Washington - AFP
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that thanks to measures taken by Europe to tamp down the debt crisis, the continent no longer posed major risks to the global economy. \"People here in the United States and around the world can be more confident now that Europe is not going to cause a huge amount of damage to the global economy or to our economy,\" Geithner said Thursday, on the \'Nightly Business Review\' show on the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) network. Geithner\'s comments came in response to a question about whether he thought the worst of the European financial crisis had past. Across the Atlantic, Greece seemed to have clinched a high-stakes debt swap Thursday as a deadline for bondholders to accept huge losses on their Greek holdings came and went, opening the way for an urgent bailout. \"Over the last few months, (the Europeans) have done a much better job getting their arms around this and getting people more confidence around the world that they are going to contain the risk of crisis,\" Geithner said. Nevertheless, he added, \"it is going to be a really difficult long road for them.\"