Today's front pages

Published on 10 August 2012 at 10:00

In the past they were thought of as poor relations, but the Norwegians are now wealthier than the Danes. What’s more, points out the daily, “they live longer, they have have hardly any unemployment, and they have nice cars. They have become the rich relatives” and, thanks to their more flexible immigration policy, “in 14 years time, they will outnumber us.”

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Norway no longer Denmark’s awkward little brother – Jyllands-Posten

Vienna’s prosecutor wants the former interior minister Ernst Strasser to stand trial for corruption. In 2010, when he was an MEP, Strasser accepted 100,000 euros from covert Sunday Times journalists acting as lobbyists. In exchange he started an unsuccessful call for an amendment to an EU draft bill within his party (ÖVP, conservative). A conviction is not certain, as the case must still to prove that Strasser acted “contrary to his duty”.

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Strasser-prosecution rests on shaky foundations – Die Presse

France’s constitutional council has ruled that the country’s constitution will not need to be altered ahead of the introduction of the “golden rule” to limit budget deficits. Imposed by the European fiscal compact, the rule sets the ceiling for budget deficits at 0.5% of GDP. A bill to authorise the ratification of the fiscal compact will be presented at the end of August.

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Golden Rule: a law will suffice – Libération

An Afghan man who lost five relatives in a US missile strike in Afghanistan has launched a legal case to challenge the UK’s Ministry of Defence and part of the police force for their role in sharing information with American troops, who are putting together a “kill list” of targeted insurgents and drug traffickers.

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Britain faces legal challenge over secret US 'kill list' in Afghanistan – The Guardian

In its monthly bulletin released on Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) said that the “increasing uncertainty” created by the European debt crisis puts Italian firms at particular risk of insolvency. The ECB also said it was ready to use non-conventional intervention mechanisms, urged governments to ask for help from the EFSF and ESM bailout funds and reasserted that the “euro is irreversible”.

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ECB’s fears for Italy – Corriere della Sera

The reductions will be caused by cuts in public wages and by the labour reform law passed earlier this year, which, according to the ECB, would have saved a lot of people from unemployment had it been passed sooner.

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The ECB forecasts new wage drops in Spain – La Vanguardia

Marcin Plichta, president of the quasi-bank and investment company, Amber Gold, had received six suspended sentences for fraud between 2005 and 2009 before he registered his company with a court. The daily wonders why he was not sent to jail despite the fact that some of the convictions occurred while his previous sentences were on suspension, in breach of the law. Amber Gold ran into trouble when its subsidiary OLT Express airlines went bankrupt in July and the company has not been able to pay back deposits provided by clients.

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Guilty six times – Gazeta Wyborcza

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