World Briefs

ROME – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Friday pictures of topless women and a naked man sunbathing at his villa were "innocent," but his lawyer vowed to sue a Spanish newspaper that published them.

While Berlusconi's attorney threatened legal action against El Pais, former Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek admitted that he was the man in the photo but charged that it had been doctored.

The explosive pictures were published on the eve of European Parliament elections in Italy, which could now serve as a test on the scandal's impact on Berlusconi's popularity.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela's tax agency ordered an anti-government television channel, Globovision, to pay $2.3 million in back taxes on Friday, only a day after the station's owner Guillermo Zuloaga was charged by prosecutors in a separate investigation and troops raided his home.

Venezuela's tax agency said in a statement that it is imposing the fine because Globovision failed to pay taxes on advertising during a 2002-2003 oil strike that was aimed at trying to oust Chavez.

The channel said the fine and lawsuit were intended to intimidate government opponents and silence the station's strident criticism of President Hugo Chavez.

PARIS – President Barack Obama has arrived in Paris after meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany and touring the Buchenwald concentration camp, where tens of thousands of Jews perished during the Holocaust.

The president called the camp where an estimated 56,000 people died the "ultimate rebuke" to Holocaust deniers and skeptics. And he bluntly challenged one of them, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, to visit Buchenwald.

He also said he saw, reflected in the horrors, Israel's capacity to empathize with the suffering of others, which he said gave him hope Israel and the Palestinians can achieving a lasting peace.

SEOUL – The United States has told South Korea it is preparing financial measures to punish North Korea for illicit weapons trade and counterfeit activities following its nuclear test last week, a newspaper report said on Friday.

Plans to hit the North's finances were discussed during a four-day visit to Seoul by US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.

North Korea has raised regional tensions since it fired a long-range rocket over Japan in April, and on Thursday the hermit state put two female US journalists on trial for illegally entering its territory with "hostile intent."