Europe

7 June 2019; DW: German criminal statistics for the year 2018 were released on Thursday, and police say they paint a very dark picture.

According to the report, 136 children were violently killed in 2018 — with 80% of victims under the age of 6. Another 98 children were also the victims of attempted killings.

The number of children sexually abused last year rose 6.43% from 2017, to a staggering 14,600 cases — an average of 40 each day.   

7 June 2019; DW: Children at German schools and kindergartens have been asked to think of possible names for an exoplanet and its star in the Camelopardis (Giraffe) constellation as part of celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the International Astronomical Union.

A jury will choose five suggestions from the children and amateur astronomy groups, and these proposals will then be voted on from October 10 to November 10 in an online poll in which everyone in Germany can participate.

7 June 2019; DW: Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future protest movement on Friday won an Amnesty International human rights award for their "unique leadership and courage in standing up for human rights."

7 June 2019; DW: Germany's Bundesbank on Friday gave a bleak assessment of the country's current economic prospects, cutting its forecast for 2019 GDP growth to just 0.6% from the 1.6% it predicted in December.

It also lowered its prediction of 1.2% growth in 2020 from a forecast of 1.6% six months ago.

7 June 2019; DW: A Deutschlandtrend poll by Infratest dimap has put the environmentalist Greens up 6 percentage points at a record 26%, one point ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and sister party Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), reflecting a similar sampling last week.

7 June 2019; DW: Police in Germany launched dozens of raids across the country on Thursday as part of a crackdown on incitement crimes being spread on the internet. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has said it searched residences in 13 federal states as part of a coordinated operation.

ST.PETERSBURG, June 7. /TASS/: Russia may increase the number of its military specialists in Venezuela if it sends such a request, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Latin American Department, Alexander Shchetinin, told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"We have got contracts on maintenance works for what has been supplied to Venezuela. Any works demand a certain involvement of people," the diplomat said, noting: "If more [specialists] are needed, we will send them."

ST. PETERSBURG, June 7. /TASS/: Russia and Germany have signed a declaration on bilateral initiative ‘Partnership for efficiency’, TASS correspondent reports from the signing ceremony.

The document was inked by Russia’s Economic Development Minister Maksim Oreshkin and Germany’s Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/: Mlitants have shelled seven settlements in Syria in the past 24 hours, chief of the Russian Center of reconciliation for the conflicting sides Viktor Kupchishin said on Thursday.

"Over the past 24 hours, militants operating in the Idlib de-escalation zone shelled the settlements of Ruyeset Eskander, Al-Areym, Safsafa, Iqqo, Qinsibba, Nahshebba and Jubb ez-Zarur in the province of Latakia," Kupchishin said.

PRAGUE, June 6. /TASS/: The celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising at the end of August may serve as an occasion for the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, Slovakia's Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak told the Pravda newspaper on Thursday. Lajcak is accompanying Slovakia's Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini during his working visit to Russia.