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/ 4 September 2008
Defending Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen has insisted he can retain his crown this year despite a string of unimpressive results.
It’s one of the world’s largest flowers, it stinks of rotting meat or rancid cheese and looks very much like a giant penis.
Belgium leaders were in negotiations on Wednesday to resolve a fresh dispute between its Dutch-speaking Flemish majority and French-speaking minority.
Tuesday’s reactions to Belgium’s latest government crisis reflected long-standing divisions among the country’s political parties.
The European Union is on track to hit its short-term target for reducing emissions of the gases that create global warming, but challenges remain.
A decision has yet to be taken on whether Belgian rider Tom Boonen will be allowed to start next month’s Tour de France following his positive test for cocaine, Patrick Lefevere, manager of his Quick Step cycling team, said on Wednesday.
Former Democratic Republic of Congo leader Jean-Pierre Bemba on Wednesday asked Belgian authorities to release him and vowed to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) that ordered his arrest for alleged war crimes. He was arrested on Saturday in a suburb of the Belgian capital, Brussels, on an ICC warrant.
World number two brewer InBev was on the verge of merger talks with Anheuser Busch, a newspaper said on Tuesday, while consolidation fever drove up shares in global leader SABMiller. SABMiller shares shot up as much as 8,2% to a 19-week high of £13,24.
The worst of the financial-sector crisis is over, although the impact on the broader economy will likely drag on in coming months, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Thursday. "There are good reasons to believe that the largest part of disclosure in financial institutions has been done," he said.
Women’s world number one Justine Henin on Wednesday announced her retirement from competitive tennis at a press conference in her native Belgium. ”I have decided to put an end to my tennis-playing career,” she said, confirming reports in the Belgian press.
A British government agency has told the European Commission that Microsoft Office works poorly with rival software used in British schools. Programs must meet the same standards to work together but the British agency said Microsoft offers only its own ”open standard” rather than effective support for Open Document Format.
Microsoft on Friday lodged an appeal at a European court against the record €899-million fine imposed on it by the EU Commission for defying a landmark anti-trust ruling. "Microsoft today filed with the Court of First Instance an application to annul the Commission decision of February 27," a spokesperson for the US software giant said in Brussels.
Russia’s deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war ”very close”, a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday. Separately, the ”foreign minister” of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.
Georgia on Wednesday slammed Russia’s plans to boost peacekeeping troops in two rebel Georgian regions as the start of "full-scale military aggression". "It’s hard to believe that this is being done for the purposes of peacekeeping; it’s rather the beginning of full-scale military aggression," Georgian Foreign Minister David Bakradze said.
The European Union launched the second and final test satellite for its ,3-billion rival to the United States Global Positioning System on Sunday, brushing off industry doubts over its viability. The Galileo project, Europe’s biggest single space programme, has been plagued by delays and squabbling over funding.
Four Algerian immigrants on Thursday began a third day protesting atop a crane in Brussels, in a high-level campaign near to the municipal immigration office. Two of the men are seeking residency rights while the third, who has already been granted the right to stay, wants to become a naturalised Belgian.
Belgian bank KBC on Thursday stood accused of aiding the sale of military equipment to South Africa during the apartheid era. Jorge Pinhol, a former race-car driver turned businessman and self-proclaimed middle man in the deal, has filed a complaint against KBC and its Luxembourg unit KBL seeking -million in unpaid fees.
Fringed by dark hills of coal waste and long-shuttered collieries, Belgium’s first national park might seem a humble contender for the role of global model for conservation and economic regeneration. The pine woods and heather meadows of the Hoge Kempen Park in north-eastern Belgium sit on a small plateau above criss-crossing motorways and cooling towers.
Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs could cause a "humanitarian tsunami" in Africa, European Union Development Commissioner Louis Michel warned on Tuesday. "A world food crisis is emerging, less visible than the oil [price] crisis, but with the potential effect of real economic and humanitarian tsunami in Africa," Michel said in a statement.
The prospect of France returning to Nato’s military command after more than four decades of estrangement is tilting the balance of transatlantic relations. The United States is courting France as a new partner in leadership, overshadowing Britain and Germany, diplomats and analysts say, even though President Nicolas Sarkozy is likely to skirt the reintegration issue at this week’s Bucharest summit.
China’s crackdown on protests in Tibet has left at least 135 people dead, 1 000 injured and 400 arrested, the head of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile said in Brussels on Wednesday. ”Information from Tibet is very difficult to get, but we have sources who are very reliable, who phone us at the risk of their lives,” parliamentary speaker Karma Chophel said.
Belgian political parties announced on Tuesday they had reached a deal to form a new national government, ending a nine-month political stalemate that had threatened to split the country apart. Prime Minister-designate Yves Leterme, whose Flemish Christian Democrats won elections in June, announced the deal after all-night talks.
France on Tuesday won European Union approval to give â,¬99-million to several companies hoping to build a European rival to United States internet search giant Google. The EU executive says this helped fill a funding gap for something that might not otherwise win financial support.
Zimbabwe’s crackdown on political dissent may need to be discussed by the United Nations Security Council, a prominent Southern African human rights activist declared this week. Opponents of President Robert Mugabe have reported large-scale harassment and intimidation in the tense period leading to elections due later this month.
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/ 27 February 2008
The European Commission fined Microsoft a record €899-million on Wednesday for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust ruling against the United States software giant. The fine comes on top of the €497-million that Microsoft already had to pay after Europe’s top antitrust watchdog found the company guilty in 2004 of abusing its dominant market power.
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/ 23 February 2008
Passengers travelling between European Union countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their cellphone numbers and credit-card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years.
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/ 13 February 2008
The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday a plan to fingerprint all foreigners visiting 24 European countries. The electronic register, similar to a policy adopted by the United States after the September 11 2001 attacks could go into effect by 2015 if governments and European lawmakers agree, the European Union executive said.
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/ 23 January 2008
The European Union’s executive adopted landmark proposals on Wednesday that will make the 27-nation bloc a world leader in the fight against climate change, but trade-offs will include higher energy bills. The European Commission approved detailed plans to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth and set each EU state individual targets.
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/ 22 January 2008
The European Union’s exective commission fine-tuned a blueprint to slash the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions amid lobbying on Tuesday over details which environmentalists said over indulged oil companies and airlines. The EU is trying to lead the global fight against climate change without harming a fragile economy.
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/ 22 January 2008
Internet protocol (IP) addresses, a string of numbers that identifies a computer, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union’s group of data privacy regulators said on Monday. Google insists an IP address merely identifies the location of a computer, not who the individual user is.
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/ 21 January 2008
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged on Monday to hold free elections as he began a four-country European trip aimed at winning international support. Musharraf’s popularity has slumped over recent months in Pakistan, which has been racked by militant attacks, and faces a parliamentary election on February 18.
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/ 15 January 2008
Belgium’s main political parties sat down on Tuesday to thrash out a new power-sharing agreement and try to avoid any repeat of the political crisis that shook the kingdom last year. The forum is dubbed the ”Octopus”, as its 20 members are drawn from the eight principal parties.