BELARUS
Opposition leader gets five years for protests
MINSK | Belarus has jailed opposition leader Andrei Sannikov for five years on charges of organizing protests after the disputed re-election of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Mr. Sannikov, 57, is the most prominent figure in a series of trials of opposition figures arrested after the Dec. 19 elections, which Mr. Lukashenko, often called Europe’s “last dictator,” swept with almost 80 percent of the vote.
Amid highly emotional scenes, four other defendants - the youngest only 19 - were given sentences of up to 3 1/2 years in the same trial over the weekend.
SWITZERLAND
Zurich voters reject ban on “suicide tourism”
ZURICH | Voters in the Swiss city of Zurich rejected on Sunday two proposed bans on assisted suicide and “suicide tourism” involving foreigners who travel to Switzerland to receive help ending their lives.
Early projections showed voters defeated both initiatives in local referendums by about 80 percent, Swiss news agency SDA reported. About 200 people commit assisted suicide each year in Zurich.
Assisted suicide has been allowed in Switzerland since 1941, if performed by a non-physician who has no vested interest in the death.
UNITED KINGDOM
Scottish independence more popular in England, Wales
LONDON | Proposals for Scottish independence get stronger support in the rest of Britain than they do in Scotland itself, a new poll shows.
Only 29 percent of Scottish adults back independence, according to a YouGov poll published in the tabloid Sun newspaper. That compares with 41 percent of adults in England and Wales who said they believed Scotland should be independent.
The Scottish National Party, which supports independence, won a majority in the Scottish Parliament for the first time in an election last week and has pledged to hold a referendum in Scotland within the next five years on breaking away from the United Kingdom.
ITALY
Local elections seen as key test for Berlusconi
ROME | Italians voted Sunday on the first day of local elections with all eyes on the northern business hub of Milan, a center-right stronghold of embattled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The vote Sunday and Monday is a last major test of Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity before his term runs out in 2013. The election comes as the flamboyant Italian leader is embroiled in legal and sex scandals.
The conservative incumbent in Milan, Letizia Moratti, is expected to retain her post, but polls show she might not win outright in the first round and could be forced into a runoff vote at the end of the month.
Some 13 million of Italy’s 49 million-strong voters are eligible to cast ballots, with weak growth and unemployment as well as local issues uppermost in their minds.
VATICAN
Pope following Libyan war ’with great apprehension’
Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday he is following the conflict in Libya “with great apprehension” and called for negotiations to end the violence.
“I continue to follow with great apprehension the tragic armed conflict in Libya that has caused a large number of victims and suffering, especially in the civilian population,” the pope said after his weekly prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“I renew a pressing appeal that the voice of negotiations and dialogue be stronger than that of violence, with the help of international organizations that are looking for a solution to the crisis,” the pontiff added.
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