France and Spain struggled to restore electricity to more than a million homes Sunday after powerful gales ravaged the two countries and left as many as 15 people dead.

European countries sent teams of electricians to France on Sunday, and Spain deployed extra troops to help deal with the aftermath of storms on Saturday that killed 15 people.

France and Spain struggled to restore electricity to more than a million homes Sunday after powerful gales ravaged the two countries and left as many as 15 people dead, including four children.

Italy's new government has announced sweeping reforms to respond to the euro debt crisis that yesterday (17 November) pushed borrowing costs for France and Spain sharply higher, and brought tens of thousands of Greeks onto the streets of Athens. EurActiv Italy, Greece and France report.  More »

Well , we didn’t have to wait long. Only on Friday I was writing the following: Two Spanish regional savings banks have already reached a preliminary merger deal - Unicaja, based in Spain’s southern Andalucia region, and the smaller Caja Castilla La Mancha (CCM), located in the central-southern province of the same name - following talks

This article reports that Northern Rock savings deals are becoming 'too popular'. The bank has agreed to cap its share of the UK savings market to 1.5% and so is having to turn away money people want to deposit in it. This seems odd. In my view, if people want to save with our nationalised bank, they should be able to. It is strange to stop them and is, to my mind, making the firm work with one ha...

What if it had been the other way around? What if Spain had helped itself to a slice of someone else's territory, forced the defeated nation to cede it in a subsequent treaty, and hung on to it? Would Madrid behave as it wants Britain to behave over Gibraltar? ¡Ni pensarlo! How can I be so sure? Because there is precisely such a case. In 1801, France and Spain, then allies, demanded tha...

What if it had been the other way around? What if Spain had helped itself to a slice of someone else's territory, forced the defeated nation to cede it in a subsequent treaty, and hung on to it? Would Madrid behave as it wants Britain to behave over Gibraltar? ¡Ni pensarlo! How can I be so sure? Because there is precisely such a case. In 1801, France and Spain, then allies, demanded tha...

Alicante, Spain. January 2009. Sofia, Bulgaria. February 2009. Madrid, Spain. March 2009. Galway, Ireland. March 2009. Zadar, Croatia. April 2009. Port Vendres, France. April 2009. Krakow, Poland. April 2009. Poznan, Poland. May 2009. Nanterre, France. May 2009. Kiev, Ukraine. June 2009. Pripyat, Zone of Alienation. June 2009. Antwerp, Belgium. June 2009. Calais, France. June 2009. Timişoa...

When did you last leave home without your mobile phone? The Register describes cases in Germany and France where people were accused of being terrorists because they didn’t use mobile phones: By design, phones pass their location on to local base stations. You can gauge how effectively the networks can track you by requesting your personal