London  - Construction companies working on the Olympic Village for the 2012 Olympic Games in London could go bust because of the global recession, the head of the Olympic Development Authority (ODA) told a British parliamentary committee Tuesday.

Gaza City - Upping the rhetoric against the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, Israeli leaders hinted Tuesday that a strike against the Islamist movement in the salient could be launched in order to end rocket attacks on southern Israel.

"The state of Israel cannot live under these conditions in the long term," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said while touring towns and villages along the Gaza border, which are frequent targets of missiles militants fire from the strip.

Madrid  - Spanish former golfer Severiano Ballesteros was released from hospital Tuesday, after two months of inpatient treatment for a brain tumour.

"Ballesteros will continue to receive outpatient treatment from the Medical Oncology and Oncological Radiotherapy services," La Paz hospital in Madrid said in a statement.

The former golfer, 51, collapsed on October 6 at the Madrid airport and was subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumour. He was first operated on eight days later and has undergone surgery a total of four times.

Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany  - A German orchestra which is to perform at the Vatican Wednesday believes it is the first ever conducted by a woman to perform for a pope.

The Brandenburg State Orchestra of Frankfurt an der Oder is be headed by Inma Shara at the event, which marks International Human Rights Day.

Germany has two cities named Frankfurt. Shara and her 92 musicians come from the smaller Frankfurt, which is on the Polish border.

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that he would not accept any watering down of his ambitious climate package at this week's EU summit, the head of the centre-left faction in the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

During a meeting with a group of EU parliamentarians in Paris, the serving EU president said that negotiations over the package would not result in "a compromise at any cost."

Rome  - AC Milan mi