Politics: World

LONDON - Police and army experts say they're urgently checking the safety of about 1,800 bridges in northern England amid some of the worst storms ever recorded in Britain.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romanians voted for a new president Sunday, hoping to end a leadership crisis that threatens a euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) IMF loan their country desperately needs to ease a painful recession.

DUBLIN - Irish Republican Army dissidents left a 400-pound (180-kilogram) car bomb outside police reform headquarters in Belfast but the homemade device failed to detonate, Northern Ireland's police commander said Sunday.

BUCHAREST (AFP) - Romanians voted on Sunday in a tight presidential election seen as a chance to resolve a political crisis that has hindered the recent EU member's bid to recover from a deep recession.

LONDON - Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.

MONROVIA, Liberia - Hundreds of people jammed into a Monrovia church to mourn a Liberian United Nations worker killed in an October attack by Taliban gunmen in Afghanistan's capital.

PERUGIA, Italy - Prosecutors on Saturday requested life in prison for an American student and her ex-boyfriend accused in the fatal stabbing of her British roommate during a drug-fueled sex game — charges the U.S. woman dismissed as "pure fantasy."

BERN, Switzerland - A bear has attacked a man who entered its enclosure at a new park in Switzerland, and a policeman opened fire on the animal to defend the intruder.

VATICAN CITY - After offering a home in his church to disaffected Anglicans, Pope Benedict XVI assured the archbishop of Canterbury on Saturday that he is still committed to seeking closer relations between Catholics and Anglicans.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The hunt began in earnest Saturday for a new Belgian prime minister after Herman Van Rompuy was chosen as the EU first president, with his predecessor Yves Leterme appearing in pole position.

ROME - Italian police on Saturday arrested a Pakistani father and son who allegedly spent just over $200 to set up a reliable and untraceable phone network that was used by the militants who carried out last year's terror attacks in Mumbai, India.

BAKU, Azerbaijan - President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said Saturday his nation may resort to military force if talks with Armenia on resolving a long-standing territorial dispute produce no result.

BERLIN - A German government official says the nation will send an observer to the upcoming trial in New York of the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and four accused henchmen.

PERUGIA, Italy - Prosecutors request life in jail for US student on trial for killing British roommate in Italy.

ROME - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Incoming EU president Herman Van Rompuy kept a low profile as the 27-nation bloc's leaders faced flak for picking him and a little-known British peer to lead a revamped Europe on the world stage.

ROME - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday.

UNITED NATIONS - A key U.N. committee approved a resolution Friday urging Iran to halt the persecution of political opponents following the country's disputed presidential election and release those still detained.

LONDON - A British couple being held hostage by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday that they fear they will be killed or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom is not paid soon.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee condemned Iran on Friday for a violent crackdown on protesters after presidential elections this year that the Iranian opposition says were rigged.

GENEVA - The World Health Organization said Friday it is investigating samples of variant swine flu linked to two deaths and one severe case in Norway, but that so far the significance of the mutation is unclear.

LONDON - Catherine Ashton: International woman of mystery.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Herman Van Rompuy's appointment as the first European Union president provoked fears in Turkey that he might hinder Ankara's hopes of joining the bloc, with some media declaring outright that he is anti-Turkish.

ZAGREB (AFP) - The Croatian parliament ratified on Friday a deal with Slovenia for international arbitration to resolve a border row between the two countries that blocked Zagreb's bid to join the European Union.

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday congratulated the European Union for creating the new posts of president and foreign policy chief, calling it a "step forward" for EU integration.

MOSCOW - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev criticized Kremlin policies Friday and toyed with the ambitious idea of attempting a political comeback.

LONDON - 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.

LONDON - A British man who said he strangled his wife during a nightmare about fighting off an intruder has been found innocent in her death.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who is little known outside his own country, as the bloc's first president on Thursday to lead efforts to make it more influential on the world stage.