Amsterdam - A Dutch court is to hear the case on Thursday of a Dutch couple's alleged illegal adoption via the internet of a Belgian baby.

The hearing is to follow a request to the court Wednesday by the Dutch child protection service for a ruling on the custody in the matter that is also the subject of a criminal investigation, according to a spokesman for the public prosecutor.

The case was brought to light by Dutch current affairs programme Netwerk, which exposed how the couple, both aged 26, bought the newborn from its Belgian parents, aged 24 and 22, on the internet in the summer.

Berlin - Police in Berlin smashed a human trafficking ring and detained 26 people suspe

The Hague - The Netherlands is to develop Europe's next climate satellite, it was announced by the European Space Agency (ESA) at the close of the agency's tri-annual conference in The Hague on Wednesday.

Dutch Economics Minister Maria van der Hoeven had been lobbying for collective European financing of a new climate satellite.

The Dutch government has reserved 78 million euros (101 million dollars) to finance the 115- to 130-million-euro Tropospheric Ozone- Monitoring Instrument, or Tropomi.

Moscow - Russia on Wednesday test-fired its new RS-24 intercontinental multiple-warhead ballistic missile designed to counter air-missile defence systems like the planned US shield in eastern Europe, the military said.

The RS-24 was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia's northern region of Arkhangelsk at 16:20 local time (1320 GMT), a spokesman for the military' Strategic Missile Forces told news agency Interfax.

"It's the third launch of the RS-24 missile in the last two years. The previous launches in May and December 2007 were successful," the spokesman Alexander Vovk was quoted as saying.

Oslo - US cultural theorist Fredric R Jameson Wednesday accepted the 2008 Holberg International Memorial Prize at the University of Bergen in western Norway.

Tora Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, presented the award worth 4.5 million kroner (750,000 dollars) to Jameson who was cited for "outstanding contributions to the understanding of the relation between social formations and cultural forms."

Valletta, Malta- Malta became Wednesday the site of the world's
first purpose-built research and production facility for the ePassport,
or biometric passport, which is increasingly required by countries for
security reasons.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi officiated at the inauguration of the
six million euro (7.7 million dollar) plant built by the British- based
De La Rue company, adjacent to the large banknote printing facility it
already operates on the small Mediterranean island.

The new 2,600 square metre building will print and assemble
machine-readable and biometric passports. It is expected to produce two