
The IMF said on Monday it had approved a new two-year 5.84 billion dollars flexible credit line for Colombia, following a request by the government of President Juan Manuel Santos. The new flexible credit line will replace a previous 6bn two-year program, which recently expired.

The leaders of the “Free Fares” movement that triggered the worst wave of street protests in two decades rocking the Brazilian government to its foundations said their meeting with President Dilma Rousseff was ‘unsatisfactory’ because there were “no concrete proposals”.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff proposed on Monday a popular referendum to implement sweeping political reforms in response to the country's largest public protests in 20 years. Rousseff called for a public vote to eventually amend Brazil's constitution as she tries to seize the momentum in a national debate set off by two weeks of increasingly disruptive demonstrations.

Argentine central bank international reserves dropped 17% since the government of President Cristina Fernandez imposed the ‘dollar clamp`, first limiting operations in the US currency and later savings in greenbacks. While this happened in Argentina in other regional central banks, international reserves kept climbing, according to a report from consultants Economia&Regiones (E&R).

Barcelona striker Lionel Messi, who turned 26 on Monday and is under investigation in Spain for tax fraud allegations, paid €10 million to the Spanish tax authorities to correct tax returns for 2010 and 2011, according to Spanish media reports.

The European Commission gave unconditional approval for Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to buy NYSE Euronext for 8.2 billion dollars a deal that strengthens ICE's presence in the lucrative derivatives trading business.

By Thomas Richardson - Google has reached a settlement with regulators of the European Union after antitrust charges were levied against the company. The EU accused Google of selectively displaying results based on its preferences. Google, which owns a virtual monopoly on Internet queries in Europe, is also accused of favouring the use of its own products in search results, which has drawn complaints from competitors, and the attention of regulators.

The Bank of England and its Chinese counterpart have signed a deal likely to boost trade between the UK and China in the Yuan. The BoE and the People’s bank of China have signed a three year currency swap arrangement worth 200bn Yuan (33bn dollars), the UK central bank confirmed.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) says banks have done their bit to help economic recovery and governments must do more. The Basel bases organization, known as the central banks' central bank says it is time for them to stop pumping funds into their economies.

Europe failed to agree on how to share the cost of bank collapses, as Germany resisted attempts by France to water down rules designed to spare taxpayers in future crises.