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China remains confident Europe can solve its crippling debt crisis even though it continues to balk at requests for it to use its financial firepower.

President Hu Jintao told reporters Monday his country is closely following developments in Europe as the 17 countries that use the euro grapple with a debt crisis that has seen three countries bailed out and threatening to engulf Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy .

“We are convinced that Europe has the wisdom and the competence to conquer its momentary difficulties,” he said during an official visit to Austria.

Europe is closely watching comments by Hu and other Chinese officials in the hope the country will use some of its huge cash reserves to help prevent the region’s debt crisis from spilling over into increasingly shaky economies like Italy and Spain.

Beijing so far has promised to help only by continuing business as usual, trading with Europe and stockpiling some of China’s multibillion-dollar trade surpluses in the safest European government bonds.

Eurozone leaders last week presented the broad outlines of a new anti-crisis strategy. At the center of this strategy is an expansion of the eurozone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. Since the currency union’s finances are already stretched, it wants non-European investors to help fund a special investment vehicle that would act alongside the EFSF.

Although many details of that plan have still to be agreed, this investment vehicle could help the EFSF buy up bonds from struggling countries like Italy and Spain or support bank recapitalizations in poorer eurozone countries payday loans.

Getting more resources behind Europe’s main anti-crisis weapon is particularly important if market pressures continue to rise on Italy. On Friday, Rome had to pay record interest rates at a bond auction, indicating that it may soon have to request help from the eurozone to keep its funding costs in check.

No signs of more direct Chinese plans to help have emerged during Hu’s visit, which started Sunday and ends in two days, when he flies to the G-20 summit in Cannes, France for talks expected to focus on the eurozone’s crisis.

Instead, Hu suggested Monday that China remained content to let European Union leaders work on a solution.

Hu, who did not take questions, said he believes that the path to a global upswing lies on greater cooperation among the world’s leading economies.

Hu has been courted by major EU countries as the financial crisis unfolds.

He and French President Nicolas Sarkozy talked Thursday by phone and pledged to cooperate to revive global growth, while the chief executive of the EU’s bailout fund visited Beijing on Friday to talk to potential investors.

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The complex network of flood defenses erected to shield Thailand’s capital from the country’s worst floods in nearly 60 years was set for one of its biggest tests yet Saturday as coastal high tides approached their peak.

High tides expected to crest Saturday morning were pushing the city’s main waterway, the Chao Phraya river, to its brink. Overflows so far have lightly inundated riverside streets from Chinatown to the white-walled royal Grand Palace and the neighboring Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

Amid heightened fears that floodwaters could swamp Bangkok, saffron-robed monks and soldiers piled sandbags outside the city’s most treasured temples and palaces Friday as the Chao Phraya swelled precariously beyond its banks, spilling ankle-high water briefly into some of the main tourist districts.

Most of the water has receded at low tide. Still, some worried Bangkokians are buying up bright orange lifejackets and inflatable boats, fearing the worst is yet to come.

“You have to prepare,” said Fon Kanokporn, a banker who bought a rubber boat from a store that had several hanging as advertisements from trees out front.

Employees at the shop said they had sold well over 3,000 boats in the last week. The brisk business is a measure of the fear gripping Bangkok and a reflection of the tragedy of neighboring provinces that have been submerged for weeks. Several buyers said they needed boats because their submerged homes outside the capital were no longer accessible by road.

Three months of relentless monsoon rains have caused the worst flooding in Thailand in more than half a century, triggering a national crisis that has overwhelmed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government.

The water has crept from the central plains south toward the Gulf of Thailand for weeks, engulfing a third of the country and killing nearly 400 people and displacing 110,000 more. Now, Bangkok is in the way _ surrounded by behemoth pools of water flowing around and through the city via a complex network of canals and rivers.

The government is worried that major barriers and dikes could break because they were not designed to hold back so much water for so long. And this weekend, higher than normal tides are obstructing the critical flow of runoff from the north, fueling fears that parts of downtown Bangkok could be swamped.

On Friday, army trucks dumped thousands of sandbags outside the riverside Siriraj Hospital, where Thailand’s ailing and revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej has stayed since 2009.

Elsewhere along the Chao Phraya, dozens of monks at the 200-year-old Temple of the Dawn stacked hundreds more along a secondary barrier to protect against river overflows.

“It’s likely going to get higher, but I don’t think its going to get high enough to cause chaos,” said Phramaha Abhin, a 42-year-old monk business cards. Still, he said, “we cannot neglect the risk to this temple. It’s one of the country’s landmarks, one of the things Thailand is known for. We have to protect it.”

So far, most of the capital has remained untouched, and tourists are still snapping pictures in riverside districts as always.

But little by little, the city is slowing down.

This week, floodwaters pushed into Don Muang airport, used mostly for domestic flights, shutting it down. And on Friday, the State Railway of Thailand said all train services from Bangkok to southern Thailand were suspended after the tracks in Bangkok’s suburbs were submerged by floodwaters.

Thais and expatriates alike continued to leave Bangkok as foreign governments urged their citizens to avoid the threatened city, citing transportation difficulties and shortages of certain food items.

Seven of Bangkok’s 50 districts _ all in the northern outskirts _ are heavily flooded, and residents have fled aboard bamboo rafts and army trucks and by wading through waist-deep water. Eight other districts have seen less serious flooding.

New flooding was reported Friday in the city’s southeast when a canal overflowed in a neighborhood on the outer parts of Sukhumvit Road. And high tides briefly touched riverside areas closer to the city’s central business districts of Silom and Sathorn.

But the day passed without major incident.

“It is clear that although the high tides haven’t reached 2.5 meters (8.2 feet), it was high enough to prolong the suffering of those living outside of the flood walls and to threaten those living behind deteriorating walls,” Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said.

The flood walls protecting much of the inner city are 8.2 feet high, and Saturday’s high tide is expected to reach 8.5 feet (2.6 meters).

International charity Save the Children said it was concerned that crocodiles and snakes were lurking in stagnant floodwaters it said are growing filthier by the day.

“Every day we see children playing in the water, bathing or wading through it trying to make their way to dry ground,” said Annie Bodmer-Roy, the group’s spokeswoman in Thailand.

The aid group said many families have been left without access to running water or clean toilets.

“There is a very real risk of waterborne or communicable diseases such as diarrhea and skin infections taking hold if families can’t maintain basic standards of hygiene,” Bodmer-Roy said. “It is essential that the risks facing children in this crisis are understood and steps taken to keep them safe.”

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Nixon touts trade deal

A legal challenge launched Wednesday by the Canadian Wheat Board to stop Conservative efforts to dismantle the agency is

A committee of US Fidelis creditors wants to settle a suit it filed earlier this year accusing a former chief executive of fraudulently stripping at least $500,000 from the Wentzville company in the months leading up to its March 1, 2010, bankruptcy petition.

Before it stopped doing business in late 2009, US Fidelis was the nation’s largest seller of vehicle service contracts. The company imploded amid allegations of consumer abuses and plundering by its owners, the brothers Darain and Cory Atkinson, who were indicted on June 15 on charges of consumer fraud, stealing and illegally selling insurance payday loans in one hour.

In March 2009, the Atkinsons hired Chris Riley to turn around the company’s image and, if possible, prepare it to be sold. Riley, a consultant who specialized in corporate mergers and acquisitions, was to be paid an annual salary of $300,000 and one year of company-paid rent at his house in Creve Coeur.

In October 2009

France’s president says the European Union will force banks to raise their capital to higher levels already by 2012 rather than 2019.

Nicolas Sarkozy said Sunday the capital buffers banks have to achieve under the Basel III rules will already be obligatory for big EU banks as of next year.

He did not say how much money banks will have to raise as a result. He was speaking after a summit of the 27 EU leaders.

The Basel III rules require banks to have a capital ratio of 9 percent of risky assets. That is much higher than the 5 percent they needed to pass EU stress tests this summer.

A European official said Saturday that would force banks to raise just over euro100 billion ($137.98 billion).

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BRUSSELS (AP) _ Greece’s prime minister pleaded Sunday for a comprehensive solution to the European debt crisis that has swallowed his country and is threatening to suck in larger economies, but the continent’s leaders warned the world may have to wait a few more days.

The search for a comprehensive solution to its escalating debt troubles has divided the continent. Increasingly it is pitting not only the poorer countries in the eurozone against their richer neighbors that are tired of bailing them out, but also sparking anger from governments outside the 17-state currency union, who fear being dragged into the mess.

“The crisis in the eurozone is having a chilling effect on all our economies, Britain included. … We have to deal with this issue,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said on his way into the meeting of the 27-country EU. Britain does not use the euro. Later in the day, the leaders of countries the 17 that use the euro will meet on their own.

Cameron’s eurozone counterparts, meanwhile, tried to lower expectations for Sunday’s meetings, saying the real decisions will be made Wednesday at another emergency summit.

“Let’s put the expectations in context: Don’t count on decisions today,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Leaders are in the difficult position of not being able to decide on anything until everything is in place, since each piece of the crisis puzzle affects the others.

The biggest sticking point is how to most effectively use Europe’s bailout fund to make sure Italy and Spain don’t see their borrowing costs spiral out of control as happened with Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Europe doesn’t have enough money to rescue Italy and Spain as it did the other three countries; analysts say it must act now to eliminate the possibility of their collapse.

Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at a meeting on Sunday morning to reform the country’s economy before it’s too late, according to a German official. He spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

While the German and French leaders presented a united front to Italy, their disagreements over how best to use the bailout fund, which is called the European Financial Stability Facility, are causing delays.

France wants the fund to be allowed to tap the massive cash reserves of the European Central Bank _ an option Germany rejects. And weaker economies are wary of agreeing to the other two parts of the grand plan _ bigger bank capital and cuts to Greece’s debt _ without assurance that the bailout fund is ready to provide support.

Until it does, the continuing uncertainty will roil markets and slow growth across Europe and even the world.

Worst off, of course, is Greece, which reeling from several rounds of budget cuts that have sparked a series of strikes and riots.

“Greece has proven again and again that we are making the necessary decisions to make our economy sustainable, and make our economy more just,” Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told reporters as he headed into Sunday’s meetings. “We are doing what we need from our side … but it’s been proven now that the crisis is not a Greek crisis. The crisis is a European crisis, so now is the time that we as Europeans need to act decisively and effectively.”

To ease the pressure on the country, banks will be asked to accept much bigger losses on the country’s bonds.

Austria’s chancellor said the cut in the value of Greek government bond will likely be raised “in the direction of 40 to 50 percent.”

“A cut in the debt is the right step,” Werner Faymann told Austrian newspaper Wiener Kurier. The comments were confirmed by one of his aides.

Despite massive budget cuts and reforms, a new report has said that Greece’s economic situation is still dire and that worsening economic conditions mean it could take the country decades to emerge from the crisis.

The report from debt inspectors said the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund would likely have to lend Athens more money unless the banks accept a 60 percent writedown of the bonds they hold. That would be on top of the euro110 billion ($300 billion) in rescue loans that have been propping up with country since May 2010.

Another rescue of a similar size was agreed to in July, but it’s now clear that deal did not go far enough. For instance, it called for only a 21 percent cut in Greek bond holdings; leaders are now discussing a much more significant reduction, though an exact percentage has not yet emerged.

The near-consensus among eurozone countries that Greece’s debt will have to be slashed is one of the reasons banks across Europe _ not only in the 17-country eurozone _ will be forced to shore up their capital buffers in the coming months.

A European official said Saturday that new rules agreed by EU finance ministers would see banks having to raise just over euro100 billion ($140 billion). The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the rules were pending approval from EU leaders.

However, on Sunday it was uncertain whether EU leaders would even be able to sign off on the bank capital rules before a second summit Wednesday. A draft of summit conclusions from Sunday morning only welcomed the progress made by finance ministers, adding that the final decision would be made by yet another finance ministers’ meeting on Wednesday ahead of the second summit.

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The No. 2 official on the Federal Reserve says economic growth will end “noticeably stronger” in the second half of this year, but she says the central bank still needs to keep its policy options open to provide more support to the economy if necessary.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said in a speech in Denver on Friday that oil and other commodity prices are falling and supply disruptions caused by Japan’s natural disasters are easing. But she said the economy is still facing numerous problems.

Yellen said the central bank may need to consider more bond purchases to lower interest rates, but she said such an effort should be considered only if the economy required “significantly greater” help than the Fed is now providing.

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Greeks furious at the government’s austerity measures are vowing to turn out in force on the streets of Athens on the second day of a general strike, as lawmakers vote on the intensely unpopular new measures needed to secure continued payment from an international bailout fund.

Unions plan demonstrations, with one intending to encircle parliament in an attempt to prevent lawmakers getting into the building for the vote. On Wednesday, riots broke out during a protest march by more than 100,000 people.

The austerity bill won initial approval with a majority vote Wednesday, and lawmakers now vote on the details.

The measures include the suspension on reduced pay of 30,000 public servants and the suspension of collective labor contracts, and have angered even deputies from the governing Socialist party.

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The Coca-Cola Co. `s third-quarter profit rose 8 percent and beat Wall Street estimates as it sold more drinks worldwide and raised prices in North America, its largest market.

Coca-Cola has shown consistent growth for years, but like many of its peers, it recently has been struggling with rising costs for raw materials and Americans’ cautious spending habits during the down economy. But the company’s third-quarter results are the latest sign that despite the tough economic environment, some of world’s top brands, including its bigger rival PepsiCo, continue to prevail by tweaking their strategy.

Coca-Cola, which has more than 500 brands including Fanta, Sprite, Dasani and Minute Maid, has weathered the downturn by investing heavily in its business - increasing money for advertising, new products and plants. The company, like many of other companies, also has turned overseas for growth, particularly emerging markets like India and China. And in North America, it adjusted it is raising prices and offering smaller package sizes.

The results have paid off. Although Coca-Cola continues to feel the pressure of higher commodity costs, which sent its gross margin down to 60.2 percent from 65.4 percent during the third quarter, the company has been able to offset that with stronger sales growth.

“Over the past few months, we have all seen a downturn in global consumer confidence,” said Coca-Cola’s CEO Muhtar Kent. “At the same time, the last few months have reinforced our belief in the resilience of the global consumer.”

Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, reported on Tuesday that sales volume grew 5 percent worldwide, driven largely by its Coca-Cola brand. The company’s gains were strongest in emerging markets, including a 19 percent increase in volume in India and a 7 percent increase in Latin America.

The company also had a gain in North America even though it raised prices about 2 percent to offset higher commodity and other costs there payday loans. Sales volume grew 5 percent in North America.

Net income rose to $2.22 billion, or 95 cents per share, in the three months ended Sept. 30. That’s up from $2.06 billion, or 88 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding one-time items, it earned $1.03 per share. Revenue rose 45 percent to $12.25 billion. The quarter beat analysts’ expectations of $1.02 per share on revenue of $12.05 billion, according to FactSet.

“We provide consumers with an affordable luxury as they enjoy moments of pleasure for pennies at a time, billions of times every day,” Kent said.

The company increased its share repurchase program. It now plans to buy back as much as $3 billion of its shares by the end of the year up from its prior goal of $2.5 billion.

On the news, Coca-Cola’s shares rose in morning trading but were nearly flat by midday, shares fell 5 cents to $66.95 _ a less than 1 percent drop.

Coke’s biggest competitor, PepsiCo Inc., also posted solid quarterly results that beat Wall Street estimates as it raised prices on its chips and sodas in the U.S. and grew its overseas business.

The maker of such products as Mt. Dew soda, Gatorade drink and Lay’s potato chips, said last week that it earned $2 billion, or $1.25 per share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 3, up from $1.92 billion, or $1.19 per share, in the period last year. Excluding charges related to its acquisition of Russian juice and dairy company Wimm-Bill-Dann and other one-time items, earnings were $1.31 per share. PepsiCo’s revenue climbed 13 percent to $17.58 billion.

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AP Business Reporter Mae Anderson contributed to this report from New York.

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The Occupy Wall Street movement has close to $300,000, as well as storage space loaded with donated supplies in lower Manhattan. It stared down city officials to hang on to its makeshift headquarters, showed its muscle Saturday with a big Times Square demonstration and found legions of activists demonstrating in solidarity across the country and around the world.

Could this be the peak for loosely organized protesters, united less by a common cause than by revulsion to what they consider unbridled corporate greed? Or are they just getting started?

There are signs of confidence, but also signs of tension among the demonstrators at Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the movement that began a month ago Monday. They have trouble agreeing on things like whether someone can bring in a sleeping bag, and show little sign of uniting on any policy issues. Some protesters eventually want the movement to rally around a goal, while others insist that isn’t the point.

“We’re moving fast, without a hierarchical structure and lots of gears turning,” said Justin Strekal, a college student and political organizer who traveled from Cleveland to New York to help. “… Egos are clashing, but this is participatory democracy in a little park.”

Even if the protesters were barred from camping in Zuccotti Park, as the property owner and the city briefly threatened to do last week, the movement would continue, Strekal said. He said activists were working with legal experts to identify alternate sites where the risk of getting kicked out would be relatively low.

Wall Street protesters are intent on hanging on to the momentum they gained from Saturday’s worldwide demonstrations, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. They’re filling a cavernous space a block from Wall Street with donated goods to help sustain their nearly month-long occupation of a private park nearby.

They’ve amassed mounds of blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, cans of food, medical and hygienic supplies _ even oddities like a box of knitting wool and 20 pairs of swimming goggles (to shield protesters from pepper-spray attacks). Supporters are shipping about 300 boxes a day, Strekal said.

The space was donated by the United Federation of Teachers, which has offices in the building.

Close to $300,000 in cash also has been donated, through the movement’s website and by people who give money in person at the park, said Bill Dobbs, a press liaison for the movement. The movement has an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as “the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States.”

Strekal said the donated goods are being stored “for a long-term occupation.”

“We are unstoppable! Another world is possible!” Kara Segal and other volunteers chanted in the building lobby as they arrived to help unpack and sort items, preparing them to be rolled out to the park.

While on the streets, moments of madness occasionally erupt in the protest crowd _ accompanied by whiffs of marijuana, grungy clothing and disarray _ order prevails at the storage site.

It doubles as a sort of Occupy Wall Street central command post, with strategic meetings that are separate from the “general assembly” free-for-alls in the park. One subject Sunday was data entry: protesters are working to get the names and addresses of donors into a databank.

The movement has become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race and beyond, with politicians from both parties under pressure to weigh in.

President Barack Obama referred to the protests at Sunday’s dedication of a monument for Martin Luther King Jr., saying the civil rights leader “would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there.”

Many of the largest of Saturday’s protests were in Europe, where protesters involved in long-running demonstrations against austerity measures declared common cause with the Occupy Wall Street movement. In Rome, hundreds of rioters infiltrated a march by tens of thousands of demonstrators, causing what the mayor estimated was at least euro1 million ($1.4 million) in damage to city property.

U.S. cities large and small were “occupied” over the weekend: Washington, D.C., Fairbanks, Alaska, Burlington, Vt., Rapid City, S.D., and Cheyenne, Wyo. were just a few. In Cincinnati, protesters moved their demonstration out of a park after hearing that a couple was getting their wedding photos taken there _ but the bride and groom ended up seeking them out for pictures.

More than 70 New York protesters were arrested Saturday, more than 40 of them in Times Square. About 175 people were arrested in Chicago after they refused to leave a park where they were camped late Saturday, and there were about 100 arrests in Arizona _ 53 in Tucson and 46 in Phoenix _ after protesters refused police orders to disperse. About two dozen people were arrested in Denver, and in Sacramento, Calif., anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was among about 20 people arrested after failing to follow police orders to disperse.

Activists around the country said they felt that Saturday’s protests energized their movement.

“It’s an upward trajectory,” said John St. Lawrence, a Florida real estate lawyer who took part in Saturday’s Occupy Orlando protest, which drew more than 1,500 people. “It’s catching people’s imagination and also, knock on wood, nothing sort of negative or discrediting has happened.”

St. Lawrence is among those unconcerned that the movement has not rallied around any particular proposal, saying “policy is for leaders to come up with.”

“I don’t think the underlying theme is a mystery,” he said. “We saw what the banks and financial institutions did to the economy. We bailed them out. And then they went about evicting people from their homes,” he said. He added that although he is not in debt and owns his own home, other people in his neighborhood are suffering and “everyone’s interests are interconnected.”

In Richmond, Va., about 75 people gathered Sunday for one of the “general assembly” meetings that are a key part of the movement’s consensus-building process. Protester Whitney Whiting, a video editor, said the process has helped “gather voices” about Americans discontent, and that she expects it will eventually take the movement a step further.

“In regards to a singular issue or a singular focus, I think that will come eventually. But right now we have to set up a space for that to happen,” Whiting said.

Some U.S. protesters, like those in Europe, have their own causes. Unions that have joined forces with the movement have demands of their own, and on Sunday members of the newly formed Occupy Pittsburgh group demanded that Bank of New York Mellon Corp. pay back money they allege it overcharged public pension funds around the country.

New York’s attorney general and New York City sued BNY Mellon this month, accusing it of defrauding clients in foreign currency exchange transactions that generated nearly $2 billion over 10 years. The company has vowed to fight the lawsuit and had no comment about the protesters’ allegation about pensions.

Lisa Deaton, a tea party leader from southern Indiana, said she sees some similarities between how the tea party movement and the Wall Street protests began: “We got up and we wanted to vent.”

But the critical step, she said, was taking that emotion and focusing it toward changing government.

The first rally she organized drew more than 2,500 people, but afterward, “it was like, `What do we do?’” she said. “You can’t have a concert every weekend.”

The Wall Street protesters’ lack of leadership and focus on consensus-building has help bring together people with different perspectives, but it’s also created some tension.

“Issues are arising _ like who is bringing in sleeping bags without permission,” said Laurie Dobson, who’s been helping a self-governed “working group” called “SIS” _ for Shipping, Inventory and Supplies.

Sleeping bags were among items cited by Zuccotti Park’s owner, Brookfield Properties, as not allowed on the premises _ along with tents, tarps and other essentials for the encampment. By Sunday, all those items were back.

Strekal didn’t see that as a problem. Protesters could do it, he said, “because we’re winning the PR war.”

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