Euobserver.com

Hong Kong democracy activists have asked the EU not to ratify its planned new investment deal with China, at a time when Beijing is tearing up international obligations to the people of Hong Kong, The Guardian writes. The activists have written to EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, asking the EU to refuse to sign the treaty until China's national security laws are repealed.

It's not just that Ireland is the EU's tax haven. Irish statistics have little in common with the actual picture of the economy – artificial transactions account for 20 percent of GDP.

A dozen or so officials from China, Russia, North Korea, Eritrea, Libya, and South Sudan are to go on an EU blacklist of the world's worst human-rights abusers after an agreement between member states' ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday evening, diplomats told EUobserver. The visa-bans and asset-freezes will be formally signed off by foreign ministers on 22 March. Four Russians were already put on the list last month.

The European Medicines Agency on Thursday recommended granting conditional marketing authorisation to the Covid-19 vaccine of pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, in people 18 years old and upwards. This is the first vaccine which can be used as a single dose. Clinical trials showed that the vaccine had a 67-percent efficacy.

Activists from environmental pressure group Greenpeace made mockery of the European Central Bank's (ECB) security by paragliding onto the top of its tower in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday to hang up two yellow-and-black banners which said "Stop Funding Climate Killers" and "Act on climate now". The stunt was designed to highlight ECB bond-sales to CO2-polluting industries, such as gas and oil firms, which go against the EU's stated climate-change goals.

Ten years ago, Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster shook the belief in safe nuclear power to its core. For Germany, it marked a historic turning point for environmentalism, Deutsche Welle writes. Three days after the disaster, a subdued chancellor Angela Merkel, first a supporter of nuclear energy, announced that Germany would be suspending its recently approved extension of the operating lives of nuclear power plants following the "unimaginable catastrophe" in Japan.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said Europe's ambassador to Cuba, Alberto Navarro, had acted wrongly in attacking the US in an open letter on Cuba sanctions, but declined to say if he would sack him, as demanded by some MEPs. "It's evident that mistakes were made, but we need to evaluate them on their own terms," Borrell said Wednesday, after calling Navarro back to Brussels to explain himself.

The symbolic move is an attempt to buttress against right-wing governments' increased scapegoating of LGBTI people, particularly in Poland and Hungary.

EU states have exported 24.7 million doses of vaccines to 31 countries - almost half the number delivered to member states, leaked figures show.

The EU Commission wants to add "grave violations of international humanitarian law" as a reason to impose EU sanctions, in an idea floated in a press conference on Ethiopia.

Efforts to shut down government-critical media go beyond Hungary and Poland, but current EU law means there is little the European Commission can do about it.

Libya's parliament on Wednesday approved a government of national unity headed by prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, Deutsche Welle reports. It is part of a UN-backed plan to lead the conflict-ravaged country through elections by the end of the year. The government will replace the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which was in charge of western Libya, as well as the competing eastern administration linked to warlord Khalifa Haftar.

A court in Saudi Arabia has denied an appeal by Loujain al-Hathloul, one of the kingdom's most prominent activists that would have allowed her to travel freely, weeks after her release from prison. "The international community should be outraged at this judgment," her sister Lina al-Hathloul said. "The confirmation of the sentence of my sister Loujain is yet another confirmation of the abuse of power of the Saudi authorities."

The European Parliament president David Sassoli, the European Commission chief Usula von der Leyen, and Portugal prime minister António Costa on Wednesday signed a joint declaration on the Conference on the Future of Europe. An executive board, equally representing the three institutions, with national parliaments as observers, will soon be constituted - paving the way to launching a series of debates with citizens about reforms to the EU.

French president Emmanuel Macron has declassified national defence documents covering France's war in Algeria and other files previously deemed to contain state secrets, the Guardian writes. A statement from the Élysée said: "Determined to promote respect for historical truth, the president of the republic has heard the demands of the academic community to facilitate access to classified archives that are more than 50-years old."

Britain has rejected claims from the European Council president Charles Michel, who accused the UK of imposing a ban on vaccine exports. Meanwhile, one-third of vaccines produced in the EU last month were exported to the UK.

A highly-infectious variant of Covid-19 that has spread around the world since it was first discovered in the UK late last year is between 30 to 100 percent more deadly than previous dominant variants, researchers said on Wednesday, Reuters reports. "Coupled with its ability to spread rapidly, this makes B.1.1.7 a threat that should be taken seriously," said Robert Challen, a researcher at Exeter University, who co-led the research.

China and Russia aren't just selling vaccines—they're peddling a value set that undermines international norms.

China and Russia have announced plans to build an 'International Scientific Lunar Station' on the moon, in its orbit, or both, in a joint statement by the Chinese National Space Administration and Russia's Roscosmos. The move comes amid a new space-race reminiscent of Cold War-era Russia-US competition. The US recently said it would send the first woman to the moon by 2024, while Turkey promised a manned moon-landing by 2023.

Financial products firms, such as insurers and pension funds, who market themselves on backing environmentally-friendly investments, will face tougher reporting requirements from Wednesday onward, Reuters reports, as the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) enters into force. The SFDR regime, to be rolled out over two years, aims to divert €1 trillion into more sustainable sectors and to prevent "greenwashing" - false claims by firms that they are doing good.