he European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that an agreement that allows thousands of companies — from tech giants to small financial firms — to transfer data to the United States is invalid because the American government can snoop on people’s data. Source ABC
European Union
Tens of thousands of Bulgarians kept protesting for the fifth day in a row on July 13, demanding the immediate resignation of the government and the chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev, accusing them of widespread corruption and shielding the interests of alleged criminals who, they claim, control the state authorities Source BNE
The deal between Ankara and Moscow has been signed and sealed and the first shipments of the S-400 air defence system have just landed on Turkish soil, at a military airbase located at the vicinity of the country’s capital. The second-largest NATO army is acquiring weapons and materiel from a state that by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is viewed as inimical.
Turkey occupies an area which is bridging Europe with Asia and neighbouring some of the war-ridden countries like Iraq and Syria in the volatile region known as the Middle East. It is also strategically important for NATO because it controls the Straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and because it outflanks Russia from the south. A NATO member since 1952 Turkey – although a Third World country – wanted to remain a loyal member of the Alliance with ever closer ties to the Western world. Not only did Ankara join its troops to the NATO but also lent its territory to the pact. The reader will have remembered that it was the American missiles deployed to Turkish territory which caused anxiety at the Kremlin and induced Nikita Khrushchev to retaliate by deploying Soviet missiles to Cuba, which led to the international conflict threatening to culminate in a third world war. The strained relations between the two superpowers were only eased when both the Soviets withdrew their missiles from the largest island in the Caribic and the Americans removed theirs from Turkey.
Turkey’s membership in the Alliance has never meant that Ankara was a patsy in Washington’s hands. It skilfully guarded its sovereignty and pursued its own interests. Thus in 1974 Turkish armed forces landed in Northern Cyprus, establishing there of a separate Turkish state and a permanent – as yet – division of the island predominantly inhabited by Greeks. Thus Ankara dared to thwart the interest of another NATO member – Greece – and Athens could do nothing about it. Turkey was strategically too important and that is why it could afford to act independently of NATO’s most important allies.
Austria on Wednesday became the first euro zone country to price a public sale of debt below the European Central Bank’s deposit rate, as expectations of more ECB stimulus and worries over the global economy push yields in the bloc to new lows. Source: Reuters
Matteo Salvini has called for a “fiscal shock” of tax cuts in Italy as he exerts his influence after a resounding victory in the European elections, but Brussels is preparing to hit back over Rome’s budget plans. Source: Financial Times
Euro zone industrial production fell in March for a second straight month as output declined in France and Italy but recovered in the bloc’s largest economy, Germany, data from the European Union’s statistics agency showed on Tuesday. Source: Reuters
The right-wing interior minister’s decree – which will be proposed to the council of ministers in the next few days and then voted upon by parliament – would allow NGOs to be fined “from €3,500 to €5,500 for each transported foreigner”. Source: The Guardian
Several hundred health workers took to the streets of Paris on Thursday afternoon to protest against conditions in French hospitals, as the number of new coronavirus cases surges across the country. Source France24
Since a new decree went into effect in Italy this summer, 220,000 migrants have applied to get temporary papers, according to Deputy Interior Minister Matteo Mauri. Meanwhile, he also said that the exploitation of undocumented farmworkers in the Foggia region had to be stopped. Source Info Migrants
‘An armed attack on Sweden cannot be ruled out,’ said Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist as he presented the country’s future military strategy. Sweden said Thursday it would boost military spending by 40 percent over the next four years as it seeks to ramp up defence capabilities in the face of European tensions. Source The Local
The global aviation industry will take at least two years to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and for mass travel to return, Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung has said, stressing the importance of developing a widely available and effective vaccine to help countries open their borders. Source JapanTimes
Compared to the Trump administration’s sweeping revocation of visas for “high-risk” students and researchers with suspected ties to the Chinese military, Japan’s response to campus spying has largely been muted.
But even “spy heaven,” as the nation is often dubbed due to its lack of a comprehensive anti-espionage law, can no longer remain complacent. Source JapanTimes
Local media on Wednesday (Oct. 15) reported that Taiwanese F-16 fighter jets outmaneuvered a Chinese Sukhoi-30 (Su-30) fighter jet over the Taiwan Strait and drove it out of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) last month. Source Taiwan News
Greece started building a new fence across its northeastern border with Turkey, a project aimed at avoiding a repeat of the tensions last March when thousands of migrants attempted to scale the fence and enter into EU soil. Source Ekathemirini
A Greek court sentenced the leadership of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party to 13 years in prison Wednesday, imposing the near-maximum penalty for running a criminal organization blamed for numerous violent hate crimes. Source Ekathimerini
Ten people, including a senior operations manager at Uber in Italy, are under investigation over the alleged exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers by the company’s food-delivery arm, prosecutors have said. Source The Guardian
Germany’s foreign minister on Tuesday criticized Turkey for “unilateral steps” in the eastern Mediterranean that are undercutting efforts to de-escalate tensions with Greece and Cyprus over sea boundaries and drilling rights. Source Ekathimerini
At around 10 p.m., the firefighters were called in for a dustbin fire on rue du Barrois. When they arrived, a waste container was burning in the middle of the road.
During their intervention, around thirty masked and hooded individuals, aged between 16 and 20, approached, some armed with baseball bats . They tried to surround the vehicles. The firefighters decided to pack up, back up about fifty meters and alert the police. Source ActuFr
Investors queued up to buy Italy’s new three-year bond on Tuesday, even though they will get nothing back until early 2024.
The sale of Rome’s first benchmark government bond with a zero coupon, meaning it offers no interest payments, is the latest sign of red-hot demand for riskier eurozone debt, as investors bet that the European Central Bank will scale up its asset-purchasing programme. Source FT
- Central bank is developing its own e-yuan as it seeks to hasten the transformation of China’s economy
- Digital currency being used for transactions ranging from bill payments to government services in pilot tests Source South China Morning Post
Denmark gave the green light Thursday to the Russia-led Nord Stream 2 consortium to operate its Baltic Sea gas pipeline in Danish waters, the country’s energy agency announced.
“Nord Stream 2 AG has been granted an operations permit for the Nord Stream 2 pipelines on the Danish continental shelf,” the energy agency said via a statement. “The permit has been granted on a number of conditions to ensure a safe operation of the pipelines.” Source Deutsche Welle
he Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) raised 487.5 million euros on Wednesday through the auction of 26-week treasury bills at a uniform yield of -0.10%. Source Ekathimerini
About 40,000 workers in the airline industry are facing layoffs on Thursday unless Congress comes up with another aid package Source ABC
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts notified the Florida unemployment department Tuesday of impeding layoffs across the theme park’s properties that includes nearly 10% of its employees across the state. Source Click Orlando
U.S. and European oil majors’ commitment to moving away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy threatens oil supplies and prices, Russia’s state-run oil giant Rosneft has said, according to the Financial Times. Source Moscow Times
Royal Dutch Shell announced on Wednesday plans to cut up to 9,000 jobs, or over 10% of its workforce, as part of a major overhaul to shift the oil and gas giant to low-carbon energy.
Shell, which had 83,000 employees at the end of 2019, said that the reorganization will lead to annual savings of $2 billion to $2.5 billion by 2022. Source Shell
The German finance minister has kicked off days of debate over the 2021 budget, arguing for more debt to support the economy during the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s a really, really” large sum, admitted Scholz. Source Deutsche Welle
The world’s largest group of shipping insurers will not insure vessels involved in the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream gas pipeline projects because of the threat of U.S. sanctions. Source Reuters
Italy expects debt to rise to about 160% of gross domestic product by the end of this year despite a smaller-than-forecast contraction of the economy, officials familiar with ongoing budget talks said. The new figures, which are provisional and still subject to change, see the economy expanding 6% in 2021, the officials said, asking not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. Source Bloomberg Quint
