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/ 18 February 2004
Papa Wemba, the Congolese music star accused of involvement in an illegal immigration scam, was questioned in Belgium on Tuesday after his arrest and extradition from France, officials said.
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/ 17 February 2004
The European Union will agree this week to roll over sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe for a third year, notably extending a list of officials banned from the EU, diplomats say. The sanctions were first slapped on the regime of President Robert Mugabe in 2002 for human-rights abuses and ballot fraud after he retained his grip on power in a controversial election victory.
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/ 10 February 2004
The European Union is set to agree this month to roll over for a third year sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe, notably extending a list of officials banned from the EU, diplomats say. The sanctions were first slapped on the regime of President Robert Mugabe in 2002.
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/ 30 January 2004
European Union antitrust officials cleared the ,5-billion merger of South Africa’s AngloGold with Ghana’s Ashanti Goldfields on Friday, a deal that will create one of the world’s top gold producers.
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/ 28 January 2004
European Union foreign ministers are poised to extend sanctions against Zimbabwe next month, reports said on Tuesday. The ministers, due to meet in Brussels on February 23, will approve the renewal of targeted sanctions on leaders of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, diplomats have confirmed.
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/ 27 January 2004
European Union regulators are circulating a draft decision in their long-running antitrust case against US software giant Microsoft, but have yet to decide on fines, a spokesperson said.
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/ 3 December 2003
The European Commission was left humiliated last week after European Union finance ministers ignored its demands to punish France and Germany for borrowing too heavily. In a move widely condemned as a political fudge, most ministers decided to suspend the sanctions mechanisms.
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/ 17 November 2003
Gunter Verheugen, the German Social Democrat in charge of enlargement at the European Commission, is looking a little more relaxed these days, though he’s not demob-happy quite yet. After giving the European Union’s 10 incoming members a fairly clean bill of health, the moment is approaching when he will be out of a job.
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/ 11 November 2003
Microsoft is to launch a last-ditch effort on Wednesday to avoid harsh penalties in Europe for alleged monopoly behaviour that could force it to change the way it sells its ubiquitous Windows software. Microsoft’s underlying aim is likely to be sniffing out the prospects for a damage-controlling settlement with the European Union.
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/ 10 November 2003
The European Union has postponed until December a vote on a request to import genetically-modified foodstuffs, which would end a five-year moratorium on such products, the European Commission said on Monday.
Environmentalists have accused the European Commission of giving in to corporate and government lobbying from Britain and elsewhere after it emerged that European Union legislation on the safety of industrial chemicals has been watered down.
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/ 16 September 2003
The European Union has urged a radical overhaul of the World Trade Organisation after the embarrassing collapse of trade liberalisation talks for the second time in four years. Pascal Lamy, Europe’s trade commissioner, said that the breakdown in Cancun, Mexico, meant the negotiating round was in need of ”intensive care”.
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/ 11 September 2003
The European Union demanded on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority take ”all necessary concrete measures” against the ”enemies of peace” responsible for twin suicide attacks against Israelis this week.
The International Criminal Court is likely to investigate war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), its chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said this week.
It may take some time — perhaps even the entire six months of Italy’s European Union presidency — to get over Silvio Berlusconi’s jaw-dropping performance in the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week. But the institution seems destined to quickly return to its normal sleepy ways.
The European Union’s special envoy for Africa’s Great Lakes region, Aldo Ajello, was on Tuesday set to begin a tour of central Africa aimed at restoring stability in Democratic Republic of Congo’s troubled Ituri region, a statement said.
The European Union’s first Constitution, creating a union president and foreign minister, has been 15 tortuous months in the making in Valery Giscard d’Estaing’s Convention.
Their pay and perks may be the stuff of popular legend, but thousands of angry European Union officials went on strike this week to protest ”a provocative attack” on their fringe benefits.
Agreements that allow the European Union to pay African nations for the right to fish in their waters need to ensure better protection of stocks and more benefits to local communities, the World Wildlife Fund said on Tuesday.
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/ 20 February 2003
An EU country that fights in a war against Iraq may be allowed to relax strict rules governing the euro zone in the worst-case scenario of worldwide recession, said a confidential document obtained by AFP on Wednesday.
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/ 6 February 2003
EU ambassadors struck an agreement ”in principle” Wednesday to extend sanctions against Zimbabwe, but the deal still has to be finalised at a new meeting next week, diplomats said.
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/ 5 February 2003
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned on Tuesday a campaign of intimidation against Zimbabwe’s top opposition independent newspaper the Daily News.
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/ 17 December 2002
The European Union seemed further apart than ever Tuesday on bitterly contested plans to rescue levels of several species of fish, notably cod, from the brink of collapse.
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/ 6 December 2002
Lights have been burning late in the European Union Council of Ministers building the last few nights as diplomats have scrabbled to conclude complex negotiations leading to the largest expansion in the club’s history.
Representatives from the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries were meeting in Brussels on Monday morning in a last-ditch effort to save a EU-ACP joint parliamentary assembly.
The European Union said on Saturday it regretted a new bilateral accord between Washington and Romania granting US troops in a foreign nation immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
A plan by diamond giant De Beers to overhaul its distribution system is likely to win approval soon from the European Commission, a source familiar with the situation said this week.
The families or heirs of Jews whose possessions were plundered in Belgium during World War II will receive 55,5-million euros.
The European Commission on Monday approved a plan by De Beers to overhaul its distribution system of more than -billion of rough diamonds a year to help drive demand for the precious stones.
Belgian brewer Interbrew said on Monday it plans to take legal action against the British newspaper The Guardian after it refused to hand over leaked documents alleging the company was planning to take over South African Breweries.
One of the surviving sons of a Belgian pastor jailed for life for killing two of his wives and four of his children was arrested because of fears that he might begin his own killing spree.
Microsoft could face new fines for possible violations of European data protection laws, the European Union’s head office said.