Europe News Headlines - Yahoo! News UK

German Attitude On Euro Crisis Is Changing

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:54:34 +0100

There are a few subtleties to the great euro crisis you only really pick up when you spend a bit of time on the other side of the Channel.

UK Plans Border Controls For Euro Meltdown

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:29:27 +0100

The Government is making contingency plans to cope with a potential increase in immigration should the euro currency collapse, the Home Secretary has revealed.

Hollande makes surefooted start before assembly vote

Sat, 26 May 2012 05:55:18 +0100

PARIS (Reuters) - Socialist President Francois Hollande has defied critics who considered him an inexperienced lightweight by starting with a burst of globetrotting activity and standing up to Berlin and Washington on euro and foreign policy. Placid and slow-paced by nature, Hollande has packed in visits to Berlin, Washington, Camp David, Chicago, Brussels and Kabul in his first 10 days in office, a timetable worthy of his hyperactive conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy. ...

Russian arms shipment en route to Syria - report

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:14:34 +0100

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons is en route to Syria and due to arrive at a Syrian port this weekend, Al Arabiya television said in a report that Western diplomats in New York described on Friday as credible. Syria is one of Russia's top weapons customers. The United States and European Union have suggested the U.N. Security Council should impose an arms embargo and other U.N. sanctions on Syria for its 14-month assault on a pro-democracy opposition determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ...

French left ahead in parliament vote - poll

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:40:17 +0100

PARIS (Reuters) - The French left will comfortably beat the conservative UMP party in next month's parliamentary election, a poll showed on Friday, as rivalries triggered by Nicolas Sarkozy's defeat in the race for the presidency risk splitting the right-wing vote. President Francois Hollande's Socialists and other left-wing partner parties could together win 44 percent of the vote in the June 10 first round of the election, compared with just over a third for the UMP. ...

Hollande makes surefooted start before assembly vote

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:40:17 +0100

Troubled Bankia Asks Spain For £15bn In Aid

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:15:05 +0100

Spain's fourth largest bank Bankia has asked for 19bn euros (£15bn) in state aid - on top of a previous injection of 4.5bn euros.

Spain's Bankia seeks record bailout of ?19 bn

Fri, 25 May 2012 20:49:18 +0100

Spain's fourth-biggest bank, Bankia, said Friday it will ask the government for 19 billion euros ($24 billion) in the largest bank bailout in the country's history.

Suspect in Kosovo organ trafficking arrested

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:36:42 +0100

PRISTINA (Reuters) - A suspect in a human organ trafficking scandal that came to light in Kosovo in 2008 has been arrested in Israel, the European Union's police and justice mission in the Balkan country said on Friday. Moshe Harel was arrested along with several other people in connection with a parallel investigation in Israel, said the mission, known as EULEX. ...

French left ahead in parliament vote - poll

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:33:18 +0100

Pope's butler arrested in leaks investigation

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:38:26 +0100

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's butler was arrested on Friday in connection with an investigation into leaks of confidential documents, some alleging cronyism and corruption in Vatican contracts, a senior Vatican source said. The scandal, which has come to be known as "Vatileaks", involves the leaking of a string of documents to Italian media in January and February, including personal letters to the pope. ...

Italy's Red Brigades calls for renewed violence

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:23:38 +0100

ROME (Reuters) - A letter purporting to be from Italy's radical left-wing Red Brigades called on Friday for new attacks against politicians, bankers and reporters, just days after the president warned the country risked a return to the political violence of the 1970s. "The dawn of the new revolution is here," read the letter, which was delivered to Il Giornale in Milan, the newspaper's website said. Il Giornale is owned by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's brother, Paolo. It is the second letter in as many days allegedly written by the Red Brigades and sent to the media. ...

Papal butler arrested in Vatican leaks investigation

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:31:55 +0100

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The butler who serves in the apartments of Pope Benedict was arrested on Friday in connection with an investigation into leaks of confidential documents, a senior Vatican source said. The source confirmed reports by Italian media about the identity of the person. "It is very serious," the source said. Vatican spokesmen said earlier on Friday that a person in possession of confidential documents had been arrested but that they could not disclose his position or identity until they were given permission from Vatican investigators. (Reporting By Philip Pullella)

Bosnian Serbs jailed for Srebrenica warehouse killings

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:25:38 +0100

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Two former Bosnian Serb police chiefs were jailed for 35 and 30 years on Friday for the killing of 1,000 Muslim men at a warehouse near the town of Srebrenica in July 1995, part of the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two. Bosnia's war crimes court found Dusko Jevic, 55, and Mendeljev Djuric, 52, guilty of aiding and abetting genocide but not guilty of genocide, judge Mira Smajlovic told the court. ...

Berlusconi party girl says masqueraded as Obama

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:20:59 +0100

ROME (Reuters) - One of the young women who attended Silvio Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties told a court on Friday that she dressed up as a burlesque version of U.S. President Barack Obama to entertain the former Italian prime minister. In testimony during a trial against the 75-year-old Berlusconi on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, Marysthell Polanco said she had also dressed as prosecutor Ilda Boccassini. ...

Spain's Catalonia seeks government help to pay debt

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:01:42 +0100

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's wealthiest autonomous region, Catalonia, needs financing help from the central government because it is running out of options for refinancing debt this year, Catalan President Artur Mas said on Friday. "We don't care how they do it, but we need to make payments at the end of the month. Your economy can't recover if you can't pay your bills," Mas told a group of reporters from foreign media. A spokesman for the Catalan government later emphasised that Mas was referring to payments that must be met routinely each month and not a specific deadline this month. ...

Hollande defends French exit in Afghanistan

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:58:02 +0100

President Francois Hollande on Friday defended France's imminent exit from Afghanistan, saying 2,000 combat troops will leave in a coordinated withdrawal this year but vowing not to abandon the country.

Exile Tibetans want EU to investigate self-immolations

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:29:29 +0100

VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the Tibetan government in exile called on the European Union on Friday to send an investigative team to areas where dozens of Tibetans have set themselves ablaze in protest at Chinese rule. Prime Minister in exile Lobsang Sangay told a news conference that 35 Tibetans have set themselves on fire and 27 of them had died in what he said were attempts to seek freedom for Tibet and the return of its exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who was sitting beside Sangay. ...

Debt-Hit Greece 'Running Out Of Medication'

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:09:14 +0100

Pharmacies in Greece were on strike earlier this week in protest at the government not paying them for medicines that should be free to customers.

France's Hollande defends early Afghan pullout

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:42:45 +0100

KABUL (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Friday to visit some of the French troops he wants to pull out later this year, defending his plan for their early exit after meeting his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai. Hollande was strongly criticised at a NATO summit last weekend for accelerating France's withdrawal of its roughly 3,400 troops in Afghanistan to the end of this year, two years ahead of the timetable agreed by the alliance. ...

Eurozone strains intensify as 'massive shock' looms

Fri, 25 May 2012 04:45:57 +0100

Eurozone tensions have intensified after grim news on the economic outlook and as investors sought safety in Germany on growing doubts over Greece's future in the currency union.

Europe slowdown adds more tension to Greek drama

Fri, 25 May 2012 03:10:16 +0100

(Reuters) - Europe's economic slowdown has hit the engine-room of the euro zone, including Germany, gloomy new indicators have revealed, adding urgency to the region's struggle to keep Greece's debt crisis from tearing the single currency apart. So far, the 17-nation euro zone's downturn has been confined mainly to its periphery, but an index measuring broad economic activity across the monetary union in May showed its weakest outcome since mid-2009, during the global financial crisis. ...

Syrian rebels to release two kidnapped Lebanese men - cleric

Fri, 25 May 2012 01:24:25 +0100

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels will set free on Friday two Lebanese men kidnapped in Syria this week, a cleric who brokered the release said. A statement from head of Free People of Syria, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zoaby, said efforts were being made with several sides in Lebanon, Europe and some Arab countries to secure the release of the others as well. About a dozen Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims were abducted in northern Syria. "After benign efforts and contacts done by the Sheikh ... two of the Lebanese will be released today. ...

What would Greek exit mean for the U.S. economy?

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:16:18 +0100

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Uncertainty over the fate of the euro currency is already dampening U.S. economic growth and any significant worsening of the crisis would deal a blow to a recovery that is gradually gathering steam. Economists estimate that volatile markets and business uncertainty over the fate of Greece and the policy course in Europe is already shaving anywhere from one tenth to one half a percentage point from U.S. 2012 gross domestic product growth. In a Reuters poll last week, U.S. GDP was forecast on average at 2.3 percent for 2012 and 2.4 percent for 2013. ...

Italy's Monti says Greece will probably keep euro

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:11:47 +0100

ROME (Reuters) - Greece will probably remain in the euro zone, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Thursday, but demands made of Greece by its partners had been unrealistic and far reaching economic reform could take decades to achieve. "Anything can happen, but I think the most probable outcome is the one which is most positive for Greece and for all of us," Monti said on an Italian television talk show, when asked if he believed Greece would stay in the currency bloc. ...

USTR Kirk plans to go in January, upbeat on EU-US trade

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:30:27 +0100

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said on Wednesday that he expects to leave office at the end of President Barack Obama's first term, and also expressed enthusiasm about the potential for a trade agreement between the United States and the EU to boost jobs and growth on both sides of the Atlantic. ...

PM Angry At Euro Summit's Failure To Agree

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:13:30 +0100

A summit of European leaders has ended without clear agreement on how best to restore confidence in the euro, despite pleas from the British PM to get a grip on the crisis.

Vatican bank sacks president in no-confidence vote

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:10:35 +0100

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The president of the Vatican bank has been ousted by the board of directors, the Vatican said on Thursday, blaming him for a deterioration in standards of governance. The board unanimously passed a no-confidence vote in Italian Ettore Gotti Tedeschi for failing to carry out "various fundamentally important functions of his office", the Vatican statement said. ...

Tensions Rise Over Gibraltar Fishing Dispute

Thu, 24 May 2012 22:08:25 +0100

Tensions between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar have sharply increased after Spanish police demanded naval protection to defuse a fishing dispute around the Rock.

Crisis-hit Europeans freeze summer holiday plans

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:45:06 +0100

MILAN (Reuters) - Europeans are putting holiday plans on the back burner this summer as the crisis hits "sun belt" economies in Greece, Spain and Italy, a study showed on Thursday. Only six of 10 people polled by Ipsos for Europ Assistance said they were planning to go on holiday between June and September this year, the lowest level in eight years. The estimate compares to 66 percent in 2011. Italians were the most reluctant to travel despite their usual long holiday season, with 63 percent willing to leave compared to 78 percent last year. ...

Greek anti-bailout left has four-point lead - poll

Thu, 24 May 2012 20:29:36 +0100

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's anti-bailout leftist SYRIZA party is maintaining its poll lead ahead of a June 17 election that is deemed critical to the country's continued membership of the euro zone, a poll showed on Thursday. Greece was forced to call a repeat election after a May 6 vote left parliament divided evenly between groups of parties that support and oppose austerity conditions attached to a 130 billion euro rescue agreed with lenders in March. ...

Airlines say carbon law cutting EU off from growth

Thu, 24 May 2012 19:57:30 +0100

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Rising tensions with India and China over the European Union's "arrogant" law on carbon emissions could rob the region of the markets that can rescue it from economic malaise, airline leaders said on Thursday. They also said they had prepared contingency plans for a possible exit of Greece from the euro, as part of the industry's extensive crisis management, and they were worried about a domino effect of more countries' being forced out of the currency bloc, with implications for all businesses. ...

Eurozone strains intensify as 'massive shock' looms

Thu, 24 May 2012 19:55:36 +0100

Eurozone tensions rose Thursday after grim news on the economic outlook and as investors sought safety in Germany on growing doubts over Greece's future in the currency union.

German parties make progress on fiscal pact deal

Thu, 24 May 2012 19:49:13 +0100

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's government and opposition parties edged closer on Thursday towards a compromise deal that would pave the way for parliamentary approval of Europe's new fiscal pact and permanent bailout fund. The opposition Social Democrats (SDP) also appeared to give ground on their insistence on euro bonds to tackle the euro zone's debt crisis, a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed her opposition to them at a summit in Brussels. ...

Italy must be ready for Greek euro exit -minister