SHANGHAI (AFP) – The European Union said it would press China on Friday to back up its words with action and do more to stem the flow of Chinese-made counterfeit goods into Europe and around the world.
European tax, customs and anti-fraud commissioner Algirdas Semeta said he would ask Chinese officials at a joint customs [...]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The IMF and the World Bank have stepped up aid to flood-hit Pakistan to help it cope with its worst-ever humanitarian disaster, officials said Thursday.
IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the fund “will provide around 450 million dollars in immediate emergency financing” to Pakistan to help it manage the aftermath of the [...]

PARIS (AFP) – France said Monday it will step up deportations of foreigners caught stealing or begging aggressively as part of a high-profile crackdown on the Roma minority that has sparked condemnation around the world.
Bucharest warned that Paris's drive to send thousands of Roma back to Romania and Bulgaria was “no solution”, as the [...]

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – UN agencies on Friday stepped up calls for donors to deliver on their pledges for Pakistan to prevent what UN chief Ban Ki-moon called a “slow-motion tsunami” from wreaking further catastrophe.
Torrential monsoon rains unleashed the worst floods for 80 years, affecting 20 million people and an area the size of England [...]

LONDON (AFP) – Foreign Secretary William Hague warmly welcomed the resumption of direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians on Friday as a “courageous step” towards peace in the region.
He called for “urgent progress” and appealed to the parties to refrain from any activity that could undermine the talks, which are backed by the [...]

LONDON – Britain’s first national security adviser is to leave his post, the government confirmed Monday — less than three months after the official took up the newly created role.
Peter Ricketts, previously the country’s top diplomat, was appointed after Prime Minister David Cameron’s government took office in May to lead its security work and [...]

LONDON (AFP) – BP said Tuesday that chief executive Tony Hayward will leave the group in October and will be replaced by Bob Dudley, who is currently in charge of the oil-spill clean-up operation.
“BP today announced that, by mutual agreement with the BP board, Tony Hayward is to step down as group chief executive [...]

Mon Jul 12, 2010 01:03 pm PDT
We in the United States get 1 MILLION BARRELS of oil PER DAY from the N i g e r River delta in Nigeria, Africa.
The N i g e r River delta is now one of the most oil polluted river deltas on earth.
Between [...]

River stagnation by large dams and mega-dams in Africa and southeast Asia = plagues of malaria and other water bourne diseases and parasites.
Senegal's malarial plague is caused by the stagnation of the BAFING RIVER by the upstream Manatali dam. The African country of Ghana has also suffered massive plagues of malaria and stagnant water [...]

LONDON (AFP) –
The boss of the biggest employers' organisation, the
, will step down next year, it announced on Tuesday.
will leave “in early 2011″ after nearly five years at the helm, the influential business lobby said in a statement.
“Now is the right time in the political and economic cycle for me to hand [...]