nternet giant Google has been told to improve privacy for its clients by France's data protection agency, CNIL, or face fines. The agency says Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain plan similar action.

France's data protection watchdog on Thursday gave Google three months to bring its practices into line with French privacy law or risk an initial fine of 150,000 euros ($201,100).

CNIL president Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin said by the end of July all of the six countries within the [EU data protection] task force - formed in April - will have begun coercive action against Google.

BRUSSELS - EU envoys are in talks with Ukraine to let jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko get medical care in Germany at a crucial moment in bilateral relations.

EU diplomatic sources told EUobserver the plan is being discussed at several levels.

One contact said Patrick Cox, a former European Parliament president, and Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Polish head of state, are the "main channel of communication."

BRUSSELS - The European Commission has fined Danish pharmaceutical firm Lundbeck €93.8 million, saying it paid rival companies to delay production of generic versions of anti-depressant medication Citalopram.

It is the first "pay for delay" case brought by the EU.

The EU's executive arm focused on 2002, when patent protection for the molecule used to make Citalopram lapsed and rival pharmaceutical firms were able to produce generic versions of its drug.

Berlin - Latvia's Financial and Capital Market Commission on Tuesday (18 June) said it has imposed a fine of 100,000 lats (€142,543) - the maximum fine under Latvian law - on a bank involved in laundering over €170 million stolen from the Russian government.

The name of the bank was not made public.

The money laundering scheme was revealed by Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who worked for Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund specialising in Russian assets.

BRUSSELS - A small group of EU countries has again blocked Britain's bid to blacklist Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Diplomatic sources said Austria and the Czech republic led opposition at a meeting of EU countries' counter-terrorism specialists in Brussels on Wednesday (19 June).

Ireland, Italy and Poland also voiced concerns.

A teacher who sparked an international police hunt after he ran off to France with a pupil half his age when their sexual relationship was discovered is expected to be jailed after being convicted of child abduction.

Jeremy Forrest was found guilty after the jury took just two hours to deliver a unanimous verdict - while his former pupil, 16, sat behind him, burying her head in her hands and weeping when he was convicted.