LJUBLJANA, Slovenia - Slovenia's government announced Thursday an austerity plan designed to raise 540 million euros ($707 million) in new taxes as part of an effort to balance the budget and avoid seeking an international bailout. The small Alpine country, once a model of socialist economy, is racing to convince investors it has a credible strategy for raising the funds to stay solvent and avoid becoming the fifth euro country after Cyprus to ask for financial aid.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Russia has agreed to extended the maturity and reduce the interest on its loan to Cyprus, a document prepared by international lenders showed, providing additional but expected financial relief to the island on top of an EU-IMF bailout. Cyprus had complied with all conditions set by international lenders for the first 3 billion euros of the 10 billion euro bailout to flow to Nicosia later in May, said the April 30 document, drawn up by the troika of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the IMF.

By Lawrence Summers (Reuters) - The economics commentariat and no small part of the political debate in recent weeks has been consumed with the controversy surrounding the work of my Harvard colleagues (and friends) Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff (RR). Their work had been widely interpreted as establishing that economic growth was likely to stagnate in a country once its government debt-to-GDP ratio exceeded 90 percent.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - France is likely to be given two more years to reach its budget deficit goals, the EU's top economic official said on Friday, following in Spain's footsteps as the euro zone relaxes its strict austerity policies. "In France, the recovery is now expected to be delayed," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news conference. "Considering the economic situation, it may be reasonable to extend the deadline by two years and to correct the excessive deficit at the latest by 2015 in France," he said.