It is looking increasingly certain that a lack of support amongst both center-right and center-left politicians across Europe will put paid to Tony Blair's chances of becoming the first President of Europe.

U.K. Chancellor Alistair Darling has blocked an attempt by Sweden, which currently holds the E.U. presidency, to reach an agreement for the creation of a regulatory body for the banking sector within the European Union's 27 member states.

India, home to over one third of the world's hungry, has been criticized in a report by an international anti-poverty agency over its efforts to tackle the problem of hunger within its population.

A European Union ban on the manufacture and import of 100 watt and frosted incandescent light bulbs comes into effect today, September 1.

A Spanish woman, who won 126 millions euros in the Euromillions lottery last Friday, only found out on Monday that she had hit the jackpot, due to a bout of flu.

This week's violent confrontations in Rotterdam, in which encircled local police had to fire warning shots during Liberation Day riots in Europe's largest harbour city, 'were probably planned', its mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said at a press conference.

According to a British study, the happiest children in Europe live in the Netherlands and in Scandinavian countries. Britain is ranked 24th among 29 countries.

All the cannabis-dealing coffeeshops in two Dutch towns near the Belgian border are closing down from 16 september. This decision was made by the mayors of Roozendaal and Bergen Op Zoom, which get a weekly 25,000 drug tourists.

Czech president Václav Klaus' formal speech at the usually so sedate European Parliament in Brussels raised so many hackles among the socialists that dozens walked out in protest - proving Klaus' claim that the EP brooked no opposite viewpoints.

25 Belgian mayors today travelled to a coffee shop in the Dutch city of Maastricht to ask just one thing from the local mayor: to close down his hugely popular coffee shops. The Belgian mayors warned of growing Flemish addiction and related criminality.