He has convictions for incitement to racial hatred.The former member of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party has appeared at far-right rallies in Britain and praised the British fascist Oswald Mosley He is also a fervent advocate of “racial purity”. In a book on the subject, he wrote of the “disastrous effects of bastardising races” and promised, “the white giants are coming”.This year, Mr Rieger paid €225,000 (£150,000) for the graceful Heisenhof, a turn-of-the century manor house and its estate, in the idyllic commuter village of Doerverden near Bremen, in Lower Saxony.This week, Doerverden’s inhabitants have been shocked to learn what Mr Rieger is planning. The fire spread to a nearby building that had flammable material inside, causing small explosions and increasing the amount of smoke.Nearby buildings, including the stock exchange and Madrid’s parliament, suffered power cuts. A parliamentary commission investigating the 11 March attacks was interrupted when the power was cut.

For a few minutes the parliament staff and government representatives, as well as journalists, thought another terrorist attack was under way.The cause was not immediately identified by authorities, but a worker who had been installing generators at the sub-station, which is owned by Union Fenosa, said that they exploded when they were turned on.. Five minutes later, there was a huge explosion, which injured four workers. A month ago, Leonid Parfyonov, host of a cutting-edge analytical programme called The Other Day, was sacked by NTV for failing “to support the politics of the company’s leadership”. His mistake had been to interview the widow of a former Chechen rebel president which irked the FSB, the successor organisation to the KGB, accused of assassinating the man.The changes at NTV follow the appointment of a new director general, Vladimir Kulistikov, a Kremlin loyalist..

An electricity sub-station caught fire yesterday afternoon in the centre of Madrid, sending flames and thick black smoke across the city. But many in the industry believe its closure was politically motivated, and NTV, now controlled by the state-owned energy giant Gazprom, is rapidly resembling the channels directly controlled by the state. It will, they say, be turned into a drab, Soviet-style, self-censored outlet showing soap operas, war films, uncritical news reports and dreary repeats.Russia’s last live political talk show, Freedom of Speech, has been axed for similar reasons, as was another political programme, Personal Contribution, on the same channel. Krasnaya Strela, or Red Arrow, was hosted by two puppets called Stepan Capusta and Khrun Morjov who poked fun at the powers that be, including President Vladimir Putin.

Another anti-Kremlin voice has been silenced after Russia’s last semi-independent television station axed its equivalent to Spitting Image. This project, and the ? Seguin, are the two developments which will, for good or ill, define the architectural legacy of the early 21st century to the world’s most beautiful city.Nouvel’s campaign to preserve at least part of the buildings on the ? Seguin has been lost in practice, and partly won in spirit. A blue suspension bridge across the river and a small former headquarters building inscribed with the word “Renault” will be all that remains of the original structures. And the local council has agreed that development of the eastern two-thirds of the island – a 10-acre park, a scientific complex, shops and flats – should “preserve the industrial memory of the site”.Jean-Pierre Fourcade, the mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt, has decreed that there must be an 11-metre high “wall” of buildings at the water’s edge to preserve “the silhouette of the island as it was in Renault’s time, like an ocean liner moored in the middle of the Seine”.. to make two histories live together, that of yesterday and that of today.”Look at London.