Europe News

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Less than a year after he stepped down amid a banking scandal, Yves Leterme became Belgium's prime minister for the second time on Wednesday.

WIESBADEN, Germany - General Motors Co.'s top European official underlined the future importance of Opel's biggest German plant on Wednesday, while reiterating that there likely will be up to 9,500 jobs cut across the continent.

BERLIN (AFP) - General Motors will keep open its Eisenach plant in Germany, GM's interim Europe chief Nick Reilly said on Wednesday after earlier giving assurances that its other three German sites would also be safe.

LONDON - The London Stock Exchange PLC posted a 40 percent drop in first-half earnings on Wednesday on the back of lower trading and warned that market conditions remain uncertain.

LONDON (AFP) - British retail banks won a landmark legal case on Wednesday when the newly-created Supreme Court ruled in favour of unauthorised overdraft charges.

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's recession-hit economy shrank officially by 0.3 percent in the third quarter but this was better than initial data had shown and was welcomed by economists.

LONDON (AFP) - A figurine used to make King Kong come to life in the 1933 film sold for more than 120,000 pounds Tuesday in London, Christie's auction house said.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A senior investigator says witnesses testifying against two Congolese warlords at the International Criminal Court have been threatened and the court does not have the resources to fully protect them.

LONDON (AFP) - High Street banks on Wednesday won a landmark Supreme Court appeal saving them from paying out more than a billion pounds in compensation for fees charged for unauthorised overdrafts, prompting a furious reaction from consumer groups.

PARIS - The Great Debate gets under way Wednesday, led off with a grand question: "For you, what does it mean to be French?"

BRUSSELS - Helped by a therapist, Rom Houben's outstretched finger tapped with surprising speed on a computer touchscreen, spelling out how he felt "alone, lonely, frustrated" in the 23 years he was trapped inside a paralyzed body.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Two suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents have been charged with attempting to kill an off-duty police officer near the province's border with the Republic of Ireland last week, police said Tuesday.

GENEVA - President Barack Obama's top military adviser attended the latest talks with Russia to replace an expiring Cold War-era arms control agreement, the U.S. said Tuesday.

VIENNA - Six world powers have readied a resolution critical of Iran's nuclear program, diplomats said Tuesday, as Tehran suggested it was still ready to discuss a U.N.-backed plan meant to delay the Islamic Republic's ability to make a nuclear weapon.

LONDON - An inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war kicked off Tuesday with top government advisers testifying that some Bush administration officials were calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster as early as 2001 — long before sanctions were exhausted and two years before the U.S.-led invasion.

LONDON - British authorities say they're searching for a leather-bound notebook Charles Darwin used in developing his theory of natural selection.

BRUSSELS - Man once thought in coma says he feels like newborn baby after regaining power to communciate.

LONDON - British defense secretary Bob Ainsworth says the United States' delay in deciding how many reinforcements to send to Afghanistan has harmed his country's ability to rally public support for the war.

ROME - A convicted Mafia boss who got out of jail by faking paralysis and anorexia has been arrested at a restaurant after more than two months on the run, police in Sicily said Tuesday.

ROME - The prostitute at the center of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal claims in a new book that she slept with him on the understanding he would help her set up a countryside inn but she got "nothing" in return.

WARSAW, Poland - A Warsaw court on Tuesday began hearing a lawsuit filed by Lech Walesa in which the Solidarity founder is demanding damages from Polish President Lech Kaczynski for having called Walesa a communist-era agent.

LONDON - Britain's defense ministry says it will formally order a public inquiry this week into the alleged abuse and killing of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers.

PARIS - France's foreign minister has praised the courage of a journalist who has led a fight against a law in Sudan allowing for women to be flogged for wearing pants.

GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher made another leap forward Monday by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time and causing the first particle collisions in the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs, organizers said.

LONDON - 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.

LONDON - A convicted murdered who once served as the personal assistant to the duchess of York has escaped from a low-security prison in southern England, British officials said Monday.

LONDON - Four British lawmakers could face criminal charges over the expenses they claimed from taxpayers, prosecutors said Monday, marking the latest twist in a scandal over lavish spending by elected officials.

BUCHAREST, Romania - The third-place candidate in Romania's presidential election threw his support Monday behind the Western-backed socialist who faces the centrist president in a runoff seen as key to the country's emergence from political and economic crisis.

PARIS - 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.