* Actuaries want urgent reforms; Payout reached 4 bln in 2004-2009 * The state Social Insurance Fund’s total payout for pensions in the five years up to 2009 reached a staggering 4 bln euros, with the population of Cyprus ageing and the pensions getting larger by the year. This makes it necessary that all social
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Trade and Energy Minister Praxoulla Antoniadou said that the documentation for the second licensing round of the 12 remaining blocks in Cyprus’ offshore Exclusive Economic Zone will be ready next week and will be sent to the European Commission for official translation. She said after a ministerial meeting on energy issues that work is also
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The Attorney General of Cyprus, Petros Clerides, has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against the Assize Court's majority ruling to acquit the five defendants over a fatal air crash in 2005 in which 121 persons died. The Cyprus News Agency said the appeal is based on two areas, that the majority ruling was
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A former chief of Turkey's powerful armed forces testified in court on Thursday as a suspect in an investigation of an alleged Internet campaign to discredit Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party — a move unthinkable a few years ago. General Ilker Basbug, who retired in 2010, is the highest-ranking officer to be caught up
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Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti flew unexpectedly to Brussels on Thursday for what appeared to be a private visit ahead of a series of meetings with European leaders over the coming weeks. There was no official word on what Monti was doing in Brussels, where he served for 10 years as a European Commissioner but
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France drew solid demand at its first debt auction of 2012 with yields rising only slightly despite fears for its AAA rating, but that was not enough to prevent most European debt markets weakening as investors fretted about the euro zone's periphery. Debt sales next week by more fragile euro zone economies Italy and Spain
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Italian officials combating a national plague of tax evasion hit the jackpot in a swoop on a posh ski resort, catching 42 drivers of Ferraris and other luxury cars who had declared incomes of less than 30,000 euros ($38,700) a year. The technocrat government of Mario Monti is stepping up a war on tax evasion
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International Airlines Group, formed by the merger of BA and Iberia, posted a strong rise in traffic in December, boosted by continued growth in first and business class passenger numbers. Traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 12.2% versus December 2010, while passenger load factor — a measure of how well it fills its planes
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British trade union Unite is writing to Royal Bank of Scotland to express its anger over renewed speculation of thousands of job cuts at the part-nationalised lender. "Unite is disgusted that the workforce of RBS has today read in the media that further job losses are being considered. This constant speculation and rumour is highly
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Moody's said the operating environment remained negative for British banks which, themselves, were better placed in some respects than European Union rivals more directly hit by the euro zone debt crisis. Senior vice president Elisabeth Rudman also told Reuters in an interview Moody's would not necessarily cut British bank ratings again. "In the UK, the
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