The week at a glance...Europe

Sgurr Choinnich Mor, U.K.

Highlands tumbler: A Scottish mountain climber has survived a 1,000-foot plunge down a mountain. Adam Potter was hiking with three friends in the Scottish Highlands when he slipped and hurtled over the edge of Sgurr Choinnich Mor, bouncing down three craggy ledges before slamming onto a rock. “It just went on and on and on, over the cliff, slipping, some more tumbling, then over a cliff,” he told the Glasgow Herald. Knocked unconscious only briefly, Potter stood up and began consulting his map, prompting a rescue helicopter to initially pass over him, assuming he must not be the hiker who fell. Potter, who sustained scrapes, a few bruises, and some cracked vertebrae, wants to tackle Mount Everest next. “I’ve had worse cuts shaving,” he said.

Amsterdam

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Anger at Iran: The Netherlands froze diplomatic ties with Iran this week after Iran hanged a Dutch woman. Zahra Bahrami, 45, an Iranian-born naturalized Dutch citizen, was arrested at an anti-government protest in Tehran while visiting relatives in December 2009. Later charged with drug trafficking, she was executed last week. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal called the hanging a “barbaric act” and said the Iranians had misled him about the progress of the case against Bahrami. Iran’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Gharib Abadi, said that since Iran does not recognize dual nationality, it was not legally required to consider Dutch concerns in the case.

Oslo

Norwegian of the Year deported: Norway has arrested and deported a Russian immigrant who went there as a child and wrote a best-seller about being an illegal alien. In Illegally Norwegian, Madina Salamova, using the pseudonym Maria Amelie, describes fleeing the Caucasus as a child and going underground in Norway with her parents after their asylum bid was rejected in Finland. Her story won hearts across the country, and she was named “Norwegian of the Year” for 2010 by Ny Tid magazine. Still, despite her celebrity status, she was shipped to Moscow last week, where she hopes to get a work visa to return to Norway. Most European countries give amnesty to illegal immigrants brought by their parents and raised in Europe; Norway does not. “We must handle individuals equally and not give them special treatment just because somebody receives a lot of attention,” said Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Minsk, Belarus

Travel ban: The U.S. and the European Union froze the assets of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and 155 of his top officials and banned them from entry as punishment for a crackdown on the opposition in December. Tens of thousands of Belarusians had protested after Lukashenko was re-elected in a vote international observers said was rigged. Hundreds of the protesters, including top opposition leaders, were arrested and beaten. The former Soviet republic of Belarus, where Lukashenko has ruled since 1994, is widely considered to be Europe’s last dictatorship. The Foreign Ministry of Russia, the country’s key ally, said the Western sanctions were “counterproductive.”