BERLIN | WARSAW
In a run-off election with arch-conservative Friedrich Merz, North Rhine-Westphalian leader Armin Laschet won the race for CDU chair. Laschet – considered to be the moderate in the race and ran largely on a platform of continuing Merkel’s legacy – now has the best chance of becoming the country’s next chancellor after the Bundestag election set for 26 September.
In the meantime at the EU level, Laschet will have to deal with the headache of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, which is part of the European People’s Party (EPP). EPP chief Donald Tusk briefly welcomed delegates during Saturday’s CDU virtual congress and called on the CDU to take a clear position regarding the dispute with Fidesz. Read more.
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If the President Is Silenced, When Do the Billionaire IT Barons Get to You?
Jan. 11 , 2021 (EIRNS) Immediately led on Jan. 7-8 by Edward Snowden, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Michael Gorbachev, more leading figures in political life and journalism have attacked the attempt at total censorship of President Donald Trump by the IT billionaires of Silicon Valley, who are trying to impose total control over political speech in the United States to start.
Today German Chancellor Angela Merkel “blasted” (in Reuters description) Facebook and Twitter censorship of Trump. “The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance,” Steffen Seibert, Merkel’s chief spokesman, told reporters in Berlin on Monday, according to Reuters. “Given that, the Chancellor considers it problematic that the President’s accounts have been permanently suspended.” The First Amendment “can be interfered with,” Merkel’s spo
First case of UK variant found in Georgia, state s health department says
From CNN’s Jamiel Lynch
The first case of the UK Covid-19 variant has been identified in Georgia, according to a release from the state Department of Health. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) is announcing Georgia’s first case of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, the same variant discovered in the U.K. and in several other countries and U.S. states, the department said in a news release.
The variant was discovered during analysis of a specimen sent by a pharmacy in Georgia to a commercial lab, the release said. The resident is an 18-year-old man with no travel history who is currently isolating at home.
Germany’s health minister defended the slow start of the country’s coronavirus vaccine campaign on Wednesday amid soaring infection numbers and a tighter lockdown.
“The problem is the shortage of production capacity with global demand,” Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters in Berlin, adding that he understood the desire for a faster rollout.
Germany has faced criticism that it has failed to procure enough vaccine doses to speed up the nationwide campaign amid the high infections and hospitalisations.
“We’re in a much worse position than other countries,” said Lars Klingbeil, the general secretary of the Social Democratic Party. “It can’t be that the country where the vaccine is created has too few doses.”
By Henry Sandercock2020-12-21T12:35:00+00:00
Freight queues in Kent could number 6,000 by the end of today, according to transport secretary Grant Shapps
Food industry bodies have urged the government to find a way to get France to unseal its border with the UK or face the possibility of “serious” fresh food supply disruption.
Channel crossings to France for passengers and freight ground to a halt at midnight last night (20 December), after the country announced it would be sealing its border with the UK for 48 hours due to news that a more virulent strain of Covid-19 was spreading in England.