Portugal

Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres was sworn in on Dec. 12 as the ninth United Nations Secretary-General, pledging to personally help broker peace in various conflicts and reform the 71-year old world body to become more effective. 

BELGRADE - Portugal believes Serbia, as an EU membership candidate, can assist the structural political dialogue in the region, says Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs Margarida Marques, who is on her first official visit to Serbia.

Europe's top Turkish tour operator Bentour brought together the owners and staff of 400 tourism agencies from Switzerland, Germany and Austria at a three-day event in the southern tourism hub Antalya.

Considering the serious decline this year in the number of tourists visiting Turkey, it was a particularly important meeting, during which projections for 2017 were discussed. 

Greek students scored below average in science, mathematics and reading in the latest PISA test organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Wintry conditions and already-eliminated opposition will be all that stand between Beşiktaş and a date with destiny in a maiden trip to the knockout round of the Champions League when the Black Eagles head to Ukraine to take on Dynamo Kyiv on Dec. 6. 

The greatest risks facing European Union banks are high levels of bad loans and lower profitability, the bloc's financial regulator said in a report on Dec. 2.

The European Banking Authority said that while EU-wide lenders had strengthened their capital buffers, technology-related risks were increasing amid lingering litigation concerns.

Government officials are gearing up for a long-awaited summit of eurozone finance ministers on Monday where the prospects for Greek debt relief are expected to be discussed, but a European official has told Kathimerini that it is more likely a concrete solution will be hashed out in January.

Had tourists' average per capita expenditure in Greece in July and August been on a par with that at rival destinations, the country's tourism revenues would not have posted a decline, according to a survey presented on Thursday by the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE).

“Ignorantia juris non excusat”, is a Latin legal principle adopted by most western countries, passed down by the Roman law tradition. It simply means that if someone is ignorant of the laws of the land, they are not excused. So whenever you plan on traveling around the world, you better do a crash course on the country of destination you plan to visit.

The unemployment rate in the 19-country eurozone edged down further in October, to 9.8 percent from 9.9 percent the previous month.

Statistics agency Eurostat said Thursday that the number of people out of work fell by 178,000 over the month.