Low-fare airline easyJet has announced a series of new routes for winter 2012.

In his memoir If This is a Man, the Italian writer Primo Levi recalls that the most terrifying time for him at Auschwitz was not the years of incarceration by the Nazis, when beatings, hunger, back-breaking work and the threat of murder were omnipresent. He came closest to despair during the vacuum between the flight of the guards and the arrival of the Red Army. This period, in which the prisoners were effectively left to their own devices, was characterised by a complete breakdown of all authority, however unjust, as well as the system of supply. I was reminded of these passages when reading Keith Lowe's Savage Continent: an excellent account of the two years or so between the end of hostilities in Europe with the defeat of Hitler, and the establishment of the Cold War order.

Whether you're walking on water, sailing through ice or riding into the sunset, the fairy-tale charms of this former Soviet republic always shine through

Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker, released in the USSR in 1979, radiates an enduring sense of mystery and disquiet. I have seen it five times, though viewing can feel like a penance. Tarkovsky does not set out to entertain: some of his shots last up to seven minutes. The plot? Three middle-aged men undertake a journey through an industrial wasteland in search of an elusive place called the Zone, where the normal laws of life are mysteriously suspended. With its watery images of disused chemical factories and silted urban waterways, the film cries out for exegesis. What does it mean? Geoff Dyer first saw Stalker in 1981 while a student at Oxford; 30 years on, Zona is his non-fiction appraisal of the film and what it means to him today.

Latvia was yesterday struggling to control a mass wave of panic cash withdrawals from the country’s biggest bank, Swedbank, following a rash of false social media network rumours which claimed that the Swedish-owned lending group was going bankrupt.

Republic of Ireland 1 Estonia 1 (Republic of Ireland win 5-1 on aggregate)

Republic of Ireland 1 Estonia 1 (Republic win 5-1 on aggregate)

Estonia 0 Republic of Ireland 4

Shay Given has warned his Republic of Ireland team-mates their play-off experience will count for nothing if they underestimate Estonia.

Success for Ireland's foes may help to usurp basketball and skiing in nation's consciousness

A gunman has died after he opened fire in Estonia's Defence Ministry and tried to take hostages.

As a European Capital of Culture, the Estonian city's programme of artistic events hit its peak during the summer.