President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy has expressed the hope Cyprus would be a united island when it takes over the rotating Presidency of the Council next year. He also called on the leaders of both communities “to act in a spirit of compromise to find common ground on the remaining issues” discussed
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Two Byzantine icons of the 18th century depicting Apostles Andreas and Iacovos, were located in Germany and recovered by the Church of Cyprus. A statement by the Representation of the Church of Cyprus to the European Union said the two icons, which are the work of the School of Iconography of St. Heraklidio, were located
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Chinese investors including the country's sovereign wealth fund may inject $13 billion into Spanish banks, a government source said on Wednesday after Spain's premier met financial authorities in Beijing. Concerns about delays in recapitalising Spain's ailing savings banks — heavily exposed to bad loans from a burst property bubble — have overshadowed the euro zone
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* We test the impact of a 50% Greek haircut * Cypriot banks would stay the right side of Basel II even with a 50% haircut of Greek sovereign debt but would drop below the stricter level set for the EU-wide stress tests, according to our analysis. Cypriot banks have been under the spotlight lately,
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Alija Lizde spent five months in military prison camps in 1993. His only crime was being a Bosnian Muslim, but that was enough for the Bosnian Croat military police. Now Lizde heads a small wine-making cooperative in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina where he works with six Croats and a Serb to revive ancient regional wine
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(Kara Newman is the author of “Spice & Ice: 60 tongue-tingling cocktails,” available. Any opinions expressed are her own.) Business travel in the small desert city of Dubai can be thirsty work. In a town known for its high-stakes fortunes and opulent real estate, the drinks may flow after hours, but "it's more about the
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Irish taxpayers should not complain about having to bailout the country's crisis-hit banks and in future regulation should be steered at a European level, one of the ECB's top policymakers said on Wednesday. In an opinion piece in the Financial Times, ECB Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said Ireland's taxpayers should foot the bill
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* Kremlin sees Internet more important than TV in 2012 polls * FSB calls for access to Gmail, Hotmail and Skype * Cyber attack temporarily shuts top Russian blogging site Russian hacker attacks on the country's biggest blog site and a spy agency's warning to Gmail and Skype have raised fears that authorities are tightening
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Italy's parliament is due to vote on a justice reform bill on Wednesday which would cut the length of many trials and end a bribery case against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. If approved, the provision would shorten the statute of limitations and would kill the case in which Berlusconi is accused of paying British lawyer
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German lawmakers should seek the right to vote down any supplementary contributions by the country to a permanent fund being set up to bail out fiscally troubled euro zone states, a document obtained by Reuter shows. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is due to come into force in 2013 with 80 billion euros in cash
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