DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Cum-ex tax scandal cost European treasuries €55 billion The scale of the financial damage caused by the so-called "cum-ex" tax scandal is much higher than previously thought, according to information provided to Reuters, ARD, Die Zeit and several other news organizations. For the last few years,German authorities have been investigating hundreds of the tax fraud cases, where banks and stockbrokers rapidly traded shares with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend rights, with the aim of being able to conceal the identity of the actual owner and allow both parties to claim tax rebates on capital gains tax that had only been paid once. Now, reports published on Thursday morning say that at least 10 other European countries beyond Germany have been affected by the tax fraud practices, and that the damage caused to state treasuries could be as high as €55.2 billion ($63.4 billion).
German drug czar slams tobacco advertising, demands billboard ban Germanyʼs drug commissioner says that nicotine represents the countryʼs biggest substance risk. She wants to ban outdoor advertising for cigarettes and tobacco, but some within her own party donʼt want to kick the habit. When German governmentpoint woman Marlene Mortlerpresented the official 2018 report on drugs and addiction in Germany, she did not stress opioids, cocaine, LSD or even cannabis. Instead, she stressed that nicotine remains the addictive drug that has cost the most lives in the country in recent years. The numbers of people in Germany who smoke have declined by 30 percent since 2013,as they have elsewhere in Europe.
240/2018 • 19 OCTOBER, 2018
What happened to Brexit architect David Cameron? How the former British prime minister spends his days?
As Brexit unravels before our eyes, itʼs worth reminding ourselves who got the UK and the EU into this mess in the first place.
Canadaʼs cannabis legalization goes into effect Canadians can now purchase and grow their own marijuana after a two-year effort by the government. While enthusiasts have hailed the move, some health officials have warned of the perils of an "uncontrolled experiment." Canada on Wednesday became the first industrialized Western nation tolegalize cannabis as Prime Minister Justin Trudeauʼs government completed a 2015 campaign pledge. Beforehand, only medical marijuana had been legal in the North American country. A regulated industry: While Canadians must be 18 years old to purchase cannabis, several
provinces have bumped up the age requirement. Quebec is pushing the legal age to 21 years.Canadians can possess up to 30 grams (1.05 ounces) and grow up to four plants at home.Some provinces have imposed a profit cap, such as Newfoundland, which has limited total profits on cannabis to 8 percent.Smoking cannabis is prohibited everywhere where tobacco smoking is banned.Cannabis concentrates, liquids for vaporizers and edibles are still banned under current legislation. Health authorities say they do not have sufficient evidence about their impact on public health.
Asterix translator Anthea Bell dies at 82 Bell is perhaps best known for her adaptations of the French Asterixcomics, in collaboration with her late co-translator Derek Hockridge. Her work was acclaimed as it managed to transmit the spirit of the series renowned for its numerous puns. For example, the druid in the French version of the series is called Panoramix; the name of the provider of the Gaulsʼ magic potion was cleverly turned into Getafix. The English version of the series is marked by her creative
signature to a point that the 37th album, Asterix and the Chariot Race (2017) — to which she could no longer contribute due to illness — paid tribute to "her wonderful translation work on Asterix over the years." Still Bell always insisted that she was "an unrepentant, unreconstructed adherent of the school of invisible translation," aiming to give readers the impression they were reading "the real thing," as she wrote in an essay in The Translator as Writer (2006).
EU and Asia leaders reaffirm multilateralism at ASEM Summit in Brussels The twelfth biennial ASEM meeting got underway in Brussels on Thursday with the participation of 51 leaders. The two-day conference has the EU, Switzerland and Norway hosting Asian officials — including Prime Ministers Li Keqiang of China, Shinzo Abe of Japan and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia. Two days of talks on trade, cybersecurity, the fate of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement are on the agenda. The EU sees the meeting as an opportunity to present itself as a counterbalance to both the US and China by offering Asian countries alternatives when it comes to trade, infrastructure and digitalization. An EU Belt and Road plan?
Court in Finland finds pro-Kremlin trolls guilty of harassing journalist A Finnish man was sentenced to over a year in prison on Thursday for defaming and harassinginvestigative journalist Jessikka Aro, who works for Finnish public broadcaster YLE. Ilja Janitskin, the founder of the rightwing, pro-Kremlin website MV-Lehti, was handed a 22-month prison sentence after being found guilty of 16 charges, including defamation. Johan Backman, a longtime mouthpiece for Moscow in Finland, was also found guilty of defamation and harassing and received a one-year suspended sentence.
weather today BUDAPEST
10 / 23 °C Precipitation: 0 mm
240/2018 • 19 October, 2018
German intelligence foiled
Lufthansa canceled 18,000 flights up to August this year
2016 Islamic State terror attack
Passengers affected won’t be surprised, but the announcement by Lufthansa that the airline group was forced to cancel 18,000 flights up to the end of August shows the headwinds the aviation industry has faced this year.
Three teams of "Islamic State" (IS) terrorists were to have traveled to Germany in 2016 to prepare for and carry out a devastating attack — with the target possibly a music festival. A man, Oguz G., and woman, Marcia M., who traveled to Syria in autumn 2015 to join IS were to have played a central role in the attack. From ISʼ then-de facto capital of Raqqa, Marcia M. — who was herself a convert to Islam — tried to recruit women in northern Germany to marry IS members so that they could be granted permission to enter Germany. However, one of the women who was contacted was an informant for Germanyʼsdomestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), who alerted authorities. Details of the case emerged after an investigation by the German broadcasters ARD and WDR, as well as the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Zeit newspapers. The case was confirmed by the German Federal Prosecutorʼs Office.
Sergio Perez: Force India keep Mexican driver for 2019 Formula 1 season The 28-year-old Mexican has been with the team since 2014 and is seventh in the driversʼ championship with seven points finishes in the past nine races. Perez has been credited with fending off a winding-up petition against the team bystarting administration proceedingsearlier this year, saving all 405 jobs at their Silverstone base. "Iʼm very happy to finally announce my future," said Perez.
This year, Lufthansa canceled 18,000 flights through August, one of its senior board members said on Wednesday. That amounts to about 2 percent of its total flights for the year up until that point and significantly more than were canceled in the whole of 2017. Harry Hohmeister told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper that the volume of cancellations was the equivalent of
a two-week shutdown of all Lufthansa operations at its main hub in Frankfurt. The figure underlines the extent to which Germanyʼs largest airline group has struggled with cancellations and delays this year, the vast majority of which it blames on circumstances beyond its control — for example regular air traffic control strikes across Europe and adverse weather conditions.
Asteroids and comets: How to tell them apart Landing a probe on an asteroid? Itʼs been done before, hasnʼt it? Nope. The last time space scientists landed a probe on a smaller celestial body, it was a comet. So whatʼs the difference? Asteroids are from the future and the past. It all depends on whom you ask. Space scientists say asteroids, like comets and other celestial bodies, were formed around 4.5 billion years ago, during the earliest moments of our solar system. They orbit around the Sun, just like planets, although their orbits are particular. Comets, for instance, have an elliptical orbit — so they can spend thousands of years way out in the solar system before
coming back round to the sun. Some asteroids and comets come incredibly close to Earth. And when space scientists get a chance to put a lander on one, they hope to learn about those dark beginnings of life, and how it came to Earth. Thatʼs happening right now. The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) has just jumped an asteroid called Ryugu. JAXAʼs Hayabusa 2 missionaims to bring back samples from the near-Earth asteroid. There are three landers and rovers on the mission. One of the rovers, MASCOT, was built jointly with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). And itʼs worth singling out, because it holds the instruments that will study Ryuguʼs surface.
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eBay sues Amazon for allegedly poaching its sellers Online retailer eBay filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against its competitor Amazon, accusing the Seattle-based giant of using eBayʼs own messaging system to steal sellers. eBay described Amazonʼs scheme as an "orchestrated, coordinated, worldwide campaign" to "illegally lure eBay sellers." While both eBay and Amazonʼs revenue is boosted by independent sellers, the group has become a greater part of Amazonʼs recent growth. In 2017, more than half the items sold on Amazon came from third-party sellers. In eBayʼs lawsuit, Amazon representatives are accused of creating eBay accounts and then messaging sellers to persuade them to take their goods to Amazon.com instead. eBay argues that the move violated its user agreement. The plaintiff claimed that Amazonʼs "abuse" was systematic and had the sole purpose of harming eBay.
Hungaryʼs university ban on gender studies heats up culture war Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen hinted at it during an interview in August: Hungarian universities would no longer offer gender studies as a discipline. According to Semjen, nobody wanted to employ "genderologists," so there was no need to train them. He also called the idea of gender as a social construct "absurd." The subject has now officially been abolished. Last weekend a government decree signed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban came into force, removing gender studies from the list of masterʼs programmes. Degree courses in the discipline that have already begun can be completed. But after that, the subject will be banned at Hungarian universities. A master’s degree in gender studies is currently offered at two Hungarian universities: Budapestʼs state-funded Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), Hungaryʼs oldest university, and theCentral European University (CEU), a private institution funded by Hungarian-American billionaireGeorge Sorosʼ Open Society Foundation. Around 20 students have taken part in the masters program at each university.