Europe

Meeting with European leaders over the last few days, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has played the card that proved a winner for him in the past: Their continent's security depends on Pakistan, and Pakistan's security depends on his game plan. The embattled Pakistani leader went home with far less than a resounding endorsement.

European leaders called Tuesday for expanded transparency in the banking system to make the risks in complicated investment vehicles and troubled loan portfolios clearer to investors and shareholders. Failure by the banking system to step forward would result in more regulation to force them to do so, the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the European Commission warned at a summit in London.

If there are Republicans in the race for the presidency, you wouldn't have known it in Europe, where Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama seem like the only game in town. In part, this may be wishful thinking. While the current leaders in Britain, France and Germany have made their peace with the Bush administration, their publics are more inclined to hold a grudge. The relative strengths of Clinton vis a vis Obama are analyzed endlessly in newspapers.

The looming independence of Kosovo and promises of quick U.S. and European recognition have undercut and infuriated Russia at a moment when this oil-rich behemoth is eager to show that its global clout has been restored, analysts say. Russian officials have spent weeks issuing dire assessments of the United Nations-administered province's upcoming declaration of independence from Serbia, expected to be made this weekend.

Europe can't get enough of Barack Obama -- just look at a couple of the continent's own elections. Walter Veltroni, until this month the mayor of Rome, is casting himself as the Italian Obama as he runs for prime minister of Italy. "Yes, we can!" he says in his campaign, to the bewilderment of the majority of Italians, who don't speak English. In Spain, commentators do not hesitate to compare Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to Obama, for good or bad.

With American officials working to close a deal on a missile defense system in Europe, the head of the U.S. program warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals. "They're already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It's something we need to think about," Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S.

A fossil jawbone, rudimentary tools and animal skeletons from a cave in Spain extend the earliest occupation of Europe by human ancestors back to as much as 1.3 million years ago, half a million years earlier than previously believed, researchers reported Wednesday. The findings suggest that early hominids swept out of Africa, through the Near East and into Europe much more rapidly than previously believed, said Spanish researchers who reported the find in the journal Nature.

From the world's poorest corners to its most prosperous, people are facing much higher prices for food. Increases are driven by the high cost of energy to grow and transport crops, poor harvests in major exporting countries such as Australia, increased demand in developing nations including China and India, and a rush to produce biofuels. High prices and shortages have led to violent protests and political turmoil.

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin failed Sunday to overcome their greatest conflicts on a missile defense system the United States plans to build in Central Europe but narrowed difference over one key element.

For a decade, the French author and comic Phil Marso has been fighting a losing battle against the ubiquity of jangling mobile phones. He even tried to promote a cellphone-free day in February titled "A Day without blah blah." Not that anybody noticed. Monsieur Marso, fasten your seat belt. The European Commission just issued new rules that pave the way for in-flight mobile phone use across Europe.