Europe News Archives

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's visit to Minsk was eloquent support of Belarus in the international arena, Russian news agencies reported.

The mother of one of the NatWest Three bankers jailed in the US has said computer hacker Gary McKinnon "will not survive the grave toll of extradition". Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, faces up to 60 years in jail for breaking into the American systems after the September 11 terror attacks.

Romania's government has collapsed and its economy is in shambles but its presidential campaign has been dominated in recent days by a video that appears to show the president striking a 10-year-old boy in the face.

Finnish veterans attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument of Finnish Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim during commemorations for the 70th anniversary of the start of the Winter War when Stalin's Red Army attacked the small Nordic country, in central Helsinki, Monday, Nov.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime planned to use an anti-tank rocket to attack the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, the Czech Republic's counterintelligence service said Monday.

Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped by gunmen Sunday while delivering supplies to impoverished villages in the desert nation of Mauritania, a police official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Berlin Monday for a special joint session of the German and Israeli governments, a symbolic visit highlighting the two nations' bond six decades after the Holocaust.

"It is clear to anyone of honesty and good sense that we are faced with the most incredible and ignoble attack ever made on me in recent years," the Italian Prime Minister said, dismissing the Mafia accusations as "ridiculous, unfounded and infamous" and saying that he had "done more than anyone else" to fight organised crime.

The remains of 602 people caught fleeing famine in Ukraine 60 years ago and shot by the Soviet secret police have been reburied, closing a dark chapter in the country's history.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with a trio of Eurogroup leaders in Nanjing Sunday afternoon ahead of the 12th China-EU summit.

THAILAND FALLS IN LOVE WITH JORGE LORENZO The MotoGP World Championship 2009 runner-up Jorge Lorenzo was given a hero's welcome by a huge crowd today on the first day of a visit to South East Asia.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown attends a press conference during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Port-of-Spain Britain aims to set clear goals in Afghanistan at top-level talks next year to help bring its troops home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said yesterday, amid public anger at the rising death toll.

This file photo released by the Department of Justice on Feb. 21, 2002, shows a World War II-era military service pass for John Demjanjuk.

A U.S. rights group says a Western Sahara independence activist who has been on a hunger strike for nearly two weeks after Morocco expelled her from the territory is so weak she can barely stand or speak.

The US followed its own military timetable for the 2003 invasion of Iraq rather than allowing diplomacy to run its full course, the former British ambassador to the UN said yesterday.

Ukrainian nationalists hurled red paint at a restored monument to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin moments after it was unveiled Friday, sparking a street brawl and revealing the bitter divisions over the legacy of communism in Ukraine.

The campaign posters are inflammatory: Minarets rising like missiles from the national flag.

An approaching global climate summit has raised the temperature at what is usually a low-key meeting of leaders from Britain's former colonial empire.

President Lech Kaczynski's Web site said Friday that he had signed the law. It provides for punishments of up to two years in prison for people who possess, purchase or spread items or recordings containing communist symbols.

Heinrich Boere, 88, made his first comments to the Aachen state court since his trial opened at the end of October.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held talks with French officials Friday on expanding cooperation in the energy, automotive, transportation and pharmaceutical sectors.

US President Barack Obama will announce his new Afghan strategy in an address to the nation Tuesday from the prestigious West Point military academy, the White House said.

The queen of England will still rule - formally at least - over the eastern Caribbean nation of St.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's estranged wife is seeking 43 million euros, or about $65 million US, a year in alimony in a divorce case she launched after her husband was embroiled in a sex scandal, an Italian newspaper reported Thursday.

Roman Polanski will be quietly transferred from a Zurich jail to house arrest in his Alpine chalet, Swiss authorities said Thursday, adding that the process will last at least another day.

Germany's armed forces chief Wolfgang Schneiderhan has resigned, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said, after accusations the military withheld information about an air strike in Afghanistan.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has unveiled a Network of Men Leaders to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women.

LESS than a year after he stepped down amid a banking scandal, Yves Leterme has become Belgium's prime minister for the second time.

Bing Crosby didn't have to dream of a white Christmas - he could bank on it. The crooner was from Spokane, a city that is among the most likely to have a white Christmas each year.

Five clubs in Albania, Latvia, Slovenia and Hungary are suspected in European football's biggest match-fixing investigation, UEFA said Wednesday.

In this Saturday Aug. 1, 2009 file photo, Italian escort Patrizia D'addario poses during an Italian style party named "I love Silvio", in Paris.

Voters in the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines decide Wednesday whether to break their ties with Britain's monarchy, even as Queen Elizabeth II is making a rare visit to the region.

A cruise ferry with almost 1,700 people onboard was to be towed to the Finnish port city of Turku on Monday due to problems with its rudder system, the ferry operator said.

Critics hope the hearings, which will call ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and are billed as the most sweeping inquiry into the conflict, will expose alleged deception in the buildup to fighting.

A libel trial has started in Poland over charges former President Lech Walesa once worked as a communist spy.

General Motors Co. will present to unions on Wednesday its restructuring plan for the Opel unit, expected to include up to 9,500 job cuts, the carmaker's top official in Europe said Tuesday.

Albert Camus' children are torn about whether to allow the Nobel Prize-winning author's remains to be moved from southern France to Paris' Pantheon, the final resting place of other French greats like Voltaire and Victor Hugo.

Former British leader Margaret Thatcher returned to London's Downing Street Monday as she unveiled her own portrait, which has been installed in the official residence of Britain's prime minister.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been called many things during his often turbulent career.

One night at the height of the panic over what people here call the California flu, as 24-hour news stations tracked a rising death toll and politicians speculated about a mystery lung plague, Ukraine's prime minister rushed to the airport to greet a shipment of Tamiflu as if it were a foreign dignitary.

Former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin awarded here Saturday the Legion of Honour toa doctor in central China for his contribution to Sino-French cultural and medical exchanges.

A retired British couple snatched from their yacht by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday they fear they could be killed within a week or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom demand is not paid.

Gordon Brown has warned world leaders that they "cannot afford to fail" to strike a substantial deal on climate change in Copenhagen next month.

When I'm in Norway , I'm always amazed at how clear it is that I am with "my people." Three of my grandparents left hard times in Norway for hard times -- with promise -- in the United States.

Tens of thousands of Albanian opposition Socialist Party supporters launched their latest protest Friday to demand the government either recount the vote in a controversial June 28 election or hold another.

Madrid - Cash-strapped Spaniards are pulling their hair out over the economic crisis - literally.

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaks to residents at a rescue centre in Cockermouth, northern England, yesterday British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the scene of massive floods that killed one person and stranded hundreds in the heaviest rainfall on record in England.

British TV personality David Frost will be honored at the 37th Annual International Emmy Awards for a wide-ranging career that has taken him from pioneering political satire on television to conducting serious interviews with former President Richard Nixon and other newsmakers.

Romanians will vote in a presidential election Sunday that could resolve weeks of political crisis and unfreeze an international loan the country needs to emerge from a deep recession.

" In what one UEFA official called Europe's worst ever match-fixing scandal, investigators said Friday criminals may have netted over 10 million euros manipulating 200 games in nine countries.

General Motors Co. said it expects to release a full restructuring plan for its Opel and Vauxhall operations in mid December, but did not specify the amount of cuts to capacity and jobs it would seek.

Today's Highlight in History: On Nov. 20, 1947, Britain's future queen, Princess Elizabeth, married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey.

Buckingham Palace says the Queen and her husband Prince Philip are celebrating 62 years of marriage quietly - without the fanfare of two years ago, when they marked their diamond anniversary.

Brenda was one of two Brazilian transsexuals who were involved in a political scandal last month with the former governor of Lazio region.

Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District on Friday following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes.

Ballot boxes at the Kosovo election commission counting centre in Pristina, Kosovo, November 16 2009.

EUROPEa s top jobs were filled in record time at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels last night, but the initial reaction was one of disappointment.

"We are, eagerly probably as you all are, waiting for the president's speech and ... waiting for the new concept, the new strategic ideas from our American friends," German Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said following meetings at the Pentagon on Thursday.

The austere building stands in the middle of a remote, thick forest surrounded by a high fence and numerous surveillance cameras.

EU leaders are braced for a showdown over who leads Europe, after the failure of behind-the-scenes talks to select a "President" and "High Representative for Foreign Affairs". The two new key posts are created by the Lisbon Treaty, but there was no clear consensus on who should be appointed to either job just hours ahead of the Thursday night ...

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has urged Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to change an agreement on supplies of Russian natural gas whose terms he said were too onerous for the Ukrainian economy.

Hundreds of thousands of people joined a somber funeral procession Thursday for Patriarch Pavle, the leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church through its post-Communist revival and the Balkans' bloody ethnic conflicts in the 1990s.

The group behind a controversial atheist bus-poster campaign is urging parents not to label their children with their own religious faith.

A 2-year-old panda who charmed his way into the hearts of Austrians is headed to China.

The head of a U.N. food agency expressed regret Wednesday that an anti-hunger summit failed to result in precise promises of funding, and critics said the meeting had only thrown crumbs to the world's 1 billion people without enough to eat.

The European Union is about to pick its very first president, a post conjured up after years of tortuous political machination to give the bloc a unified voice on the world stage.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government will extend Germany's mission to Afghanistan for another year, but not increase the number of troops, a source close to the government said Wednesday.

Queen Elizabeth II leaves Buckingham Palace in a carriage for the Houses of Parliament before the... Queen Elizabeth II leaves Buckingham Palace in a carriage for the Houses of Parliament before the State Opening of Parliament on November 18, 2009 in London.

Slovakia pledged about 250 extra soldiers to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan Tuesday, the first of what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said would be a series of international reinforcements.

A British man has denied disrupting a transatlantic flight after he was hauled off a plane for refusing to move his injured arm.

Serbian President Boris Tadic faces a fine for allegedly drinking champagne at a stadium with his sports minister and the head of the soccer federation.

Pirates freed 36 crew members from a Spanish trawler Tuesday after holding them for more than six weeks.

In Ukraine, swine flu is causing electoral fever. In a hard-fought presidential campaign, critics of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko accuse her of stirring up panic to grab the spotlight from rivals by closing all schools and banning mass gatherings to combat what experts say is a relatively moderate outbreak of the disease.

World leaders at a United Nations food summit in Rome today agreed a strategy to help the world's one billion starving people by increasing aid to farmers in developing countries - but failed to pledge the specific funds the UN had hoped for.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia and Slovakia had agreed to renovate the structure of trade and economic cooperation and expand it through investments.

Mondaya s visit of Ellen Tauscher, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, comes a month after Vice President Joe Biden won Czech support for the new plan.

Danish Minister for Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaard, right, with Head of the U.N. climate change secretariat Yvo de Boer, at the start of a two-day closed meeting of climate negotiators from nearly 40 countries who are preparing for the Copenhagen U.N. summit that starts on Dec.

Three Britons died and a fourth was fighting for his life in a Dutch hospital after a high-speed crash while escaping from police.

Oct. 6 1950 b/w file photo of 10 year old twins Brian Thomas Sullivan and Kevin James Sullivan from Islington, London, who carry their luggage to the boat train "Rangitoto" as they leave Liverpool Street station in London bound for Auckland, New Zealand.

A UN summit on the plight of the planet's one billion hungry opens here Monday, with activists warning it risks being a waste of time as leaders of the world's wealthiest nations are to be conspicuous by their absence.

Berlin - Reuters Published on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009 12:38PM EST Last updated on Sunday, Nov.

PRIME Minister Silvio Berlusconi spent two nights sleeping at the office amid reports he was on a hit list of politicians held by an alleged terrorist, the Italian press said.

Patriarch Pavle, who led Serbia's Christian Orthodox Church through its post-Communist revival and the turbulent 1990s marked by ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, died Sunday.

Some 800 Finnair pilots will begin a strike on Monday, grounding all scheduled international and domestic flights of the Finnish national carrier, the airline said.

Sunday, November 15, 2009 PRISTINA, Kosovo: Kosovo votes on Sunday in the first election organised by local authorities since the declaration of independence from Serbia.

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel opened the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Velvet Revolution with a concert attended by celebrities.

General Motors Co. wants to move its European headquarters to Germany from Switzerland before the end of the year, an Opel spokesman said Saturday.

Malta's bishop announces pope to visit April 17-18 Eds: APNewsNow. VALLETTA, Malta The bishop of Malta says Pope Benedict XVI will visit the tiny Mediterranean island April 17-18 to mark the 1950th anniversary of St.

Anti-racist protesters will gather to oppose a controversial "anti-Islamic" demonstration.

Ukraine's credit rating has been cut by the Fitch group, which has said a delay in IMF funding combined with the country's huge budget gap could lead to more instability.

Some train fares will rise in the new year on the "state-run" East Coast Main Line, the route's new boss has said.

American screen icon Clint Eastwood was made a commander in France's prestigious Legion of Honor on Friday.

President Barack Obama's delay in deciding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan has found an echo chamber in Europe, where coalition leaders in NATO are weighing whether to send more help or bow to public demands for a speedy exit.

By Peter Fedynsky, VOA , Moscow Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned Ukraine he will cut off the country's gas supplies if it siphons fuel from export lines.

A veteran Slovenian mountaineer has become stranded in the Himalayas during a solo climb, and bad weather is hampering rescue efforts, a colleague said Thursday.

A former French interior minister says former President Jacques Chirac and other senior figures were aware of secret arms trafficking to Angola in the 1990s.

Eleven suspected Islamic extremists of South Asian origin went on trial Thursday over an alleged plot to stage suicide attacks on the Barcelona subway system on orders from the Pakistan Taliban.

Silvio Berlusconi's hopes for a 'quiet' divorce settlement have been shattered after his wife demanded a share of his 5.6billion empire.

Santa's P.O. opens in Germany Nov. 11: Santa's post office in Germany opens and is already receiving Christmas lists from children all around the world.

Britons are ugly, dating website concludes Some of the 200,000 crowd at Brighton beach, southern England in July, 2002, during Europe's biggest free beach party.

Mona Webster had two passions: birds and music. The Scottish widow, who died in August at the age of 96, traveled the world well into old age in pursuit of both.

In this May 22, 2008 file photo, Kevin Crilly leaves Newry courthouse, in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

GERMANY goalkeeper Robert Enke, who committed suicide yesterday evening, had been battling depression and was first treated for the illness in 2003.

The leaders of Germany and France appeared together for the first time at a First World War remembrance ceremony today and said it was now time to celebrate their countriesa reconciliation and friendship.

Several eastern Europeans and an unidentified accomplice were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly hacking into a computer network operated by the Atlanta-based credit card processing company RBS WorldPay and stealing $9 million.

Gheorghe Dinica, a Romanian actor who delighted his country by portraying characters such as villainous politicians and defiant Gypsies in dozens of plays and movies, died Tuesday.

A Northern Ireland filmmaker has won euro46,000 in damages after a judge ruled that his Irish island home was transformed into a parking lot while he was overseas for six years.

Veterans saluted and mourners laid flowers on hearses as hundreds paid tribute Tuesday to six soldiers killed in Afghanistan - including five shot to death by an Afghan police officer who turned against them.

Lawmakers allied with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will introduce a bill within days that could cut short his pending trials on tax fraud and corruption charges, one of the premier's most powerful backers in parliament said Tuesday.

Changing Scotland's "booze and blade culture" will not be easy, Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing has said.

Somali pirates have seized a United Arab Emirates-flagged cargo ship loaded with weapons bound for the anarchic Horn of Africa nation in contravention of a UN arms embargo, maritime experts said on Monday.

A crowd of thousands of cheering Germans recreated the historical moment the Berlin Wall came crashing down -- toppling 1,000 graffiti-adorned 8-foot-tall dominoes that fell along the route of the now vanished Cold War icon, celebrating 20 years of freedom from separation and fear.

Nov. 9 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel, joined thousands of others to walk across a former checkpoint in celebration of 20 years since the wall's collapse SOUNDBITE: GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL MUS, ONLOOKER FROM THE NETHERLANDS Georgina Cooper, Reuters No videos currently selected.

Two, blue overalls, of the seven suspected Somali pirates are guarded by Kenyan security officers as they arrived at the port's police station in Mombasa, Kenya, Monday Nov.

Prosecutors on Monday demanded a life sentence for a man who admitted to fatally stabbing a pregnant Egyptian woman in a German court in a case that triggered outrage across the Muslim world.

A NEWSPAPER close to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued an ultimatum to his allies yesterday, saying they must back laws shielding him from court trials or risk a government collapse.

Some 84 percent of Italians oppose a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that crucifixes should be removed from Italian classrooms, according to a poll on Sunday.

It is the British empire of the dead.Scattered across 150 countries and managed from a modest office building near London's Heathrow Airport, a global patchwork of graveyards constitutes a beautiful memorial to the ugliest carnage: the 1.7 million fighting men and women who died for Britain and its dominions in the world wars of the last ...

Nuclear impasses with Iran and North Korea are the dominant issues for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Europe and Asia, which begins with a stopover in Germany to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall.

In this photo made available by the British Ministry of Defence, showing British soldiers, forming Battle Group North West hold a Remembrance Sunday service and parade at the Musa Qal'eh District Centre Forward Operating Base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Sunday Nov.

BRITISH public support for the war in Afghanistan is falling, while more than 40 per cent do not understand why British troops are fighting there, a poll released on Remembrance Sunday showed.

Ukraine could delay a January presidential election until May next year if the government fails to control an outbreak of H1N1 flu, a senior official wrote on the respected news Web site Ukrainska Pravda on Friday.

In this photo taken Oct. 26, 2009, Yvonne Shaw holds a photo and items that she has from her Finnish pen pal of 14 years, Leena Hietula, in Urbana, Ill.

Senior U.S. and Czech defense officials held talks Friday to discuss ways for the Czech Republic to participate in a reworked U.S. missile defense plan.

Massive colorful dominoes painted by German students were placed Saturday along the former path of the Berlin Wall to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the barrier that divided the city for nearly three decades.

Two British ticketholders shared a massive 90 million jackpot in Friday night's Euromillions draw, Camelot said.

ROME Italy's Silvio Berlusconi praised the virility of Kazakhstan's men during a visit to Rome by its president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, saying this was the reason for the former Soviet country's population growth.

Monaco's Prince Albert II is filing a lawsuit in the U.S. against an American who claims he once worked as the prince's personal spymaster and is owed back pay, the prince's French lawyer said Friday.

In Britain, there are no long lines of people seeking swine flu vaccine. Doctor's offices aren't swamped with desperate calls.

Romanian officials said Friday that the International Monetary Fund will delay access to a a 1.5 billion bailout loan while the country struggles to set up a new government.

One of Czech President Vaclav Klaus's goals may be to have the Czech Republic regain its lost sovereignty, for example by its departure from the EU, Petr Hajek, deputy head of the Presidential Office, said on Prima TV Wednesday.

Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz will pay for Russian gas on time, Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said on Wednesday.

Daigle, Arthur Max,Katy - Activists of anti-poverty group Oxfam wearing masks of world leaders fron left to right: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Spain's Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, perform during the ...

In this Dec. 9, 2008 file photo Ines Schoenwald checks bottles at the bottling plant in the Rotkaeppchen sparkling wines production facilities in Freyburg, eastern Germany.

Sweden and Finland on Thursday approved a Baltic Sea pipeline project that would ship Russian natural gas to Germany, clearing two key obstacles for construction to begin next year.

Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

What makes a British cultural institution? Style? Sophistication? In the case of comic magazine Viz , the ingredients are swearing, toilet humour, and biting satire.

General Motors last night reversed course by abandoning a long-expected sale of its Opel division to a group led by Canadian car supplier Magna.

Paris prosecutors said Wednesday they will not appeal a judge's decision to order former French President Jacques Chirac to stand trial in an alleged corruption case that predated his presidency.

Italian judge convicts 23 Americans in CIA renditions Italian Judge Oscar Magi is seen at the Milan court, Italy, Wednesday, Nov.

Irish Republican Army dissidents are posing their greatest security threat in Northern Ireland since the province's peace accord 11 years ago - and are receiving help from a handful of IRA veterans in plotting gun and bomb attacks, an expert panel found Wednesday.

Actor George Eads attends a photocall promoting the television series 'Les Experts ' on the fourth day of the 2008 Monte Carlo Television Festival held at Grimaldi Forum on June 11, 2008 in Monte Carlo, Principality of Monaco.

Russia and Slovakia tightened their borders with Ukraine on Tuesday as the World Health Organization began investigating a suspected swine flu outbreak.

FORMER French president Jacques Chirac settles old scores in his memoirs released this week but avoids any mention of the corruption scandal for which he has been ordered to stand trial.

STRASBOURG/ROME - The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Italian schools should remove crucifixes from classrooms, sparking uproar in Italy, where such icons are embedded in the national psyche.

Spanish intellectual Francisco Ayala, seen in this March 9, 2006 file photo during an interview with The Associated Press, in Madrid has died.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was making the case Tuesday for a global deal on climate change to a skeptical audience: members of Congress.

David Cameron is to tell the British people that a Conservative government will not give them a referendum on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty.

Russia has warned EU president Sweden of possible disruption to natural gas supplies to European consumers because of problems with main transit nation Ukraine over energy payments, Sweden said in a statement.

Fancy a piece of British royal history? Then head to Christie's in London this month.

Ukraine is in a panic about swine flu, with officials closing schools, imposing travel restrictions and limiting public gatherings.

An ultraconservative British bishop was fined $16,822 in Germany for denying the Holocaust in an interview with Swedish television, his lawyer said Tuesday.

MALAYSIAN restaurant, JOM Makan, has opened its second outlet in the United Kingdom in just over a year of its operation there.

Britain's Queen Mother, mother of the reigning Queen Elizabeth II and grandmother of Prince Charles, lived to be 101.

IT IS a tangled tale of sex, greed and ambition in Silvio Berlusconi's celebrity-obsessed Italy.

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has mentioned in a press conference that Ukraine might still be having problems paying for Russian gas.

Police in Kosovo say they have upped security measures ahead of former U.S. President Bill Clinton's arrival in the capital Pristina where he is to unveil an 11-foot statue of himself.

Lebanon believes the Israeli army has it in its sights, and is preparing a major attack on its soil.

Oct. 30 - Former French president Jacques Chirac has been ordered to stand trial on embezzlement charges dating back to his time as mayor of Paris - an unprecedented move against a former French head of state.