UNITED KINGDOM

A top official of Standard & Poor's said, France will retain its AAA rating, allaying fears of possible downgrade of the country?s rating due to ongoing eurozone debt crisis.

Plans from France and Germany to move toward fiscal union in 2012 got a chilly response from other euro-zone countries and failed to reassure investors worried about the region's debt crisis and weakened economies.

London has overtaken New York as the world's fashion capital for 2011, fuelled by media interest in late British designer Alexander McQueen and Kate Middleton, according to a survey by the Global Language Monitor.

Netflix will continue its international expansion, rolling out service in Spain in January 2012.

Vague approximation of a guy meets sketchy notion of an intelligent woman, and then they spend two decades circling each other for no apparent reason. It's not exactly "boy meets girl," but that's the best that the new romance "One Day," based on a best-selling novel that I have not read, has to offer.

London has overtaken New York as the world's fashion capital for 2011, fueled by media interest in late British designer Alexander McQueen and Kate Middleton, according to a survey by the Global Language Monitor.

Two satellites launched on Wednesday by Nigeria will help the African nation monitor weather patterns and resource management. The launch happened in Yasny, in Southern Russia.

Colombian striker Juan Pablo Angel has been traded by LA Galaxy to Chivas USA in exchange for a third round selection in the 2012 supplemental draft, the Major League Soccer (MLS) club said on Wednesday.

The SSTL's NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X satellites, which were built under contract with the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), will give Nigeria the ability to perform monthly crop monitoring, help with increasing urban planning demands through the development of engineering skill, and advance the growth of new technologies in the African country.

News Corp. stock rose 1.4 percent on Tuesday even as the British Parliament released documents indicating that company executives may have been aware of phone hacking practices at the News of the World

Tough prison sentences such as four years for trying to organize a riot via Facebook have triggered alarm in Britain that the government's crackdown over last week's unrest may be too harsh.

Nigeria Wednesday launched two satellites, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X spacecraft, which have a variety of applications, including the monitoring of disaster-prone areas, into orbit from a launch pad based in Russia.

Russia pitched on Wednesday a proposal to Iran's foreign minister which it hopes could bring a breakthrough in a confrontation over Tehran's nuclear programme, despite doubts in the West that the plan can make much headway.

Britain said on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of children could starve to death in Somalia if the international community did not ramp up its response to the famine there.

Two men who were issued a 4-year jail sentence for using Facebook to incite riots in England last week are to appeal their punishment.

Flash mobs are increasing -- and becoming increasingly dangerous and frightening. Why is this phenomenon happening, and how can it be stopped?

British business software company Sage Group Plc has been picked as preferred bidder in the race to buy Australian peer MYOB Ltd, people familiar with matter said Wednesday.

New research from Global Web Index shows sharp declines among Facebook users in some of the world's biggest markets including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Dubai is monitoring social media sites for signs of attempts to organize protests or strikes, a police official said on Wednesday, citing the large foreign laborer population as a concern.

The Latest in iPhone 5 rumors: October release date, two Apple phones and dual core processor.

In a sensational bid to finance its vast economic reforms, Egypt has rekindled its interest in Islamic finance amid growing pressure to rebuild the country using internal financing.