VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Chinese workers mingle with Ethiopians putting the finishing touches to a metro line that cuts through Addis Ababa, one of a series of grand state infrastructure projects that Ethiopia hopes will help it mimic Asia's industrial rise.

Greece said on Saturday it had no short-term cash problem and that it will hand its European Union partners a comprehensive plan next week for managing the transition to a new debt deal.

Greece's new leftist-led government, isolated in the euro zone and under pressure from the European Central Bank, said on Friday it wanted no more bailout money with strings attached from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

The International Monetary Fund has granted Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone debt relief of about $100 million in total, the first time a global institution has provided such relief to the three West African nations hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak.

Germany wants Greece's new left-wing government to go back on anti-austerity promises made in its first days in office and revert to economic policies its predecessors' agreed with international lenders, a document showed on Wednesday.

Greece has started negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over a plan to swap its sovereign debt for growth-linked bonds, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in an interview published on Wednesday.

EU finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to loan Ukraine 1.8 billion euros ($2.0 billion) to help save it from bankruptcy, leaving open the option of increasing aid at a later stage.

China's Premier Li Keqiang pledged to create at least 10 million new jobs in 2015, the state run China Daily newspaper said on Tuesday, despite economic growth that slowed to its weakest pace in nearly a quarter of a century last year.

Britain's economy recorded its fastest annual growth since 2007 last year despite a bigger-than-expected slowdown in the final three months of 2014, giving a mixed message just 100 days before Britons go to the polls.

Brent crude oil prices fell towards $48 a barrel on Tuesday after the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for global economic growth in 2015 implying lower demand for fuel.

Euro zone politicians are not obliged to rescue Greece as the country is no longer of systemic importance to the single currency bloc, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was quoted as saying.

Argentina has taken all the required steps so far to revamp its economic data but must still meet one more deadline as it seeks to bring the quality of its statistics in line with global standards, the International Monetary Fund's board said on Monday.

An IMF mission will visit Kiev on Tuesday to start a fresh round of talks with the new government linked to a $17 billion loan package that may have to be ramped up due to the financial toll of a separatist crisis in Ukraine's east.

An International Monetary Fund mission will visit Kiev from Dec. 9 to 18 for talks with the new government regarding a $17 billion bailout program, the IMF's Ukraine representative Jerome Vacher said on Saturday.

Euro zone ministers are considering extending Greece's bailout by six months to mid-2015, according to a document obtained by Reuters, but Athens said it was only willing to consider an extension of a few weeks to the unpopular program.