The day after the WHO raised its official alert level to phase 5, the EU's health commissioner urged Europeans not to panic over the spread of the H1N1 virus (or swine flu), even while Dutch officials reported the first case in their country.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed pacts with the leaders of the rebel Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, giving Russia formal responsibility for defending their borders with Georgia.
The press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders has set up camp on the Champs-Elysées in Paris to accompany the jailed US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi in her hunger strike.
The World Health Organization said that the world was on the brink of a pandemic, raising its official alert level to phase 5 on a 6-phase scale. Meanwhile, Peru and Switzerland both diagnosed their first cases of swine flu.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Margaret Chan said that all countries should be prepared to respond to a pandemic as she raised the swine flu alert to level 5 on the WHO's six-point scale. The spread of the virus shows no sign of slowing.
French lawmakers began to examine a new version of a tough bill against Internet piracy on Wednesday evening. MPs from Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, who were blamed for the bill's surprise rejection in early April, turned out in large numbers.
The first case of swine flu in a person who has not recently travelled to Mexico has been reported in Spain. The victim is thought to have been "indirectly infected" through human contact.
Two suicide bombings rocked Turkey on Wednesday, one targeting soldiers in southeast Turkey and another apparently aiming at a former minister visitng the University of Ankara. The incidents were blamed on separatist Kurd militias.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was gathering support from his UMP party on Wednesday ahead of fresh debates on a bill that would severely crack down on Internet piracy. Socialists opposed the "Hadopi" law in early April.
In an address to the Spanish parliament, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a Franco-Spanish summit devoted to fighting terrorism, including the Basque separatist group ETA, as well as drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
