Britain has a chance to flourish if it leaves the European Union and would be better off outside the 28-nation bloc if policymakers fail to renegotiate the country’s position within it, according to the head of the British Chambers of Commerce. John Longworth said it would be “crazy” to think that Britain would be shut out if it left the EU, though an exit would be “disruptive” and less preferable than staying in the bloc and bringing some powers back to Westminster. The BCC’s director general said the worst possible outcome would be for Britain to remain in an unreformed Europe. “It would be crazy to think if the UK exited the European Union it could not negotiate new trade deals with EU members,” he said. “EU countries sell more to the UK than we sell to them. Last year the UK was Germany’s biggest export market, larger than the US, larger than China. The thing is, whatever happens to the UK, it’s highly unlikely that these countries would erect trade barriers because it would damage them more than us.”  Mr Longworth’s comments were supported by the BCC’s latest business barometer, which showed rising numbers of UK businesses are in favour of renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU. The survey showed 60pc of respondents believed that renegotiation would be positive for their economic prospects, up from 54pc three months ago. “It is our preference to stay in the free trade area and renegotiate our relationship because that would give us the best of all worlds,” said Mr Longworth. I don't believe there will be any meaningful reform and that the Brexit has been priced in by the rest of the EU. The UK is looking at an exit and being outside is not going to be an easy ride. It's nice to believe in a half way house, but can't see it happening. The EU has always been about ever closer union so the UK not even agreeing to the EU's founding principles would be facing the exit. 

Germany's newest party, the Eurosceptic "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), has won its first seats in the state parliament of Saxony, according to preliminary results.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats won the vote with 39.5% according to exit polls. The AfD, which says it is anti-euro (the currency), rather than anti-Europe, won around 9.6% of the vote. Eurosceptic parties made large gains in the European elections in May. The projected results from Saxony, a state in eastern Germany, indicate a much more successful showing at the ballot box than had been predicted. The BBC's Damien McGuinness in Berlin says this is the first time that an anti-euro party has won seats in a German state parliament - which is big news in a country where support for the European Union is traditionally strong.

The AfD appeals to some conservative voters who think that Angela Merkel has moved too far to the centre, he adds.

The new party, which is one year old, entered the European parliament in May's elections, calling for the breakup of the euro and campaigning against bailouts for southern European countries.

However the party is seen by some as being controversial, accused of catering to nationalist sentiment and attracting right-wing extremists, our correspondent adds.

Angela Merkel, whose party sits on the centre-right, has ruled out any future coalition with AfD.

Ukraine could need a further $19bn in emergency international funding by the end of next year if there is no resolution to the escalating conflict in the east of the country, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

Peace talks are scheduled to resume this week in Minsk as the humanitarian disaster deepens and the outlook for Ukraine's economy darkens. Factories are shutting down, the country's industrial heartlands are under attack and the currency has been in freefall, contributing to a sharp increase in prices.

The IMF last week approved a $1.4bn (£840m) loan to Ukraine, the second tranche of its $17bn bailout programme agreed in April to stave off default.

Ukraine urgently needs IMF loans to support its budget and prop up its faltering currency as its debts come up for repayment. Almost $4bn must be repaid before the end of the year, with $9bn due in 2015. In exchange for IMF aid, Ukraine's government has agreed on sweeping economic reforms, including curbing public-sector wage increases, increasing energy prices to bring them more in line with market values, overhauling banking and currency regulations and tackling chronic graft that has made the country one of the most corrupt in the world.

The IMF praised Ukraine's progress, but said risks to the programme had increased. Since mid-July, the conflict has escalated, while Naftogaz, Ukraine's national gas company, and Gazprom, Russia's state energy group, have been locked in a standoff over the price of gas, which until recently the Russians supplied at a hefty discount. The dispute is likely to further increase Ukraine's debts.

France must reform its labour rules. The Unions must be tamed. The 35 hr week is nonsense. And employers must be allowed to hire and fire - mobility of labour is imperative. The only way economies can be rescued is by relaxing labour rules and by encouraging employers and would be employers to take on more workers - but the regulations must be permanent. If more people are in employment, social security payments will be reduced, income taxes will rise, overall production will rise and the voters will feel more content. Do not allow Unions to dictate nor politicians who buy votes by promising more entitlements. Many people will inevitably vote for freebies but politicians need to be responsible....The 35-hour limit to the working week, regardless of who you are and what you do (except of course M. Hollande, who has much more important things to do and not enough time to do them in...) stems from the stupid left-wing idea that there is a finite amount of work to go around. It was introduced as a way of supposedly reducing unemployment by sharing this work around. This naivety is shared by lefties everywhere, and explains why health, education and other needs of society must be shared out equally. Hence the leftie hostility to buying a better education or private health care. In fact work creates work (ask any successful self-employed person). Being creative, whether it be widgets, services or arty-farty things generates the demand for further widgets, services and art-farty things, and more jobs, for as many hours as people are willing to work. The French have been unbelievably stupid in failing to see this, so it is no surprise that they have shot themselves in the foot and their economy is barely breathing. Mind you, this disease is not limited to the French; the UK has a healthy dose too. The mind boggles at what this nation of ours could achieve if government and the EU was not stifling enterprise with excessive taxes, rules and regulations.

The global insurance industry covered $21bn (£12.7bn) of losses from disasters in the first half of 2014 as fewer natural catastrophes kept claims below their long-term average. The total economic cost of disasters in the first six months was $44bn of which natural events made up $41bn, figures from Swiss Re, the world's second-biggest reinsurer, showed. More than 4,700 people were killed by natural disasters during the period. The figure for overall economic costs was down from $59bn a year ago and was less than half the first-half average of $94bn in the last decade. The $21bn total bill for insurance companies fell from $25bn in the first half of last year and a 10-year average of $27bn. Natural disasters made up $19bn of costs in the first six months of 2014 with manmade events accounting for another $2bn. Insurance losses hit a record of $116bn in 2011 with most of the losses in the first half when the Japanese earthquake cost the industry $35bn. The most costly insured events in the first half of this year were the $2.6bn bill for May's thunderstorms and hail in the US and $2.5bn each for storm Ela, which hit France, Germany and Belgium in June, and a Japanese snow storm in February. The freezing winter that slowed the US economy in January also hit the insurance industry with insured losses of $1.7bn out of total losses of $2.5bn. Heavy flooding caused $4.5bn of losses in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and other east European countries but the cost to insurers was "moderate" because of low takeup of insurance, Swiss Re said.

Rampant inflation is the reason for stock markets gains ...IT IS NOT A GOOD SIGN !

Stock markets buoyed by hopes of Ukraine ceasefire they say - in fact the rising stock markets means that "inflation is rampant"

Wall Street has opened higher and European stock markets have been buoyed by news of an apparent ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine said its president Petro Poroshenko had agreed steps towards a “ceasefire regime” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but the Kremlin denied a deal had been struck, creating confusion on the eve of a NATO summit.However, Putin later said his views and those of his Ukrainian counterpart on finding a political solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine were “very close” and held out hope that an agreement between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels could by reached by Friday.The FTSE 100 index in London is up nearly 60 points at 6888.67, a 0.9% gain; the Dax in Frankfurt is 135 points higher at 9641.98, a 1.4% rise; and France’s CAC has climbed nearly 50 points to 4428.11, a 1.1% increase.Russia’s dollar-denominated RTS index jumped 5.5% while the rouble-based Micex gained 3.6%. The rouble gained 1.9% against the dollar.

Thieves covering for thives ...

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund has expressed confidence in its managing director, Christine Lagarde, after receiving a briefing on a French corruption investigation.

In a brief statement, the 24-member board said it continued to have “confidence in the managing director’s ability to effectively carry out her duties”. Lagarde called the investigation “without basis” after answering questions before magistrates in Paris on Wednesday. She and her former chief of staff are facing questions about their role in an arbitration ruling that handed 400m euros ($531m) to the French businessman Bernard Tapie.

Tapie had sued the French bank Credit Lyonnais for its handling of the sale of his majority stake in the sportswear company Adidas in the mid-1990s. In its statement, the IMF board said, “It would not be appropriate to comment on a case that has been and is currently before the French judiciary.”

In her statement on Wednesday, Lagarde said that after three years of proceedings and dozens of hours of questioning, the court had found no evidence that she had done anything wrong and that the only remaining allegation “is that I was not sufficiently vigilant”.

She said she was returning to Washington and her work at the IMF.

Under French law, the action to put Lagarde under official investigation is equivalent to a preliminary charge, which means there is reason to suspect an infraction. Investigating judges can later decide to drop the case or issue a formal charge and send the matter to trial.