Daily News Channel
The German government is studying a proposal from Opel and its parent company, General Motors, to save the struggling carmaker with a huge cash injection and a cost-cutting plan. The proposal calls for GM to sell off a stake in its Opel unit, the core of its European operations, in order to win $4.18 billion (€3.3 billion) in government support from Germany and others in the region, said Andreas Kroemer, a spokesman for GM Europe.
President Obama has told Russia that the United States might not proceed with a missile defense system in eastern Europe if Iran drops plans for producing nuclear weapons, senior administration officials said Tuesday. Obama raised the possibility in a letter to Russia seeking help in trying to end Iran’s nuclear program, a senior administration official said. Contrary to news reports, it was not a secret letter, the official said
European markets opened higher Tuesday, following a global selling spree the day before, although fell back slightly by early afternoon trading.
European markets opened higher Tuesday, putting at least a temporary hold on the latest global selling spree. Europe’s major exchanges were all higher in early trading
The United States has offered more than $900 million to help the Palestinian people, particularly those in Gaza, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Monday. “Only by acting now can we turn this crisis into an opportunity that moves us closer to our shared goals,” Clinton said at a Gaza donors conference hosted by Egypt in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh
Stock markets in Asia and Europe were reeling Monday amid fresh concerns over the strength of the global banking industry as HSBC announced a huge slump in profits and the U.S. government said it would pump $30 billion into ailing insurance giant AIG. London’s FTSE dropped more than 3 percent in early trading to drop below 3,700 points — a six-year low — with banking stocks leading the slide
European Union leaders have agreed to provide "appropriate" aid on a case-by-case basis to member nations battered by the global economic downturn, the union’s current president said Sunday. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek called reports of a split over threats of protectionism an “artificial” controversy over-dramatized by news outlets, and said the EU would use its tools “to the full extent” to offset the impact of job losses among its 27 members. “There has been a clear decision that all member states will get the appropriate assistance in the cases where appropriate,” Topolanek said during an emergency summit in Brussels.
A right-wing Dutch politician arrived in the U.S. Thursday to show his controversial film attacking Islam.
Twenty years after revolution swept communism from Eastern Europe, the region is in the middle of another maelstrom.
As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there’s new buzz that "Star Trek’s" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched. Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space. There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book “The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets.” He made the prediction based on the number of “super-Earths” — planets several times the mass of the Earth, but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter — discovered so far circling stars outside the solar system.