MOSCOW - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has rejected calls to abandon the Nord Stream 2 pipeline construction after a Russian court jailed opposition activist Alexey Navalny for 3.5 years. "I welcome the German federal government’s decision to stand by Nord Stream 2", Kurz said in an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, published Saturday. He argued that Nord Stream was a E [...]

MOSCOW - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says he is ready to get vaccinated with the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine or the Chinese vaccine, if they are approved by the EU. "Yes [I am ready to get vaccinated], if the vaccines [Russia’s and China’s] are approved in Europe," Kurz said in an interview with the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper. The chancellor said that Austria [...]

Since 2019, the United States and the European Union have formally recognized former National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the acting president of Venezuela. However, with the government of Nicolas Maduro holding onto power and sweeping the legislative body's elections last month, support for Guiado from the western powers is waning. The European Union has stopped referring to the Vene [...]

BERLIN (Sputnik) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Thursday piled blame on US President Donald Trump for inciting his supporters to storm the seat of the American parliament, which left four people dead and a dozen injured. "Who, like Trump, spends years on incendiary rhetoric and constantly incites their supporters bears responsibility for this attack at the heart of the American d [...]

VIENNA - The experience of administration of Russian vaccines against COVID-19 is raising a great interest in Austria even though the countries are not currently engaged in specific negotiations, Russian ambassador Dmitry Lyubinsky said, praising the efficacy of the Russian vaccines. "There are currently no negotiations on exact plans related to the potential use of the Sputnik V vaccine in [...]

This Monday marked 50 years since one of the 20th century’s most iconic moments, when German Chancellor Willy Brandt fell to his knees in Warsaw, emotionally apologizing for the horrors the Nazis had unleashed on Eastern Europe. It was one of the milestones of the Neue Ostpolitik – Bonn’s policy aimed at normalizing relations with the USSR and its East European satellites. On the day of [...]

The Trump administration has long been critical of the EU, especially Germany, over their support for the transnational pipeline project, which will boost the capacity of Russia to sell natural gas to Europe. Washington insists that the EU must instead buy more expensive LNG from the US or other countries. The European Commission has condemned the US plans to expand the sanctions on Nord [...]

The original name of the small village has no special meaning or any connotations in German, while the new toponym will better reflect its pronunciation in the local accent. The Austrian village of Fucking (pronounced fooking in Standard German) will change its name to Fugging on 1 January 2021, Mayor Andrea Holzner told the broadcaster Oe24 Thursday. The move to rebrand the village comes [...]

After years of denial, Berlin has acknowledged that the US Air Force is using Ramstein Air Base in Germany to carry out drone attacks in anti-terrorist operations, Die Linke (the Left) MP Andrej Hunko told RT. They crucial role played by the Ramstein base – the largest American military facility on foreign soil – in controversial US drone killings in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yem [...]

Washington already imposed sanctions on the Russian-German energy project late last year, tacking them on to the US National Defence Authorization Act. Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both the House and Senate is reportedly looking to introduce additional restrictions against it before the end of the year. An influential group of German businesses has written a letter to Democra [...]

Switzerland has adopted sanctions against Russian individuals and companies involved in the construction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait that connected the Crimean Peninsula with continental Russia, the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs said on Friday. "The Federal Department of Economic Affairs has made amendments to the list of individuals attached to the directive on the preventi [...]

The research team of Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s leading banks, has commended the frank discussion that the developers of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine recently had on its efficacy. "We were encouraged by the frank discussion of the human viral vector technology used and we view the 92 percent efficacy as a positive incremental readacross for the AstraZeneca data expected soon ( [...]

Cell phone footage of a suspected terrorist attack originally reported to be taking place near Vienna’s main synagogue shows a massive police response and officers exchanging fire with one or multiple gunmen. In one video, filmed from above, a man dressed in white with a black balaclava can be seen going down a cobblestone-lined street and firing off several shots. Someone yells out a profa [...]

The Russian authorities would have never let Alexey Navalny leave for treatment in Germany if they pursued poisoning him, especially given his travel restrictions under a criminal case, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. "If the authorities wanted to poison him, they would have not let him go to Germany for treatment, would they? As soon as the wife of this citizen sent me a req [...]

More than 50 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) operating in Europe’s top-five economic powerhouses fear they will have to close in 12 months as they’re struggling to stay afloat amid the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic has pushed down the revenues of more than 70 percent of European companies, according to the results of the McKinsey survey of over 2,200 SMEs in five Eu [...]

In mid-September, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned against politicising the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which he said is profitable for both Russia and the EU. The statement came amid Berlin's threats to freeze the project due to Moscow's alleged role in the purported poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has told the media group Red [...]

Russian opposition figure Navalny, who has been discharged from the Charité hospital in Berlin where he was treated after an alleged poisoning, claimed in an interview with Der Spiegel that Putin "was behind the crime". But some analysts pour scorn on the suggestion that the Russian president ordered the political figure to be poisoned. Claims that the Russian leadership could be behind [...]

The French president is showing signs that he’s willing to follow the path first forged by General De Gaulle, who kicked US forces out of France and pulled the country out of NATO to preserve sovereignty and independence. It was a remarkable statement from a modern European leader. During a visit to Lithuania this week, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “We, some countries more than [...]

Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic’s incorporation into the Federal Republic of Germany, with the event becoming a key landmark in ending the Cold War. The West’s triumphalist attitude after East and West Germany were reunified was a major mistake for which the world is continuing to pay, Gregor Gysi, president of the Party of the European Left, and [...]

A top US State Department official has praised Germany for strengthening regulations on Chinese company Huawei. However, Berlin decided against caving into pressure and banning the company outright, reports say. A tour by Keith Krach, US undersecretary of state for economic affairs, is part of repeated attempts by the US to discourage European countries from collaborating with Huawei in the r [...]

The World Health Organization expects Europe to see a rise in the daily number of Covid-19 deaths in October and November, the head of the body's European branch told AFP. Cases in Europe have risen sharply in recent weeks, especially in Spain and France. More than 51,000 new cases were reported on Friday alone in the 55 countries monitored by WHO Europe, which is more than the highest peak in Ap [...]

A German MP is calling on her government to provide medical assistance to the "seriously ill" WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying that Berlin spared no effort when it came to Russian opposition figure, Alexey Navalny. Berlin should not be supporting the US-orchestrated attack "on journalists, on press freedom and on democracy," said Heike Haensel, the deputy head of the Left Party's pa [...]