Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) - Engineering giant Siemens will decide by Monday on its involvement in the development of a controversial Australian coal mine being built by India’s Adani, CEO Joe Kaeser said on Friday.

Speaking after meeting climate activist Luisa Neubauer in Berlin, Kaeser told journalists he had offered her a seat on the supervisory board of the group’s new Siemens Energy division. Neubauer did not join the news conference.

Siemens’ contract to provide signaling technology to the coal mine’s railway is worth 18 million euros ($19.97 million), Kaeser said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German exports to Iran roughly halved in the first 11 months of 2019 compared with the same period in the previous year due to U.S. sanctions, preliminary data from the Statistics Office showed on Friday.

Between January and November 2019 German shipments to Iran fell by 48.2% to around 1.3 billion euros ($1.44 billion), the data showed. Germany primarily delivers machines, chemical products, food and pharmaceutical products to Iran.

German imports from Iran dropped by 54.7% to around 191 million euros in the same period.

BERLIN (AP) — The landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been teetering on the edge of collapse since the United States pulled out unilaterally in 2018. The European Union says it will “spare no effort” to keep the deal alive, but with tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalating into open hostilities it seems increasingly unlikely that will be possible.

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE NUCLEAR DEAL FAILS?

BERLIN, January 6. /TASS/: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed concern in a joint statement over a "negative" role that Iran plays in the Middle East, urging it to refrain from the moves going against the nuclear deal.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Ryanair (RYA.I) may only receive its first delivery of the grounded 737 MAX aircraft from Boeing (BA.N) in October, chief executive Michael O’Leary said in an interview with German magazine Wirtschaftswoche.

The 737 MAX, Boeing’s fastest-selling aircraft, has not flown since last March following two crashes which claimed 346 lives. O’Leary told Reuters last month that Ryanair may not receive any MAX aircraft in time for its summer season.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The number of deaths in major air crashes around the globe fell by more than half in 2019, according to a report by an aviation consulting firm.

The To70 consultancy said Wednesday that 257 people died in eight fatal accidents in 2019. That compares to 534 deaths in 13 fatal accidents in 2018.

The 2019 death toll rose in late December after a Bek Air Fokker 100 crashed Friday on takeoff in Kazakhstan, killing 12 people. The worst crash of 2019 involved an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane that crashed March 10, killing 157 people.

BERLIN, Dec 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution for the Libyan conflict in two separate phone calls with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a government spokesman said. 

“A further exchange was agreed to strengthen diplomatic efforts,” the government spokesman said, adding that Merkel also discussed the developments in Syria with Erdogan and Putin during the phone calls which took place on Sunday.

30 Dec 2019; MEMO: German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, called on Sunday for a permanent ceasefire in the Idlib Governorate, northwestern Syria.

BERLIN, Dec 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Turkey next month to urge President Tayyip Erdogan to uphold the migration pact he agreed with the European Union, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported, responding to fears that conflict in Syria could unleash a new refugee wave.

BERLIN, Dec 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – President of the German federal parliament, Wolfgang Schaeuble, urged Germans to cut back on their consumption for climate protection.

In an interview with German newspaper, Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung, Schaeuble said, “Climate protection is not for free,” and warned against promoting recent climate reforms to citizens as a “social benefit.”

Last week, Germany’s upper house of parliament finally approved a package of climate laws, seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.