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.

Washington - US stock indices posted steep drops on opening Friday, plunging more than 4 per cent on continued uncertainty over the state of the global economy.

The weak opening in New York followed sharp falls in Europe, Asia and the Middle East earlier in the day on fears of a recession following the widening financial crisis.