EXTRADITE

Prosecutors in Moscow have requested the extradition of the Russian man accused of forcing a plane to make an emergency landing at Prague’s airport Dec. 28. Yevgeni Dogayev, 32, disrupted the Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Geneva, by attempting to enter the cockpit and making a bomb threat, Czech police said. Dogayev could face up to three years in prison.

Former President Václav Havel supports U.S. plans to build a radar base on Czech territory as part of its missile defense shield. In an article written for the Feb. 6 issue of daily Právo, Havel rejected the opposition’s call for a referendum on the subject. The United States asked the Czech government Jan. 19 to host the base in the Brdy military zone 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Prague.

Czech police should hold off on a planned labor protest until all channels of negotiation have been exhausted, the president of the European police confederation said Feb. 5. Police fear a new labor law will lower their salaries and have been planning a protest for Feb. 15. The Czech police union has also spoken out against the protest.

A 22-year-old police officer has been fired and charged after he confessed to selling photos of the body of popular composer Karel Svoboda. Svoboda, 68, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Jan. 28. The tabloid Blesk bought the crime-scene photos for a reported 10,000 Kč ($460) but did not run them. Aleš Sobotka faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

Ownership of the contents of Brno’s Vila Tugendhat was transferred back to the family Jan. 30. Brno’s deputy mayor favors involving the original owner’s heirs in preserving the villa’s heritage. The Mies van der Rohe house, a UNESCO world heritage site, was seized from the Jewish Tugendhat family and used by the Gestapo in 1940.

UK

Russia and Japan have banned imports of British turkey and European poultry farmers are keeping a closer eye on their flocks as the UK presses ahead with a cull of 160,000 turkeys at a farm where a deadly strain of avian flu was discovered Feb. 2. The owner of the farm in Suffolk county, southeast England, is Europe’s largest turkey producer. The source of the outbreak has not yet been confirmed, officials said Feb. 5.

Six people were found bound and shot dead in a Chinese restaurant in northern Germany Feb. 5, police said. The bodies of three men and three women were found in various rooms throughout the restaurant in the town of Sittensen, near Hamburg. A seventh restaurant employee is being treated in hospital for a life-threatening gunshot wound. A child was also found at the scene, but was uninjured.

Forty-five countries immediately backed France’s Feb. 3 bid to form a worldwide coalition, possibly with policing powers, to fight global warming and climate change. The charge, led by President Jacques Chirac, came a day after a report from a Paris environmental convention said human actions are “very likely” to blame for global warming. Absent from the initiative are industry heavyweights China, India and the United States.

Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski resigned Feb. 5, reportedly over a dispute with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. According to reports in Polish media, the two men disagreed over Kaczynski’s appointment of a political ally as head of the counter-intelligence agency. The resignation comes as Poland prepares to enter talks with the United States over controversial plans to station a U.S. missile defense base in the country.

Prosecutors filed fresh embezzlement and money laundering charges Feb. 5 against oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been serving an eight-year prison sentence for similar charges since 2003. His lawyers released a statement charging the Kremlin with conspiring to keep him in jail beyond the March 2008 presidential elections. Both he and his business partner will be eligible for parole this year. Khodorkovsky angered President Vladimir Putin by funding opposition parties before the 2003 elections.

Thousands attended the Feb. 5 funeral of a policeman killed in a Feb. 2 riot at a soccer stadium in Catania, Sicily. Filippo Raciti, 38, died after being hit with a blunt object, an autopsy revealed. In a message of condolence, Pope Benedict XVI condemned the death, which he said “stains the world of soccer.” A further 70 people were injured.

A postal worker was injured after a letter bomb exploded in London Feb. 5. The bomb went off in a central London post office just 183 meters from the headquarters of Scotland Yard. The worker suffered only minor injuries. Police are investigating to determine who is responsible for the blast.