Italy

As the Turkish government gave its blessings to energy and construction companies to build new facilities anywhere across the country, felling trees and plundering nature to erect coal plants, mines or tourism complexes has increasingly become the norm in recent years.

New European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was to meet Turkish leaders Dec. 8 for talks expected to focus partly on the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in neighboring Syria.

"The Syrian crisis is going to be one of the key issues on her agenda," an EU official told AFP on Dec. 8. Turkey's EU membership ambitions were also up for discussion.

South Stream Bulgaria head Dimitar Gogov has downplayed recent comments that Sofia would suffer thousands of millions of BGN in losses after the gas pipeline project was suspended last week.

Gogov told private national channel bTV projected revenues would be EUR 448 M if South Stream had not been abandoned, but added the sum was not the country's profit, but general cash flow.

By George Georgakopoulos

Burger King, America’s second-biggest fast food chain, with a presence in over 100 countries worldwide, has announced its intention to enter the Greek market through the joint venture Burger King Southern and Eastern Europe SA, set up to promote activities in Italy, Poland, Greece and Romania.

Life expectancy at birth has risen in Greece to reach 80.7 years compared to an EU28 average of 79.2 years, according to a new OECD report.

A report drafted by a civil rights organization has drawn a picture of the plight of transgender individuals in Turkey, finding that half of all transgender women sex workers in the country have been subjected to physical violence from police. It also states that the murder of transgender individuals in Turkey amounts to 40 percent of the total number of such killings in all of Europe.

Austrian oil and gas company OMV has said it continues consultations with Russian energy giant Gazprom on the South Stream gas pipeline project.

According to a media statement of the company, as cited by TASS, talks between OMV and Gazprom are ongoing.

Italy's Sapiem, majority owned by Eni, announced that it had been notified about the suspension of the project.

Romania had the largest economic growth in the European Union in the third quarter of this year as compared to the prior three months, according to the second estimation published by the European Statistics Office (Eurostat) on Friday.

Italian company Saipem announced Thursday it had received a notification from Russia about the end of the South Stream gas pipeline project.

Saipem, a subsidiary of Italy's ENI, was to built South Stream's underwater section, but construction is now cancelled after Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this week the project was over.

Wages in developed countries are flatlining and even falling in some places, holding down economic growth after the financial crisis and increasing the risk of deflation, the International Labour Organization said Friday.