Britain: No End to the Flood Warnings - In parts of Britain it just hasn't stopped raining. Entire regions in the south of the country have been under water for weeks. The flood victims blame the government in part for the situation, because in the past few years it's successively cut flood defense spending. The county of Somerset looks like a huge lake. Heavy rain on already saturated ground caused river levels in the Somerset Levels to rise by meters. Entire villages have had to be evacuated. The army has been deployed to lay out sandbags in order to hold back at least some of the water. The government is now considering applying for money from the EU's solidarity fund. The long delay in doing so is said to have its roots in domestic politics. Time and again British politicians have called UK membership in the EU into question. Bosnia-Hercegovina: Uprising of the Unemployed - In Bosnia, for the first time is years, tens of thousands of people have demonstrated against their political leadership. They hold it responsible for the high unemployment levels and impoverishment in the country. The protests were sparked when several formerly state-run companies were closed. In Tuzla, Sarajevo and Mostar, demonstrators clashed with police. Hundreds of people were injured. Since the end of the Bosnian War nearly 20 years ago, the country has been in political crisis. The reason is the ongoing dispute between the Muslim Bosnians, Orthodox Serbs and Roman Catholic Croats - and a complicated state structure that was supposed to please all ethnicities. Calls for changes to the constitution are growing louder. France: Rock Bottom - No more deep sea fishing? French trawlers drag their nets over the ocean floor, endangering the unique cold water coral reefs in the Atlantic. Public pressure is growing keep fishing confined to coastal areas. Overfishing has led fishermen to move to the high seas. According to the United Nations, these deep-sea areas are highly vulnerable ecosystems, with their unique biodiversity and slow life cycles. Spanish, Portuguese and French deep-sea fishers in particular still use old-fashioned methods such as bottom trawling. The haul from the ocean depths is only a fraction of the catch, but environmentalists say its impact is dramatic. Poland: In the Light Maze (Series: Europe by Night) - Every winter in Poland, one of Europe's loveliest palaces and its park transform themselves into an enchanted realm. Hundreds of thousands of Poles watch the spectacle. Because the country is quite far to the east in the Central European time zone, it's already dark in the afternoon. 150,000 lights illuminate Wilanow Palace. In its 300-year history, the palace has seen a lot, including the lavish summer fetes of King Augustus the Strong, the partitions of Poland, two World Wars and communism. Now it is being renovated, but at peresent the real attraction is in the palace park: a huge maze of lights.
