Euobserver.com

Instead of taking sides, the EU can benefit the most from simultaneous engagement with China and India, as tensions between the Asian giants grow.

Turkey and Greece have announced they will both hold military exercises in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean, increasing tension between Nato allies.

The EU's anti-piracy military mission in the Indian Ocean, Atalanta, has exonerated Somalia's police force after reports police had hijacked a Panama-flagged cargo ship last Thursday. "There had been certain incidents on board the vessel" but these "cannot be classified as a maritime security incident," Atalanta said. Somali police boarded the ship because it was adrift due to hull-damage and a Spanish warship was monitoring the situation, the EU said.

German scientists held three music concerts in the city of Leipzig on Sunday to study how mass gatherings affect coronavirus infection, with each event using different rules on hygiene and social distancing. "We have good quality data," Halle University's lead researcher, Stefan Moritz, said, with results due in autumn. Infection rates were climbing in Germany in recent weeks, but the country still had one of the lowest figures in Europe.

The director-general of Belgium's federal police, André Desenfants, told a press conference he was temporarily stepping aside from his role after the emergence of a video showing a Slovak man being pinned down in a custody cell hours before his death and an officer apparently making a Hitler salute, the BBC reported. The Slovak man, Jozef Chovanec, was arrested at Charleroi airport in 2018.

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, wearing body armour and holding a rifle as he landed at his residence amid ongoing protests, accused Nato of trying to interfere in Belarus, a claim the military alliance rejected.

"The EU warmly welcomes the announcements issued on 21 August 2020 by the president of the presidency council Fayez Al-Serraj and speaker of the house of representatives Aguila Saleh", EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said in a statement Saturday. However, on Sunday, general Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Libyan National Army rejected the ceasefire, calling it a "marketing stunt" and saying Sarraj was building up forces near Sirte instead.

French president Emmanuel Macron vowed Saturday that he would do everything to find out those who defaced the memorial to a Nazi massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane, France, The Guardian writes. Macron condemned the graffiti in which the word mémoire (memorial) was crossed out and replaced by menteur (liar) as an "unspeakable act". Oradour became the scene of a Nazi brutality in 1994 when 642 people were slaughtered by a German division.

The EU and the US on Friday announced a mini-deal that would eliminate EU tariffs on American lobster after years of trade tensions, Reuters reported. "We intend for this package of tariff reductions to mark just the beginning of a process that will lead to additional agreements that create more free, fair, and reciprocal transatlantic trade," said US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to hire more people from racial minorities after meeting anti-racist MEPs on Tuesday

Maltese health authorities said 65 migrants from a group of 94 brought to Malta this week have tested positive for coronavirus and been placed in isolation, the Times of Malta reported on Tuesday. This cluster represents the biggest outbreak in Malta since the beginning of the pandemic.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who is running for a sixth presidential term, told military officials on Tuesday that he recovered from Covid-19, Reuters reported. "Today you are meeting a man who managed to survive the coronavirus on his feet. Doctors came to such a conclusion yesterday: asymptomatic," he said. Lukashenko avoided strict lockdowns and, instead, suggested remedies such as drinking vodka. Belarus has registered 67,366 coronavirus cases and 543 deaths.

The European Court of Auditors on Tuesday launched a probe to assess whether the European Commission improved cooperation with priority third countries after 2015 - when an action plan on returns was in place. EU auditors found less than 40 percent of irregular migrants ordered to leave the EU return to their home country, or a third country.

The head of the Robert Koch Institute for health, Lothar Wieler, said on Tuesday that he was "very concerned" by the surge of new coronavirus infections in Germany, the BBC reported. "We don't know yet if this is the beginning of a second wave, but of course it could be," Wieler said. Last week, Germany recorded 3,611 new infections.

EU states have agreed to curb exports of "sensitive equipment and technologies for end-use in Hong Kong" repression, including for "interception of internal communications or cyber-surveillance" in reaction to China's security crackdown in the semi-autonomous former British colony. They also agreed, on Tuesday, to help Hong Kong citizens resettle and study in Europe and to increase support for pro-democracy NGOs trying to oppose the new measures, risking China's wrath.

British businesses are to be hit by the "simultaneous impact" of anti-coronavirus lockdowns and Brexit in autumn, according to a new study by the London School of Economics out Wednesday. The net downturn in business due to coronavirus in April and June ranged from -124 percent for the rubber and plastics sector to -41 percent for retail. But Brexit would subtract a further 15 percent from the chemicals sector.

The new spike in Covid-19 infections in Europe is due to the general public having become "negligent" on hygiene rules, Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany's Robert Koch Institute, a Public health body, told press Tuesday, the BBC reports. "We are in the middle of a rapidly-developing pandemic," he noted, while urging people to wear masks and respect social distancing. The recent increase in infections made him "very concerned".

People ought to break anti-coronavirus lockdowns for the sake of their psychological and other health needs, Andrea Bocelli, an Italian opera singer known for a recent Easter performance outside an empty cathedral in Milan, said in a speech at the country's senate Tuesday. "I am a certain age and I need sun and vitamin D," he said. "Let's refuse to follow this rule ... move around," he said.

According to a spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, the draft law "would give the state powerful tools for asserting even more control over the media landscape".

Previous claims that migrants bring communicable diseases to host countries have been debunked by a review of the existing evidence carried out earlier this year. In fact, migrants are currently more at risk of contracting Covid-19 from Europeans.