EUROPE NEWS

Fiat struggles after Opel bid fails
Milan: Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne, spurned in a bid to buy General Motors Corp's Opel division, may struggle to find a back-up plan and reach his goal of building the world's No. 2 carmaker. German officials picked Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc instead of...


White House tries to secure invite for Queen at D-Day commemorations The Times
The White House stirred up the embers of the embarrassing D-Day row when it said that it was trying to secure an invitation for the Queen to attend this weekend's 65th anniversary commemorations. Days after it seemed that the diplomatic controversy had run its course, President Obama's spokesman...

Search for wreckage begins after Air France Airbus vanishes The Times
Investigators were scouring the Atlantic for wreckage last night after an Air France airliner plunged into the ocean during a violent storm. All 228 people aboard are believed to have died. The only clue to the disappearance of the Airbus 330, which was on a night flight from Rio de Janeiro to...


Voters and MEPs 'opposites over EU' The Guardian
British voters and Euro-MPs are poles apart when it comes to the EU's future, a new survey has claimed. The vast majority of Britons want a referendum to decide further expansion of EU powers. They do not want the euro, and they think governments should break the Brussels rules when euro-legislation...

EU Aid Sweet News for Lowveld All Africa
THE funds, which the European...



Steve Connor: Bad weather should not bring down a modern jet The Independent
The best guesses as to what went wrong with Flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris are that it either experienced severe turbulence that led to catastrophic structural damage or that it was struck by lightning which caused the total failure of its electronic controls and communications. The Met...



Hundreds feared dead in mystery airline disaster The Independent
An Air France passenger jet with 228 people on board vanished into thin air over the southern Atlantic yesterday amid reports the plane may have been crippled by lightning. Mystery may surround the fate of flight AF447, from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, for many weeks or even months. Air France said...


Fritzl daughter finds love with her bodyguard The Independent
The Austrian incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl is reported to have begun an affair with one of her bodyguards. It will be Ms Fritzl's first normal relationship with a man since her release from the windowless cellar in which her father imprisoned and repeatedly raped her for a quarter of a century. The...