THE visit to the Dublin coast of an exotic creature from the Arctic ended in tragedy recently.

Renewed uncertainty over Europe’s ability to deal with its spawning debt crisis following elections in Greece and France hammered stock markets today, with the main exchange in Athens down a massive 8%.

AN E COLI outbreak linked to contaminated cucumbers that has killed 14 people and made more than 300 seriously ill in Germany has spread to other north European countries and is expected to worsen in the coming week.

GERMANY has warned that the source of an outbreak of bacteria poisoning blamed for 10 deaths and hundreds of people falling ill, some in other countries, has yet to be pinpointed.

Thousands of German farms closed by a poison feed scare were allowed to reopen today.

Ryanair today responded to this latest appeal by Air Berlin against Ryanair’s cost base at Hamburg Lübeck Airport.

Five children aged from three to nine have been found killed in a house in northern Germany, police said today.

Deadly H5N1 bird flu has been found in wild birds in a second German state, authorities said today.

Ryanair has postponed plans to launch a base at Hamburg Lubeck Airport after the Higher Administrative Court of German province Schleswig-Holstein ruled against planning approval to extend the runway, expand the main taxiway and upgrade the instrument landing system.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder today called for new elections, asking Parliament to bring down his government to enable him to seek a new mandate in a vote expected in September.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s party emerged weakened from elections in a small German state, where voters’ frustration with high unemployment helped make opposition conservatives the strongest force.

Audrey Woods, London

Fierce storms left more than 250,000 homes and businesses across northern Europe without power today as crews from Russia to Ireland began cleaning up the wreckage.

Powerful winds and heavy rain swept across northern Europe from Ireland to Russia over the weekend, leaving at least 15 dead by yesterday, inundating areas of Britain and disrupting air and sea transport. Hundreds of thousands of homes lost power.

At least ten people were killed and hundreds of thousands were without power when a storm with hurricane-strength winds swept through northern Europe late yesterday and early today.

AN investigation was underway yesterday into how a passenger train sliced through a coach full of mainly elderly German holidaymakers in Hungary yesterday, killing 33 of them and their driver.

German investigators today searched the premises of an import-export company suspected of being a cover for Islamic fundamentalists.

The current wave of anthrax attacks was feared tonight to have spread beyond the United States to Pakistan - but reports of possible outbreaks in Germany were later clouded in doubt.

A letter and two packages in Germany tested positive for anthrax today in what would be the first cases of contamination in Western Europe, state officials said.

A second German case of anthrax contamination is suspected in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.