The Prague Post Online: News: European Roundup

September 6th, 2008

Endowment Fund Business Listings ONLINE Reservations Classifieds Subscriptions

Real Estate Prague Prague Rentals Prague Apartments Prague Art & Antiques

European Roundup

News & notes | Search restaurants | Archives

UK Twenty-two airports are allowing passengers to carry on more than one piece of hand luggage as of Jan. 7, but only if the airports have installed improved security scanners demanded by airlines, says a BBC report. Airports approved for the change include Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham. Some airlines and airports, such as easyJet and Gatwick, respectively, are maintaining the one-bag limit.

GEORGIA President Mikheil Saakashvili won re-election Jan. 5 with 52.8 percent of the vote, according to The New York Times (NYT). Saakashvili, a 40-year-old pro-Western president, called early elections after declaring a state of emergency Nov. 7, which anti-government demonstrators protested. He was four years into his five-year term. His main opposition contested the election’s outcome but a new round of voting was not held.

ITALY Milan imposed traffic fees for vehicles entering the city center, the BBC reported Jan. 2. On weekdays between 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., it will now cost 10 euros to enter the 8-square-kilometer area, which is circled by 43 electric gates. Electric and hybrid cars can enter for free. Two other northern Italian cities, Genoa and Turin, are considering similar measures. London, Stockholm and Singapore have comparable fees.

FRANCE President Nicolas Sarkozy could marry Italian singer and former model Carla Bruni in February, according to a Jan. 6 story in the International Herald Tribune (IHT). Reports of the engagement in French media coincided with the release of an opinion poll indicating a seven-point drop in the president’s approval rating, due in part to Sarkozy’s private life.

TURKEY A bomb killed five people in the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey Jan. 3. The explosive went off near a shopping mall as a bus carrying soldiers passed by. No suspects have been named but the attack happened after a Turkish bombing campaign against Kurdish militants, according to the NYT. The last deadly attack in the city was in September 2006.

POLAND The new Warsaw government is not ready to accept U.S. plans to deploy a portion of its missile shield in the country until all risks and costs are considered, Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Radosław Sikorski has said, according to a Jan. 6 report in the IHT. Sikorski added his concern that the project could be abandoned depending on the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections in November.

ITALY On Jan. 7, the Italian army began bulldozing more than 100,000 tons of rubbish that have piled up in Naples as a result of a trash collectors’ strike that began Dec. 24, the BBC reported. With citizens resorting to burning and dumping untreated waste into the sea, the EU has warned Italy to resolve the matter by the end of the week due to health concerns.

UK For the first time since the 19th century, the average UK citizen in 2008 could have a greater income than the average U.S. citizen, according to figures from analyst Oxford Economics. The projection supports an ongoing improvement in the UK’s economic performance, according to a Jan. 7 BBC report. Because goods and services are cheaper in the United States, however, Americans will still have stronger purchasing power.

Be the first to add a comment!

Most e-mailed articles
Souls of the new machine Planned skyscrapers are \'too high\' An epic journey

Related articles
Hell razer

Most visited in Business Listings

The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.