Νews in brief

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed a more assertive position regarding Turkish provocations at a televised Bloomberg interview yesterday.

From the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Prime Minister underlined that “we don’t need Turkey’s permission,” to transport east Mediterranean natural gas deposits to Europe via Greece”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to Turkey today to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The German Parliament’s legal committee has questioned the validity of the maritime boundaries agreement signed between Turkey and Libya’s UN-backed government in November.

The new draft electoral law was introduced to the parliament plenary on Thursday. The draft law foresees the abolition of electoral reforms establishing simple proportional representation.
The draft bill provides that the party with most votes in the elections will get a «bonus» of additional seats that increase depending on its share of the vote. MPs are to vote on the new draft law later today.

It is however unlikely it will get the 200 votes needed by the constitution.

Hospitals in the Chinese city of Wuhan have been thrown into chaos and at least ten cities in central Hubei province have been shut down in an effort to stop the coronavirus, which by Friday had killed 26 people across China and affected more than 800.

The World Health Organisation described the outbreak as an emergency for China, but stopped short of declaring it to be a public health emergency of international concern.

US senators have been accused of falling asleep, playing games and breaking other rules during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

Crossword puzzles, fidget spinners and at least one paper airplane have been spotted with senators.

And the weather forecast…

Sunny in Attica this morning with the temperature expected to reach a high of 12 degrees Celsius.

More news in brief Monday morning at 9.