Oil prices retreated on Tuesday as the dollar strengthened, and traders digested downbeat European economic growth data and awaited news of any fresh plan to tackle the Eurozone debt crisis.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for delivery in September, fell 84 cents to $87.04 a barrel.

Scientists in Canada said Monday that they plan to study whether eating dark chocolate not only satisfies sweet tooth cravings, but protects against sunburn as well.

The study by researchers at Laval University in Quebec will monitor the effects of chocolate consumption on fair-skinned volunteers between the ages of 25 and 65, each of whom will be prevailed upon to eat three squares of chocolate per day for 12 weeks.

The Taliban blamed the state of the U.S. economy and last week's London riots on the war in Afghanistan in a statement published on its website Monday.

The insurgents claimed both situations were linked to the U.S. and Britain spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the ten-year war in Afghanistan and again urged foreign troops to pull out of the country.

The world is facing a crisis of confidence, the finance ministers of Britain and four other countries warned Monday, calling for a global response to reassure jittery markets and support a sustainable recovery.

"The world faces a crisis of confidence," British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said in a joint statement with Australia's Wayne Swan, Canada's Jim Flaherty, Singapore's Tharman Shanmugaratnam and South Africa's Pravin Gordhan.

A U.S. street crime expert enlisted by British Prime Minister David Cameron to help curb gangs after this week's riots warned Saturday that solving the problem was more complex than just arresting people.

As police turned out in force in London on Saturday in a bid to prevent any repeat of England's worst riots in decades, former New York police commissioner Bill Bratton agreed to visit Britain in coming months to give advice.

European stock markets were holding onto gains Friday after another rollercoaster ride as nervous investors tried to get ahead of the curve and a short-selling ban in Europe helped the under-fire banks.

France, Italy, Spain and Belgium banned short-selling in bank stocks after rumors about their financial health saw them suffer massive losses in recent days and then Germany upped the ante by calling for a Europe-wide bar.

Syria's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday that anti-government groups have killed 500 Syrian security forces and sparked diplomatic fury by comparing the deadly unrest to the riots in Britain.

Britain's U.N. representative dismissed Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari's "ludicrous" comparison between the handling of the worst British riots in a generation and the killing of protesters on the streets of Syrian cities. Rights groups say over 2,000 people, mainly protesters, have been killed.

After a relatively quiet night on London's streets, life started to return to normal Thursday following four nights of rioting that have left homes and shops in ruins and four people dead.

The owners of shops and cafes in districts of the British capital where rioters looted and set fire to shops put on a brave face and opened for business.

The riots which tore through London and other major English cities for four days had nothing to do with politics or protest but were motivated by theft, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday.

The rioting was "not about politics or protest, it is about theft", Cameron told parliament after lawmakers were recalled from their summer recess to debate the worst looting and violence for decades.

Police began raiding houses across London on Thursday to make arrests over the riots that rocked the British capital, with more than 100 warrants issued already, a senior Scotland Yard officer said.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh announced the raids after a heavy police presence on the streets of London and other cities prevented a fifth night of the unrest.