Munich - The maiden flight of the much-delayed European military transport plane A400M is being postponed because the engines are still not ready, manufacturer EADS said Thursday from its German offices in Munich.

The propellor plane is intended as Europe's answer to the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, but the project at planemaker Airbus has dragged. A prototype has ceremonially rolled out of the hangar but has never flown.

Bratislava - European officials Monday warned that Slovakia could face a spike in prices after adopting euro in January and urged the ex-communist country to keep reforming its public finances.

"For the euro to remain a success story in Slovakia, the national authorities will need to be very alert and pursue ambitious economic policies on all fronts," said European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet in Bratislava.

He said that Slovakia as "a catching-up economy, is likely to face inflationary pressures that could derail the economy from a sustainable convergence path after euro adoption."

London, Sep 22: Russian officials have sent a team of builders to Monaco to erect a three-bedroom “dacha” in Prince Albert’s garden, as a sign of the growing friendship between Moscow and the tiny principality on the Riviera.

The simple wooden building has the function of a pool house at Albert’s estate in the hills behind Monte Carlo and reflected the growing bonds with Moscow that have helped to turn Monaco, a glamorous tax haven, into the favourite playground of Russians.

Albert’s spokesman declined to comment but a former adviser saw the dacha as evidence of the warm friendship that has developed between the 50-year-old bachelor prince and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

London, Sept. 19: A German far right group has stirred Muslim anger worldwide by holding a three-day "Anti-Islamisation Conference" to protest against the construction of mosques and Muslim immigration.

Prominent members of Europe's far right, including French "Front National" leader Jean-Marie le Pen and Belgian far-right politician Filip Dewinter, have said they will attend the meeting in Cologne which is aimed at forging a European alliance against "Islamisation."

A Times report says that the conference will include a rally in the centre of Cologne tomorrow which police say could lead to clashes with left-wing groups that plan a counter-demonstration.

Brussels  - More and more people learn English every year, but fewer and fewer of them are good enough at it to act as interpreters, the European Union's languages tsar lamented Thursday.

"There is a paradoxical situation here: there are more and more people speaking English nowadays, and at the same time it's harder and harder to find people worldwide - not just in the EU - who can provide interpretation into or from English," EU Multi-lingualism Commissioner Leonard Orban told journalists in Brussels.

Washington- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the United States and Europe must "stand up to" Russian aggression and convey to Moscow that it has become increasingly isolated in world affairs.

Rice is to deliver a speech in Washington later Thursday on Russia. The speech comes as relations between Washington and Moscow reached the lowest point since the end of the Cold War following Russia's invasion of Georgia last month.