Geothermal Energy Stuck in a Hole in Switzerland

An accident in a flagship project threatens the future of geothermal energy in Switzerland. The mishap that was followed by earthquakes has come as a warning that geothermal deep drilling still has a long way to go.

Balkans Feed the Syria Battle

This holy month of Ramadan comes with a difference for some families in the Balkans. It is the first without their young sons, husbands or brothers who died far away from home fighting in Syria.

Bulgarians Set Out to Overhaul Politics

For more than six weeks now, Bulgarians have been on the streets demanding an end to oligarchy and corruption.

Spain’s New Squatters

"You live there for free, don't you?" asked a woman as she passed by the Buenaventura "corrala", a community in a building in this southern Spanish city occupied since February by families evicted from their homes for falling behind in their mortgage payments due to unemployment.

Q&A: “Angela Merkel Is the Decider of Our Fate”

“Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” This famous question attributed to former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger has an obvious answer today: Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor.

Poland’s Shale Gas Bubble ‘Bursting’

Since Jun. 3, inhabitants of the village Zurawlow in Grabowiec district in southeastern Poland have been occupying a field in their locality where the U.S. company Chevron plans to drill for shale gas. The farmers’ resistance is just the latest blow to shale gas proponents in the country.

Q&A: Swiss Cooperation in Cuba Has Broad Focus

"The basic objective of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is people’s welfare, and I think that in this we have many affinities with what the Cuban government wants,” Regula Bäbler told IPS.

Justice Over G8 Killing Delayed and Denied

“It was midnight and I was sleeping; I woke up to the noise of the police breaking down the entrance door of the school,” says Italian journalist Lorenzo Guadagnucci. “They came in running and screaming. The bashing was immediate, with no chance of mediation.”

Imported Torture Haunts Poland

The only sign of life at Szymany’s "international airport" are mosquitoes eager to suck blood out of a rare visitor. The gate is locked with a rusted chain and a padlock.

New EU Rules ‘Fail’ Against Shipbreaking Dangers

Hundreds of European vessels are scrapped under hazardous conditions in South Asia every year. European parliamentarians have approved a new regulation to tackle the problem - but critics say it will have very limited impact.

EU Bank ‘Funding Polluters’

The European Investment Bank, the largest institutional bank in the world, is facing criticism for its funding of fossil fuel projects and for weaker standards for lending to coal plants than currently proposed in both the U.S. and Canada.

New Labour Norms Could Hurt Bangladesh

The decisions of the United States and the European Union to demand implementation of controversial labour standards in Bangladesh following the Sawa industrial tragedy pose a serious threat to the rule-based global trading system, says Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General for United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Biofuels Get a Dubious Boost

In an unexpected move, European parliamentarians have approved a new biofuel regulation that will take emissions from indirect land use change into account. The new text allows the biofuel sector to expand, sending a clear signal to world food markets and jeopardising food security for the world's poorest.

Curbs on Abortion Spread Across East Europe

A “virus” of restrictive abortion legislation is spreading from Eastern Europe, health experts and rights campaigners have said, amid Church pressure and misguided government attempts to stop falling birth rates.

Russia Convicts Dead Lawyer of Tax Evasion

A Russian court has handed down a guilty verdict for whistleblower lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in detention led to one of the biggest Washington-Moscow rows in years.

Turkey Goes From Project to Project, Protest to Protest

Even as Istanbul residents celebrated the reopening of Gezi Park, the small green space in the centre of this city that sparked anti-government protests throughout Turkey last month, another demolition and another demonstration were busy getting underway.

Pray Again to St. Precarious

It didn’t take the financial crisis for hundreds of thousands of workers across Europe to protest the new plague of the labour market – precarity. But the financial crisis has only made it worse.

Georgia’s New Government Struggling to Keep Police Reform Pledge

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili rose to power in 2012 on a pledge to depoliticise the powerful police force created by President Mikheil Saakashvili following the 2003 Rose Revolution.

Europe’s Youth Count Ten Times Less than Its Banks

At the last summit of European heads of state held in Brussels at the end of June, the main theme was youth unemployment, which has now reached 23 percent of European youth (although it stands at 41 percent in Spain).

Bigger Dangers Lurk Behind Berlusconi Scandal

The scandal around the under-age prostitute that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi allegedly had sex with is not about just that one girl: an estimated 10,000 under-age girls become victims of sexual exploitation every year in Italy.

South American Leaders Demand Apologies from Europe

South American leaders demanded that the governments of France, Italy, Portugal and Spain provide explanations and public apologies to Bolivian President Evo Morales for refusing his presidential jet permission to fly through their airspace on his way home from Moscow.