Eurotopics.net

Several events were held in Brussels on Monday to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attacks of 22 March 2016. The suicide bombings at Brussels airport and the Maelbeek metro station, which IS admitted to carrying out, killed 32 people and injured 340. The trials of the suspects who survived are scheduled to begin in September.

A women's football player has sparked a major Metoo debate after making public that she was lured into a sexual relationship that started when she was 14 and went on for several years by her then 52-year-old coach Getúlio Aurelio Fredo. Observers are sceptical as to whether raising the age of consent from 14 to 16, as is now under discussion, can solve the problem.

Yet another Russian regional governor has been arrested on charges of corruption. According to the investigators, Ivan Belozertsev, governor of Penza Oblast in the west of the country, is suspected of taking millions in bribes from the pharmaceutical industry. Belozertsev, who represents the Kremlin party United Russia, had just been re-elected in 2020.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's leading diplomat Yang Jiechi exchanged blows before rolling cameras at their first meeting last Thursday. Blinken accused Beijing of endangering global stability, while Yang blamed Washington for interfering in China's internal affairs. Europe's press says the new US administration has made its future course clear. Commentators speculate on how Europe will respond.

Politicians and human rights organisations inside and outside Turkey are voicing fierce criticism after Turkey pulled out of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against Women at the weekend. The EU's foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell has called on Ankara to reverse the decision. Withdrawing from the 2011 convention sends a dangerous message to the world, he warned. Europe's press is also up in arms.