IHT Quick Read: Saturday, Oct. 20

NEWS A week after the announcement that the European Union would receive the Nobel Peace Prize, David Cameron, the British prime minister, finally broke his silence about the award Friday. (He called it “an achievement not just of the E.U. but I would argue NATO as well.”) But he declined an invitation to the award ceremony in Oslo. For the leader of the E.U.'s most skeptical member, even some rare good news for the bloc creates complications. Stephen Castle reports from Brussels.

In the aftermath of the theft of seven works by Picasso, Matisse and other major artists, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam on Friday denied accusations that its security was slipshod, dismissing as nonsense reports that a back door had been left unlocked for the thieves. Doreen Carvajal and Christopher F. Schuetze report from Paris and Rotterdam.

North Korea on Friday threatened to “start a merciless attack” against South Korea if activists there send balloons across the border b earing propaganda leaflets, as they have pledged to do on Monday. Such saber-rattling is hardly unprecedented, but it comes at a politically sensitive time in the South, where a presidential election looms in December. Choe Sang-Hun reports from Seoul.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, on Friday damped expectations that Irish and Spanish banks hobbled by the financial crisis would receive direct aid from a new European bailout fund. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

ARTS The Royal Academy exhibition titled “Bronze,” put together by David Ekserdjian, is less show than spectacle, Souren Melikian reports from London. “Enjoy the art adventure ground spread over centuries and do not seek conceptual or aesthetic consistency,” Mr. Melikian recommends. “There is none.”

Comparisons may be odious, but they kept cropping up as FIAC - the French acronym for the International Contemporary Art Fair - opened its doors this week for a V.I.P. preview under the glass dome of the Grand Palais, hard on the heels of London's Frieze show. The quick spin of the global contemporary art carousel has put the Paris-London rivalry in ever sharper focus. Celestine Bohlen reports from Paris.

SPORTS Club rugby knows no greater name than Cardiff, whose shirt has been worn by some of the greatest players in the sport's history. Yet when the Blues take on Toulon on Sunday, they will enter the Heineken European Cup match as the underdog, Huw Richards reports from London.