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DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH

Germanyʼs Schlecker bankruptcy children facing jail Meike and Lars Schlecker were each sentenced to jail terms of two years and seven months Thursday over breach of trust and insolvency delay and abetting charges upheld by the Karlsruhe-based court. The terms are slightly less than the sentences of 31 and 33 months imposed respectively on Schleckerʼs adult children in November 2017 by the Stuttgart regional court. At the 2017 trial judges found that in January 2012, just days before one of Germanyʼs most well-known chemist chains filed for insolvency, Anton Schlecker steered millions of euros away from creditors to his children, notably a personnel service subsidiary they ran, LDG. Stuttgartʼs regional prosecutions office said the pair, now in their mid-40s, would begin their prison terms in the coming months, once court sentencing files were delivered.

95/2019 • 26 APRIL, 2019

Ex-Vice President Joe Biden launches 2020 presidential campaign Biden served as vice president under Barack Obama from 2008 to 2016

Syria: 1,600 civilian deaths in US-led strikes on Raqqa, says Amnesty A two-year investigation into US-led coalition air and artillery strikes has revealed more than 1,600 civilian deaths inthe campaign for Islamic State (IS)-held Raqqaover a period of only three months, according to Amnesty International. The joint investigation with Airwars has been collated into an interactivewebsiterecreating what authors call a "brutally vivid account" of the shelling of populated areas where IS used human shields. Amnesty and Airwars said it hoped to draw attention to what the coalition had claimed to be "the most precise air campaign in history." "Coalition forces razed Raqqa, but they cannot erase the truth. The Coalition needs to fully investigate what went wrong at Raqqa and learn from those lessons, to prevent inflicting such tremendous suffering on civilians caught in future military operations," said Chris Woods, director of Airwars.

Germans increasingly hostile towards asylum-seekers

China tries to allay fears over Belt and Road policy

The veteran politician joins a crowded field of candidates vying to win the Democratic Partyʼs presidential nomination and defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

Chinaʼs finance minister defended Beijingʼs Belt and Road initiative on Thursday, pledging to create a sustainable financing system to pay for infrastructure projects. Critics say the project — which aims to connect Asia to Europe and Africa through huge maritime, road and rail projects — could mire poorer countries in debt. Finance Minister Liu Kun was speaking at the start of the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. Whatʼs happening at the summit? The weeklong forum brings together leaders or representatives of 37 countries seeking to benefit from the projects.Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte are among the headline guests.EU powers Germany and France are sending ministers, but the US has dispatched only a low-level delegation.

Former US Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy to stand for the presidency in 2020, in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday. "If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation," Biden said. "Who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen." Polling shows that Biden, who served as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years, has a strong chance of eventually being nominated as the Democratic candidate. A survey by polling data aggregator RealClearPolitics reveals him to be the favorite among Democratic voters, on 29.3%, followed by independentSenator Bernie Sanderson 23%t. When making his declaration, Biden said the core values of the US and the nationʼs standing in the world were at stake. In the video, Biden focused on the deadly

2017 clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters inCharlottesville, Virginia. He was particularly critical of Trumpʼs assertion that there were "very fine people" on both sides. "With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it," Biden said. In response to the news, Obama said that selecting Biden had been "one of the best decisions" he had ever made. The former US president is not expected to give any formal endorsement until much later in the nomination process. The announcement marks an unofficial end of the chaotic early phase of the 2020 presidential season. At least 20 Democrats are now in the running for the chance to take on Trump next year, with a possibility that some lesser-known candidates might still join the field.

Right-wing populist attitudes have become "normal" in Germanyʼs mainstream, said authors of a new study presented by the left-wing Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin on Thursday. "The center is losing its footing and its democratic orientation," researchers said. The foundation has released reports on right-wing extremism since 2002. The latest study, conducted by a group of researchers from Bielefeld University, shows that a record 54.1% of the respondents across Germany now hold a negative view of asylum-seekers.

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