Brussels - The United States formally joined the European Union's rule-of-law mission (EULEX) in Kosovo on Wednesday by offering 80 police officers and "up to" eight judges and prosecutors to the 3,000-strong operation, officials said.
"The European Union and the United States have a common desire to work together to support the development of Kosovo's democratic standards," a joint statement issued at a signing ceremony in Brussels read.
Vienna - The Vienna Stock Exchange AG is expanding its reach in Central and Eastern Europe, as it has agreed to take over a majority of the Prague Stock Exchange.
"We agreed on the general terms of sale," Beatrix Exinger, spokeswoman of the Vienna bourse, was quoted by Austrian news agency APA on Wednesday.
The Prague stock exchange is valued at between 200 million and 400 million euros (268 million to 537 million dollars), but Exinger said the sale price was still to be negotiated.
Vienna could take over up to 90 per cent of the Prague exchange, according to Czech media reports.
Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes an expansion of the Group of Eight (G8) to embrace nations such as India and China, her spokesman said Wednesday in Berlin.
"She doesn't see an institutional expansion into a G9, a G12, a G15 and so on as the philosopher's stone," said deputy government spokesman Thomas Steg.
Singapore - Singapore Petroleum Company Limited and Eni International B V, equal joint venture partners in ItalSing Petroleum Company Pte Ltd, Wednesday sold a combined 55 per cent stake in ItalSing to Nippon Oil (Asia) Pte Ltd of Japan.
SPC and ENI will each continue to hold 22.5 per cent in ItalSing Petroleum, SPC said in a statement.
Nippon will continue to use the ItalSing facilities to manufacture and blend lube oils for the local and overseas markets.
"With Nippon Oil's global lubricant networks and markets, ENI and SPC look forward to working with Nippon Oil to create and enhance the value of our joint investment in ItalSing," SPC chief executive officer Koh Ban Heng said.
Manama, Bahrain - Iran's speaker of parliament Ali Larijani, in an interview published in Bahrain on Wednesday, criticized US policies on the Middle East conflict and the situation in Iraq.
"The West needs to reconsider what they say. The top US diplomat Condoleezza Rice, during the Israeli aggression against Lebanon which lasted 33 days, described the war as 'the birth pangs of a new Middle East'," Larijani was quoted as saying by Al Wasat.
"As a woman who did not try the experience of pregnancy she seems to not have known that a birth needs longer time than that."
Brussels - The United States formally joined the European Union's rule-of-law mission (EULEX) in Kosovo on Wednesday by offering 80 police officers and "up to" eight judges and prosecutors to the 3,000-strong operation, officials said.
Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes an expansion of the Group of Eight (G8) to embrace nations such as India and China, her spokesman said Wednesday in Berlin.
Khagaria (Bihar), Oct 22 : At least twenty-f
