Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Council President Charles Michel is suffering from bad nights due to his embarrassment over a seating arrangement incident at a meeting in Ankara this week, he told German newspaper Handelsblatt.

Ursula Von der Leyen, the first female president of the European Commission, expressed surprise and raised a hand in disbelief when she found Michel had taken the only chair available next to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at the talks.

In the episode, caught on camera, she ended up being relegated to a sofa, further away.

BERLIN, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Germany would amend its infection protection act to "regulate on a nationwide basis" what restrictions would apply when local seven-day COVID-19 incidence exceeded 100 per 100,000 citizens, deputy government spokesperson Ulrike Demmer said Friday.

Demmer told a press conference that it was not yet clear how quickly the change in the law would be implemented, but it would be done "as quickly as possible."

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded in a phone call with President Vladimir Putin that Russia unwind its recent military build-up in the area around eastern Ukraine, the German government said in a statement on Thursday.

Merkel also raised the case of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is currently ill in a Russian penal colony and who is demanding access to independent medical advice.

BERLIN (AP) — Alarmed by a rise in online anti-Semitism during the pandemic, coupled with studies indicating younger generations lack even basic knowledge of the Nazi genocide, Holocaust survivors are taking to social media to share their experience of how hate speech paved the way for mass murder.

BERLIN, April 3. /TASS/: German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has claimed that "challenges are growing" for Europe over Russia’s behavior, she said in an interview with the media group RND on Saturday.

Germany should boost military spending in own interests, but not "as a favor for the United States," the German defense minister said.

"Challenges are growing — with new technologies, in the form of hybrid threats, but also at the regional level, for example, taking into account the behavior of Russia," she claimed.

FRANKFURT, April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — German airline Lufthansa said that it would resume flights from Frankfurt to Tehran from Apr 16.

Lufthansa had suspended flights in January 2020 after a Ukranian airliner was shot down soon after take-off from Tehran.

The airline said it has since assessed security measures by Iran with national and international authorities.

“The conditions for safe flight operations in Iranian airspace are currently in place,” it said in an emailed statement. 

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany will next week present a multi-billion-dollar proposal to Lebanese authorities to rebuild the Port of Beirut as part of efforts to entice the country’s politicians to form a government capable of warding off financial collapse, two sources said.

A chemical explosion at the port last August killed 200 people, injured thousands and destroyed entire neighbourhoods in the Lebanese capital, plunging the country deeper into its worst political and economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany’s capital Berlin is set to impose a nighttime ban on gatherings from Friday and a reduction in children at nursery to from next week try to stop a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, media reported on Thursday.

As the weather has turned warm in recent days, Berliners have been flocking to public spaces to picnic and party, stoking concerns that the coronavirus may be spreading among younger people after schools gradually reopened last month.

BERLIN, March 30 (Xinhua) -- All passengers entering Germany via air travel now have to have a negative COVID-19 test, according to new regulations that came into force on Tuesday.

The negative test result has to be presented to the airline before departure and travelers would have to pay for the tests themselves, according to the Ministry of Health. In addition, the tests have to be conducted no more than 48 hours before entering Germany.

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has blamed her country’s difficulties during the coronavirus pandemic — from the slow vaccine rollout to the back-and-forth over lockdown rules — on “a tendency toward perfectionism” and called for greater flexibility to tackle the latest surge in cases.

In a lengthy television interview with public broadcaster ARD late Sunday, Merkel acknowledged that mistakes were made by her government, including on plans for an Easter lockdown.