Google expanded its power in online advertising on Tuesday when it completed its takeover of DoubleClick, a move that increases the pressure on rival Microsoft to win its hostile bid for Yahoo!. The merger came after European regulators signed off on the deal, and strengthened Google’s domination of the lucrative online ad business.
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.
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom accused the Ukraine on Wednesday of planning to siphon off gas that Russia transits through Ukrainian territory to the European Union, as a payment dispute escalated. Ukraine is the main transit route for Russian supplies to the European Union and a previous such dispute in 2006 led to knock-on disruption in EU countries.
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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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/ 24 February 2008
Guarded by motion-detector cameras, security fences and the odd polar bear, a huge cavern has been built in an island off northern Norway to help secure global crop diversity. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a veritable Fort Knox for seeds and aimed at safeguarding genetic heritage for future generations.
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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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/ 14 February 2008
The United Nations climate chief on Thursday called for rich and developing nations to reach a compromise as they held talks in Japan in their bid to forge a new deal on fighting global warming by the end of next year. Officials from the United Nations and 21 countries opened two days of closed-door talks in Tokyo to help find common ground.
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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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/ 11 February 2008
The United States administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines. The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration.
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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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/ 16 January 2008
United States farmers have been given the green light to produce cloned meat for the human food chain. In a 968-page report billed as a ”final risk assessment” of the technology, the US Food and Drug Administration has concluded that healthy cloned animals and products from them such as milk are safe for consumers.
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/ 14 January 2008
The European Commission said on Monday it will propose tighter restrictions on biofuels next week amid mounting concerns that the energy source can cause unintended environmental and social problems. Biofuels are renewable and environmentally friendlier than fossils, but not completely clean.
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/ 14 January 2008
European Union competition regulators said on Monday they would launch two new antitrust probes against Microsoft, opening fresh fronts in their battle against the United States software giant’s dominant market power. The European Commission said one investigation targeted the interoperability of a broad range of software with rival products.
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/ 13 January 2008
The unimaginable has happened, to the displeasure of arrogant Europe. Africa, thought to be so poor that it would agree to anything, has said no in rebellious pride. No to the straitjacket of the economic partnership agreements (EPAs), no to the complete liberalisation of trade, no to the latest manifestations of the colonial pact.
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/ 13 January 2008
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s talk of creating a new growth and well-being index for France is part of a mounting global campaign that many economists believe will shape civilisation and democracy in the 21st century. Sarkozy presented his recruitment of Nobel prize-winning economists Jospeh Stiglitz and Amartya Sen to work on a quality-of-life index.
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/ 27 December 2007
World leaders voiced outrage at the assassination on Thursday of Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and expressed fears for the fate of the nuclear-armed state. United States President George Bush condemned the killing as a ”cowardly act”.
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/ 27 December 2007
A new generation of nuclear power plants could burn 100 tonnes of surplus weapons-grade plutonium as a good way of keeping it away from terrorists, according to scientists working for the European Union. Most of Britain’s weapons-grade plutonium is held in bunkers at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria, behind three perimeters of razor wire.
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/ 21 December 2007
Japan’s whaling fleet in the Antarctic will avoid killing humpback whales for now, but will press on with plans to slay 1 000 other whales by early in the New Year, a government official said on Friday. Plans by Japan to include 50 endangered humpbacks in its annual hunt had sparked an outcry from activists.
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/ 17 December 2007
Since becoming president of Liberia last year, it’s been my mission to empower women in all aspects of government and society. But I can’t help to empower them if they die from a disease that is now within our reach to stop. Today, we have a historic opportunity to save 250 000 women every year by eradicating cervical cancer, writes Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf , the president of Liberia.
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/ 14 December 2007
Israel must ease restrictions on the Palestinians if efforts led by Tony Blair to boost the Palestinian economy are to be successful, the World Bank and Oxfam said on Thursday. Next Monday Blair, representing the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, is to chair a conference in Paris of 90 countries and organisations.
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/ 9 December 2007
Most African leaders on Sunday rejected new trade deals demanded by the European Union, dealing a blow to efforts to forge a new economic partnership at the first European Union (EU)-Africa summit in seven years. The EU wants to replace expiring trade accords with so-called Economic Partnership Agreements or temporary deals.
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/ 8 December 2007
European and African leaders arriving for Saturday’s summit in Lisbon were accused by parliamentarians and human rights groups on both continents of trying to sweep human rights issues under the carpet. Much of the criticism was aimed at the absence of Darfur from the main agenda of the European Union-Africa meeting.
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/ 7 December 2007
The leaders of Africa and the Europe Union (EU) gathered in Lisbon on Friday for a summit designed to forge a new era in ties, but which is in danger of being overshadowed by the presence of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. The two-day summit in the Portuguese capital is set to be dominated by issues such as trade, immigration, the environment and human rights.
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/ 7 December 2007
Zimbabwe and three other African nations provisionally agreed on a regional free trade deal with the European Union (EU) on Thursday. The deal is part of EU efforts to meet a December 31 deadline set by the World Trade Organisation for replacing its trading system with former European colonies.
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/ 7 December 2007
Kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, eurocrats and countless diplomats from 80 countries will mingle on Friday evening at a sprawling exhibition centre in the east of Lisbon, at the biggest gathering of European and African leaders ever staged.
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/ 6 December 2007
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday defended inviting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to attend a European Union-Africa summit this weekend and vowed to make human rights the first point on the agenda. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is boycotting the Lisbon summit.
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/ 5 December 2007
South Africa said on Wednesday it would not sign a new trade pact with the European Union until its concerns over possible "detrimental impacts" new accords could have on Africa had been addressed. "South Africa is very much opposed to the inclusion of certain trade and services clauses," Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Gert Grobler told journalists.
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/ 29 November 2007
British and Irish efforts to retain their imperial measures of pints and miles while surrounded by the litres and kilometres of continental Europe moved a yard closer on Thursday as the European Union Parliament backed the moves. One imperial casualty, though, is the acre.
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/ 27 November 2007
Britain has asked the European Commission to approve the aid it has provided to struggling mortage lender Northern Rock, a Commission spokesperson said on Tuesday. ”Last night [Monday], the British government notified us,” EU competition spokesperson Jonathan Todd said.
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/ 26 November 2007
President Vladimir Putin accused Washington on Monday of plotting to undermine December parliamentary elections seen widely as a demonstration of his enduring power in Russia. Putin, drawing on resurgent nationalist sentiment ahead of Sunday’s poll, also said Russia must maintain its defences to discourage others from ”poking their snotty noses” in its affairs.
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/ 20 November 2007
Urgently needed supplies of food, water and medicine were on Tuesday nearing people in remote areas of Bangladesh where a devastating cyclone has left millions homeless and thousands dead. With roads now cleared of hundreds of trees that had blocked aid convoys, officials said relief was finally starting to get through to the most inaccessible areas.
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/ 15 November 2007
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday lodged nomination papers with the electoral board, seeking a second and final term of office ahead of polls expected to be the country’s closest yet. Kibaki vowed to crack down on violence in the run-up to the December 27 election, the fourth since pluralism was reintroduced in 1992.