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French president Emmanuel Macron and EU Council president Charles Michel called for an independent enquiry into the Beirut explosion at a UN-organised virtual donors' conference on Sunday, which raised €253m in aid. There also ought to be "urgently needed reforms" in Lebanese politics, German foreign minister Heiko Maas told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, amid mass protests in Beirut against government misrule and corruption.

A vaccine against Covid-19 may be available before the end of the year, said European Commissioner for health Stella Kyriakides. In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt on Sunday. "Although making predictions is risky at this point, we have good indications that the first vaccine will be available toward the end of this year or beginning of next year," she is quoted as having said.

Images of bloody injuries after police attacked protesters with batons and stun grenades marked Belarus' latest sham election, posing questions on EU sanctions.

With more and more trade moving to the digital realm, Europe can ill-afford to cut itself off. Meanwhile, China continues to advance a vision for an internet that is fractured along national boundaries and controlled by governments.

The UK is scrambling to prevent migrant boat crossings but is facing legal obstacles in a move that seeks to offshore the issue onto France.

EU states have voiced fear of violence during Belarus elections on Sunday (9 August), as president Aleksander Lukashenko seeks to enter his third decade in power.

An EU-funded scheme that aims to help some 5,000 migrants reintegrate back into the home countries was launched earlier this week in Greece.

Germany did not follow correct procedure in seeking the extradition, from Italy, of a rapist, named as Christian B., on a European Arrest Warrant, an EU court adviser has said. Christian B. is also wanted in connection with kidnapping Madeleine McCann, a British toddler, in Portugal in 2007. He has served most of his rape sentence in Germany and could soon go free. The EU court usually follows advisers' opinions.

The European Commission offered preferential trade terms and €33m in immediate aid to Lebanon on Thursday, after a huge explosion in its port, which prompted fresh protests against government corruption and incompetence. "The commission stood ready to explore how to boost our trade relations in this challenging time, in particular in the form of further preferential trade and customs facilitation," commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.

Four former board members and a retired senior executive are to face charges for "fraud, indirect false certification, and criminal advertising" over the Dieselgate scandal, the German prosecutor in Munich said Thursday. The four join three others already on trial from German car maker VW, which owns Audi, and which admitted, in 2015, to introducing "defeat devices" in their cars to cheat on diesel-emissions tests.

People coming from Belgium to Britain from 4AM on Saturday will have to self-quarantine for 14 days or risk fines of up to £1,000 (€1,100), UK authorities announced Thursday night. The coronavirus infection figures in Belgium jumped 46 percent in recent days, Belgium said the same day. Figures also climbed steeply in Greece, France, and Spain, while Germany introduced mandatory tests for travellers coming back from high-risk regions.

Bornholm and Samsø are the two most sustainable and responsible islands in Europe according to the European Commission's RESponsible Island Prize.

It is of utmost concern to the environmental health community that forces within the EU Commission are actively trying to push back against a European Green Deal that is supposed to put people's health at its core.

LGBTI activists are facing fines or prison for hanging rainbow flags on statues in Poland, amid hardening feelings on EU values.

Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov on Wednesday said he would be willing to step down to avoid a government collapse following weeks of protests, reports Reuters. "I am ready to leave at any time. I do not want any tension because of me," he said. "I will hold talks with my coalition partners and offer options including one where I would leave and the government continues."

The European Commission on Wednesday announced it had prolonged anti-dumping duties on imports of Chinese corrosion-resistant steel. "The decision aims to counter circumvention of the existing EU trade defence measures," it said, in a statement. The EU had in early 2018 imposed up to 27.9 percent import duties on certain corrosion-resistant steels from China.

Sweden's economy has contracted 8.6 percent in the April-to-June period from the previous three months. The country had eschewed some of the more restrictive Covid-19 lockdowns, when compared to other EU member states. Spain's economy over the same period slumped by 18.5 percent, France by 13.8 percent, and Italy by 12.4 percent. The EU as a whole saw a 11.9 percent contraction.

I hate to break it to you, but excuses have run out. You have to look at the images of sobbing journalists in Index's newsroom, and shoulder part of the blame. Your silence, your continued procrastination led to this.

This is not about supposedly traditional values – when was violence against women ever a value? – it is about living up to the European values we all signed up to. We have to put pressure on Poland.

The next nominated US ambassador to Germany, Douglas Macgregor, holds xenophobic and pro-Kremlin views, according to interview footage unearthed by US broadcaster CNN. Muslims wanted to "turn Europe into an Islamic state" and Germany had opened the gates to "Muslim invaders" he once said on Fox News, a right-wing TV channel in the US. Eastern Ukrainians under Russian occupation were "Russians", he also said on RT, a Russian propaganda outlet.