NEW YORK, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Northern Irish actor Liam Neeson said he went through serious training to get ready for the action sequences in his new blockbuster thriller "Taken."

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Georgia's refusal to attend talks in Geneva with its breakaway regions would be seen as a "challenge," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers reportedly has signed on to co-star with John Travolta in the French thriller "From Paris with Love."

BERLIN, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Russia would have invaded Georgia even if Georgia had been a NATO member, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently told a group of experts in Moscow.

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- The European Union, gazing hungrily at Central Asia's vast oil and natural gas deposits, has long sought to weaken Russia's grip over Caspian exports. Now the EU has succeeded in getting its nose under the Turkmen tent, and in Moscow Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller must be drowning his sorrows, as Russia provides about 40 percent of the EU's natural gas imports.

MOSCOW, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The recent visit by Adm. William Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command, to Tashkent may signal a warming in U.S.-Uzbek relations.

PARIS, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Actor Liam Neeson is headed to France to star in Luc Besson and Mark Kamen's new film, "Taken."