Category Archives: Germany

Global report: India reports surge in Covid-19 cases as lockdown eased

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Almost 10,000 new cases in India on Thursday as WHO warns situation outside Europe deteriorating

India reported almost 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, with hospitals swamped in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, and predictions that the infection rate will not peak before the end of next month.

The country of 1.3bn people now has the fifth highest number of confirmed cases in the world, at 286,579. Over the last 24 hours 357 people have died from the virus, bringing the official toll to 8,102.

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Trump move to take US troops out of Germany ‘a dangerous game’

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UK politicians and military experts warn decision could hand advantage to Russia

British politicians and European military experts have warned that Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw 9,500 troops from Germany risks handing a strategic advantage to the Kremlin and undermining the postwar western military alliance.

It would also affect the United States’s ability to operate in the Middle East and Africa – although there is scepticism as to whether the notoriously fickle president will be able to carry out the threat before November’s election.

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German suspect in Madeleine McCann case linked to two more child disappearances

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Father of six-year-old who vanished in Portugal in 1996 hopes to finally learn what happened to his son

The father of a six-year-old German boy who disappeared on holiday in Portugal nearly 24 years ago says the recent dramatic developments in the Madeleine McCann case have given him hope he will finally learn what happened to his son.

Andreas Hasee said a German investigator called him on Friday to confirm they were reopening the case of his missing son, René, following the identification of the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance of three-year old Madeleine.

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Europe’s big two kiss and make up for pandemic rescue deal

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Germany amazed the whole continent with last week’s stimulus package, but it paves the way for countries such as France to agree an effective coronavirus response

From champion of austerity to Europe’s biggest spender – Germany has travelled a long way in just a few months. The notoriously frugal ministry of finance has agreed to spend €130bn – a sum equal to 4% of national income – on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth across the country.

This breathtaking investment programme comes on top of the almost 30% of GDP the government has so far spent on rescuing businesses and protecting jobs during the coronavirus crisis.

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‘Regrettable’: Germany reacts to Trump plan to withdraw US troops

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Reduction of 9,500 personnel criticised by the German right and welcomed by the left

Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw roughly a third of the US troops stationed in Germany have been criticised in the country by conservatives and welcomed by leftwing politicians.

The US president has reportedly ordered the Pentagon to reduce the number of troops by 9,500 from the 34,500 permanently assigned in Germany as part of a long-standing arrangement with Washington’s Nato ally.

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Madeleine McCann: German authorities ‘ignored warnings over suspect’

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Authorities accused of failing to act on tip-off from local force that Christian Brückner should be regarded as key suspect

German media are focusing their attention on whether the federal police ignored warnings in 2013 from a local force that was on the trail of the Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brückner for a variety of crimes, including child abuse and drug dealing.

Investigators in Braunschweig who had been closely monitoring Brückner believed he should be viewed as a key suspect in the girl’s disappearance. But their alert was reportedly ignored by Germany’s Federal Criminal Office, the BKA, according to Der Spiegel, which has a team of 10 reporters working on the case.

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Merkel among winners as Europeans give verdict on anti-Covid battles

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Satisfaction levels across the continent have risen and fallen, but nowhere have they plunged as for Boris Johnson’s government

All across the continent, most Europeans now trust their leaders generally, and how they have handled the coronavirus pandemic in particular, a little less than when the crisis began – but nowhere has public confidence fallen as far and as fast as in the UK.

Even leaders seen as having managed Covid-19 the most successfully, such as Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen, have suffered slight dips in popular satisfaction as the weeks have worn on.

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Donald Trump orders 9,500 US troops to leave Germany

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White House says move due to more Nato defence spending, not tensions with Angela Merkel

Donald Trump has ordered the US military to remove nearly 9,500 troops from Germany in a move likely to raise concerns in Europe about the US commitment to the region.

The move would reduce US troop numbers in Germany to 25,000, compared with the 34,500 currently there, a senior US official said.

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Madeleine McCann suspect investigated over two other missing children – reports

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Christian Brückner may be linked to disappearance of a five-year-old girl in Germany and six-year-old boy in Portugal

German prosecutors are investigating whether the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was involved in a similar case of a five-year-old girl who went missing in Germany in 2015.

Reports on Friday night also said authorities were looking into connections with the disappearance of a six-year-old German boy in Portugal in 1996.

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German prisoner is ‘strongest Madeleine McCann suspect yet’

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Police in UK, Portugal and German launch joint appeal for information about Christian Brückner

Detectives in three countries have appealed for evidence in relation to the strongest suspect they have had in 13 years to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, as German authorities said they believe she is dead.

Circumstantial evidence has convinced detectives that a 43-year-old German child sexual offender and rapist, identified by Portuguese sources on Thursday as Christian Brückner, is their prime suspect as it emerged he has been known to police for years.

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Angela Merkel has become the spend, spend, spend chancellor | Larry Elliot

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With its €130bn stimulus package, Germany is showing others how to do the recovery

And in one bound she was transformed. For Angela Merkel, the days of being lampooned as the archetypal Swabian housewife keeping tight control over the purse strings are over. Now, courtesy of a €130bn (£116bn) stimulus package, she is the spend, spend, spend chancellor.

Make no mistake, much of the past criticism of Germany’s frugal approach to government spending and budget deficits was justified. Saving some money for a rainy day is one thing but running surpluses worth 8% of national output was unnecessary and harmful to the global economy.

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EU leaders will intervene in Brexit talks in autumn, says German official

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Michael Clauss says talks will be a focus from September and UK needs more realistic approach

Britain must give away some sovereignty to secure free trade with the EU but Europe’s leaders will intervene in the negotiations in the autumn with the aim of sealing a compromise deal at a summit on 15 October, Germany’s ambassador in Brussels has said.

Michael Clauss, whose country will take over the rolling presidency of the EU for the second half of the year, said there had been “no real progress” in the talks so far but predicted they would become the EU’s main political focus in September and October.

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Madeleine McCann parents say focus on suspect ‘potentially very significant’

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Spokesman says it is first time in 13 years he can recall police fixing sights on one individual

The parents of Madeleine McCann believe the identification of a convicted German sex offender as the key suspect in their daughter’s disappearance is “potentially very significant”, their spokesman has said.

An international appeal for information is under way after police in Britain and Germany revealed that a serving prisoner is the new prime suspect in the disappearance of the three-year-old on 3 May 2007.

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Britons applying for German citizenship up 2,300% last year

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Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, 31,600 Britons have acquired German citizenship

The number of Britons applying for a German citizenship last year was up by approximately 2,300% compared to the year before the Brexit referendum, driving up the number of naturalisations in the country to a 16-year high.

According to data released by the Federal Statistical office on Wednesday, the total number of citizenship applications granted in 2019 increased by 15% year on year to 128,900, with 14,600 granted applications from British citizens accounting for almost half the increase.

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Spain rekindles a radical idea: a Europe-wide minimum income

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Podemos leader enlists Portugal and Italy to lobby for policy as depression looms for coronavirus-ravaged southern Europe

It’s been proposed, probed and pushed to the margins of the European Union for more than two decades. Now, as Europe reels from tens of thousands of coronavirus deaths and millions of lost jobs in the worst recession for generations, ministers from Spain, Italy and Portugal say the time has come to revive a radical idea: a pan-EU minimum income.

“This is the moment for debates about social protection,” Pablo Iglesias, Spain’s deputy prime minister for social rights and leader of Podemos, told the Guardian. “Anyone who finds themselves in a vulnerable situation should have access to protection mechanisms that allow them to fill their fridge and care for their family.” 

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Global report: Germany eases travel ban and cafe culture returns to Paris

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Elsewhere, Italy’s president warns Covid-19 ‘is not over’, and former UK PMs join calls for a coordinated global response

Germany lifted its blanket European travel ban as coronavirus lockdowns across the EU continued to ease, with officials saying new cases in western Europe were now in steady decline.

Parisians reclaimed their cafe terraces and Berliners took back their bars as normal life inched closer to returning in many parts of the continent.

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‘We can’t relax’: Europeans face up to life after lockdown

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From Spain to Denmark, even those who have coped with coronavirus are aware the world has changed dramatically

Her customers may be back and there are, miraculously, more of them. Spring is here; the sun is out. No one wants to dwell on what happened; everyone wants to pick up their lives again, same as before.

“But still,” says Sophie Fornairon, “things have changed.”

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‘Demand is huge’: EU citizens flock to open-air cinemas as lockdown eases

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From Berlin to Madrid the movies are back, albeit with hygiene and distancing restrictions

As Madrid’s spring evenings warm into summer nights, cinema-goers are parking up to watch Grease. In Munich, they are taking al fresco seats to follow the adventures of a communist kangaroo with a penchant for boozy chocolates, and in Prague they are witnessing a croaky vigilante work out some profound childhood traumas.

As Europe begins to stir from its Covid-19 lockdown, people bloated by two-month boxset binges have a new way to feed their entertainment needs as they emerge, blinking, into the daylight. Or, rather, the twilight.

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‘We are losers in this crisis’: research finds lockdowns reinforcing gender inequality

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Campaign groups warn women across Europe risk being pushed back into traditional roles

Life during the coronavirus lockdown has reinforced gender inequality across Europe with research emphasising that the economic and social consequences of the crisis are far greater for women and threaten to push them back into traditional roles in the home which they will struggle to shake off once it is over.

Throughout the continent, campaign groups are warning that the burdens of the home office and home schooling together with additional household duties and extra cooking, has been unequally carried by women and that improvements made in their lives by the growth in equality over the past decades are in danger of being rolled back by the health crisis.

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Global report: Germany to relax travel curbs as Spain mourns Covid-19 victims

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France defends tracking app amid privacy concerns and Hungary aims to lift state of emergency

Denmark has made it easier for cross-border couples separated from their partners by lockdown to meet again, while Germany is expected to allow travel to 31 European countries from mid-June, as EU countries continued to lift coronavirus restrictions.

People living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany can now visit partners in Denmark by signing a simple declaration rather than having to provide photos, phone records and other proof of a relationship, the Danish justice minister, Nick Hækkerup, said.

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