Bratislava - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II Friday concluded a central European trip that took her to two ex-communist states, Slovenia and Slovakia, for the first time.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, headed home after two days in Slovakia and two days in Slovenia.

Both countries won their independence and became economic success stories after communism fell in Europe in 1989.

Slovenia was the first ex-communist country to adopt the euro, while Slovakia is set to make the switch on January 1.

Ankara  - A court in south-east Turkey on Friday banned Turkish internet users from accessing Blogger, the world's largest free blog hosting service.

Internet users in Turkey discovered Friday afternoon that the site, which hosts millions of blogs, or web logs, had been blocked. When users tried to view a blogger's page they were redirected to a message which said: "Access to this website has been suspended in accordance with decision no. 2008/2761 of the TR Diyarbakir First Criminal Court of Peace."

No reason for the ban was given.

Moscow  - Texan space tourist Richard Garriott returned to firm ground Friday in a Russian Soyuz capsule that carried him and two Russian cosmonauts back from space.

The capsule with Richard Garriott, a computer games designer and son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, touched down safely around 0330 GMT at the Baikonour base on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Garriott paid 30 million dollars to follow in his father's footsteps.

Stockholm - Doctors at a Swedish hospital said Friday they have successfully conducted surgery to fit a Swedish patient with a temporary artificial heart.

The operation - the first of its kind in the Nordic region - was conducted October 15 at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, in western Sweden.

The 31-year-old male patient was reported to be in stable condition, but remained in intensive care, said Dr Asa Haraldsson, a member of the team that conducted the operation.

Dr Ulf Kjellman, who performed the surgery, said both sides of the patient's heart had been failing. He added the patient had not been responding to treatment and other vital organs were threatened without the procedure.

Washington - Scott McClellan, the former White House spokesman and once a close confidant of President George W Bush, has said he will vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on November 4.

McClellan, who has since fallen out with Bush after sharply criticizing the president in his memoirs this spring, said Obama was best placed to change the way Washington does business, according to excerpts of a CNN interview to be broadcast on Saturday.

McClellan served as White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006. He had been a part of Bush's media team since his days as governor of Texas in the 1990s.