Merkel and Sarkozy in eleventh-hour Greece pact - today's papers

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have hammered out a common position on the euro debt crisis.

A statement by the French president's office said agreement had been reached after seven hours of talks in Berlin.

It comes ahead of a crunch meeting on Thursday of eurozone leaders to resolve the Greek debt crisis and prevent further contagion to other eurozone economies.

Details of the deal have not yet been released. MORE...

Meanwhile, financial companies, including banks, hedge funds and insurers, should be forced to provide a detailed breakdown of their exposure to European sovereign debt in their financial reports, the ICAEW has said. MORE...

Santander's planned part-flotation of its UK business is set to be delayed until next year because of uncertainty created by the Independent Commission on Banking's (ICB) reform proposals and volatile markets. MORE...

And...

Danielle Chiesi, the former beauty queen turned stock trader, has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for her role in the biggest insider-dealing case in decades.

Chiesi, 45, was the former confidante of hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon hedge fund. She pleaded guilty to three criminal counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in January, in a move that was seen as a major breakthrough for the prosecution. MORE...