World

Greece may have only a 46-hour window of opportunity should it need to plot a route out of the euro.

That’s how much time the country’s leaders would probably have to enact any departure from the single currency while global markets are largely closed, from the end of trading in New York on a Friday to Monday’s market opening in Wellington, New Zealand, based on a synthesis of euro-exit scenarios from 21 economists, analysts and academics.

CAIRO—Determined to end decades of authoritarian rule, millions of Egyptians on Wednesday waited patiently in long lines outside polling stations across the nation to freely chose their first president since last year’s ouster of longtime ruler and close US ally Hosni Mubarak.

“I can die in a matter of months, so I came for my children, so they can live,” a tearful Medhat Ibrahim, who suffers from cancer, said as he waited to vote in a poor district south of Cairo.

Australia is the world’s happiest nation based on criteria including income, jobs, housing and health, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said.

Australia led Norway and the US, the Paris-based group’s Better Life Index showed, when each of 11 categories surveyed in 36 nations is given equal weight.

Life expectancy at birth in Australia is almost 82 years, two years higher than the OECD average, the survey showed. More than 72 percent of people aged 15 to 64 in Australia have a paid job, above the OECD average of 66 percent.