The Prague Post Online: News: European Roundup

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July 20th, 2008

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TURKEY The validity of a petition calling for the abolition of Turkey’s governing AK party will be ruled on by the country’s constitutional court, the BBC reported March 31. The petition, which the chief prosecutor filed to the court March 14, accuses the party of “anti-secular activities” that secularists feel are the first steps toward transforming the country into an Islamic state.

RUSSIA After seven women left the Penza region cave in which cult members barricaded themselves last October to await doomsday, new talks are under way to end the siege. Members of the True Russian Orthodox Church had been persuaded to enter the cave by cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov, who did not follow and has since undergone psychiatric evaluation, the BBC reported March 30. Four children are among those still in the cave, which is in danger of collapsing.

SERBIA In the first high-level European Union-Serbian meeting since Kosovo’s February declaration of independence, Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Vuk Jeremić talked with EU ministers March 29, the International Herald Tribune reported. Jeremić said Serbia would begin prosecuting war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladić, as the EU insists, but expressed concerns that the dispute over Kosovo was driving the country further away from EU accession.

EU The “open skies” deal opening transatlantic travel between the United States and the EU came into effect April 1, the BBC reported. The deal ends limitations on the airlines permitted to fly between the United States and the EU, and is expected to lead to a large rise in the number of carriers on these routes.

FRANCE Prime Minister Francois Fillon said March 30 that he is prepared to take in Colombian rebels freed from prison in their homeland in exchange for the release of hostage Ingrid Betancourt, the Associated Press reported. Betancourt, who holds dual French-Colombian citizenship, has been a hostage in the Colombian jungle for more than six years, and is believed to be gravely ill.

ITALY A widening health scare led the Italian government to order March 28 a recall on mozzarella cheese potentially contaminated with a cancer-causing dioxin, the BBC reported. Health officials say the dioxin may be linked to a recent garbage crisis in Naples and the surrounding Campania region, where the best buffalo mozzarella is produced.

GERMANY A prominent Russian artist who had been in conflict with both church and state in her native country after participating in a controversial exhibition disappeared from her home in Berlin, The New York Times reported March 28. German authorities’ investigations into the disappearance of Anna Mikhalchuk, 52, have turned up no evidence of foul play or accident.

RUSSIA Two Tajik nationals suspected in the murder of a Russian television reporter have been detained, the Associated Press reported March 30. The reporter, who worked for the state-run network Channel One, had been found stabbed in a Moscow apartment March 21. The suspects are believed to have then taken 100,000 rubles and set the apartment on fire.

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