ASTEROID

Astronomers at the Kleť observatory in south Bohemia discovered a rare asteroid overnight Dec. 16, observatory director Jana Tichá told the Czech News Agency Dec. 18. The asteroid, now officially known as 2006 XR4, measures 20 meters (66 feet) in length and is at a distance of 600,000 kilometers (370,000 miles) from the Earth, Tichá said.

VISAS

The European Commission has begun checks into a number of Czech embassies after the offices were discovered to grant an unusually high number of visas, Euro magazine reports. The checks come as the Czech Republic is slated to join the Schengen border-free zone by the end of next year. Czech embassies in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine all issue a higher-than-average number of visas, the report said.

FIGS

Authorities seized 19 metric tons (21 short tons) of Turkish figs after finding a shipment contaminated with toxic substances Dec. 18. Tests revealed that the figs contained eight times the allowed levels of aflatoxins, carcinogenic substances produced by certain types of mold, which have been linked with liver cancer.

PREMIERE

Jiří Menzel's I Served the King of England premiered Dec. 18, after a decade of disputes over the rights to Bohumil Hrabal's text, on which the screenplay, by Menzel, is based. Menzel's first adaptation of Hrabal, his 1966 film Closely Watched Trains, won an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category.

INVESTIGATION

UK detectives are investigating a tender for the supply of Gripen fighter jets to the Czech Republic. The British military supplier BAE Systems is under suspicion of using bribes to win contracts. BAE Systems won a tender to supply the Czech Republic with 24 Gripens in 2002, but the Czech government decided to scrap the deal for lack of money.

UK

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

A planeload of nuclear waste was airlifted from eastern Germany to a processing facility near Moscow Dec. 18 as part of an international nuclear safety plan. The shipment of enriched uranium for research was forced to take a detour on its way to the airport in Dresden, Germany, after protesters blocked the original route. The uranium came from a reactor in former East Germany that was shut down in 1991.