The public transport authority in Brussels halted all buses, trams and metro trains in the Belgian capital Saturday after a controller was "beaten to death" following a traffic accident.

Spokeswoman Francoise Ledune said the controller, aged 56, was taken to hospital, where he later died.

The EU agreed to sanction President Bashar Assad's British-born wife Asma, along with his mother, sister, and sister-in-law as the bloc tightened the noose on the Syrian regime Friday.

Diplomats said European Union foreign ministers gathered in Brussels had agreed an assets freeze and travel ban on "Assad's wife, mother, sister, and sister-in-law", and eight other members of his entourage.

Norwegian chef Orjan Johannessen was crowned champion in the European leg of the Bocuse d'Or contest, known as the Olympic Games of the food world.

The award was announced late Wednesday after 20 chefs faced off in a two-day cookout in Brussels, ahead of the worldwide Bocuse d'Or competition to be held in the eastern French city of Lyon next January.

The suspected arsonist behind a deadly fire at a Brussels mosque said Tuesday he set the Shiite place of worship ablaze to scare the community he blames for the violence in Syria, officials said.

Belgium's Muslim community was in shock a day after the attack that left an imam dead.

Envelopes containing white powder initially feared to be anthrax arrived at six Israeli diplomatic missions in Europe and the U.S., Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

According to reports, embassies in The Hague, Brussels and London and consulates in New York, Houston and Boston on Monday received envelopes with the word "anthrax" on them, containing what turned out to be harmless white powder.

European finance ministers will try on Monday to give new momentum to talks on a Greek debt relief deal that is crucial to avoid a default, but a European diplomat warned that a final agreement may have to wait until a leaders' summit next week.

A deal would see Greece's private creditors — banks and other investment firms — swap their Greek bonds for ones with a 50 percent lower value, thereby cutting the country's debt pile by some €100 billion ($129 billion). The new bonds will also have much longer maturities, pushing repayments decades into the future, and a much lower interest rate then Greece would currently have to pay on the market.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has cancelled a Brussels visit Monday in order to follow the French Senate's vote on a bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian genocide, a spokesman said.

"We decided to postpone this trip in order to stay in Turkey, regardless of the outcome of the vote at the French Senate," the ministry spokesman told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

Steven Spielberg announced in New York a sequel to his 3D movie version of the comic book hero Tintin.

He told a press conference Sunday that "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson would direct the new film and that he had already chosen the book by the Belgian author Herge that would serve as the basis for the script.

The leaders of 23 European countries moved to tie their economies much closer together in a new treaty in their latest attempt to shore up the euro, but failed to get the four other European Union members, including Britain, to join in.

Following marathon all-night talks, the 23 decided to back a new treaty with strict oversight over national budgets, as they try to convince markets that the euro has a future in the wake of a crippling debt crisis.

Italy saw its borrowing rates skyrocket in a big auction of bonds Tuesday as Premier Mario Monti put the finishing touches on his new lean government of technocrats, tasked with getting the country's enormous debt under control to avoid a catastrophic default.

Though Italy easily raised €7.49 billion ($10 billion), it had to pay more to investors to get them to open their wallets.