Reuters

The European Central Bank’s pledge to keep rates at historic lows for some time has fueled demand for the higher-yielding bonds of some of the bloc’s weakest members.

Yields on 10-year Greek bonds dropped to as low as 5.48 percent, a level not seen since January 2010, while Portuguese equivalents were within a whisker of euro-era lows after dropping 14 bps to 3.24 percent.

“The indictment against Hernadi has been confirmed and he will be tried in absentia,” Zagreb county court spokesperson Kresimir Devcic told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

The alleged graft took place in 2008-9, when the Croatian government put its shares of the state oil company INA on the market. MOL bought 22.15 per cent of INA’s shares, thus becoming the biggest stakeholder.

Greek consumer prices fell 2 percent in May, with the annual pace of deflation accelerating from a 1.3 percent fall in prices the previous month, data from the country's statistics service showed on Tuesday.

Greece sold 1.625 billion euros ($2.21 billion) of six-month treasury bills on Tuesday, the country's debt agency PDMA said.

The T-bills were priced to yield 2.15 percent, down 55 basis points from 2.70 percent in a previous sale in May.

The sale's bid-cover ratio was 2.70, up from 2.65 in the previous sale.

Greek industrial output fell 2.2 percent year-on-year in April, from a downwardly revised contraction of 2.7 percent in the previous month, statistics service ELSTAT said on Tuesday.

The decline is primarily due to a 3 percent fall in manufacturing production.

Iraq's prime minister has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency after Islamist militants effectively took control of Mosul, the country's second-largest city, and much of its province of Nineveh June 9, in another blow to the authorities, who appear incapable of stopping rebel advances.

Militants seized Iraq's second-largest city June 9, officials said, in another blow to the authorities, who appear incapable of stopping rebel advances.

Overnight, hundreds of gunmen launched an assault on Mosul, 350 kilometres north of Baghdad, engaging in combat with troops and police, they said.

The fate of a Greek oil tanker that disappeared in the Gulf of Guinea last week remained unclear on Monday as the firm that owns the vessel said it had lost contact with it amid fears of an attack by pirates.

The Liberia-flagged MT Fair Artemis last communicated with its managing firm Fairdeal Group last Wednesday while off the coast of Ghana, West Africa, according to reports.

Industrial production in Turkey increased over expectations in April thanks to a strong performance in the manufacturing of capital and intermediate goods.

Response to NATO buildup will be "political and military"

MOSCOW -- Any further expansion of NATO forces near its borders would be considered by Russia as "a demonstration of hostile intentions," it has been announced in Moscow.