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Updated: 1 day 14 hours ago

[Ticker] France bans police from using US-type chokehold

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:21
French police have been banned from using chokeholds to detain suspects in light of US events, France's interior minister, Christophe Castaner, said on Monday. "It will no longer be taught in police and gendarmerie schools. It is a method that has its dangers," he said. He also pledged "zero tolerance" for racism in the police. Castaner's announcement came amid French solidarity demonstrations with the Black Lives Matter movement in America.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Draft EU budget in line with 'AAA' rating

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:17
EU-held debt would grow to €950bn by the end of 2024 under recent proposals for its next long-term budget, which include borrowing on capital markets, in "a radical change for the EU", US ratings agency Fitch said on Monday. "But this would be backed by additional resources from member states. As such, it would be consistent with the EU's 'AAA' rating, all else being equal," it added.
Categories: European Union

Nato: China-Russia axis threatens Western power

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:14
China is becoming an increasing "threat" to Europe and growing closer to Russia, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has warned.
Categories: European Union

'Black Lives Matter' protests spread in corona-hit EU

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:04
Protests against racism and police brutality have spread across European cities despite coronavirus restrictions, following a brutal US-police killing.
Categories: European Union

Three EU states willing to help Malta 'tourism boat' migrants

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:04
Three EU states are now willing to help Malta take in some of the migrants stranded in day-trip boats off its coast, some for more than a month. The European Commission is hoping more will step come forward.
Categories: European Union

[Opinion] On 'whiteness', 'privilege' and other tropes of minority identity politics

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:04
While I do live in a reality in which I do belong to an ethnic minority, and because of that reality, I am discriminated against, ethnically, I do not believe this to be absolute.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Lagarde defends ECB's pandemic crisis measures

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:03
European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde on Monday defended the bank's stimulus measures to protect the eurozone economy against the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic as "temporary, targeted, and proportionate". Earlier ECB bond-buying schemes have come under fire from Germany's Constitutional Court, which ruled the measures disproportionate. Lagarde said the ECB's crisis actions had been "critical" in avoiding a financial crisis on top of the economic slump.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Vietnam ratifies trade deal with EU

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:03
Vietnam on Monday ratified a trade deal with the European Union. Under the deal, the EU will lift 85 percent of its tariffs on Vietnamese goods. Human-rights defenders say the pact does little to stem abuse in the country. The deal had also courted other controversy after this website exposed conflicts of interest, provoking an MEP to resign his post as the European Parliament's chief negotiator.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Brazil stops release of coronavirus numbers

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:03
The Brazilian government has been accused of totalitarianism and censorship after it stopped releasing its total numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and wiped an official site clean of swathes of data, the Guardian writes. The move seems to be ordered by president Jair Bolsonaro himself. Brazil currently has the world's second-highest number of cases, at 672,846, according to the Johns Hopkins university site.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Study: Lockdowns saved lives of 3.1m Europeans

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:02
Large-scale lockdowns in Europe have been successful in avoiding 3.1 million deaths across Europe from Covid-19 according to a new study from Imperial College London scientists. They analysed data from Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. "This data suggests that without any interventions, such as lockdown and school closures, there could have been many more deaths from COVID-19," Dr Samir Bhatt, study author, said.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] French credit lockdown for reducing smoking, drinking

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:02
France credits the lockdown with cutting bad habits, such as smoking and drinking, according to a poll published on Monday. Carried out by Odoxa and FG2A for daily Le Figaro and Franceinfo radio, the survey revealed that most people typically engage in unhealthy practices within a social environment. Before the lockdown 57 percent of French said they drank alcohol regularly or occasionally, which dropped to 51 percent during confinement.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Report: 41 percent of insect species 'in decline'

Tue, 06/09/2020 - 07:02
The new Insect Atlas published on Tuesday revealed that insects are in decline across the world because of industrial farming and heavy pesticide use. While 41 percent of insect species are in decline worldwide, at least one-in-ten bee and butterfly species in Europe is threatened with extinction. Two-thirds of the pesticides global market is dominated by four companies: BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and Corteva.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Libya: EU-backed government defies Russia warning

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:29
The EU-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya has said it would continue its military campaign against warlord Khalifa Haftar, despite Russian warnings to back off. Its coming assault on the al-Jufra airbase, which is said to house 14 Russian warplanes and crews, risked enflaming the conflict. But the GNA, backed by Turkish forces, said it would do all it could to stop Russia establishing a permanent military facility.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] German court threatens EU legal order, judge says

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:28
The president of the EU's second-highest court, the General Court in Luxembourg, Marc van der Woude, has warned Germany's constitutional court risked destroying the primacy of EU law in Europe. The German court had said, on 5 May, an EU bond-buying scheme might be illegal, but that was "direct interference in the functioning of the European legal order" van der Woude said in a rare public statement, voicing "deep concern".
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Virologist: Anti-US racism rally in Brussels was 'bad idea'

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:23
Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst has criticised people who attended a 10,000-strong march in Brussels Sunday in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, saying "it wasn't a good idea", even if people wore masks, because they did not maintain social distancing, and because it made it harder to explain to others why social gatherings were still limited to 12 people, he told Belgian daily Le Soir.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] US to slash troop numbers at German bases

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:22
US president Donald Trump, Saturday, agreed to pull out 9,500 American soldiers from the 35,000 or so stationed in Germany since Cold War times, US media report citing officials. Some British MPs complained he should have first consulted Nato allies. Poland also voiced concern due to its history of conflict with Russia. US bases in Germany were "in the interest of both our countries" German foreign minister Heiko Maas said.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Belgium complains of EU 'tourism competiton'

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:21
Some EU countries, such as Italy, have begun "competing for tourism" against each other by refusing to follow EU guidelines, agreed Friday, to reopen internal borders on 15 June instead of earlier, Belgium's foreign minister said Saturday. "We are asking for coordination, but it doesn't work, as some countries have entered a form of tourism competition," Belgium's Philippe Goffin told La Libre Belgique.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] UK imposes quarantine regime to stop second wave

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:20
British laws forcing all arrivals from abroad, except from Ireland, to self-quarantine for 14 days or pay €1,120 fines came into effect Monday. "Science is clear that if we limit the risk of new [coronavirus] cases coming ... from abroad, we can help stop a devastating second wave," home secretary Priti Patel said. The UK still has the fourth most cases in the world after the US, Brazil, and Russia.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Cyprus urges EU to revoke Turkey's candidate status

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:19
Turkey's EU candidate status ought to be revoked due to its gas drilling in Cypriot waters, Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades has said in an interview with Politico. "Either they are compliant with the terms and conditions of any other candidate country, otherwise they could not be either a candidate or accepted," he said. Another option was to add Turkish names to an EU blacklist against its "aggressive" neighbour, Anastasiades added.
Categories: European Union

[Ticker] Czechs expel two Russians in fake murder plot

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 07:17
The Czech Republic, on Friday, expelled two Russian diplomats after one of them drafted a fake memo about assassination plans against three Russia-critical Czech mayors, shared it with Czech intelligence, and news of it appeared in Czech magazine Respekt. "The whole case arose as a result of an internal struggle between [Russian embassy] employees", Czech PM Andrej Babiš said. Russia has complained and signalled tit-for-tat Czech expulsions to follow.
Categories: European Union

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