Europe

In January and February, 20 and 30 million vaccine doses respectively had been delivered by the manufacturers, said von der Leyen, in March 50 million doses were expected: "From April onwards, the quantities could double again according to the manufacturers' plans. That would be an average of around 100 million doses per month in the second quarter, a total of 300 million by the end of June."

Spain's birth rate has fallen by 22.6% in the year following the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March of 2020, with the country reporting 13,141 births between December 2020 and January 2021 compared to the same period previous year.

Spain has been seeing a decline in births in the past couple of years, with only 360,617 newborns in 2019 – the lowest figure since 1941.

In a referendum on Sunday, more than 52 percent of voters were in favor to ban facial coverings – commonly known as 'burqa ban' – especially aimed against niqabs and burqas traditionally worn by Muslim women. The results speak against the recommendation of the government, which was against the ban that was proposed pre-Coronavirus. The proposal would also ban protestors from wearing masks. Final results are due later on Sunday.

Last year, CDU MP Nikolas Löbel brokered deals with Corona protection masks to German companies and earned more than a quarter of a million euros in commissions, according to information from Business Insider. According to the report, Löbel offered potential customers in Germany "mask deliveries reliably and quickly from China via Bricon Technology GmbH, based in Wurmlingen". Löbel had contact with this member of the People's Chamber after he had written to the Chinese raw materials company Sinopec, which sells Corona protective masks on a large scale all over the world.

The British YouTubers Josh Pieters and Archie Manners have released a video in which they interviewed four Royal Experts and let them comment on the yet-to-be-released interview, in which Oprah Winfrey talked to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

The people that commented on the unreleased interview include Dickie Arbiter, former press secretary of the Queen, Ingrid Seward, Editor-in-Chief of the Majesty Magazine, Richard Fitzwilliams, Royal Commentator and Victoria Arbiter, CNN Royal Commentator.

Lithuania on Friday publicly rebuffed a request from the Belarus General Prosecutor's Office to extradite the opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to the country after a harsh government crackdown followed disputed elections last summer.

Belarus requested Tsikhanouskaya extradition "to face prosecution for crimes against the governing order, public safety and the state." but Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis response to the request was blunt: "We can tell the Belarusian regime that we would rather watch hell freeze over than think about their demands."

Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday that France will have enough Coronavirus vaccines doses to vaccinate over 30 million people (two-thirds of the population) by this summer. The aim is to vaccinate 10 million people by mid-April and 20 million by mid-May as "deliveries of doses to France will increase in the coming weeks."

“Between January and February, we received seven million doses of all vaccines. In March, we should receive 22 million doses, three times as many. We can't vaccinate everyone right away. You will still have to be patient but don't have any doubt - you will be vaccinated,” he said.

The German Federal Government is expected to start paying for rapid tests starting next week, as part of the latest pandemic plan agreed to late Wednesday between Chancellor Angela Merkel and 16 state leaders to moving Germany out of lockdown.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced on Twitter the government had secured at least 200 million self-tests and 800 million rapid tests, of which 150 million are already in stock with suppliers.

"Opening schools without rapid tests will drive up the incidence rate," Karl Lauterbach, a Bundestag deputy for the Social Democrats (SPD) and an epidemiologist, wrote on Twitter.

The Italian government has decided to block the export of a 250,000 doses shipment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine produced in Italy to Australia.

Italy is the first European Union country to use the bloc's new regulations allowing exports to be stopped if the company providing the vaccines has failed to meet its obligations to the EU.

Italy's new Prime Minister Mario Draghi, an influential figure in Europe as the former president of the European Central Bank, argued in a videoconference with EU leaders that the rules should be applied rigorously, furious at reductions by AstraZeneca of up to 70% in the doses it was contracted to provide.

The German Standing Commission on Vaccination (Stiko) at the Robert Koch Institute now recommends AstraZeneca's vaccine for people older than 65. The Ministry of Health confirmed the change in a statement. The interval between the two vaccination doses is also to be extended.

Due to a long-standing heart condition, Prince Philip has undergone medical intervention. He must remain in hospital, according to Buckingham Palace.

"The Duke of Edinburgh yesterday underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew's Hospital," the statement read. "His Royal Highness will remain in hospital for treatment, rest and recuperation for a number of days."

The new Berlin urban development plan - abbreviated StEP MoVe - focuses on the period up to 2030. One of Berlin's transport policy goals is to achieve a combined share of cycling, walking, and public transport of at least 82 per cent by then. At 30 per cent, walking should get the relatively largest share.

Primarily for climate protection and air pollution control, the Senate is aiming for a zero-emission zone "in the medium term". Initially in the city centre, later in the whole of Berlin, no vehicles with combustion engines are to be allowed. Günther had originally fought to achieve these goals by 2030 and 2035, respectively. However, the new urban development plan no longer mentions any dates after the red-red-green coalition had been at loggerheads over this issue.

According to SPIEGEL, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has declared the entire AfD a suspected case of right-wing extremism. This means that the agency can also observe the party using intelligence means.

However, in an ongoing legal dispute before the Cologne Administrative Court, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has committed itself to refrain from intelligence surveillance of members of the federal, state and European parliaments for the time being. The same applies to candidates in the upcoming elections in 2021.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is also currently not allowed to disclose its classification as a "suspected case".

The basis for the observation of the entire AfD is a roughly 1000-page report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Since the beginning of 2019, the office's lawyers and experts on right-wing extremism have compiled a great deal of evidence of suspected violations of the free democratic order.

According to SPIEGEL information, the report is to provide evidence that the AfD violates the guarantee of human dignity and the principle of democracy in the Basic Law. Several hundred speeches and statements by officials at all party levels are to serve as evidence.

Hungary's head of government withdraws his Fidesz MEPs from the EPP group in the EU Parliament.

The Hungarian right-wing nationalist ruling party Fidesz will leave the Christian Democratic EPP group in the European Parliament today, Wednesday. This was announced by Fidesz this morning. The withdrawal had already been announced by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a letter to EPP Group leader Manfred Weber.

In it, Orban had threatened the parliamentary group, which wants to suspend the Fidesz deputies. If it came to the vote and adoption of new rules of procedure of the group, which makes the suspension or the exclusion of whole groups possible, the Fidesz MEPs would leave the club of the European People's Party of their own accord, Orban had announced.

After the US intelligence officials concluded that the Russian government was behind the attack on Navalny, the Biden administration slapped sanctions on Russian individuals and entities

Tuesday's sanctions mark the first of several steps by the Biden administration to "respond to a number of destabilizing actions,'' said one of the White House officials.

Brussels imposed bans on travel and froze the assets in Europe of Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov, the prosecutor general, Viktor Zolotov, head of the National Guard, and Alexander Kalashnikov, head of the Federal Prison Service

Restaurants, cafés, and other eateries with outdoor seating will be allowed to reopen on March 27 with patrons having to produce mandatory evidence of a negative Covid-19 test result, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced in a press conference on Monday. The province of Vorarlberg can reopen hospitality venues on March 15 due to a lower case count.

According to information from the ARD capital city studio, the German grand coalition has agreed on the introduction of an official lobby register. According to the report, professional lobbyists must in the future be registered in a database that is to be set up and maintained at the German Bundestag. Violations are to be punished with a fine of up to 50,000 euros.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced it has filed a criminal complaint with the German Public Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, detailing a litany of crimes against humanity committed against journalists in Saudi Arabia.

The complaint targets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and other high-ranking Saudi officials and addresses 35 cases of journalists: slain Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and 34 journalists who have been jailed in Saudi Arabia, including 33 currently in detention -- among them, blogger Raif Badawi.

"In Saudi Arabia, journalists, who are a civilian population according to international law, are victims of widespread and systematic attacks for political reasons in furtherance of a state policy aimed at punishing or silencing them," an RSF statement said.

France has lifted the age restriction of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine will now be offered to "people aged 50 and above who have comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure or a history of cancer can be vaccinated with AstraZeneca, including those aged 65 to 74."

“The Haute Autorité de Santé now considers as of today that all three vaccines that we have in France have a remarkable efficacy to protect people against the risk of severe forms of Covid-19,” Health minister Olivier Véran said.

The European Commission plans to propose a draft for an EU-wide digital vaccination passport – the Digital Green Pass – on March 17, Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Monday. The digital passport should provide information regarding vaccination status, test results, and prior Covid-19 recoveries.

"As for the question of what the digital green passport could look like: we will submit a legislative proposal in March," so von der Leyen.

The mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić, died unexpectedly at the age of 65 on Sunday night of a heart attack, Croatian media reported. Bandić led the Croatian capital for almost 21 years.

The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was found guilty of having tried to obtain confidential information about him from a magistrate, and to obtain a dismissal in an older case.

He has been sentenced to 3 years in prison (1 year custodial and 2 non-custodial).

He can still appeal against this conviction.

Three unknown persons allegedly attacked a homeless man in Berlin-Britz and set fire to his belongings. The youths or young men allegedly chased the 59-year-old from his tent in the park on Gutschmidtstraße on Friday evening, according to police on Saturday. Afterward, they allegedly beat and kicked him with sticks. According to the report, he initially fled. When he returned, his tent was on fire. Two hours later, another tent of a homeless man burnt down nearby.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said that B117 (the UK strain) now accounts for about half of people infected with Covid-19 in France". France is considering stricter measures for affected areas, including weekend lockdowns for Paris and 19 other departments.

Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire has said the city of Paris is considering a three-week-long strict lockdown, known as "Zero Covid". The measure would give the city "the prospect of reopening everything", instead of "half-measures with bad results" and "semi-prison for months". Currently Paris is under a night-curfew, all eaters and culture venues are closed.

Germany's Deutsche Telekom posted a record-breaking turnover figure on Friday as its US unit T-Mobile continued to drive growth. In 2020, the telecommunications company earned €101 billion, a 25.4% increase compared with the year before.

CEO Tim Höttges said, "We closed a groundbreaking deal in the United States, improved our market position in Europe and at the same time made an important contribution to managing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic with our stable networks."

Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, said to European lawmakers the company would deliver to the EU less than half the amount of Covid-19 vaccine doses that it pledged for the first quarter of 2021. The undersupply torpedoed the EU’s plan to use AstraZeneca as its main first vaccine during the first quarter.

Soriot also said, "we hope that by Q2 (the April-May-June second quarter), we can catch up to where we would like to be."

EU officials say ramped up deliveries from April by the Anglo-Swedish company and by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna mean that the 27-nation bloc remains on track to reach its goal of fully vaccinating 70% of adults by mid-September.

Twenty-seven European leaders have met to debate joint Covid-19 measures, including unilateral border and movement restrictions, the slow vaccine rollout and vaccine passports. While open questions remain, a vaccine passport is to be expected by summer.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expects that the EU vaccination passport can be developed by the summer. "The political target is to achieve this in the next few months, I have spoken of three months," the CDU politician said on Thursday after the EU video summit.

The certificate is intended to create the possibility of granting advantages to vaccinated persons, if necessary. "Everyone has pointed out today that this is not an issue at all at the moment, given the low vaccination coverage of the population. But one has to prepare oneself," Merkel emphasized. She added that the vaccination certificate alone would not determine who could travel. "No political decisions have been made about this at all yet."

Federal prosecutors have charged a German citizen with passing blueprints and building plans of the Bundestag parliament to a suspected GRU agent in the Russian Embassy.

In a press release, Germany's federal prosecutor's office said the suspect worked for a company hired to check the electrical equipment by the Bundestag. In that role, the German national used his access to collect data and pass it on to "an employee in the Russian Embassy in Berlin, who mainly works for the Russian military secret service GRU," between late July and early September 2017.