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- Greece expressed hope it can secure its second EU/IMF bailout in as many years and a deal on easing its debt burden next week, but its euro zone peers made clear the months of increasingly ill-tempered argument are not quite over yet.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the Greek side had met the final two demands set by the European Union and IMF to seal the 130 billion-euro rescue, which Athens needs to avoid a chaotic default when big debt repayments fall due in March.

But a government official in Germany, which has got involved in testy exchanges with Athens over its will to tackle its problems, said the Greek side still had questions to answer.

Greece pinned its hopes on a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday, after talks in Athens and at the euro zone level failed to produce a deal to avert a Greek bankruptcy which could shake financial markets around the globe.

Venizelos told reporters late on Wednesday the cabinet had decided how to plug a 325 million-euro gap in the 3.3 billion euros of extra budget savings this year which the EU and IMF are demanding.

And he noted that the leaders of both parties in the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos had given written undertakings to implement the austerity measures, which provoked a night of fighting, arson and looting in Athens on Sunday.

Exasperated euro zone finance ministers in the Eurogroup had demanded both steps be taken before making a final decision on the bailout.

MISTRUST OF ATHENS

With mistrust of Athens running high, EU sources told Reuters that euro zone officials had considered whether it was possible to delay part or all of the rescue deal while still avoiding a disorderly default.

Greece needs the funds to avoid bankruptcy when 14.5 billion euros of debt repayments fall due on March 20.

“The big issue of the 325 million euros has been finalised and this helped the discussion,” Venizelos said following a lengthy telephone conference call with his euro zone peers.

The Eurogroup had been due to meet in Brussels on Wednesday but its Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker scaled this down to a teleconference, complaining that Greek political leaders had failed to provide written commitments or plug the savings gap.

Greek party leaders have a reputation for working right up to deadlines, or beyond them, raising tensions with the Eurogroup which fears that they will avoid implementing the austerity package in full after elections expected in April.

However, conservative leader Antonis Samaras, the front runner to become the next prime minister, provided his written undertaking to the EU and IMF on Wednesday shortly before the Eurogroup conference call.

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(BRUSSELS) – A month after he became the lonely man of Europe, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s efforts to win friends and influence people met with mixed results at the latest summit in Brussels.

He won a new ally when the Czech Republic joined Britain on the outside of a fiscal treaty signed by the rest of the European Union — but then found himself embroiled in a spat with an old ally, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Cameron is also on a political tightrope between the EU, Britain’s biggest export market, and his own party in Britain which wants him to take a tough stance against the bloc or even leave it altogether.

So, it was not the firebrand Cameron of December on show Monday but a more subdued figure keen to appease other leaders — and receiving a kiss on the cheek from German Chancellor Angela Merkel for his pains.

He kept up his rhetoric about ensuring that Britain’s interests are not hurt by the new treaty.

We will be watching like a hawk, he said, reiterating calls for eurozone countries to recapitalise their banks, deal with Greece’s debt drama and establish a financial firewall.

Cameron also insisted that he had kept Britain out of a treaty that it did not need or want.

He received some vindication for his stance when the Czechs decided that they too could not endorse the fiscal pact.

But he had already backed down on an earlier threat made in December to veto the use of EU institutions by other countries that join the pact.

He had also softened his language from the previous week, when he launched a stinging attack on his EU partners, slammed the eurozone as uncompetitive and branded as madness a planned transaction tax.

Cameron had also picked a fight over the European Court of Human Rights last week, saying it needed urgent reform to stop it overriding the decisions of democratic member nations.

Tensions rose to the surface again when Cameron and Sarkozy took digs at each others’ countries.

First Sarkozy said in a speech on Sunday that Britain had no industry left.

That prompted Cameron to say that the French president’s mad plans for a financial transactions tax would drive French banks over to Britain.

In the spirit of this healthy competition with France, if France goes for a financial transactions tax then the door will be open and we’ll be able to welcome many more French banks, businesses and others to the UK, Cameron said.

But asked if he would be backing the French president’s re-election this year — as Merkel’s party said she would — Cameron tried to play it down lightheartedly.

I am a big supporter and friend of Nicolas Sarkozy and I wish him well, he said.

Every now and again he says something I don’t agree with — today when he said that Britain is short of industry, we actually have a larger industrial sector than France.

Relations have been stormy between the two in recent months.

In December when Cameron criticised the eurozone’s efforts to tackle its debt crisis, Sarkozy reportedly snapped that — as Britain is not part of the single currency — Cameron should shut up.

Cameron’s problem is that what offends in Europe plays well at home, and vice-versa.

His self-proclaimed use of Britain’s veto in December to stay out of the fiscal pact delighted the anti-European wing of his party, which he needs to keep the Conservatives at the head of a coalition government.

They now fear he is backing down.

Iain Duncan Smith, a senior cabinet minister and former leader of the Conservative party known as a strong Eurosceptic, issued a veiled threat at the weekend when he said he trusted Cameron to uphold his veto pledge.

The company denied charges brought by the HSE of giving or causing to give financial assistance to the Spar retailer in Dublin City University, and to one of its shop assistants, on an unknown date between Jul 1 and Sept 31, 2009, in consideration of the promotion of a tobacco product.

On Jul 1, 2009, all advertising of tobacco products was banned in retail shops. Sponsorship of tobacco products is also banned.

Called the Pocket a Packet scheme, shop staff and owners were motivated to promote Pall Mall cigarettes under a “mystery shopper” scheme operated by PJ Carroll Ltd, it was alleged.

It was also claimed that when customers asked if the shop had Benson

LONDON – European shares and the euro gradually recovered on Monday from early losses triggered by the mass downgrade of euro zone sovereign ratings last week, but they still looked vulnerable amid rising fears of a disorderly Greek debt default.

Markets had already reacted to the downgrades on Friday, and European assets steadied by Monday afternoon, but activity was limited with U.S.

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The first thing you see to the left upon passing the large stone “Welcome to Cupertino” sign is Apple Inc.’s world headquarters, on the playfully named One Infinite Loop. For fans of Steve Jobs, there is no greater Mecca than this sleepy San Jose suburb. There’s his childhood home, a simple suburban ranch at 2066 Crist St., the garage of which served as Apple Inc.’s birthplace. Less than a mile up a road where one could easily imagine a young Jobs biking is his junior high. And a mile beyond that practically within sight of Infinite Loop is his high school. Jobs led the world into the computing era, but physically, he rarely left a 20-mile radius that centered around his boyhood home. “Apple is a company that has grown up with our city,” says Rick Kitson, Cupertino’s public and environmental affairs director. “The city was only incorporated 55 years ago and for 35 of those years we’ve been home to Apple. It’s only 11 square miles, so Apple really put our town on the map.”

Cupertino was named for Joseph of Cupertino, an Italian saint who, though dim-witted, was known for his miraculous ability to levitate.

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