VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Leading British lawmakers urged the European Union on Thursday to remove preferential trade tariffs from Sri Lanka if it fails to address human rights concerns.

Leaders from the G20 group of nations agreed on Sunday to boost flagging global growth, tackle climate change and crack down on tax avoidance but ties between the West and Russia plummeted to a new low over the crisis in Ukraine.

The G20 leaders summit in Australia starting on Saturday is setting up as a showdown between Western leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin, following fresh reports of Russian troops pouring into eastern Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine made progress on Friday towards resolving a dispute over gas supplies in time for winter, but European leaders said Moscow still had to do much more to prop up a fragile ceasefire and end fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Party politics seems set to trump concerns about the competence and suitability of several candidates for the European Commission when lawmakers pass judgment on Jean-Claude Juncker's most controversial nominees this week.

The U.S. dollar held near a six-year peak against the yen early on Thursday and powered to a seven-month high on its New Zealand peer, which fell after the country's central bank said its current level is "unjustified and unsustainable".

Patrick Rock, an advisor to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and one of the pioneers of the country's Internet filtering program, was arrested for allegedly possessing child pornography.

A statement from the office of the British Prime Minister David Cameron revealed that 6,000 mortgage applications, with over 80% of them as first-time buyers, applied for home loans under the government's Help-to-Buy program.

The UK government is mulling on rule changes that would make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to obtain funding from alternative financiers and new banks.

South Korea was reported to be a possible investor in Britain's nuclear power market after the Asian country hired Lloyd's Register to evaluate its nuclear reactors, according to a director at Lloyd's.

Critics say the UK Prime Minister's Home to Buy scheme would only push home prices higher than expected.

A government aide from the United Kingdom urged investors from Google to pull out investments in support of the anti-child pornography caimpaign.

After David Cameron's proposal of a universal block to child pornography sites, copyright owners expressed concern of the possibility of having reduced operations due to filtering.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron urged web firms today to help the battle against child pornography.