The German government wants to step by step get rid of its mandatory mask discipline. German health minister Jens Spahn said this to press group Funke. According to Spahn, this is the next relaxation for the Germans that Germany can cope with now that the number of coronavirus infections is decreasing. During the entire coronavirus crisis, Germany has had a …

Russia fined Facebook and Telegram. The social media companies would have refused to remove certain content. Facebook has to pay 17 million rubles, or about 194,000 euros. Telegram received a fine of 10 million rubles, converted some 114,000 euros. Recently, several online messaging services and social media in Russia have been fined, among other things for not removing calls for …

Volkswagen invests another 500 million euros in its Swedish battery partner Northvolt. In this way, the German brand wants to secure additional battery cells for the battery packs of its electric cars. The 500 million euros comes on top of an investment of 900 million euros in 2019, with which Volkswagen secured a 20 percent share in Northvolt. With Volkswagen’s …

American and British diplomats have called on the Houthi rebels in Yemen to stop a violent offensive in the north of the country. They make that call after a rocket attack on a gas station on Saturday that killed at least 17 people and injured five. According to the Yemeni government, the rocket was fired by the Houthis. The attack …

“Don’t you forget to vote for me?” CDU’er Deftlef Gürth distributes flyers, pens and bottles of water at the weekly market in Aschersleben, East Germany. Every now and then someone comes and talks, often Gürth knows the people by name. That is not surprising, because he has been sitting for the Christian Democrats in the Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt for more …

In France a major failure at Orange telephone provider may have led to the death of several people. The emergency services were sometimes unavailable on Wednesday night. The malfunction is associated with three deaths. This includes a person with heart problems in the Morbihan area. The person couldn’t call 911 there. Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin stresses that it …

On Wednesday, UBS slightly lowered the target for ArcelorMittal from 31.00 to 30.00 euro, but repeated the buying advice on the steel giant. “After an eventful 2020, ArcelorMittal is now more resilient and generates more cash,” said analyst Andrew Jones. He points to the sale of the American assets and to the Italian Ilva, which means that the margins are …

From Tuesday, exchange traded currencies, or ETCs, will be traded on cryptocurrencies on Euronext Amsterdam. This was announced by provider ETC Group on Monday. Exchange traded currencies follow the price developments of cryptocurrencies. The ETCs on, among others, bitcoin and ethereum will be listed in dollars and will be available to be traded as of June 1st. This listing follows …

The French economy contracted slightly in the first quarter of 2021. This was shown on Friday by figures from Insee, the French statistical office. French gross domestic product fell by 0.1 percent on a quarterly basis last quarter, after a 1.5 percent contraction in the fourth quarter. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, the last quarter that was not …

The Belgian federal public service Home Affairs has become a victim of hackers. The attackers were present in the network for two years, writes the public service on its website. The State Department thinks it’s espionage. In March this year, the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) found “subtle traces of suspicious acts” on the public service network. After analysis, it …