Europe News - AP

VIENNA, Austria - Far-right Gov. Joerg Haider has set up a facility in the remote mountains of southern Austria to handle asylum seekers suspected as criminals, saying they need to be isolated to protect the people in the area.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - British army experts have defused a roadside bomb planted by Irish Republican Army dissidents in Northern Ireland four days after finding it.

Wall Street's woes extend far beyond Main Street and all the way to Law Street — the hulking headquarters of the European Union.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican stepped up its defense of Pope Pius XII on Tuesday, countering allegations the wartime pontiff was silent about the Holocaust by saying he saved Jews through his prudent diplomacy.

MILAN, Italy - The PETA animal rights organization is targeting Armani in its latest anti-fur campaign.

LONDON - A rare Islamic crystal jug mistaken earlier this year for a cheap French claret pitcher has sold at auction for almost 3.2 million pounds ($5.6 million).

BUCHAREST, Romania - A Romanian Cabinet minister was fired Tuesday after he used a government helicopter to make it to his wedding on time.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - A committee of EU lawmakers approved an ambitious climate change plan Tuesday, resisting heavy pressure from lobbyists who sought to water down the bill because of the financial crisis.

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet decided Tuesday to extend Germany's military mission in Afghanistan for 14 more months.

BELGRADE, Serbia - A Serbian court has freed a former diplomat suspected of helping a student facing assault charges in the United States flee to Serbia, a court official said Tuesday.

MOSCOW - Hundreds of people gathered in central Moscow Tuesday to remember Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya on the second anniversary of her killing.

TSKHINVALI, Georgia - Russian forces will begin withdrawing from a buffer zone in Georgia on Wednesday and be out within 24 hours.

ROME - A U.N. agency on Tuesday called for an urgent review of agriculture and biofuel subsidies and trade barriers, saying their removal would increase opportunities for developing countries to take advantage of rising biofuel demand.

MUNICH, Germany - Gino Massetti was 15 when he was rounded up by German troops near the Italian village of Falzano di Cortona and herded with 10 other civilians into a barn.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - Rescuers in Kyrgyzstan searched the rubble for signs of life after an earthquake that killed at least 74 people.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Vladimir Putin is out on video as a judo master. Russian state-controlled media already have shown the powerful prime minister at the wheel of massive racing truck, shirtless on a fishing excursion, and tracking a tiger through the Siberian forest — just a few of the he-man presentations designed to boost his public image.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Two Japanese citizens and a Japanese-born American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries in the world of subatomic physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday.

MOSCOW - Russia's foreign minister says the country's arms sales to Venezuela are meant for defensive purposes.

Recent winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, and their research, according to the Nobel Foundation:

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland nationalized its second-largest bank on Tuesday under day-old legislation and negotiated a euro4 billion ($5.4 billion) loan from Russia to shore up the nation's finances amid a full-blown financial crisis.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Some 7,000 workers and trade unionists have marched around the Romanian parliament to demand higher salaries and better working conditions.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Copenhagen Airports will build a new 200 million kroner ($26.4 million) terminal for low-cost airlines.

PRISTINA, Kosovo - The United States will continue its troop presence in Kosovo until at least late next year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said just before he arrived here Tuesday, reaffirming U.S. support for the newly declared nation in the face of stern opposition from Russia.

LUXEMBOURG - An emergency meeting of European Union finance ministers debated raising guarantees for private savings across the 27-nation bloc on Tuesday in an attempt at a coordinated response to the global financial crisis.

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. mission monitoring a cease-fire between Georgia and the separatist Abkhazia region should be extended for four months to explore whether to continue U.N. involvement following the Georgian-Russian war, the U.N. chief said Monday.

GENEVA - A bad electrical connection likely caused the malfunction that sidelined the world's largest atom smasher days after it was launched with great fanfare, a senior scientist said Monday.

MOSCOW - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to Moscow on Monday aiming to focus on Russian arms sales to Israel's enemies at meetings Russia hopes will bolster its image as a Middle East peacemaker.

PARIS - The son of a former French president, an Israeli-Russian billionaire and a tycoon with ties to Arizona's jet set were among the headliners Monday as 42 defendants went on trial in Paris, accused in a worldwide web of trafficked arms to Angola, money laundering and kickbacks.