Britain on Monday put the army on standby to help with the ongoing fuel crisis as fears over tanker driver shortages led to panic buying, leaving many of the country's pumps dry, AFP reported. "Limited number of military tanker drivers to be put on a state of readiness and deployed if necessary to further stabilise fuel supply chain," the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said in a statement issued late on Monday. The government says a lack of tanker drivers to deliver fuel and unprecedented demand is behind the crisis.

Up to 90% of British fuel stations ran dry across major English cities on Monday after panic buying deepened a supply chain crisis triggered by a shortage of truckers that retailers are warning could batter the world's fifth-largest economy, Reuters reported. A dire post-Brexit shortage of lorry drivers emerging after the Covid-19 pandemic has sown chaos through British supply chains in everything from food to fuel, raising the spectre of disruptions and price rises in the run up to Christmas.

Police in Norway on Sunday reported dozens of disturbances and violent clashes including mass brawls in the Nordic country’s big cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of COVID-19 restrictions that lasted for more than a year, AP reported. The Norwegian government abruptly announced on Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped beginning Saturday and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal.

Cheers rang out, hugs were exchanged and rainbow-colored flags waved overhead across Switzerland as the Swiss resoundingly voted to allow same-sex couples to marry, final results of a nationwide referendum showed Sunday, AP reported. Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1% of the vote while more than half of all voters approved in each of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, or states.

Switzerland is one of the last European countries that is expected to decide whether to allow same-sex marriages. Until now gay marriages have been forbidden, Reuters elaborated. Voters in the country will vote at a referendum on Sunday to take a final decision to allow same sex marriages and child adoption from gay couples.

Iceland’s ruling coalition extended its majority at Saturday’s parliamentary elections, preliminary results showed. Still Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir is seen as losing some of her influence, Reuters reported. Earlier opinion polls had shown that the coalition would fall short of a majority. Still a spike in support for the centre-right Progressive Party which would add five more seats than in 2017 pushed the total count to 38 seats in the 63-seat parliament.

UK vowed to issue urgently at least 5,000 temporary visas for European lorry drivers in a move to resolve an acute labour shortage that may undermine the key Christmas shopping campaign, Reuters reported. However local business leaders warned that the government emergency measures are not sufficient and would not lead to a long-term resolution of the supply bottlenecks that put pressure on retailers.

Iceland votes on Saturday in an election that could have an unpredictable outcome with a record of nine parties likely to enter the local parliament, making it very difficult to find common ground on topics like climate change and healthcare, Reuters reported. The northern island has some 371,000 citizens and has enjoyed a period of stability since 2017 under the ruling left-right coalition, after years of political scandals and distrust of politicians following the financial crisis in 2008.

Britain is to begin replacing or scrapping EU regulations that were copied into British law before EU divorcet, Brexit minister David Frost said. To avoid uncertainty and confusion as Britain left the EU after 40 years, the government automatically carried thousands of EU laws and regulations into British law so that they would still apply after Brexit.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson demoted his top diplomat and fired his education minister in a major government shakeup Wednesday, as he tried to move on from a series of political missteps and revive his promise to “level up” prosperity across the UK, AP reported. In the biggest move, Johnson demoted Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has faced criticism for delaying his return from a holiday in Greece as the Taliban took over Afghanistan last month.