European Union

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Anti-Gay Riots Mar Serbia's Pride Parade

Extreme nationalists: 'Death to homosexuals'

(Newser) - Serbia's first Gay Pride parade in nearly a decade was disrupted yesterday by anti-gay riots that left 100 people injured and saw another 100 arrested. The rioters threw petrol bombs and stones at the police during the march in Belgrade, and the office of the ruling Democratic Party was briefly...

Bankrupt Greece Selling Islands

Sell-off looms as Greece struggles with debt

(Newser) - What's a country with no money and thousands of islands to do? Greece is trying to pay off some of its massive debt by selling or offering long-term leases on some of its 6,000 islands, only 227 of which are inhabited, the Guardian reports. The country, which received a...

World Turns to Blogger for Euro Advice

Edward Hugh saw the euro's troubles coming

(Newser) - A British man who's made his living as a part-time English teacher in Spain for decades is suddenly the hottest name in economics, because he got it right. Blogger Edward Hugh correctly predicted the current Eurozone crisis, pinpointing the reason as the difference in demographics between Germany and countries like...

Eurozone Sets Up $1 Trillion Bailout Fund

Europe hopes 'umbrella' will boost sagging currency

(Newser) - Eurozone nations are setting up a trillion-dollar "umbrella" fund to restore investor confidence and halt the euro's plunge. Finance ministers say the bailout fund will be available to any eurozone nation risking debt default, AP reports. Investors fear Spain or Portugal are likely to follow Greece into needing a...

Is US Like Greece? NYT Writers Disagree
 Is US Like Greece? 
 NYT Writers Disagree 
krugman vs. leonhardt

Is US Like Greece? NYT Writers Disagree

Our federal debt may or may not doom us

(Newser) - David Leonhardt warns in the New York Times today of the parallels between Greece and the US. "The basic problem is the same," he says. "Both countries have a bigger government than they're paying for." He cites a stat showing that our federal debt is projected...

Holland Seeks Pot Ban for Tourists
 Holland Seeks 
 Pot Ban for Tourists 
in case you missed it

Holland Seeks Pot Ban for Tourists

Court told ban would violate free trade deals

(Newser) - Holland's famous cannabis cafes will only be open to Dutch smokers if government officials win a case at the European Court of Justice. Attorneys for the government—seeking to clamp down on cross-border drug tourism—say the nation has the right to ban foreigners from coffee shops that serve pot....

Serbia Finally Sorry for Srebrenica

Stops short of calling massacre 'genocide'

(Newser) - Serbia moved closer to getting into the EU yesterday when its parliament condemned the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Despite opposition from Serb nationalists, an overwhelming majority voted in favor of the resolution that "strongly condemned" Europe's worst mass killing since World War II...

Canadian Parliament Dines on Seal
Canadian Parliament
Dines on Seal
TAKE THAT, EU!

Canadian Parliament Dines on Seal

Lunch gesture protests EU's ban on import of seal products

(Newser) - Miffed by a ban on Canadian seal imports by the EU, which charges cruelty in the annual hunt, the country's MPs have defiantly put seal meat on tomorrow's parliamentary lunch menu. By eating seal, a Liberal MP tells the Guardian , “all political parties will have the opportunity to demonstrate...

Through Sheer Power, Google Translate Gets It Right

Similar programs use 1B words, while Google plugs in 100B+

(Newser) - Score one for Google’s “don’t be evil” side as Web surfers reap the benefits of its excellent translation program—thanks to the sheer force of Google's web dominance. Machine translation is a particularly tricky computer problem that programmers now agree is most easily solved by feeding massive...

EU Launches Antitrust Probe of Google
EU Launches Antitrust
Probe of Google
BAD NEWS? WAS FOR MICROSOFT

EU Launches Antitrust Probe of Google

Some observers see Microsoft-like trouble ahead

(Newser) - The European Union has begun an antitrust investigation into Google after a handful of sites that compete on some level with Google alleged that it was pushing them unfairly down its search rankings. One of the sites, Ciao.de , is a subsidiary of Microsoft, the Wall Street Journal reports. Another...

Dow Falls 46 on EU GDP
 Dow Falls 46 on EU GDP 
MARKETS

Dow Falls 46 on EU GDP

China moves to tighten lending; tech proves resilient

(Newser) - Stocks closed mixed today as China's move to restrict lending and a low reading of EU GDP stoked worries about global economic health, the Wall Street Journal reports.
  • The Dow dropped 45.05 points to close at 10,099.14.
  • The Nasdaq gained 6.12, closing at 2,183.53.
...

Goldman Helped Greece Hide Catastrophic Debt

Bank concocted deal with phony exchange rate

(Newser) - Greece's budget problems were allowed to grow to their current monstrous size with the help of a Goldman Sachs deal worthy of an Oscar for creative accounting. Greek government officials—no strangers to number-juggling themselves—used the US bank to concoct a derivatives deal that allowed the country to circumvent...

Eurozone Mulls Greece Bailout
 Eurozone Mulls Greece Bailout 

Eurozone Mulls Greece Bailout

Officials avoid B-word while planning 'rescue package'

(Newser) - Greece won't be getting a bailout from the EU itself, officials said yesterday, but they're scrambling to put together a package of loans from member nations to shore up the staggering Greek economy. The EU charter forbids the European Central Bank and national central banks from bailing out countries, but...

Slovakia Takes 3 Gitmo Detainees

Transfer based on EU-US agreement designed to help close prison

(Newser) - Three detainees from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay were moved to Slovakia over the weekend, bringing the total number of detainees at the Cuban base down to 193. Neither that nation nor the Justice Department, at Slovakia’s urging, would disclose the former prisoners’ names or nationalities, Reuters reports....

Hacker Morphs Spanish Prez Into Mr. Bean

Prankster hijacks Spain's EU site

(Newser) - A hacker yesterday redirected visitors to Spain's EU presidency website to a page replacing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's image with that of Mr. Bean. The goofy, benign comedy character appeared with the words: "Hi there." Zapatero's resemblance to Rowan Atkinson's bumbling character is a long-running joke...

EU Closes Microsoft Antitrust Case

No fines assessed, thanks to deal to add browsers on Windows 7

(Newser) - The EU formally ended its decade-long antitrust battle against Microsoft today, consummating a deal made this summer. Microsoft has agreed to include rival browsers, including Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome, on European releases of Windows 7. In exchange, it won’t be assessed yet another fine—EU regulators have fined...

Neapolitan Pizza Wins Protected Status

EU moves to protect 'mother of all pizzas' from imitations

(Newser) - Is the base more than an eighth-of-an-inch thick? Mozzarella from cows, not buffalo? Tomatoes not San Marzano? If not, that's not a Neapolitan pizza and you'll now be breaking EU law if you call it one. Neapolitan pizza—according to many, the mother of all pizzas—was granted the EU's...

EU to Call for Divided Jerusalem

Israel outraged, Livni says move 'not helpful and wrong'

(Newser) - European Union foreign ministers will call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with East Jerusalem serving as the capital of Palestine, when they meet in Brussels next week. A Swedish draft of the resolution obtained by Haaretz implies that the EU would recognize a Palestinian declaration of statehood....

Europe Divided on Medicinal Pot

Chances of unified marijuana policy up in smoke

(Newser) - Wildly different laws among the EU's 27 nations mean a unified policy on medicinal marijuana is expected to remain a pipe dream for many years to come. The Netherlands has not only legalized medicinal marijuana, but set up a government bureau to ensure users get top-quality pot. Sweden, Britain, and...

Poor Nations Stiffed on Climate Pledges

Billions in promised cash unaccounted for

(Newser) - Huge sums of money promised by EU countries to help poor nations cope with climate change have melted away faster than Arctic ice. The EU and five other industrialized nations promised developing countries $410 million a year in the 2001 Bonn declaration, but the UN funds set up to deal...

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