Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced Oct. 11 that police have arrested Mal Rt [Reuters backgrounder] CEO Zoltan Bakonyi on criminal negligence charges for the company's role in last week's Akja chemical spill. Orban also announced an emergency law that was easily passed allowing the government to take control of Mal Rt, which owned the plant from which the spill originated. The spill occurred Oct. 4 when one of the plant's reservoirs cracked, releasing nearly 200 million gallons of toxic sludge, killing eight people, injuring hundreds more and causing environmental damage that some fear could take years to clean up. Police initiated their criminal investigation last week. If convicted, Bakonyi faces up to 11 years in prison.

A flood of red toxic sludge spilled by an aluminum plant in western Hungary has advanced along a secondary tributary to the Danube River and could reach the international waterway by the weekend, a local defense authority official said Oct. 6. One million cubic meters of sludge flooded the villages of Devecser, Kolontar and Somlovasarhely on Oct. 4 when a waste impoundment wall broke at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant owned by MAL Magyar Aluminium in the town of Ajka, 160 kilometers southwest of Budapest.

The popular major of Pollica, a town south of Naples on Italy's Tyrrhenian coast, was assassinated Sept. 6 next to his home in the fishing hamlet of Acciaroli. Angelo Vassallo, noted for his efforts to preserve the environment and for standing up to organized crime, was killed with nine lethal shots as he drove his car. Anti-mafia judge Raffaele Marino stressed that Vassallo paid for his stand on respect of the law.

An international day of action has been called for Sept. 17 to support Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov, two young anti-fascist activists arrested following a July 28 protest against the cutting of the Khimki Forest outside Moscow for a new Moscow-St. Petersburg toll highway, the first of its kind in Russia. Khimki town authorities and the highway project contractor have recruited nationalist thugs to break up a peaceful protest camp organized by environmentalists and local residents, and illegally arrested and beat up journalists covering the story. After the July protest in Khimki, in which some windows were broken, the FSB (former KGB) and its affiliated (and ironically named) Center for Extremism Prevention carried out a sweep of local anti-fascist youth, in which Gaskarov and Solopov were arrested. They face up to seven years in prison for disorderly conduct, although there is no evidence of their complicity in illegal activities.

A European Union summit opened in Brussels Sept. 16 amid continued tension over the French expulsion of Roma migrants and a threat to take Nicolas Sarkozy's government to the European Court of Justice. The EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, expressed regret for comparing French treatment of Roma with that of Jews during World War II, but insisted she was right to rebuke the French government.

Jonathan Evans, director of Britain's MI5 internal intelligence agency, said in a rare public speech Sept. 16 that attacks on the UK are increasingly likely to emanate from Somalia, Yemen or Belfast, as al-Qaeda-linked groups flee strongholds in Pakistan. The spy chief said the 2012 London Olympic Games will likely be a major target, and warned that dissidents who reject Northern Ireland's peace process could strike mainland British cities for the first time since 2001.

The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) strongly condemned weekend clashes between Albanians and Serbs in the divided town of Mitrovica, just days after the UN called for dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade. Several people, including one EULEX police officer, were injured during the unrest. "These acts of senseless hooliganism have no place in any democratic society and need to be condemned by all," EULEX head of mission Yves de Kermabon said Sept. 12. Returning from the UN Assembly in New York, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci insisted that the previous night's incident in Mitrovica does not jeopardize the creation of a multi-ethnic society in Kosova. KFOR commander Erhard Buhler said during a visit to Mitrovica that NATO-led troops will not tolerate violence in northern Kosova and will guarantee a safe environment for all.

The Criminal Chamber of Spain's Supreme Court unanimously confirmed on Sept. 7 a lower court finding that National Court judge Baltasar Garzón abused his power and must face trial. Garzón was charged in April for his attempt to investigate the war crimes allegedly committed under Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War—charges Garzón claims were politically motivated. The board of judges denied Garzón's appeal of the order, and he will now face trial later this year. The judges found that the witnesses called by Garzón will produce merely personal opinions and also determined that exhumation of 19 mass graves that Garzón ordered in 2008 was inappropriate. The ruling comes just days after an Argentine court reopened an investigation into Franco-era war crimes.