An Italian court on Friday convicted on terror charges an Egyptian cleric who was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan in 2003 and said he was tortured in captivity.

The court sentenced the ex-imam, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, to six years in prison for criminal association for international terror.

Germany is ready to accept 5,000 more refugees from war-ravaged Syria, the interior ministers of the country's states and regions decided at a meeting, the DPA news agency reported.

Berlin had already agreed in March to take in some 5,000 Syrian refugees needing "special protection," giving them an initial permit for a two-year stay and settling them all around the country.

The United States on Thursday urged Ukrainian authorities to heed the demands of thousands of pro-EU demonstrators, as protesters kept up a blockade of top government buildings and occupation of a central Kiev square.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, speaking at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kiev, said Washington stood with the Ukrainians dreaming of a European future after two weeks of opposition protests in Kiev and western Ukraine.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Wednesday said the gates of Europe were still open for Ukraine, after mass protests against the government's decision to walk away from a deal with the European Union.

"The gates of the European Union are still open. Ukraine has to be on board in Europe and the offers from Europe are still valid," Westerwelle told reporters, before heading to the heart of the protests on Independence Square.

British authorities arrested a soldier at a base in Germany under terrorism laws after a suspected nail bomb was found in northwest England, police and reports said Wednesday.

The man was held on Monday at an army base in Paderborn, Germany, British media reported, following what police said was the discovery of the device at a house in Salford, Greater Manchester, on November 28.

Germany will Tuesday launch a landmark case to ban the far-right and openly racist National Democratic Party (NPD), a decade after a first attempt failed, officials said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel supports the case, a spokesman said, although her government has not formally joined the high-stakes legal gamble spearheaded by the upper house of parliament.

Singapore, which has Southeast Asia's most modern military, said Monday it was acquiring two new submarines from German defense contractor ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.

In a statement, the defense ministry said it signed a contract to acquire two "Type 218SG" submarines, which are projected to be delivered in 2020.

A German court Thursday jailed for 14 years a mother who killed three of her children, a young daughter and twin babies, in a forest before a failed suicide attempt.

The mentally unstable 39-year-old mother, a bakery saleswoman identified only as Bianca T., first strangled her six-year-old daughter, then smothered the four-month-old twins.

Germany's Turkish community expressed disappointment Wednesday over an accord clinched by top political parties to partially lift a ban on dual nationality under a "grand coalition" deal.

Kenan Kolat, president of the Turkish Community in Germany, complained that the agreement, which applies to children born and raised in Germany to foreign parents, did not go far enough.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed Wednesday to form a coalition government with campaign rivals the Social Democrats, two months after her conservatives won elections but fell short of a full majority.

Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), their Bavarian allies the CSU and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) held 17 hours of marathon talks before bleary-eyed party leaders delivered the deal before dawn.