Greece accepted a bailout deal including tough austerity measures, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announced Sunday.

He did not reveal the size of the package negotiated with the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund, saying it would be announced in Brussels, Belgium, later on Sunday.

It includes a promise by Greece to cut its budget deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product, as required by European Union rules, by 2014, he said.

Greece had a choice between "destruction" and saving the country, and "we have chosen of course to save the country," Papaconstantinou said.

The head of the European Commission Sunday praised the Greek government for committing to "a difficult but necessary reform process."

The program "constitutes a solid and credible package," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a statement.

Final details are expected to be announced from Brussels around 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. [Read the full article]

Mexico and Germany are starting three days of meetings with 45 countries, teaming up in an effort to break a deadlock in talks for a global climate deal.

Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen told reporters in Koenigswinter on Sunday that the international community still faces the challenge to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial times.

Since December, momentum in the drive to control global warming has slowed in some countries. The U.S. has not tackled its domestic energy bill; and Australia -- one of the world's biggest per capita polluters -- put off for as long as two years legislation setting up carbon trading.

Roettgen has said his country and others have not given up on striking a deal at the U.N. climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, Nov. 29-Dec. 10. [Read the full article]

Greece has reached a deal on a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, the first such rescue of a eurozone country, according to published media reports.

Greek's finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, Sunday announced the measures and called upon the Greek people to make sacrifices in order to avoid default, according to an Associated Press report.

"We are called on today to make a basic choice. The choice is between collapse or salvation," Papaconstantinou was quoted saying in the report.

The full amount of the three-year rescue package from the EU and IMF will be announced after an emergency meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels, the report said.

But Papaconstantinou, who was headed to the meeting following his news conference in Athens, said the amount would be "close to" numbers that have been widely reported, the report added. [Read the full article]

Switzerland's UBS (UBS - News; VTX:UBSN.VX - News), looks set to top analysts' expectations next week by posting a first-quarter net profit of between 2.2 billion Swiss francs and 2.5 billion Swiss francs ($2.0 billion to $2.3 billion), a Swiss newspaper reported without citing sources. UBS, which said last month its pretax profit would be at least 2.5 billion Swiss francs, is seen swinging to a first-quarter net profit of 2.02 billion francs, according to the average estimate in a Reuters poll.

The world's No.2 wealth manager by assets said the pretax profit, which would be its largest since the credit crisis began, was likely driven by fixed-income revenue, especially in forex trading, where UBS has a 15 percent share.

Switzerland's SonntagsZeitung newspaper reported on Sunday that UBS's fixed-income assets unit would account for earnings of $2.3 billion. [Read the full article]