Greece has been told to repay about 350 million euros ($495 million) of European Union farm subsidies after it failed to follow EU spending rules, the European Commission said on Friday. Greece failed to correctly apply the "land parcel identification system" for calculating area-based subsidies to farmers in 2006, the Commission said, and its payment

FxPro Cyprus Rally’s opening Ceremony was held on Thursday on the beach road in Yermasoyia, Limassol, with Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Antonis Paschalides waving the flag first. Drivers were applauded by the spectators, while the participation, for the first time, of a Turkish team, comprising two women, created an impression. They both saluted

A faulty part or a design issue may have caused the explosion in an engine on a Qantas Airways Airbus A380, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Singapore, Qantas chief Alan Joyce said on Friday. The engine failure on Thursday, which scattered debris over an Indonesian island, marked the biggest incident to date

Asian stocks rose for a fifth day on Friday, with commodity-related shares helping regional markets outperform other parts of the world this week after U.S. Federal Reserve action revived a move into riskier assets. Major European stocks followed Asia higher, rising 0.2% in early trade ahead of key U.S. jobs data. The October U.S. payrolls

Hong Kong shares posted their biggest weekly gain since May 2009, driven by financials and commercial property developers, on optimism over earnings growth and underpinned by surging fund flows into the region. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 1.39% to a 29-month high of 24,876.82. Its 7.7% jump this week has taken it back into

Royal Bank of Scotland expected market conditions to remain challenging into the fourth quarter, as charges on the value of its own debt hit the third-quarter results of the part-nationalised British bank. RBS reported on Friday a third-quarter operating loss of 132 mln pounds, compared with a second-quarter profit of 869 mln. Earnings were hit

The Irish government will delay publication of the details of its four-year fiscal plan until after a by-election for an empty parliamentary seat is held on November 25, The Irish Times reported on Friday. Without citing any sources, the newspaper said the government was hoping to minimise internal dissent by leaving as little time as

Greece resumed the shipment of all mail and packages abroad after midnight on Friday, following a suspension it imposed in the wake of a spate of parcel bombs sent to embassies in Athens and to European governments. Greek authorities have blamed leftist militants for the bombs, which were discovered over the past several days. One

Cyprus is gradually developing into an essential business bridge between the European Union and the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, President Demetris Christofias has said. In his address at the Inauguration Ceremony of the 3rd EuroMed Conference of the EuroMed Academy of Business, read by the Minister of Communications and Works Erato Kozakou-Markoullis, President