Mariano Rajoy's centre-right People's Party stormed to a crushing election victory when voters punished the outgoing Socialist government for the worst economic crisis in generations. Rajoy, who led his party to an absolute parliamentary majority in Sunday's election, is widely expected to push through drastic measures to try to prevent Spain being sucked deeper into
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Protesters demanding Egypt's ruling generals hand over power beat back a new police raid to evict them from Cairo's central Tahrir Square on Monday, witnesses said. The police fired tear gas and attacked a makeshift field hospital, while protesters broke up pavements to hurl the chunks of concrete at police. At least 12 people have
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Tobacco giant Philip Morris on Monday launched legal action against Australian laws forcing tobacco products to be sold in drab, plain packaging from late next year, and other tobacco companies said they would soon follow suit. The tough legislation cleared by parliament is being closely watched by governments considering similar moves in Europe, Canada and
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Bulgaria and Turkey will sign a political accord to back the construction of a pipeline aimed to link the gas systems of the two neighbours and allow Caspian natural gas flows to Europe, Bulgarian energy minister said on Saturday. European Union's Bulgaria, which gets almost all of its gas through one route from Russia's Gazprom
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Greece's new prime minister headed to Brussels on Sunday to fight for the aid Athens needs to avoid bankruptcy, even as one of his coalition backers refused to give a written pledge to support reforms and a public sector union geared up for strikes. Lucas Papademos must convince the International Monetary Fund and the European
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Asian shares fell on Monday as uncertainty remained over how euro zone leaders would respond to mounting funding difficulties for European banks, and an apparent failure by U.S. politicians to agree on deficit reduction hurt sentiment. The U.S. congressional deficit-reduction committee was set to formally announce its three-month-long effort to bridge partisan differences over taxes
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**Taxes on income and wealth leap 23.8% ** The Cyprus government made some headway in reducing its annual budget deficit by posting a budget surplus in the third quarter. According to preliminary data on the EU-compatible general government accounts, total revenue rose by 8.3% compared with the corresponding period of 2010 to EUR 1,978.4 mln.
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With a new theme area that makes guests feel as if they're being shrunk to the size of a toy, Hong Kong Disneyland hopes to boost the number of visitors to a magic kingdom the performance of which to date has been less than dazzling. Since opening to great fanfare in 2005, Disney's first park
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Angela Merkel and David Cameron will try to resolve clashing views on the euro crisis on Friday with London accused of being selfish for opposing a tax on banks and Berlin touching off British sensitivities about transferring power to Europe. London wanted the prime minister's visit to be low-profile, but such hopes were dashed after
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Members of the press could serve as important partners in our effort to have a successful Cyprus’ EU Presidency the second half of 2012, Deputy Minister to the President for European Affairs Andreas Mavroyiannis said on Thursday. Speaking at a meeting with journalists in Nicosia, Mavroyiannis said that the Media in Cyprus have a significant
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