Police in Paris fire teargas as protesters in trade union-led march smash windows of bank branches
Thousands rallied on Saturday across France and Spain to hold May Day rallies in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic as police scuffled with protesters in Paris and fired teargas.
A police source told AFP that far-left “black bloc” protesters had repeatedly tried to block the trade union-led march in the French capital, with 34 people detained.
Continue reading...Countries across Europe are starting to relax coronavirus restrictions as case numbers fall
Counting on an accelerating vaccination campaign to keep new infections in check, much of continental Europe has announced plans for a gradual exit from lockdown over the coming weeks as case numbers begin to fall. Here is where things stand:
Belgium (at least one vaccine dose administered to 25% of whole population) aims to permit outside dining in restaurants and bars again on 8 May, with a mandatory 10pm closing time and tables limited to groups of four. Non-essential shops and hairdressers reopened on Monday.
Continue reading...Culture minister says country is facing up to ‘historic and moral responsibility’ by returning artefacts to Nigeria
Germany is to become the first country to hand back the Benin bronzes looted by British soldiers in the late 19th century, after the culture minister, Monika Grütters, announced it would start returning a “substantial” part of the artefacts held in its museums to Nigeria from next year.
“We face up to our historic and moral responsibility to shine a light and work on Germany’s historic past,” Grütters said after museum experts and political leaders struck an agreement at a summit on Thursday.
Continue reading...Dozens of high-profile actors feature on website making fun of Germany’s coronavirus restrictions
For half a century, the police procedural Tatort (“Crime Scene”) has provided a rallying point for Germany’s culturally diverse regions, gathering viewers around their television sets every Sunday night to watch detectives from across the country solve gruesome murders over the course of 90 minutes.
But 13 months into living with a virus that can’t be put behind bars, Tatort has become the scene of a different kind of crime: a series of satirical videos making fun of coronavirus restrictions, recorded by TV actors associated with the crime drama, has plunged lockdown-fatigued Germany into a bitter culture war.
Continue reading...While approaches may differ, the importance of free time to play is increasingly being recognised
Every morning, Arja Salonen drops her five-year-old son, Onni, off at a daycare centre in Espoo, west of Helsinki, where he will spend the next eight hours doing what Finnish educators believe all children his age should do: playing.
School, and formal learning, does not start in Finland until age seven. Before then, children’s preoccupations are not reading, writing or arithmetic, but, said Salonen, herself a secondary-school teacher in the capital, “learning more important things”.
Continue reading...Landlords may have scored a pyrrhic victory, with suggestions activists could move to expropriate empty flats
The housing question is one of the central issues of our time, and events last week in Berlin underscored what’s at stake. In a much-anticipated ruling, Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe ruled that Berlin’s Mietendeckel or rent cap was unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. The product of years of concerted organising by housing movements and leftwing parties in the city, the rent cap is wildly popular with Berlin’s tenants, who make up three-quarters of the city’s households. But it was hated by landlords, real-estate investors and members of Germany’s conservative political parties. The lawsuit against the cap was filed by 284 parliamentary members of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU), and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP).
Berlin’s rent cap was part of a new law passed by the city in January 2020. The cap prevented owners of flats built before 2014 charging more than what had been agreed in June 2019. It also stipulated that any rents that were 20% in excess of acceptable levels should be reduced, varying according to location and quality. Landlords who did not comply with the new law faced heavy fines. The policy was to be in place for five years. New-builds were exempt.
Continue reading...Sigrid Rausing denies financial interest in building, as court orders booksellers Kisch & Co to vacate Kreuzberg premises
A UK-based Swedish multibillionaire family known for their philanthropic donations to literature, libraries and other arts, have become the target of angry protests in Berlin over the eviction of a community bookshop from a counter-culture neighbourhood.
The bookseller Kisch & Co, which has operated for the last 24 years from a historic building on one of the main thoroughfares in the Kreuzberg district of Germany’s capital, was told on Thursday by a criminal court to vacate its premises.
Continue reading...Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus jab rolled out after backing from European Medicines Agency
EU member states are starting to administer Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine after Europe’s drug regulator this week backed the single-dose shot, with several expected to impose age restrictions, as with the AstraZeneca jab.
Spain’s regional health authorities began using the shot on Thursday for people aged 70 to 79, two days after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced a possible link to a rare clotting disorder but stressed the shot’s benefits outweighed the risks.
Continue reading...Rival Markus Söder concedes in race to succeed Angela Merkel but vote reveals deep rift in conservative alliance
Armin Laschet will run as the conservative candidate to succeed chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s elections in September, after the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the support of senior party figures and his rival Markus Söder dropped out of the race.
Related: Armin Laschet: is the conservative alliance pick ‘too nice’ to be Germany’s next chancellor?
Continue reading...‘Filming was banned at the station we shot at. So the cinematographer sat in a wheelchair, concealed the camera on his lap, and I pushed him around, following Natja cruising’
The director Uli Edel and his team came to my school. I was sitting there eating an apple. Uli’s assistant came up and said: “We’re looking for girls for a film. Do you want to try out?” I said: “OK, since you’ve asked me, I’ll come.”
Continue reading...Robert Habeck tells party co-chair ‘the stage is all yours’ as CDU/CSU rivals squabble over candidate choice
Germany’s Green party has named its co-chair Annalena Baerbock as candidate for chancellor in autumn’s federal election, as the party rides high in the polls and the ruling conservative bloc squabbles over its own choice to succeed Angela Merkel.
Baerbock, 40, viewed as a tenacious, down-to earth centrist with an eye for detail, and an expert on climate change and how to tackle it, told a small party gathering she aimed to “make politics for society at large”. She described her candidacy as “an offer, an invitation to lead our diverse, prosperous, strong country into a good future”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: five Ramzan Kadyrov allies subject of criminal complaint for crimes against humanity
Five officials from the inner circle of Chechnya’s autocratic leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, are the subject of a criminal complaint in Germany for crimes against humanity, in a legal attempt to seek justice over the semi-autonomous Russian republic’s anti-gay purges.
The 97-page charge sheet, extracts of which have been seen by the Guardian, accuses the Chechen military and state apparatus of persecution, unlawful arrests, torture, sexual violence and incitement to murder at least 150 individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation since February 2017.
Continue reading...Robert Habeck or Annalena Baerbock will be named as party’s candidate for chancellorship
Five months before national elections, a Green party that once styled itself as the rebel of German politics is finding itself in an unusually respectable position.
The party’s standing in the polls – in second place at 21-23% of the vote – means it will on Monday, for the first time in its 41-year history, nominate a candidate for chancellor. Furthermore, that candidate will have a realistic chance of filling the top job in German politics by the end of the year.
Continue reading...UK’s greater inequality levels made impact worse for the less well off, study suggests
British households were plunged into the Covid pandemic with lower savings, more debt and weaker welfare support than their French and German counterparts, according to analysis revealing how inequality increased the impact of the UK crisis.
High levels of income inequality also weakened the financial resilience of poorer households as the pandemic hit. The greater exposure of British households, revealed in an analysis by the Resolution Foundation thinktank to be published in full this week, comes despite similar levels of average income with our European neighbours.
Continue reading...Three European countries say there is no ‘credible civilian need’ for enriching uranium to 60%
France, Germany and the UK have warned that Iran took a dangerous step towards the production of a nuclear weapon by enriching uranium to levels for which there is no “credible civilian need”.
Tehran, which claims its nuclear ambitions are limited to creating energy, announced this week it was boosting its levels of uranium enrichment to 60%, just short of weapons-grade purity. The 2015 nuclear deal only allows enrichment to a purity level of 3.67%.
Continue reading...Duel between Armin Laschet and Markus Söder threatens sister parties’ delicate symbiosis
A heated struggle is under way between two leading German politicians over who should stand as Angela Merkel’s successor as chancellor candidate in the next election, with the conservative alliance under pressure to choose between a consensual team player with a reputation for pliability or a charismatic political all-rounder in the populist mould.
The eyes of political commentators are fixed on a meeting of the CDU/CSU’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday afternoon, which insiders said would not yet vote on a candidate but might produce more clarity. The rivals Armin Laschet and Markus Söder are expected to participate and to hold discussions on the sidelines.
Continue reading...Video of star-studded event apparently held by Bottega Veneta after Berghain fashion launch shows crowded party and no masks
Berlin police are investigating a possible breach of social distancing rules at an illegal star-studded party said to have been held by luxury fashion label Bottega Veneta, after leaked footage apparently of the event inside private members club Soho House caused outrage in a city whose cherished nightlife has been on hold for ordinary clubbers for over a year.
A presentation of the Italian fashion house’s latest collection at Berlin’s famous and exclusive Berghain nightclub last Friday was reportedly attended by a host of celebrity guests including Nigerian singer Burna Boy.
Continue reading...As daily inoculations hit record figures, warning comes of new delays
Vaccine rollouts in France and Germany have finally begun to pick up speed, after a slow start and problems with supplies and bureaucracy.
France continues to struggle to contain a third Covid-19 wave, but announced it had hit its 10 million inoculations target a week earlier than expected, while Germany doubled the number of vaccinations, administering a record 720,000 doses on Thursday after the rollout was extended to family doctors.
Continue reading...Bill would give national government power to impose restrictions in states with high infection rates
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, plans to take control over the Covid-19 response from federal states to impose restrictions on regions with high numbers of new infections, as the head of the country’s disease control agency said Germany needed a two- to four-week lockdown to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
“Germany is in the middle of a third wave, so the federal government and the states have agreed to add to the national legislation,” a spokesperson for the German chancellor told reporters on Friday.
Continue reading...Germany could act independently of EU but would require regulator’s approval of Covid vaccine
Germany’s health minister has said he wants to hold talks with Moscow about obtaining supplies of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, in an effort to boost the country’s inoculation campaign.
Jens Spahn said Germany would have no hesitation in acting independently of the European Union, indicating his frustration over the bloc’s refusal to engage with the Russian jab’s manufacturers, but he stressed that the vaccine would only be used if it was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
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