Prague - The Czech parliament's lower house Wednesday postponed an initial vote on Czech-US treaties that allow the United States to place a missile defence facility on Czech soil.

The house adjourned a debate on the US project and may return to the issue on Thursday.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek lacks a majority for the US plans in the closely divided 200-seat chamber.

Berlin - Plans for economy-boosting moves by Germany's government were confirmed Wednesday in Berlin by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a global recession looms.

Addressing Germany's import-export federation BGA in Berlin, she said the package would include "focussed, bold and sustained" incentives for investment rather than being just a broad-based rise in government spending.

Belgrade - The 2009 Universiade in Belgrade will have to run on half the original budget and with 15 instead of the planned 21 sports competitions, officials said Wednesday in Belgrade.

"It will be the largest sports event ever held in Serbia," Serbian Deputy Premier Bozidar Djelic told a press conference, announcing a "realistic budget" of 3.5 billion dinars 
(51 million dollars).

Gaza - A ship loaded with international pro-Palestinian activists intent on breaking Israel's blockade of the coastal salient docked in Gaza Wednesday morning, despite a vow by Israeli officials not to let the vessel enter the enclave's territorial waters.

"The Dignity," with 27 people on board, including Western human- rights activists, peace activists, journalists, and European and Palestinian lawmakers, moored at 8 am
(0600 GMT), officials in naval police force of Hamas, which controls the territory, said.

Paris/Brussels - The European Union is ready to step up its support to member states hardest hit by the financial crisis by more than doubling the amount of aid available to 25 billion euros (31.2 billion dollars), top officials in Brussels said Wednesday.

The move came hours after the bloc threw a 6.5-billion-euro lifeline to Hungary.

"We all know that some other EU member states and some neighbours of the EU are under stress in their financial and exchange-rate markets, and we are ready to act," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said.

Kiev - Ukraine's parliament must approve a 16.5-billion- dollar assistance package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or the former Soviet republic will face default, the country's national bank head said Tuesday.

Volodymyr Stelmakh, chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), said Kiev desperately needs the low-cost loan, as without it the NBU "almost certainly" would be unable to honour Ukraine's foreign debts.

Stelmakh's statement, made at a Kiev press conference, was Ukraine's clearest warning yet that the world financial crisis had left the country short of cash and on the edge of default on bonds sold in international markets.