two years of crisis and bank debt in Europe, the roaring euro party is over.

  Greeks are emptying their bank accounts, Italians are proposing that the Roman Catholic Church begin to pay nearly $1 billion in property taxes on lucrative hotels and businesses, and in the UK, protesters sans jobs have settled near 10 Downing in the wake of the nation’s biggest general strike in years. Spain has seen well-dressed panhandlers in Madrid. The Netherlands report higher bankruptcies and lower exports. French banks are cutting thousands of jobs. And in bailed-out Portugal, two religious and two civil holidays – weekdays...

Read More

Brits who invested their savings in their adopted countries may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes if banks call in loans

Marbella, Andalusia, Spain (pic: Getty)EMERGENCY evacuation plans for Brits living in Spain and Portugal are being drawn up amid fears of the euro collapsing.Advertisement >>The drastic proposals emerged as a former Security Minister warned expats could be left stranded and destitute by the break-up of the single currency.Brits who invested their savings in their adopted countries may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes...

Read More

Spanish, Italian police smash drug smuggling ring

 Spanish and Italian police made five arrests while busting a drug-trafficking ring that for years smuggled cocaine from South America to Europe, investigators said on Friday. The group arranged for narcotics to be put on merchant ships headed to Europe. Just before the vessels arrived at their destination, the smugglers would dump cocaine packages overboard, Spanish police said in a statement. Members of the gang waiting in inflatable boats would then pick up the cocaine and take it to shore, from where it was distributed to customers in...

Read More

The top ranks of the Government are now coming to the conclusion that the break-up of the euro is inevitable.

  I understand that Hague, like the Chancellor, now believes this will happen soon. Osborne told Cabinet colleagues on Monday that the Merkel-Sarkozy plan for greater fiscal discipline within the eurozone was no solution to the current  crisis. Rather, he said, ‘it was like standing over a man having a heart attack and telling him that to avoid one in future he should do more exercise and cut down on cholesterol’. This view that the euro is unlikely to survive is why there are, so far, few worries about Britain being isolated...

Read More

The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking

Suspects accused of selling guns and drugs.Authorities collared 38 Bronx and upper Manhattan gangbangers Wednesday after a two-year probe into a notorious crew, officials said.The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking, authorities said.The undercover investigation — which involved officers from the NYPD, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau...

Read More

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested

 Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives pursuing a fresh investigation into phone intercepts, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Officers working on Operation Weeting – the Metropolitan Police’s second probe into phone hacking at News International, which owned the now-defunct Sunday tabloid – announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a 41-year-old man who was being held on suspicion of conspiracy to hack voicemail messages...

Read More

Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you

 Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you? Here's interim (that's reassuring) chief executive Sam Weihagen doing his safe-as-houses routine: "It's business as usual. We are trading within all our covenants. We have all the protection in place like any other travel company, and customers should not worry at all." Well, not quite like any other travel company. Thomas Cook of course holds an Air Travel Organisers' Licence from the Civil Aviation Authority which means customers should get their money back in the event...

Read More

Europe's second biggest tour operator Thomas Cook has announced it is in negotiations with its banks

Europe's second biggest tour operator Thomas Cook has announced it is in negotiations with its banks about its growing £900 million debt.As a result it plans to delay the announcement of its annual results due on Thursday.It comes just a month after the company asked the bank for £100 million credit to see it through the quiet winter trading period.The Thomas Cook share price opened 60% down following the news, adding to the downward spiral of the...

Read More

landslide victory by Mariano Rajoy's People's party (PP) in Sunday's general election did nothing to stop Spain's debt problems worsening on Monday as the prime minister elect remained powerless to calm the markets.

Mariano Rajoy: little room for manoeuvre. Photograph: Juan Medina/Reuters Spaniards were proud of having avoided an Italian-style government of unelected technocrats after they gave conservative Rajoy the go-ahead to introduce reform and impose further austerity.But commentators warned that, similar to the technocrats running Italy and Greece, he had only limited options. "None of his predecessors have accumulated as much power as he will have,"...

Read More

euro crisis

Ian Langsdon/European Pressphoto AgencyPresident Nicolas Sarkozy at an Armistice Day ceremony in Paris this month. Mr. Sarkozy, facing re-election in April, fears becoming the next casualty in the euro crisi...

Read More

Euro crisis hits UK property sector

 This month’s statistics from Rightmove highlight how the relentless stream of economic uncertainty around the euro zone crisis has eroded consumer confidence to the extent that it now dominates decisions when it comes to moving home. A 13% fall in the number of new sellers coming to market compared with the previous month, and an 11% fall compared with November 2010, illustrate a growing reluctance to make big financial decisions in these times of uncertainty. Those that have chosen or been forced to sell have dropped their prices by £7528...

Read More

Germany is selling itself during the crisis as a haven of stability

Germany is selling itself during the crisis as a haven of stability – and the financial markets even believe it. But, in truth, it’s hardly better off than the others. And its public role of disciplinarian is arrogant and danger...

Read More

Thomas Cook is running low on cash and has begun talks with its banks

Thomas Cook planes parked at Munich airport last year. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty ImagesThomas Cook is running low on cash and has begun talks with its banks, in an effort to increase its borrowings to tide it over the slow Christmas season.Shares in the tour operator fell by more than three quarters on Tuesday morning after it admitted that trading has "deteriorated" in recent months. It is now seeking to borrow more in the short...

Read More

shiny Audis and BMWs that still line the narrow streets of Benalup are a reminder that this Andalucían country town once boasted the greatest number of luxury cars per head in the south-western province of Cádiz.

 Photograph: Tracey Fahy /AlamyThe shiny Audis and BMWs that still line the narrow streets of Benalup are a reminder that this Andalucían country town once boasted the greatest number of luxury cars per head in the south-western province of Cádiz.These days this charming place, set bull-rearing countryside inland from Gibraltar, holds a different kind of record: not only the worst unemployment rate in the country, but the worst in Europe."I...

Read More

British bonds win 'safe haven' tag in eurozone debt storm

 British government bonds are attracting strong support, in sharp contrast to their troubled eurozone peers as investors seek a safehaven from a debt crisis now spreading to Italy, Spain and even France. British government bonds, or gilts as they are known, are in huge demand largely because the Bank of England is buying them up with newly-created money that it hopes can in turn be used to stimulate an anaemic economic recovery, analysts say. But investors are also reassured by the British coalition government's determined efforts to slash...

Read More

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi after his capture, his fingers wrapped in bandages and his legs covered with a blanket

. Photograph: Reuters Tv/ReutersSaif al-Islam Gaddafi, the fugitive son of Libya's deceased former dictator, has been arrested in southern Libya, according to officials from the country's new government.Libyan state TV reported that Saif has arrived in captivity and unhurt at an army base in the town of Zintan, 90 miles south-west of Tripoli.Muammar Gaddafi's second and highest-profile son was captured along with several bodyguards by fighters...

Read More

An anti-British backlash gathered pace in Germany yesterday as David Cameron and Angela Merkel struggled to disguise the gulf between them on how to tackle the eurozone crisis.

 An anti-British backlash gathered pace in Germany yesterday as David Cameron and Angela Merkel struggled to disguise the gulf between them on how to tackle the eurozone crisis. The Prime Minister returned from talks in Berlin with the German leader having made little progress in agreeing emergency action to stop the financial contagion spreading. Tensions were inflamed after a close ally of Ms Merkel predicted Britain would eventually adopt the euro. The German media joined the clamour, with the mass-circulation newspaper Bild questioning...

Read More

private jets waved through customs and immigration checks

Home Secretary Theresa May (Pic:PA)THERESA May was fighting for her job last night after damning new documents fuelled the scandal of lax security at our borders.Advertisement >>Leaked emails showed that thousands of private jet passengers were allowed into the UK without going through immigration or customs.They also revealed the Home Secretary relaxed checks at airports on at least 2,500 occasions this summer.And the Mirror can reveal passport...

Read More

Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

 former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile...

Read More