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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that his government plans to buy new Embraer jets from Brazil as well as used Airbus jets to expand his country’s state airline Conviasa.

Chavez said Venezuela will negotiate credit with the Brazilian Development Bank to buy up to 20 Embraer jets from Brazil.

Chavez thanked Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff “for the credit they’re going to give us.” He said the estimated cost of 20 jets would be $814 million.

The Venezuelan government had said earlier this month that Chavez approved plans to buy six Embraer jets. But during Chavez’s Sunday television and radio program, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez laid out the options of buying either 10 or 20 Embraer jets.

“It’s enough to see Venezuela’s location on the map to conclude on the pressing need for us to have a very powerful airline,” Chavez said.

Chavez’s government has subsidized Conviasa since its launch in 2004. The president on Sunday did not provide information about how much the government has spent on the airline in recent years instant payday loan.

According to Conviasa’s website, it currently has a fleet of 18 planes. In addition to domestic routes, Conviasa has international flights to cities including Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Damascus, Syria, among others.

Chavez also said Venezuela will buy four used Airbus 340-500 jets from an airline in the United Arab Emirates at a cost of about $60 million per plane.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, a Chavez ally, has announced similar plans to expand his country’s state airline, Boliviana de Aviacion, or BoA.

Morales last month proposed to buy six Embraer 190 jets during a meeting with Rousseff in Caracas.

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Lambert-St. Louis International Airport officials confirmed Wednesday that they are targeting an April reopening of the tornado-damaged C Concourse.

Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge told airport commissioners that restrooms in the concourse have been renovated and storm-damaged windows have been replaced.

Storm repairs are being made in concert with planned terminal renovations, which include new ceilings and lighting.

“We would like to do a behind-the-scenes public event before it opens,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. “We kind of wanted to do a big splash for the business community.”

The event would likely occur a couple of days before the renovations are complete.

An EF-4 tornado slammed into the airport on April 22, causing extensive damage to the C Concourse, which remains closed. Airlines that were housed in that part of Terminal 1 were temporarily moved to other gates not in use at the time guaranteed pay day loans.

The tornado also broke numerous windows on the main terminal building, which remained boarded up for months. The tornado also damaged cars that were parked on the top level of the Terminal 1 hourly parking garage.

The extensive damage caused the first prolonged closure at Lambert since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks grounded air travel across the United States.

After emergency repairs and cleanup, the airport reopened to limited commercial air traffic within 24 hours.

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TOKYO — Honda Motor Co. is recalling 27,000 cars in Canada, and 304,000 vehicles globally, for airbags that may inflate with too much pressure in a crash, send metal and plastic pieces flying and cause injuries or deaths.

Honda said there have been 20 accidents so far related to this problem, including two deaths in the U.S. in 2009.

The Japanese automaker announced the recall Friday, which affects the Accord, Civic, Odyssey, Pilot, CR-V and other models, manufactured in 2001 and 2002.

Photos: A sea of Hondas left behind after Thailand flood

More: After harsh reviews, Honda scrambles to redo Civic in 2013

The recall spans 273,000 vehicles in the U.S., some 27,000 in Canada, nearly 2,000 vehicles in Japan and another 2,000 in other countries. It affected 359 vehicles in Europe — 200 in Germany, 158 in Israel and one in Great Britain, according to Honda.

The latest recall is an expansion of recalls for the same problem in 2008, and again carried out in 2009, as well as last year. The recall now covers about 2 million vehicles worldwide, according to Tokyo-based Honda.

Honda spokesman Hajime Kaneko said the cause for the latest recall was the use of incorrect material in the chemical used to deploy airbags.

The initial cause of the recall was excessive moisture in the inflator propellant, which is part of what inflates the airbag.

But that problem was found later to affect more vehicles than initially estimated, as incidents didn’t stop, and the recall was expanded to account for the possibility that the problem was caused by a defective stamping machine used during production, he said.

Honda is extremely sorry about the recalls but believes the problem has now been taken care of, with no more recalls linked to this problem expected, he said.

Also included in the latest recall are 912 airbag service parts sold for installation in vehicles for collision repair and other reasons, Honda said.

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The 17 finance ministers of the countries that use the euro converged on EU headquarters Tuesday in a desperate bid to save their currency _ and to protect Europe, the United States, Asia and the rest of the global economy from a debt-induced financial tsunami.

The ministers were discussing ideas that would have been taboo only recently, before things got as bad as they are: countries ceding fiscal sovereignty to a central authority; some kind of elite group of euro nations that would guarantee one another’s loans _ but require strong fiscal discipline from anyone wanting membership.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her support for changes to Europe’s current treaties in order to create a fiscal union, that will include binding and enforceable commitments by all euro countries.

“Our priority is to have the whole of the eurozone to be placed on a stronger treaty basis,” Merkel said Tuesday in Berlin. “This is what we have devoted all of our efforts to; this is what I’m concentrating on in all of the talks with my counterparts.”

Merkel acknowledged that changing the treaties _ usually a lengthy procedure _ won’t be easy because not all of the European Unions 27 member states “are enthusiastic about it.” But she dismissed reports that the eurozone, or some nations within the bloc, might go ahead with a swifter treaty between governments.

Changes to existing eurozone rules are being touted as one way the eurozone can get out of its debt crisis, which has already forced bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and is threatening to engulf bigger economies such as Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest. If Italy were to default on its debts of around euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion), the fallout could spell ruin for the euro project itself and send shockwaves throughout the global economy.

Even countries outside the eurozone were ratcheting up pressure on the ministers to find a solution. President Barack Obama, meeting with top EU officials on Monday, said a European failure to resolve its debt crisis would complicate his own efforts to create jobs in the U.S. And even Poland, historically wary of German dominance beyond its borders, appealed for help.

“I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is,” Radek Sikorski said in Berlin. “I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity. You have become Europe’s indispensable nation.”

Illustating the urgency is the fact that Eurozone goverments have euro638 billion in past debts coming due in 2012, of which 40 percent needs to be refinanced in the first four months of the year, according to a Barclays Capital estimate last week.

In a reminder of the urgency, Italy’s borrowing rates shot up Tuesday to rates above 7 percent, an unsustainable level on a par with rates that forced the others to seek bailouts. Markets rose generally for the second day on the expectation that the enormous pressures on European ministers would produce results.

At the top of Tuesday’s agenda is finding a means to more fully integrate the eurozone’s disparate nations _ ranging from powerful Germany to tiny Malta _ both politically and financially. And the ministers must do it fast, without the delays caused by democratic niceties like referendums that have led many EU reforms to take years to implement.

France’s finance minister, Francois Baroin, said Tuesday on France-Info radio that countries should integrate their budgets more closely and monitor one another’s spending.

“We have to modify eurozone governance,” Baroin said. “We definitely have to move toward more integrated budgetary consolidation, fiscal convergence with our neighbors.”

He said France and Germany _ which have largely been calling the shots on efforts to overcome the crisis _ will make proposals on how eurozone countries can monitor one another under such a new system.

The 17 ministers are expected to discuss jointly issuing so-called eurobonds _ an all-for-one, one-for-all way of having the different countries guarantee one another’s debts. Right now each nation issues its own bonds, meaning that while Italy pays above 7 percent, Germany pays about 2 percent.

Having stronger countries like Germany stand behind the general European debt would lower Italy’s borrowing rates _ and perhaps avoid a debt spiral that leads to a national bankruptcy. At the same time, it would raise Germany’s cost of borrowing, and that’s why Germany has been fiercely opposed to the eurobond proposal.

A French official said Tuesday that France may propose joint bonds among a subset of eurozone countries _ those with “triple A” credit ratings _ although Germany has said it opposes the idea. The French official said discussions about such so-called “elite bonds” is under discussion ahead of a summit of European Union heads of government in Brussels next week.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitive, closed-door talks are still under way.

Proponents of elite bonds say the proceeds could be used to help the eurozone’s weaker countries deal with their debts, in return for strict conditions being imposed on their budgets. Critics argue that further fragmenting the eurozone into strong countries and weak countries would benefit no one.

On Monday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed reports that such bonds were under serious consideration.

The whole world is watching the developments. It’s not just a currency used by 332 million people that is at stake. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others have said, if the euro fails, so too does the 27-nation European Union, a rousing diplomatic success that united a continent ripped apart by two world wars.

“The biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland would be the collapse of the eurozone,” Poland’s Sikorski said Monday. “And I demand of Germany that, for your own sake and for ours, you help it survive and prosper. You know full well that nobody else can do it.”

If the euro fails, bank lending would freeze, stock markets would likely crash, and Europe’s economies would crater. Nations in the eurozone could see their economic output fall temporarily by as much as 50 percent, according to UBS forecasters. The financial and economic pain would spread west and east as the U.S. and Asia get ensnared in the credit freeze and their exports to Europe collapse.

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Angela Charlton in Paris, Melissa Eddy and Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report. Don Melvin can be reached at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin

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As stock markets continue their roller-coaster ride, even investors who profess to adhere to a buy-and-hold strategy have become eager users of mobile technologies that allow them to track their portfolios almost minute by minute.

That tendency apparently goes double for private banking clients, who investment managers say demand more information than the average investor and are embracing smartphone use at a fast clip.

And yet, for a variety of reasons, wealth managers were slow to embrace mobile applications for their clients. The reasons most often cited included concerns about security and a general impression that private banking clients did not want that kind of relationship with their bankers.

That appears to be changing.

JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and UBS are among a small number of banks that have released smartphone apps to their wealth management customers. The use of the apps is often restricted regionally; the JPMorgan and Merrill apps are available only to clients based in the U.S., and only Swiss clients have access to the UBS app.

“Private banks have been trailing behind retail banks with this type of offering for consumers, and even when they do offer an app, those have pretty poor functionality,” said Steffen Binder, managing director of MyPrivateBanking, an independent research firm based in Switzerland.

To keep up with competition and customer demand, banks will have to start interacting with their clients more through social media, said Nick Pollard, chief executive of RBS Coutts Asia, whose parent bank is using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to reach out to its clients and is developing a smartphone app cashadvance.

“It’s less about today’s clients and more about tomorrow’s clients,” Pollard said. “Whether we like it or not, this generation and certainly the next one has no boundaries when it comes to accessing information.”

This year, Merrill Lynch introduced mobile applications for Apple and BlackBerry devices for clients of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and the online discount brokerage service Merrill Edge. The applications allow clients to view their portfolio holdings and account activity; transfer money among linked Merrill Lynch brokerage and Bank of America banking accounts; and trade stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and options in approved accounts. Clients can track market news and headlines and gain access to the bank’s latest research reports.

Buoyed by clients’ positive feedback, the bank now plans to release Android versions in December.

The bank is evaluating how the new technologies “can create value for advisers and the firm while at the same time having prudent supervisory and compliance oversight,” said Paul Fox, head of Merrill Lynch Online Platforms. The bank is now running a limited pilot program with LinkedIn to allow clients to communicate with the bank.

The adoption rate of JPMorgan’s iPad and iPhone apps has been rapid, said Stephen Clifford, a managing director at JPMorgan Private Bank in New York, responsible for the client experience. The bank made the apps available this year to its high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth U.S. clients

The parents of murdered teen Milly Dowler say that phone hacking on behalf of a British tabloid made them think that she was still alive.

Sally Dowler told the inquiry investigating Britain’s media ethics that her 13-year-old daughter’s phone had been cleared of some messages shortly after she disappeared in early 2002, suggesting that she was checking her voicemail.

In fact Milly was dead and the person clearing the messages worked for the News of the World tabloid.

The Dowler parents have previously made similar statements, but Monday was the first time the pair spoke out on national television.

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

LONDON (AP) _ Celebrities and crime victims whose personal lives have been exposed in Britain’s press will testify at an inquiry into media ethics payday advance low fees.

The Leveson inquiry is run by a judicial body that could recommend sweeping changes to the way Britons get their news.

Britain’s media ethics probe was set up in the wake of the scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, which was shut in July after it became clear that the tabloid had systematically broken the law. Most horrific was the news that the tabloid had broken into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in its search for scoops.

Actor Hugh Grant and the Dowler family will be some of the first to give evidence Monday.

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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 Philippine president has announced a 72 billion peso ($1.66 billion) stimulus package to cushion the economy as Asian governments step up efforts to ward off the global fallout from Europe’s debt crisis.

President Benigno Aquino III said Wednesday that the world economic slowdown is already having some impact on growth in Asia, including the Philippines, and the government “is working overtime to make certain that we do what must be done to maintain our economy’s momentum.”

On Tuesday, Indonesia’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 6.5 percent to offset the impact of turmoil in financial markets and a slowing global economy.

Asia bounced back relatively quickly from the last global recession that was sparked by the 2008 financial crisis, helped in part by China’s massive stimulus spending. But some economists say the region is not as well placed to respond to a new slowdown because inflation is high and a lot of fiscal ammunition has already been spent fighting the last crisis.

Aquino said that his government’s additional spending this year includes 6.5 billion pesos ($149 million) for local infrastructure and poverty alleviation and 10 billion pesos ($230 million) to relocate squatters affected by floods and landslides Payday advance.

Another 5.5 billion pesos ($126 million) will be spent on national infrastructure projects and 6.3 billion pesos ($146 million) to upgrade two of metropolitan Manila’s light rail lines.

“This spending will provide added stimulus to our economy,” he said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Association of The Philippines. “The stimulus will be spent on projects that will have high macroeconomic impact, and will help the poor.”

The government’s economic growth forecast for this year has been lowered to a range of 5 percent to 6 percent from the 7 to 8 percent expansion projected in January. Aquino said the target for next year is also 5 to 6 percent growth.

The effects of the stimulus will be felt not just at the end of this year but also in the first half of next year, Aquino said. The spending is being funded from savings and existing loans.

Last year, the Philippine economy galloped to its highest annual growth in more than two decades, expanding 7.3 percent on strong foreign trade and election campaign spending.

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Union leaders from Chrysler facilities around the country assembled in a Detroit suburb Monday expecting to hear details of a new four-year contract with the company. Instead, they were told to wait for a couple of days.

UAW spokeswoman Michele Martin said Monday that no agreement has been reached, and that bargaining will resume on Tuesday morning. Neither the union nor the company would say what’s holding up a deal.

Union leaders from outside Detroit were told at the meeting to stay in town for another meeting that’s scheduled for Wednesday, a sign that both sides are close to an agreement. But it was unusual for the UAW to hold the meeting on Monday without having a deal, and it indicates that the talks are snagged on money issues.

UAW President Bob King and Vice President General Holiefield had little to say to about 200 local leaders Monday at a regional UAW office in Warren, Mich., said one official who attended the meeting.

Neither King nor Holiefield talked about sticking points in the talks at Chrysler, the last of the Detroit automakers without an agreement with the union. The two spoke for a short time and said they were not ready to recommend a deal to the membership, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private.

“The introductions were longer than the meeting,” the official said.

Workers at General Motors Co. approved a new contract late last month. Voting is under way at Ford Motor Co. At both companies, the union agreed to forego annual pay raises for most workers in favor of profit-sharing checks and signing bonuses. The companies held their labor costs steady but promised thousands of new union jobs.

Talks with the UAW are closely watched because they set the pay and benefits for 112,000 auto workers nationwide, and they set the bar for pay at auto parts suppliers and other manufacturers.

Bargaining continued with Chrysler through the weekend and into Monday morning over money issues, spokeswomen for both sides said. All the non-money issues have been settled for several days.

Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler and Italian automaker Fiat SpA, said Friday that the GM and Ford deals may be too rich for Chrysler. The company, unlike GM and Ford, lost money during the first half of the year.

Marchionne said he hopes a new deal can be reached without resorting to binding arbitration. Chrysler workers gave up the right to strike over wages under the terms of its 2009 government bailout. But either side in contract talks can take disputes to an arbitrator.

On Friday, the union and Chrysler were hung up on how many workers would be paid entry-level wages and the size of signing bonuses and profit-sharing checks, the local union official said.

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Investors were cautious on Friday ahead of U.S. jobs figures, with stocks down slightly after enjoying a couple of bumper days on hopes of a Europe-wide plan to fix the banking sector.

After a week of wild gyrations stemming from Europe’s debt crisis, investors are turning their attention to the U.S. government’s jobs report for September _ the payrolls data often set the market tone for a week or two after their release.

Following last month’s unexpectedly flat outcome and a raft of better than anticipated economic data, hopes are that the U.S. economy generated around 60,000 jobs during September, though some in the markets think it could be double that. That’s still low and not enough to get the unemployment rate down from the 9.1 percent level.

“Modest job gains will do little to alleviate concerns about the pace of recovery, however, with the risk of recession remaining all too real,” said Mitul Kotecha, an analyst at Credit Agricole.

Those concerns have dominated European trading following two big days of gains. Earlier, Asian shares advanced following the previous day’s continuing advance.

Germany’s DAX was down 0.2 percent at 5,631 while the CAC-40 in France fell 0.5 percent to 3,062. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.4 percent lower at 5,272, with Lloyds Banking Group PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland PLC underperforming in the wake of a downgrade of their credit ratings from Moody’s.

Wall Street was poised for a modestly lower opening, too _ Dow futures fell 0.3 percent to 11,015 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell the same rate to 1,154.

Trading in currency markets was also subdued ahead of the figures, with the euro unchanged at $1 guaranteed high risk personal loans.3426 and the dollar flat at 76.77 yen.

Beyond the U.S. figures, investors will continue to digest developments in Europe’s debt crisis. Over the past couple of days, there have been mounting hopes that European policymakers are preparing a plan to shore up the banking sector in the event of a Greek debt default.

Thursday’s decisions by the Bank of England to launch new monetary stimulus and a big liquidity operation from the European Central Bank have also helped support investor sentiment.

“Hopes that European politicians have a good understanding on the potential need to recapitalise the banking system has been key support to risk appetite in recent sessions,” said Jane Foley, an analyst at Rabobank International. “The very nature of the political process is slow, however, suggesting that once again there is room for disappointment and volatility in the markets.”

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index rose 1 percent to close at 8,605.62 after the country’s central bank said the economy is “picking up” and predicted an eventual return to a moderate recovery.

South Korea’s Kospi index jumped 2.9 percent to close at 1,759.77 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ended 3.1 percent higher at 17,707 after surging 5.7 percent the day before.

Markets in mainland China were closed for a weeklong holiday.

Oil prices tracked equities lower _ benchmark crude oil for November delivery was down 55 cents to $82.94.

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Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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