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European banks would leave London “in very short order” if Britain voted to exit the European Union, a senior Goldman Sachs executive said in a newspaper interview published on Monday. Michael Sherwood, a vice-chairman at the bank, said the prospect of a British withdrawal was a real worry given Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to hold a referendum on the subject if re-elected in 2015. … Goldman’s Sherwood predicted European banks would quickly relocate if Britain did sever its EU ties. “Forget what we would do. Every European firm would be gone in very short order,” he was quoted as...

Former US President Jimmy Carter has once again expressed his blatantly anti-Israel allegiances by calling on the European Union to “introduce proper labeling of goods produced on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.” Carter was in Dublin together with former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso for talks with Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore and diplomats from some 20 European countries on revitalizing the peace process in the Middle East. “With the Middle East peace process making no significant progress, we call on Europe to play a stronger and more independent role in...

The European Union is considering a roughly 75 percent cut in funding for a program that helps feed 18 million of its poorest citizens. The cuts, set to take effect after New Year's, would come at a time of rising unemployment and consumer food prices in many parts of Europe, as well as overall economic turmoil on the continent. The looming cuts already have raised fears among people who rely heavily on the program. "We poor, small people, we cannot face up to this," said Rene Waltener, 41, who is unemployed and married with four children. "We sometimes have difficulties...

Europe is Kerry country, and folks like Heike Warmuth reckon they have a chance to spoil President Bush's bid for a second term. Even as Republicans fete the American leader at their national convention in New York, people across Europe -- where Bush is often derided as reckless and ignorant -- are rallying to the cause of lifting Democratic contender John Kerry to victory. "The choice of a U.S. president is not something that affects America alone," said Warmuth, a founder of "Europeans against Bush," an Austrian Web-based initiative designed to swing undecided Americans toward Kerry. "American politics affect the...

"People hate you. Everyone hates you. The whole world hates you." The pretty middle-aged woman, a Swiss mother and scholar, at the dinner table in Geneva earnestly wants to make that perfectly clear. She isn't angry with me. She thinks the American people are totally ignorant, misled by the media and a criminal president. She also thinks the United States invaded Afghanistan in order to grab an oil pipeline. This is my test of whether conversation is possible. I can understand how Europeans can believe the war in Iraq was about oil. After all, European nations like France and Russia...