by Calculated Risk on 11/10/2011 07:32:00 AM

• The Italian 10 year bond yield fell to 6.89% after hitting 7.48% yesterday.

• From Bloomberg: Italy’s Senate Speeds Austerity Vote

Italy’s Senate rushed to pass debt- reduction measures that clear the way for establishing a new government that may be led by former European Union Competition Commissioner Mario Monti in a bid to restore confidence in Europe’s second-biggest debtor.

The Senate is set to vote tomorrow on a package of measures including asset sales and an increase in the retirement age. The Chamber of Deputies may vote the following day ... Monti may be nominated as soon as Nov. 13, newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reported.

• From the NY Times: Debt Sale in Italy Steadies Markets

Italy raised €5 billion, or $6.8 billion, in an auction Thursday of one-year securities. The Italian Treasury sold the full allotment of bonds on offer, but it paid an average rate of 6.09 percent to do so, far above the 3.57 percent it paid for a similar offering on Oct. 3. It also marked the most Italy has had paid for such debt since September 1997, when the country still used the lira.

UPDATE on Greece: Reports are Former ECB Vice President Lucas Papademos will be named Prime Minister. From the Athens News:

"The new Greek interim government will be sworn in at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, according to sources.

Dr. Lucas Papademos, former governor of the central bank of Greece and former vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB), was on Thursday named as the new prime minister of Greece.

Papoulias gave Papademos a mandate to form the new interim government, a Presidency announcement said.

The 64-year-old Papademos, economic adviser to outgoing Premier Papandreou since 2010, was on Thursday named as the prime minister who will head a coalition government in Greece agreed by prime minister George Papandreou (ruling PASOK party leader) and main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Antonis Samaras that is being formed to pass through parliament a second EU-IMF bailout package for Greece agreed at an extraordinary eurozone summit on October 26 before leading the country to early general elections in three months' time, with the most likely date being February 19.