New look

Betancourt: will now write play, video shows release

Ingrid Betancourt says she will return to Colombia to write a play being hostage as video shows her release from jungle

Memorial to campaigner Giles Hart unveiled

A minute's silence was observed to honour those killed in the London bombings, and flowers were placed at the memorial stone

Holy Grail at centre of Byzantine exhibition

The Royal Academy of Arts to display 300 objects that reflect splendours of the Byzantine Empire, including micro-mosaics

Silvio Berlusconi is a nusiance caller

Italy's billionaire prime minister is pressing ahead with a law to ban the publication of taped telephone calls

Sarkozy turns screw on Irish over EU treaty

The French president will use a Paris summit to increase pressure on Ireland’s prime minister over the Lisbon treaty

Briefing: Sarko v Mandy

Trading blows: what’s behind the row between Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Peter Mandelson, Britain’s EU trade commissioner?

Protestor beheads Hitler waxwork

A German man wrenched off the head minutes after the controversial exhibit was unveiled as part of Madame Tussauds museum opening in Berlin

Man arrested over murder of French students

Police are holding a 21-year-old man over the incident, but would not say whether he was the prime suspect in the case

French duo may have been tortured for PINs

Detectives believe that science graduates killed in South London could have been the victims of a bungled burglary

Dearer food gives EU windfall for poor

Brussels bureaucrats find themselves with a €1 billion windfall which they are planning to distribute to the Third World

Abramovich is super-rich, but few dare ask how

Mystery surrounds the wealth of Roman Abramovich, the Russian orphan who grew up to be the world's fifteenth-richest man

Gypsies in Italy to be fingerprinted

Silvio Berlusconi's government targets the Roma people - including children - as part of its promised crackdown on crime

French allotments make a triumphant comeback

Plots that were a dumping ground for rubbish have been transformed with diverse vegetables and flowers by residents

'Mussolini methods' anger rights groups

Italy's plan to fingerprint Roma children draws flak from European rights organisations and Amnesty International

Indian rickshaw is latest in papal transport

Piaggio, the Italian moped maker, presents Pope Benedict XVI with two specially adapted three-wheelers from India

Welsh and Gaelic are official EU tongues

European Union already has 23 official languages and two more should help cement its reputation as a modern Tower of Babel

Abramovich admits secrets to his billions

Chelsea football owner admits to paying billions of dollars for political favours and protection fees to amass his fortune

To survive aluminium wars, mettle was needed

It is hardly surprising that Roman Abramovich may have sought 'protection' when he ventured into post-Soviet business world

Betancourt return soured by claims of payoff

Ingrid Betancourt praised President Sarkozy for saving her from likely death as questions arise over a US-financed ransom

Chavez and Farc are the big losers

The bloodless operation to free 15 of the Farc’s most prominent hostages has triggered a surge of optimism in Colombia