Spain sends senior official to US amid crisis

LONDON (Reuters) - British plans to re

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's days are numbered. He will likely be gone in a week. When it happens it will be a case of 2 down with Merkozy (France and Germany), Spain, and Portugal (thus 4) to go.

Asked to name the biggest threat hanging over the global economy in 2011, most people will tell you it's the crisis in the Eurozone. Newsnight spent a lot of time debating its future only last night. But since I'm moonlighting tonight as Newsnight's presenter, I decided we should also think about a more distant - but ultimately much larger - cloud on the global economic horizon. That is the possibility of a full-scale loss of confidence in US assets.

We now have an official denial of an amusing kind.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos promoted Philippos Sachinidis to finance minister from the deputy finance post on Wednesday, replacing Evangelos Venizelos who has resigned to lead the socialist PASOK party into elections, the government said."Following a decision by Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, Philippos Sachinidis is appointed finance minister," the prime minister's office said.Sachinidis, 49, monitored the budget and was among senior ministry officials who have applied a tough economic overhaul for the past two years in return for EU-IMF loans.