Austria
VIENNA — Lawmakers in Austria and neighboring Slovakia voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ratify the new European constitution, giving much-needed support to the charter intended to strengthen the 25-member European Union. The Austrian ratification — opposed by just one lawmaker — and the strong support from the Slovak parliament, which voted 116-27 to endorse the constitution, gave EU backers a welcome boost as they try to gain support ahead of a fiercely contested May 29 referendum in France.
Canada
TORONTO — Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said Wednesday that a vote of confidence in his scandal-rocked government would be held May 19, as members of Parliament gather to vote on whether to approve his federal budget. If the budget motion fails, Martin said he would dissolve the 308-seat House of Commons, which would trigger general elections in June.
England
LONDON — Tony Blair urged his Labour Party to unite Wednesday, reassuring lawmakers he would resign before the next election and confronting critics who blame him for a disappointingly slim margin of victory. The closed-door meeting was Blair's first battle with party rebels since Thursday's election, when an apparent voter backlash over the Iraq war reduced Labour's majority in the 646-seat House of Commons from 161 to 67.
LONDON — British Broadcasting Corp. journalists and technical workers have voted to strike to protest thousands of job cuts, union officials said Wednesday. The BBC now faces the threat of a walkout at TV and radio stations across the country later this month and the possible disruption of some programs.
Iran
Leading European nations may call an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency next week to act against Iran if it resumes some nuclear activities it has suspended, European diplomats said Wednesday. The diplomats said that most recent signs indicated that Iran would probably act soon on its declaration last week that it would revive the processing of uranium for nuclear reactors, a step that Britain, France, Germany and the European Union say would violate a pledge that Iran made last year.
Japan
TOKYO — Japan has bolstered the defense of its computer systems in the face of a surge in cyberattacks believed linked to anti-Japanese sentiment in Asia, increasing staff and creating a new agency to coordinate its efforts. Government officials are reluctant to publicly pin the attacks on Chinese and South Korea hackers because of the difficulty of identifying their source, but a surge in attacks coincided with violent anti-Japanese protests last month in China.
Kenya
NAIROBI — A television journalist who was slapped by Kenya's first lady has filed a formal complaint with the police accusing her of assault and calling for her arrest. Clifford Derrick of Kenya Television Network said he filed the complaint Tuesday, a week after first lady Lucy Kibaki stormed into the newsroom of the nation's largest newspaper with her security detail and demanded journalists be arrested for what she called biased coverage. She slapped Derrick to stop him from filming the outburst.
Kuwait
KUWAIT CITY — Kuwaiti prosecutors have drawn up a list of charges against ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and hundreds of his officials for alleged war crimes committed during Iraq's occupation of the Gulf nation, the prosecutor general said Wednesday. The list will be delivered to the Iraqi court that will try Saddam and other former regime members, and the new charges will be added to the existing allegations, prosecutor general Hamed al-Othman said, according to the state-owned Kuwait News Agency.
Russia
MOSCOW — American and Georgian security officials said Wednesday that they were investigating the origins of a hand grenade that was found Tuesday near President Bush as he gave a pro-democracy speech in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The Soviet-era grenade was discovered in the crowd roughly 100 to 120 feet from where Bush and Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, appeared together at a huge outdoor rally in Tbilisi's government center, the officials said. The risk it posed to the presidents, if any, was not immediately clear.