Euobserver.com

The Iranian foreign ministry has announced it is not willing to attend EU-brokered talks with the US over the future of the Iran nuclear deal because Washington has not done enough to lift sanctions against Tehran, The Guardian writes. The new US administration committed to returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, had said it was willing to attend talks, and might lift sanctions at the negotiating table, but not before.

Three policemen were injured, one of them needing hospital care, and 23 people were arrested in anti-lockdown protests in Dublin on Saturday. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the demonstration had "posed an unacceptable risk to both the public and gardaí [police]". "It is utterly horrifying to see our members being placed under incredible ... danger," a police spokeswoman said, after some protesters had discharged fireworks at police at point-blank range.

The EU has asked its ambassador to Cuba to explain why he signed a letter asking US resident Joe Biden to stop being "hostile" to Havana.

The increased regulatory scrutiny of tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft has triggered a rise in lobbying activities by these companies in Brussels, and, accordingly, an exponential grow of their budget for these activities.

To help bridge the stubborn gender pay gap, the EU Commission will present pay transparency measures so that differences in wages and salaries do not remain hidden from employees.

The Embassy of Ethiopia would like to set the record straight to the esteemed readership by stating the following facts about the situation in Ethiopia particularly in Tigray.

I hope that the sanctions from the Foreign Affairs Council will increase the likelihood of seeing Alexei Navalny and his supporters leaving Russian prisons alive, unharmed, and in the nearer future than otherwise.

EU leaders restated old vows to slowly develop a joint European military-industrial complex and armed forces at a video-conference Friday. The EU's "autonomy" would be "complementary" to its traditional alliance with the US, EU Council president Charles Michel said. Increasing domestic European production of critical items, such as vaccines, were part of the strategy, the European Commission said. Leaders are to discuss troubled Russia and Turkey relations in March.

Human rights group Amnesty International has said Eritrean troops fighting on the side of Ethiopian government forces massacred hundreds of civilians when conquering the town of Aksum in Ethiopia last November. "There were a lot of ... house-to-house killings," one witness said. The EU recently urged Ethiopia to lift its "blackout" on what is happening in its war-torn Tigray region, where violence was said to be "out of control".

The United States has carried out airstrikes in Syria targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups, The Guardian writes. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member. "The operation sends an unambiguous message: president Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel", the Pentagon said.

Malta has wrapped up its investigation into the 2017 murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, after a defendant pled guilty and gave evidence, with oligarch Yorgen Fenech accused of being the mastermind of the crime. A European Parliament group said Thursday there was still "a very long road ahead" for justice in the case, amid an ongoing public enquiry into government attempts to cover up corruption and protect her killers.

The Dutch parliament on Thursday passed a non-binding motion saying the treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in China amounted to genocide, in the first such move by a European country, news agency Reuters writes. Activists and UN rights experts say at least 1 million Muslims are being detained in camps in the remote western region of Xinjiang. The activists accuse China of using torture, forced labour, and sterilisations.

There was no violence in Thursday's attempted "military coup" in Armenia, but it made EU influence in the South Caucasus look smaller than ever.

EU leaders have discussed how to accelerate the rollout of vaccines, amid fears over more transmissible mutations triggering a new surge in cases.

The Hungarian legislation, dubbed 'Stop Soros', was a 2018 amendment to Hungary's criminal code and threatened aid workers and human rights advocates working with asylum-seekers with up to a year in prison.

The European Court of Justice on Thursday fined Spain €15m plus a daily penalty of €89,000 for failing to fulfil its obligations under the directive on protection of personal data during police investigations. "Spain had not adopted the measures necessary to ensure the transposition of the directive nor notified those measures to the commission," it said. Countries had until 2018 to transpose the directive.

Some 14 MEPs have created a group to probe allegations of rights abuse by the EU's border agency Frontex. Its head, Fabrice Leggeri, welcomed its creation and said it "is about time".

A court in Belarus sentenced an anti-government protester to 10 years in prison on Thursday, media and activists said, on charges that the opposition says were trumped up as part of a crackdown to keep president Alexander Lukashenko in power, Reuters writes. Aliaksandr Kardziukou was convicted of attempted murder for attacking security forces who were trying to disperse nationwide protests that erupted last August following a contested election.

Federal prosecutors have charged a German citizen with passing blueprints and building plans of the Bundestag parliament to a suspected agent in the Russian embassy, Deutsche Welle reports. The man worked for a company that was hired to carry out checks on electrical equipment in the building. In that role, he allegedly used his access to collect data and pass it to the Russian military service.

Iceland was rocked by a series of earthquakes on Wednesday with the epicentre of the main quake located near Mt Keilir, roughly 30km south of the capital Reykjavik, Deutsche Welle writes. Experts say shocks from the quake sparked increased volcanic activity. The eruption of Iceland's more southerly Eyjafjallajokull volcano over six days in 2010 caused massive disruption to international air travel, affecting as many as 10 million travellers.