Europe | featured news

British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged Wednesday to offer citizens a vote on whether to leave the European Union if his party wins the next election, prompting rebukes from European leaders accusing the premier of putting the bloc's future at risk over domestic politics....

A foul-smelling cloud of gas escaped from a factory in northern France on Tuesday, making life unpleasant from the outskirts of Paris to Britain's shores and prompting scores of emergency calls.

Sitting on the edge of a town outside Naples, the Euromilk dairy-produce distribution firm looks like any other small business engaged in a very ordinary trade. But the compound, with its warehouse and offices, lies in the heartland of the formidable Neapolitan crime network, the Camorra.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was in the lead Sunday after the first state poll of a general election year, initial results showed, but the race for a ruling coalition rested on a knife-edge.

Like any nation, China has a host of problems, both societal and economic. It's getting older. It has yet to develop large portions of the west. Corruption is rampant. It has not serious entrepreneurial business culture that can drive the country's economic development. It has untold billions in government investments into states and municipalities that have no investment return for the foreseeable future. But this bridge to nowhere economy, as some naysayers might call it, has one big immediate hurdle. That hurdle is Europe.

Spain's governing Popular Party announced Saturday that it will investigate the financial activities of a former treasurer whom a court said had amassed an unexplained €22 million ($29 million) in Swiss bank accounts.

Within the past few days, French combat forces have deployed to the West African state of Mali to halt the advance of militant Islamist fighters toward the capital and to help the Malian army begin to reclaim towns previously occupied by the militants.

France pledged on Tuesday to keep troops in Mali until stability returned to the West African country, raising the specter of a long campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels who held their ground despite a fifth day of air strikes.

The French president says the country will raise its domestic terror threat level after military action in Mali and Somalia, promising to increase protection at public buildings and transportation networks.

One of Britain's most celebrated crossword setters, Araucaria, uses one of his own puzzles to announce he is dying of cancer.