Europe

London's Metropolitan Police face a mounting crisis after revelations that their agents spied on environmental groups for years and then lied about it in court under oath. Top police officials ordered the agents to deceive the courts. Undercover agents had sex with activists, ran their organizations, provoked protests, and then helped get protestors arrested. The failure of many such prosecutions demonstrated the incompetence of the police effort in achieving its goals.

"PARIS — One person was killed and four were injured Monday afternoon in an explosion at a nuclear waste treatment site in southern France, according to the French Nuclear Safety Authority."

"BIBLIS, Germany — Not since the grim period after World War II has Germany had significant blackouts, but it is now bracing for that possibility after shutting down half its nuclear reactors practically overnight.

"The House of Lords has taken the unprecedented step of publishing a 'cease and desist' letter on its website demanding that Lord Christopher Monckton, a prominent climate sceptic and the UK Independence party's head of research, should stop claiming to be a member of the upper house."

"Thousands of demonstrators formed a human chain outside France's oldest nuclear power plant on Sunday to demand the site be closed as the government mulls whether to extend its life by a decade."

"Italians voted to abandon nuclear power for the foreseeable future, turning out in droves to cast ballots in a packet of referenda whose outcome is a sign of growing popular discontent toward Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government."