George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, has denied that his country is getting ready to leave the euro zone. Rumours that Athens was quitting the single currency has lead to a fall in the value of the euro.

Finance ministers from the Eurozone's biggest economies have been holding talks on Greece's debt crisis. Greece's sovereign debt stands at $470bn.

That is more than a year-and-a-half of its entire economic output. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund agreed a loan of $160bn in May last year.

The terms were eased in the spring but the financial markets consider the high repayments as unsustainable, leading to growing fears of a default which could spell disaster for the euro zone.

Tim Friend reports.