[credit provider=”Dima Korotayev / Getty”] The Kremlin is panicking ahead of the parliamentary elections on Sunday, December 4, because despite all its administrative power, the campaign to maintain the current ruling team has gone badly wrong. As bne has said repeatedly, the Duma elections remain the crucial vote for Russia’s […]

[credit provider=”Jeff J Mitchell / Getty”] Editor’s Note: Got any good story ideas for GlobalPost? We’ll have our correspondents cover the best ones. Check out RedditSuggest for details.  Copenhagen just got a lot closer to legalizing the sale of pot.

[credit provider=”Wikimedia Commons”] GERMANY IS PREPARING to evacuate 45,000 people from the western city of  after the discovery of a WWII British bomb.The 10ft RAF bomb, one of the largest ever discovered, was found in the River Rhine after the driest November on record caused the water level to drop.

Russia will conduct important Parliamentary elections this weekend. Yes, elections – with all the dangers and opportunities that elections hold for incumbent parties, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin‘s.

[credit provider=”David Martyn Hunt / Flickr” url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidchief/3056015282/”] While the mafia has long been associated with Italy’s poorer southern regions and Sicily, there is now strong evidence to suggest that the tentacles of organised crime in Italy have well and truly penetrated Italy’s economic powerhouse – Milan. This penetration has occurred slowly […]

[credit provider=”AFP / Getty”] As Western Europe continues to struggle with the sovereign debt crisis and currency depreciation, declining exports, and lower 2012 growth prospects engulf Central and Eastern Europe, the outlook for Russia seems surprisingly solid. Despite a slow downward revision of 2012 growth forecasts from earlier this year, Russia […]

[credit provider=”Getty Images”] The European Union has agreed to tighten its sanctions on Iran out of concerns that the country is working to develop nuclear weapons, ministers announced after a meeting in Brussels Thursday.The new sanctions will affect 180 individuals and companies, the Associated Press reported.

[credit provider=”The New York Times”] AN INQUIRY into possible links between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Gaddafi family has found that the college accepted a £1.5 million donation from the foundation run by Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, who has a PhD from LSE.Saif al-Islam was captured […]

[credit provider=”AFP / Getty”] Spikes in eurobond yields have convinced investors that Greece is just the tip of the iceberg, and that major economies such as Italy and Spain may be next in line. Adding fuel to the fire are rumours that Germany might withdraw from the eurozone. Russia cannot […]

[credit provider=”Jean-Christophe / AFP / Getty”] The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Thursday overturned a Belgian court’s ruling requiring Internet service providers (ISPs) to snoop on users’ private data, in a major victory for the ISPs and digital rights advocates over content owners worried about online copyright infringement.The ECJ, […]

[credit provider=”Pool / AFP / Getty”] In Britain, the government’s budget is presented to Parliament in March, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.Then in the autumn, he makes another speech updating his plans based on half-yearly economic data.

[credit provider=”AP”] A man has been arrested in Germany in connection with an investigation into a neo-Nazi cell suspected of killing 10 people.The German media have identified the suspect arrested today in the eastern city of Jena as 36-year-old Ralf Wohlleben.

It seems the financial world is finally ready to cut economic ties with both the Euro and its literally largest sponsor, Germany.  Most relevantly, as DailyFinance.com reports, “Germany, the stronghold of the European Union, just had one of its worst bond auctions ever. Total bids at the auctions came to […]

(List compiled by Eben Esterhuizen, CFA)

[credit provider=”Christopher Furlong / Getty”] Tax evasion is a problem which costs Italy around €180 billion a year.  One of the reasons some employers in Italy give for not paying taxes is how much it costs to employ people. Does it really cost so much to employ people in Italy?  I […]

In one of my last articles, I tried to summarize why I believe Turkey is one of the hottest countries in the internet space.

[credit provider=”CREDIT: NASA Marshall Space Flight centre”] The U.S. Department of defence has announced an ambitious new space program; it will consist of a veritable cobweb of satellites enveloping the entire planet.The satellite network could be created on the basis of GPS and Iridium low-orbit communications satellites.