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DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH

Germanyʼs Protestant and Catholic churches predicted to lose millions of members The number of members belonging to Germanyʼs two main churches will drop in half by 2060, putting severe financial strain on the religious institutions, according to a study published Thursday. The main reasons for declining membership in the German Catholic and Protestant churches include adults leaving the church, fewer baptisms and an aging population, researchers at the University of Freiburg said. The study, which was commissioned by the Catholic German Bishops Conference and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), predicted the combined membership in the two churches will drop from about 45 million now to 34.8 million by 2035 and 22.7 million by 2060.

EU says will respond to controversial US move on Cuba The European Union said on Thursday it would take "measures" in response to a decision

by Washingtonto allow lawsuits in US courts against companies using premises confiscated by the communist government of Cuba.

The EU considers the US move to be "contrary to international law" and "will draw on all appropriate measures to address the effects of the Helms-Burton Act, including in relation to its WTO rights," according to a statement from the EUʼs top diplomat, Federica Mogherini. The administration of US President Donald Trump announced in April that it would activate a provision of the1996 Helms-Burton Actthat has been waived by every president since the law was passed, due to objections from US allies doing business in Cuba.

100/2019 • 3 MAY, 2019

Maduro rallies troops against opposition leader Guaido Meanwhile, international pressure is mounting on Maduro to step down

The Venezuelan president has proclaimed support for his armed forces just days after the opposition staged a rally to display its military backing.

Worldwide inventory to help protect biodiversity For the first time in 14 years, experts have compiled a global ecoinventory of the Earth. They now want to fine-tune the core statements with government representatives.

It is already clear that many species have been lost in the recent past. And thecausesare also clear: intense agriculture, pollution, overfishing, poaching, the destruction of natural habitats and climate change. It is unclear, however,how dire the global biodiversity situation really isand whether conservation measures have achieved anything. Most recently, in 2005, theMillennium Ecosystem As-

sessment showed how massively ecosystems were polluted over the previous 50 years and how necessary a reversal is. Starting this Monday, government representatives and scientists will discuss a new report on biodiversity for a week. The report is based on the research results that 150 experts from 50 countries have compiled and analyzed over the past three years. The experts analyzed almost 15,000 sources for their report, and 250 other experts provided knowledge directly. For the first time, the findings and interests of indigenous peoples and other local knowledge were included.

Nets ʼnʼ Lasers: some of our best hopes for mitigating the threat of space debris Space debris is a bit like space itself: We know itʼs up there, but beyond that thereʼs so much we know we donʼt know. The statistics are fun, though, if a little misleading. Itʼs a bit of a safari crunching the numbers, but here goes. Since 1957, the year the Soviet Union sent Sputnik into space, there have been 4,900 space launches. So far so good. In that time we have put 6,600 satellites in orbit

and/or created "an on-orbit population of more than 18,000 tracked objects." Elsewhere, ESA cites "more than 17,000 orbital objects" being tracked and catalogued by the US Space Surveillance Network. And in a third document itʼs 22,000 objects.

But you get the idea: Itʼs a lot. Of the 6,600 satellites, 3,600 remain in space, and less than a third (about 1,100) are operational.

Collectivization remarks split German Social Democrats The leadership of Germanyʼs centerleft government party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), has distanced itself from the leader of its own youth movement, Kevin Kühnert, after he called for major German companies like BMW to be collectivized. "Without collectivization overcoming capitalism is unthinkable," the 29-year-old Kühnert told Die Zeit weekly, before adding: "For me itʼs less important whether on the BMW doorbell sign it says ʼstate automobile companyʼ or ʼcooperative automobile companyʼ or whether the collective decides that BMW is no longer necessary in this form," he said. Instead, Kühnert, who heads the "Jusos," or Young Socialists, said that what was important was that the distribution of BMWʼs profits should be democratically controlled, which meant there could be no a "capitalist owner" of the company.

Thousands mark Holocaust Remembrance Day with annual March of the Living Thousands of young Jews from around the world gathered in Oswiecim, Poland, on Thursday to markHolocaust Remembrance Day. They marched alongside Holocaust survivors and international politicians at the site of the formerAuschwitzdeath camp run by Nazi Germany.

Some 10,000 marchers, who walked along a 3-kilometer (1.8-mile) route between two sites at Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, waved Israeli flags and banners highlighting the issue of rising antiSemitism.

weather today BUDAPEST

8 / 18 °C Precipitation: 0 mm

100/2019 • 3 May, 2019

Worried about Brexit, Brits stockpile food, supplies Nick Thomas, a 25-year-old hazardous waste operator from Cornwall, is insistent that Brexit will be fine.

Probably. "If ʼno dealʼ goes badly, thereʼll be rioting on the streets and looting, national uproar. If people canʼt eat, theyʼll rise up and fight. But I canʼt see it happening — thatʼs a very worst case scenario," he said.

Thomas, who voted to leave the EU because of the adverse effects of the common fisheries policy on his local area, is not ruling out the possibility of things going awry. He has stocked up with a substantial amount of dried goods – rice and pasta, primarily — as well as tinned beans and vegetables. "The main thing is the food supply chain," he said. "A couple of friends of mine have done the same as me and bought some big bags of rice and pasta, some long-life tins of food.

But weʼre all of the same opinion that thereʼs nothing really to worry about."

Tiger Woods wins 2019 Masters golf championship Tiger Woods sealed one of the most remarkable comebacks in sport, let alone golf, to win his fifth Masters and seal an epic return from scandal and injuries that once threatened his career. Itʼs Woodsʼ 15th major, and the 14 years between his fourth and fifth Masters triumph is the longest gap between majors. A remarkable 22 years after Woods won his first major at Augusta National, Woods sunk a short bogey putt to seal the win as the crowd erupted in chants of "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!"

Amazonʼs Alexa lies to — and spies on — consumers Itʼs no surprise that Amazon is using Alexa to listen to peopleʼs conversations. Thatʼs just one more signal that we are moving into an era in which our privacy is no longer protected.

If you ask Amazonʼs voice-activated virtual assistant, Alexa, whether it is spying on you, the device will reply that it is not and add that your data privacy is very important to it. But then, last week, we learned the truth: Amazon has its employees listen to and transcribe thousands of Alexa conversations each day — without users knowing. According to Amazon, this helps improve the customer experience. Evidently, Amazon thinks customersʼ experience is more important than their privacy because it not

only recorded "official" Alexa requests but, according to Bloomberg, also people singing in the shower, kids calling for help and even what sounded like a sexual assault. Amazon officials have shown no remorse about violating Germanyʼs telecommunication confidentiality law, which is codified in the constitution. And neither does it seem bothered about massively violating the right of informational self-determination, which has been upheld by Germanyʼs top court. This is one side of the scandal.

Obamas producing Netflix project critical of Trump As former US president Barack and his wife Michelle Obama unveil plans for a Netflix series critical of the countryʼs current government, hereʼs a look at other on-screen portrayals of American politics.

The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, a 2018

political book by Michael Lewis, looks into the inner workings of the US government and Donald Trumpʼs first year as president. In his book, Lewis is very critical of President Trump, underlining the unpreparedness and incompetence of his transition team as well as the inexperience of the people the

former real estate mogul installed in the administrationʼs key positions. In October 2018, the Obamasʼ production company, Higher Ground, acquired the rights to the book for a potential Netflix series. The video-ondemand platform has now announced that the project would be among the Obamasʼ first batch of projects. The Netflix statement about the Fifth Risk project however avoided naming Trump, saying that the series "will aim to portray the importance of unheralded work done by everyday heroes guiding our government and safeguarding our nation."

Elegant Café Párisi breathes new life into Budapest’s splendid Lotz Hall Café Párisi is on the top floor of the building, with theAndrássy Entertainment Centreand, from tomorrow, an Avatar exhibition below. The café is open every day and the Lotz Hall can be rented for special events such as birthday parties, company gatherings or a fairy-tale wedding. Café Párisi Address: District VI. Andrássy út 39 Open: Daily 9am-9pm

H-1056 Budapest, Só u. 6.

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Merger between T-Mobile and Sprint on the line The $26.5 billion (€23 billion) merger,announced last April, would combine the United Statesʼ third and fourth largest wireless companies, creating a new firm the size of sector rivals Verizon andAT&T. It would also reduce the number of major carriers in the US from four to three. T-Mobileʼs German parent,Deutsche Telekom would take 42 percent of the new entity and Japanʼs SoftBank, owner of Sprint, 27 percent, with the rest held by the public. The combined company, to be called T-Mobile, would have 127 million customers.

But the deal must get the green light from US federal regulators. A hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Wednesday — Thursdayʼs scheduled meeting before the House Committee on the Judiciary was postponed — didnʼt have a direct bearing on the governmentʼs regulatory review. But optics matter and they can help or hinder in the final decision-making process.

US to EU: Our liquefied natural gas is more reliable than Russiaʼs US Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday pitched US liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a way for Europe to diversify and secure its energy supplies, as the US attempts to steer Europe away from Russian gas imports. "If just the cheapness of the supply is all you care about then you would not buy a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz or one of the fine automobiles that come out of the European Union," Perry said in Brussels. "You might buy cheaper from someplace else but it might not be reliable and the point is the same with Russian gas." Speaking alongside Perry, the EUʼs energy commissioner, Miguel Arias Canete, said the increase in US gas exports to the EU was understandable. "Diversification is important not only for security of supply but also for competition," Canete said. LNG has generally been considered overly expensive due to the effort required to liquefy and transport it when compared to gas transported in pipelines and other energy sources.