Eurotopics.net

The execution of Iranian opposition journalist Ruhollah Zam has sparked international outrage. Zam had been living in France as a fugitive since 2009, but was lured back to Iraq last year and kidnapped there, according to media reports. He was sentenced in June and hanged near Tehran on Saturday. Europe's press also discusses the future of the nuclear deal against this backdrop.

Pointing out that fewer and fewer people read newspapers, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen informed the country of the planned measures to combat the Covid pandemic via Facebook. The Danish press sees this as an attempt to avoid uncomfortable questions.

The final hurdles to the implementation of the EU's 1.8 trillion euro budget for the next seven years and the disbursement of the coronavirus recovery fund have been cleared. There was a fierce struggle over the recovery fund in the summer and then the budget was blocked by a weeks-long dispute with Hungary and Poland over the new rule of law mechanism. Now a compromise has been reached at this week's EU summit. Commentators breathe a sigh of relief.

The US consumer protection agency FTC and 46 US state prosecutors are taking legal action to break up Facebook on the grounds that the social network's market position is too dominant and stifles competition. They say the company should sell Instagram and Whatsapp and facilitate access to its programming interfaces and data, and that future acquisitions must subject to advance scrutiny by competition authorities. Not all observers feel the action is justified.