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December 1st, 2008
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FRANCE The first round of parliamentary elections, held June 10, gave new President Nicholas Sarkozy’s center-right party a lead and hinted at a possible landslide. The second round of voting is scheduled for June 17 and polls indicate that Sarkozy’s bloc will control Parliament by a large margin.

ITALY U.S. President George W. Bush met for the first time with Pope Benedict XVI June 9 in Rome as protestors clashed with police. The trip followed a visit to Albania and preceded one to Bulgaria as part of his eight-day European tour in connection with the G8 Summit in Germany.
UK British intelligence is investigating people they say may have been trying to sell weapons-grade uranium to Iran and Sudan. A June 10 article in The Observer states that MI5 and MI6 tracked a group of Britons over the course of 20 months who obtained the black-market material from Russia. One person has been charged with attempting to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.
TURKEY Hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq June 6 to fight Kurdish guerillas based there, the Associated Press reported. The pursuit came after several high-profile attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Two days prior, Kurdish rebels killed seven Turkish soldiers. A bomb, blamed by some on Kurdish separatists, wounded 14 civilians in Istanbul June 10.
GERMANY Leaders of the world’s richest countries left the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm June 8 with a commitment to spend $60 billion for the treatment of AIDS worldwide, half of that amount to be donated by the United States. Other topics included climate change and the growing rift between Russia and the West.
ROMANIA Police and protestors clashed June 9 at the annual gay rights parade in Bucharest. Police hurled tear gas at rioters and detained 100 people, who were throwing stones and fireworks both at police and at the approximately 400 participants in the march. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Romania in 2001.
BELGIUM Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt conceded defeat June 11 after an election the previous day cleared the way for Flemish Premier Yves Leterme to take the post. Right-leaning Leterme, a Christian Democrat, wants to delegate more control to the regions. Verhofstadt has been prime minister for eight years.
SPAIN Police arrested the political leader of the separatist Basque movement ETA June 8 after the group renounced a 15-month cease-fire earlier in the week. Arnaldo Otegi, who was convicted last year on charges of supporting terrorism but allowed to remain free while he appealed the case, was arrested in San Sebastián.
ITALY The first trial concerning the controversial CIA practice of rendition, or kidnapping suspects for interrogation elsewhere, opened in Milan June 8 but was then postponed to June 18. None of the 26 U.S. defendants, charged with kidnapping a man in Milan and sending him to Egypt for torturing and imprisonment, was present.
UK The Church of England demanded June 9 that entertainment company Sony donate a large sum of money and apologize for using the interior of Manchester Cathedral as a backdrop in its new violent video game “Resistance: The Fall of Man.” Manchester is known for its problem with gun violence and the cathedral holds an annual memorial in honor of young victims.


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