Europe

28 Mar 2019; DW: Austrian Identitarian Movement leader Martin Sellner said on Thursday that his US travel permit had been cancelled by authorities.

Sellner is currently under investigation and his home was raided this week for alleged ties to the suspected gunman of the New Zealand attack.

Authorities discovered that the alleged Christchurch gunman sent a €1,500 ($1,700) donation to Sellner by last year.

Banned UK entry

28 Mar 2019; DW: German space scientists are offering volunteers €16,500 ($18,500) to lie in bed for 60 days to test the negative effects of weightlessness on the human body.

The long-term bed-rest study, aimed at understanding the impact of microgravity on astronauts during extended space travel to the moon and Mars, involves 12 men and 12 women remaining in bed for two months at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne.

28 Mar 2019; DW: In a video posted online dated March 16 and shot in Cologne, Otto Gebauer criticizes the government of acting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, discusses the details of a recent conversation with Marian Schuegraf, the German Foreign Ministry's commissioner for Latin America and the Caribbean, and emphasizes the urgency of working with the industrial manufacturer Siemens to reduce power outages back in Venezuela.

28 Mar 2019; DW: Hornbach, a German home improvement store, has been called on to apologize over a commercial that social media users decried as promoting stereotypes against Asian women.

The controversial commercial depicts several white men doing garden work. They are then encouraged to remove their sweaty, dirty clothing — including underwear — and place it in a box.

28 Mar 2019; DW: Germany has extended its current ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia for six more months, ending on September 30, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Thursday.

During that period, no new contracts will be approved, Seibert said. The decision came after Merkel met with members of her cabinet to review the policy.

ROME, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Starting in April, Italy will begin the process of repatriating nearly 800 cultural and historical artifacts that had been illegally smuggled from China.

This represents the biggest repatriation of Chinese artifacts in more than two decades and it is part of a wide array of agreements strengthening cultural, economic, and political ties between Italy and China.

The agreement over the cultural and historical objects also helps solidify Italy's status as one of the world's leaders in the battles against stolen and illegally imported artifacts.

SARAJEVO, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Visiting EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn on Thursday urged Bosnia and Herzegovina's authorities to form a government quickly in order to resume reforms.

During a meeting with Chairman of BiH Presidency Milorad Dodik and Presidency members Sefik Dzaferovic and Zeljko Komsic, Hahn said the European Commission is working on the preparation of an opinion on the country's responses on 3,242 questions.

MOSCOW, March 28; GANASHAKTI:  Russian military experts will remain in Venezuela as long as the republic’s government needs it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at Thursday’s briefing.

"How long? As long as they need it, and as long as the Venezuelan government needs them. It all is being done based on bilateral agreements," the diplomat said in response to a question. "There are international and bilateral legal frameworks for it."

28 Mar 2019; AFP: European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for an EU-wide ban on single-use plastic products such as the straws, cutlery and cotton buds that are clogging the world's oceans.

The text had already been approved in negotiations with member states and EU officials and it will now be rapidly approved into law. The ban comes into effect from 2021.

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. US journalists, who have been making groundless accusations against Russia of the 2016 US presidential election meddling, should now apologize to the domestic and Russian audience, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday evening.