Euro gains on crisis progress

NEW YORK, Nov 12 (AFP): The euro jumped 1.4 cents against the dollar Friday after Greece, Italy and Portugal all made progress toward implementing bankruptcy-avoiding austerity plans. At 2200 GMT, the euro was at $1.3739, compared to $1.3599 late Thursday. The euro also jumped to 105.97 yen from 105.58 yen, while the dollar fell to 77.12 yen from 77.63. A very tentative breath of relief was felt in stocks and currency markets as the three embattled eurozone states made political process toward getting reform programmes underway that could avert meltdowns at the national and even regional level. Italian lawmakers gave their initial approval to a package of key reforms aimed at staving off bankruptcy, Greece's new unity government was sworn in to ratify the crucial EU bailout, and in Portugal, lawmakers gave preliminary approval to the government's 2012 austerity budget.