The search for the killer of five women in the eastern town of Ipswich has led to the arrest of two suspects. The bodies of the victims, who all worked as prostitutes, were discovered between Dec. 2 and 12 within 16 kilometers (10 miles) of the town. Tom Stephens, 37, was arrested at his home Dec. 18, one day after admitting in a newspaper interview that he knew all the victims. A second suspect, a 48-year-old man, was arrested early Dec. 19.

ITALY

A judge ruled Dec. 16 not to grant the plea of a paralyzed man to be taken off life-support. Piergiorgio Welby, 60, is confined to bed and can speak only through a computer that reads his eye movements. The judge wrote in his ruling that Italian law does not concretely address the issue of mercy killing, and that new legislation may be necessary. The case has ignited a euthanasia debate in the largely Catholic country.

DENMARK

Police arrested hundreds after violence ensued in a Dec. 17 protest against the eviction of squatters from a Copenhagen building. A police spokesman said around 200-300 protesters were arrested and a local newspaper reported that two police officers were hospitalized. The city gave the squatters permission to use the building as a left-wing youth center in 1982 but sold it to a Christian group in 2001.

FRANCE

About 200 French military special forces members will leave Afghanistan in the coming weeks, Defense Minister Michčle Alliot-Marie said in Kabul Dec. 17. She denied the move signified a lessening commitment to NATO's mission in Afghanistan, instead calling the step a "general reorganization."

POLAND

A claim filed by a German group for the return of property lost in the post-World War II expulsion of Germans from Polish territory has raised tensions between the two countries. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, confirmed Dec. 15 the claim from the Prussian Trust was received. Polish President Lech Kaczynski warned the case could have a "devastating" effect on bilateral relations. German politicians have refused to support the claims.

SPAIN

The first direct flight from Spain to Gibraltar in more than 50 years landed Dec. 16, marking a fresh phase of diplomacy between the United Kingdom and Spain. The two countries have clashed over the tiny British colony, which sits at the southern tip of Spain across from the Moroccan coast, for more than three centuries. Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain in 1713, but never fully relinquished its claim to the territory. It severed air links to the colony in 1954.

BULGARIA

Bulgaria condemned a Dec. 19 ruling by a Libyan court to sentence to death five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor for deliberately infecting 400 Libyan children with HIV. Jailed for seven years now, the nurses had been sentenced to death before, but judges granted them a retrial last year following an international outcry. Bulgarian officials say the infection was caused by the hospital's unhygienic conditions.

THE NETHERLANDS

Dutch Prime Minster Jan Peter Balkenende announced Dec. 14 that he would partially freeze the deportation of asylum seekers and replace his controversial immigration minister in an effort to avoid a political crisis just three weeks after the country's Nov. 21 general election. Balkenende is still struggling to form a government following his narrow win.

RUSSIA