LONDON: Europe's leading stock markets tumbled by more than one per cent yesterday as investors looked cautiously ahead to the major G20 economic summit, traders said.

“The major indices all fell ahead of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh,” Jimmy Yates, a senior trader at CMC Markets in London, wrote in a note.

“With the G20 also set to stir things up we may have to brace ourselves for a volatile end to the week." London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares closed 1.17 per cent lower at 5,079.27 points.

BRUSSELS: European leaders were divided yesterday over proposals pushed by Germany to levy a global tax on financial transactions that could act as a cushion against future economic setbacks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would seek agreement from her fellow European Union leaders for such a proposal to be taken to a summit in Pittsburgh next week of the Group of 20 countries.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others fear such a scheme would be rendered useless by some countries not taking it up and therefore becoming de facto tax havens.

LONDON: Europe's main stock markets slipped yesterday for the second day running amid profit-taking as the hea of the summer share surge appeared to be cooling, analysts said.

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading shares lost 0.44 per cent to close at 4,869.35 points. Frankfurt's DAX fell 0.94 per cent to 5,470.33 points and in Paris the CAC 40 lost 0.54 per cent to close at 3,648.53.

ALLEGATIONS that Malaysia is in talks with an European company to set up a pre-clinical primate-testing facility in Johor has raised the ire of animal welfare groups.

IN line with increasing public furore over animal experimentation, the European Parliament has recently been
debating revisions to its over 20-year old animal-testing legislation, which - among others - touched on the
possibility of banning or restricting on human primate-testing and the development of alternative means to animal experimentation.

LONDON: European stock markets plunged yesterday after G8 finance ministers over the weekend warned the economic outlook remained risky. The FTSE 100 index in London lost 2.61 per cent, the CAC 40 in Paris fell 3.20 per cent and the Dax in Frankfurt plummeted 3.54 per cent. The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares slid 3.02 per cent. Elsewhere in Europe, Madrid lost 2.01 per cent, Geneva 2.20 per cent, Brussels 2.96 per cent, Amsterdam 2.72 per cent and Milan 3.01 per cent. — AFP

LONDON: European stock markets closed firmer yesterday, coming off early lows, with London's FTSE 100 index
of leading shares up 0.72 per cent at 4,362.58 points.

In Frankfurt, the DAX index added 0.20 per cent to 4,738.47 points and in Paris the CAC 40 index edged up
0.11 per cent to 3,156.29 points. — AFP