Latest data extracted from Eurostat’s datasets show that Iran and 27 members of the European Union traded €704 million worth of goods and commodities in the first two months of the current year.

As per report, Iran’s exports to EU countries have declined by 26 percent in January and February compared with the previous year’s corresponding period and it fell from 166m euros in previous year to 122 million euros. By the way, European states in the same period have exported goods to Iran worth 582m euros which indicates 6 percent slump comparing with the previous year’s corresponding period while the figure stood at 619m euros in the same period last year.

The report claims Germany has been Iran’s major European trade partner in months of January and February of this year and it has accounted for forty percent of Iran’s total trade with EU.

Germany has exported goods and commodities worth 240m euros and imported goods worth 41m euros from Iran in this two-month period.

The U.S. unilateral sanctions on Iran have affected significantly trade between Iran and Europe and it is expected by the return of the U.S. to the nuclear deal and removing sanctions, the trade between Iran and EU would get boosted.

Major European companies are reluctant to cooperate with Iran because of the U.S. sanctions and possible fines and punishment by the U.S.

The outbreak of the coronavirus has also worsened the condition for trade between Iran and EU because for months the borders were closed and the economies were challenging to survive because of the pandemic and the lockdowns.

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The letter, written by the High Council of Human Rights of Iran, was handed to Portugal’s ambassador to Tehran Carlos Costa Neves as the country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU.

It comes in response to a move on April 12 by the EU to sanction eight military commanders and police chiefs, in addition to three prisons, for their alleged role in a deadly crackdown of public protests in November 2019.

The EU has now blacklisted 89 individuals and four entities as part of its decade-long human rights sanctions regime against those who it claims are violating human rights in Iran.

In response, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it will immediately suspend talks with the EU on human rights and all resulting cooperation, including that on terrorism, illicit drugs, and refugees. The ministry also said there is “political intentions” behind the move and said is considering reciprocal sanctions.

In its letter, the Iranian human rights council condemns the EU for its policies that are “enforcing the illegal and oppressive sanctions” unilaterally imposed by the United States after it withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal – JCPOA – with world powers in May 2018.

The sanctions, which intensified only after the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, have hampered imports of food and medicine, in addition to creating money transfer issues in buying coronavirus vaccines.

The letter says a number of EU member states have imposed “intentional damage on the health and wellbeing of the Iranian people, particularly children, women, the elderly, and persons with disability”.

For instance, it lists the names of more than a dozen children who died because of a lack of access to vital medicine to treat epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a rare medical condition that results in blistering of the skin and mucous membranes.

It also describes how several European countries refused to work or deal with Iranian firms on medicine, medical equipment, and vaccines, and says several airports have failed to provide services to Iranian passenger planes because of U.S. sanctions.

The human rights council also condemns the fact that Iranian migrants and students have faced difficulties in opening bank accounts in European countries based on their nationality and says several Iranian citizens are held in European prisons on “arbitrary” charges and have been mistreated in prison.

Moreover, it says the EU should have unequivocally condemned the January 2020 assassination of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani by the United States as a “clear example of state terrorism” that Iran believes was assisted by elements within the German government.

Among other things, the council also holds that a number of European countries continue to shelter members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq, and provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons during Iraq’s war against Iran in the 1980s.

The letter is aimed at holding the EU accountable for its double standards on human rights in Iran, according to the deputy director for international affairs at the human rights council.

The letter is focused on two things: the violation of Iranians’ human rights by the EU inside Iran, and in European countries, Seyyed Majid Tafreshi told Al Jazeera.

“The Europeans who have so many claims on human rights are themselves the perpetrators of many human rights violations of Iranian citizens,” he said.

Tafreshi also said it is unfair that the EU directs the majority of its attention towards “following illegal sanctions imposed by the U.S.” while ignoring the plight of Iranians inside and outside the country. According to Tafreshi, the human rights council expects an “actionable response” to its letter, which called on the EU to “bring the violators of the fundamental rights of the Iranian nation into trial without any politicization”.

It would only “strengthen Iran’s position” if the EU fails to adequately respond, he said.

An EU source told Al Jazeera the Council of the EU has yet to receive the letter, so it cannot comment on its contents.

Peter Stano, an EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said the new European sanctions listings are completely unrelated to continuing efforts to restore the JCPOA.

“The EU supports a balanced, comprehensive approach with Iran through dialogue, with a view to addressing all issues of concern including human rights,” he said. “We are critical when there are divergences and cooperation when there is mutual interest.”

Talks on JCPOA in Vienna have been continuing for two weeks, with all sides saying progress is being made on lifting U.S. sanctions and reversing Iran’s nuclear steps despite lingering challenges.

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Within a week, implications of the Brexit trade deal with the European Union are being felt by businesses up and down the country as food deliveries are delayed for not having the right customs paperwork, logistics companies halt the shipment of goods, and retailers discover their supply chains might be obsolete.

After decades inside the European Union’s customs union and single market, Britain’s businesses have unearthed new challenges and changes every day.

Here’s a sampling from the first week:

MONDAY The first day of financial trading under the new agreement meant the stock of European companies could no longer be traded on the London-based platforms they have historically been exchanged on. The trades have migrated to trading platforms in cities including Amsterdam and Paris.

TUESDAY The British retailer Marks & Spencer had trouble getting its fresh salads and other prepared foods across the English Channel to its stores in France, leaving some shelves bare in Paris. “Due to new UK/EU import legislation, we’re sorry some of your favorites might be missing,” a sign said.

WEDNESDAY The governor of the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank, told a parliamentary committee that the Brexit deal would cost the British economy about 2 percent of gross domestic product over the next few years. Part of that expense, said Andrew Bailey, the governor, would be caused by additional paperwork for customs declarations and other expenses of trade — what he called “the grit in the mechanism.”

THURSDAY Scottish salmon farmers, who take pride in getting their fillets from sea to French markets within 24 hours, reported delays in their sleek process under the new Brexit terms. The deal’s “new, complex” trading rules had caused holdups as seafood companies struggled with the paperwork, the trade group Scotland Food and Drink said. “We have warned for months about the lack of preparation time for everyone involved and these problems sadly come as a little surprise,” said the head of the group.

FRIDAY The large European delivery company DPD, which moved more than one billion parcels around the world in 2019, said it would stop sending packages from Britain to the European Union until at least the middle of next week as it tried to figure out new cross-border systems.

“People forget just how difficult things were in the past,” Ms. Jones said.

On Friday, DFDS, a large Danish logistics company that runs ferries from the English port of Dover to France, said a “high volume” of trucks were being refused or delayed for not having the correct paperwork.

DPD, the parcel delivery company, said it paused service to the European Union after up to 20 percent of parcels it handled had incorrect or incomplete data, and so would need to be returned to the sender.

“The things which are proving problematic are the things that we expected to be problematic,” Ms. Jones said. “So for goods, it’s all about the speed and accuracy with which people are preparing the right paperwork.”

Many U.K. businesses — at least 150,000, according to data from Britain’s tax agency — have never traded beyond the European Union, and so have no experience dealing with the customs systems.

The situation in Northern Ireland is an added wrinkle. Northern Ireland will remain partially in the European Union’s single market, an exception that avoids a border with the Republic of Ireland but creates a border in the Irish Sea. Logistics experts say the Trader Support Service, a free government service to help companies complete customs forms to send goods from England, Wales, and Scotland to Northern Ireland, has been overwhelmed.

Some businesses anticipated cross-border problems with Europe, and filled warehouses with stockpiled goods — auto parts and pharmaceuticals, for example — before the end of the Brexit transition period. That has kept cross-border shipments at a fraction of their normal level so far. Over the next few weeks, as those stockpiles run down, business activity will pick up, exacerbating delays.

Another new problem faced by large retailers with international locations: “Rules-of-origin requirements,” which determine whether a product leaving Britain is “British enough” to qualify for tariff-free trade with the European Union. International retailers who use sites in Britain as distribution centers are now finding that they can’t automatically re-export their products to their stores in the European Union without facing tariffs — even if the product came from the bloc.

For example, a company could not import jeans from Bangladesh or cheese from France into a hub in England and then send it on to a store in Ireland without facing export tariffs. The British Retail Consortium said at least 50 of its members face such tariffs. Debenhams, a large but now-bankrupt chain of department stores, shut down its Irish website because of confusion over trade rules.

As companies scramble to catch up to the rule changes, the question is: What does Britain do with the sovereignty and freedom it has secured from leaving the European Union? The government has to decide how much it wants to diverge from Europe’s rules, where it might want to deregulate, and if it wants to pay the price for that.

“Modern trade and modern regulation do require a level of integration,” especially if a country is not as large as the European Union or the United States, said David Henig, director of the U.K. Trade Policy Project at the European Center for International Political Economy. Smaller countries may find they have to “follow other people’s rules, and that can be uncomfortable.”

“The U.K. is experimenting to try and find if it can maintain our position while not having to do that,” he said.

So far, there are few immediate tangible benefits of Brexit for businesses — beyond the fact that ending years of stormy debate and uncertainty may be counted as a benefit. (For many supporters, Brexit was always about sovereignty, not the business, and it has allowed Britain to revise its immigration laws.)

The Treasury has taken one step in the last week that it could not have done under E.U. law: On Jan. 1 it scrapped the collection of V.A.T., a type of sales tax, on tampons and other sanitary products, pleasing campaigners who called it a sexist tax.

But it will be hard to realize any substantial short-term gains from Britain’s new trading arrangement with the European Union, especially since the pandemic continues to take a toll on the economy. Last year, the British economy experienced its deepest recession in more than 300 years, and the lockdowns continue as vaccines are slowly rolled out.

“A lot of the disruption that Brexit brings is going to be hidden by the pandemic,” said Anand Menon, a professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London.

The post A Week Into Full Brexit, the Pain for U.K. Businesses Has Arrived appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s behaviors during the past four years and even with conducting sham coup d’etat to eliminate his opponents have created grounds for emerging beliefs in the people of the world especially in the West Asia that he is after revival of Ottoman Empire with the modern mechanisms that if he has naively craved for revival of the Ottoman Empire as a modus operandi for his survival in power, and theatrically and sympathetically showing support to the regional states, one should analyze him in this deep, unsustainable and unbelievable hallucinatory context because this illusion was so that he has made his exhibitive guards wear dressings of different nationalities in order to show that he intends coexistence with the countries once Britain had chopped them into small pieces from Ottoman Empire and has appointed its agents in power in those countries.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

However with what is said, does anybody accept, for instance, him to be concerned about the territorial integrity of Republic of Azerbaijan while he himself has occupied some parts of Iraq and Syria’s territories and adventures in Libya? If we believe the West Asia region is at risk of “Christian Zionism”, then we should see what relation Erdogan’s stances in the recent years has had with this link (UK, U.S. and Israel). From another angle, is it believable a government to claim of forming an empire while it itself has turned into the military colony of the U.S. and the NATO?

Turkish government for almost several decades has been begging to join European Union but each time it has been humiliated by one of the countries and recently by the EU. With these humiliations which even angered Erdogan so that in August 2016 he said, “Europe has been deceiving us for 53 years,” and before EU accepts Turkey as its member, the country has started the dream of being an empire and creating a big illusion, should not we consider him an emerging Saddam (Hussein) in the region?

Of course this point is one hundred percent correct that Europeans for decades have made Turkey as the member of its military branch (NATO) and have exploited it in favor of them and 28 European countries are not even ready to share their economic advantages with this country and the output of this approach of Europe and obedience of Turkey has been $430b of foreign debts for Turkey and it is predicted that this amount of foreign debts, through pledging some part of the country to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that are run by the U.S. and Europe, may soon hit $465b.

Unfortunately losses in consecutive gambles instead of awakening Erdogan have pushed him towards worse gambles, exactly like the gambles he did during eight years of devastating war of Saddam Hussein with Iran and for a couple of months with Kuwait which led to destruction of him and his Baath Party. Turkey is today moving in the same direction. Let’s regard the remarks of Diyarbakır representative to Turkish Parliament. Hisyar Ozsoy is representative of city of Diyarbakr in Turkish Parliament. In one of the parliament open sessions he launched a scathing attack at Erdogan government’s foreign policy and accused him of domestic projection and conquest with the mentality of becoming an emperor.

Speaking during the parliament session for reviewing the next year budget bill, Ozsoy who is a member of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said, “Look! What Turkey is exporting to the Middle East and the world?  Soldiers, military equipment and if it does not have them, it exports thug paramilitary to Syria. It does it or as you know it dispatches paramilitary to Libya. Everybody knows it, everybody in the world. But those who say that we are in a anti-colonialism war, a little bit earlier than your claim and recently former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey James Jeffrey in an article published in the Al-Monitor news website has said that I recommend you to read … Do you know what he says? He says ‘We need Turkey very much because we really can’t “do” the Middle East, the Caucuses or the Black Sea without Turkey. And Turkey is a natural opponent of Russia and Iran.’ “We can’t” can have a lot of meanings.”

The lawmaker adds “Jeffery says ‘We can’t take any action without Turkey in Black Sea, Middle East and the Caucasus and even it is needed we should end Syria war with the assistance of Turkey but we should not give the victory as a gift to Iran and Russia.’ He also says ‘We use Turkey’s military power in the war in Syria’ and I will not any longer go through the rest of his article. I has repeatedly in this podium said here that Turkey does not have any humanitarian and innovative foreign policy. Erdogan foreign policy is totally interventionist and where he sees vacuums, he moves to take advantage of them.”

Ozsoy continues, “Turkish foreign policy is dominated by colonial powers. It means its policies are in line with meeting the demands of colonial powers and they even tell us to do this in order that they financially support us. Look! There are some days that I have been hearing and all of you have also heard about the budget that they say there is no reason to worry about it. Turkey is a NATO member and the U.S. is gradually leaving the region and it wants Turkey to fill this gap. For days, I have been openly hearing it. These are not my words, these are what the Western powers say that Russia is present in Libya and Syria, of course in Syria, but actually Russia and Iran are both present there and ultimately we put Turkey as the NATO member against them. They say for almost 70 to 80 years Turkey has been part of Western bloc and been trying to turn into one of the NATO powers, it means it has 70 to 80 years of background from 1950 till today which is a 70-year background. Today we have reached a point that the U.S., EU and European Council all of them have reached this point to sanction us.”

This is an analysis of a Turkish parliament lawmaker who derides the claim of fight with imperialism and clandestinely accuses Turkey of being lackey of Imperialism. Exactly like Saddam was afflicted with it verbally and practically.

  By: Hamid Reza Naghashian

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IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – An Adviser to the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran said that the Iran-Europe Business Forum will be held in mid-December to increase Iran’s non-oil exports.

Mirhadi Seyedi stated, “With the cooperation of the International Center (ITC) and the support of the European Union, the Iran-Europe Business Forum will be held on December 14 to 16 so as to increase Iran’s non-oil exports through creating the necessary platform for trade, scientific and technological cooperation.

According to Seyedi, the three-day meeting will be focused on specialized meetings on topics related to economic and trade relations between Iran and Europe, as well as special meetings on national export strategy in the fields of industrial sectors (auto parts and petrochemicals), agricultural sectors (medicinal plants, fruits, and vegetables), tourism services and services (ICT).

Emphasizing the uniqueness of this event for Iranian and European businesses, Seyedi said, “This meeting will allow Iranian and European companies to exchange ideas, expertise as well as identifying and communicating with potential business partners.”

He also noted that Iran-Europe Business Forum will revive talks and build mutual trust between companies, therefore, it can lead to the restoration of Iran-Europe trade relations, strengthening economic ties between the two sides, while paving the way for broader trade and investment ties.

It is worth mentioning that Iran’s foreign trade with Europe in the first seven months of the Iranian calendar year (March 20-October 21) amounted to 15.9 million tons worth over $8.8 billion.

Among European countries, the main export destinations were Turkey with $1,489, 372,408 billion, followed by Russia, Germany, and Italy.

During this period, Iran has exported goods to 37 European countries, including Austria, Germany, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovakia, and Norway.

Over the last decade, Iran’s private sector, comprised of both major enterprises and SMEs, has become an increasingly important part of the country’s economy, contributing greatly to job creation and innovation.

The development of the private sector and the continued efforts of the Iranian government to facilitate privatization in major industries, has meant that the structure of the Iranian economy remains more conducive to expanded trade relations with Europe. This panel will provide an important context for policymakers and European business leaders about the composition of the Iranian private sector.

Following extensive technical cooperation funded by the European Commission, the International Trade Centre and the Iran Trade Promotion Organization have developed a new National Export Strategy (NES) for Iran. This panel markets the public launch of the new strategy.

In light of uncertainties arising from U.S. sanctions and the shock of the COVID-19 crisis, enhancing domestic competitiveness and productivity to expand trade opportunities is crucial more than ever before as Iran seeks a durable economic recovery.

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IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – The Italian Embassy in Tehran hosted an online conference on Wednesday to discuss ways to support joint business and bilateral trade ties between the Italian and European Union’s companies and their Iranian counterparts.

The webinar dubbed “The Iranian Market between Restrictions and Opportunities; The Instruments to support SMEs” was held in cooperation with the Italian-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Rome.

The event, which hosted 130 Italian SMEs (small and medium size enterprises), provided participating companies with practical and updated information on the opportunities for joint cooperation and also highlighted various instruments made available to Italian companies by Italian and EU institutions to support their business with Iran. The webinar was held in cooperation with the Italian-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Rome.

In his greetings, the Italian Ambassador in Tehran Giuseppe Perrone said that the meeting was part of a series of initiatives organized by the Embassy to provide concrete support for bilateral trade relations.

He noted that Italy’s Embassy to Iran will extend practical support to Tehran-Rome economic relations within the framework of a series of initiatives.

The Italian Embassy had organized, on July 22, a Business Forum on “Economic Relations between Italy and Iran in the current context: non-oil sectors, EMS’s role, EU support”, in cooperation with the European House Ambrosetti and the Tehran Chamber of Commerce. More than 800 entrepreneurs and professionals both from Italy and Iran took part in that event with hundreds of virtual B2B meetings held.

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IRAN NEWS NATIONAL DESK

TEHRAN – Iran’s ambassador to the UN headquarters in Geneva has lashed out at certain Western governments, especially those in Europe, for interfering in other countries’ affairs under the pretext of human rights violations.

Esmaeil Baqaei Hamaneh said some Western countries are using human rights as an excuse to reach their goals.

“Western countries’ approach toward human rights issues will only create discord and standoffs between countries and downgrade human rights to be used as a tool to achieve political objectives,” he said.

“Some European countries have turned the Human Rights Council into an arena to meddle in the affairs of developing nations,” the top diplomat added.

“It is regrettable that some countries preach about respecting human rights while they have forgotten the crimes that they have committed in the past and present, and they cover up the fact that a great part of the predicaments that others are facing is the fallout from their own colonial policies and domineering mentality,” he noted.

“The rule of law is a prerequisite to the protection of, and respect for human rights,” he said.

“Exerting pressure on other governments under the banner of human rights in order to change domestic legal systems or interfere in judicial cases is unacceptable,” he underlined.

“The best way to realize the objectives of the [Human Rights] Council is dialogue and cooperation based on the principle of neutrality and avoiding stigmatizing and stereotyping others,” the ambassador said.

Earlier Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iran has dismissed as ‘unacceptable, baseless and selective’ a joint statement by European countries on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic, saying it is in fundamental contrast with approaches to promote the issue globally.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran regards the European Union’s move to present the joint statement in the Human Rights Council as unacceptable,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.

He added that any abuse of human rights mechanism and interference in Iran’s internal affairs is by no means acceptable.

“This is not a new episode that some European countries remain indifferent and silent vis-à-vis the biggest [cases] of human rights violation [committed] by the very states and their allies.”

“They are racing among themselves to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and [other] dictators in the region to kill the defenseless Yemeni people,” the Iranian official added.

Khatibzadeh emphasized that these European states assume that the suppression of protesters, the killing of Blacks, massacre of minorities, particularly Muslims, and the torture of prisoners as well as exerting pressure on refugees inside the EU borders is tantamount to the implementation of rules but at the same time, they claim that the “enforcement of judicial actions in accordance with criminal law by a fair court in other countries is violation of human rights.”

Such a double standard indicates lack of the Europeans’ sincerity to support human rights and their use of this concept for political purposes, he said.

“The development and promotion of human rights at national, regional and international levels within the framework of religious commitments and adherence to the constitution and regional regulations as well as international treaties are among enduring priorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran and it is committed to observing them in practice.”

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According To Iran News, The European Union on Friday set up a unit of investigators to tackle an expected surge in financial crime in the economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and crack down on defrauding of state subsidies.

The European Financial and Economic Crime Centre will be set up within Europol, the EU law enforcement agency, and will employ 65 analysts to gather and share intelligence.

“The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened our economy and created new vulnerabilities from which crime can emerge,” Europol head Catherine De Bolle said, adding the center would focus on countering money laundering, fraud and corruption, which usually increase in times of economic crisis.

Europol said sectors such as construction, hospitality, travel and tourism are at higher risk of being infiltrated or taken over by criminals during the economic crisis as companies try to survive the downturn, Reuters reported.

It also warned that subsidies offered during the pandemic “will be targeted by criminals seeking to defraud public funding”. Frauds involving medical equipment are also on the rise.

Europol analysts will help authorities in the 27 EU member states to conduct financial crime investigations and share intelligence.

The unit is also expected to help with the confiscation of criminal profits, just 1% of which are currently seized in Europe, according to Europol estimates.

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According To Iran News, Border closures do little to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the European Union’s public health agency said, as EU states weight lifting some travel restrictions imposed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said measures such as testing travelers before departure or temperature screening on arrival are also largely ineffective, though it confirmed that travelling facilitates the spread of the virus, Reuters reported.

The ECDC said in a report released late on Tuesday that border closures had very negative effects on the economy and were effective only in delaying an epidemic at its beginning and in isolated regions.

“Available evidence does not support recommending border closures, which will cause significant secondary effects and societal and economic disruption in the EU,” which normally operates open borders among member states, the agency said.

The European Commission, the EU executive arm, recommended in April an easing of travel restrictions first between areas of low contagion, encouraging some governments to reopen borders selectively with countries they deemed safer.

But the ECDC report said epidemiological data may not be reliable since European countries do not use a common approach to testing and case reporting, making it impossible to compare the spread of the epidemic.

The agency also said that forcing people to undergo a test before travelling may only be of limited value as the traveler may become infectious just before departure or during travel due to the virus’ two-week incubation period.

As for screening temperatures on arrival, it said, travelers may already be infectious but without a fever.

Questionnaires filled by travelers on their health conditions could offer additional useful information but present data protection risks, the ECDC said, reiterating that immunity certificates issued after antibody tests were not reliable.

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According To Iran News, Germany and several other European countries where the coronavirus spread has slowed were moving ahead Friday with relaxing border restrictions, while flare-ups in Mexico and elsewhere served as a reminder the pandemic is far from over.

Slovenia, which has been gradually easing strict lockdown measures, declared that the spread of the virus is now under control and that European Union residents could now enter from Austria, Italy and Hungary.

Germany, meantime, was preparing to open its border entirely with Luxembourg at midnight, and increase the number of crossings open from France, Switzerland and Austria. Travelers will still need to demonstrate a “valid reason” to enter Germany and there will be spot checks, but the goal is to restore free travel by June 15.

Germany’s states have also agreed to drop a mandatory 14-day quarantine for travelers entering from the European Union and several other European countries, including Britain, said Armin Laschet, the governor of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

“Germany will only overcome the corona crisis if European freedom of movement for people, goods and services is fully restored,” Laschet said, AP  reported.

Germany has seen more than 170,000 COVID-19 infections and nearly 8,000 deaths, but more than 150,000 people have recovered and the country has been seeing fewer than 1,000 new cases per day.

Austria and Switzerland were also moving ahead with easing some border restrictions, and Austria reopened all cafes and restaurants.

“I have been having breakfast at this café for about 100 years,” said Helmut Gollner, a former literature professor who was one of the first guests Friday morning at Vienna’s Cafe Sperl. “My wife always made great breakfast but it’s a different atmosphere here with the newspapers and so on.”

Restaurants were reopening in more German states Friday as well, and the country was to resume professional soccer on Saturday after a two-month hiatus.

The Bundesliga plans five games with no fans present and other precautions, including the Ruhr derby between Borussia Dortmund and Schalke.

In Sydney, many cafes and restaurants opened again Friday as New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, granted permission for them, as well as places of worship, to reopen with up to 10 people so long as distancing rules are in place.

Many Catholic churches across the state opened for private prayer, confession and small-scale Masses.

“The celebration of Mass is the highest form of Catholic worship and to not be able to physically gather these past two months has been very difficult,” Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher said in a statement.

In Japan, some schools, restaurants and other businesses started to reopen after the country lifted its national coronavirus emergency, while keeping in place restrictions in limited urban areas like Tokyo where risks remain.

As countries move ahead with relaxing restrictions, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe office, Dr. Hans Kluge, warned that distancing guidance and other protective measures were more important than ever.

“It’s very important to remind everyone that as long as there is no vaccine and effective treatment, there is no return to normal,” he said on French radio Europe-1.

“This virus won’t simply disappear, so the personal behavior of each of us will determine the behavior of the virus. Governments have done a lot, and now the responsibility is on the people.”

Worldwide, there have been more than 4.4 million coronavirus infections reported and 300,000 deaths, while nearly 1.6 million people have recovered according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

A first case was confirmed among the 1 million refugees from Myanmar living in dire, overcrowded conditions in southern Bangladesh. Another, a local person living in the Cox’s Bazaar district, also tested positive, refugee commissioner Mahbub Alam Takukder said.

Aid workers have been warning of the potential for a serious outbreak if the virus reaches the camps, and teams were activated to treat patients and trace, quarantine and test people they may have encountered.

Ahead of Mexico’s plan to partially reopen key industries such as mining, construction and auto plants on May 18, authorities sounded a note of concern as the country reported its largest one-day rise in coronavirus case numbers.

There were 2,409 new COVID-19 test confirmations Thursday, the first time that number has exceeded 2,000 in one day.

“We are at the moment of the fastest growth in new cases,” said Assistant Health Secretary Hugo Lopez-Gatell. “This is the most difficult moment.”

Deaths have neared 4,500 and there were signs that hospital capacity was nearing its limit in Mexico City, the hardest-hit area. The Health Department reported that 73% percent of the city’s general-care hospital beds were full; the percentage was lower for intensive-care beds, but that was partly because of the expansion of improvised ICU units at hospitals and other venues.

In Brazil, news website G1 reported that 900 people in Rio de Janeiro were waiting for an intensive-care bed in one of the state’s overwhelmed units. President Jair Bolsonaro warned of looming “chaos” as he once again lambasted governors and mayors who introduced lockdowns in cities to limit spread of the new virus.

“I’m sorry, many will die, but even more will if the economy continues to be destroyed by these measures,” Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia on Thursday. “These lockdowns, closing everything, is the path to failure. It will break Brazil.”

Colombian President Ivan Duque has ordered all residents of the Amazonas Department, near the border with Brazil, to stay inside except to buy food or get medical care. Local hospitals are being overwhelmed as cases rise in a vulnerable part of the Amazon, home to many indigenous groups.

In the US, the Grand Canyon National Park was reopening Friday to allow visitors in for day trips but not overnight.

As a number of regions in New York were to reopen, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged local governments to keep a close eye on key metrics, and that people and businesses were complying with distancing rules.

Amid those and other reopening, protests and debate persisted over how quickly to end shutdowns.

With more than 1.4 million infections and nearly 85,000 deaths, the US has the largest outbreak in the world by far.

Two weeks into a reopening in Texas, where stay-at-home orders expired May 1, single-day highs of 58 deaths and 1,458 new cases were reported on Thursday. With more restrictions due to end on Monday, including reopening gyms, confrontations were brewing between big cities trying to keep some precautions in place and state officials who want to push ahead.

In Virginia, two cities asked Gov. Ralph Northam to delay a reopening planned for Friday, saying it’s too early. Kansas’ Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly tapped the brakes on reopening her state’s economy, ordering bars and bowling alleys to stay closed until June instead of reopening Monday. She’s also keeping some coronavirus-inspired restrictions in place until late June.

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