The carnage on Wall Street reverberated across Europe today after US politicians rejected a $700bn (€487bn) bank rescue plan.

TAX reductions and other measures to help the poor and those hardest pressed by rising oil prices, including the fisheries and transport sectors, are to be proposed by the European Commission.

EUROPEAN Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso is being accused of being biased towards the big member states and of ignoring smaller countries, including Ireland.

Bulgarian and EU leaders have condemned today’s convictions in Libya of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for allegedly infecting 400 children with the HIV virus.

The European Union today proposed plans to boost the production of alternative fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol through additional aid and investment, aimed at reducing Europe’s heavy dependence on oil and natural gas.

A LEADING Iranian newspaper is to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust in what it calls a test of whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

The EU’s executive office today warned Iran that attempts to boycott Danish goods or cancel trade contracts with European countries would lead to a further rupture in already cool relations.

THE European Union has demanded that all Islamic states offer adequate protection to European citizens and property in case of further violent demonstrations over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

THE launch of a debate on how the EU could best communicate with citizens turned into a debacle yesterday with a row over what the commissioner meant to say.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said today the EU executive was confident that Russia and Ukraine would solve a gas transit dispute that threatens Europe’s supply of natural gas.

European Union finance ministers criticised British prime minister Tony Blair today for his EU budget plan that would slash overall spending by €24bn and substantially cut aid to the bloc’s newest and poorest members.