Lassana Diarra has withdrawn from the France squad ahead of Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Romania.

The blue-and-gold EU flag fluttered across Bucharest and strobe lights flashed through the sky today as Romania prepared to celebrate the country's induction into the European Union.

Eleven people were killed and three are still missing in flash floods that hit northern and eastern Romania, submerging roads, farms and houses.

Domestic fowl have tested positive for an H5 subtype of bird flu in three villages in eastern Romania.

A bus carrying textile workers crashed into a tree in southern Romania today, killing at least 13 people and critically injuring another six, police said.

Romanian aviation officials and the military denied reports today that the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in south-east Romania was used by the CIA as a detention facility for suspected terrorists.

At midnight on an autumn night two years ago, a Boeing passenger plane with seven people carrying US passports touched down at a little-used airport deep in the pine forests of north-eastern Poland, officials say.

At least 10 people have been killed and two are missing as storms and floods hit large areas of the eastern Balkans, leaving thousands of people stranded.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is due to arrive in Romania today to visit an air base used by US troops during the war in Iraq and attend a meeting of Nato defence ministers.