International

• Tuesday, July 12th 2011 - 07:01 UTC

  EU digs in to defend Euro: lower costs of aid packages and beefs up stability fund

  

  European Union finance ministers pledged to beef up a rescue package for troubled economies such as Greece as they went to battle to contain debt crisis contagion threatening to engulf Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy and Socialist Spain.

• Tuesday, July 12th 2011 - 03:47 UTC

  South Georgia mentioned as example of longline fisheries seabirds protection

  

  A new global estimate of the impact of longline fisheries on seabirds reveals that, despite efforts to reduce seabird deaths, upwards of 300,000 birds are still being killed every year. However South Georgia is praised for having imposed strict regulations that have seen seabird deaths as bycatch drop by 99%.

• Tuesday, July 12th 2011 - 01:47 UTC

  Euro confidence crisis, Italian chapter, sends world markets tumbling

  

  Global stocks and the Euro sank as fears that Italy could become the latest country caught up in the Euro-zone debt crisis caused investors to sell risky assets and snap up safe-haven US Treasury debt, pushing the 10-year note's yield below 3%.

• Monday, July 11th 2011 - 18:12 UTC

  Euro-confidence crisis contagion reaches Italy and again attacks Spain

  

  European finance chiefs will consider how to dig Greece out of its financial hole just as markets batter the bonds of Spain and Italy, opening a new front in the debt crisis.

• Monday, July 11th 2011 - 08:05 UTC

  News of the World exits but the political consequences have just begun

  

  British government lawyers are drawing up a plan to block Rupert Murdoch's bid for the pay-TV operator BSkyB, the Independent newspaper reported on Monday.

• Monday, July 11th 2011 - 07:51 UTC

  China’s trade surplus soars in June with imports growth slowing down

  

  China's trade surplus widened more than expected to 22.3 billion US dollars in June, the highest level in seven months, as imports grew at the slowest pace since 2009. The surplus was 13.1 billion USD the previous month and 20 billion USD a year earlier.

• Monday, July 11th 2011 - 07:46 UTC

  Airline industry test second generation bio-fuels from algae to coconut oil

  

  After decades of waiting, commercial airlines have been given the go-ahead to use fuel made from algae, wood chips and other plants with obscure names. Test flights in recent years by Continental, Japan Airlines and Virgin Atlantic have shown that planes can fly on everything from coconut oil to jatropha, a plant that grows in the tropics.

• Monday, July 11th 2011 - 07:40 UTC

  Millions of tons of plastic debris in oceans lethal threat for whales and dolphins

  

  Millions of tons of plastic debris dumped each year in the world's oceans could pose a lethal threat to whales and dolphins, according to a scientific assessment to be presented at a key international whaling forum this week.

• Sunday, July 10th 2011 - 09:00 UTC

  “The News of the World” last mobile phone hacking message: “Thank You & Goodbye”

  

  The final edition of the paper engulfed in a phone hacking scandal was published today as Rupert Murdoch headed to London to try to save the bigger prize of his takeover of the British broadcaster BSkyB.

• Saturday, July 9th 2011 - 07:13 UTC

  Brazil banned from selling Israeli-technology UAV to Venezuela

  

  Israel Aerospace Industries signed a joint venture with Brazil's Synergy Group to manufacture Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) (drones) to fight drug trafficking in Brazilian borders under the condition that the aircrafts are not sold to Venezuela.