News snippets from the European press

Ireland: Lasting ties MEMBERS of the Choctaw tribe and Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s Minister of State, gathered at the Choctaw Capital Grounds in Tuskahoma (Oklahoma) to unveil a sculpture honouring Choctaw-Irish links.  These date from 1847 when Choctaw Indians donated $147, equivalent to €4,000 today, during the Potato Famine.

Denmark: Charged up TEN per cent of the vehicles on Denmark’s roads are electric, and now account for 55 per cent of all car sales, Mobility Denmark figures showed. With tax and registration fee incentives, more charging stations and greater range, the car industry organisation predicted that this proportion would rise to 30 per cent by 2030.

Listening in: UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN researchers are using artificial intelligence to interpret the 19 different sounds made by pigs. “It’s fantastic that the University of Copenhagen have found a way discover what pigs actually think about the way we treat them,” Animal Welfare professor Peter Sandsoe told the media.

Norway: Cooling off SUPPORT for Norway’s monarchy has waned after the arrest of Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s son from a previous relationship and Princess Martha Louise’s sale of her wedding photos, a Dagsavisen newspaper survey revealed.  Forty per cent of participants agreed that Crown Prine Haakon should be Norway’s last king.

Stubbing out WHILE the government is still studying a ban on smoking in outdoor public areas, the Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association has called for a veto on restaurant terraces and outdoor dining areas.  Sweden had managed this in 2019, the association said and predicted that there was unlikely to be an outcry in Norway.

Italy: No queues ROME has put 1,000 new taxi licences out to tender to solve the ongoing cab shortage before the Church’s 2025 Jubilee year when millions of pilgrims will flock to the city.  Issuing new taxi licences for the first time in 20 years was important for Rome, city hall’s Mobility department said, especially in view of next year’s events.

Late justice GIANNINO GOTTARDI, father of 28-year-old architect Marco who died with his partner Gloria Trecisan in the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, said the findings of the recently-published official report would finally enable him to obtain justice for them.  He was not interested money, only justice, he declared.

Belgium: Culture bid GHENT, Leuven, Kortrijk, Bruges, Sint-Jans-Molenbeek and Namur have submitted applications to be selected as European Capital of Culture 2030.  Each receives a €3 million government grant to fund their bids for a title that in the past went to Antwerp (1993), Brussels (2000), Bruges (2002) and Mons (2015).

Sweet victory CHOCOLATIERS Dominique and Julious Persoone recently displayed a 100-kilo chocolate bison with Canadian flags in their Bruges shop window.  The bison is the symbol of Manitoba, and they were commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the city by the Twelfth Manitoba Dragoons.

German: No delays TRANSPORT minister Volker Wissing called on state-owned railways operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) to improve timetable punctuality “in the short term”, but especially on long-distance routes.  He also reminded DB of the need to improve profitability and to make savings on administrative and managements costs.

Stern words: Chief executive of Deutsche Bank Christian Sewing declared on September 4 that Germans should assist the country’s economy by being prepared to work harder “and differently.” Sewing pointed out that an average EU citizen worked approximately 34 hours a week compared with 28 hours in Germany.

Netherlands: Lights out A POWER failure halted large sectors of Rotterdam’s industrial area for two hours on the morning of September 3.  Eleven thousand homes were affected by the outage as well as terminals belonging to BP and Exxon, while goods trains and the metro between Steendijkpolder and the Hoek van Holland seafront were halted.

Rained off Tulips will cost more in future because continuous rain has forced growers to delay planting the small bulblets which they leave to mature until they are suitable for the flower sector.  This will result in an “unprecedented shortage” of bulbs which will push up the price of the cut flowers, industry insiders said.

France: Tower power THE descendants of Gustave Eiffel criticised Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo’s plans to retain the Olympic rings that were added to the structure to promote the recently concluded Games.  “The Eiffel tower should not become an advertising outpost,” said Olivier Berthelot-Eiffel who is the great-great-grandson of its designer.

Pastis clash SUPPORTERS of the Olympique Marseille football club are boycotting Ricard pastis after manufacturer Pernod Ricard announced a commercial partnership with the Paris Saint-Germain club.  They argue that pastis has been inseparable from the city since Marseille-born Paul Ricard began marketing it there in 1932.

Finland: Down to earth THE Aalto-1 satellite, built by Aalto University students and launched in 2017, has ended its seven-year orbit of the earth, the university’s Space Technology department announced.  The satellite made its final pass over Finland on September 2 before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, where it burnt up and broke apart.

Cat crisis STRAY cats are becoming an important animal welfare problem in Finland, where numbers have risen to around 20,000.  Animal protection groups point out that the street cats have no legal protection and instead depend entirely on the efforts of volunteer organisations to trap, rescue and rehome them.

Portugal: Phony police PORTUGAL’S Judicial Police (PJ), equivalent to the UK’s CID, warned the public about a “massive” scam by fraudsters posing as the PJ to trick victims into disclosing their personal details and making a bank transfer.  Criminals are using artificial intelligence to carry out campaigns like these, the police added.

Flu jabs The government plans to spend €7.6 million on making Covid-19 and flu vaccinations available in pharmacies, with the aim of protecting the majority of the population by late November.  This year’s campaign has been brought forward owing an anticipated rise in respiratory virus infections during the winter months.

Sweden: Record summer TEMPERATURES in central and southern Sweden were no different from usual, but those in the north “very warm or even extreme”, according to the Meteorological Institute (SMHI). The country’s only tropical days when temperatures remained above 20C were recorded in Norrland, on June 24 and 25.

Don’t panic AS always happens on the first Monday of each quarter, Sweden tried out its siren system at 3pm on September 1.  Approximately half of the population live within earshot of one of the 4,500 sirens which were introduced in 1931 to alert the public to impending danger.