South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the ruling African National Congress must initiate a parliamentary process to enshrine in the constitution a proposed amendment, paving the way for land grabs without compensation. Source: RT
Social Policy
Spain said Saturday it had rescued more than 1,200 migrants from the sea in two days as the country’s interior minister called for a European-wide solution to illegal immigration. Source: The Local
Libya rejects a European Union’s plan to establish migrant centers there to stop asylum seekers arriving in western Europe and it will not be swayed by financial inducements, Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj said. Source: Reuters
The first families of Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, could soon be moving to Russia to escape rising violence against farmers. Some 15,000 Boers want to leave South Africa and become farmers in Russia. Source: RT
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte wants a new EU agency to oversee the distribution of migrants picked up at sea. Last weekend, he struck an ad-hoc deal with six EU states to take more arrivals from Africa. Source: Deutsche Welle
The European Commission’s legal request could lead to the EU’s top court imposing financial sanctions against Hungary. Brussels has also opened a new infringement procedure against Hungary’s “Stop Soros” laws. Source: Deutsche Welle
A Spanish judge on Thursday dropped European and international arrest warrants for deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and other separatist leaders who fled abroad, the Supreme Court said, which means they no longer face extradition. Source: The Local
A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday temporarily blocked a move by new U.S. President Joe Biden to halt the deportation of many immigrants for a 100-day period, a swift legal setback for his ambitious immigration agenda. Source Reuters
The United States could face a heightened threat of domestic extremist violence for weeks from people angry at Donald Trump’s election defeat and inspired by the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Homeland Security warned on Wednesday. Source Reuters
Chinese military exercises near Taiwan are a “solemn warning to external forces”, Beijing said Wednesday, after the new US government expressed strong support for the self-ruled island. Source Bangkok Post
Egypt will not compromise or bow down to threats regarding its interests in the River Nile or its water rights, the country’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has said.
During his speech before the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, Shoukry added that Ethiopia has unilaterally started the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Source Daily News
Thousands of users across the U.S. East Coast faced widespread internet outage from providers including Verizon Communications Inc on Tuesday, disrupting services offered by Google, Amazon, Zoom, Slack and other tech firms. Source Reuters
Some 300 companies have signed a pledge to help hundreds of thousands of maritime workers stranded aboard freight ships around the world because of Covid-19 restrictions. Source France 24
Berlin plans to cut almost all inbound flights to Germany to limit spread of coronavirus variants on its soil.
The danger represented by the various mutations of the virus demands that we examine and discuss within the government drastic measures “, among which” the reduction of air traffic to Germany to almost nil “, Horst Seehofer told the daily Bild . Source Air Live
More than 370 migrants have arrived in Sicily after they were picked up off the Libyan coast by a rescue ship. Most are from sub-Saharan Africa, and many are unaccompanied children. The ship’s crew says it was a huge relief that they were given permission to dock. Source Deutsche Welle
Entrepreneurs in Geleen, Limburg, are furious with the police. He fined them for breaking the curfew when they tried to protect their business from rioters. “I am still shaking,” says café owner Rob Slangen. “That’s how angry I am.” Source RTL
- US says ‘will help our partner Saudi Arabia defend against attacks on its territory’
- Arab coalition thwarted an attack on Riyadh on Saturday by the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen
The US on Sunday condemned an attempted air attack on Riyadh at the weekend and said anyone who tried to undermine the Kingdom’s stability would be held to account. Source Arab News
The police were violently attacked by about thirty individuals in the Mardelles district in Brunoy (Essonne) when they arrested the alleged perpetrator of an assault. An official was injured. The police were called in around 1:40 p.m. this Saturday. A 17-year-old teenager had just been assaulted near the Boulevard du Général de Gaulle in Brunoy. He was unconscious. Source Actu17
The NASDAQ has paused trading after internet “degenerates” spotted Wall Street gearing up to make a killing, beat the traders at their own game, and got filthy rich while destroying the US’ top hedge funds. Buckle up. Source RT
Dutch airline KLM is cutting another 800 to 1 thousand jobs. The aviation sector is not recovering and it is increasingly difficult to make ends meet, the Dutch airline announced on Thursday.
KLM is cutting 500 full-time jobs among the cabin crew, 100 jobs among pilots, and 200 to 400 jobs among the ground crew. This comes on top of the 5 thousand job cuts the airline announced last year with its reorganization plans to get through the coronavirus pandemic. Source NLTimes
Fraport Greece reported a 71.4% annual decline in passenger traffic last year at the 14 regional airports it operates in Greece. The total number of passengers who used the airports of Thessaloniki, Corfu, Hania, Cephalonia, Zakynthos, Aktio, Kavala, Rhodes, Kos, Samos, Mytilene, Mykonos, Santorini and Skiathos reached 8,611,780, of which 5,994,180 were on international flights – a year-on-year decline of 74.2%. Source Ekathimerini
Russian oil drilling giant Gazprom Neft opened a crypto mining farm running on associated gas energy unlocking the power of Russia’s oil and gas resources for the needs of bitcoin (BTC) mining, reports Yahoo Finance. The venue for cryptocurrency mining is on one of the company’s oil drilling sites in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in Siberia. It is using the associated gas from Gazprom Neft’s oil field as an energy source and has its own power plant to transform this gas into electricity. Source Realnoevremya
The United States’ trade deficit surged to its highest level in more than 14 years in November as businesses boosted imports to replenish inventories, offsetting a rise in exports. Source Reuters
U.S. bankruptcy filings hit their lowest level since 1986 last year thanks to unprecedented fiscal and monetary support from the Fed and Congress.
By the numbers: Total bankruptcy filings for the year fell to 529,068 filings across all chapters, while total filings in the month of December was 34,304, the lowest monthly total since January 2006, according to a release from legal services company Epiq AACER. The number of total 2020 filings was about 1/3 of the number seen in 2010. Source Axios
Italy is working on a plan to take on about 14 billion euros ($17 billion) of UniCredit’s impaired loans to make a takeover of state-owned Monte dei Paschi more attractive for the country’s second-biggest bank, sources told Reuters.
Volkswagen Group has liquidated its unit in Turkey after cancelling plans to establish its first factory in the country, Turkish television channel BloombergHT reported on Tuesday.
The decision to shutter the firm was registered with the Turkish Trade Registry and a call to creditors was issued on Monday, BloombergHT said. Source Ahval
The former head of one of China’s biggest asset management companies has been sentenced to death for corruption, in a relatively rare instance of the country meting out the death penalty for financial crimes. Source FT
Russian natural gas transported to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline touched 28.8 million cubic metres per day, as of Jan. 3, to feed homes and factories as northern China faces frigid weather conditions, national oil and gas pipeline giant PipeChina said. Source Business Recorder
Dec. 22, France’s national statistic agency INSEE reported that, the country’s public debt hit 2,674.3 billion euros (around USD3,255.93 billion) before the end of the July-September period of the present year, making up for 116.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Source MenaFN
