Icelandic protesters clashed with police in Reykjavik Nov. 23 during a demonstration against the government's handling of the country's severe financial crisis. Several hundred gathered outside the city's main police station to demand the release of a man arrested in a previous protest. Five were injured when police used pepper spray to disperse the group after some tried to storm the building.

In a joint operation by French and Spanish police, Miguel de Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina AKA "Txeroki" (Cherokee)—Spain's most wanted terror suspect and purported military head of ETA—was arrested Nov. 16 in the resort town of Cauterets in the French Pyrenees, along with another ETA suspect and a woman. Txeroki, 36, reputedly masterminding a series of deadly attacks including the murder of a judge, a plot to kill King Juan Carlos and a bomb attack on the Socialist politician Eduardo Madina.

Riot police beat back some 15,000 protesters attempting to block a train carrying nuclear waste from western France to a disposal center at Gorleben in Germany Nov. 9. In Germany's largest and most violent anti-nuclear protest since 2001, activists set fire to barricades across the tracks, which police extinguished with water cannon. A caravan of some 300 tractors also blocked the tracks. Several protesters and police were injured in the confrontation. "This is a strong sign of the renaissance of the anti-nuclear movement," said Jochen Stay of the anti-nuclear group X-tausendmal quer, which organized the protests. (AFP, Nov. 10)

Unprecedented Muslim representation was seen at the Nov. 10 "Special Event Promoting Tolerance Throughout the European Continent" at the European Parliament in Brussels. Representatives of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Morocco, Turkey and Malaysia, among others, attended the event, part of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. The event was organized jointly by the European Parliament and the European Jewish Congress. (Jerusalem Post, Nov. 10)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Nov. 5, the day after Barack Obama's election as US president, made his first state-of-the-nation address since he took office in May—and pledged to deploy a short-range missile system in Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad in response to US missile defense plans. He specifically invoked the Georgia conflict in his comments. "The conflict in the Caucasus was used as a pretext to send NATO warships to the Black Sea and then to quickly thrust on Europe the need for deploying the US anti-missile system," he said. (CIIC, Nov. 5)

Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic refused to answer questions at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Nov. 5 at the appeals hearing of Momcilo Krajisnik. Krajisnick, a former Bosnian Serb parliamentary leader, is appealing a conviction and 27-year prison sentence handed down by the ICTY for various war crimes related to his role in atrocities committed against Croats and Muslims during the Bosnian war. Karadzic had given written testimony in support of Karjisnik's appeal, but refused to be cross-examined on the grounds that such testimony could be harmful to his own case.

Up to two million marched in Rome's Circus Maximus Oct. 25 to protest the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi under the slogans "Save Italy" and "Another Italy is possible." Walter Veltroni, leader of the center-left opposition, told the crowds that Berlusconi is incapable of handling Italy's financial crisis—and said the country is moving in a fascist direction under his leadership.

High-profile Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic, publisher of the muckraking opposition weekly Nacional, was killed along with his marketing chief Niko Franjic in a bomb blast in central Zagreb Oct. 23. The bomb reportedly exploded under his car and was detonated by remote control. Pukanic was noted for his aggressive investigations of official corruption and human rights abuses.