India's economic growth slumped to a two-year-low 6.9 percent in the second quarter, data showed Wednesday, as it was hit by a string of rate hikes and a stumbling global economy.

The expansion in July-September was the weakest since the three months to June 2009 when the economy grew just 6.0 percent year-on-year as Western economies were emerging from the global financial crisis.

Eurozone finance ministers turned to the IMF for more help to keep the monetary union together late Tuesday after they missed their goal of boosting their own bailout fund to one trillion Euros.

With fears rising that Italy will need a bailout after its borrowing costs soared to record heights, ministers scrambled to tame a debt crisis threatening to break apart the 17-nation Eurozone.

Italy's fashion brand Prada saw sales increase 25 percent over the first nine months of the year, with Asia reconfirming itself as the main market for luxury goods, the group said Tuesday.

Prada Spa, which floated on the Hong Kong stock exchange in June, announced net profit soared 75 percent to 273.2 million Euros ($364.3 million) compared to the same period in 2010.

The parent companies of American Airlines and its regional affiliate American Eagle are filing for bankruptcy protection.

AMR Corp. and AMR Eagle Holding Corp. said Tuesday that they filed voluntary petitions to reorganize, saying it's in the best interest of the companies and its shareholders.

Italy saw its borrowing rates skyrocket in a big auction of bonds Tuesday as Premier Mario Monti put the finishing touches on his new lean government of technocrats, tasked with getting the country's enormous debt under control to avoid a catastrophic default.

Though Italy easily raised €7.49 billion ($10 billion), it had to pay more to investors to get them to open their wallets.

Europe is reeling from warnings it faces a "deep depression" if the eurozone collapses and that every EU nation's credit rating could be hit without firm action to resolve the debt crisis.

An updated growth report from the OECD on Monday said the crisis was now just one step away from plunging advanced economies into an abyss of recession and could trigger waves of bankruptcies.

Egypt's bourse on Tuesday spiked more than 5.0 percent in a buying spree sparked by the orderly start to voting in the country's first post-revolution election, leading to the suspension of trading.

The main EGX-30 index rose 5.08 percent or 191.93 points to touch 3,972.06, after weeks of political upheaval and deadly clashes between police and protesters that caused huge falls in the value of the local stock market.

The Arab League's unprecedented move to slap sanctions on member state Syria will further damage the economy but without bringing the country to its knees, officials said on Monday.

"It will be a severe impact on the Syrian economy, that's for sure," Economy and Trade Minister Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar acknowledged, although it was difficult to determine the precise effects.

The European Union will tighten sanctions against Syria's oil and financial sectors this week to punish the regime over its crackdown on protesters, a European diplomat said Monday.

EU foreign ministers meeting Thursday will adopt a raft of sanctions including bans on exporting gas and oil industry equipment to Syria, trading Syrian government bonds and selling software that could be used to monitor Internet and telephone communications, the diplomat said.

Syria has withdrawn almost all of its assets from Arab countries, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Monday, a day after the Arab League slapped sanctions on Damascus for its refusal to halt a protest crackdown.

"I reassure you that we have withdrawn 95 or 96 percent of Syrian assets (from Arab countries)," Muallem told a news conference. "We must protect the interests of our people."