International

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 19:57 UTC

  Final journey for a HMS Ark Royal formation of Harrier jump jets

  

  A formation of Harrier jump jets has made their final journey from HMS Ark Royal - the last such flight from a UK aircraft carrier for about 10 years. The four GR9 jets marked the end of an era when they roared off the deck near North Shields, North Tyneside. Both the Ark Royal and the Harriers are being scrapped under cost-saving plans.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 15:38 UTC

  Exports help UK economy expand but tight budget contracts domestic demand

  

  United Kingdom’s export growth helped the economy extend its recovery in the third quarter as growth in consumer, government and investment spending slowed by more than half. GDP rose 0.8% from the previous three months, when it increased 1.2%, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday in London.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 15:36 UTC

  IMF insists Europe needs “far-reaching” reforms to safeguard the “social model”

  

  Europe needs collaborative and far-reaching reforms to restore strong and balanced growth across the region and safeguard the European social model, the head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn told bankers and officials in Frankfurt.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 05:19 UTC

  EU and IMF are demanding more austerity and reforms from Greece

  

  EU and IMF auditors cleared a new slice of rescue funding for Greece on Tuesday but demanded more austerity action while acknowledging that the country faced potential strains in repaying on time.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 05:17 UTC

  Emergency loans to Ireland total 85 b Euros, conditioned to draconian budget cuts

  

  EU and IMF have extended 85bn Euros of emergency loans to the Republic of Ireland, according to reports on Irish state television. The widely anticipated bail-out package comes after a day of sharp falls in global share prices and the Euro.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 00:57 UTC

  Spain feeling Irish contagion: extra yield on bonds hits Euro-area high

  

  Spain said it doesn’t need to adopt further austerity measures to stem a surge in borrowing costs as the central government’s budget gap narrowed by almost half.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 00:51 UTC

  Currency appreciation pressures inevitable until US controls budget deficit

  

  Fast-growing emerging markets would be facing currency appreciation pressures even without the US quantitative easing policy, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in an interview on Tuesday.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 00:50 UTC

  World leaders promise funds and plan to double tigers in the wild by 2022

  

  World leaders and countries that have wild tigers endorsed a major plan to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022 underscoring their commitments at the historic International Tiger Conservation Forum.

• Tuesday, November 23rd 2010 - 23:56 UTC

  Fish can shrink during particularly harsh winters, say Scandinavian scientists

  

  Fish can shrink during particularly harsh winters, according to researchers. Scientists, based in Norway and Finland, discovered that juvenile brown trout reduced in length by as much as 1cm - shrinkage of approximately 10%.

• Tuesday, November 23rd 2010 - 04:28 UTC

  Irish PM will call early election after austerity budget is passed

  

  Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen defied mounting pressure to quit and announced Monday he would stay in office until parliament passed an austerity budget needed to secure an IMF/EU bailout and then call an early election.