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Turkish communities living in Europe were affected politically by the 15 July 2016 unsuccessful coup d’état.  At least twenty-three Turkish citizens, political opponents of Erdogan, were abducted by the authorities of Bulgaria, Moldova, Kosovo, Ukraine, and Serbia and sent back to Turkey. The expulsions bypassed the sanctions of national courts. 

The Malta-based Shift News in collaboration with the largest Montenegrin daily DAN launched an investigation into the Sino-Maltese wind farm project in Montenegro underhandedly backed by Montenegro's ruling clique and Azerbaijani businesses present both in Malta and Montenegro.

There is a big illegal market for pesticides and antibiotics and these substances will still be spread, when they get banned. The industry has been able to continue the use of chlorpyrifos and expect the use to grow in the coming years, despite it has a huge and bad impact on animals and humans. 

Vladimir Putin's Russia increasingly poses a security risk to Europe as it has become more and more aggressive in recent years, especially since the annexation of Crimea and occupation of Donbas. Russia has also committed assassinations on European soil, including the attempted assassination of the Skripals and the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin. Most recently a Russian diplomat was suspected of bringing ricin to Prague to poison the mayor.

KOSOVO - In Kosovo a well organized trafficking network has started a big wave of minors who leave for Italy. Thanks to the Zampa law, which was introduced in 2017, they can get licenses to study or to work, if they report themselves at the Italian immigration services. The law was meant to decrease the number of missing unaccompanied migrant children, but it helps human smuggling in hand. "It's a company of 100.000 euros a month, but no one seems to care", says the prosecutor in Triëste.

There is very little transparency in the private security sector. Questions often remain unanswered because the contracts are withheld on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. This lack of information means it is hard if not impossible to speak truth to powerful private security multinationals. In an age where political leaders seem obsessed with austerity measures, it should come as no surprise that they will not hold these companies accountable. What is it that we, the people, can do? Should private companies derive a profit off war and conflicts?

This investigation seeks to uncover the state of facial recognition technology in Europe. The journalists obtained leaked internal European Union documents that reveal law enforcement is lobbying to create a network of national police facial recognition databases. 

Climate change could leave you homeless overnight – right here, in Europe. Flash floods, mudslides and wildfires triggered by heatwaves are among the extreme weather events becoming increasingly common thanks to our changing climate.

MALTA - The model for the privatisation of Malta’s public hospitals negotiated by now disgraced Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, with the approval of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was exported to Balkan States with weak democratic structures that enable large-scale corruption.

GEORGIA - Each year in December, 80 million Christmas trees are sold across Europe. The majority of these, 45 million, are Nordmann firs who have their origins in the Caucasus region. 80 % of the Nordmann trees cultivated in Europe come from seeds harvested in Western Georgia.