MADRID - SPANISH security services cordoned off the US embassy in central Madrid on Wednesday after a suspicious envelope sparked what turned out to be a false security alert, police said.

'It's a false alert, the envelope contained nothing,' a police spokesman told AFP.

WASHINGTON - TIME magazine on Wednesday named US president-elect Barack Obama its 2008 'Person of the Year.'

'For having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour, and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off, the president-elect is Time's Person of the Year,' the newsweekly said.

STRASBOURG - THE European Parliament on Wednesday approved the EU's climate change package, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, lifting the last hurdle to the ambitious plan.