Fake porn fines hit thousands of Swedes

http://www.thelocal.se/43102/20120908/

The police suspect people in Sweden, Switzerland and Lichtenstein are responsible for the fraud, reported Swedish national television SVT.

To one of the accounts that the police have traced, at least 1,500 and perhaps as many as 3,000 Swedes have paid the fake fines, thereby earning the suspects millions of kronor.

“Heaps of these fines have been sent out and a lot of people have been paying them,” said the Stockholm police force’s fraud expert Jan Olsson to SVT.

The letters that were sent out to thousands of Swedes at the end of summer stated that the recipient had downloaded pornography and that the action had been traced. In order to avoid charges being pressed, the fake letters stated, the person would have to pay a sum, between a few hundred kronor (100 kronor = $15) and several thousand kronor.

According to the police, few police reports have been filed, and the hidden cases are believed to be numerous.

China's thirst for wine boosts European producers

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/business/wine-exports-china/index.html?hpt=ieu_c2

China's thirst for fine wines is buoying European producers as domestic consumption dries up.

As the eurozone debt crisis squeezes household spending, Europeans have less to splurge on life's little pleasures, and wine producers have felt the pinch. Exporters are now looking to new markets like China -- home to 1.3 billion people -- to boost sales.

Richard Halstead, co-founder of Wine Intelligence, a consultancy on wine branding, says that China is a huge growth market for producers and there is a scramble for quality European brands.

"China represents effectively the biggest growth prospect that the wine industry has had probably for a generation," said Halstead.

Plan for crematorium next to Nazi concentration camp in Poland provoke outrage

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/9523105/Plan-for-crematorium-next-to-Nazi-concentration-camp-in-Poland-provoke-outrage.html

Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors had reacted with fury to the proposal by a funeral company to build a crematorium next to Majdanek, which claimed perhaps as many as 300,000 lives, with many of the victims’ remains incinerated in seven ovens.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the New-York based Jewish organisation the Anti-Defamation League, and Holocaust survivor, described the plans by the company Styks as “reprehensible” and “outrageously insensitive”, and urged local authorities to halt the development.

Majorca tragedy: British father and son drown

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/spain/majorca/9515416/Majorca-tragedy-British-father-and-son-drown.html

Louis Selby died along with his father, 27, as his mother and brothers watched on from the shore.

Mr Selby reportedly went into the water after the young boy was caught by a wave as he was standing on steps cut into the rocks overlooking a small deserted cove called Cala Antena.

The boy's mother alerted lifeguards from a nearby hotel but they were unable to save them.

According to reports, Mr Selby had been taking photographs of his son by the rocks shortly before he was swept away at around 11am yesterday.

Coastguards had put out a red flag to warn visitors not to enter the sea at the time.

Grenade Blast Wounds 37 Watching Philippine Circus

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/grenade-blast-wounds-37-watching-philippine-circus-17136833

Police say a grenade attack on an army outpost in the southern Philippines has wounded at least 37 people who were watching a nearby circus performance.

Police Senior Inspector Romeo Abler says a man hurled the grenade toward the outpost but it hit a protective net and bounced toward dozens of villagers watching a nearby circus late Saturday in Paquibato district in Davao city's rural outskirts.

Abler told The Associated Press by telephone on Sunday that 37 villagers were wounded by the powerful blast and a stampede that followed. At least three were in serious condition in a hospital.

Germany slams France over fuel tax cut

http://www.france24.com/en/20120830-germany-round-french-fuel-tax-cut-hollande-petrol-diesel-unemployment-75%25-tax

France’s Socialist government has come under a broadside of criticism in Germany for artificially lowering the cost of petrol and diesel at the pump.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici announced Tuesday that the government and oil firms had agreed to split the burden of a six-euro-cent cut per litre for petrol and diesel over the next three months.

Paris insists that this temporary measure has been put in place to give the government time to work out a long-term strategy to keep the cost of fuel down.

And despite polls showing 78% of Germans favour a similar intervention, the German government and the press wholeheartedly rejected copying the French initiative.

“We do not believe that cutting taxes will have a lasting effect on reducing the price of fuel,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday, adding that any positive impact on the French economy from the measure would be “very short term”.

“Lowering the cost of fuel is not the government’s job,” Seibert said.

Coca-Cola denies 'cracking' North Korea

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9511235/Coca-Cola-denies-cracking-North-Korea.html

In video clips posted recently on YouTube, foreign tourists dining at a new pizza restaurant set up in Pyongyang by Corital, a joint venture between North Korea and Italy, filmed their meal and being served Coca-Cola.

Diners at the company's chain of three restaurants in the city, however, are being told that the drink poured from the unmistakable red-and-white cans is not actually from the United States, which is still regarded as the arch-enemy and usually described in state media as "sabre-rattling imperialists."

Instead, they are told, it is "Italian Coke."