Official data shows Greece’s unemployment rate rose to a new record high in July as the country continues to grapple with a recession-hit economy following the implementation of tough austerity measures. The Greek Statistical Authority said on Thursday that the jobless rate rose to 27.9 percent in July from 27.6 percent in June, marking a sharp rise compared to last year when the jobless rate stood... 

Greeks protest against the government’s austerity measures and the layoff of public workers during a rally in the city of Thessaloniki on September 7, 2013. Greeks have taken to the streets in yet another mass anti-austerity demonstration despite the government’s talk of improvement in the recession-hit economy. Thousands of people, including union workers, rallied in the country’s second largest... 

German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has unexpectedly said that Greece will need more financial help, admitting for the first time that $328 billion pledged so far won’t be enough to save Greece from bankruptcy. Schäuble’s surprise admission of this deeply unpopular prospect comes at a sensitive time for his party. Germany will hold a general election on September 22. “There... 

Controversial genetically modified super-maize from Monsanto is set to be approved for cultivation across the European Union by late October, officials tell RT. Despite EU regulators last month thwarting the expansion of the world’s largest seed corporation, it appears Germany won’t escape new GMO crops. A spokesman for EU health and consumer policy commissioner, Toni Borg, told RT that “the... 

Fresh data show that the unemployment rate in debt-ridden Greece hit a record high in May, with youth accounting for the largest jobless number. Greece’s jobless rate reached 27.6 percent in May, up from 27.0 percent in April, according to a report released on Thursday by Greece’s statistic service LSTAT. The agency added that the youth aged between 15 and 24 were hit the hardest with a 64.9 unemployment... 

A recent survey shows European citizens are losing confidence in their governments, with popular trust in political parties dropping to record low in some countries. The survey carried out by the Transparency International in 107 countries showed that only 23 percent of the studied people had approved of their governments’ anti-corruption efforts. However, the figures were meaningfully lower in... 

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger German justice minister says the European Union needs tougher data protection laws, with sanctions against US firms that violate them. German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said Monday that Germany’s strong privacy rules serve as the ideal standard for the 28-member EU, amid revelations of intruding US surveillance... 

One of France’s top courts has thrown out a ban on genetically modified corn, which had been in place since March 2012, leaving the door open for Monsanto’s GMO seed to be introduced into the country’s farmland. The decision by the top administrative court on Thursday argued that the moratorium on the GMO MON810 corn, one of two types of genetically altered crops approved by the European Union,... 

First India gives Monsanto a run for their ill-gotten money by refusing their patent applications, and now Italy, with the help of three Italian ministries, will try to undo Monsanto. A decree has been signed which will ban Monsanto’s MON810 maize, one of the two genetically modified crops currently legally grown in Europe and sold commercially. The decree is not yet binding as it has to be published... 

Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2008. Official data show the collective debt in the eurozone has hit a new record high of 92.2 percent in first quarter of 2013, as the 17-nation bloc continues to grapple with a worsening financial crisis. The data released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, on Monday showed that government debt as a share of the total annual GDP of the eurozone... 

Members of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, wave the Hezbollah flag during a rally marking the party’s Martyrs’ Day in Beirut. The European Union has put what it calls the military wing of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, on its terror blacklist. The decision was made unanimously after hours of discussions by the EU’s 28 foreign ministers at their monthly meeting.... 

The world’s largest seed corporation says it has dropped its bid to get more genetically modified crops onto the European market due to the wide-spread popular opposition. The biotech giant says it will expand its share of the natural seed market instead. “We will no longer be pursuing approvals for cultivation of new biotech crops in Europe. Instead, we will focus on enabling imports of biotech... 

Britain has blocked talks between the US and the European Union on the US spying on the EU saying the bloc has no authority to discuss Americans’ methods to safeguard their national security. The EU and the US were to form two working groups on intelligence and espionage and on data privacy and the US National Security Agency’s Prism program and sit down for talks in Washington on Monday for talks. However,... 

The Italian mafia is ramping up investment in wind farms to launder money and benefit from EU subsidies. Europol reports winds farms, and renewable energy in general, are the most popular target for laundering money, after analysing the financial activities of Italy’s four mafia groups. “The Italian mafia is investing more and more in renewable energy, especially in wind farms, to profit... 

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden shown in photo on the paper. France has urged the European Union to postpone talks with the United States on a major free trade agreement due to the recent allegations about US spying on EU offices. The EU-US trade talks are set to begin in Washington on July 8, but the revelations of US spying on European diplomatic missions have cast them...