Europe News

UNITED NATIONS - Georgia and its backers in the U.N. Security Council on Thursday decried Russia's recognition of two breakaway provinces. Russia responded by accusing its critics of bias and hypocrisy in an emergency meeting that turned bitter and personal.

Steve Barnhart, Orbitz Worldwide's chief executive, is talking comeback -- and he's says it won't be long in coming.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Scot Andy Murray overcame a second set stumble to hold on and beat Michael Llodra 6-4, 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (9/7) in the second round of the 20.6 million-dollar US Open on Thursday.

MILWAUKEE - The nation's chicken producers faced more bad news Thursday as Russia said that 19 U.S. poultry producers will be barred from exporting their products there, a move that would deprive them access to a key market.

LONDON (AFP) - London's mayor defended his relaxed attitude to the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony on Thursday, revealing he had ignored requests by Chinese officials to button up his jacket for the big event.

ROME - An art museum in northern Italy said Thursday it will continue displaying a sculpture portraying a green frog nailed to a cross that has angered Pope Benedict XVI and local officials.

LIMA (Reuters) - Dog lovers beware.

TBILISI, Georgia - Vladimir Putin says 19 U.S. poultry producers will be barred from exporting their products to Russia.

GLENEAGLES, SCotland (AFP) - Lee Westwood fears the race for the final Ryder Cup places at the Johnnie Walker Championships is being turned into a lottery by the brutal Gleneagles greens.

LONDON - Three British men questioned about an online threat to assassinate Prime Minister Gordon Brown have been charged with a range of terror offenses, police said Thursday.

ATHENS, Greece - A small group of pagans pledged Thursday to hold a protest prayer among the ruined Acropolis temples, more than 1,500 years after Christians stamped out worship of the ancient Greek gods.

BERLIN - The U.S. Department of Defense says the United States plans to cease operations at 15 minor Army facilities in Germany amid a wider effort to realign the military's overseas structure.

GENEVA - A harrowing boat journey across the Mediterranean left some 70 African migrants missing after rough seas capsized the craft, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday, calling on Malta to release the eight survivors from detention.

LONDON - The European Court of Human Rights has cleared the way for the extradition of a British man who allegedly hacked into secret U.S. military computers, his lawyer said Thursday.

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia's war crimes prosecutor said Thursday he expects the quick arrest of top war crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic, but predicted that the wartime Bosnian Serb military commander is not hiding in disguise like Radovan Karadzic was.

VILSECK, Germany - Defense lawyers for two U.S. soldiers told a military court Thursday that their clients did not participate in the killings of four Iraqis last year and had little, if any, knowledge of them.

LONDON - A British aristocrat is offering two public art galleries a 50 million-pound (US$92 million) bargain — a Renaissance painting by the Italian artist Titian that has been on display in Britain for 200 years but now could be sold overseas.

LONDON - A British politician says he has won a victory for an endangered icon — the red telephone booth.

VIENNA, Austria - Georgia's foreign minister says the ethnic cleansing of Georgians from the separatist province of South Ossetia has nearly been completed.

RUKHI, Georgia - Russian forces have turned over 12 Georgian soldiers at the border of separatist Abkhazia now under Russian control.

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Russia's president appealed to the leaders of China and four Central Asian countries for support Thursday amid the fallout over Moscow's invasion of Georgia and its recognition of the country's separatist regions.

TSKHINVALI, Georgia - The interior minister of the separatist-held region of South Ossetia says his forces have shot down an unmanned Georgian spy plane.

LONDON - A man accused of involving two teenage boys in self-flagellation as part of a Muslim religious ritual was convicted of child cruelty Wednesday.

LONDON - The Group of Seven industrialized democracies condemned Russia on Wednesday for its actions in Georgia, underlining the country's growing estrangement from the West.

MOSCOW - Russia could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, the country's agriculture minister said Wednesday. The move could hit American producers hard and comes amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington over the war in ex-Soviet Georgia.

MOSCOW - A key civil nuclear agreement between Russia and the U.S. looks likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest amid mounting tensions over the fate of Georgia's breakaway republics.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, set up by the United Nations to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in the Balkan wars, on Wednesday summoned a former prosecution spokeswoman on contempt-of-court charges.

BERN, Switzerland - A woman beheaded after she was accused of causing a girl to spit pins and convulse was exonerated Wednesday, more than 200 years after she became the last person executed as a witch in Europe.

CHISINAU, Moldova - Russia's ambassador to Moldova said the country's leaders should avoid a "bloody and catastrophic trend of events" in the separatist Trans-Dniester region and pointed to the example of Georgia.