DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
ʼIRAʼ claims bombing in Northern Irelandʼs Derry A group calling itself the "IRA" claimed credit for placing thecar bombwhich detonated in front of a courthouse in Northern Irelandʼs Derry (Londonderry) earlier this month. In a statementsent to the Derry Journal on Tuesday, the group said it would "continue to strike at crown forces and personnel and their imperial establishment." The town of Derry was once a flashpoint in fighting between Irish nationalists, who want to unite Ireland, and Unionists, who want to keep Northern Ireland within the UK. The nationalist fight was spearheaded by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which ended its armed campaign against Britain in the 1998 Good Friday peace accord. Small splinter paramilitary groups are still active. Northern Irish police said following the January 19 explosion that the focus of their investigation centered on a militant group known as the New IRA.
Poland: Miner missing after copper mine earthquake The seven hospitalized miners do not have life-threatening injuries, Polandʼs PAP news agency reported. Eight miners were rescued after they were reported missing. A total of thirty-two miners had been at the Rudna site when the quake occurred at a depth of 770 meters (2,520 feet) shortly before 2 p.m. local time (1300 UTC). The Helmholtz Center in the German city of Potsdam said it recorded a 4.6-magnitude earthquake in the vicinity. Rudna began operations in 1974 and is one of the largest copper mines in Europe, extracting an average of 12 million tonnes of cooper ore a year. A 4.4-magnitude quake in 2016 killed eight Rudna miners.
25/2019 • 30 JANUARY, 2019
Manfred Weber: EU response to Venezuela ʼa tragedyʼ Manfred Weber is the favorite to become the next president of the European Commission
The German conservative told DW about his disappointment with the blocʼs response to the Venezuelan political crisis. The head of the biggest political grouping in the European Parliament on Tuesday slammed theEuropean Unionʼs slow response to Venezuelaʼs power strugglein an interview with DW. "It really was a tragedy to see that Europe was not able to act in a quick and appropriate manner," Manfred Weber said. Weber, who is favored to take over at the European Commission after elections in May, said the bloc needed to revamp the way it voted on foreign policy positions. Currently, all member states have to unanimously agree on a position for the EU to adopt it. The bloc should change to a majority vote system, Weber said. "Otherwise we will always be weak and not capable to deliver," he said. The EU made no joint declaration on behalf of its 28 member states to indicate support for either President Nicolas Maduro or opposition leader Juan Guaido. Instead,it released a statementcondemning violence and calling for free elections to be announced "over the next days." Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom have, however, said they would be ready to recognize Guaido as in-
terim president unless Maduro agreed to hold free elections by February 3. Veteran German politician Manfred Weber was nominated last November as the European Peopleʼs Partyʼs (EPP) candidate for European Commission President. The EPP is the largest political group in the European Commission and is predicted to win the most seats in elections scheduled for May. As lead candidate, Weber is favored to take over as EC president from Jean-Claude Juncker. This means changes to bloc decision-making on foreign policy could be on the cards. The current unanimity system slowed down a combined EU response to Maduroʼs re-election in 2018 amid divisionsover whether to pursue diplomacy or impose sanctions. The elections were widely criticized as being unfair, but sanctions were only imposed on Maduro and his closest officials over a month after the election date. "We as Europeans have a common value base," Weber told DW. "We have to show on a global level that we are willing to defend these principles, also with our friends for example in South America."
German military lacks equipment and recruits, says damning report German soldiers sometimes have to rely on civilian helicopters to transport them around in Afghanistan, while vital equipment such as body armor has to be borrowed, according to the parliamentʼs new Bundeswehr report presented to the government on Tuesday. The annual study also detailed a rise in reports of sexual harassment and some instances of farright extremism among soldiers. "Iʼd like to report: Itʼs spring, everything will be new. But the truth is: Itʼs still winter," the reportʼs author, Bundestag military commissioner HansPeter Bartels, said as he presented the document at a press conference in Berlin. The biggest problem that Bundeswehr soldiers complained about was the lack of equipment, despite repeated government promises, dating back to a 2014 NATO summit, of a change in direction.
Germany: 38,000 illegal immigrants caught by Federal Police More than 38,000 people were caught entering Germany illegally between January and November 2018, German Federal Police have told DW. Over 28,000 people entered Germany by land, with most — some 10,300 — entering from Austria. By comparison, some 9,270 people arrived illegally at airports and more than 1,120 people at sea ports. Read more: How do refugees in Germany view Seehoferʼs tougher migration plan?
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