/ world today news/ The EC ends plans for a trade deal with China and revives plans for a pact with India over the dispute over human rights abuses in China.
“We have now, in a sense, stopped the political advocacy by the European Commission,” following the ratification of the EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement, said EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.
EU and US united against China over Taiwan
The EU and its leading countries sharply criticized China at the G7 meeting in London on Wednesday, even as Hungary again tried to silence Europe in Brussels.
“We remain seriously concerned about the situation in and around the East and South China Seas,” the G7 statement said, pointing to China’s expansionist territorial claims.
The European Commission said it could not comment on reports that Amazon paid no corporate tax in Europe last year, even though it recorded more than 40 billion euros in sales in Europe during the pandemic.
“I have no intention of going into detail about these articles in the press,” a European Commission press secretary told reporters on May 3 when reporters peppered him with questions.
US drugmaker Pfizer expects to make 22 billion euros in profit this year from sales of coronavirus vaccines, with the product accounting for more than a third of the company’s annual revenue. The cost of a vaccine is €32 for two doses in the US and around €25 in the EU.
The word “gender” has been removed from the draft declaration, which was being prepared for an informal summit of EU social leaders on Saturday, a source familiar with the matter said. The declaration will be supplemented by EU ambassadors on Thursday. But in the latest draft of the leaders’ obligations, the wording “promoting gender equality and justice for all” was changed to “equality and justice for all” at the insistence of Hungary and Poland.
French fishermen have threatened to block Channel Islands ports following an escalating post-Brexit row after France’s navy minister backed calls to cut power to Jersey. France has accused Britain of breaching the terms of the new licensing system of the Brexit deal, which came into effect on April 30, restricting French fishing vessels in Jersey waters.
Greek authorities have been accused of killing prisoners, including by suffocation.
The allegations are set out in the annual overview report of the Commission against Torture of the Council of Europe for monitoring and observing human rights.
Facebook’s independent supervisory board has decided to maintain the ban on former US President Donald Trump’s access. But the body also criticized the severity of the ban, noting that it should “justify a proportionate response”. “We are asking Facebook to step back and be more transparent about these issues. Treat all users equally and don’t impose arbitrary fines,” said co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt. (And to pay the unpaid fines due to the outflow of funds offshore?)
Moscow is trying to infiltrate the European Parliament with the help of the far-right
On the warm evening of June 30, 2020, a chartered plane from the Russian Severstal airline landed in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, annexed by Russia in March 2014.
About half of the passengers on the special flight from Moscow to Crimea were European politicians, but there were also politicians and activists from other countries such as Afghanistan, Chile and Venezuela.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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