Brussels - The European Union's executive on Tuesday formally called on
the bloc to offer Romania a 5-billion-euro (6.5- billion-dollar)
bail-out to save it from financial collapse.

The hand-out, part of a 20-billion-euro deal agreed in principle with
the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on March 25, is intended
to support Romania's currency, battered in the recent economic storm,
and to keep its government solvent.

It comes with a demand that the country bring its government deficit

Brussels - World, European and African leaders are set to gather in Brussels on Thursday for a conference to raise funds for Somalia's fledgling security institutions, as the world struggles to come to grips with the piracy epidemic along the country's coast.

Brussels - The European Union rejects the claim by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel is a racist state, but most members will not abandon the UN conference where he made the claim, a joint statement said on Tuesday.

The EU "rejects in the strongest terms" Ahmadinejad's accusation, made at the opening of the so-called Durban II conference on racism in Geneva on Monday, that Israel is a racist regime, the statement, drawn up by the Czech government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said.

Brussels - China must do more to make its manufacturers produce safe goods, the European Union's consumer affairs commissioner said Monday as a report revealed that record numbers of dangerous Chinese imports were seized in the EU in 2008.

China's product-safety authorities have investigated roughly half of the cases of dangerous Chinese goods which the EU has discovered in recent years, and this is "not good enough," Meglena Kuneva told journalists in Brussels.

Brussels - The election victory by the National Unity Party (UBP) in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) should not derail reunification talks with the Greek half of the island, European Union officials said Monday.

"We do not think that the outcome of the elections in the northern part of Cyprus should have a direct bearing on the negotiating process," said Krisztina Nagy, spokeswoman for EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said in Brussels.

Brussels - The European Union's executive is to launch an anti-trust probe into cooperation deals between members of the Star Alliance and Oneworld airline groups such as British Airways, Iberia and United, officials in Brussels announced on Monday.

The European Commission fears that two sets of deals between certain members of the two alliances could potentially reduce competition on hotly-contested trans-Atlantic routes and push up prices, a statement released in Brussels said.