Top five stories you may have missed
Luxembourg-based porn group battling German ban
Porn empire MindGeek is battling a possible ban of three of its websites in Germany where it stands accused of breaching laws to verify the age of its users, drawing renewed attention to the Grand Duchy's hands-off approach to controversial companies based in the country.
A German authority that protects minors from viewing harmful media content began action against four pornographic websites in October 2019, the Commission for Youth Media Protection (KJM) told the Luxembourg Times, saying the sites failed to verify the age of their viewers.
Luxembourg plane to ferry hundreds out of Kabul
Luxembourg expects to shuttle hundreds of people out of Kabul in a joint rescue operation with Belgium, the Belgian ambassador said on Thursday, as the countries seek to help the thousands of Afghans with ties to the West flee the Taliban.
Luxembourg will use its massive A400M military transport plane to get people from Islamabad back to Brussels or to Luxembourg, Ambassador Thomas Lambert said in an interview, while two Belgian C130 transport planes will shuttle between Kabul and the Pakistani capital.
Mining earns Luxembourg steel giant cash and comments
Luxembourg’s largest industrial company is also one of the world’s major mining concerns, boosting profits while at the same time drawing complaints from environmentalist groups such as Greenpeace.
ArcelorMittal is having a great 2021, thanks in part to record prices for iron ore. Last year, its mines from Canada to Kazakhstan and Brazil to Bosnia produced 58 million tonnes of the commodity - with half of that sold to others.
Luxembourg ignores global stolen money survey
Luxembourg failed to submit answers to a World Bank survey into efforts to retrieve stolen funds hidden in countries around the world, as the Grand Duchy continues to struggle with a reputation for a lack of transparency.
The World Bank asked countries to update it on progress in recovering the funds in April 2020 - almost 18 months ago - but Luxembourg to date has not submitted an answer, the organisation said.
Luxembourg erases mission details after NATO pressure
Luxembourg quietly deleted details about a rescue mission in Afghanistan from an official statement after NATO complained it contained classified information, which it asked several media outlets to remove from their stories.
Luxembourg's defense department of the foreign ministry had said on Tuesday that the country was assisting in a rescue mission of 17 NATO employees stranded in Afghanistan. Several media outlets - including the Luxembourg Times - mentioned that fact, citing a press release by the ministry.
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