Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Pragmatic state premier with flat-top ahead in polls as CDU faces defeat in country’s south-west
Winfried Kretschmann, a white-haired former biology teacher who has been the state premier of Baden-Württemberg since 2011, can look forward to this Sunday’s elections in his wealthy corner of south-west Germany with ease.
In the home state of Daimler, Porsche and Bosch, he has not just won the support of the metal and electronics industry, but that of conservative voters, 65% of whom have in surveys expressed their wish for the 72-year-old Catholic to retain his office.
Angela Merkel’s party tries to distance itself from pandemic deals scandal as elections loom
Corruption allegations and mounting frustration with Germany’s slow vaccination roll-out are threatening to damage Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in weather-vane state elections this Sunday, as the centre-right party is trying to distance itself from politicians whose companies are alleged to have made profits on the back of mask procurement deals.
In the south-western states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, voters will go to the polls this weekend while digesting the allegations that one lawmaker from the CDU and one from its Bavarian sister-party, the CSU, earned six-figure commissions for brokering deals to procure face masks during last year’s first wave of the pandemic.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic could endanger progress made on gender equality, as women take on the lion’s share of childcare in lockdown and are more likely to work in at-risk jobs.
“We have to make sure that the pandemic does not lead us to fall back into old gender patterns we thought we had overcome,” Merkel said in a video message ahead of International Women’s Day on Monday.
Ursula von der Leyen has reassured EU leaders she will ban coronavirus vaccines from leaving the EU if suppliers such as AstraZeneca fail to deliver again, as she faced questions over her handling of shortages.
The European commission president’s pledge at a virtual summit came as leaders issued a statement promising to “accelerate the provision of vaccines”, with just 8% of the adult population having received a jab compared with 27% in the UK.
German chancellor condemns expulsion of European diplomats as Alexei Navalny appears in court again
Angela Merkel has condemned as “unjustified” Russia’s expulsion of European diplomats for participating in unauthorised demonstrations in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
“We consider these expulsions to be unjustified. We believe it is yet another aspect that can be observed right now of Russia being quite far from the rule of law,” the German chancellor said on Friday at an online press conference with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.
The German government is expected to announce tighter border controls after warnings from leading virologists that the move is vital to control the spread in the country of more contagious variants of Covid-19.
Angela Merkel, the chancellor, is widely reported to have told a meeting of her CDU party colleagues that air travel in particular needed to be restricted “to the extent that you simply can’t get anywhere any more”.
Analysis: centrist Armin Laschet, the new leader of Germany’s CDU, will need to deliver on promises of reconciliation
The election of Armin Laschet as the new leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union has been welcomed by those hoping for a smooth transition after the imminent departure of Angela Merkel from political leadership. But his detractors have warned he faces an uphill challenge to unite not just his party but also the country in the event that he becomes chancellor, at a time of national crisis and division.
Laschet, who is now in line to succeed Merkel as chancellor after the parliamentary elections in September, secured victory at the weekend despite the odds having been on Friedrich Merz, a prominent conservative and investment banker. Norbert Röttgen, chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee, dropped out after the first round, prompting many of his supporters to back Laschet. The digital vote must still be confirmed by a postal ballot.
New leader of centre-right CDU will run for chancellor in September, or have a big say in who does
Angela Merkel’s continuity candidate, the centrist conservative Armin Laschet, has beaten one of her longest-standing rivals in the contest to lead Germany’s Christian Democratic Union.
In a digitally-held party congress, Laschet beat the conservative hardliner Friedrich Merz by 521 to 466 votes in a run-off vote, following a strong speech that emphasised social cohesion and held up recent scenes from Washington DC as a warning example of divisive leadership.
Millionaire lawyer Friedrich Merz is favourite to take centre-right into federal elections
When Angela Merkel steps down as chancellor this September, she will leave behind a conservative party that has been a practically unchallenged political force in Germany for 16 years and currently leads political polls by a towering 15 percentage points.
And yet the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) may thank her this Saturday by electing as its new leader one of her longest-standing political rivals, a man who represents a return to the pre-Merkel past not just in terms of ideological values but also style of leadership.
In 2021, the world will slowly begin to fight back against Covid. But what else will change as the vaccines are administered? Here are the figures who will shape a vital year
Germany will close most shops from Wednesday until 10 January as it tightens coronavirus restrictions and tries to rein in the spread of the disease, the country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said.
Schools will also be shut during the period, and employers will be asked to close operations or have employees work from home. The sale of fireworks will be banned ahead of New Year’s Eve.
Scotland came close to eliminating Covid during the first nationwide lockdown, according to genomic sequencing for Sage of 5,000 samples of the virus, the Scottish government believes.
Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, said analysis by scientists in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews on the COG-UK consortium found that around 300 different strains of the virus were circulating in Scotland during the first wave.
That allows us to say this did get us incredibly close to eliminating the virus in our communities, but as we opened up, inevitably people began to travel across the UK [and] travel abroad. New strains were imported again into Scotland.
[This] indicates that, while lockdown in Scotland is directly linked with the first wave case numbers being brought under control, travel-associated imports (mostly from Europe or other parts of the UK) following the easing of lockdown are responsible for seeding the current epidemic population.
This demonstrates that the impact of stringent public health measures can be compromised if, following this, movements from regions of high to low prevalence are not minimised.
Public Health Wales has recorded 2,238 further coronavirus cases. That is a new record daily high for recorded cases. The previous daily record was 2,021, on Monday. A week ago today the figure was 1,480.
There have also been 31 further deaths. A week ago today the figure was 51.
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated.
Paris’s concerns about UK demands are widely shared, analysts, politicians and EU diplomats say
Emmanuel Macron may be talking tougher than the rest of the EU27 as Brexit talks reach their endgame, but despite claims to the contrary in London and by a UK media that always enjoys pointing fingers across the Channel, France is far from isolated.
Headlines such as “Le bust-up” and “France derails Brexit talks” do not reflect European reality, analysts, politicians and EU diplomats have insisted, saying Paris’s fundamental concerns are widely shared across the EU27.
UK PM and European commission president to speak on Saturday after negotiators fail to reach agreement
The Brexit talks will enter their final act on Saturday with a shift to direct negotiations between Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, following the failure to find agreement in London.
In a joint statement, David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, and his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, said they had not been able to come to terms on the final issues and that the historic trade and security negotiation would be paused.
Governments are at odds over a Europe-wide plan to bar ski holidays over Christmas and new year, with Germany, Italy and France in favour but Austria and Switzerland reluctant to damage a sector worth billions to their economies.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Thursday joined Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in calling for a Europe-wide shutdown of winter sports until 10 January to avert a fresh coronavirus wave.
Angela Merkel has said she does not have backing among state leaders for new restrictions to give Germany’s “soft” lockdown a harder bite, postponing any decision until a further meeting between the chancellor and 16 state premiers next week.
The chancellor had been in favour of people limiting social interactions in private to only one set second household, and forgo any kind of party until Christmas Eve, according to a draft proposal cited by several news outlets including Der Spiegel.
Reference to Islam removed from EU governments’ declaration after disagreements
The rise of violent extremism in Europe has been linked to the failure of migrants to integrate, in a hard-debated joint declaration by EU governments on the recent terror attacks.
The statement by EU home affairs ministers was described by Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, as a “great sign of solidarity” when delivered on Friday but it had been heavily watered down from a controversial initial draft.
The head of the World Health Organization has gone into self-quarantine after someone he had been in contact with tested positive for Covid-19.
With the virus again spreading rapidly across Europe and elsewhere, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is based in Geneva, made the announcement by Twitter late on Sunday night, but stressed he had no symptoms.
Germany will impose an emergency month-long lockdown that includes the closure of restaurants, gyms and theatres to reverse a spike in coronavirus cases that risks overwhelming hospitals, the chancellor said on Wednesday
Michael Gove confirms British government’s door to re-engagement with Brussels is ‘ajar’
Brussels expects the Brexit negotiations to resume within days, as Michael Gove confirmed that despite Downing Street’s tough rhetoric the door remained “ajar” on re-engagement.
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, will hold a video conference call with his British counterpart, David Frost, on Monday afternoon to discuss the structure of future talks.