International

• Saturday, March 6th 2010 - 11:37 UTC

  British MPs 1.5% pay increase taking salaries to £ 65.737

  

  British MPs are to get a 1.5% rise from next month bringing their salaries to £ 65.737. The increase of nearly £1,000 is likely to spark fury in the wake of revelations about expenses abuse and with millions of workers across the private and public sectors facing freezes or even cuts.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:33 UTC

  Greek PM in Berlin will test Germany’s commitment

  

  Two political allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Greece should sell off some of its islands to pay off its debts. Greece's Prime Minister, George Papandreou, is due to meet Ms Merkel in Berlin Friday for talks about his country's economic crisis.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:29 UTC

  Bank of England leaves QE program and interest rates unchanged

  

  The Bank of England opted Thursday against providing fresh aid for the economy after a year of record low interest rates and emergency stimulus measures. Its rate-setting committee marked the first anniversary of quantitative easing by leaving the program unchanged at £200bn and holding borrowing costs at 0.5%.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:25 UTC

  Euro zone interest rate left at record low of 1% for tenth month

  

  The European Central Bank (ECB) has kept the Euro zone benchmark interest rate at its record low of 1% for the 10th month in a row, as expected. ECB also signalled it would scale back the special lending measures introduced during the financial crisis even though the economy in the 16 countries that use the Euro is only barely growing.

• Friday, March 5th 2010 - 06:21 UTC

  China surprises with a slower growth of its 2010 defence budget policy

  

  China announced a slowdown in the growth of its much-watched defence budget. The planned increase of just 7.5% on last year's military spending is the smallest hike after more than two decades of annual double-digit increases.

• Thursday, March 4th 2010 - 11:46 UTC

  Standard Chartered record profits; criticizes regulation proposals

  

  Standard Chartered has reported record profits in 2009 and criticised some recent proposals to regulate banks. Pre-tax profits were 5.15 billion USD (£3.4bn), up 13% from 2008. Total pay and bonuses rose 4% to 4.91 billion USD.

• Thursday, March 4th 2010 - 04:19 UTC

  Europe welcomes Greek austerity plan, but Athens demands “solidarity”

  

  Europe has welcomed a 6.6 billion US dollars Greek austerity plan of pension freezes and tax hikes as the country mounts a frantic bid to cut its budget deficit. Hundreds of pensioners hit the streets after Prime Minister George Papandreou revealed the hit to public and private sector retirement plans.

• Thursday, March 4th 2010 - 04:13 UTC

  Giant waves ram cruise in Mediterranean killing two

  

  Two people have been killed and six injured as giant waves slammed into a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, the ship's owners have said. The 8 metres high rogue waves hit the Cypriot-owned Louis Majesty off the north-east coast of Spain.

• Thursday, March 4th 2010 - 04:10 UTC

  Spain: no end in sight for the ranks of unemployed

  

  The ranks of Spain’s unemployed increased by 2.03% in February compared with January, bringing the jobless total to more than 4.13 million, the Labour and Immigration Ministry said Tuesday. The figure is the highest since 1996.

• Thursday, March 4th 2010 - 03:34 UTC

  Spanish opposition reacts to Ban Ki-moon’s approach to decolonization process

  

  Spanish opposition Popular Party MP José Ignacio Landaluce said this week that the only option for the decolonisation of Gibraltar was its return to Spain. He was reacting to comments made by the United Nations’ Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who has called for a “pragmatic and realistic” approach to the decolonisation process.