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/ 14 February 2012
China concedes that it needs to work together with the EU to solve Europe’s debt crisis.
British Prime Minister David Cameron will block attempts to introduce EU-wide financial transaction tax based on fears of harming jobs and prosperity.
Google’s Eric Schmidt is to meet the European Commission’s antitrust chief amid signs that the search giant will be accused of abusing its position.
A major conservative party in Greece’s new unity government has refused to drop its opposition to signing reform pledges in return for crucial loans.
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/ 16 September 2011
At a time when the world is facing very important economic challenges, the EU-SA summit has shown that the parties share excellent relations still.
A piecemeal ban on short-selling of financial stocks in Europe sparked a rush of alternative proposals from countries and regulators.
Britain on Monday committed $147-million to boost key trade routes in sub-Saharan Africa, saying a further $1-billion had been pledged.
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/ 20 January 2009
EU finance ministers met in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss how to mitigate one of the bloc’s sharpest economic downturns in decades.
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/ 9 December 2008
EU leaders must show US president-elect Barack Obama they are serious about tackling economic slowdown and climate change by agreeing firm action.
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/ 24 October 2008
European Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s plan to grant €1-billion in aid for African farmers has run into trouble over financing.
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/ 16 October 2008
European Union leaders on Thursday stuck to a December deadline for reaching a final deal on fighting climate change.
Donors are ramping up aid to the neglected Central African Republic because they fear cross-border conflicts in Darfur and Chad could expand.
Any transitional government in Zimbabwe must include opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as premier, the European Commission said on Wednesday.
As the sun rose and shone, at last, on the traditional Friday rest day at the Monaco Grand Prix, the lurid shadow cast by the Max Mosley sex scandal continued to eclipse even the best efforts of the drivers. It barely mattered that 23-year-old Lewis Hamilton had performed brilliantly to set the fastest time for McLaren-Mercedes in Thursday’s opening practice sessions.
There were tears and sweat aplenty in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium on Wednesday, but barely any blood. English fans kept calm. Russia’s police avoided running amok. The result was that stereotypes of Russia as a harsh forbidding place lost another chunk of credibility, and its quest to be treated as a ”normal” country on the post-Cold War stage advanced a further step.
British Airways risks further undermining its relationship with pilots on Thursday as it starts selling tickets for its transatlantic OpenSkies airline. The Paris-to-New York service will begin flying on June 19 with the threat of crippling industrial action still hanging over its owner.
Aid was trickling in on Sunday to an estimated 2,5-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta as more foreign envoys tried to get the junta to admit large-scale international relief. The junta’s official toll from the disaster stands at 77 738 dead and 55 917 missing.
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.
The first United States military aid flight landed in Burma on Monday, but relief supplies continued to just dribble into the reclusive state nine days after a cyclone. A C-130 military transport plane left Thailand’s Vietnam war-era U-Tapao airbase carrying 12 700kg of water, mosquito nets and blankets.
Gaza’s population has been reduced to a ”subhuman existence” where basic humanitarian needs are going unmet in the face of rapidly deteriorating conditions, according to a senior United Nations official. An Israeli economic blockade on the Gaza Strip has produced shortages of fuel and basic supplies and has closed most private businesses and pushed up poverty rates.
Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on Sunday in search of food, water and medicine as aid groups said thousands more people will die if emergency supplies do not get through soon. Buddhist temples and high schools in towns on the outskirts of Nargis’s trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centres.
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.
Zimbabwe’s election commission on Friday confirmed that President Robert Mugabe lost the election held five weeks ago but that his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, fell below the 50% of the vote required to avoid a run-off ballot between the two later this month.
Forget frozen fish-fingers and chewy mashed potatoes. A French school has become the country’s first to hire a professional chef to cook up fresh, cheap food from local products every day. The aim? To energise listless teenage taste buds and control weight problems.
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.
China is to hold talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism whom it blames for a wave of unrest, state media reported on Friday, as the Olympic flame arrived in Japan. The move comes after concerted pressure from the West on China to talk to the Dalai Lama and marks the first serious step to defuse tensions.
European biodiesel producers said they were asking Brussels on Friday to impose punitive import duties on United States biodiesel but their US rivals said they would hit back with a complaint of their own. The trade in biofuels has surged due to growing demand for alternatives to fossil fuels as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Donors funding a multimillion-dollar peace process in Uganda have urged the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to show commitment to ending a two-decade conflict after its leader failed to sign a deal last week. Hopes of ending one of Africa’s longest conflicts were dashed when LRA leader Joseph Kony failed to appear at a signing ceremony.
Silvio Berlusconi has won his third Italian election with a bigger-than-expected swing to the centre right, but the media magnate said it would not be easy to solve deep economic problems. Votes were still being counted on Tuesday, but with Berlusconi’s victory clear on Monday evening, centre-left leader Walter Veltroni called to concede defeat.
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.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots on Thursday pulled down barricades that have separated them for half a century, reopening Ledra Street, a potent symbol of Cyprus’s ethnic partition. The highly symbolic gesture comes as the two communities prepare talks to end the Mediterranean island’s division.
Zimbabwe’s opposition was level with President Robert Mugabe’s party and two of his ministers lost their seats on Monday as election results trickled out, but counting delays fuelled suspicions of rigging. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change said unofficial tallies showed Morgan Tsvangirai had 60% of the presidential vote.