France24

Icelandic and British officials are meeting in Reykjavik to resolve a dispute over UK investments as the Nordic country reached an agreement with the Netherlands.

Luciano D'Onofrio, president of the Belgian title holders Stardard Liege, said he would try to join the French football league if Belgium's Flemish clubs decide to form a breakaway faction.

On the eve of Spain's National Day, conservative politician Mariano Rajoy put his foot in his mouth when he called the celebrations "a drag". Coming from an avowed patriot, it was a juicy gaffe, one the ruling party was quick to seize on.

An earthquake rocked the northern Caucasus killing at least 12 people in eastern Chechnya and injuring many more. Hundreds of inhabitants of the restive Russian province were left sheltering in tents on the eve of regional elections.

Stressing the need for a unified European financial package during a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would meet with British PM Gordon Brown ahead of Saturday's eurozone talks.

In the past week, Iceland's government took over the country's top three banks, hundreds of bank employees were fired and the stock exchange was closed down. The island nation of 300,000 people now faces bankruptcy.

Leaders of the euro zone countries will hold a financial crisis summit in Paris on Sunday to "define a joint action plan for the euro zone and the European Central Bank," the French presidency said.

Wall Street ended with relatively modest losses Friday after a violent sell off in global markets and wild swings for US indexes. The Dow was off 1.49 percent while the S&P 500 ended its worst week ever, down 1.18 percent.

Unhappy to have been left out of a recent crisis meeting of European leaders, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told French President Sarkozy on Friday that a meeting should be held between all countries that adopted the euro.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is meeting with his Spanish counterpart Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Friday with the economic crisis on the agenda. The gathering follows Zapatero accusing the IMF of inaction.

A report on August's deadly Spanair jet crash in Madrid was released on Thursday, citing defective wing flaps as the main cause of the accident. The text differs from a pre-report finding that laid heavier blame on the airline's safety procedures.

European markets slipped around 10 percent minutes after opening on Friday, then slightly recovered. Shares plunged again in Asia, with Thailand suspending trading on its stock exchange for one hour after the index fell by 10 percent.

The 2008 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to UN special envoy for Kosovo and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. Ahtisaari has spent 30 years working to end conflict in many regions, including Kosovo, Namibia and Indonesia.

Montenegro, the last Balkan state to end its union with Serbia, recognised Kosovo on Thursday, soon followed by Macedonia, in a twin blow to Belgrade's efforts to counter the secession of its former province.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned as "completely unacceptable" and "illegal" the attitude of Iceland's government, after it froze bank accounts held by British savers amid attempts to bolster the country's failing banks.

Despite an early rally, European stocks ended steeply lower, as bank and oil shares slipped and fears of a global recession dogged investors. The FTSEurofirst 300 index closed down 2.1 percent at 921.46 points, its lowest close since November 2003.

The UN Security Council on Thursday voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the UN mission in Georgia for four months ahead of next week's international talks on the fallout of the recent Caucasus conflict.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, said Thursday that all non-coordinated action in the European Union aimed at tackling the financial crisis "should be avoided, if not condemned."

Pope Benedict XVI has given a push to possible sainthood for Pope Pius XII by defending the World War II pontiff Thursday from accusations that he did little to spare Jews from the Holocaust.

The German government has postponed the initial listing of shares in the country's railway operator Deutsche Bahn to an unspecified date in the context of turbulent stock markets. The company's partial privatisation was planned for October 27.