Europe News

LEEDS (AFP) - South Africa's Makhaya Ntini took two key wickets after AB de Villiers's hundred put the Proteas into a commanding position in the second Test at Headingley here Sunday.

MADRID (AFP) - Four weak bomb blasts claimed by Basque separatists struck seaside resorts in northern Spain Sunday, police said, in an apparent fresh offensive against tourism targets by the armed group ETA.

SOUTHPORT (AFP) - Padraig Harrington became the first European in over a century to retain the British Open title with a nerveless display down the stretch at Royal Birkdale on Sunday.

SOUTHPORT (AFP) - Padraig Harrington of Ireland won the British Open at Royal Birkdale on Sunday.

MADRID (Reuters) - Four bombs exploded at popular seaside resorts in Cantabria northern Spain on Sunday, after warning calls from the Basque separatist group ETA and following a small explosion outside a Barclays bank near Bilbao.

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia's foreign minister announced plans Sunday to reinstate the country's ambassadors to EU countries that recognized Kosovo's independence.

ANKARA, Turkey - Three Germans seized by Kurdish rebels during a climbing expedition on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey more than a week ago were released Sunday in good condition, authorities said.

LONDON (AFP) - One of five Britons kidnapped in Iraq more than one year ago has committed suicide, the group holding them claimed in a video to a Sunday newspaper here, prompting condemnation from Gordon Brown.

CANTERBURY, England - Anglican bishops opened their once-a-decade summit Sunday with an elaborate worship service in the mother church of their troubled global fellowship, hearing a plea for unity despite deep rifts over the Bible and homosexuality.

ROME - A man beat his 4-year-old daughter's head against the stone base of a Rome monument in front of tourists and a police officer, leaving the child in a coma, police said Sunday.

LAREDO, Spain - Four bombs exploded in northern Spain on Sunday — including one outside a bank — causing damage but no injuries, officials said. A caller earlier warned about the explosives, saying he was speaking on behalf of Basque separatists.

VIENNA, Austria - Police say three people are suspected of spraying swastikas and Nazi slogans on buildings and road signs in southern Austria.

GENEVA - Some pre-negotiation jabbing turned into a potentially damaging diplomatic incident Saturday when Brazil's foreign minister said rich countries' deception in trade talks reminded him of tactics used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

LONDON - A Shiite militia that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of five Britons in Iraq more than a year ago said one of its hostages committed suicide, a British newspaper reported.

BERLIN - More than 1.5 million revelers danced through the streets of the western German city of Dortmund on Saturday at the annual Love Parade techno music festival.

VIENNA, Austria - Austrian authorities have ordered a new round of medical and psychiatric tests to determine whether a suspected Nazi is healthy enough to be extradited to Croatia to stand trial for alleged atrocities.

ZHUKOVKA, Russia - Russia's foreign minister on Friday called for an internationally developed "road map" to resolve the hot tensions over separatist Abkhazia, but raised serious objections to a plan devised by major countries.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch court punched a hole in toughened immigration restrictions, ruling an illiterate Moroccan woman cannot be required to pass a Dutch language test to join her husband in the Netherlands.

MADRID, Spain - Spain's National Court agreed Friday to review evidence in a lawsuit filed against four alleged former Nazi concentration camp guards.

ROME - City officials and Italian Red Cross workers began a census of Rome's Gypsy population but said Friday that they will not participate in a national push to fingerprint all Gypsies unless they encounter someone suspected of a crime.

Some examples of Europeans' pain from rising energy and food costs:

MILAN, Italy - It took a few months. But the economic woes touched off by soaring oil prices and the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States are finally engulfing Europe.

WARSAW, Poland - Prosecutors have charged 12 people in connection with the deadly 2006 winter roof collapse that killed 65 people at an exhibition hall in southern Poland.

LONDON - John and Anne Darwin were in trouble. Of that there is no doubt. But their plan for putting things right went extraordinarily wrong.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam's Artis zoo says a baby red panda adopted by a zookeeper's cat after being rejected by its mother has died.

BERLIN - A German official says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will visit Berlin next week and meet Chancellor Angela Merkel.

LONDON - The British government has ordered an inquiry into the actions of a U.S. company hired to mark more than a million pupils' exam papers, after schools complained of missed deadlines, shoddy work and inconsistent grading.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Forensic experts say they have exhumed 66 Srebrenica massacre victims from a mass grave in eastern Bosnia.

SKOPJE, Macedonia - Macedonian authorities launched a murder probe Friday into the prison death of a newspaper reporter who had been accused of slaying women and covering the killings for his newspaper.