Politicians from France, Belgium and Luxembourg, who previously complained that the ECB paid too little attention to economic growth, have signaled increasing concern that inflation is eating away at voters’ incomes.

``There isn’t much appetite for having these inflation levels, whether you’re the monetary authority or government,’’ Robert Barrie, chief European economist at Credit Suisse Group in London, said. ``There’s a recognition that inflation is too high and broader-based support for the ECB to do something about it.’’

The ECB has refused to follow the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of England in lowering interest rates after inflation surged since August, to reach a 16-year high of 3.6 percent in March. The bank argues that rising prices are a bigger threat to economic growth than the increase in credit costs resulting from the collapse of U.S. subprime mortgages.

The Frankfurt-based central bank is expected to leave the benchmark refinancing rate at a six-year high of 4 percent when policy makers meet in Athens on May 8, according to all 53 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The same day the Bank of England will probably leave its key rate at 5 percent after three cuts since December, a separate survey shows.

Charles Ray Fuller had said he wanted to start a record business, authorities in the state said.

The 21-year-old’s attempt to cash the money in a bank in Fort Worth failed when staff spotted the 10 zeros on the personal cheque.

Mr Fuller was arrested on a charge of forgery and was released on bail of $3,750 (£1,900).

I like watching it. I don’t think it’s degrading to women or men or animals or inanimate objects. I believe adults have the right to watch it or not, and I don’t want anyone telling me that I can’t or shouldn’t or that I’m sick or perverted for liking it or watching it. I don’t mind if my lover watches it; I’ll watch it with him.

The claim by Amnesty International was strongly denied by the Ethiopians.

Amnesty said the “extrajudicial killings” occurred at al-Hidya mosque during a weekend of heavy fighting between Ethiopian troops and Islamist insurgents. The rights group said 41 children arrested in the raid were being detained at an Ethiopian military base in the Somali capital.

Citing eyewitness accounts, Amnesty reported that 11 of the dead, among them Islamic scholars, were killed inside the mosque on Saturday. But Ethiopia’s government yesterday denied the war crimes accusations, and said no raid had taken place. “This is a completely fabricated story designed to blackmail the Ethiopian army, one of the most disciplined forces anywhere in the world,” a spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign affairs ministry said. “It will damage the reputation of Amnesty International.”

And France is determined to ensure that it never happens again.

Almost two centuries after the Battle of Waterloo, senior army officers have been sent back to the scene of their predecessors’ humiliation. In all 38 spent a day analysing what went wrong for Napoleon in his bloody struggle with the Duke of Wellington.

Brigadier-General Vincent Desportes ordered strategists from France’s Armed Forces Employment Doctrine Centre to undertake the visit because “you learn more from your failures than from your

As the Cuban parliament convened on Feb. 24 to chose a new Council of State—the nation’s supreme governing body responsible for selecting the president—the most influential Latin American political leader of the 20th century, recovering from a life-threatening illness, retired gracefully to a position of éminence grise and keeper of the flame. Castro’s brother Raúl already has made it clear that he does not want to be “President for Life” and is committed to transferring power

The answer I give almost always revolves around creating relationships. If you’ve been reading a while, you know one of my favorite statements is people don’t do business with businesses, they do business with people. So relationships become key to business success.

Mwai Kibaki called for politics to be set aside when naming the new cabinet

Nearly six weeks ago, the two men agreed to form a grand coalition government to rescue their country from weeks of violence, anger and mistrust.

But the deal came close to total collapse during the past week as the two men and their followers were unable to agree on how to share power.