Underwater archeologists, who were commissioned by the environmental organization WWF to clean the Baltic sea from abandoned fishing nets, found inside of one of those fishing nets an old German Enigma machine from the Second World War. The Enigma machine from the M3 series was probably part of one of the vessels which were sunk by the German Kriegsmarine in 1945 during the operation "Regenbogen" to avoid surrendering them to the Allied Forces.

Because of the ongoing Covid19 situation in Bavaria, Minister-President Markus Söder has now called officially a case of disaster. The infection numbers have to go down, he said on Sunday. New restrictions, especially curfews will be in effect beginning with Wednesday, December the 9th.

After warnings from the SPD, the leader of the German Green party, Robert Habeck, also warned the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt to not collaborate with the right-wing AfD in the ongoing discussion about the planned raise of the broadcast license fee.

The CDU in Saxony-Anhalt is strictly against the raise and could prevent it if they joined forces with the AfD in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt because every federal state has to approve the raise.

In a piece for the New York Times, Meghan Markle tells about a miscarriage she had back in July 2020. In that piece, she also criticizes the taboo about miscarriages in society and calls for more compassion, especially in the current pandemic situation.

In a case about a lay-off because of a racist slur during a works council meeting, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled, that an insult, which is not only offensive but "fundamentally degrading" is not covered by the freedom of speech, because it infringes the human dignity, which is the highest principle of the German constitution.

The mystery of the 2005 excavated grave in Krems-Wachtberg in Austria, which is about 31000 years old and in which two skeletons of new-born children were found, was unraveled by Archeologists of the Natural History Museum Vienna and the University Vienna. Gene analytics showed that the two boys, who were buried under a mammoth scapula, were identical twin brothers.

The one boy died during or shortly after birth, the second one about six or seven weeks later. Those children are the oldest recorded identical human twins. A nearby found skeleton of a male toddler of 13 or 14 weeks appears to be related to both brothers - he was their cousin.

Despite both being in the Visegrád Group, Czechia and Slovakia apparently do not share the Polish and Hungarian rejection of the compromise on the EU´s long-term budget and Recovery Plan negotiated by the German Presidency. The foreign ministers of both states have expressed their hopes that neither Hungaria nor Poland will effectively block the implemantation of those EU funds. According to Polish gouvernment sources, a video summit of the Visegrád Group will take place to discuss the disagreements.

In a direct contradiction of German minister of defense, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, French president Emmanuel Macron said shortly before visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that the European Union should pursue its attempts to get strategic autonomy, especially regarding military matters.

He admitted that the EU still has no strategic sovereignty, but should continue to try to become a fully established European power, even with a new administration in the White House in the near future.

On Tuesday, November th 17th, US President Donald Trump has fired Christopher Krebs, the senior cybersecurity official of his own administration who is responsible for the security of the presidental election. Krebs repeatedly denied any claims of widespread voter fraud, for which he was criticised by Trump in his justification of Krebs' dismissal.

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the Anglophone media for their suggestion that the core issue on hand is not violence from Islamists, but the racism and Islamophobia in France.

Macron states that the Anglophone media seems to him not able to understand one of the core principles of the French republic, laïcité. France will not give up its special brand of secularism and freedom of speech, which very much includes every kind of satire, Macron says.