Euobserver.com

Toshihiro Nikai, the long-serving secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic party, said that cancelling this year's Olympic Games could be an option if coronavirus infections continued to rise, Deutsche Welle writes. The comments come less than 24 hours after International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice president John Coates told reporters that cancellation is "certainly not" on the table.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has snubbed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's invitation to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence in Kiev. Her office cited a "heavy agenda" in a letter seen by Politico, but the celebration falls in August, when EU institutions are closed for the summer break. Her letter was also signed by her cabinet chief, Björn Seibert, instead of herself, in a protocol faux pas.

"We have won the war and America has lost", Haji Hekmat, a local mayor for Afghanistan's Islamist army and shadow government, the Taliban, has told the BBC, echoing wider sentiment in the country following a US announcement that it was pulling out remaining troops in September. The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. It currently has some 3,500 soldiers there as part of a 9,600-strong Nato force.

Iran is still coming to Thursday's non-proliferation talks in Vienna, despite defying Western powers on uranium enrichment after an attack on one of its nuclear facilities.

Lithuania's government will roll out a national digital Covid certificate by early May, The Guardian reported. This certificate will allow those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 and those who have recovered, to bypass restrictions, such as dining indoors, attending sporting events or holding large parties. "This will be an incentive for the decision to get vaccinated", prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė said. Other countries, like the Netherlands, have similar plans.

Somalia's president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, has signed a law to extend his mandate for two years, while holding elections in that time-frame, following a delayed national vote in February, AP reports, in what could further destabilise one of Africa's most troubled states. The EU previously called the mandate-extension a "grave threat" and warned of sanctions, amid concern on opposition protests and further jihadist attacks if he went ahead.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission said on Wednesday it had launched an investigation into the Facebook, over a leak of the data of millions of Europeans in 2019, Reuters reported. Facebook said it will not notify the more than 530 million people whose phone numbers and other details were made public. However, EU data protection rules state large data breaches much be notified to a competent authority within 72 hours.

The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled a new strategy to tackle organised crime and combat trafficking of human beings, including a proposal to start negotiating a cooperation agreement with Interpol to enhance information exchange. The strategies aim to boost law enforcement, tackle criminal businesses models online and offline and support victims. Moreover, the EU will organise a prevention campaign targeting high-risk sectors to help prevent trafficking of people.

Denmark has decided to stop offering its 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine Covid-19 to its citizens. The country had already temporarily suspended the vaccine in mid-March, as a precautionary measure over blood clotting fears. Its latest decision to cease using the vaccine completely is a first for a European country.

The EU has now entered into negotiations to buy 1.8 billion extra doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine. "We need to focus on technologies that have proven their worth," said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Budget commissioner Johannes Hahn said Germany, Estonia, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Finland, the Netherlands, Romania, Ireland, and Lithuania have not yet ratified the necessary domestic legislation.

The Belgian government plans the phased reopening of borders, terraces, hairdressers and other shops. More is possible if the number of vaccinated people increases and infections drop.

The European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee have curtailed efforts to make MEPs more accountable and transparent, by rejecting amendments in a report on lobbying. How each voted on the amendments was also kept in the dark.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, tempted by the allure of a 'deliverable', the EU, US, and UK are supporting a political process that would enhance the power of ethno-nationalist leaders, cement ethnic partition, and quite possibly lead to violence.

EU ambassadors on Wednesday agreed to launch Covid-19 travel certificates to restore tourism this summer across the EU, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. In the text, member states explicitly stated that these certificates cannot be a precondition to the exercise of free-movement rights. MEPs will adopt its mandate for negotiations with the Council later this month, paving the way to have the certificates ready in June.

EU Council president Charles Michel told EU Parliament group chiefs Tuesday he "regretted" the incident in Ankara last week in which EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was not given a chair, in what looked like a sexist insult, according to an AFP source. Michel also put forward a plan for "seating arrangements" and "speaking slots" that would ensure "dignified treatment of both presidents" in future, Politico reported.

Nato and the US have put on a show of solidarity with Ukraine over Russia's military build-up, with American president Joe Biden offering to hold a summit with Russia to defuse tensions.

The digital platform aiming to allow European citizens to share and debate ideas will start next Monday. Some MEPs criticised the rushed rolling out of the digital platform.

Libya has freed a man under UN sanctions for trafficking and drowning migrants, Abd al-Rahman Milad, due to "lack of evidence" in his trial, The Guardian reports. "It's absurd Italy gives money to Libya's coastguard - [a] country that released a trafficker who threatened two Italian citizens," Nello Scavo, one of two Italian journalists under police protection after being threatened by al-Rahman Milad because they wrote articles about him, said.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the right to liberty and freedom of expression of Turkish journalist and author Ahmet Altan had been violated due to his detention and imprisonment on charges related to the 2016 coup attempt, Ekathimerini writes. Altan, 71, was detained over allegations that he disseminated subliminal messages related to the coup attempt during a TV programme, and articles criticising the government.