(19.10.) As it emerged that no decisions would be taken by European leaders until an unprecedented second eurozone summit next Wednesday, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao told EU leaders to stop the debt crisis spreading and lectured them on the need for structural reform.

His outspoken comments, in a phone call with Herman Van Rompuy, the European council president, came after Brussels cancelled an EU-China summit planned for Wednesday and hours after Barack Obama had a transatlantic video conference call with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel.