EUROPE - EUobserver reports that Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said that the Lisbon Treaty "cannot come into force".
GERMANY - Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer condemns the Irish no vote. He argues, "First, a strong European foreign policy, badly needed given the current state of the world, was buried on June 12, for the time being. The nation states will have control over foreign policy once again."
LONDON - Qatar took a near-8 per cent stake in Britain's third-largest bank yesterday as it ploughed billions of pounds into UK companies.
UK - Statistics provided by the Department for Transport show that passengers can be packed into carriages in conditions which would be regarded as unacceptable for goats, chickens, calves and sheep.
LONDON - The launch of a new Government agency will see 11.3million people vetted for any criminal past before they are approved to have contact with children aged under 16.
CHICAGO - From the worst floods in the Midwest grain belt in 15 years to drought in California, damage to crops from inclement weather has topped $8 billion so far this year, the largest U.S. farm group said on Wednesday.
CHALUS, IRAN - From the lush paddy fields of northern Iran to the dusty grain bazaars of Tehran, the pain and paradoxes of the global crisis spawned by rising food and fuel prices are starkly on show.
PARIS - France will ban prime-time advertising ON PUBLIC TELEVISION as of Jan. 1 and plans to tax Internet, phone and commercial broadcasting companies to replace the lost funding, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday.
USA - A "Texas for Sale" sign and cowgirls in boots and white hats greeted Garza at the Convex center in Monterrey, Mexico, earlier this month. A Monterrey developer and investor, Garza was in search of foreclosed U.S. property to buy.
CHICAGO - A new round of storms dumped a half foot or more of rain across parts of the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, dealing fresh trouble to a region already struggling with billions of dollars in flood damage.
NEW DELHI - With Democrat senator Barack Obama busy in the run-up to the US presidential polls, a group of well-wishers in the capital have decided to send him a symbol of his lucky charm, Lord Hanuman, to help him emerge victorious.
ENGLAND - About 250,000 people in Northamptonshire are being told to boil tap water for drinking after a bug was found to have contaminated supplies.
BEIJING - China has stationed a battery of ground-to-air missiles just 300 metres from a Beijing Olympic venue, another sign of the tightening security with the games just six-and-a-half weeks away.
LONDON - Robert Mugabe has been stripped of his honorary knighthood, as the pressure grows on him to postpone Friday's run-off election.
UK - Supermarkets have been condemned for selling produce from Zimbabwe at a time when many in the stricken country are going hungry.