DÜSSELDORF/BERLIN (own report) – Rheinmetall has just opened Germany’s largest ammunition factory. The company can expect arms contracts worth hundreds of billions and aims to catch up with the world’s largest arms manufacturers. The new weapons factory in Unterlüß was opened today, Wednesday, in the presence of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Moving forward, Rheinmetall plans to scale output to 350,000 artillery shells a year. As business continues to boom, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger sees his company acquiring arms contracts worth up to 300 billion euros by 2030. Papperger eyes group sales of up to 50 billion euros by 2030. This is a level currently achieved only by the world’s two largest arms manufacturers, Lockheed Martin and RTX (both based in the US). While the German government is considering fierce welfare cuts to finance its arms build-up, repression against opponents of war has been stepped up. An ‘anti-war camp’, specifically with the slogan “Disarm Rheinmetall!”, has opened in Cologne. The authorities sought to ban the initiative for calling for a “War on War” – a motto that derives from a Kurt Tucholsky poem published in 1919. Read more

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (own report) – The Trump administration is weighing sanctions on European Union and member state officials responsible for implementing EU rules for online platforms. Reports indicate that measures such as visa restrictions are under consideration. The background to this potential move is that American internet companies object to the requirement in the EU to remove openly discriminatory, Nazi-glorifying or otherwise inflammatory content from social media. The regulatory burden applies under the Digital Services Act. The extraordinary idea of penal sanctions comes in the wake of Washington’s success in customs negotiations with the EU. The Trump administration has forced the European Commission to accept an agreement that experts consider “catastrophic” for the European economy. In future, customs duties of 15 per cent will be levied on imports from the EU to the US, while deliveries of goods and services from the US to the EU will be duty-free. Washington is also pushing for trade measures that will make the EU openly dependent on the US for key raw materials. Making its economic situation even direr, the EU is set to massively reduce its trade with China, thus becoming shackled to the US with no other options. Read more