Germany

ROSTOCK (Germany), Aug 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Lunchbox, books, pencil case — masks?

Thousands of children in northern Germany became the first in Europe to begin a new school year on Monday after months of curtailed hours over the coronavirus pandemic.

The rest of the country was watching anxiously as 150,000 children returned to school in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany’s first state to restart full-time classes after the summer holidays, with infection numbers on the rise again.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank is committed to supporting the euro zone’s economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, using its massive bond purchases as its main tool, chief economist Philip Lane said on Tuesday.

Lane’s comments were likely to fuel market expectations the ECB would increase its 1.35 trillion-euro Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) as soon as September, when the central bank updates its economic forecasts.

(Reuters) - Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Europe braces for second wave

Germany is already contending with a second wave of the coronavirus and risks squandering its early success by flouting social distancing rules, the head of the German doctors’ union said.

The number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases has ticked up steadily in recent weeks, with health experts warning lax adherence to hygiene and distancing rules among some of the public is spreading the virus across communities.

BERLIN, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Despite the rising number of confirmed infection cases, about 17,000 people turned up here on Saturday rallying against social distancing rules meant to curb the coronavirus pandemic, which was later dispersed by the police.

Protesters marched from the landmark Brandenburg Gate through central Berlin before holding a rally on a wide boulevard. Police then broke up the rally, saying that the organizers were unable to ensure that safety and health regulations were being observed.

BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of protesters against German coronavirus restrictions converged Saturday in Berlin for a demonstration proclaiming “the end of the pandemic” has arrived just as authorities voice increasing concern about an upturn in new infections.

A crowd of people whistling and cheering, and with few masks in sight, marched through downtown Berlin from the Brandenburg Gate ahead of a rally on a wide boulevard that runs through the city’s Tiergarten park.

31 July 2020; MEMO: The United States should not stop United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from naming a new UN Libya envoy to replace Ghassan Salame who quit nearly five months ago, Germany’s UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen said on Thursday.

Reuters reports that Salame, who headed the UN political mission and was charged with trying to mediate peace, quit because of stress after his last effort at peacemaking in the war-torn, oil producing country failed.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Huawei’s top manager in Germany has appealed to the government not to shut it out of building 5G mobile networks, Der Spiegel said on Friday, after Britain decided to purge the Chinese firm’s equipment from its network on security grounds.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has put off a decision on tougher certification rules until after the summer break, amid pressure from some lawmakers who sympathise with U.S. calls to ban Huawei outright.

BERLIN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- The German government's transatlantic coordinator Peter Beyer criticized on Wednesday the plan of U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany.

A reduction of U.S. troops was "not in the security interest of Germany or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)," Beyer announced on Twitter. The plan would "make no geopolitical sense" for the United States either.

29 July 2020; MEMO: German clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company CureVac said Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has taken an undisclosed stake in the firm as part of a $126 million financing round, the latest high-profile investor to come onboard ahead of a potential stock market listing, Reuters reports.

The State Fund of the Emirate of Qatar is the third major investor to enter CureVac within weeks of GSK and the German government agreeing to participate in mid-June.

BERLIN, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The rapid rise in Germany's COVID-19 cases is very worrying, the country's public health agency Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Tuesday.

"We had all managed to keep the number of cases stable over several weeks" in Germany, said RKI President Lothar Wieler during a press conference in Berlin. Around four weeks ago, only 300 to 500 new cases had been recorded by the RKI daily. At some point, the figures had been even lower.

This development was a "great success" which showed "that we can contain the virus," said Wieler.