The world at a glance . . . Europe

Stockholm

Nukes revisited: Sweden this week reversed its longstanding energy policy and announced it would build new nuclear power plants. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt reached a deal with the leaders of the three other parties in his center-right government to replace the country’s 10 aging nuclear power plants, which provide half the country’s energy, over the next few decades. Following a 1980 referendum, nuclear power was to be phased out once the existing plants were too old to operate. But Reinfeldt said that if Sweden wanted to achieve its goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 40 percent by 2020, it would need nuclear power. In recent years, Italy, Switzerland, and Britain also have announced plans for new nuclear plants, leaving Germany as the only major European country still committed to phasing out nuclear power.

Udine, Italy

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Passionate debate on right to die: A comatose woman whose right-to-die case has divided Italy died this week. Eluana Englaro, 37, had been in a vegetative state since 1992, when she suffered irreversible brain damage in a car crash. Her father had long fought to have her feeding tube removed, which Italy’s highest court finally allowed this year. Even as she was dying this week, Italian lawmakers were frantically trying to pass legislation that would have required doctors to replace the tube. When parliament was informed that Englaro had died, conservative senators shouted, “Murderers!” They vowed to rewrite the law. “There’s a will to urgently agree on end-of-life legislation,” said Health Minister Maurizio Sacconi.