ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's surging leftist leader predicted on Thursday his party would sweep next month's election and refused to stop demanding an end to "barbaric" austerity policies he said were bankrupting the nation. Increasingly worried about Greece's future in the euro zone, foreign lenders and mainstream parties have stepped up warnings that the country risks being cut off from aid if it fails to stick to spending cuts included in its latest bailout package. SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, the 37-year-old rising star of Greek politics, promised he would listen to neither group. ...

A recently nationalized Spanish bank's shares plummeted Thursday after a newspaper said depositors were rushing to withdraw money, while the country paid sharply higher interest rates in a debt auction, reflecting concerns the country will be caught up in the fallout of the Greek crisis.

Pakistan's president announced Thursday that he will attend the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago, accepting an invitation that was given after the country indicated it plans to end its six-month blockade of supplies meant for coalition troops in Afghanistan.

The head of Syria's main opposition council offered to resign Thursday after some members threatened to pull out of the umbrella group amid rampant infighting, striking a blow to efforts to present a united front against President Bashar Assad.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's borrowing costs shot up at a bond auction on Thursday, after economic data confirmed the country is back in recession and reports of an outflow of deposits from nationalized Bankia hammered its share price. The Spanish Treasury had to pay around 5 percent to attract buyers of three- and four-year bonds. The longer-dated paper sold with a yield of 5.106 percent, way above the 3.374 percent the last time it was auctioned. "This ... ...

LONDON, May 17 (IFR) - The euro zone crisis was in full swing when Jean-Claude Trichet took the podium in Berlin last October 6 for his final press conference as president of the European Central Bank. Having helped create one of the longest periods of price stability in the history of central banking, Trichet was closing out his eight-year reign under siege. Soaring oil prices had made a mockery of the bank's superlative record on inflation, while the worst recession on the continent since World War II had morphed into a full-scale sovereign debt crisis. ...