Europe | featured news

Robert Edwards, a Nobel prizewinner from Britain whose pioneering in vitro fertilization research led to the first test tube baby and has since brought millions of people into the world, died Wednesday at age 87....

Luxembourg says it will exchange information with the rest of Europe to help fight tax evasion. The initiative, which is to start in 2015, follows international pressure on Luxembourg to end its policy of banking secrecy that critics say has helped people hide money from tax authorities. Luxembourg, a tiny country of half a million people, boasts a huge financial industry with more than 3 trillion euros ($4 trillion) in assets.

It can be hard to admit to feelings of loneliness, but one in 10 Britons is lonely. It's not just an issue for the elderly - loneliness is rising among the young. So are we all destined to be lonely?

French forces launch one of their biggest offensives against militants in northern Mali before the start of their troop withdrawal later this month.

Serving a frugal lunch in their kitchen not much bigger than a bathroom, Pedro and Elena Baptista spoon stewed chicken feet onto their boiled potatoes and leave the slightly meatier wings for their 12-year-old daughter, Vania, and 7-year-old son, Joao.

Love her or loathe her, one thing's beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain. The Iron Lady, who ruled for 11 remarkable years, imposed her will on a fractious, rundown nation - breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from No. 10 Downing Street.

Some key data about bond purchases by Bank of Cyprus - now the focus of a controversial EU-IMF bailout - is missing, investigators have found. The gaps were found in computer records studied by a financial consultancy, Alvarez and Marsal, Cypriot media say.

Successive Slovenian governments have refused to privatize the country's banks, which made disastrous loans to politically connected business interests and now threaten to drag the country center stage in the euro zone debt crisis.

The International Monetary Fund will contribute 1 billion euros ($1.29 billion) over three years to the 10 billion euro bailout for Cyprus, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement on Wednesday.

A doctor overseeing the French version of the "Survivor" reality show has committed suicide following the sudden death of a contestant who he had treated, France's biggest TV station says. Dr. Thierry Costa killed himself on location Monday on an island in Cambodia, the TF1 station said. Costa, 38, blamed the press for damaging his professional reputation in a handwritten suicide note that TF1 published on its website.