By Hui Min NEO Agence France-Presse BERLIN, June 19, 2023 (AFP) – China’s Premier Li Qiang will meet German leaders during a trip to Berlin on Monday, at a time when Beijing’s policies on Russia, trade and human rights are receiving an increasingly hostile reception in the West. Li — who is making his first trip abroad since being appointed premier in March — will begin his two-nation tour with so-called “government consultations” involving talks […]
Tag: Germany
Germany says can’t replace all tanks provided to Ukraine
FRANKFURT, Germany, June 13, 2023 (AFP) – Germany will not be able to immediately replace tanks that it is providing to Ukraine, the country’s defence minister has said, as Russia claimed to have destroyed or captured some of them. Berlin earlier this year started sending advanced Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, after months of pleas from Kyiv for the heavy weapons to bolster its fightback against Russia. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told broadcaster RTL, in […]
NATO begins unprecedented air drill in ‘show of strength’
By Deborah COLE Agence France-Presse BERLIN, June 12, 2023 (AFP) — NATO will begin the largest air force deployment exercise in Europe in the alliance’s history on Monday in a display of unity toward partners and potential threats such as Russia. The German-led “Air Defender 23” will run until June 23 and include some 250 military aircraft from 25 NATO and partner countries including Japan and Sweden, which is bidding to join the alliance. Up […]
Scholz says plans to speak to Putin ‘in due course’
BERLIN, Germany, May 26, 2023 (AFP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he plans to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin “in due course”, holding out the prospect of resuming contact after a near-total breakdown in relations since the Ukraine war. “My last telephone call was some time ago,” Scholz told the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper in an interview published Friday. “But I plan to speak to Putin again in due course.” The leaders last spoke […]
Police comb Portuguese dam for 3rd day in Madeleine McCann case
SILVES, Portugal, May 25, 2023 (AFP) – Police from Portugal, Germany and Britain on Thursday resumed their search at a reservoir in southern Portugal, hoping to shed light on the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann. The child was three years old when she went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve 16 years ago, while her parents were dining at a nearby tapas bar. Despite an international manhunt, no trace of […]
Germany in recession as inflation, higher interest bite
BERLIN, May 25, 2023 (AFP) – Germany fell into a recession around the turn of the year, official figures published Thursday showed, as inflation and higher interest rates curbed demand in Europe’s largest economy. Over the first three months of 2023, the economy shrank by 0.3 percent, the federal statistics agency Destatis said, downgrading an initial estimate of zero percent. Following a 0.5-percent contraction in the last three months of 2022, it was Germany’s second […]
Russia summons Germany, Sweden, Denmark envoys over Nord Stream
MOSCOW, May 25, 2023 (AFP) – Russia on Thursday summoned the envoys of Germany, Sweden and Denmark over Moscow’s frustration with the lack of progress on probes into the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines. Built to carry Russian gas to Germany, the pipelines in the Baltic Sea were ruptured by subsea explosives months after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February, 2022. Western countries have blamed the explosions under the Baltic Sea […]
CEO of Germany’s Thyssenkrupp to step down, shares hit
Thyssenkrupp’s chief executive Martina Merz is stepping aside early, the German industrial giant said Monday, in a surprise announcement that sent the company’s shares into a nosedive. The CEO, who led a major restructuring of the steel-to-submarines group, requested talks on stepping down and the supervisory board agreed, Thyssenkrupp said in a statement. Miguel Angel Lopez Borrego, CEO of German engineering group Norma, has been put forward to replace her, starting in June. No reason […]
German court says no jurisdiction in Madeleine McCann suspect case
Berlin, Germany | AFP | Thursday 4/20/2023 A German court said Thursday it did not have jurisdiction to try the prime suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann for unrelated sexual offences. The regional tribunal in Brunswick said it had decided it was “not competent” to hear the case against Christian B. because his “last known address” in Germany was in another state, Saxony-Anhalt. “On the basis of the court’s decision, the Brunswick […]
German president asks forgiveness on Warsaw ghetto anniversary
by Stanislaw WASZAK Agence France-Presse WARSAW, Poland (AFP) — Germany’s president on Wednesday sought pardon for crimes committed by Germans during World War II in comments on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising anniversary in Poland’s capital. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first German president to speak at the commemorations, joined Polish and Israeli heads of state to mark 80 years since a doomed uprising by Jewish insurgents against Nazi German occupiers. “I stand before you today and ask […]
‘Burning all around’: Warsaw ghetto survivors recall uprising
by Bernard Osser with Michael Blum in Jerusalem Agence France-Presse WARSAW, Poland (AFP) — Death, terror, hunger… Eighty years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a couple of civilian survivors speak out about what the Nazi Germans put their community through. The two women were among the 50,000 people still hiding in cellars and bunkers in the Jewish district when the doomed revolt broke out against the occupiers. “I sensed burning all around me,” said Krystyna […]
How to decommission a nuclear power plant
Frankfurt, Germany | AFP | Saturday 4/15/2023 by Jean-Philippe LACOUR Germany’s last three nuclear power plants will stop generating electricity from Saturday but the arduous and decades-long process of decommissioning the sites is only just beginning. Here’s a look at what happens after the plants are taken offline. – Gradual shutdown – On the day of the shutdown, plant operators will gradually decrease electricity output. From 10:00 pm (2000 GMT), “we will lower the facility’s […]





