VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Euro zone partners set Greece a deadline of six working days to improve proposed economic reforms in time for finance ministers to consider some emergency funding to keep the country afloat after it makes a repayment to the IMF on Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras plan to discuss economic ties and the European Union's sanctions against Moscow when they meet for talks next week, a Kremlin spokesman said on Friday.

Russia faces a protracted recession as the impact of Western sanctions lingers and oil prices stay low, the World Bank said in a report published on Wednesday.

British toy store Hamleys opened its largest shop in the world on Tuesday in central Moscow despite an economic downturn in Russia that is forcing buyers to cut back on spending.

Billionaire financier George Soros is ready to invest $1 billion in Ukraine, if Western countries help private investment there. He also put the odds of Greece leaving the euro at a third, in an interview with Austrian newspaper Der Standard.

Last fall, when the price of oil started dropping, fund manager Craig Hodges figured crude would rebound in 2015 and began buying shares of companies he thought would be unfairly hit, including construction company Primoris Services Corp and Eagle Materials Inc, which produces sand used in fracked wells.

Denmark has applied to join the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), China's Ministry of Finance said on Sunday, becoming the latest European power to join the institution despite misgivings of the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Friday creating a regional currency union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, Russia's main partners in a union of ex-Soviet states facing growing economic challenges.

Lifting the longstanding ban on U.S. crude oil exports would boost the country's economy and enhance its global leadership, a former senior Obama administration official will tell senators on Thursday, introducing a strategic dimension to the growing debate over selling American oil abroad.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Thursday the worst was over for Russia's economy, which has been hit by Western economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and the fall in global oil prices.

A push to make gas contracts agreed with countries such as Russia more transparent has pitched Poland against Germany ahead of energy talks among European Union leaders on Thursday.

The European Union has backed Euratom's decision to block Hungary's 12 billion euro nuclear deal with Russia, a move that could worsen the situation between the Kremlin and Brussels, the Financial Times reported.

The European Union has yet to receive confirmation that Ukraine and Russia will meet on March 20 to discuss gas supplies, the bloc's Energy Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said on Friday.

The $71 billion cybersecurity industry is fragmenting along geopolitical lines as firms chase after government contracts, share information with spy agencies, and market themselves as protectors against attacks by other nations.

Former Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said on Thursday Vladimir Putin was a "naked king" presiding over an economy that will weaken further, eventually provoking a battle between rival clans in Moscow.