Europe

European Union regulators have fined Microsoft Corporation $357 million for failing to share programming code with its rivals, as demanded by a 2004 antitrust ruling.

Basayev had claimed responsibility for the 2004 attack on a school in the North Ossetian city of Beslan, a three-day siege in which 330 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed.

Pope Benedict takes his efforts to combat growing secularization in Europe to Spain on Saturday. The pope also will defend traditional family values at a mass to close the Catholic Church's World Meeting of Families.

Italian car company, Fiat, has used the haka to advertise its new car and New Zealand diplomats says it is culturally insensitive.

The Adjudication Panel for England has ruled that London Mayor Ken Livingstone should be suspended from office for one month over an insult given to an Evening Standard reporter.

Russia's atomic agency chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, is travelling to Tehran today for talks on Moscow's proposal aimed at easing Western fears that Iran may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Italy's Culture Ministry and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art have signed a deal ending a dispute over ancient artifacts.

A court in Vienna sentenced British historian David Irving to three years in prison for remarks he made in a 1989 interview and in speeches during visits to Austria.

Before the proceedings began, he told reporters he has learned a lot since allegedly denying the Holocaust in speeches delivered in Austria in 1989.

United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour arrives in Moscow today to open a week-long visit to Russia to examine the country's human rights situation.

French officials have confirmed the first case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in their country. The virus was found in a wild duck in southeastern France.

Authorities in the southern Russian city of Volgograd announced today that they are shutting down the publication of a local newspaper, "Gorodskiye vesti" (City News) for publishing a cartoon on 9 February depicting Jesus Christ, Moses, Buddha, and the Prophet Muhammad.

MPs at the British Parliament have voted by majority of over 200 to bring in legislation banning smoking in all pubs, clubs and workplaces. The ban is expected to come into force from summer 2007.

Authorities across Europe have issued restrictions on commercial poultry farms following the outbreak of bird flu in eight previously unaffected nations. The virus has been found in migaratory birds, much earlier than had been expected.

Protests and fatalities continue in the Muslim world over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. But as demonstrators call on EU governments to apologize, those governments are saying the world must realize that they do not and will not control the media in their countries.