Europe | featured news

Italy's parliament failed to elect a president in its first vote on Thursday, with internal party divisions undermining the center-left's official candidate, former trade unionist and ex-Senate speaker Franco Marini.

Germany's lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to grant Cyprus a 10 billion euro bailout that is designed to avert bankruptcy for the tiny Mediterranean island nation and keep it in the euro zone.

The Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg has been charged with hacking into several Swedish companies and stealing personal data.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday shaved projections for global economic growth for this year and next to take into account sharp government spending cuts in the United States and the latest struggles of recession-stricken Europe.

Interpol has joined the hunt for a French bandit who escaped from prison after taking four guards hostage and blasting through a series of armored doors to a waiting car.

EU finance ministers agreed to allow Portugal and Ireland to repay their bailout loans later than initially agreed, in a bid to help the two governments wean themselves off bailout money in the coming year.

This year now looks unlikely to deliver much improvement in the world economy's growth rate, with a weaker outlook for Europe and the United States tempering the cautious optimism that was evident in January.

Foreign ministers from the G8 group of rich countries failed to patch up deep divisions over Syria or come up with a plan on North Korea during a meeting in London on Thursday.

France's top rabbi has taken leave from his post after becoming ensnared in a scandal over alleged plagiarism and lies about his educational background. Richard Prasquier, the head of a leading French Jewish group, said Rabbi Gilles Bernheim asked for the leave at an emergency meeting Thursday of leaders of the Central Consistory of France. On Tuesday, Bernheim acknowledged making "mistakes" in an interview with Radio Shalom.

The summer heat waves over the past decade that killed thousands of people in Europe, scorched the Russian wheat crop, and sent Greenland's glaciers galloping to the sea are without parallel since at least 1400, according to a new study. The findings are based on a statistical analysis of summer seasonal temperatures inferred from tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments, and instrumental records.