Italy’s prime minister to meet unions on reform, aims for agreement by end of monthItaly’s Prime Minister Mario Monti will press ahead with efforts to revise labor laws this week, amid fresh warnings that the three-year-old European debt crisis is far from over. Monti will lead talks with unions and employers in a final round of negotiations beginning Tuesday. Decision makers meanwhile warned against complacency after delivery of the final element of Greece’s 130 billion-euro ($171 billion) bail

Farmers in Japan’s Fukushima face years of additional losses as consumers continue to doubt the safety of produce from the region devastated a year ago by the tsunami and nuclear fallout, which may taint crops for decades. Almost 100,000 farmers lost about 58 billion yen ($694 million) by March 1, or 25 percent of production, according to JA, the country’s biggest agricultural group. Imports of farm products jumped 16 percent to 5.58 trillion yen in 2011, according to the agriculture ministry.  

Murder charges were filed against two male nurses Sunday and a female nurse was charged with covering up a crime in a case involving more than a dozen deaths at two Uruguayan hospitals, judicial officials said. (123rf image)The judge overseeing the case said there was no indication the two male nurs

Gay prisoners of Category A will be allowed to get married in some of the UK’s top security jails, a spokesman for the National Offender Management Service revealed.Prison Service Order 4445 states that inmates qualify for a civil union as long as they are of the same sex, over age 16, not related, and not already married.The development comes after a homosexual criminal's mother wrote to Inside Time magazine about the issue, saying her son "expressed a wish to marry another male Category A pris

An 18-year-old Ukrainian woman who was gang-raped, nearly suffocated and set on fire was clinging to life, officials said. Activists demand punishment for suspects accused of raping and attempting to kill Oksana Makar. (Youtube)A man discovered Oksana Makar wrapped in a charred sheet at a constructi

TOKYO (AFP) ― Tokyo’s high-end shopping district of Ginza was back at its booming best this week with hundreds of shoppers queuing up to spend their cash, in an echo of Japan’s bubble years.Around 450 people lined up on one block, eager to splurge more than 40,000 yen ($500) on the new iPad, the latest in a long line of must-have electronic gizmos that a certain sector of Japanese consumers crave.But at about the same time, another 1,000 people were queuing just a few streets away to bag a cloth