World Politics News

READING, England - Computers argued, cracked jokes and parried trick questions Sunday, all part of an annual test of artificial intelligence carried out at the University of Reading.

LONDON - Dozens of renowned British writers came out against new anti-terrorism legislation Sunday, publishing a collection of satire, essays, fiction and poetry to protest a proposal allowing police to hold suspects without charge for up to 42 days.

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy said he expects a meeting of 15 European leaders Sunday to produce an ambitious, coordinated plan to battle the effects of the global financial crisis.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - If history is any guide, this year's Nobel economics prize will award the developers of economic theories that have had the time to take root, grow and prove resilient.

CWMGRACH, Wales - Deep under a pine-covered mountain, men clamber into red overalls and heavy boots, strap on lamps and attach sensors that check gas levels.

VIENNA, Austria - Far-right politician Joerg Haider was speeding at more than twice the posted limit before the car crash that killed him, investigators said Sunday as his grief-stricken party appointed a successor.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday gave the Roman Catholic church four new saints, including an Indian woman whose canonization is seen as a morale boost to Christians in India who have suffered Hindu violence.

PARIS - France has decided not to extradite a former member of the Italian left-wing Red Brigades terrorist group to Italy because she is in poor health, the president's office announced Sunday. It stressed that the measure does not weaken French resolve to fight terrorism.

MOSCOW - President Dmitry Medvedev watched a missile soar from Russia's rain-soaked northern forests toward a target thousands of miles away on Sunday, capping a weekend of launches reminding audiences at home and abroad about the country's nuclear might.

VIENNA, Austria - Damnation was the dominant theme Saturday in a new Vienna State Opera production of Charles Gounod's Faust. But redemption triumphed in the form of wonderful singing and a powerful orchestral performance.

VIENNA, Austria - Joerg Haider, who catapulted his rightist anti-immigration party into a powerful force with sharp attacks on rivals and provocative praise of the Nazi era, died Saturday in a car accident. He was 58.

ROME - The condition of an Italian woman at the center of a right-to-die case worsened after she suffered a massive hemorrhage, doctors said Saturday.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia - A strong earthquake hit Chechnya and other parts of Russia's North Caucasus Saturday, killing at least 12 people and damaging scores of hospitals, schools and other buildings, emergency officials said.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Two African Union military planes braved rebel threats to land in Mogadishu on Saturday carrying 400 Burundian reinforcements for a peacekeeping force.

DUBLIN, Ireland - Davey McKeever was down to his last bet slip of the night, crumpled in a sweaty fist, at the Shelbourne Park greyhound track. The remnants of McKeever's first unemployment check would rise or fall on the ironically named Nest Egg.

MUNICH, Germany - Leonardo Patterson made his first archaeological find at age 7 in a yam field in his native Costa Rica — a piece of clay pottery his cousin said could be thousands of years old.

MOSCOW - Russian officials say a submarine-launched ballistic missile has made a record flight, hitting a target in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish warplanes and artillery bombed dozens of Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq following an escalation in rebel attacks, the military said Saturday

VIENNA, Austria - Austrian politician Joerg Haider, whose far-right rhetoric at times cast a negative light on the Alpine republic, has died in a car accident at age 58.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday gave the U.N. Security Council nearly three dozen photographs which it said supported its accusation that Rwandan government soldiers invaded and attacked eastern Congo this week.

OSLO, Norway - Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, but this year the news was as much about who didn't get the award.

PARIS - The French Interior Ministry says police have dismantled a large network of stolen and trafficked art in western France.

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's prime minister said Friday there will be no early parliamentary elections, defying a presidential decree and raising the stakes in her fierce political battle with the president.

MOSCOW - There's no doubt what Vladimir Putin's favorite birthday present is this year — a rare Ussuri tiger cub.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - The United Nations urged Congo and Rwanda on Friday to hold talks to avoid a war after Kinshasa accused its eastern neighbor of sending troops over the border to back Congolese rebels.

BUDAPEST, Hungary - Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked NATO allies Friday to consider increasing troop levels in Afghanistan next year during the elections, a move made for past votes in Iraq.

WARSAW, Poland - Baruch Milch was hiding from the Nazis in occupied Poland in the summer of 1943. His wife and 3-year-old son had been killed in Hitler's Holocaust.

TKVIAVI, Georgia - Russia has only partially met its obligations in Georgia under an EU-negotiated ceasefire, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner declared Friday as he toured damaged villages and spoke to displaced people in Georgia.

BUDAPEST, Hungary - NATO defense ministers Friday authorized their troops in Afghanistan to attack drug barons blamed for pumping up to US$100 million (euro74 million) a year into the coffers of resurgent Taliban fighters.