Full Coverage: Europe

30.12.2005 The e-Dispute© prototype provides fast online arbitration, mediation and conciliation services. Claimants and respondents can be anywhere in the world and select from a range of languages to work in. They can send messages securely and explain their preferences to an arbitrator.

30.12.2005 The Women in IT(WINIT) team is organising a one day one day international and interdisciplinary conference to discuss the under-representation of women in ICT workplaces at the University of Salford, UK on 21st March, 2006.

30.12.2005 Donors have put on hold $375 million in budget support to the Ethiopian government because of a crackdown on opposition supporters, according to development officials, who said the money would be diverted to other programmes in the country.

30.12.2005 from Peter Armstrong's blog:
The day arrives... After all the weeks of preparation, Dean from ICE Energy arrived this morning for the commissioning of the heat pump system.

The sequence was: check all the plumbing and electrics and then add glycol to both the ground loops. But will it work?

29.12.2005 Two writers face trial and imprisonment in Europe for something they said or wrote. Both could be incarcerated - not for physically harming another person or for damaging property, but for uttering words that European states deem offensive. Brendan O'Neill objects.

29.12.2005 Sir Bob Geldof was making an "error of judgment" in associating with the Tories, said Gill Hubbard, a spokeswoman for G8 Alternatives.

29.12.2005 The e-Macedonia Foundation will support and fund 10 non-govermental organizations that will design and implement projects for promotion and improvement of information technology in the country.

29.12.2005 Amendments to a controversial bill on NGOs have not significantly changed its likely negative impact on Russian human rights groups and may still result in the closure of affiliate offices of foreign rights organisations, a leading rights agency warns.

29.12.2005 Bob Geldof is to work with the Conservative Party's new policy group on Globalisation and Global Poverty.
* Geldof's year

28.12.2005 OECD and Italian Ministery for Innovation and Technologies is jointly organised the conference on the Future Digital Economy: Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access, from January 30-31, 2006 at Istituto San Michele, Rome, Italy.

28.12.2005 United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed the French Parliament’s adoption of a levy on airline tickets to help developing countries and urged others to follow their example.

27.12.2005 Bargehouse Gallery at London's Oxo Tower House is currently hosting two exhibitions - Impunity, on the murders of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and in Guatemala City; and Picture This: Your war is not with me, paintings by Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor Wood, John Leach and others, with all works for sale in aid of the charity War Child.

27.12.2005 The European Commission has approved a series of humanitarian aid decisions for Africa worth €165 million, with the bulk allocated to ongoing crises in Burundi (€17m), Chad (€13.5m), Comoros (€600,000), Democratic Republic of Congo (€38m), Ivory Coast (€5.2m), Liberia (€16.4m), Madagascar (€500,000), Sudan (€48m), Tanzania (€11.5m) and Uganda (€15m).
* OneWorld's Guide to aid

27.12.2005 The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yale University, World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Cornell University and several leading publishers are in the process of developing an Environmental portal, Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE). The project will provide the developing world with free or reduced cost access to the scholarly environmental

27.12.2005 Environmental organisations have brought a new suit against the French government in an attempt to prevent the departure of the decommissioned aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau, to India for ship-breaking purposes. The suit was filed in a Paris court.

26.12.2005 The citizens of Macedonia don’t trust the media, shows the latest Early Warning Report prepared by the UNDP Office to Macedonia. According to the EWR, two thirds of the polled citizens don’t trust the media or the contents they publish.

26.12.2005 After months of wrangling over finances and responsibilities, the European Union is set to launch the first of two experimental satellites in its Galileo navigation system on Dec 28, 2005.

26.12.2005 “Beyond the River – Sharing Benefits and Responsibilities” is the theme of the 2006 World Water Week in Stockholm, which takes place August 20-26, 2006, and will address livelihood improvement, land-based activities within a river basin, and society’s ability to cope with natural disasters, among other aspects.

26.12.2005 First Amazon, then Google, and now a number of other players have launched initiatives to digitise print publications for Web indexing (and, in some cases, potential future sales models). While publishers have welcomed the added visibility which search-engine indexing brings, they have been concerned both at those initiatives which do not involve seeking rightsholder permission to digitise in-copyright works, and at the implications of third-party sales of all or part of their works.

23.12.2005 The Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC) warns of the increasing pressure on the Council of the Special Department of the Belgrade District Court that hears the Djindjic assassination trial. Most pressure is put on presiding Judge Marko Kljajevic, which coincides with the announced completion of the presentation of evidence.