• The EU unveiled plans to create five fast transport routes across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East at a cost of €45 billion by 2020. The routes would link Norway and Russia, central Europe and the Caspian Sea region through Ukraine, the Balkans and the Red Sea region through Turkey and the Middle East as well as Western Europe and Southern Africa.

• Thousands of students and teachers marched through central Athens yesterday to oppose government plans to reform the country's education system and allow private universities to operate in Greece.An estimated 4,000 people blocked the city centre for more than two hours in what has become a weekly march to the Greek parliament against the planned reform. The protesters vowed to keep coming back until the bill was scrapped.

• A 22-year-old woman died from bird flu after handling infected chicken, Nigeria said yesterday, confirming the first human fatality in sub-Saharan Africa. The government believes three other people may have died of the H5N1 virus in Africa's most populous nation, but tests proved inconclusive.

• The commander of the International Space Station and one of his flight engineers floated outside the orbital complex to begin the first of three spacewalks to hook up a new cooling system.The work is the most ambitious Nasa has attempted on the half-built station without a space-shuttle crew present.

• Iran, accused by some western nations of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, has denied a British newspaper report that North Korea was giving ittechnical help to fulfil its ambition. The Iranian Embassy in Moscow said in a statement there were no secret nuclear contacts between the two countries.