Europe

08 Mar 2019; DW: It was in 1910 at the Conference of Socialist Women — held that year in Copenhagen — that German women's rights activist Clara Zetkin first suggested the idea for International Women's Day.

A year later, along with Austria, Switzerland and Denmark, Germany celebrated Women's Day for the first time on March 19. Demonstrations demanding women's suffrage — a right that was finally handed to German women in 1918 — dominated the day.

TEHRAN, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Iran has criticized Britain for providing diplomatic protection to an Iranian-British national, Nazanin Zaghari, who is imprisoned in Iran over espionage charges, Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad said on Friday.

"Governments may only exercise such protection to their own nationals. As UK government is acutely aware, Iran does not recognize dual nationality. Irrespective of UK residency, Ms Zaghari thus remains Iranian," Baeidinejad tweeted on Friday.

HELSINKI, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Finnish President Sauli Niinisto accepted the resignation of the government led by centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila, national broadcaster Yle said on Friday morning.

Officials said the resignation was mainly due to the virtual failure of the coalition government's plan to reform the public healthcare system, which has been crucial to the ruling coalition's plan to balance public finances.

LONDON, March 7 (Xinhua) -- British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said Thursday a crucial vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal by next Tuesday could be the last chance for Britain to leave the European Union (EU) on its planned March 29 departure date.

06 Mar 2019; AFP: Trade tensions and political uncertainty including Brexit are weighing on the world's economy, the OECD warned Wednesday as it again cut its 2019 forecast for global economic growth.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development lowered its forecast to 3.3 percent for this year, down from the 3.5 percent it predicted in November, which was itself a downgrade from a previous 3.7 percent.

07 Mar 2019; DW: Chinese investments in the European Union fell sharply for the second consecutive year in 2018, a report by the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and US consulting firm Rhodium Group showed.

Chinese companies completed FDI deals worth €17.3 billion ($19.6 billion) last year, down 40 percent from 2017 levels and way below the record €37.2 billion investment seen in 2016.

07 Mar 2019; DW: German police have warned anyone who quarreled with now-deceased landscape gardener Bernhard Graumann to be on alert after it emerged that he may have planted bombs to harm those he perceived as enemies.

The 59-year-old was found dead at his home in the town of Mehlingen last week.

Authorities said they believe that the gardener, before his death, installed a booby-trapped device that killed a doctor in a nearby town on Friday.

MOSCOW, March 7 (Xinhua) -- A Russian Su-27 fighter jet has intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft approaching the Russian airspace over the Baltic Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The Russian fighter jet approached the target at a safe distance and identified it as an RC-135 reconnaissance plane of the U.S. Air Force, according to the statement.

"The Russian fighter jet returned safely to its home base after the foreign aircraft flew away from the Russian border," the ministry said.

LONDON, March 6 (Xinhua) -- The UK won't be ready to go cashless within the next 15 years as a sizable cash-dependent population risks being left behind, a report said on Wednesday.

Currently, cash is used to make three in ten transactions, down from six in ten a decade ago. But it could fall as low as one in ten in the coming 15 years, the latest report by the Access to Cash Review predicted.

LONDON, March 6 (Xinhua) -- As Britain is set to leave the European Union (EU) on March 29, UK Finance firms have been preparing for a "no-deal" scenario that they believe would be "catastrophic" for the nation's economy.

In a recent statement, a spokesperson for UK Finance, which represents more than 250 firms in the UK's finance and banking industry, said that members were looking to put in place a plan to reduce the effects of a no-deal scenario.