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Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed
5. Turmoil hits Estonian Prime Minister Kallas over husband's Russia tiesOpposition figures in Estonia have called on Prime Minister Kaja Kallas to resign after it was revealed her husband's company was continuing to operate in Russia.
The Center Party announced on Friday it was starting to discuss a no-confidence motion against her, while another opposition group Isamaa said the scandal has caused "considerable damage to the interests and reputation of Estonia".
Estonian public broadcaster ERR reported on Wednesday the haulage firm Stark Logistics, part-owned by Kallas's husband, Arvo Hallik, continued doing business with Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/25/turmoil-hits-estonian-prime-minister-kallas-over-husbands-russia-ties
4. Supermarket in Finland welcomes dogs, with special carts for canine customers
A 'su-paw-market' in Finland is welcoming canine customers, with specially-adapted carts which allow dog owners to bring their pooches grocery shopping.
The Kesko grocery chain in the city of Tampere has introduced the "Koirakärry" - dog cart - concept as a way to welcome in more dog-owning customers at one of its stores, where usually only service animals would be permitted inside the aisles.
"The idea is already used in some countries, but not in Finland, and we have a lot of dog owners nearby," explains Matilda Tistelgren, who has been operating the supermarket with her partner Joona Pesonen since the spring.
"We have a golden retriever ourselves, and if we go out jogging with the dog and forget something from the store, we don't want to go home, leave the dog, then have to return to the store ourselves, we want to be able to take the dog with us," Matilda tells Euronews.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/26/supermarket-in-finland-welcomes-dogs-with-special-carts-for-canine-customers
3. Pro-Russian Bosnian Musician Plans Concerts In Romania After Moldova Ban
Bosnian musician Goran Bregovic, who has been banned from performing in Moldova because of his outspoken pro-Moscow views, is due to perform at least twice in the coming months in NATO and EU member Romania, RFE/RL has learned.
Bregovic and his band over the weekend were refused entry to Moldova, where they were scheduled to perform at a folk festival.
On August 21, Chisinau cited a ban on Bregovic imposed last year because of his pro-Russian views as the reason for not allowing his band, The Wedding and Funeral Orchestra, into Moldova.
Bregovic was to arrive in Chisinau on August 20 but canceled his trip after being told that his band had been stopped from entering Moldova.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-musician-goran-bregovic-concerts-romania-moldova-rejection/32558965.html
2. Health alarm as tide of rotting seaweed chokes UK holiday beaches
When Owen Francomb from Margate set out on a walk with his dog Gertie along Kent’s picturesque Thanet coast early this month, he didn’t imagine he’d need to be rescued from a tide of toxic sludge. But on the beach at Newgate Gap, French bulldog Gertie started sinking into a thick carpet of rotting seaweed and began to panic.
“She couldn’t move,” Francomb. says. “So I scrambled down the slipway and jumped down on to the beach, expecting the seaweed to be a foot deep, but it came up to my belt. I really struggled to wade through it.” Another dog walker had to help him and Gertie out of the stinking slime.
Over 1,000 tonnes of seaweed have been removed from beaches between Minnis Bay and Broadstairs by Thanet district council – at a cost of £65,000 – in just five weeks from the beginning of July this year, compared with a reported average of between 400-800 tonnes in an entire season.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/26/health-alarm-as-tide-of-rotting-seaweed-chokes-uk-holiday-beaches
1. Yerevan Says Airport Fired On From Azerbaijan Hours After Prime Minister's Visit
Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) has said that an airport near the southeastern border with Azerbaijan was fired upon from Azerbaijani territory hours after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visited the facility.
The NSS said the incident took place in the early morning of August 18 at the Syunik airport in the town of Kapan. Pashinian had flown to the airport on August 17 from Yerevan.
According to the NSS, an unidentified individual fired three shots at the airport from across the border, striking windows and the roof of a building at the airport.
“We call on the authorities of Azerbaijan to conduct a proper investigation of the incident and to take measures to exclude the repetition of such incidents,” the NSS said in a statement.
https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-azerbaijan-airport-shots-fired-pashinian/32553605.html
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Alabama priest 'groomed young girls' before fleeing to Italy with 18-year-old
Roman Catholic priest in Alabama who fled to Europe with a recent high school graduate whom he met through his work has drawn scrutiny from law enforcement and been told to stop presenting himself in public as a cleric.
Alex Crow, an expert in the theological study of demons and exorcism, is suspected of having “groomed [multiple] young girls” before going to Italy with an 18-year-old, according to an interview that local sheriff Paul Burch recently gave to Fox Nation’s Nancy Grace. The teen’s family has been trying to convince her to return home.
Burch has publicly released two letters written by Crow, 30, to support that assertion. In one of the letters to the teen, Crow described how he loved her and claimed that they were married. The Pillar, a Catholic news outlet, reported that the letter was for Valentine’s Day, when the girl was 17 and had not yet graduated from the parochial school where Crow had sat in on classes and met with students in the context of the sacrament known as confession.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/18/alabama-priest-groomed-young-girls-before-fleeing-italy-teen
Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed
5. Doctors were forced to apologise for raising alarm over Lucy Letby and baby deaths
Lucy Letby’s colleagues were ordered to apologise to her after repeatedly raising concerns that the nurse may have been behind a series of unexplained baby deaths, the Guardian has learned.
Senior doctors had warned for months that Letby was the only staff member present during the sudden collapses and deaths of a number of premature babies on the Countess of Chester hospital’s neonatal unit.
She was not removed from the ward until early July 2016, a year after a doctor first alerted a hospital executive to a potential link. By that time she had murdered seven babies and attempted to kill another six, a court found on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/19/doctors-were-forced-to-apologise-for-raising-alarm-over-lucy-letby-and-baby-deaths
4. Romania Sends Navy Divers, Helicopter After Suspected Mine Explodes At Black Sea Resort Area
Romanian officials said the NATO member nation's navy had sent a team of specialized divers and a helicopter to search for stray mines along the Black Sea coast after an explosion shook the embankment near the resort town of Costinesti. No one was injured in the blast. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mines have been placed in the Black Sea by both sides of the war. Strong waves and winds have often brought the explosives toward the Romanian coast. Western reports say Russia planted additional mines in the region after it left a UN-brokered grain deal.
https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-mines-ukraine-russia-black-sea/32547719.html
3. Former Austrian leader Sebastian Kurz charged with giving false evidence to a corruption inquiry
Sebastian Kurz has been charged with making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into a scandal that brought down his first government, prosecutors said. The court said Kurz will go on trial on 18 October.
Austria's former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been charged with making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his first government, which collapsed in a scandal in 2019, prosecutors said Friday.
An indictment against Kurz, his former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, and a third person was filed at the state court in Vienna, the prosecutors' office that investigates corruption cases said in a statement. The court said Kurz will go on trial on 18 October.
The charges result from an investigation that was launched in 2021, when Kurz was still chancellor. It centres on his testimony to a parliamentary probe that focused on alleged corruption in the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative People's Party formed a government with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/18/former-austrian-leader-sebastian-kurz-charged-with-giving-false-evidence-to-a-corruption-i
2. Three Bulgarians Suspected Of Being Russian Spies Arrested In Britain
Three Bulgarian nationals suspected of spying for Russia in the U.K. have been arrested and charged as part of a major national security investigation, the BBC reported on August 15. RFE/RL contacted the Bulgarian Embassy in London for confirmation, but it said it had no information at the moment and had not been contacted by British authorities. The BBC named the suspects as Orlin Rusev, 45, Biser Djambazov, 41, and Katrin Ivanova, 31. The A spokeswoman for the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said the department is still investigating the case. The accused were arrested in February and have been in custody since then, according to the BBC.
https://www.rferl.org/a/bulgarians-suspected-russian-spies-arrested-britain/32549125.html
1. Russian women fear return of murderers freed to fight for Wagner
The 2020 murder of Vera Pekhteleva, by her ex-boyfriend, was so gruesome that even in Russia, where violence against women often goes under the radar, it caused a media outcry.
Vladislav Kanyus spent hours torturing Pekhteleva before she died; neighbours repeatedly called police to report horrifying screams coming from the neighbouring apartment, but the police did not show up. At trial, it emerged there had been 111 injuries on Pekhteleva’s body.
Last summer, a court in Siberia sentenced Kanyus to 17 years in prison for the murder. Pekhteleva’s family members were disappointed that the judge dismissed additional charges of rape and unlawful imprisonment, but breathed a sigh of relief that the murder charge alone would put Kanyus behind bars for 17 years.
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As part of the deal, convicts were told that if they fought for six months and survived, they would be allowed to go back to normal life without serving the rest of their sentences. Later, prisoners were also freed to fight for the regular Russian army and for other Wagner-like formations fighting with the Russians in Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/russian-women-wagner-convicts-war-ukraine
Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed
5. Mayor Of Bulgarian Town Arrested In Probe Into Misuse Of EU FundsThe mayor of a Bulgarian town has been arrested in an investigation into an alleged fraud involving EU funds meant for a project to increase energy efficiency in multifamily residential buildings, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
Valentin Dimitrov, mayor of the town General Toshevo in northeastern Bulgaria, was arrested on August 9 at the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The Interior Ministry confirmed the arrest to RFE/RL.
Dimitrov has been under investigation for fraud involving subsidies from the European Union for the housing energy efficiency project, the European Public Prosecutor's Office said in a news release. The alleged violations took place in 2017-19.
snip
According to the evidence collected, officials involved in the project, including the mayor, presented false information about the implementation of the work, which had not been completed on time, the prosecutor’s office said.
https://www.rferl.org/a/bulgaria-eu-funds-fraud-mayor/32541390.html
4. European stocks plunge as Italy hits banks' profits with 40% windfall tax
Italy introduced a one-off 40% windfall tax targeting banks' extra profits from higher interest rates, a move that sent European tumbling on Tuesday morning as the market weighs in on the country's decision.
The new windfall tax will only apply to the accounting years of 2022 and 2023 and will affect banks' net interest margin, a measure of the net return on the bank's earning assets, which normally includes loans, leases, and investment securities. The tax must be settled by June 2024.
Italy expects to collect at least €2 billion with the new tax, as sources close to the issue told Reuters. The 40% levy will be made if the net interest income recorded in 2022 exceeds the value of the financial year 2021 by at least 3%.
For the profits of 2023 compared to 2022, the threshold from which the tax will be levied goes up to 6%. The proceeds of the tax, Italian politicians said, will be used to help struggling mortgage holders.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/08/european-stocks-plunge-as-italy-hits-banks-profits-with-40-windfall-tax
Follow up story later in week
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/09/shares-in-italian-banks-recover-after-windfall-tax-is-capped
3. China’s new London embassy on hold pending Westminster intervention
China has temporarily shelved plans to build a new embassy in London, angrily accusing the British government of not doing enough to force through planning permission for the project.
China had been given until Thursday to file an appeal to Tower Hamlets council in east London after the proposals for the embassy were rejected.
Beijing bought the Royal Mint Court site for its new embassy in 2018 for £255m, with the plan to move from its long-term but relatively cramped site in Portland Place, near Regent’s Park.
Chinese officials appear to have decided that rather than appeal through the local Tower Hamlets planning process, where they have relatively little chance of success, they want central government to intervene and give assurances that it will back a resubmitted application.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/11/chinas-new-london-embassy-on-hold-pending-westminster-intervention
2. Seven Romanians Arrested For Weapons Possession Amid Investigation Into Fatal Stabbing Of Greek Fan
Seven Romanians were arrested on August 10 on the border between Greece and Bulgaria for weapons possession as police continued to probe the fatal stabbing of a Greek soccer fan, officials said. The Greek fan was killed near Athens on August 8 during a brawl between rival fans before a Champions League qualifying-round match between AEK Athens and Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb. The Romanians were found in possession of knives, a face mask, and other items, police said. They were believed to be on their way to a Europa League qualifying match when they were arrested.
https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-weapons-greek-fan-soccer/32542987.html
1. 'This is my world!': Former Austrian FM spends holiday in Russia
Several Russian websites have circulated a video of former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, wearing a flowing blue skirt and belted white shirt, extolling the charms of the Russian village of Petrushovo at a local summer festival.
“This is my world,” she said standing in front of a group of Russian children, insisting that she feels at home among the “chickens, ducks and goats” in the village located in the Ryazan Oblast, southeast of Moscow.
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Kneissl was Austria’s foreign minister from 2017 to 2019, and made headlines when she invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to her wedding in 2018 in a ceremony in the town of Gamlitz.
snip
When a vote of no-confidence ousted the government of Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz, she left political office and subsequently began contributing to Russian government news outlet RT, formerly Russia Today.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/10/this-is-my-world-former-austrian-fm-spends-holiday-in-russia
'Twinverclyde': 17 sets of twins to start school in one Scottish authority
Seventeen sets of twins will start primary school in one Scottish local authority next week, the second largest number on record.
Schools in Inverclyde will welcome the twins for the first time on Friday 18 August, in an area that has colloquially become known as “Twinverclyde”.
In 2015, a record 19 sets of twins started primary education in the region.
snip
Last year, six sets of twins joined the year 8 group at St Mary’s college in Northern Ireland.
In 2017, five sets of twins started at Hillcrest primary school in Bristol.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/11/twinverclyde-17-sets-of-twins-to-start-school-in-one-scottish-authority
EP 1 PRISON CAT, GALILEO THE CATS THAT RULE THE WORLD SHEBA
Cats rule the world and prison cats Galileo and Belle rule the Larch Correctional facility in the first episode of the new SHEBA® documentary series, The Cats That Rule The World by Academy Award Nominated director Geoffrey O’Connor.
Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed
5. Belarusian Singer Who Refused Lukashenka Scholarship Handed Parole-Like Sentence
Belarusian singer Patrytsia Svitsina, who in 2020 refused to accept a scholarship from authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, citing her "moral principles," has been handed a parole-like sentence on a charge of "actively participating in actions that blatantly disrupt social order."
Judge Viktoria Shabunya of Minsk's central district on August 2 found Svitsina guilty of taking part in unsanctioned rallies in August 2020 against the official results of the presidential poll that handed victory to Lukashenka, who has led Belarus with an iron fist since 1994.
The judge then sentenced Svitsina to 2 1/2 years of so-called house arrest-like restrictions known as "home khimia."
snip
In recent years, the modern definition of "home khimia" is derived from the Soviet-era system for parole-like sentences.
https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-svitsina-parole-sentence/32532890.html
4. Thousands Rally In Bulgaria Against Domestic Violence After Shocking Case
SOFIA -- Thousands of people staged protest rallies in the capital, Sofia, and other Bulgarian cities following a case of shocking violence against an 18-year-old woman.
The incident happened on June 26 in the central city of Stara Zagora, where a woman identified by her initials, DM, was allegedly beaten and disfigured with a knife by her boyfriend, but was only made public on July 28 following the victim's family's frustration with the slow pace of the investigation.
snip
The 26-year-old suspect, identified by the media as Georgi Georgiev, was arrested after the attack, but a court in Stara Zagora later released him after rating the woman's injuries as "light."
He was rearrested on July 31, after the case was made public, sparking a wave of public outrage, and the prosecutor's office announced that it was "accelerating" the investigation. A new prosecutor, Zhaneta Nedkova, was appointed to the case.
Nedkova ordered a new medical examination to determine how serious the victim's injuries actually are. The victim said Georgiev cut her hundreds of times, broke her nose, and shaved off her hair.
https://www.rferl.org/a/bulgaria-domestic-violence-rally-shocking-case/32528971.html
3. Armenian Aid Truck Convoy Blocked At Azerbaijani Checkpoint For Third Day
A convoy of 19 Armenian trucks carrying emergency food aid to Nagorno-Karabakh remains blocked at an Azerbaijan checkpoint, where it has been waiting for approval to access the Lachin Corridor for three days.
The corridor is the only route linking Armenia with the breakaway region, and has been blocked by Baku for more than seven months. Armenia on July 28 vowed not to turn back the convoy, with Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian saying that although "there are no positive developments at the moment," the vehicles will continue to stay there "as long as necessary."
The Armenian government said on July 25 that it would try to send 360 tons of flour, cooking oil, sugar, and other basic foodstuffs to Nagorno-Karabakh to alleviate severe food shortages there caused by the blockade.
The trucks reached the entrance to the Lachin Corridor late on July 26 but remained stranded there in the following hours, with Baku refusing to let them though an Azerbaijani checkpoint set up there in April.
https://www.rferl.org/a/karabakh-armenian-trucks-azerbaijani-blockade-third-day/32525535.html
2. Lithuania Declares More Than 1,000 Belarusians And Russians To Be National Security Risks
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania declared more than a thousand citizens of Russia and Belarus living in the country to be threats to national security on Friday and said it was stripping them of their permanent residency permits.
The decision comes after the government asked the Russians and Belarusians to answer a questionnaire that included questions about their views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the status of Crimea, the Ukrainian territory which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
Lithuania, a Baltic nation that declared its independence from the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago, is a democracy that belongs to NATO and the European Union. It has been a strong backer of Ukraine and also a place of refuge in recent years for many who have fled an authoritarian crackdown in neighboring Belarus and increased repression in Russia.
https://apnews.com/article/lithuania-russia-national-security-crimea-4031b76009711bb0a6bdadad1b60b796
1. Foreign Office failed to notice torture of British academic in UAE, watchdog finds
The UK’s parliamentary ombudsman has found that the Foreign Office “failed to notice signs of torture” when officials visited a British academic imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates.
Matthew Hedges was convicted on spying charges by the UAE in 2018 after travelling to Dubai to conduct research for his PhD at Durham University. He spent six months in prison, where he has said he had been handcuffed, drugged and questioned for hours, before being pardoned from a life sentence for spying.
The ombudsman wrote in its finding: “It’s hard to imagine the experience Mr Hedges has endured and quite how terrifying his detention must have been. The nightmare was made even worse by being failed by the British government. He trusted them to help him and they let him down. Officials failed to notice signs of torture, failed to intervene and failed to help.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/03/foreign-office-failed-notice-torture-british-academic-uae-watchdog
