Europe News

LONDON (AFP) - Britain was set to announce a rescue package for its ailing banking industry before markets open on Wednesday, the day after shares in leading banks plunged on concerns they were short of capital.

LONDON (AFP) - It is a mystery that has baffled a succession of England managers: Why can't the country's two greatest midfielders play together?

TALLINN (Reuters) - Ulo Kikas, harbor captain at the port of Muuga, stands at the top of the multi-storey harbor building near Estonia's capital and points down to a network of vacant railway tracks for oil product wagons.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - This volcanic island near the Arctic Circle is on the brink of becoming the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financial meltdown.

LONDON (AFP) - Foreign Secretary David Miliband sought Tuesday to play down suggestions by his country's top military commander in Afghanistan that multinational forces would not achieve a "decisive" win there.

VIENNA, Austria - Far-right Gov. Joerg Haider has set up a facility in the remote mountains of southern Austria to handle asylum seekers suspected as criminals, saying they need to be isolated to protect the people in the area.

TEHRAN/BERLIN (Reuters) - Iran has accused six major powers of "unreasonable behavior" over its disputed nuclear program, but the European Union said on Tuesday it would stick to a dual approach combining diplomacy with the threat of sanctions.

LONDON (AFP) - The production company behind a BBC comedy sketch that provoked outrage in the Philippines for being racist said Tuesday that the show was "absurd" and should not be taken seriously.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's finance minister Alistair Darling will announce a rescue package for the banking system on Wednesday, a move likely to include a major injection of capital into banks, a government source said.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - British army experts have defused a roadside bomb planted by Irish Republican Army dissidents in Northern Ireland four days after finding it.

Wall Street's woes extend far beyond Main Street and all the way to Law Street — the hulking headquarters of the European Union.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican stepped up its defense of Pope Pius XII on Tuesday, countering allegations the wartime pontiff was silent about the Holocaust by saying he saved Jews through his prudent diplomacy.

MILAN, Italy - The PETA animal rights organization is targeting Armani in its latest anti-fur campaign.

LONDON - A rare Islamic crystal jug mistaken earlier this year for a cheap French claret pitcher has sold at auction for almost 3.2 million pounds ($5.6 million).

BUCHAREST, Romania - A Romanian Cabinet minister was fired Tuesday after he used a government helicopter to make it to his wedding on time.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - A committee of EU lawmakers approved an ambitious climate change plan Tuesday, resisting heavy pressure from lobbyists who sought to water down the bill because of the financial crisis.

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet decided Tuesday to extend Germany's military mission in Afghanistan for 14 more months.

BELGRADE, Serbia - A Serbian court has freed a former diplomat suspected of helping a student facing assault charges in the United States flee to Serbia, a court official said Tuesday.

MOSCOW - Hundreds of people gathered in central Moscow Tuesday to remember Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya on the second anniversary of her killing.

TSKHINVALI, Georgia - Russian forces will begin withdrawing from a buffer zone in Georgia on Wednesday and be out within 24 hours.

ROME - A U.N. agency on Tuesday called for an urgent review of agriculture and biofuel subsidies and trade barriers, saying their removal would increase opportunities for developing countries to take advantage of rising biofuel demand.

MUNICH, Germany - Gino Massetti was 15 when he was rounded up by German troops near the Italian village of Falzano di Cortona and herded with 10 other civilians into a barn.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - Rescuers in Kyrgyzstan searched the rubble for signs of life after an earthquake that killed at least 74 people.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Vladimir Putin is out on video as a judo master. Russian state-controlled media already have shown the powerful prime minister at the wheel of massive racing truck, shirtless on a fishing excursion, and tracking a tiger through the Siberian forest — just a few of the he-man presentations designed to boost his public image.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Two Japanese citizens and a Japanese-born American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries in the world of subatomic physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday.

MOSCOW - Russia's foreign minister says the country's arms sales to Venezuela are meant for defensive purposes.

Recent winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, and their research, according to the Nobel Foundation:

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland nationalized its second-largest bank on Tuesday under day-old legislation and negotiated a euro4 billion ($5.4 billion) loan from Russia to shore up the nation's finances amid a full-blown financial crisis.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Some 7,000 workers and trade unionists have marched around the Romanian parliament to demand higher salaries and better working conditions.