France to support Palestinian 'statehood' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

"This Thursday or Friday, when the question is asked, France will vote yes," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced in the lower house of parliament.
The move recognises efforts made by Palestinian officials to establish a statehood bid for the occupied territory.

Russian mafia whistleblower found dead in UK - Europe - Al Jazeera English

A Russian businessman helping Swiss prosecutors uncover a powerful Russian fraud syndicate has died in mysterious circumstances outside his mansion in Britain.
Alexander Perepilichnyy had collapsed on a road early on the evening of 10 November, in the county of Surrey, southern England, in a chilling twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained Moscow's ties with the West.

Ukraine's Chernobyl site reaches milestone

Colossal arch-shaped structure created to shelter exploded reactor raised to its full height by decontamination workers. inShare1

Construction of a shelter at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reached a significant step on Wednesday [AFP]

Work to build a permanent shelter to secure the exploded reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has reached a key milestone when workers raised the arched section that will cover the destroyed unit. The explosion at reactor number four at the Chernobyl power plant on April 26, 1986 sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere that spread from the Soviet Union across Europe. It remains the world's worst nuclear accident. The structure that was raised to its full height on Tuesday will be part of the so-called New Safe Confinement, a colossal arch-shaped structure which when completed will be slid on rails over the existing sarcophagus covering the reactor.

Farmers spray EU parliament with milk

Hundreds of angry farmers from across Europe protesting at falling dairy prices have sprayed fresh milk in Brussels.

Thousands of dairy farmers joined a demonstration to urge politicians to take action over the milk market [Reuters]

Dairy farmers sprayed thousands of litres of fresh milk at the EU parliament in Brussels in protest at what they say are excessive milk quotas and prices below the cost of production. Hundreds of farmers from across Europe took up position with tractors in a park near the European Commission and at a square in front of the parliament building in the early afternoon on Monday, after blocking traffic along several of Brussels' busiest streets. They then turned their hoses on parliament, a collection of vast marble, glass and steel buildings on a downtown city square, unleashing torrents of milk, some of it raining down on police and passers-by. Afterwards, they set alight barrels of hay and a pile of tyres, sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. They planned to stay put outside parliament until Tuesday afternoon. Milk quotas The European Milk Board, which co-ordinated the two-day protest, said prices with current quotas were putting small farmers out of business. The EU is the world's largest milk producer and spends more than 40 per cent of its annual 130 billion euro ($173bn) budget paying subsidies and other forms of financial support to farmers, including those in the diary industry.In Belgium, for example, the board said the wholesale price for a litre of milk was 0.26 euros, but the cost of producing it is 0.40 euros. It sets an annual milk production quota - which sits at around 130 million tonnes, too much for EU-consumption - but has agreed to phase that out by 2015. Farmers have held similar protests in the past, including one in 2009 which led to a small increase in wholesale prices. On Monday, tractors came from across Belgium as well as neighbouring France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Among a total of nearly 2,500 farmers, around 100 came from Poland, with many other nationalities also present. Pretty amusing, but messing with the farms means no food.

Eurozone and IMF agree Greek bailout deal

Loans will be released to Greece in order to keep the near-bankrupt economy afloat and reduce debt by $51bn.

Greece will receive urgently needed loans to rescue its stricken economy after eurozone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund agreed a deal on reducing the country's debt. The agreement was reached on Monday after 12 hours of talks at the third meeting of the finance ministers and the IMF in as many weeks. Lenders agreed on a package of measures to reduce Greek debt by $50bn, cutting it to 124 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020. In a significant new pledge, ministers committed themselves to take further steps to lower Greece's debt to "significantly below 110 percent" in 2022. This is the most explicit recognition so far that some write-off of loans may be necessary from 2016, the point when Greece is forecast to reach a primary budget surplus, according to Reuters. "When Greece has achieved, or is about to achieve, a primary surplus and fulfilled all of its conditions, we will, if need be, consider further measures for the reduction of the total debt," Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's finance minister, said. Jean-Claude Juncker, Eurogroup chairman, said ministers would formally approve the release of a major aid instalment needed to recapitalise Greece's ailing banks and enable the government to pay wages, pensions and suppliers on December 13.

Eurozone unemployment hits record 11.6 percent

Unemployment in the eurozone hit a record high of 11.6 percent in September, official Eurostat figures revealed Wednesday, with more than 18 million people out of work. The new figures showed a rise of 146,000 unemployed over the previous month.

Germany arrests Frenchman over 2003 Casablanca attacks

German police said on Tuesday that they had arrested a 37-year-old Frenchman wanted by Moroccan authorities in connection with the 2003 bombings in Casablanca, which left a total of 45 people dead. The suspect was detained at a Munich airport.