These days, the badger has taken over fox hunting as the bone of contention in Britain. British authorities have given the go-ahead for a large-scale cull of badgers as part of the effort to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis. Scientists and animal rights activists vigorously oppose the cull.
A new wave of resistance to Ukraine's authoritarian President Viktor Yanukovych is gathering momentum. Artists, house squatters and dissidents have joined forces to form a new anti-government movement.
The British government has postponed the decision for badgers to be culled as part of measures to protect cattle from bovine tuberculosis. Badgers are made responsible for the transmission of the disease and as many as 100,000 badgers could be culled.
Every year, dairy farmers in Gloucestershire and Somersethave have to slaughter thousands of cows for bovine TB control. Although badgers are a protected species, Conservative Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has given the go-ahead for the cull. But the cull has angered animal rights activists as well as many British scientists. Their protests led to the postponement of the cull to the summer of 2013.
Staphorst in the Netherlands is the heartland of Dutch Calvinists. Their principles have barely changed in centuries.
Five years ago, the barriers were removed from the border between Poland and Germany and the result was a substantial decrease in tailbacks. Even so, locals in Brandenburg are called for a resumption of border controls.
The reason is that theft has been on the rise since the border came down. Last year alone, farming equipment worth several million euros was stolen. Poland appears to be a transit country, with tractors stolen in Germany then transported via Poland to Eastern Europe. German and Polish authorities are joining forces to tackle the problem.