European Union

Am 25. April gedenkt Italien traditionell der Befreiung von Krieg und Faschismus 1945. Der Gedenktag hat in rechten Kreisen viele Gegner und Innenminister Salvini hat sich nun indirekt auf ihre Seite gestellt, indem er Desinteresse an dem Tag bekundete und beschloss, lieber eine Polizeistation in der früheren Mafiahochburg Corleone einzuweihen. Kommentatoren kritisieren ihn scharf.

Russland will es den Bewohnern der besetzten Gebiete in der Ukraine leichter machen, zu russischen Staatsangehörigen zu werden. Die Passvergabe soll vereinfacht und beschleunigt werden. Bewerber müssen nicht einmal russische Sprachkenntnisse nachweisen. Kommentatoren meinen: Russland betreibt Politik mittels Passvergabe.

In the wake of the Christchurch attack, New Zealand said on Wednesday (24 April) that it would work with France in an effort to stop social media from being used to promote terrorism and violent extremism.

Already the first country in the world to legalize recreational use of marijuana, Uruguay now aims to go further by becoming the first in Latin America to export it for medicinal purposes.

The head of Britain’s cyber centre said governments in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance had not always been aligned over Huawei, downplaying any threat of a rift as the UK prepares to give the Chinese company access to 5G networks.

Facebook removed three far-right networks in Spain but only after Avaaz, an NGO, handed over a 60-page investigation detailing the abuse.

The Japanese PM comes to Brussels to discuss the first results of the new EU-Japan free trade deal, plus WTO reform - a sensitive topic before he moves onto Washington to face Donald Trump.

Deutsche Bank has started providing financial records to New York state's attorney general, related to loans it gave to Donald Trump and his business before he was elected US president. Deutsche Bank was one of the few big banks willing to lend to the Trump Organisation at the time. The investigations are a part of a larger Democratic effort to dig into Trump's finances and reveal links to Russia.

The EU is badly prepared for a new refugee crisis, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi. "Europe is not prepared for a refugee crisis today. The states are not pulling together," he said in an interview to German newspaper Die Welt. "The European public underestimates any threat, any displacement that does not take place in Europe" he added. Italian-born Grandi has held the UN post since 2016.

France's president Emmanuel Macron will Thursday announce a package of measures that could include lowering taxes after five months of often violent protests by the 'yellow vests'. Macron held a three-month long national debate to quell the anger. Leaked reports suggest measures could include cutting income tax, halting hospital and school closure in rural areas, and abolishing the Ecole Nationale d'Administration civil service college, a symbol of a privileged elite.

Italy has asking the EU to prepare a plan of action for a new wave of migrants escaping from the armed conflict in Libya, Italian foreign minister Enzo Moavero announced at a joint news conference in Rome on Wednesday after meeting UN's Libya envoy, Ghassan Salame. Armed men raided the Qasr Ben Ghashir detention centre, south of Tripoli on Tuesday, and shot a number of the people being held there.

Romania’s lower house of parliament approved changes to the criminal codes on Wednesday (24 April) that could shut down several ongoing high-level graft cases, but opposition politicians plan to challenge the bills at the Constitutional Court.