Russia and Norway ended a 40-year dispute in signing an Arctic border treaty on Wednesday which opens the door to offshore oil and gas exploration. President Dmitry Medvedev and Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg presided over the signing in Murmansk, a Barents Sea port city near the Norwegian border north of the Arctic Circle. The

The government has made the necessary steps to solve the problem of water shortage, an issue which has been affecting Cyprus for decades, President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias has stressed. The President, who inaugurated Tuesday the Waste Processing Plant of Vathia Gonia, in the Nicosia district, said in his speech that the

Japan intervened in foreign exchange markets for the first time in six years on Wednesday to stem economic damage from the surging yen, pushing its currency sharply lower and lifting Tokyo stocks by more than 2 percent. The dollar rose more than 2 percent to 85.18 yen by midafternoon, rebounding from a fresh 15-year low

Brazil is optimistic that a power struggle in the International Monetary Fund will be resolved before an Oct. 31 deadline, a Brazilian government source told Reuters on Tuesday. The comments come as a tug-of-war between the United States and Europe over how to give more say to emerging markets threatens throwing the IMF in disarray.

The 6th Cyprus – Russia intergovernmental committee on economic cooperation will convene in Nicosia between 15-16 September. The committee will be presided by Minister of Finance Charilaos Stavrakis and Russian Deputy Minister for Economic Development, Manylov Igor Evgenievich. According to an official press release, the intergovernmental committee will exchange information about the economic situation of

Democrats in the U.S. Senate advanced a measure to help small businesses on Tuesday, less than two months before they face voters who blame them for an economy still burdened with high unemployment. The 61 to 37 vote enables Democrats to move toward a final vote on a long-stalled package of lending incentives and tax

A bitter shareholder conflict at Russian hypermarket chain Lenta sparked a fistfight at the firm's headquarters on Tuesday, leading to 20 people being detained by police. The investor row erupted in August as rival shareholder groups disputed who should be chief executive of the company, recently touted as a potential acquisition target for the world's

Britain's leading shares edged higher on Tuesday, matching modest gains on Wall Street following above-forecast U.S. retail sales data, with commodity issues standing out. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was up 1.88 points, or 0.1%, at 5,567.41, marginally extending Monday's four-month closing high. "The last-minute push higher by bulls gives further evidence that