Lets dedicate this thread to news only from Europe! I'll start:


Average Restaurant Meal in London: $79
Published: 9/12/07, 2:42 PM EDT

LONDON (AP) - Thinking of a night out in London? Don't forget your wallet.

London is the most expensive dining capital in the world, restaurant rating company Zagat said Tuesday.

The average meal in London costs just over $79, beating out Paris, at nearly $72 and Tokyo, at just over $71, according to the company's survey of 5,300 Londoners.

That makes eating out in the British capital more than twice as expensive as New York, where the average meal costs $39.

The prices include drinks and tips.

Time Out's London food editor Guy Dimond said the Zagat survey was likely skewed toward high-end restaurants, but said the city's booming economy has pushed prices up across the board.

London is already the world's second-costliest city, according to a survey published by Mercer Human Resource in June. Moscow was rated as the world's most expensive, while New York, which served as the survey's base, ranked 15th.

Heres one my friend devinci will love!!!

The president of the European Central Bank has singled out credit rating agencies for criticism over the current turmoil on global financial markets.
In an interview with the BBC, Jean-Claude Trichet also insisted there was no reason to doubt the underlying health of the European economy.

He was in Brussels to explain to members of the European Parliament what had forced the Bank to lend billions of euros to financial institutions.

The credit crunch was prompted by fears that banks worldwide had lost billions of dollars on investments linked to risky home loans in the US.

Mr Trichet's arrival in the European Parliament's committee room was marked by a media scrum of flashbulbs and TV news cameras more usually associated with film stars.

He is, after all, the man who ultimately controls the destiny of the only currency that can truly claim to rival the US dollar.

Not to copy Paul Harvey, but for the rest of the story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6990443.stm

How about the labor situation in Europe?

Crackdown pledge on minimum wage

Mr Hutton said rogue bosses should be "rooted out"
Firms who pay less than the minimum wage face bigger fines as part of a crackdown on "rogue" employers.
Business and Enterprise Secretary John Hutton said he wanted to double the number of inspectors overseeing standards in employment agencies.

He told the TUC conference workers who had been underpaid by unscrupulous bosses would also get "fair arrears".

The Unite union welcomed the crackdown but said more work was needed on equal rights for agency staff and temps.

Mr Hutton told trade unionists the government was committed to improving life in the workplace but he recognised that some workers could still be exploited by unscrupulous firms.

Maximum fines

"We must root out the rogues as we also act to protect jobs and flexibility in our labour market that offers choice to millions of workers," he said.

He said maximum fines were being increased for employers who continued to pay less than the minimum wage and said there would be an unlimited fine for "rogue" employment agencies.

We need rigorous enforcement of existing laws, making examples of the worst employers

Tony Woodley

The government has been under pressure from the unions to sign up to a proposed EU directive which gives new rights to agency workers.

Mr Hutton said there should be a balance between equal treatment, and protecting jobs and giving people the choice agency work offered.

He said he wanted a "fair and lasting solution".

But Tony Woodley, joint leader of Unite, said they were "fine words" but he wanted to see clear commitment and action.

"We need rigorous enforcement of existing laws, making examples of the worst employers who should go out of business or be sent to jail," he said.

"The minister's announcements are welcome but the law also needs to be extended. Crucially, the law should guarantee equal treatment of agency workers and the directly employed."

What about Human trafficing?

Destination Europe
International criminal gangs are now cashing in on people trafficking, with large cargo vessels smuggling Asian migrants across no less than three continents towards their desired destination - the UK, Panorama can reveal.

People smuggling via the sea is a big business when so many Africans are desperate to flee war and poverty in search of a better life in Europe.

Last year more than 50,000 African migrants reached Europe's southern shores in small rickety boats.

The Canary Islands in Spain and the island of Lampedusa in Italy are the preferred port of entry for the migrants as they are closest to Africa's shores.

The rest of the story, you ask:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/6986198.stm

More here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5328142.stm

great job fanta, keep up the good work. this U.S. news was depressing me. i need to read something uplifting, thank you

How about this for "News"??



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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6990802.stm


Russian 'sex day' to boost births

This year's grand prize winners drive off in their new SUV
The governor of Ulyanovsk region in Russia is offering prizes to couples who have babies in exactly nine months - on Russia's national day on 12 June.
Sergei Morozov wants couples to take the day off work to have sex. If a baby is born on national day, they will receive cars, TVs or other prizes.

Mr Morozov has declared Wednesday "family contact day" as part of efforts to fight Russia's demographic crisis.

The population has sharply declined since the Soviet Union collapsed.

This is the third year that Ulyanovsk, in central Russia, is offering prizes for babies born on 12 June.

This year, a couple won the grand prize of a sports utility vehicle (SUV).

The initiative seems to be paying off, as the region's birth rate has risen by 4.5% over the last year.

"If there's a good, healthy atmosphere at home within the family, if the husband and wife both love each other and their child, they will be in good spirits... so there'll be a healthy atmosphere throughout the country," Mr Morozov told the Associated Press news agency.

Demographers estimate that Russia could lose 40 million people - almost a third of its current population - by the middle of the century.

A combination of falling birth rates, emigration and an ailing healthcare system has led to the decline.

President Vladimir Putin has introduced a scheme to encourage more children.

Women who have a second or third child are eligible to receive $9,000, which can be used to pay for education or home purchases.

We should have a holiday like that here!



Hi Bay!

I've been trying to find funny stories from our Euro friends, but I keep going to the Netherland's part and looking up prostitutes. Maybe if I visit friends over there I'll take a stroll down a couple streets

I like that idea too kid!!

Wrong side of the iron curtain thouugh!!!

So what would be the average wage weekly of the diners in these 'high end' restaurants?...in the first article...

Sometimes it is all relevant...were you looking at this article Fanta, with your weekly wage in mind?

Because that restaurant price is pretty comparible to countries that have a fairly high weekly wage...

And Baygal, we have a similar situation here in Australia...we are a small population, and an aging population, there is not enough 20 somethings to support the 'grey nomads' into their retirement, and the government has been a little naughty with superannuation funds, ....we have government incentives to have children...that came into play in the last ten years...they are now I think around $6 000 for the birth of a new baby...with $638 tax rebate instantly, per year, per child..

We also have 'people smuggling' here..people desperate to leave the troubles in their country arriving often in rickety boats that they sold all their possesions to get on to...mostly from Timor, Indonesia...

Sad sad stories...of people desparate to give their children a better life...

Oh, someone said their newspapers were filled with stories about the US Jess. I just thought Id post the other side. The side we as Americans dont have time to worry about!

I have no idea what the min wage in Europe is, but from reading the article I would venture to say their companies are breaking the law!

There is more to the story, but I didn't want to seem like I was just England bashing! The main theme with the Unions protesting to Brown is that the British are not joining the EU with the enthusiasm that the EU and unions would like!

I was hoping for Europeans to participate in a discussion concerning the problems they have at home with the same fire they exhibit on American issues!

So far nothing!!!

It's midnight over there at the moment....perhaps they are asleep...or out, or have company...

or have no money for internet service?

Possible...anything is possible..

Or eaten by Werewolves in London!

Immigration Shift: Many Latin Americans Choosing Spain Over U.S.
Extreme crisis in some countries and closing doors in the United States are helping to fuel a new path for Latin Americans
By Pilar Marrero, Pacific News Service



December 9, 2004 - Magdalena Loor, a divorced woman with three children, planned to leave her native Ecuador in 1999, looking for a way out of the worst economic crisis in the country's history.

She thought about going to the United States, a place she dreamed about and where her movie star idol Arnold Schwarzenegger, also an immigrant, had made it big.

"My ideal was to go to California, for the beautiful landscape, what I've seen on television," Loor says. "But I knew it was a hard thing to accomplish."

Legal entry into the United States was next to impossible. Ecuador was undergoing the fastest economic decline in the history of Latin America, and the American Embassy would not give Ecuadorians a visitor's visa, knowing they would want to stay.

Others were entering illegally, but it was risky. Ecuadorian newspapers had reported that thousands of their countrymen were being returned, and some had been found dead in the Arizona desert after moving thru Central America and Mexico.

But Magdalena had a friend who now lived in a place she never thought she would visit: Spain.

"She told me I could count on her," Magdalena says during an interview in Madrid, where she now resides. "She sent me the ticket and the money they asked me to show at the airport to enter the country as a visitor. They didn't ask for a visa; it was very easy."

Magdalena was not alone. During the crisis in Ecuador, a small South American country with a population of 12 million, at least 1.5 million Ecuadorians emigrated, looking elsewhere for work and a better life.

An estimated 1 million Ecuadorians now live in the United States, most of them in New York. But others saw Spain, Italy and other European countries as a better opportunity. Traveling there was easier and cheaper, and at the time a visa was not required.

"Back in those years, the flights to Spain from Ecuador were coming in full," says Vladimir Paspuel, president of the Rumiñahi Hispanic American Association, a Madrid-based organization of Ecuadorians living abroad. Flights from Colombia, Argentina, Peru and Bolivia were also crowded. "They would only ask that you show a couple of thousand dollars at the airport to show you were a visitor," Paspuel says.

According to Paspuel, professionals were the first to leave Ecuador. The working poor followed. "We Ecuadorians have become the largest community of immigrants in Spain," says Paspuel, himself once a university professor in Quito who left in 2000.

Since becoming part of the European Union in 1986, Spain's economy has grown to become one of the most prosperous in Europe. At first, Spain received many immigrants from Africa and the former Eastern European countries, who filled the hardest and lowest-paying jobs in agriculture, construction and industry.

Slowly at first, and very rapidly in the late 1990s, Latin American workers joined the flow of immigrants going to Spain for economic reasons, similar to the way 3.5 million Spanish refugees had gone to Latin America in the late 1930s and early '40s, fleeing war, repression and hunger.

Today, Ecuadorians are the largest immigrant group in Spain, outnumbering Moroccans, who continuously risk their lives crossing the Strait of Gibraltar aboard flimsy boats.

According to the Spanish Ministry for Immigration, the number of Ecuadorians in the country has gone from 2,000 in 1995, to 84,000 in 2001 and 375,000 in 2003. The real number could be 500,000 or higher, since many are undocumented.

Colombians living in Spain have also grown exponentially, from a little over 7,000 in 1993 to more than 80,000 in 2002 and 244,000 in 2003. It is estimated that over 300,000 Argentines entered Spain around 2001, after that country's economic collapse.

According to a study by the Interamerican Development Bank, in early 2003 Latin Americans in Spain were sending about 706 million euros (about $900 million) annually back to their home countries.

"Like the United States, Europe requires cheap labor from other countries," says Adela Ros, secretary for immigration for the region of Catalunya, Spain. "Our labor markets rely a great deal on that labor. Many do not want to recognize that fact."

Spain's birth rate is the lowest in Europe. According to the United Nations Population Division, Spain needs 12 million immigrants from now until 2050 just to maintain labor force levels.

"Many women work as domestics, which helps Spanish women to move in the labor market," Paspuel says. "Men work in construction, industry, commerce, hotels in the main cities, like Madrid and Barcelona, and in agriculture in Murcia and Valencia. The immigrants are doing the jobs that Spanish people won't do now that they have moved up the economic scale."

In the last couple of years, the massive influx of immigrants and the
pressure applied by the European Union for member countries to regulate it has resulted in policy changes, including new visa requirements for immigrants from Ecuador and Colombia and some other Latin American countries.

But the strengthening of immigration laws in the United States starting in 1996 has helped keep Spain an attractive option for many Latin Americans.

"The United States will always need a certain level of immigration and will continue to receive legal and undocumented workers," says Jessica Retis, a Peruvian who has lived Madrid since the mid-1990s and is pursuing a doctorate in Contemporary Latin America studies. "But what's happened here is like an echo. People think, 'The door is closing in the U.S., let's go to Europe.'"

This is an old one, but it's still european

From Pravda:
http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/10-09-2007/96909-us_economy-0

China may lead US economy to collapse dumping US dollar

The U.S. dollar is standing at the edge of a cliff, and most people don’t even know it.

Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have been net sellers of U.S. treasuries over the past five weeks, with $48 billion having been sold since late July, and $32 billion in just the last two weeks.

The U.S. runs budget deficits each year. If foreigners stop buying treasuries—or worse, start selling them—the dollar could be in big trouble.

The reduction in treasuries “comes as a big surprise and it is definitely worrying,” said Hans Redeker, foreign exchange strategy chief at bnp Paribas, one of Europe’s biggest banks.

The Telegraph reported that, according to Redeker, the numbers demonstrate “that world central banks are in a hurry to get out of the U.S.”

The nation that analysts are watching especially closely at this stage is China. Whether or not Beijing is selling its dollars can’t be officially confirmed until November, when the Treasury releases its tic data. However, top Beijing officials have been signaling for at least two years that dollar sales are increasingly imminent.....more.....

LMAO @ DaVinci ....