From airlines champing at the bit to get back in the air over western Europe despite Iceland's volcanic ash, to some dirty dealings at Goldman Sachs, questions of risk and risk-taking are dominating the news cycle this week. But what happens if we avoid risk all-together? Is it even possible?

• FINANCIAL TAKEOUT:  Global economists have been examining the frightening harbingers of Greece's economic fall, but the causes may be all too familiar to the U.S. American economies may be dangerously close to experiencing the same failings that we saw in Greece. Louise Story, Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times, explains which states might suffer the worst.
• SPORTS TAKEOUT: Takeaway Sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin analyzes the NIT Tournament which begins tomorrow.  Some call the NIT the "other" College Basketball Tournament and Abdul-Matin wonders if that stigma is still deserved.

As European nations in the Iberian Peninsula fall deeper into debt, the U.S. markets came tumbling down on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing just above 10,000 points. All this comes hours before new jobless numbers are released.

The British government is considering a controversial measure to reduce the number of smokers by half in ten years. It wants to sell cigarettes in packs featuring only the text of the cigarette brand set on a uniform gray background. But tobacco companies are resisting the move. 

Iceland’s president, Olafur Grimsson, is refusing to sign a bill committing Iceland to pay back $5 billion dollars in loans owed to the governments of the U.K. and the Netherlands. We spoke with Gylfi Magnusson, Minister of Economic Affairs for Iceland, about the country's next steps and its relationship with the IMF.

On Dec. 3, 1984, 40 tons of poisonous gases escaped the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India. Thousands of people died. The Union Carbide factory is now abandoned and Union Carbide a subsidiary of chemical giant Dow, but the leak's effects on Bhopal still linger in contaminated water supplies and the chronic illnesses of survivors. BBC correspondent Allan Little returned to the Indian city on the 25th anniversary of the disaster and talked to residents still looking for justice.

World financial markets are poised to react to last week's news that Dubai World, the financial conglomerate largely responsible for Dubai's rapid expansion, will request an extension to pay back some $60 billion in loans. Dubai has the largest population in the United Arab Emirates and up until recently has enjoyed excesses such as building 7 star hotels on artificial islands; the Gulf nation is now trying to figure out how to surf its way through a major debt crisis. 

On Sunday, the United Arab Emirates' central bank announced that they would protect any banks operating in Dubai. We turn to New York Times financial correspondent Landon Thomas, Jr. to discuss the troubles a possible loan default from Dubai could spell for the rest of the world. 

Nelson Schwartz, the European economics correspondent for The New York Times, joins us with a look at recent news from General Motors. This week, the financially strapped American car company posted its first monthly sales increase in nearly two years. With money on the books, General Motors is now reconsidering a deal to sell a majority stake in its German subsidiary, Opel.