Politics
UN exhorts EU to stop violence against asylum seekers
A UN agency says Europe needs to stop violence against asylum seekers. Eugenio Ambrosi of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement on Wednesday (February 10): “The use of excessive force and violence against civilians is unreasonable.” Ambrosi said that the EU and its member states need to take urgent […]
Read MoreEU: Von der Leyen acknowledges failure to launch COVID-19 vaccine
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged on Wednesday the EU’s failure to approve and launch a vaccine against COVID-19 and said the EU has learned a lesson in the process. The European Union chief executive was speaking to members of the European Parliament after criticism of the slow introduction of vaccines […]
Read MoreItaly: Huge cocaine haul seized in operations against Mafia
A source said on Wednesday that last week, the financial police seized 1,3 tons of pure cocaine in three separate operations in the southern port of Gioia Tauro. Sources say that if these drugs had passed, they would have flood the streets of Europe and brought about 260 million euros in revenue to Calabria-based […]
Read MoreItaly: Birth rate falls 21.6 percent during lockdown
According to new data on a sample of 15 Italian cities released by the National Bureau of Statistics, ISTAT, the birth rate in Italy fell by 21.6% in December last year, exactly nine months after the country was locked down due to the coronavirus. ISTAT said the number of births in Italy in […]
Read MorePortugal: Nearly 350 victims of human trafficking
A United Nations report shows that between 2014 and 2018, more than 350 people in Portugal were victims of human trafficking, mainly men in forced labor. The data is contained in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “Global Human Trafficking Report 2020”. In the case of Portugal, the data […]
Read MoreSpain: Real estate sector expected to increase by 15% in 2021
According to a research released by Jones Lang Lasalle, a British real estate consultancy, investment in the Spanish real estate sector is expected to increase by 15% to approximately 9 billion euros ($10.8 billion) in 2021. As reported by Xinhua, as Spain recovers from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, investment in all […]
Read MoreNetherlands sees sharp drop in asylum requests in 2020
According to data released by the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), by 2020, the number of people seeking international protection in the Netherlands has significantly decreased by 40%. According to the latest IND report, nearly 14,000 people applied for asylum in the Netherlands for the first time last year. Syrian citizens are […]
Read MorePortugal’s economy down 7.6% in 2020
Portugal’s economy shrank by 7.6% last year, the biggest annual decline since 1936, and the government warned that the prospects for recovery are worsening because the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened. The decline includes the unprecedented decline in tourism revenue, but it is far less serious than the 8.5% previously predicted by the government. […]
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