The European Union on Tuesday agreed to spread a massive 700 billion euros permanent financial safety net to bailout euro zone nations facing liquidity crisis and thereby stave-off future sovereign debt crunch endangering their stability.
05/31/2011
— Filed under: Finance
Tags: bailout plan, EU
Read more: ge dehumidifier ader65ln
Businesses in all sectors will have to tell customers when their data has been exposed in a security breach, EU justice and rights commissioner Viviane Reding has told a gathering of bankers in London.
The rise in tuition fees and cuts to university places may be driving UK students to pursue higher education across the pond, application figures suggest.
Investigation covers intelligence and corporate attacks
LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) — British police investigating a series of computer hacking attacks on international companies and intelligence agencies said on Tuesday they had arrested a 19-year-old man in eastern England.
London’s Metropolitan Police, working with America’s FBI, said they had arrested the teenager in the town of Wickford, close to the British capital, on suspicion of computer misuse and fraud offences.
He is being investigated in connection with an attack on a website run by the British police Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which targets organised crime in Britain and overseas, police said.
His computer is being checked for other possible attacks including against Japanese electronics company Sony Corp .
«The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group,» the London force said.
It said forensic officers were now examining «a significant amount of material» following searches at the home where the arrest took place.
The teenager was being held at a central London police station.
Hackers have carried out a series of attacks on international firms and organisations in recent weeks, including the International Monetary Fund, Lockheed Martin Corp , Citigroup Inc , Google and Michaels Stores .
The loosely organised hacker group Lulz Security has claimed hacks into websites owned by Sony as well as the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service and Fox.com. Fox is a unit of News Corp .
SOCA’s website, which is used purely for public information, went down for a short time on Monday before being brought back up.
Like many others, it was likely a denial-of-service attack in which Lulz hackers bombarded the site with so many messages that it went offline.
Hackers would not have had access to confidential data or information about ongoing operations, a SOCA spokesman said.
Lulz has sought to punish Sony for failing to secure data and released the data of its customers, exposing them to potential identity theft.
The group has also hacked into a U.S. Senate server, and claimed responsibility for temporarily knocking offline the CIA’s public website.
Most victims of crime do not believe the police are doing a good job, research said today.
In June 2011, the European Commission released EUR 5 million from the AP 2009 Sector Policy Programme in support of vocational education and training (VET) in Armenia. The expected outcome is an overall modernisation of VET, which would have a direct positive impact on the labour market and employment in the country. The initiative is part of long term EU efforts to boost reform on VET in Armenia.
The European Union has been actively supporting reforms in education in Armenia over the last 8 years with a clear focus on Vocational Education and Training (VET). Shortly after Armenia joined the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2006, the Government of Armenia and the European Commission have agreed to focus the 2007 Budget Support assistance of the European Union to Armenia on further reforms of the VET sector.
The overall objective of AP2009 Sector Policy Programme «Continuation of vocational education and training (VET) reform and development of an employment strategy» is to continue to provide support through increasing the quality of VET sector in order to make it more relevant to the needs of the labour market and of the individuals.
Key elements of the government sector programme as defined in the VET MPP Action Plan covering the years from 2009—2011, are the following: (i) introduction of competency based vocational education, (ii) modernisation of quality monitoring mechanisms, (iii) creation of technical support and quality assurance infrastructure, (iv) improvement of cost efficiency and educational outcomes, (v) optimisation of VET financing, (vi) building of national capacity for VET modernisation, implementation and monitoring.
Key results of the programme are: 1) Improved governance of VET reforms; 2) Increased importance of employment strategies; 3) Improved conditions for delivery of VET; 4) More efficient VET system in line with requirements of Labour Market; 5) Improved targeting of active employment measures.
The programme has an overall budget of € 15M, out of which € 1M is earmarked for the Technical Assistance component. The € 14M component of budget support is implemented against satisfactory fulfilment of policy conditions identified and agreed upon by the Commission and the Government of Armenia. Instalments are payable to the Armenian State budget subject to fulfilment of policy conditions. The first fixed tranche of € 5M was released to the state budget in June 2011 upon fulfilment of General Conditions and one specific pre-condition, as well as signature of Financing Agreement in November 2010. Disbursement of Second and Third tranches of € 4M and € 5M respectively is expected in first semesters of FY 2012 and 2013 upon fulfilment of Specific Conditions attached to each tranche.
Main implementing partners under this Programme are the Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy as well as social partners.
05/26/2011
— Filed under: Society
Tags: Armenia, education, EU
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) hit a 52-week low on Monday. And maybe that was not low enough.
EU finance ministers have taken steps to ease Ireland’s return to private debt markets, a move which reflects concern that the turmoil in Greece is weighing on Dublin’s efforts to regain investor confidence.
Gold futures rose for the fifth straight session as negotiations for a Greek bailout stalled, boosting the appeal of the precious metal as an investment haven.
The European Union has warned the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) that taking actions considered by Greece as «provocations» could damage its ambitions of becoming a member of the bloc.
05/22/2011
— Filed under: Politics
Tags: 'yellow card', EU, FYROM
