FRANCE France, which has 17,000 citizens living in Lebanon, ferried its nationals to Cyprus as Israel bombed the capital of Beirut and the country's transportation routes July 14–17. European nations evacuated thousands of their citizens from Lebanon. Germany asked its 1,100 citizen residents to stay in Lebanon but to avoid unnecessary travel.

UK British police officers responsible for the fatal shooting of a Brazilian man believed to be a suicide bomber will not face criminal charges, prosecutors said July 17. The man, 27, was shot seven times in the head by London police on a subway train July 22, 2005. The shooting occurred a day after an attempted bombing of the city's transport system and two weeks after four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others.

FRANCE European Consortium Airbus unveiled a radically new airplane at the Farnborough International Airshow near London July 17. The A350XWB has an extra-wide body, which it hopes will provide a more passenger-friendly cabin. The plane aims to compete with the Boeing 787 and is hoped to help reverse the biggest decline in Airbus' history.

NETHERLANDS A Dutch court upheld the rights of a political party of pedophiles July 17 that wants to lower the age of sexual consent to 12. The judge said it was up to the voters to weigh the arguments of political parties. The party, which has three known members, would need around 60,000 votes to gain a seat in Dutch parliament.

UKRAINE Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's pro-Western party said July 16 it would be willing to join a coalition with its pro-Russian counterpart led by Viktor Yanukovich. Ukraine has been deadlocked since a parliamentary election in March when Yanukovich's party failed to win enough seats to form a government. Yushchenko became president after the 2004 Orange Revolution, which signaled a move to pro-Western ideology.

MOLDOVA A breakaway area of Moldova, Transnistria, announced its intention July 13 to hold a referendum later this summer on official independence from Moldova and possible union with Russia. Voters could also decide to reunify with Moldova, which lost the area after a bitter 1992 civil war. Russia has committed more than 1,000 peacekeepers to the region since that war.