Czech Green Party MP Olga Zubová wrote an open letter to US President-elect Barack Obama, asking him to review the US commitment to the planned military radar base on Czech soil for the proposed "missile shield." "For the Czech Republic you as the new president of the United States are bringing hope to three quarters of the Czech population who, in recent polls, have repeatedly stated their disagreement with the intended bilateral missile denfence treaty to station the radar base on Czech soil, which is to be ratified in the near future by Czech parliament," says Zubová in her letter.

On Nov. 11, Poland's Independence Day, the extreme right group National Radical Camp (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny-ONR) marched in Warsaw, in its second public show of strength this year. ONR also marched in June to commemorate the 1936 anti-Jewish pogrom in Myslenic. Warsaw anti-fascists mobilized to oppose the Independence Day march, launching a 150-strong blockade of the street, with banners reading: "NO PASARAN" and "WARSAW FREE OF FASCISTS." Police brought out a helicopter and a water gun to break the blockade. Protected by the police, the ONR continued their march on a different route. Nobody was arrested, but police took the ID of the anti-fas surrounded by the cordon. (Centrum Informacji Anarchistycnej-CIA, Nov. 11)

On the morning of Nov. 11, some 150 French police—including elite anti-terrorist forces—raided a farm at Tarnac in the Millevaches plateau and arrested nine young people, who ran the local grocery store. Four days later, the nine were sent before an anti-terrorist judge and accused of "criminal conspiracy with terrorist intentions." The newspapers reported that the nine "were tracked by the police because they belonged to the ultra-left and the anarcho-autonomous milieu."

The Czech Republic's Prima TV is claiming evidence that members of the security forces took part in an attempted attack on the Roma ghetto in the town of Litvinov last week. Some 500 black-masked protesters shouting racist slogans marched Nov. 17 in the town in the country's northern rust belt where unemployment is at 12%, double the national average. Organized by the nationalist Czech Workers Party, the marchers threw cobblestones and petrol bombs at police, who fought back with teargas and mounted charges. Fourteen people were injured.

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)