European Union governments have settled on a reform of rules to guarantee the stability of the euro, satisfying German and French demands that euro-zone nations be given more room to spend their way out of economic problems. National Budget deficits will still not be allowed to exceed 3% of gross domestic product.
The European Union’s foreign and security policy chief, Javier Solana, on Wednesday promised strong support for the creation of an independent state of Palestine, saying the 25-nation bloc is determined to help Palestinians build up the structures of a viable and separate state.
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/ 23 February 2005
The European Union threatened on Wednesday to slap unspecified ”measures” on the West African nation of Togo, where Faure Gnassingbe has been installed as President by the army. The EU said it fully supports efforts aimed at restoring ”constitutional order and the democratic process” to Togo.
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/ 22 February 2005
United States President George Bush on Tuesday thanked Nato leaders for helping to train Iraqi security forces, but made clear that plans to lift a European arms embargo on China still trouble transatlantic ties. Bush is in Belgium on a whirlwind campaign to repair US-Europe relations ripped apart by the Iraq war
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/ 18 February 2005
Peter Mandelson, the European Union trade commissioner, this week launched a fresh onslaught on protectionist forces in Europe and the rest of the world and demanded the dismantling of virtually all barriers to trade in goods and services.
Mandelson argued in Stockholm that opening up European and global markets as a whole is the key to promoting growth and jobs at home — and fighting poverty in the Third World.
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/ 4 February 2005
South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, accused the European Union on Friday of keeping African farmers poor. He also questioned the moral leadership of the United States as he backed a British-led initiative to boost aid for Africa, for which plans are being discussed at Group of Seven talks in London.
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/ 1 February 2005
Microsoft chief Bill Gates visits the headquarters of the European Union on Tuesday, at a time when there is still a disagreement with the EU head office over how the software giant should adapt to the landmark ruling against it. Microsoft said it will respect last March’s ruling while its appeal is pending before EU courts.
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/ 18 January 2005
British Minister of Finance Gordon Brown claimed strong backing from his European Union colleagues on Tuesday for a plan to revive Africa through debt cancellation and a doubling in aid. Fresh from a four-nation African tour, Brown said a meeting of EU finance ministers agreed on the need to ease the burden of Africa’s debt.
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/ 12 January 2005
The European Parliament gave its overwhelming endorsement to the European Union’s first-ever Constitution on Wednesday and urged EU governments to follow suit. "This is an important moment in the history of the Parliament, and it is an important moment in Europe’s ratification of Europe’s Constitution," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.
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/ 16 December 2004
European Union leaders gather on Thursday to make a long-awaited decision on launching entry talks with Turkey. They are widely expected to give the green light despite last-ditch haggling over the exact terms of the offer. Turkey cautioned on the eve of the two-day EU summit that it will not agree to start negotiations ”at any price”.
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/ 15 December 2004
A large majority of European parliamentarians on Wednesday voted for Turkey’s entry into the European Union, setting the scene for the bloc’s expected decision on December 16 and 17 to fix a date for opening entry talks with Ankara. A total of 407 EU lawmakers voted in favour of Turkey’s membership of the union.
Turkey won’t join EU on conditions
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/ 2 December 2004
The vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Azarias Ruberwa, has called on Rwanda to withdraw troops from his country , after United Nations officials reported possible movements of Rwandan troops crossing the border. Ruberwa, who led a Rwandan-backed rebel group before joining the DRC’s postwar transitional government in September, said his country had taken its case to the United Nations Security Council.
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/ 23 November 2004
Without urgent action ”the world is unlikely to gain the upper hand over Aids”, two UN agencies warned on Tuesday. New data shows nearly 40 million people now have HIV and over three million will die of Aids this year, the highest toll in the 23-year history of the killer disease.
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/ 5 November 2004
The European Union and the United States recommitted themselves to a smooth transatlantic relationship on Friday and hoped the second term of US President George Bush will no longer be marred by nasty political and trade disputes. But French President Jacques Chirac remained wary of Washington’s global economic and political clout.
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/ 19 October 2004
The European Union reached a settlement on Tuesday of its long-running antitrust case against the Coca-Cola Company, under which the world’s biggest soft-drinks company agreed to change sales practices that helped it win roughly half of the market in Europe.
The European Union’s head office criticised security forces and rebels in Côte d’Ivoire on Tuesday for continued violence as well as foot-dragging in organising elections called for in a deal last year that ended the country’s civil war. A Côte presidential spokesperson said the government is open to dialogue with the EU.
A SN Brussels airliner made an emergency landing after an ”agitated” passenger — a cat — got into the cockpit and attacked the co-pilot, the airline said on Tuesday. The pilot decided to return to Brussels as a precaution, and the 58 passengers left Brussels two hours later on another flight.
A gas pipeline in southern Belgium exploded in a ball of fire on Friday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 200, many of them seriously. Belgian authorities immediately rolled out a high-level disaster reaction plan as hundreds of firefighters and emergency service personnel raced to the scene of the explosion in Ath.
Sudan on Monday rejected the use of the term genocide to describe events in its eastern Darfur region in a resolution by the United States Congress. ”What is happening in Darfur is not genocide. It is a humanitarian crisis provoked by fighting which is not our fault,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said.
Independent music producer association Impala said on Tuesday a decision by the European Commission to clear Sony Corporation and Bertelsmann’s recorded music merger is ”flawed” and that it is now mulling its options. The association said its members ”are very disappointed that the EU has authorised this merger without any attempt to solve the competition issues that the Commission itself identified”.
The European Union has announced the delivery of €42-million to a United Nations-sponsored global fund to combat Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. The money, part of a €460-million pledge, will be used for programs geared to boost prevention, treatment and care of the three diseases.
Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, has taken the first step to overturn a ruling by the European Commission that would force the firm to strip Media Player out of its Windows PC operating systems and pay a fine of about R4,2-billion.
No prizes for predicting that apathy and ignorance will ensure yet another record low turnout in this week’s European elections — just at the moment when 350-million people across the continent are eligible to vote. And that’s not only in the veteran European Union member states but, alarmingly, also in several of the eastern newcomers.
Lobbyists for the computer industry insisted on Sunday that a European Union decision finding Microsoft guilty of anti-competitive behaviour must stand, ahead of an expected appeal by the United States software giant. The Computer and Communications Industry Association said the March ruling by the European Commission was fair.
The European Union’s executive commission might launch an antitrust action against United States soft-drink giant Coca-Cola even as it seeks a settlement with the group, a commission spokesperson said on Tuesday. ”We have decided that both ways are possible,” said a spokesperson.
Osama bin Laden or like-minded terrorists could kill thousands of people and wreak global havoc by detonating a crude nuclear device in the heart of Europe, security experts warned this week. ”We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe,” said the former United States senator Sam Nunn.
European officials received a stark warning of threats posed by nuclear terrorism during an unprecedented simulation showing how al-Qaeda could kill 40 000 people and plunge the continent into chaos by exploding a crude device in Brussels.
The European Commission announced plans on Thursday to invest more than -million in transport and internet access for poor African nations. The new aid will help build roads and bridges in Uganda, Mali and Niger, and fund the installation of internet-capable computers in East and Southern Africa.
The European Union declared Microsoft guilty on Wednesday of abusing its "near monopoly" with Windows to squeeze competitors in other markets and levied a record fine of 497,2-million euros ($613-million). The EU’s antitrust authority is also demanding changes in the way the United States software company operates.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=33115">Microsoft rivals hail decision</a>
World leaders on Monday condemned as unlawful the killing of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and warned Israel may have buried the peace process along with any hope of resolving the bloody Arab-Israeli conflict.
EU competition watchdogs met on Monday with officials from EU states seeking their accord to slap sanctions on software giant Microsoft for abusing its dominant market position. A source close to the talks said that EU competition commissioner Mario Monti ”should get the support” of member states, who rarely overturn a decision by the European Commission.
The European Union promised action on Tuesday to curb unsolicited bulk e-mails in a new sign of international determination to stop ”spam” messages. EU telecommunications ministers meeting in Brussels promised to speed up slow implementation of an EU-wide law agreed two years ago banning commercial spam.