Europe

If Berlin can bring Russia’s Navalny to Charite hospital, why can’t it help Assange? German MP asks 🎞️
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 [...]
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Gift from Trump? More than 100 Austrians get US Treasury stimulus cheques by mistake
Nearly 130 Austrians have been stunned to receive $1,200 cheques signed by none other than US President Donald Trump. Washington’s sudden generosity appears to be a result of a mistake in its Covid-19 relief package system. Citizens of the small Alpine nation, located thousands of miles away from America, were baffled by the envelopes containing what was described as economic relief money from t [...]
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China’s Ultimatum to Europe
Ultimatums are usually considered to be imperious and impolite. But in the case of China’s latest demand on the European Union, one can view Beijing’s approach as apt and just right. Foreign Minister Wang Yi left his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian in no doubt in a phone call this week about the current international tensions and what needs to be done. [...]
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Germany warns US against imposing sanctions on Nord Stream 2, says no country has right to ‘dictate’ its energy policy
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has warned the United States not to interfere with the completion of the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, stressing that Europe has the right to choose its own energy sources. “Sanctions between partners are definitely the wrong way to go,” Maas said during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, addi [...]
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Off you go, then! Most Germans in favor of US troops’ pull-out from their country – poll
Donald Trump is withdrawing US troops from Germany to ‘punish’ Berlin for buying Russian gas and for not contributing enough to NATO, but a fresh survey shows that people in that country are actually glad that’s he doing so. Around 47 percent of participants in research conducted by pollster YouGov on behalf of DPA news agency, said they were in favor of the Pentagon’s decision to pull out [...]
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Completion of Nord Stream 2 to Cut Europe Gas Prices by 25%, Consulting Company Says
European prices for natural gas would drop by about one quarter if the Nord Stream 2 pipeline connecting Russia to Germany were completed, the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie said in a report on Friday. “If Nord Stream 2 remains unfinished, European benchmark TTF gas is expected to average about $4 per million British Thermal Units next year. But if the project can be completed as its backers hop [...]
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German officials call US troop withdrawal a ‘wake-up call for Europeans’ & chance to loosen ties
While some in the German establishment fumed over the US presumably keeping Berlin uninformed about plans to withdraw thousands of troops, others envisioned it as a chance to loosen ties with their turbulent NATO ally. Washington didn’t bother to inform Berlin of its intent to redeploy thousands of troops from Germany to other locations, with the news coming out of the blue for the governme [...]
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Pompeo gaslights Germans with Huawei privacy concerns… casually forgets NSA spied on Merkel
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned the US’ European allies against using Huawei tech, insisting privacy-loving Germans shouldn’t stand for such (alleged) spying. Never mind that time the NSA wiretapped Merkel. Pompeo pleaded with European governments on Fox News on Sunday that “the right thing to do for their people” was to kick Huawei’s cheaper and arguably more advanced techn [...]
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WHO Bashes German Media for Claim Xi Jinping ‘Pressured’ Tedros Adhanom to Withhold COVID-19 Info
China has faced numerous accusations over its handling of the initial COVID-19 outbreak from US officials, including President Donald Trump who claims that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory and that Beijing was hiding the true information about the state of the outbreak in its early stages. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has vehemently denied a report by the German magazine Der Spie [...]
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Chancellor Kurz Points Out Austria’s Responsibility for World War II
VIENNA -Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Friday delivered a speech timed with the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in which he recalled the responsibility of his own country for the events of 1939-1945. "The horrors of National Socialism were so indescribable that we should make sure to draw our lessons from that time. This is especially true for Austria, because not o [...]
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No need to extend Covid-19 home quarantine: Austria to let people out from May 1 and allow gatherings soon
Austrians will soon be able to walk with no restrictions and gather in groups of 10, as coronavirus measures will be gradually lifted starting next month. The easing of the self-isolation measures was announced by Health Minister Rudolf Anschober, who said that the spread of the novel coronavirus remains quite slow and the forecast for the upcoming month looks “very good.” He also said that th [...]
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Europe needs €1.5 TRILLION to recover or single market could ‘break in two’ – EU economy commissioner
The European Union urgently requires financial injections to stay afloat and survive the coronavirus epidemic currently ravaging the continent, the European commissioner for economy, Paolo Gentiloni, has warned. A whopping €1.5 trillion ($ 1.63 trillion) could be needed to “deal with this crisis,” Gentiloni told Der Spiegel ahead of the EU leaders summit on the crisis sparked by the outbreak [...]
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European States Send Medical Goods to Iran in First INSTEX Transaction
The INSTEX trading mechanism was previously created by European countries to bypass unilateral restrictions, imposed against the Islamic Republic by Washington, as the US threatened to hit those trading with Tehran via secondary sanctions. Iran, however, has repeatedly criticised INSTEX for not functioning properly. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have officially confirmed conclud [...]
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Poland Says Its Airspace Open for Russian Planes Carrying Aid to Italy
As of Monday, Russia had sent fourteen Il-76 military aircraft to Italy to assist in the fight against the coronavirus. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Russian military experts will engage in disinfection and COVID-19 prevention after coordinating their operations with Italian authorities. Poland's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs has confirmed via Twitter that Warsaw hadn’ [...]
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Austria plans to massively expand coronavirus testing in coming days – Kurz
Austria will massively expand coronavirus testing in the coming days to locate and isolate infected people and avoid an Italian-like overload of its health system, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said. The Alpine republic with a population of 8.8 million has tested around 28,400 people so far with nearly 4,900 cases and 28 deaths confirmed, Reuters reported. It was one of the first European countrie [...]
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With united Europe MIA in its Covid-19 response, worst-hit nations turn to ‘evil’ Russia & China for help
Brussels has all but abandoned them to their fates, so is it any wonder that Italy, Spain and other European countries have turned to Moscow and Beijing for meaningful support in terms of expert advice and medical supplies? When this coronavirus pandemic has passed and the nations of the European Union are counting the cost of decimated populations, shattered public health infrastructures and [...]
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Goodbye, globalism? Coronavirus sobers up Serbia to EU hypocrisy
The incompetence and hypocrisy of the European Union in dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak seems to have sobered up Serbia, a country that has previously slavishly committed itself to following orders from Brussels. For the past 20 years, every flavor of politician that ruled Serbia has signed on to the dogma that “the EU has no alternative” and that membership in that trans-national bloc was [...]
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Covid-19 pandemic could continue for 2 YEARS, German health expert warns
A senior German disease control expert has warned that the coronavirus pandemic could continue for two years, depending on how long it takes for an effective vaccine to be developed and if people develop immunity after illness. Speaking on Tuesday, the Robert Kock Institut's (RKI) president, Prof. Lothar Wieler, said pandemics tend to run their course in waves, and factors influencing how it unfol [...]
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Sweden Fines Google for Telling Website Owners About Censorship of Content – Reports
According to Sweden’s Data Protection Authority (the Datainspektionen), the fine is punishment for the search engine giant’s failure to remove search results ordered to be blocked three years ago. Sweden’s Datainspektionen has fined google 75 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to about €7 million or $7.74 million) for failure to comply with the data protection watchdog’s instructions, th [...]
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