Brussels - If civilian casualties were the yardstick used to assess NATO's operations in Afghanistan, few would be able to argue that the alliance is winning its war against the Taliban insurgency.

According to United Nations estimates published in Kabul on Tuesday, the toll of Afghanistan's civilian death by military action rose by 40 per cent last year, to 2,118, the highest figure since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Brussels - Up to 3.5 million European Union citizens face losing their jobs in 2009 owing to the current economic crisis, the EU's executive warned Tuesday.

According to the European Commission's first monthly survey of the EU's job market, "further deterioration in the labour market is foreseen for the months ahead ... with overall employment contracting by 1.6 per cent, or some 3.5 million jobs."

Unemployment across the 27-member bloc - which in 2008 was estimated at 7.0 per cent - is set to climb to nearly 10 per cent by the end of 2010, the report said.

Brussels - The European Union's executive sent a formal letter to Spain on Tuesday asking for more information on a 4.1-billion-euro (5.4-billion-dollar) rescue plan for the car industry, officials in Brussels confirmed.

The move is a "precautionary measure, because we have not received full details" of the rescue package which the Spanish government finalized on Friday, Jonathan Todd, spokesman for EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, told journalists in Brussels.

Brussels - People fleeing from violence and seeking safety in the European Union do not have to prove that their lives are under personal threat if they come from a dangerous enough country, the EU's highest court ruled on Tuesday.

But it is up to EU states to decide which countries count as dangerous enough, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled.

The ruling concerns Iraqi couple Meki and Noor Elgafaji, who in December 2006 applied for temporary residence permits in the Netherlands, saying that their lives would be in danger if they stayed in Iraq.

Brussels - The European Union's executive on Tuesday approved a joint venture between British aircraft engine maker Rolls Royce and Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala aimed at offering aircraft maintenance services in North Africa and the Middle East.

The formation of a joint venture specializing in aircraft engine maintenance "would not significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area (EEA) or a substantial part of it," the European Commission said in a statement.

Brussels - The European Union's executive body is set on Wednesday to warn at least six member states that they are going too deeply into debt as they struggle to ward off recession.

But analysts say that the European Commission is likely to give euro users France, Greece, Ireland, Malta and Spain, and non-euro country Latvia, several years to bring their budgets back into line with EU rules, as the 27-member bloc faces the worst economic crisis in 60 years.