Sweden backs on 2020 deadline for fossil fuels

Sweden gained headlines earlier this year - when it declared it would be oil-free by 2020.A special commission made up of industrialists, car makers, energy experts and the Prime Minister himself was set up to make recommendations on how to bring the vision about. Earlier this month the white paper was published - but it all turned out to be a bit more modest. Radio Sweden's Dave Russell was at the launch, and joins us in the studio.

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For the past four weeks, media around the world has been dominated by the World Cup. So much so that it makes you wonder how people occupy their time before the tournament got underway. All of football crazy Europe has been glued to TV screens over the past month. Here's just a taste of what's been keeping soccer fans on the edges of their seats! 

Now, as the Soccer World Cup draws to an end in Germany, a new competition kicks off. For talented footballers who have won glory for their country now starts the courtship by rival soccer clubs eager to boost their ranks. And after the performances on the field, big business will also be flexing its own "corporate" muscle. Footballers with the right looks have historically found themselves swamped with lucrative offers for product endorsements and can quickly find themselves being the face of a new advertising campaign for soft drinks, training shoes or deodorants. So which stars of the 'The Beautiful Game' have potential for making money with their looks off the field? Ben Fajzullin has this alternative perspective on the World Cup from Berlin. 

It was a long time coming, but on Saturday July 1st, gay and lesbian couples across the Czech Republic were finally free to tie the knot. Dozens of couples seized on the opportunity to seal their relationship with a civic ceremony on the very first day that this was possible. Radio Prague's Daniela Lazarova reports from one ceremony. 

Ceremonies have been held in the central Polish city of Kielce to mark the sixtieth anniversary of a Jewish pogrom by their Polish neighbours. Poles have still to confront the moral aspect of the tragedy. The massacre in which 39 Jews were butchered was taboo in communist Poland. And since, Official investigations have led nowhere. The Kielce pogrom, along with a series of similar events in other parts of Poland in the immediate aftermath of WWII caused an exodus of the country's Holocaust survivors. Radio Polonia's Slawek Szefs reports. 

As the first wave of this year's holidaymakers leave for their long summer break in Europe - its interesting to note that that phenomena of paid holidays - although taken for granted today in most parts of Europe and the industrialised world - is not that old...2006 is the seventieth anniversary of the introduction of paid holidays in France. RFI's Brent Gregston looks at the profound implications the phenomenon has had for French society since it was first which introduced in 1936.