Recap of yesterday's commentary and items of interest for today - the Telegraph liveblog

10.24 Spain's government meets today to approve a €10bn in spending cuts, including healthcare, university education and working hours for teachers. Last night, PM Mariano Rajoy said the painful measures were necessary because "there is no money":

It's necessary, imperative because at this moment there is no money to pay for public services. There's no money because we have spent so much over the last few years. So we have to do this so that in the future we can get out of this situation.

08.50 Spain's ten-year bond yield edged above 6pc again this morning, but has since slipped back under - just - to 5.934pc. Meanwhile, in Germany, the ten-year yield reached a record low of 1.597pc, but has climbed to 1.692pc.

08.31 European markets are up and running for the day, setting themselves up for a third straight session of losses by slipping in the first half hour of trading. This weekend's IMF meeting was causing concern, despite suggestions this morning that its $400bn fundraising target was in sight, as Brazil demanded more power as a condition for lending extra cash. Markus Huber, head of German high net worth trading at ETX Capital, said:

If Brazil really digs its heels, I don't think the market will be too kind to it. There has to be unity, that's they only way investors think the crisis can be contained.

08.07 All this talk of the IMF being likely to reach its $400bn target has pushed the euro up in Asia, to $1.3159 and 107.23 yen in Tokyo, compared with $1.3134 and 107.19 yen late yesterday.

07.51 We mentioned earlier this morning (06.56) that the Japanese finance minister thinks the IMF had a good chance of reaching its $400bn target to increase its bailout firepower. Now ECB Governing Council member Klaas Knot has said in an interview with De Telegraaf that it should hit at least $350bn:

Even though the IMF money is not specifically designed for Europe, the European debt crisis is now the biggest threat to the world economy. So that the IMF will focus on this. That's a lot of money we are talking about, sufficient to keep countries such as Italy and Spain within the fold.

The new European emergency fund now has €800bn. The European central banks have €150bn loans to the IMF. Japan has pledged $60bn, Britain $15bn, Sweden, Denmark and Norway together now more than $30bn. China, still about $40bn to $50bn. That is all together about $350bn. With help from countries like Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and India, a sum of between $400 and $500 billion is in easy reach.

07.23 The big news overnight is that the EC is to defy austerity plans by demanding an EU budget increase of 7pc - meaning that British taxpayers will have to sent an extra £900m to Brussels next year. The Daily Telegraph has learnt that a draft Brussels budget for 2013 sets a "substantial" spending increase of £7.4bn, which is over 4pc above the rate of EU inflation. The document will be unveiled on Wednesday, and go up for approval at a Brussels summit in June.

Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, called on David Cameron to refuse to pay:

We should tell them, here's our frozen contribution, if you don't like it, tough. In Britain the Treasury phones government departments and tells them what money there is. We should extend the same principle to the EU budget.

07.11 Controversy is raging in Germany over back-door rescues, writesAmbrose Evans-Pritchard, with soaring "payments" by the Bundesbank going to shore up Europe's monetary system:

Professor Hans-Werner Sinn, head of Germany's IFO Institute, said German taxpayers are facing a dangerous rise in credit risk from a plethora of bail-out schemes. "The euro-system is near explosion," he told Austria's Economics Academy on Thursday.

Dr Sinn said Germany is on the hook for much of the €2.1 trillion (£1.72 trillion) in rescue measures for EMU debtors - often by the back-door - that will saddle Germans with ruinous losses one day. "It is a horror scenario," he said.

06.56 It seems that the IMF will get the donations it needs to increase its firepower to $400bn. Japan's finance minister Jun Azumi (who himself pledged $60bn this week) said:

I think it is becoming highly possible that we will achieve a sum near the targeted $400 billion. I think this will give relief and stability to the global economy.

06.15 Moody's has said that Italy and Spain cannot sustain their current borrowing costs and face a "high risk of default".

"The European Central Bank will need to buy more government bonds, and we cannot rule out further liquidity injections into the banking sector," the Moody's economists said. "In the medium term, changes will be needed in the design, and possibly the membership, of the single-currency union."

Citigroup backed the view, warning that Spain will need a bail-out by the EU, ECB and International Monetary Fund within months. "Spain will need to enter some form of a Troika program" some time this year, Citi's economists said in a note.

06.10 Telegraph commentator Jeremy Warner pointed out the appropriate nature of Christine Lagarde's latest accessory - a crutch. Ms Lagarde is seeking donations to boost a firewall to protect the eurozone, but she faces an unphill task and there's no certainty such protection will even work, Jeremy writes.

There always seems to be some kind of accoutrement on hand when Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund's managing director, makes her public appearances. In Davos this year, she'd brought her "little bag" to collect money for eurozone bailouts.

For this week's spring meeting of the IMF in Washington DC, she's brought a crutch. This time it's not deliberate. She's recently undergone a knee operation. Yet it seems no less appropriate. The world economy is on crutches too.

In requesting additional funds, Madame Lagarde has stressed again today that no country has ever lost money lending to the IMF. This is of course true, but then there is always a first time, and the eurozone crisis, an advanced economy fiscal meltdown quite without precedent in the IMF's 67 year history, may well be it. The amounts at stake are also much larger than ever before, and the possibility of an eventual break-up of Europe's monetary union make the risks much higher.

06.05 Yesterday IMF director-general Christine Lagarde was on the offensive, trying to drum up more financial support for her "firewall". She has $320bn, and she's after a further $80bn. Speaking at the start of theIMF spring meeting in Washington last night, she said it was "in the UK's interest" to commit more funds, adding:

We expect our firepower to be significantly increased as an outcome of this meeting.