Reuters

Fitch Ratings on Monday announced it has affirmed United Bulgarian Bank AD’s (UBB) rating (IDR) at B, with the outlook revised to stable from negative.

UBB’s rating is one notch above that for its parent National Bank of Greece, which is B-.

[Reuters]

A Sudanese woman sentenced to death for converting to Christianity is expected to be released soon, a government official said on May 31, after Khartoum came under diplomatic pressure to halt her execution.

Greek retail sales by volume fell 0.8 percent in March compared to the same month last year, statistics service ELSTAT said on Friday.

The reading had risen at a revised annual pace of 0.9 percent in February, more than previously estimated.

Barrel bombings and other Syrian government air raids on rebel districts of Aleppo and surrounding areas have killed 1,963 civilians since January, including 567 children, a monitoring group said Friday.
      

Seven miners who were supposed to be receiving professional training during the Soma disaster were among the 301 perished workers, a company document has unveiled. 

The document said the miners were at a work safety and health class, raising questions as to whether these courses had ever taken place or if they were only on paper.

Greece's dominant electricity producer PPC reported on Thursday a higher-than-expected 65 percent profit rise for the first quarter, helped by lower prices for natural gas supplied by Russia's Gazprom.

Agreement signed establishing Eurasian Economic Union

ASTANA -- The presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus signed an agreement on Thursday establishing the Eurasian Economic Union.

"It will will compete with the economic power of the U.S., EU, and China," said media reports.

In an unprecedented, three-year cyber espionage campaign, Iranian hackers created false social networking accounts and a fake news website to spy on military and political leaders in the United States, Israel and other countries, a cyber intelligence firm said on Thursday.
   

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday arrived in the Kazakh capital where he was set to sign a deal with his Kazakh and Belarussian counterparts creating a new economic union championed by Moscow.
      
Putin, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev were due to sign the document in Astana following talks on Thursday.

As Marine Le Pen, who heads France’s far-right National Front (FN), tries to form a eurosceptic group in Brussels with other like-minded political movements, take a look at her party’s policies. The FN doesn't like being called "far right". But it remains unashamedly protectionist and populist, while espousing a strong desire to reduce immigration – especially from Africa.