Germany

BERLIN (AP) — Finland declared Sunday that it wants to join NATO, as a senior official with the western military alliance expressed hope that — with Russia’s military advance appearing to falter — Ukraine can win the war.

President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin made the announcement that Finland would seek membership of NATO during a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. The previously neutral Nordic country shares a long border with Russia.

“This is a historic day. A new era begins,” Niinisto said.

WEISSENHAUS, Germany May 14 (Reuters) - Group of Seven foreign ministers vowed on Saturday to reinforce Russia's economic and political isolation, continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and tackle what Germany's foreign minister described as a "wheat war" being waged by Moscow.

After meeting at a 400-year-old castle estate in the Baltic Sea resort of Weissenhaus, senior diplomats from Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and the European Union also pledged to continue their military and defence assistance for "as long as necessary".

13 May 2022; MEMO: A Berlin court, on Friday, upheld a ban on all Palestinian "Nakba Day" demonstrations which were scheduled to take place in the German capital this weekend, the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper reported.

The administrative court outlawed five Palestinian demonstrations because what it said was a risk of inflammatory or anti-Semitic calls and violence, Anadolu News Agency reports.

WEISSENHAUS, Germany (AP) — The Group of Seven leading economies warned Saturday that the war in Ukraine is stoking a global food and energy crisis that threatens poor countries, and urgent measures are needed to unblock stores of grain that Russia is preventing from leaving Ukraine.

In a statement released at the end of a three-day meeting on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, the G-7 nations also called on China not to help Russia, including by undermining international sanctions or justifying Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

BERLIN, May 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Germany is bracing for energy sanctions imposed by Russia, Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Robert Habeck, said, during his speech in the country’s lower house of parliament, Bundestag, yesterday.

“We have prepared ourselves for the situation,” Habeck said, noting that, energy markets offered sufficient alternatives and could compensate for the loss of gas from Russia.

WEISSENHAUS, Germany, May 13 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from the G7 group of rich nations backed giving more aid and weapons to Kyiv as they met on Friday in what Germany called a "powerful sign of unity" to deepen Russia's global isolation.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced a further 500 million euros worth of military support to Ukraine and said he was confident that an EU embargo on Russian oil could be agreed in the coming days.

BERLIN, May 12 (Reuters) - Russia, not Ukraine, needs de-Nazification, the leader of anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot, who left Russia this week by disguising herself as a food courier, said before her group kicks off a concert tour against the war.

At a rehearsal for a concert on Thursday in the German capital, Maria Alyokhina said Russians needed to think carefully about the war.

BERLIN, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Revenues of German vaccine developer BioNTech in the first quarter (Q1) of 2022 more than tripled year-on-year to 6.4 billion euros (6.7 billion U.S. dollars), the company said on Monday.

The increase was "mainly due to increased commercial revenues from the supply and sales of the company's COVID-19 vaccine worldwide," BioNTech said in a statement. Net profit rose to 3.7 billion euros in Q1, compared to 1.13 billion euros in the same period last year.

FRANKFURT, May 8 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a televised address to the nation on Sunday May 8, marking the anniversary of the end of World War Two, assured Ukraine of solidarity in its fight against Russia's invasion.

"Putin will not win this war. Ukraine will persevere," said Scholz.

The date takes on special meaning this year as two countries that were once victims of Nazi Germany - Ukraine and Russia - are now at war because Russia unleashed it, he said.

Scholz said Germany would help Ukraine with humanitarian, financial and military help.

BERLIN, May 8 (Reuters) - Former Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives (CDU) looked set to make a clear win a regional election in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, in a boost to the party which was ousted from national government in federal elections last year.

An exit poll by ARD Tagesschau put the CDU at 43% of the vote, up 11 percentage points compared to the last vote, while the Social Democrats slumped to 15.5%.