuba has opened 35 Wi-Fi access points nationwide, offering unprecedented online access in a country that until now has restricted use of the Internet to an elite few.

European bonds and stocks traded cautiously on Friday before a Greek referendum on EU-prescribed reforms that could determine the country's future in the euro zone and which polls suggest could go either way.