The sites and online topics of Monday 1 March 2021: the international press review of Rainews24
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by Paolo Cappelli
02 March 2021
The Independent
Sarkozy sentenced to detention for corruption.
Former President of the French Republic found guilty of bribing a judge
Le Soir
Sarkozy, the earthquake
The first-degree condemnation of the former president of the French Republic blocks the way for the idea of his eventual return to the scene in 2022. Some, on the right, were beginning to believe it
published: Beatrice Delvaux: As long as the sentence is not confirmed on appeal, the presumption of innocence is required.
But we also know that La Fontaine phrase: "Depending on whether you are powerful or miserable, the court rulings will make you black or white."
This is the old suspicion and it remains a reality in a number of countries where justice protects the powerful and the rich, where "complicit" justice no longer exercises its role as an independent counter-power, an essential cog in democracy.
In France, however, yesterday the president of a court denied this adage with spectacular force in consideration of the rank and personality of the accused.
He is a former president of the French Republic who is convicted of a corruptive pact, "crimes that have seriously undermined the trust of public opinion" and the sentence imposed is serious: three years, including one of imprisonment.
Le Parisien
Sarkozy, a hard blow
The former president sentenced to three years for corruption and influence trafficking.
He will appeal against this sentence, which is hard for facts 'of particular gravity'.
With the corruption pact with the magistrate Azibert, thanks to the intermediation of his lawyer Herzog, Sarkozy would have promised a prestigious assignment in Monte Carlo to the judge, in exchange for confidential information on the procedure in Cassation of part of the Bettencourt affair, the investigation on the hidden funding of his election campaign.
Liliane Bettencourt, the main shareholder of L'Oréal, also contributed to that campaign.
Wiretapping, the Bismuth affair, played a key role in the process.
Bismuth was a former schoolmate, unrelated to the facts, in whose name the lawyer Herzog had taken a mobile phone, used only for calls to Sarkozy, to escape wiretapping.
The defense disputes the legality of the wiretapping ordered by the special anti-corruption prosecutor, which did not spare the phones of various Paris lawyers, to find the mole who was telling Herzog and Sarkozy how the investigation was moving.
Among the intercepted lawyers there is also Eric Dupont-Moretti, now Minister of Justice.
Attorney Herzog was also found guilty
Liberation
Sarkozy condemned, justice for all
The date will remain engraved in the annals of the Fifth Republic.
At the end of a three-week high-tension trial, Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced yesterday by the Paris criminal court to three years in prison, including one in prison, in the wiretapping affair.
Visibly impressed at the announcement of the sentence, the former president promptly left the courtroom after exchanging a few words with his lawyers, without a minimum statement to the many journalists gathered outside.
Whoever dreamed of "washing away this infamy" falls from very high.
Interview with Eva Joly: "A worrying period, in which the powerful were protected, finally seems to be over".
For the former Green MEP and anti-corruption magistrate, the condemnation of former president Nicolas Sarkozy is a sign "that our institutions are working".
Liberation: although Sarkozy's lawyers will appeal, this ruling complicates the former president's return to politics
Le Figaro
Sarkozy sentenced, amazement and controversy
The former head of state sentenced to three years in the wiretapping affair.
A very severe sentence, while the trial did not bring to light irrefutable evidence.
The appeal has already been announced.
Published: Malaise of Democracy, by Vincent Trémolet de Villers
What sentiment crosses France when a former President of the Republic is sentenced?
He asks himself first of all for what crime.
Corruption and influence trafficking.
But Sarkozy is condemned here for the telephone conversation of a lawyer with his client relating to an affair for which he had already been acquitted: corruption has no object, because the promotion of the magistrate then did not take place, the influence exercised seems to be null. .
But these words, in reality, are the result of a judicial campaign without stopping or scruples by the anti-corruption prosecutor, which leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Let's review the recent cases in which judges have been decisive political actors: no place to proceed towards Sarkozy in the Bettencourt affair after years of proceedings;
unlikely speed of the public prosecution against François Fillon ... Politicians must certainly be exemplary, nothing protects them in the face of the law but in what capacity is the judiciary authorized to give in to the thirst for revenge?
Who will judge the judges?
Tagesspiegel
Convicted of corruption, Sarkozy
Mueller's
slip
calls for an intensified vaccination campaign for the chronically ill
The mayor of Berlin: "We cannot live permanently in isolation"
The speed of vaccination has a decisive influence on the relaxation of restrictions.
Pressure is growing on Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) ahead of the summit with the Lander tomorrow.
We are talking about special rules for hotspots and the Astrazeneca vaccine, early involvement of GPs and a longer time interval between the first and second vaccinations in order to provide protection for more people.
In this way, planned openings could be better protected despite the risks posed by variants of the virus.
FAZ
Altmeier insists on reopening even if the weekly infections remain above the parameters adopted so far by the Government
There can be a lot of uncertainty in the pandemic crisis, but one thing can be relied upon: every time the federal government and the Lander meet for new consultations on the lockdown, the Federal Ministry of Economy rapidly improves aid programs for the economy.
This is also the case now, before tomorrow's summit.
On the one hand, companies can now receive twice as much advance as before, up to € 800,000 in one go.
In addition, it is now also possible to apply for help of over two million euros, which larger companies have been waiting for for a long time.
On the other hand, silence fell on a tool that Peter Altmaier had announced after his meeting with business associations in mid-February: the fund for companies in difficulty, for which the government has promised 1.5 billion euros. .
However, Altmaier and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) want the Länder to participate financially.
Half the federal government puts it, the other the Landers, was the plan.
But this is not very realistic, as a FAZ survey of Länder shows.
Welt
Saxony asks for vaccinations from the age of 18 for priority groups in hotspots.
Pressure increases for a decisive acceleration of the vaccination campaign.
When can shopkeepers, cultural and leisure facilities reopen after months of closure and under what conditions?
In Magdeburg, the black-red-green state government is once again working out its way out of the blockade.
The district of Burgenland, which is particularly affected by the crown cases, is now offering quick tests again on the market square of the city of Naumburg.
In Magdeburg, for the first time, employees of kindergartens, after-schools, elementary schools and schools, recently placed in the second highest priority, can be vaccinated.
The situation has improved since the beginning of the year, but with more than 97 crown cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week, Saxony-Anhalt continues to be one of the most heavily affected Länder
The Vanguardia
Bartomeu and his most trusted collaborator spend the night at the police station
The Barçagate started as a scandal over a defamatory comment on social networks launched by bots paid by the club to discredit candidates and opponents to the council and has now become a trial for alleged corruption.
Mossos d'Esquadra arrested former FC Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu yesterday;
the former adviser to the presidency Jaume Masferrer and two executives still on the payroll of Barça: the general manager elscar Grau and the head of legal services, Román Gómez-Ponti.
They all refused to testify to the police.
Bartomeu and Masferrer were arrested and spent the night at Les Corts police station waiting to be brought to justice today, while Grau and Gómez-Ponti were released.
The arrests were made early in the morning and when Sunday's elections are less than a week away.
Daily Express
An injection leads to a
dramatic
drop in hospitalizations
The Minister of Health Hanckok: a study indicates an 80% drop in hospital admissions in the population of over 80 now reached by mass vaccination
The Guardian
Hancock points out the data and urge the EU to rethink the Oxford vaccine.
The Oxford / AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is slightly more effective than Pfizer's on some populations, the health secretary said in light of new data and argued that this should prompt other countries to reassess their approach.
The study, which shows that a single injection of both vaccines reduces the risk of serious illness by more than 80%, is likely to increase pressure on European governments where politicians have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca jab based on limited data from initial studies.
As a result, vaccine intake decreased.
Speaking alongside Matt Hancock at a Downing Street press conference yesterday, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, said the new data "clearly confirms" the British approach of administering doses to age groups. more advanced.
More than 20 million people in the UK have received a Covid vaccine.
Yesterday, Public Health England (PHE) released preliminary results from over 7.5 million people aged 70 and over in England showing that both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines offer tremendous protection from severe Covid infections. .
A single dose of either vaccine is about 80% effective in preventing hospitalization and a single dose of Pfizer is 85% effective in preventing death from Covid-19, although there is not enough data yet. on the prevention of death for the Oxford vaccine.
The PHE study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that both vaccines are more than 80% effective in preventing hospitalization about three to four weeks after injection.
NYT
US approaches normal, alarming some experts
Many states are lifting anti-virus restrictions across the country, and more Americans are emerging from months of isolation as vaccinations rise and new cases decline.
But some fear reopening will come too soon as more variations circulate, with the potential to push the case count up again.
WPost
Myanmar coup
leaders
turn to massacres.
The US response must be forceful.
On Friday, the UN General Assembly witnessed an extraordinary act of courage by the Ambassador of Myanmar, Kyaw Moe Tun, who gave a speech calling for "the strongest possible action by the international community to immediately place an end to the military coup, to stop oppressing innocent people, restore state power to the people and restore democracy ".
This should spur further action by the United States, the European Union and other democracies.
More US sanctions against people are said to come.
But the Biden administration should take stronger measures to cut the revenue that funds the regime.
It can do this, in part, by leveraging the joint ventures that Myanmar companies have with Western multinationals to extract and export gas, minerals such as jade and timber.
From the editorial staff
Clarin (Argentina)
Dominican Republic wants to build another wall on the 380 km border with Haiti.
Aims to stop illegal immigration, drug trafficking and the entry of stolen vehicles
. Work on the new wall, said the Dominican president, Luis Abinader, will begin in a year and will be completed in two.
The two Caribbean countries, which share the island of Ispaniola, have always had difficult relations;
Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
The Dominican Republic has a population of 11 million, counting about half a million Haitian migrants, who will soon receive identity documents.
There are already two sections of the barrier between the two countries, in the hottest points of the border, that block the way.
But the new wall, the cost of which has not been anticipated, will be equipped with a double fence with motion sensors, infrared cameras and facial recognition systems.
In December 2019, while discussing the construction of the wall on the US-Mexico border by then US President Donald Trump, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was consulted about a possible construction of the wall.
"I am the president of Haiti. What interests me - he declares - is to protect the citizens of Haiti. I am interested in working for the development of my country. I am in favor of the realization of this work, the 27,750 kilometers of land and almost 90,000 kilometers of sea are respected, because this is what the Constitution says ".
Kommersant.ru
Prices of cold pressing: possible price increases for olive oil.
Reduced olive harvests in Greece, Italy and Spain, combined with high demand for olive oil in the EU, have resulted in European prices for the product rising 20-40% year on year.
Suppliers have already notified Russian food supply chains of olive oil price increases of the order of 15%.
However, its regular consumers aren't too sensitive to price fluctuations, so experts don't expect a sharp drop in sales.
According to one of the suppliers, among the reasons is the expected decline in the olive harvest in Spain.
The country accounts for around 50% of the world's olive production, but due to adverse weather conditions, including a cold winter and storm Filomena, a drop in the crop is expected this year.
The situation has been aggravated by the expected 10-30% drop in the olive harvest in Greece and Italy.
The consumption of olive oil in Russia is growing.
According to NielsenIQ, from February 2020 to January 2021, sales of the product increased by 7.7% in terms of volume and 17.1% year-on-year in monetary terms.
By comparison, sales for the entire edible oil category grew 1.7% and 14.3%, respectively, over the same period.
According to Rusagro's report, 50% of Russian olive oil imports come from Spain, 41% from Italy and 6% from Greece.