Queen Elizabeth may become the first British monarch to visit Ireland in 90 years after a meeting between Irish President Mary McAleese and the Princess Royal

From the BBC: headscarf ban passes in French lower house by huge majority.

Doctors and pilots stage a one-day strike in Italy. (BBC) If you’re flying Alitalia in for that emergency appendectomy, try to hold on till tomorrow.

Gerhard Schr?der has resigned the chairmanship of the SPD, handing the reins to Franz M?ntefering (Der Spiegel; link in German). The latter is regarded as to the left of Schr?der (though much less so than Oskar Lafontaine), not to say more popular with the party base.

The Irish government will revise the immigration bill expected to pass in the D?il today, says RT?. The bill would permit refusal of entry to those with ‘profound mental disturbance’. As originally drafted, it was feared this provision would bar, e.g., those with Down’s syndrome or autism. The definition will now be narrowed to refer [...]

German minister of consumer affairs Renate K?nast has ordered Deutsche Bahn to pay damages in future to passengers on seriously delayed trains, reports the taz (in German). The German people have not yet begun, though, to say they need a man who can make the trains run on time.

This is big - and will be even bigger for the French right. Alain Jupp?, brilliant but aloof former Prime Minister in the first instance found guilty of illegal party financing - reports from the BBC, the NYTimes, the Washington Post, the Guardian, Sueddeutsche Zeitung (German), CNNenespanol (Spanish), and of course, LeMonde (French).

According to the French daily LeMonde, France and Germany intend to establish a prominent European think tank, based in Brussels, to advance European ideas on the World stage (English report from EuObserver).