Saudi Arabia's elderly King Abdullah will undergo surgery on Friday to stabilise vertebrae in his spinal column. The king, thought to be around 86 or 87, underwent surgery on his back in New York in November after a blood clot complicated a slipped spinal disc. The kingdom's health minister said afterward that his health was
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Pilots of a crippled Qantas Airbus A380 superjumbo struggled with more than a dozen system errors after an engine blew apart on November 4 and landed the plane in Singapore with barely any runway to spare, an Australian investigation showed. In fact, the plane may have been so badly damaged that the five pilots, with
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Banks and commodity stocks powered strong gains for Britain's top share index on Thursday on growing investor confidence that the euro zone debt crisis would be contained. By 1531 GMT, the FTSE 100 index was 99.39 points, or 1.8%, higher at 5,741.89 to be ahead for a second session after ending November down at levels
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Russia won the right to put on the 2018 World Cup and Qatar will stage the 2022 finals, both first-time hosts, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Thursday. FIFA's executive committee voted for the two winning bids after a fierce lobbying campaign which saw world political leaders and top sports personalities gather in Zurich to
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A huge forest fire swept northern Israel on Thursday, killing up to 40 people, many of them prison guards who were trapped in a bus trying to flee the flames. Israeli television showed pictures of a gutted bus and car that were apparently engulfed by the blaze in the Carmel Forest, near the city of
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Wall Street opened little changed on Thursday as bets on a stronger U.S. economy were offset by disappointment over unmet expectations of bond purchases from the European Central Bank. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 18.99 points, or 0.17%, to 11,274.77. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 2.04 points, or 0.17%, to 1,208.11. The
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The European Central Bank resisted pressure on Thursday to announce a major bond-buying programme to contain the euro zone debt crisis, despite the risk it could disappoint investors worried about Portugal and Spain. The ECB had faced calls to rush through new anti-crisis measures at its monthly policy meeting after an 85 bln-euro ($110.7-bln) EU-IMF
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Greek police fired teargas on Thursday in clashes with protesting university students and at least three demonstrators were injured, Reuters witnesses said. Over 1,000 students tried to break through a police cordon to march to the British embassy in Athens, in solidarity with British students who oppose plans to increase tuition fees, and against austerity
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Cyprus's consumer price inflation fell sharply to 1.5% year-on-year in November from 3.0% a month earlier due to a drop in food prices and electricity costs. The consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.37% on a monthly basis to 114.63 points. A drop in the November inflation rate, in addition to the upsurge of the preceding
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Heavy snow caused havoc across Britain on Thursday, keeping airports closed for a second day, leaving travellers stranded and forcing thousands of schools to close. Met Office forecasters warned of severe weather and heavy snow, particularly in southern and eastern regions, as Britain's worst early winter weather in almost two decades showed no sign of
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