Euractiv.com

Accelerating the transition to an ever more digital existence, the coronavirus pandemic has tightened tech giants' grip on billions of customers' lives.

A Chinese court handed a four-year jail to a citizen-journalist who reported from the central city of Wuhan at the peak of last year’s coronavirus outbreak, on grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” her lawyer said.

Climate policy will again take centre stage in 2021, with the European Commission expected to table a mammoth package of green laws in June, before the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow caps off a year packed with milestones for European climate policy in December.

The Parliamentary Elections in Kazakhstan to be held on 10 January 2020 should be anticipated with confidence despite the Covid-19 concerns, writes Jeroen Jansen.

EU countries on Sunday (27 December) embarked on a vaccination campaign to defeat the "nightmare" of Covid-19, with the first to be immunised expressing emotion after their jab and leaders hailing a milestone in the fight against the pandemic.

Britain on Monday (28 December) urged businesses to prepare for Brexit, just days before a transition period designed to smooth the UK's departure from the European Union comes to an end.

Britain and the European Union on Saturday (26 December) published the full text of the post-Brexit trade agreement aimed at governing their relationship when the UK definitively leaves the bloc's single market in just five days.

The European Union began a vaccine rollout Saturday (26 December), even as countries in the bloc were forced back into lockdown by a new strain of the virus, believed to be more infectious, that continues to spread from Britain.

So far, Donald Trump, who has 27 days left in the White House until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on 20 January, has issued 70 pardons since taking office.

Political leaders in Europe on Thursday (24 December) hailed the belated sealing of a UK-EU post-Brexit deal that aims to lay the groundwork for long-term future cooperation. Britain British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lauded what he termed “a good deal...

The French government on Thursday (24 December) announced measures to support fishermen and fishmongers, including up to €30,000 in individual aid, after the European Union and the UK reached a post-Brexit trade agreement.

Britain, while clinching a trade deal with the EU, said Thursday (24 December)  it was backing out of a European student exchange programme and replacing it with a global scheme named after computing pioneer Alan Turing.

Madrid and London have yet to reach agreement on the status of Gibraltar, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Thursday (24 December) after Britain and EU finally sealed a Brexit trade deal.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson boasted on Thursday (24 December) that the Brexit-question has been put to bed for a generation, as he announced the agreement of a new EU-UK trade treaty which will take effect from 1 January.

European Union fishing fleets will have to give up a quarter of their current catch in British waters over the next five and a half years, officials said Thursday (24 December).

The European Union and Britain on Thursday (24 December)  struck a post-Brexit trade deal to cushion the economic blow of the UK's imminent departure from the single market after 10 months of tortuous negotiations.

A new, potentially more infectious variant of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been found in Britain in cases linked to South Africa, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday (23 December).

A fire at a migrant centre housing about 1,200 people in northwestern Bosnia on Wednesday (23 December) was probably set by migrants displeased with its temporary closure, police and a United Nations official said.

The United States on Wednesday (23 December) called for transparency and an end to violence after Russia said it had dispatched 300 military instructors to the Central African Republic ahead of elections.

European Transport Commissioner Adina Vălean warned Thursday (24 December) that 10,000 European truckers were struggling to return from Britain and criticised France for imposing coronavirus restrictions on them.