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Ahead of a planned summit of European Union leaders, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has put all 17 Euro nations on review for a credit downgrade, which means France and Germany could lose the pristine AAA ratings they presently enjoy, Bloomberg News is reporting. The euro area’s six AAA rated countries are among the nations to be placed on a negative outlook pending the result of a summit of European Union leaders on Dec. 9, the people said today on condition of anonymity because the decision has yet to be announced. The euro reversed its gains and U.S. Treasuries rose...

Vice President Joe Biden, now best known for being the man who relies primarily on Jon Corzine for financial advice, continued his recent roll of epic linguistic blunders this morning. As Reuters reports, the VP, "joked during a visit to debt-choked Athens on Monday about bringing money to help Greece out of its deepest financial crisis in decades. Introducing a member of his delegation during a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias, Biden said: "This man represents the Treasury department. He's brought hundreds of millions of dollars." His comments drew laughs from both the Greek and U.S. delegations." It...

The Irish and German governments became entangled in a spat on Thursday after details of the Irish budget were given to the German Bundestag, before being presented to the Irish parliament, the Dáil. The sensitive plans, including a two-percent increase in the top value added tax (VAT) and a €100 household tax, were sent by the German finance ministry—along with a letter of intent from the Irish Finance Minister—to the Bundestag budgetary committee. This provoked outrage in Ireland, and denials from Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny that he had given the information to the Germans. Irish opposition parties said if...

Did you know that the EU has ensured that there has been no war between its members for last 60 years?

Saw this article today from a link a friend sent me. He thought it was cool. Apparently, the University of Stuttgart has designed a house that generates enough power that you can charge your electric vehicle without plugging into the power grid.

Report reveals all bar one of party's 48 mid-term election candidates are sceptical about climate changeAll but one of the 48 Republican hopefuls for the Senate mid-term elections in November deny the existence of climate change or oppose action on global warming, according to a report released today.The strong Republican front against established science includes entrenched Senate leaders as well as the new wave of radical conservatives endorsed by the Tea Party activists, says a report by the Centre for American Progress.

Do you miss those days in Little League when everyone received a trophy no matter how poorly you played? Now glory can be yours, for the Nobel Peace Prize is within reach of even the most incompetent fools. Just open a box of Cracker Jack.

President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize ABC NEws

The court ruled that employees had the right to ask for statutory leave to be "reallocated" when it was spoilt by sickness. Under the terms of the judgement, employees would even be allowed to carry any annual leave ruined by illness over into the next holiday year. The ruling is effectively a new interpretation of the European Working Time Directive on workers' hours, which applies in Britain across the entire private and public sector. Leading employment lawyers warned it would be costly for businesses and that it left "the door open for abuse" by unscrupulous employees seeking to bolster their...

It’s been a privilege, says the BBC’s North America editor Justin Webb, returning to London from DC after nearly eight years. And quite a privilege for America too, eh, Justin? Now, don’t get me wrong: this is not a man who despises ordinary American folks. On the contrary, he appreciates their curious ways: In more than seven years of life in America, I have come to value - to love, actually - the stolid, sunny, unchallenging, simple virtuousness of the American suburban psyche … Indeed, he forgives all manner of faults: And yet for all the ugliness, the deadening tawdriness...

Note: this is the Google automatic translation. The original is in Italian (at the link)     June 9 2009 - It is the proposal of Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, the Argentinean Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who through the 'International Academy of Environmental Sciences (IAES), which he chairs, has launched in recent days in Rome, the international campaign to collect signatures "Justice for Planet ", an initiative to support the creation of a European criminal court and international environmental havoc against the environmental equivalent to crimes against humanity (to participate in the petition, click here). The IAES, to which belong...

Swiss con man Helg Sgarbi has been sentenced to six years in jail after admitting sleeping with and blackmailing a succession of rich women out of millions of pounds including BMW heiress Susanne Klatten. The 44-year-old wined and dined a string of rich wives and widows, including Germany's wealthiest woman Mrs Klatten, winning their confidence and then asking for money.

CNN) -- Europe's expectations of a Barack Obama presidency are vibrant, vast and probably incapable of fulfillment by any president, let alone one who will come to office in the middle of a worldwide economic crisis and with huge, unfinished business in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no doubting the buzz and the optimism that the election victory of an African-American candidate has brought. Most in Europe are instinctively America's friends and, after the unilateralism of the Bush years, they want to have something to love about America again. Obama's arrival, they hope and believe, will give them that opportunity....

The United States has been left diplomatically isolated after European members of NATO moved to reject an American proposal to scale back ties with Moscow following Russia's invasion of Georgia. US diplomats attending an emergency NATO summit in Brussels had called on the alliance to suspend ministerial meetings with Russia, held twice a year, as a way of demonstrating the West's disapproval of the war. But other members of the alliance, including Britain, rejected the plan, saying that it would be foolish to isolate Russia. Instead diplomats released their strongly-worded statement, stopping short of concrete action, at least for now....

A female television presenter on TV4 has been charged after flashing her breast to an elderly man in Humlegården park in Stockholm last summer. The stunt was to be part of comedy programme 'Raj Raj' but the man didn't see the funny side. Instead he reported the woman, who is now the subject of a police enquiry, reports Metro. Despite the fact that the presenter repeatedly apologised to the man and assured him that the scene would not be broadcast, he refused to withdraw his allegations. The episode was to be shown on what TV4 describes as 'a Swedish comedy...

A homosexual foster couple were left free to sexually abuse vulnerable boys in their care because social workers feared being accused of discrimination if they investigated complaints, an inquiry concluded yesterday. Even when the mother of two of the children reported her suspicions to the council, officials accepted the men’s explanations and did nothing. Instead of banning children from staying with Faunch and Wathey, they sent youngsters with more serious problems to them. Between them, the couple abused four boys aged between eight and 14. Their victims included a 14-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism,who had a...

Kosovo Builds Statue To 'Saviour' Clinton Last Updated: 2:35am BST 24/05/2007 Kosovo Albanians plan to honour their “saviour” Bill Clinton by erecting a statue of the former United States president in the capital of Serbia’s breakaway province. Izeir Mustafa was thrilled to be asked to sculpt a statue of Bill Clinton The 10ft tall monument is still under construction in a studio in Podujevo, 40km north of Pristina. “He is our saviour. He saved us from extermination,” Izeir Mustafa, the sculptor, said. “I was thrilled by the work because I know what he did for us.” Kosovo has been under...

The angry comments attributed to Mr Wolfowitz came from damning testimony by Xavier Coll, head of human resources at the bank, who provided investigators with his notes of a meeting with Mr Wolfowitz last year. The notes directly contradict Mr Wolfowitz's assertions that the details of Ms Riza's treatment were properly shared with senior bank officials. In March last year, when a mention of Ms Riza's secondment outside the bank to avoid rules about partners was first published in the magazine US News & World Report, an angry Mr Wolfowitz accused Mr Coll of leaking the information. According to Mr...

As the biggest commercial jet ever made swoops into Chicago for the first time Tuesday, Airbus SAS, the plane's European maker, has yet to find a U.S. airline buyer. Manufacturers typically show off new planes to buyers and members of the media through demonstration flights -- barnstorming tours such as this week's inaugural visit. That the A380 is stopping in the Midwest on its maiden voyage to the U.S. is no coincidence, analysts say. Elk Grove Township-based United Airlines and Minneapolis-based Northwest Airlines Corp. are considered the two likeliest purchasers in an otherwise tough market for the superjumbo jet. Airbus...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- A senior U.S. administration official on Wednesday warned that ongoing inquiries into secret CIA activities in the European Union may undermine intelligence cooperation between the United States and European nations. The European Parliament accused Britain, Poland, Italy and other nations in mid-February of colluding with the CIA to transport terror suspects to clandestine prisons in third countries. In a report that concluded a yearlong investigation, the parliament identified 1,254 secret CIA flights that entered the European airspace since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States. It said that these flights were against international...