SWITZERLAND: Muslims Targeted in the Name of Minarets

Switzerland's Muslim community is witnessing a xenophobic campaign by the political right-wing ahead of a vote next month on the banning of Islamic minarets.

PORTUGAL: Bible Is “A Catalogue of Cruelties,” Says Saramago

After a nearly two-decade truce, Portuguese Nobel literature laureate José Saramago has returned to the charge against the Catholic Church. This time his target is the Bible itself, which he describes as "a manual of bad morals," and a "catalogue of cruelties and of the worst of human nature."

Q&A: Italian Women At A Loss

On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Italy is far from attaining gender equality.

BULGARIA: Migrants Denied Even Medicine

Hasun Albaadzh, an asylum-seeker from Syria, died Oct. 6 at the Busmantsi detention centre on the outskirts of Bulgarian capital Sofia. He had been held at Busmantsi for 34 months - considerably more than the maximum legal period of detention - and had been denied proper medical care.

LABOUR-EUROPE: This Job Is Killing Me

A spate of suicides in France is raising new questions about precarious working conditions imposed by authoritarian management models.

GERMANY: East Is East

Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down, rifts between east and west Germany remain: east Germans vote differently, are earning less money, and are more pessimistic than west Germans.

EUROPEAN UNION: ‘Giving With One Hand, Taking With the Other’

"EU policies continue to undermine the economic, social and human development of developing countries" despite repeated commitments in treaties and declarations, a group of European NGOs said in a report published Wednesday.

GERMANY: Rebuilding Controversially Over a Disputed Past

Reconstruction of some of Berlin's historic buildings that were damaged during World War II or by the Communist regime that earlier ruled East Germany, is raising troubling questions about Germany's past, and its future.

SWITZERLAND: Undocumented Migrants Run Their Own School

Switzerland is a tough place for asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants. In Zurich, they have been running a remarkable campaign for the past year, challenging the canton's asylum policy. Now, they have opened their own school.

GERMANY: The Berlin Wall Came Down, Others Went Up

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, circumstances leading to that landmark event and what really happened behind the scenes remain a subject of debate. Equally controversial is what the fall of the wall brought in its wake.

GERMANY: Muslims Targeted Again

Immigrants and foreigners were again targeted through the election campaign last month by right-wing politicians looking to win votes through racist statements.

ROMANIA: Government Collapse Deepens Economic Woes

Romania is heading for a week of massive protests by state employees. With the governing coalition collapsing last Friday, the new minority government will have a hard time navigating between the demands of the protesters and the austerity measures demanded by its international creditors.

BALKANS: Ultranationalists Face Ban

Ultranationalist groups behind the violence in Belgrade last month face ban by the Constitutional Court of Serbia.

RIGHTS: Castration for Polish Paedophiles Opposed

New legislation in Poland introducing compulsory castration of paedophiles has angered human rights groups, who claim its introduction is little more than populist posturing.

RIGHTS-AUSTRIA: Thousands of Migrants Take to Hunger Strikes

Human rights activists in Austria are calling for an overhaul of a detention system for migrants and asylum seekers they claim breaches human rights, following the death of a hunger-striking migrant in police cells.

EUROPE: Failing Both Governments and Migrants

The police have cracked down Tuesday on makeshift shelters that migrants moved into after the immigration camp at Calais in France was razed to the ground a week back. The migrants, mostly Afghans, are now homeless again - and in search of new shelter.

GERMANY: Crisis Shackles New Govt

The economic crisis looks set to reduce the new government's commitments in development and environmental policy.

RIGHTS: Shelters Open for Battered Husbands

One in three women is ill-treated by someone or other in family homes, survey after survey shows. And so the total of three men living in shelter in a small home for battered husbands may seem unmentionably small in comparison.

G20: IMF Finds a New Unpopularity

When some Eastern European states faced economic collapse as the financial crisis took hold, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in and offered governments huge loans.

GREECE: New Leaders May Not Bring New Answers

The call for snap elections on Oct 2, about two years earlier than the end of the government's mandate surprised no one in Greece. They were in fact overdue given the political bankruptcy of the government of the right-wing party New Democracy (ND).

HEALTH: Dutch Rethink Mixing Cannabis With Coffee

Along with "canal" and "dyke", young people visiting this city will learn some other interesting words in a very short time - words such as "cannabis", "bong", and "marijuana". The words are hard to avoid, especially in the tourist area that boasts a museum devoted to "hash".