International

• Saturday, January 14th 2012 - 06:20 UTC

  S&P Friday the 13th for Euro zone; nine countries suffer the rating scimitar

  

  The worst-kept secret on Wall Street was officially confirmed after the close Friday, when Standard & Poor’s downgraded its sovereign debt rating on France to AA+ from AAA. Spain and Italy saw their ratings cut two notches, while Germany’s AAA rating was left unchanged.

• Saturday, January 14th 2012 - 06:13 UTC

  Chevron, Repsol and Statoil to drill offshore Newfoundland and Labrador

  

  Chevron Canada Ltd., a big player in Canada's offshore oil industry, has struck a deal with Norwegian and Spanish oil companies to carry out exploration off the coast of Atlantic Canada.

• Saturday, January 14th 2012 - 06:09 UTC

  Eight dead and scenes of panic as cruise vessel hits a reef in Italian coast

  

  At least eight people are dead after a cruise ship ran aground off the Italian coast in an accident which forced the Italian coast guard to evacuate over 4000 people, according to Italian media reports.

• Saturday, January 14th 2012 - 06:01 UTC

  Link between eating processed meat and pancreatic cancer in Swedish research

  

  A link between eating processed meat, such as bacon or sausages, and pancreatic cancer has been suggested by researchers in Sweden. They said eating an extra 50g of processed meat, approximately one sausage, every day would increase a person's risk by 19%.

• Saturday, January 14th 2012 - 05:57 UTC

  UK student to be extradited to the US for hosting hacked films and TV programs

  

  A UK student from Sheffield can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled. Richard O'Dwyer, 23, set up the TVShack website which US authorities say hosts links to pirated copyrighted films and television programs.

• Friday, January 13th 2012 - 21:48 UTC

  UK producer prices drop in December; further emergency stimulus anticipated

  

  The prices of goods leaving Britain's factories surprisingly fell in December compared with November, confirming expectations that inflation is set to ease further this year, official data showed Friday.

• Friday, January 13th 2012 - 21:18 UTC

  S&P downgrades France’s rating; Greek swap talks on hold; Euro hits new low

  

  Stock markets and the Euro traded lower Friday as Greek debt swap talks were put on hold and France’s Finance minister confirmed that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the country’s credit rating.

• Friday, January 13th 2012 - 21:02 UTC

  Trade of illegal pesticides booming in Europe under control of organized crime

  

  The trade of illegal and counterfeit pesticides is proliferating in Europe reports Europol. The exceptional ‘low risk – high profit’ margin, combined with the lack of harmonisation in legislation and implementation, make this a fast growing area of organised crime.

• Thursday, January 12th 2012 - 21:52 UTC

  FAO Food prices index in spite of mild drop, reached highest average in 2011

  

  Food prices fell in December 2011 with the FAO Food Price Index dropping 2.4%, or five points from November, FAO said on Thursday. At its new level of 211 points, the Index was 11.3% (27 points) below its peak in February 2011.

• Thursday, January 12th 2012 - 21:48 UTC

  ICANN opens registry for new generic top-level domains; application fee 185.000 dollars

  

  Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has begun accepting applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Currently, there are 22 top-level domain endings, such as .com, .info and .org.