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Horsemeat scandal spirals across Europe
A scandal over horsemeat found in frozen beef products is spiraling across Europe as several governments launch investigations and a company involved says it has determined who "the villain" is.
The police probes and legal maneuvers responding to the discovery are quickly becoming a tangled web - much like the complex supply chain of the meat products themselves.
Swedish food producer Findus has been a focus of the uproar since it announced Thursday that it had withdrawn its lasagna from UK stores as a precaution. The products were pulled Monday after French supplier Comigel raised concerns about the type of meat that was used, Findus Sweden said.
But Findus is only one of several companies that receives products from Comigel. Others inculde Axfood, Coop, and ICA, all of which announced they have pulled certain meat products from the shelves due to the possibility they contain horsemeat.
Comigel has not responded to CNN's repeated requests for comment.
FULL STORYReport: Police probe death at Swedish prime minister's residence
One person has died in an incident at the official residence of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in Stockholm, Sweden's state news agency reported Friday.
Police are describing the incident as "an accident," the news agency said. Investigations are continuing into the circumstances of the death.
Reinfeldt was not at the residence at the time, according to Swedish media reports
U.S. Embassy in Stockholm evacuated after suspicious envelope found
[Updated at 8:35 a.m. ET] The all-clear has now been given and staffers have begun to return to the building, CNN affiliate TV4 said.
[Posted at 7:32 a.m. ET] The U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, was evacuated Wednesday after the discovery of a suspicious envelope with white powder inside, Stockholm police said.
Police are moving the envelope to a secure location for examination, Stockholm police spokesman Albin Navery said.
CNN's Saskya Vandoorne contributed to this report.
Foul-mouthed Bieber-hating mother takes over @Sweden
Sweden's tourist board decided to try to drum up interest in the country recently by handing control of the national Twitter account to a different Swedish citizen every week.
They got what they wanted.
In fact, this week, they may have gotten more than they wanted.
The current curator of @Sweden is a foul-mouthed mother of two who has tweeted photos of herself breastfeeding and of a dish she called strawberries with milk and urine. She's also made a joke about Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury having AIDS, the disease that led to his death.
Swedish journalists receive 11 years in jail
Two Swedish journalists who were found guilty in Ethiopia of supporting terrorism were sentenced to 11 years in jail Tuesday, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said.
"Our belief was that the court would think they were journalists and they would be released. This is what the prime minister has said before," ministry spokesman Anders Jörle said. "It is not fair that they are sentenced since they are journalists on a journalistic mission."
"They are innocent and have been convicted because of their journalistic work," said Tomas Olsson, the journalists' Swedish attorney. "We are very disappointed."
A court convicted Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye last week.
FULL STORYAssange loses extradition fight
WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange lost a court battle to stay in the United Kingdom Wednesday and will be extradited to Sweden to face questioning over sex charges, a court ruled.
Appeals court judges Lord Justice John Thomas and Justice Duncan Ouseley rejected all four of the arguments Assange's defense team used to fight the extradition.
They will hold another hearing later this month to determine whether he can appeal.
Assange, who has been under house arrest for nearly a year while waiting to find out the results, said Wednesday he will now consider his next steps.
FULL STORY
Kitchen nuclear reactor a no-no. Who knew?
Note to self: When building a nuclear reactor in the kitchen, don't ask nuclear regulatory authorities for advice.
A 31-year-old man in Angelholm, Sweden, was detained after police learned he was trying to build a device to split atoms in his apartment, the news site The Local reported. He was later released.
The man had mail-ordered radioactive waste from overseas and had procured some on his own by dismantling home smoke detectors, according to an interview in the local Helsingborgs Dagblad newspaper.
Just to be on the safe side, the man decided to write to the Swedish Radiation Authority to make sure his hobby was legal, he told Helsingborgs Dagblad. Authorities there told him they would send someone out to measure radiation levels in the kitchen.
"When they came, they had the police with them," he told the newspaper.
Led by U.S., world military spending rises 1.3%
The world's governments shelled out $1.63 trillion in military spending last year, a 1.3% increase over 2009, according to a Swedish institute.
The United States accounted for nearly all of the increase, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute noted sharp increases by South American and African countries as well.
By virtually every measure, U.S. military spending, which rose 2.8%, leaves every other nation in the dust. The $698 billion it spent accounted for 43% of all the military spending in the world and was six times the amount expended by the No. 2 country, China. Military spending amounted to 4.8% of U.S. gross domestic product, compared to the world average of 2.6%.
American detained in North Korea, State Department officials say
An American man has been detained by North Korean authorities, two State Department officials told CNN.
The State Department is working with the Swedish Embassy in Pyongang, the North Korean capital, the officials said. The Swedes have been granted consular access to the man and have visited him, the officials said. The Swedes are asking for regular visits, the officials said.
Sweden represents America's interests in North Korea because the United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations.
The sources declined to provide additional information because of privacy concerns.
FULL STORYAssange's lawyers want Swedish prosecutor to testify
Lawyers for Julian Assange wrapped up their case against his extradition to Sweden on Tuesday and challenged a Swedish prosecutor to "come to London" to defend her handling of the sexual misconduct allegations facing the WikiLeaks founder.
"Today, we have seen a Hamlet without the princess - a prosecutor who has been ready to feed the media within information, but has been unwilling to come here," Assange attorney Mark Stephens told reporters outside a south London courtroom. Stephens called on Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to attend the extradition hearing when it resumes Friday and "subject yourself to the cross-examination."
Assange has not been charged with a crime, but Swedish prosecutors want to question him in connection with sexual misconduct allegations related to separate incidents last August. Assange denies the accusations, and his attorneys are fighting his extradition on procedural and human-rights grounds.
FULL STORY
Assange lawyers raise specter of Guantanamo Bay
A two-day extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange opened Monday in a London court, where celebrities watched as Assange's lawyers argued against his transfer to Sweden.
Assange has not been charged with a crime, but Swedish prosecutors want to question him in connection with sexual misconduct allegations related to separate incidents last August.
His lawyers argue Assange could ultimately end up at Guantanamo Bay or be executed if he is extradited to Sweden, according to papers they released Monday.
While the sexual misconduct allegations are apparently unrelated to Assange's role as head of the WikiLeaks site, his lawyers say Sweden could send him to the United States to face espionage charges related to the site's disclosure of thousands of secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents.
FULL STORY
Sweden appealing magistrate's decision to grant Assange bail
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Tuesday after a hearing at Westminster Magistrate's Court in London, but a lawyer representing Swedish prosecutors immediately filed an appeal.
That means Assange will remain in jail for another 48 hours, until the next hearing.
The magistrate agreed to grant bail Tuesday after Assange's team of attorneys reported that Vaughan Smith, a former British army officer who founded London's Frontline Club, had offered his mansion in Suffolk to Assange.
FULL STORY
Swedish officials condemn 'terrorism' blasts in shopping district
A pair of explosions in central Stockholm, Sweden, was "an act of terrorism," a Swedish police official said Sunday.
Two explosions occurred within minutes of each other Saturday in the district full of Christmas shoppers, Swedish authorities said.
A Swedish news agency and police said they received e-mailed threats 10 minutes before the explosions, which killed one person and injured two others.
Ex-staffers creating WikiLeaks spinoff site
Several of Julian Assange's ex-colleagues say they're launching a WikiLeaks-like site called OpenLeaks next week.
According to Forbes columnist Andy Greenberg, leakers will be able to submit information to the site, but the site won't publish it. Instead, the leakers will name who - such as specific media organizations or watchdog groups - can have access to the information, Forbes reported. Those users will make their own decisions about fact-checking, editing and publishing.
That will allow the exposure of the information without the same legal questions that WikiLeaks faces, one of OpenLeaks' founders, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, told Forbes.
Officials: Swedish prosecution authority's site hacked
The Swedish prosecution authority's website was attacked, officials said Wednesday, a day after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in the United Kingdom on a Swedish warrant.
Prosecutors did not say who they thought was behind the apparent denial-of-service attack, which has been reported to the police, they said.
The website is working again, and no other systems have been affected, the statement said.
Tuesday's intriguing people
Navi Pillay
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights says she has a good reason for not attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Friday’s ceremony coincides with Human Rights Day, and Pillay is scheduled to host a meeting with human rights defenders in Switzerland, spokesman Richard Colville told Foreign Policy.
Yang Jianli, another Chinese dissident who represents Liu before the Nobel committee, isn’t buying it. He called Pillay's decision not to attend “a clear and unequivocal abdication of her responsibilities as high commissioner.”
He also blasted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for failing to raise Liu’s case when he met with Chinese President Hu Jintao shortly after the Nobel committee’s announcement.
Though Yang claims that the U.N. is buckling to pressure from China, Colville said Pillay – a South African lawyer who got her start defending opponents of apartheid – simply couldn’t bow out of the Swiss event.
According to BBC, 19 countries including China will not attend the ceremony in Oslo, Norway. Forty-four will attend.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu told the BBC that China would not change because of “interference by a few clowns.”
China has mounted a campaign to dissuade nations from attending the ceremony and said through its state-run media that 100 countries back its stance. Xinhua further cited a professor as saying that Liu was a “Chinese criminal [who] challenged China’s judicial authority and interfered in China’s internal affairs."
The Nobel Committee, of course, sees it differently and applauds Liu’s calls for multi-party democracy and human rights reforms.
In other developments this week: Liu’s lawyers said they were prevented from appealing their client’s charges; they say they were also prevented from visiting Liu’s wife, who has been under house arrest since the Nobel announcement; and an Australian-based Chinese dissident was detained in Shanghai en route to Oslo, The Australian reported.
Assange ordered to jail while court decides on extradition
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sent to jail Tuesday while a London court decides whether to order his extradition to Sweden.
The judge at the City of Westminster Magistrate's Court refused to grant Assange bail, despite several celebrities coming forward and offering to pay his surety.
Assange, who was in court with security guards on either side of him and his lawyer in front, must now stay in custody until December 14. It was not immediately clear if the court would decide on that date whether to release him.
Assange making arrangements to meet police, lawyer says
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is "in the process of making arrangements" to meet with British police regarding a Swedish arrest warrant, his attorney said Monday.
Assange is wanted for questioning by Swedish authorities over sex-crime allegations unrelated to WikiLeaks' recent disclosure of secret U.S. documents. Mark Stephens, his British lawyer, told the BBC no time had been set for the meeting as of Monday evening, but one is likely "in the foreseeable future."
"We are in the process of making arrangements to meet with the police by consent in order to facilitate the taking of that question-and-answer as needed," Stephens said.
Holder: 'Significant' actions taken in WikiLeaks investigation
Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that he has authorized "significant" actions related to the criminal investigation of WikiLeaks as the website faces increasing pressure worldwide for publishing sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables.
"National security of the United States has been put at risk," Holder said. "The lives of people who work for the American people have been put at risk. The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way. We are doing everything that we can."
His comments came as a Swiss bank announced that it had closed the account of Julian Assange, the website's founder, dealing a second financial blow to the site in a matter of days.
WikiLeaks founder Assange suspected of sex crimes
Interpol has issued an international warrant at the request of a Swedish court for the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in connection with alleged sex crimes.
The Stockholm Criminal Court last week issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on probable cause, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force. Sweden asked Interpol to post a "Red Notice" after a judge approved a motion to bring him into custody.
The arrest warrant stems from allegations made against Assange, who is Australian, in August. In a November, Assange's lawyer said the sex-crime charges stem from consensual sexual relationships his client had with two women.
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