A European Union panel of data protection supervisors has launched an investigation into whether US-based Google Inc.’s Internet search engine abides by EU data privacy rules.

Cuba, seeking to reassure its people after Fidel Castro temporarily stepped down from power for surgery, released a statement from the long-time leader saying his health was stable and the defence of the island guaranteed, even as it sent more police today into neighbourhoods that have seen civil disturbances in the past.

The EU is to consider urgent new measures to give member countries access to each other’s criminal records of paedophiles and other sex offenders, officials said today.

Thousands of mourners, from Italy’s president to ordinary citizens, streamed past the caskets of 19 Italians killed in Iraq, paying their respects today to the victims of Italy’s worst military disaster since the Second World War.

A military transport plane arrived in Rome today carrying the remains of 18 Italans killed in a car bomb attack in southern Iraq.