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Vandals have daubed swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on around 90 graves in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France, local officials said on Tuesday, shortly before planned marches nationwide against a surge in anti-Semitic attacks. French President Emmanuel Macron visited the cemetery on Tuesday in the village of Quatzenheim, near the city of Strasbourg, following the overnight desecration, walking through a gate scarred with a swastika as he entered the graveyard. […] Many French political leaders are due to join Tuesday evening’s march in Paris against anti-Semitism. Macron will visit the national Holocaust memorial with the heads of the Senate and...

The European Union agreed on Tuesday to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from new trucks and buses by 30 percent by a 2030 deadline as part of its commitment to cut its output of greenhouse gases. […] The EU currently has no limits on emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, unlike the United States, China, Japan and Canada. Trucks account for almost one quarter of the bloc’s transport-related emissions. […] Curbs on the transport sector, the only one in which emissions are still rising, aim to help the bloc meet its overall goal of reducing greenhouse gases by at least 40...

Europe stepped up preparations for a no-deal Brexit on Monday after giving key parts of the City of London temporary access to EU customers in the event of a cliff-edge departure. The European Securities and Markets Authority, the EU financial regulator, has granted three UK-based clearing houses — LCH, ICE Clear Europe and LME Clear — licences to carry on doing business with European-based customers over the next 12 months even if politicians fail to strike an agreement. London dominates clearing for derivatives traded by European customers and clears nearly all over-the-counter derivatives, mainly interest-rates swaps, traded in euros. Clearing...

Out of Time Airbus CEO Tom Enders expressed regrets over the timing of the A380 program, saying, “There has been speculation that we were 10 years too early; I think it is clear that we were 10 years too late.” But it was closer to four decades too late, or perhaps three decades too soon. There was not enough demand for an aircraft that size by the time the A380 rolled out in 2005, as proven by the aircraft's inability to attract sizeable orders in its brief lifetime. The 747 has lasted five decades and still maintains a sizable share...

Seven Labour lawmakers quit on Monday over leader Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and a row over anti-Semitism, saying Britain’s main opposition party had been “hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left”. In a direct challenge to Corbyn, the seven centrist MPs said they were courting others from across parliament to join their group, saying “enough is enough” in keeping silent over their doubts about the Labour leader’s fitness for office. United by a desire for a second referendum on Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, now that the likely terms of the divorce are known, they...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Friday he will seek to ban conversion therapies that claim to change sexual orientation. “Homosexuality is not an illness, which is why it does not need to be treated,” Spahn, who is gay himself, told the Berlin daily left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung. He hoped that a German law banning such therapies could be adopted by the middle of the year. […] “I do not believe in these therapies, mainly owing to my own homosexuality,” said Spahn, who represents the right wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party. …

US trade officials are believed to have told President Donald Trump that European car imports harm US national security. German car makers are concerned that Trump could use the report to justify tariffs. Any decision by the US to label European car and auto-part imports a danger to US national security would be incomprehensible, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) has said. German car companies were responsible for more than 113,000 jobs at some 300 factories in the United States and were the biggest exporters of cars in the country, it said. “All this strengthens the United States,...

European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker has changed the rules governing the political activity of European Union Commissioners, allowing them to actively campaign in the upcoming EU Parliament elections. Formerly the EU Commission, an unelected body which acts as the bloc’s executive and is the sole initiator of EU-level laws, was regarded as technocratic rather than overtly political, and not supposed to take partisan political stances of its own volition — at least in theory. But the new rules will allow the Commission to campaign with, endorse, and support candidates and parties ahead of the European Parliament elections set to be...

MUNICH (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence rebuked European powers over Iran and Venezuela on Saturday in a renewed attack on Washington’s traditional allies, rejecting a call by Germany’s chancellor to include Russia in global cooperation efforts. In speeches and in private talks at the Munich Security Conference, Pence and Chancellor Angela Merkel laid out competing visions for how the West should address world crises. ...

Germans have an increasingly negative view of the relationship between their country and the US, a survey released on Friday indicated, with many seeing China as a more reliable partner. Just over 42 percent of Germans who took part in the study said they saw China as a more reliable partner than the US, compared with 23.1 percent who favored the US over China. The study was carried out by the research organization Civey and the not-for-profit group Atlantik-Brücke (Atlantic Bridge), which promotes greater cooperation between the US and Germany. In the survey summary, Michael Werz, from the Center for...

A nationwide experiment with basic income in Finland has not increased employment among those participating in the two-year trial, but their general well-being seems to have increased, a report said Friday. The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, or Kela, said “it was not yet possible to draw any firm conclusions” from the first half of the experiment, where about 2,000 randomly selected, unemployed people aged 25-58 got tax-free income of €560 ($636) a month with no questions asked. Finland is looking into ways to reshape its social security system and became in January 2017 the first European country to launch...

DUBAI - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards inaugurated a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 km (621 miles), the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Thursday, ignoring demands Western demands that Tehran halt its missile program. Fars published pictures of an underground missile factory called “underground city”, saying the “Dezful” missile was a version of the Zolfaghar missile that has a 700 km range and a 450 kg (992 lb) warhead. Iran says it has missiles with the range of up to 2,000 km, which puts Israel and U.S. military bases in the region within reach. The EU has stepped...

French President Emmanuel Macron’s government recalled its ambassador to Rome on Thursday in a move unprecedented since World War Two, saying it was fed up with “repeated, baseless” attacks by Italian political leaders against France. The diplomatic blow, highly unusual among fellow members of the European Union, was announced by the foreign ministry in a statement. Diplomatic sources said Paris acted after a series of verbal assaults from Italy’s deputy prime ministers, capped by Luigi di Maio, head of the anti-establishment 5-Star movement, meeting this week with France’s “yellow vest” protesters, who have mounted a months-long anti-Macron campaign. […] Relations...

Germany will likely fall well short of its targets for greenhouse gas reduction by 2020, a climate protection report released by the government on Wednesday concluded. While the main conclusion of the report was made public in November, the release of the 147-page report comes as the German government is renewing debate among itself and with industry leaders about the best courses of action to take to reduce its greenhouse emissions. […] The spokesman for Angela Merkel’s government, Steffen Seibert, said the government seconded the report’s emphasis that the 40 percent target must “be reached as quickly as possible.” Environment...

The Israeli government released a report Sunday claiming to reveal close links between the Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel and militant groups. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry, which leads the country’s efforts against the boycott movement, said it uncovered extensive connections between pro-boycott groups and activists affiliated with Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement dismissed the report as “wildly fabricated.” The 80-page report claims several dozen current or former members of the Palestinian groups, both designated terrorist organizations by the U.S., European Union and Israel, are involved in BDS activity through...

German police say around 800 people have demonstrated in the southwestern city of Stuttgart against a new ban on driving older diesel cars. […] … The move aims to fight air pollution, but critics say they don’t have money to buy new cars. The DPA news agency reported that nearly half of Saturday’s demonstrators wore yellow vests, a reference to anti-government protests in neighboring France that began with protests against a fuel tax hike. …

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday human rights in Egypt were perceived as worse now than under former strongman Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled by protests in 2011. His comments marked a hardening after he said in 2017 he would not “lecture” President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over civil liberties, which activists say are being eroded. “I think current policies are perceived by intellectuals and Egypt’s civil society as tougher than under the Mubarak regime,” Macron told reporters on the sidelines of a trip to Egypt. […] Non-governmental organizations are pressuring Macron to be firm with the Egyptian president, who...

Thousands of protesters are marching through the Belgian capital of Brussels to demand that the government increases its efforts to fight climate change. In the fourth demonstration in two months attracting at least 10,000 protesters, banners were held high Sunday to demand better use of renewable energies and more action to improve air quality. …

Israeli foreign ministry officials excoriated Ireland’s backing for a bill banning business ties with Jews in Judea, Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem, delivering a sharp reprimand to the Irish ambassador to Israel. “It was made clear to the ambassador that this hypocritical and anti-Semitic legislation will have serious consequences for Israeli-Irish relations and [Ireland’s] standing in the region if [the bill] is advanced,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Friday. “It would be better if Ireland confronted dictators and evil terrorist groups instead of [attacking] Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.” …

YouTube video of a news story about France and Germany signing a treaty, that, ostensibly, will tie the two countries very closely together. The commentator seems hyperbolic but given Merkel's and Macron's history - is it? Do any FReepers have additional information regarding this agreement?