Finnish President Sauli Niinistoe said Tuesday that leaving the Eurozone would not help resolve the economic crisis plaguing the 17-member bloc.

"There is no fast and easy solution for the European crisis. Or, at least, I'm not able to come up with one," Niinistoe said in a speech delivered to an annual ambassadors meeting in Helsinki.

Spain's short-term borrowing costs tumbled Tuesday as it raised 4.51 billion euros ($5.6 billion), buoyed by the possibility of European Central Bank intervention.

The Treasury raised the cash in a sale of 12- and 18-month bills, enjoying a lull in interest rates following ECB chief Mario Draghi's comments that the bank may resume bond purchases if necessary.

Recession-hit Britain unexpectedly added to its public sector debt pile in July, official data revealed Tuesday, dealing a blow to the government's hopes of reducing the country's large deficit.

Public sector net borrowing stood at £600 million ($946 million, 763 million euros) in July compared with a net repayment of £2.8 billion in the same month one year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

U.S. billionaire George Soros has bought a stake in Manchester United, the British football club that made its Wall Street debut earlier this month, according to a filing with U.S. regulators on Monday.

Soros' investment firm bought approximately 3.1 million class A shares, or 7.85 percent of the total Class A shares, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed.

The U.S insurance giant Aetna will acquire managed health care company Coventry in a transaction valued at $7.3 billion, the two companies announced early Monday.

Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by the board of directors of each company, Coventry stockholders will receive $27.30 in cash and 0.3885 Aetna common shares for each Coventry share, according to a statement issued by the two firms.

Honda wants to silence its critics when it rolls out the new Accord this week.

The automaker, chastened for cheapening the Civic compact earlier this year, says that won't happen with the midsize Accord.

U.S. President Barack Obama hounded Mitt Romney on Saturday, saying his wealthy rival would pay only one percent in taxes on his vast wealth under a plan authored by his running mate Paul Ryan.

Obama escalated his effort to use the pick of the conservative Republican congressman last week to drive votes away from Romney in swing states, including New Hampshire, where he was campaigning Saturday.

Struggling carrier Air France regained altitude Friday, with its stock rising well more than three percent after a key pilots' union endorsed a draft agreement that paves the way for a restructuring plan.

Shares in Franco-Dutch airline Air France-KLM closed with a gain of 3.72 percent at 4.40 euros on the Paris stock exchange, which was 0.23 percent higher overall.

New home prices in more Chinese cities rose in July than in the previous month, the government said Saturday, amid cautious optimism the country's property market may be bottoming out.

Prices in 50 out of the 70 Chinese cities tracked by the government increased in July from June, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement. That represented a doubling from 25 in June.

The Syrian economy has been hit hard by more than 17 months of revolt but may still hold on despite international sanctions with the help of friendly countries such as Russia, Iran and Iraq, experts say.

All economic indicators in Syria, where President Bashar Assad is trying to crush an uprising against his rule, are in the red: the economy is contracting, inflation rates have skyrocketed, unemployment has risen and the current account deficit continues to increase.