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According to the officials, Ceradyne Inc. was selected to deliver its armor technologies for integration on the command stations of patrol vessels for the Iraqi navy.

U. S. company Ceradyne was selected with Turner Strategic Technologies as part of a U. S. Foreign Military Sales Program to support a patrol vessels construction project under way by Louisiana's Swiftships.

EADS' top defense executive has said that because of shrinking European defense budgets, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. is banking on growing in global markets, a strategy it is ready to back up with acquisitions of non-European companies.

Stefan Zoller, head of EADS' $6.7 billion defense unit, was quoted as saying by the Financial Times Germany newspaper, "European growth is over. We now have to pursue a global strategy."

Zoller further added that strategic acquisitions will be part of that strategy, without giving details on potential targets.

The Pakistani Taliban said on Thursday that Jihad will continue against supporters of the United States and their Pakistan backers will face a military defeat.

Pakistan "forces have been conducting operations against our own people and they are trying to make non-Muslims happy," Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told Pakistani newspaper Dawn.

Pakistani forces have conducted counter-terrorism operations in the tribal provinces along the border with Afghanistan to root out Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Their country is on the road to becoming the first European nation to ban the full-body veils worn by Muslim women, lawmakers in Belgium have said.

The EU Observer has reported on Thursday that a key panel of the Belgium Federal Parliament unanimously voted in favor of a proposal to ban both the burqa and the niqab, two forms of the veil that cover the entire body and face.

Women who wear the coverings could be fined and jailed for up to seven days, if parliament approves the ban.

A ban would liberate women from a burden and increase security, Corinne De Permentier, speaker of the lower chamber, says.

U. S. pressure on the national telecommunications sector was a violation of Lebanese sovereignty, Hezbollah lawmakers in Lebanon has complained.

Washington had asked Lebanese officials for data on the national telecommunications sector. Saying the effort amounted to spying, local media reacted earlier this month to the request.

The U. S. Embassy in Beirut issued the request in April 2009, though it was turned down by Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, who served as telecommunications minister in the previous government.

According to the reports officials in a Newfoundland seaside town were trying to determine Thursday who pulled the steeple off a 115-year-old unused Anglican church

The National Post reported that some of the 6,500 residents of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's noticed the toppled steeple of the St. Philips church Wednesday around 8 a. m.

The incident was likely related to a controversy over whether the church should be kept as a landmark museum or demolished, Mayor Bill Fagan told the newspaper.