Prague - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Tuesday that Ukraine would oppose replacing Kiev's efforts to join the European Union with EU's Eastern Partnership plan to bring closer six ex-Soviet states, including Ukraine.

"We do not want this partnership to be an alternative, a substitute for our entrance to the European Union," he said through an interpreter after meeting his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus.

Berlin - The leader of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), Udo Voigt, went on trial Tuesday accused of sedition and insult of a black player in Germany's national football team.

The charges, brought by footballer Patrick Owomoyela and the German Football Federation (DFB), relate to a calendar of events published by the NPD ahead of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The planner pictured the host country's white football shirt alongside the statement, "White. Not just a shirt colour! For a real NATIONAL team!"

London - Manchester United duo Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes have received one-match bans for their red cards against Fulham last weekend.

Rooney was given a second yellow card for throwing the ball in anger towards referee Phil Dowd during the 2-0 defeat at Craven Cottage.

Scholes was sent off early on for handling the ball on the line.

Both men will miss United's next match, at home to Aston Villa, on April 5.

Hamburg - East German biathletes were given banned substances in drinks during the 1980s, Olympic biathlon champion Jens Steinigen said Tuesday.

Speaking to German Press Agency dpa Steinigen said that the practice was then stopped.

"The team doctor at the time then stopped this as there were obviously problems with giving the right doses. Nobody knew how much the athlete drank and thereby took doping substances," he said.

London - Tottenham Hotspur defender Ledley King pulled out of the England squad for matches against Slovakia and Ukraine because of injury.

King has a chronic knee problem that makes it difficult for him to play two matches in succession.

The FA said that King would miss the friendly with Slovakia on Saturday, as well as the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine on April 1.

Sarajevo  - Bosnian police arrested on Tuesday three men including two senior police officials suspected of forging documents and aiding war crimes suspects.

The men were arrested in north-eastern town of Bijeljina, one of the strongholds the extreme Serbian nationalists.

Two other senior policemen were brought in for questioning but they are not arrested. The investigation is ongoing and no names were released yet, Bosnia's prosecutors office said in a statement.