Belarus's Minsk City Court last week sentenced former presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau to a five-year maximum security prison term for organizing protests following the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko in December 2010. Lukashenko reportedly won 80% of the vote, while Sannikau was second with a distant 2.5%. Currently, four other presidential candidates are awaiting trial, while one was released in January, and another has fled Belarus to seek asylum in the Czech Republic.

Tens of thousands of protesters have filled the main squares of Spain's cities for the past week to protest government austerity measures—in defiance of a government ban imposed ahead of municipal and regional elections. Madrid's central square has been occupied for days by some 30,000 protesters, who have been dubbed "los indignados" (the indignant). Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero admitted he may not enforce the ban. "I have a great respect for the people protesting, which they are doing in a peaceful manner, and I understand it is driven by economic crisis and young people's hopes for employment," Zapatero said during a radio interview. (BBC News, May 21; Reuters, May 20)

A group of 150 "self-styled" (sic) anarchists stormed into an Athens hospital where a protester who was severely injured in a protest march on May 11 is being treated and attacked three police officers guarding him there, a police official said. Thousands of workers walked off the job, pouring onto the streets of Athens and other Greek cities to protest a package of proposed "reforms" and cost-cutting measures designed to save the crisis-hit country $33 billion through 2015. In Athens, some 30,000 marched on the nation's parliament building, jeering lawmakers and calling them "thieves" and "robbers." Police used tear gas and pepper spray in running street battles with black-clad youth. (Reuters, LAT, May 11)

Laurie Penny writes for the New Statesman, April 29:

This is England in 2011: as the country gears up for the Wedding of Mass Distraction, police up and down the country have been bursting into squatted social centres and private homes, arresting anyone whom they suspect of having connections with the anti-cuts movement, on the pretext of preventing disorder at the happy event—sometimes seizing known protestors on the street or from their cars.

Italy's government on April 19 announced it is indefinitely suspending plans to build the country's first nuclear power plants—ahead of a June referendum on the nuclear development plans, which the administration says is no longer necessary. "The program had been halted in order to acquire more scientific evidence," the government said in a surprise clause inserted in the text of a decree which submitted to parliament. The damage at Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactors "has imposed a pause for reflection," Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said.

Even as the world is gripped by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Russia announced it will build a reactor in neighboring Belarus—where large areas still remain closed off due to the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. The Russian-designe plant is to be built near Ostrovets, just 50 miles from the capital city of European Union member Lithuania. The deal was announced March 15 at a meeting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk. Under the agreement, Russia's state-owned Atomstroyeksport will build the nuclear station, with the first reactor due to come on line in 2016 and as many as four more reactors operational by 2025.

Some 60,000 Germans marched against nuclear power on March 12, forming a 45-kilometer human chain from Neckarwestheim power plant to the city of Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg state. The demonstration had been planned for some time, but was given new urgency after the Japanese nuclear disaster. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has extended the lifespan of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants for another 12 years beyond their original shutdown date, summoned senior cabinet ministers to an emergency meeting on nuclear safety. (The Local, Germany, March 13; AP, The Guardian, March 12)

Some 17,000 Germans braved freezing temperatures to form a human chain around central Dresden Feb. 13, blocking some 1,000 followers of the neo-Nazi National Democratic (sic) Party (NPD) from holding a "funeral march" on the city to mark the 66th anniversary of the Allied bombardment during World War II. Under the banner of the local "Nazi-Free Dresden" organization, the anti-fascists wore white roses on their lapels (to commemorate the White Rose student resistance group of the 1940s) and encircled the city center while bells tolled from the churches. "The people of Dresden are defending their remembrance," said German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who presided at the official commemoration of the air raids that killed an estimated 25,000. (DW-World, DPA, AFP, Feb. 13)