London
Was she murdered? One of Britain’s richest men has been arrested after his American wife was found dead. Hans Kristian Rausing, 49, whose grandfather founded the multibillion-dollar global food-packaging giant Tetra Pak, was arrested this week on drug charges after he was stopped for driving erratically. When police searched his home, they found the body of Eva Rausing, 48, who may have been dead for days, possibly of a drug overdose. Both Rausings had known drug problems: They met in rehab 25 years ago, and in 2008 Eva was arrested after being caught with crack and heroin in her purse as she tried to enter the U.S. Embassy. The charges were dropped.
London
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Protecting the Olympics: With two weeks to go before the start of the London Olympic Games, a security breach has raised questions about the effectiveness of the government’s massive anti-terror efforts. Suspected militants have been ordered to stay away from the Olympic Park, and at least nine have been fitted with GPS tags. But one of those subjected to round-the-clock monitoring, a man of Somali origin who is said to have sought terrorist training in Afghanistan, managed to ride a train through the park five times before being arrested. Some 13,000 soldiers—more than the U.K. has stationed in Afghanistan—are to be deployed during the games, along with some 20,000 private security guards. A warship will be moored in the Thames, fighter jets will patrol the skies, and surface-to-air missiles will be stationed on rooftops.
Oslo
Back to work: Norway’s government this week invoked emergency measures to order striking oil workers to return to their jobs. Workers in the country’s offshore fields are the highest paid in the global oil industry, working just four months of the year to earn an average of $180,000. They were striking for the right to retire with full pensions at age 62, five years earlier than Norway’s general retirement age. After two weeks without progress, the government ordered the unions into arbitration, and forbade any further work stoppages for two years. The strike cut Norway’s oil production by 13 percent, sending the international price to more than $101 a barrel. Norway is the world’s fifth-biggest oil exporter.
Bucharest, Romania
Impeaching the president: Romania has plunged into its worst political crisis since the 1989 overthrow of its Communist dictatorship. Parliament voted last week to impeach President Traian Basescu, archrival of Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Since he took office in May, the center-left Ponta has alarmed Basescu as well as most Western observers with his power grabs, including firing the parliamentary speakers and the government ombudsman and decreeing that the Constitutional Court can’t review the parliament’s decisions. The U.S. expressed concern that Romania was “threatening democratic checks and balances.” Romanian voters will have to confirm the impeachment in a referendum.
