Germany

FRANKFURT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged solidarity among citizens in a speech on Wednesday evening, calling the coronavirus the nation's biggest challenge since World War II.

"The coronavirus is now changing life in our country dramatically. Our idea of normalcy, of public life, of social interaction -- all of this is being tested like never before," Merkel said in a video speech broadcast nationwide.

Berlin, Mar 16 (AFP/PTI) The German government has promised to defend itself against alleged attempts by US president Donald Trump to buy exclusive rights to a German company's research into a vaccine against the coronavirus.

"Germany is not for sale," economy minister Peter Altmaier told broadcaster ARD, reacting to a front page report in Welt am Sonntag newspaper headlined "Trump vs Berlin".

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — When the global economy melted down in 2008, world leaders swiftly created an international forum to boost economies by spending more and keeping trade open. Central banks announced rate cuts within seconds of each other.

But so far, nations’ approach to the economic shock from the coronavirus outbreak is looking very different.

12 Mar 2020; MEMO: The first trial of suspected members of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s intelligence services for crimes against humanity, including torturing and killing opposition activists, will start next month, a German court said on Tuesday.

According to the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), it will be the first-ever legal proceedings in the world over state-sponsored torture in Syria.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met retired Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Berlin.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a written statement on Tuesday that Merkel met Haftar in Berlin, where they exchanged views on the Libyan crisis.

Seibert added that Merkel asserted that the use of military force would not lead to solving the Libyan conflict, while stressing the need to move forward to establish a ceasefire and start political negotiations, about the decisions of the last Berlin conference.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Sealing Germany’s borders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus would not work, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday, rejecting calls to follow neighbor Austria in denying entry to visitors from Italy.

Interviewed on Deutschlandfunk radio, Spahn said the focus of Germany’s current approach to the epidemic was to slow the virus’s spread to minimize the peak burden on the country’s health system.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Suddenly staring recession in the face, European leaders are lining up an array of tax breaks, financial support for companies and likely central bank measures in the hope of preventing the coronavirus outbreak from dealing long-term damage to the economy.

Expectations have grown that European Central Bank officials will announce more monetary stimulus when they meet Thursday, including an interest rate cut and corporate bond purchases aimed at supporting business borrowing.

BERLIN, March 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Germany announced measures to boost its sputtering economy in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus on Monday, while also calling for the cancellation of large events.

As the number of cases in Germany pushed beyond 900, Health Minister Jens Spahn said gatherings of more than 1,000 people should be scrapped.

“After many discussions with those responsible, I emphatically encourage the cancellation of events with more than 1,000 participants until further notice,” he wrote on Twitter.

4 March 2020; AFP: Lawmakers in eastern German state Thuringia will try again to elect a new state premier Wednesday, re-running a vote that sank Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling CDU party into what has been described as the biggest crisis in its history.

It is the second attempt in a month to form a working government in the former East German state, after CDU MPs there unleashed an earthquake in national politics by voting with the far-right AfD in February.

BERLIN, Mar 4 (NNN-DPA) – German Federal Government spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, said that, the way to the European Union (EU) from Turkey, is not open for refugees and migrants.

“At the moment we are experiencing an extremely worrying situation on the European Union’s external borders with Turkey, on land and at sea. We are seeing refugees and migrants, who are told by the Turkish side that the way to the EU is now open, and of course it is not,” said Seibert.