Euobserver.com

Libya's embattled prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj met separately in Brussels on Wednesday with European Council president Charles Michel and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. Both meetings discussed the spiralling conflict in Libya amid a recent military push by Turkey into the country. Michel told al-Sarraj the EU opposed the Turkey-Libya delimitation of maritime jurisdictions in the Mediterranean Sea, highlighting violations on sovereign rights and the law of the sea.

Thousands of European troops are in Iraq as part of an anti-ISIS coalition effort. Many are now being either pulled out or scaling down, amid demands by Iraq they leave. Meanwhile, Iran has pummelled coalition bases with a dozen missiles.

British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Wednesday that tech giants Facebook and eBay committed to better tackle fake and misleading reviews, according to Reuters. "Millions of people base their shopping decisions on reviews, and if these are misleading or untrue, then shoppers could end up being misled into buying something that isn't right for them," said CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli.

The European Parliament is preparing to vote on a resolution Wednesday accusing the UK of creating "anxiety" among the 3.3m EU citizens who live in the UK ahead of Brexit at the end of the month, British newspaper The Guardian reports. The draft text says EU residents may be at "risk of discrimination" by British employers and that not enough help was offered to "older and vulnerable" EU citizens there.

Iran fired two waves of missile attacks on two different US military air bases in Iraq in retaliation against the assassination of Iranian top general Qassem Suleimani. So far, it seems that there were no casualties. Nevertheless, Iranian state TV claimed 80 people died in the attacks. Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said it was an act of self defence within the boundaries of international law.

The EU's foreign policy chief - along with French, German, Italian and British foreign ministers - have rejected Turkey's troop deployment in Libya.

Legal action related to climate change is set to grow considerably in the next few years - especially after a largely-overlooked ruling over Christmas by a Dutch court forced the government to reduce its emission by 25 percent by 2020.

A nation, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, is not capable of altruism. Even less so, if such a group has formed on the basis of strong emotions and casts itself as the "saviour of the nation".

I am a strong Atlanticist, but how can the US expect its allies to follow when it gives them no idea where they are being led?

An Irish Supreme Court judge will participate in a protest on Saturday in Warsaw in support of Polish colleagues who say their independence is being systematically eroded by the country's nationalist government, the Irish Times reported. Justice John MacMenamin will represent the Association of Judges of Ireland (AJI). Dutch judges also plan to participate. In 2018 an Irish judge raised concerns over Polish judicial independence in an extradition case.

Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, attended the government's national security council to tell them how Iran should retaliate for the killing of general Qassem Suleimani, the New York Times reports. Khamenei said the reprisal should be a direct and proportional attack on American interests, carried out openly by Iranian forces. So far, Iran has mostly used proxy groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan said the EU considers the US investigation into the French digital tax as a "European matter", and confirmed that the "EU will act and react as one" after his visit to Paris on Tuesday. Hogan will travel to Washington next week for talks. US president Donald Trump has threatened to impose punitive sanctions on French luxury goods after France taxing digital tech giants.

An appeals court in Malta on Tuesday overturned a conviction for a German captain of a migrant rescue ship, Deutsche Welle reported. Claus Peter Reisch was found guilty in May for not having the correct ship registration to enter Maltese waters when he transported migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. The appeals court ruled that the captain did not have the specific intent to break the law.

Contrary to what president Donald Trump said on Twitter, US defence secretary Mark Esper has acknowlegded that bombing cultural heritage sites in Iran would be a war crime, the New York Times writes. "We will follow the laws of armed conflict," Esper said at a news briefing. On Monday Republican senator Lindsey Graham said "We're not at war with the culture of the Iranian people."

A British teenager convicted of falsely accusing 12 Israelis of gang-rape in Cyprus said she would go to the European Court of Human Rights to clear her name, the Guardian reported. On Tuesday, the 19-year-old student received a suspended jail sentence in a case that sparked criticism in Britian. Her lawyers called it a "sad and tragic case" for a woman whose crime had been to report a sexual assault.

The new Austrian coalition government of conservatives and greens was sworn in on Tuesday by president Alexander van der Bellen. While Sebastian Kurz, the chancellor, is male, in total nine of the 17 ministers are women. In Austria it is the first time the Green Party has been part of the government.

Greece will flag concerns over Turkey's efforts to impose its authority on the eastern Mediterranean at a meeting on Tuesday between Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and US president Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported. Greece is concerned that Turkey could drill for oil and gas in its waters after Ankara sealed a deal with Libya in December. A gas pipeline agreement between Greece, Israel and Cyprus signed last week irks Turkey.

The leader of the Spanish Socialist Party, Pedro Sánchez, was voted back in as prime minister at the second round of an investiture debate on Tuesday by an extremely tight margin - 167 MPs voted in favour, 165 against, with 18 abstentions. Sánchez will now head the first coalition government of Spain's recent history, committed to implementing reformist policies, including an increase in the minimum wage.

Nato's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said it was imperative Iran did not require a nuclear weapon, in a reaction to Iran's statement that it would pull out of a nuclear deal (the 'JCPOA') that allows the country to create nuclear energy but forbids it to make nuclear arms. He also fell short of supporting the US killing of Iranian top general Qassem Suleimani, saying it was not a Nato decision.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has called a snap meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on Friday "to discuss recent developments on Iraq and Iran", he said Monday. The "EU will play its full role to seek de-escalation of tensions in the region," he added. Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also urged Tehran not to abandon a nuclear non-proliferation deal despite the recent US slaying of its top general.