Eurotopics.net

The recovery work after the severe earthquakes in Turkey and Syria continues. Europe's press comments on the first political repercussions of the disaster and speculates on those yet to come - not only, but also in the Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for May.

Polish-Belarusian journalist and activist Andrzej Poczobut was sentenced to eight years of hard labour in a penal colony on Wednesday by a court in Minsk. He has been in pre-trial detention since March 2021. The Gazeta Wyborcza correspondent was convicted on charges of endangering national security through his anti-government reporting. Poland's press is shaken.

Denmark, Finland and New Zealand occupy top slots in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published by NGO Transparency International. Somalia, Syria and South Sudan were ranked as the most apparently corrupt countries, while Turkey and Hungary dropped several notches. The index is compiled with the help of expert assessments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to mark the Orthodox Christmas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, has refused to give the order for his troops to stop firing, saying that the Russians just want to use Christmas as a pretext to stop the Ukrainian advance in Donbass. The press is also suspicious.