Jerusalem- Early elections in Israel are becoming increasingly likely, after the ultra-Orthodox Shas party announced Friday that it would not join a coalition led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Shas' decision, which came after Livni issued an ultimatum late Thursday, dealt a serious blow to her efforts to form a government by early next week.

Vienna  - Austrian authorities said Friday they would soon start a new probe into the abduction and eight years of incarceration of Natascha Kampusch, in order to investigate whether her abductor had accomplices and whether there had been other victims.

The decision came after an independent commission installed by the interior ministry found flaws in the investigations in July.

Kampusch, who is 20 years old today, managed to flee her abductor Wolfgang Priklopil two years ago, after he had abducted her on her way to school in 1998.

Brussels  - The head of the European Union's monitoring mission in Georgia on Friday invited Russian and South Ossetian officials to substantiate their claims that attacks are being perpetrated in the region so that they may be investigated.

"In general, such reports are overblown. There may have been isolated shootings, but no major incident has been registered," Ambassador Hansjorg Haber, head of the EU's monitoring mission (EUMM), said at a press conference in Brussels.

Moscow - A drunk man triggered a hijack alert aboard a domestic flight to Moscow from the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday, the news agency Interfax reported.

The agency first cited an unnamed police officer as saying a passenger on board a Boeing 737 owned by Russian low-cost carrier SkyExpress had threatened to detonate a bomb with the cry of Allahu Akbar if the plane was not re-routed to Vienna, Austria.

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said it sent five ambulances to Moscow's Vnukovo airport before the flight landed.

Budapest- Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany on Friday canceled a trip to two Gulf kingdoms to focus on Hungary's financial crisis and economic slowdown.

Gyurcsany and a Hungarian business delegation had planned to travel to Oman and Qatar for two days starting Tuesday. No new dates were set, the prime minister's office said.

Frankfurt  - European markets faced up to a Black Friday as a wave of panic selling triggered by growing recession fears sent shares and currencies into a dramatic tailspin.

Already under siege as profit worries have grown, shares across Europe spiralled down after the OPEC oil producing nations' cartel cut production raising concerns about increase energy costs as the world economy was engulfed by a sharp slowdown.

With Wall Street slumping by more than 4 per cent shortly after its Friday opening, investors in Europe continued to dump stocks leaving the blue-chip Stoxx 50 down 6.1 per cent at 2090 as European trading came to an end.