Italy headed for gridlock and financial markets tumbled with a stalemate in parliament between right and left after critical elections in which the real winner might be a new protest party calling for a referendum on the euro.
Syria's opposition has cancelled a planned boycott of an international conference on the two-year conflict after appeals from Britain and the US, but rejected an offer of talks from Damascus.
Benedict XVI's legacy in Latin America, the world's most Catholic region, is marked by a victory of conservative theology and the demise of home-grown leftist religious thought.
A transparent film that costs just one euro ($1.30) to make could bring an end to the anguish of mobile phone users facing the dreaded dead-battery message.
Italy on Monday holds a second day of voting in a critical election for the future of the eurozone in which the centre-left Democratic Party is expected to win but fall short of a governing majority.
Turkey lashed out against Syria as the death toll from a missile strike on Aleppo rose to 58 Sunday, while a US official urged the opposition to reconsider its boycott of international meetings.
Mozilla Foundation announced Sunday it will launch in mid 2013 its widely anticipated Firefox operating system for smartphones in a direct challenge to the duopoly of Apple's iOS and Google's Android.
Lightning-fast fourth generation mobile networks are spreading rapidly worldwide, led by the United States, Japan and South Korea, but Europe lags behind and its economic crisis could brake investment.
Italian fashion icon Donatella Versace brought her own spin to punk on Friday, unveiling a collection dominated by fierce outfits in shiny black, white, or lipstick red vinyls and deadly accessories.
Kosovo's culture minister on Friday said Germany had returned seven millennia-old artefacts that were smuggled out during the 1998-1999 war with Serbia and were unexpectedly found in a German police raid.
Michael Haneke's Oscar-nominated film "Amour" about a man and his dying wife on Friday scooped the top prizes at France's annual film awards, the Cesars.
Moody's stripped Britain of its triple-A debt rating Friday, saying government debt was still mounting and that growth was too weak to reverse the trend before 2016.