Author: Sotiris Antonotis

Chancellor says protests are ‘strong sign in favour of democracy’ as demonstrators gather in Berlin, Dresden, Hanover and other cities About 200,000 people have taken to the streets of Germany in further protests against the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD). Protests on Saturday also took place in Dresden, Mainz and Hanover in a sign of growing alarm at strong public support for AfD. Roughly 150,000 people flocked to the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, where protesters gathered under the slogan “We are the Firewall” to protest against right-wing extremism and to show support for democracy. The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, wrote on X:…

European markets fell on Tuesday as global investors digested the latest U.S. inflation reading and eyed the start of the Federal Reserve policy meeting. EUROPEAN MARKETS TICKER COMPANY PRICE CHANGE %CHANGE .FTSEFTSE 1007542.77-2.12-0.03.GDAXIDAX16791.7400.FCHICAC 40 Index7543.5500.FTMIBFTSE MIB30342.15-84.43-0.28.IBEXIBEX 35 Idx10118.700 The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally closed 0.23% lower, with the oil and gas sector losing 1.28%. Meanwhile in the U.S., the closely-watched consumer price index rose 0.1% in November and 3.1% from a year ago. Economists had been expecting no gain and a yearly rate of 3.1%, according to a Dow Jones survey. The data comes as the U.S. Federal Reserve kicks off its two-day meeting, where it will mull over its latest…

London, (16/11 – 57) Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe has laid out the bankrupt country’s budget for 2024, drawing mixed reviews as he strives to meet the demands of an International Monetary Fund bailout program without sowing further public resentment ahead of expected elections. Some observers applauded the proposals, not only for what they included but also what they did not, no new taxes on top of hikes already announced. But others expressed concern that the budget seemed designed to placate certain voters, and only temporarily, while not doing enough to help the struggling masses. Wickremesinghe unveiled the budget on…

Brussel, Frankfurt (16/11 – 23) A levying of embargoes and export bans, the imposition of sanctions, erection of fearsome “license” (= restriction) protocol: there’s nothing new about this back-and-forth in world trade, in the eternal jousting for advantage among markets and nations. The clever Chinese imagined they had the world tea market all locked up until an earnest Scottish botanist carrying the telling name of “Robert Fortune” snuck into the Middle Kingdom to observe their agriculture, steal tea plants, and pick up tricks of tea processing. The Chinese global tea monopoly was busted wide open. The fortunate Mr. Fortune was…

Rather than ‘shaken, not stirred’, one 17th-century Polish spy would likely ask: ‘Black or with milk?’ Jerzy Kulczycki was not only one of the very first people to open a café in Vienna, but apparently also the first person to come up with adding milk to coffee. Just how did his heroic stance during the Battle of Vienna lead him to become an internationally recognised figure in café culture? Spying on the Grand Vizier Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki (a.k.a. Georg Franz Kolschitzky) – a Polish nobleman, born in the town of Sambor in today’s Ukraine – led a rather eventful life…

London (05/11 – 44.44) Benjamin Wey, a Chinese-American financier, founder of Fintech Holdings and a history of legal trouble, is suing Sri Lanka for $250 million. Wey claims that he was assured by Sri Lanka’s central bank governor that the country would repay a $250 million bond. However, Sri Lanka defaulted on the bond in April 2022. Wey is seeking to collect the full amount of the bond, plus interest. He has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit is a major setback for Sri Lanka, which is already facing a severe…

Jakarta, Surakarta, Berlin (7/12 – 11) Amid a generally declining period for Germany’s national football team, the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Indonesia has been a shining light for them. Germany is one of the most successful national teams ever in international competition. They have won four World Cups (1954, 1974, 1990, 2014), three European Championships (1972, 1980, 1996), and a Confederations Cup (2017). Nevertheless, in recent years, Germany is suffering a horrid fate. In 2018, Germany suffered their first-ever first-round exit from the World Cup, since 1938. Germany became the fifth defending champions to be eliminated in the…

One country’s security cannot be ensured at the cost of others, Chinese President Xi Jinping told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, as he urged Europe to help mediate conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. “A fundamental resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Ukraine crisis requires profound reflection on security issues … and a push for a balanced, effective and sustained security framework,” Xi said in the video conference, according to state news agency Xinhua. “Squeezing the security space of other countries, supporting one side while ignoring the legitimate demands of the other side will only lead to regional imbalance and escalation of conflicts. Do you…

As part of ongoing efforts to expand to new markets and encourage synergies and exchange, the Greek Tourism Ministry entered into a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoU) with Malta this week. On the sidelines of the 7the Mediterranean Tourism Forum held in Valletta, Malta this week, Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni and her Maltese counterpart Clayton Bartolo signed the MoU during a special ceremony. The move comes months after Bartolo’s visit to Athens in the summer during which the two countries agreed to work together to increase tourist flows. Under the agreement, Greece and Malta will be launching joint programs to attract tourists from long-haul markets, exchanging knowhow…

London, Dublin (1/11 – 66) Hamas is sheltered in a sea of civilians. Ostensibly a Palestinian political and military organization established in 1987, Hamas “governs” on the basis of having won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections – defeating Fatah, another Islamist terror combine – before forming a government in the Gaza Strip, described as “…the world’s largest open-air prison” for its Palestinian inhabitants. So why don’t the Palestinians, having been robbed of their ancient lands, simply up and move somewhere else? It is telling that none of the Islamic nations surrounding Israel care to admit any more…