As the world continues to struggle with the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus and the still-lingering delta variant, scientists in France said they have discovered a new variant that contains multiple mutations.

Experts at the IHU Mediterranee Infection in Marseille say they discovered the new variant back in December in 12 patients living near Marseille, with the first patient testing positive after traveling to the central African nation of Cameroon. 

The French scientists said they have identified 46 mutations in the new variant, dubbed B.1.640.2, that could make it more resistant to vaccines and more infectious than the original virus.  

The results were posted on the online health sciences outlet medRxiv, which publishes studies that have not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal. B.1.640.2 has not been detected in other countries or been labeled a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, a new study out of Denmark reveals omicron is better at avoiding a person’s immunity even if they are vaccinated against COVID-19. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen studied 12,000 households and discovered that omicron was between 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than delta among vaccinated Danes.  

The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, also found that unvaccinated individuals are more likely to transmit the coronavirus than those who had been fully vaccinated and received a booster shot. Vaccine effectiveness against symptoms was reduced to around 40% against symptoms and to 80% against severe disease when dealing with omicron, while booster shots improved those numbers to 86% against symptoms and 98% against severe disease.

“Our findings confirm that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant primarily can be ascribed to the immune evasiveness rather than an inherent increase in the basic transmissibility,” the researchers wrote.  

The omicron outbreak continues to wreak havoc on cities and countries around the world, pushing enormous strains on health care systems.

Authorities in Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales reported more than 23,000 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, breaking the previous record of 22,577 new cases set just on New Year’s Day, with 1,344 hospitalizations, breaking the record of 1,268 hospitalizations seen back in September at the height of the delta outbreak.  Neighboring Victoria state posted 14,020 new cases Tuesday, breaking Monday’s record of 8,577 new cases.

The states of Queensland, South Australia and the island of Tasmania also reported record numbers of new infections Tuesday, pushing Australia’s total number of COVID-19 infections past the milestone 500,000 mark.

The surge has led to a critical shortage of staffers at hospitals across Australia, with healthcare workers furloughed after contracting the virus. Testing centers have also been forced to shut down either because of staffing shortages or a backlog of tests. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected calls for the federal government in Canberra to provide free rapid antigen tests to all Australians.

Another Chinese city has entered into a full lockdown after three people tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days. Authorities have ordered all 1.2 million residents of the central city of Yuzhou to remain in their homes, and have closed nearly all public facilities including schools, transportation and shopping malls.  

The strict lockdown measures in Yuzhou are similar to those imposed in the northwestern city of Xi’an, where 13 million residents have been confined to their homes since December 23 due to an outbreak of the delta variant that has now sickened more than 1,600 residents. The lockdowns are part of Beijing’s “zero-COVID” strategy that includes mass testing, lengthy quarantine periods and snap lockdowns.

In Hong Kong, chief executive Carrie Lam announced Tuesday that the semi-autonomous city is extending its vaccine requirements for public venues. Lam said that all Hong Kongers will have to show proof of vaccination to enter museums, public libraries and schools effective February 24. The expanded vaccination mandate, which already covers entertainment venues, was imposed in the wake of Hong Kong confirming its first omicron infection cluster.

And the United States posted 1,082,549 new COVID-19 infections Monday, setting a new global one-day record, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  The numbers are nearly double that of the previous record of about 590,000 set just last week, driven mostly by the omicron variant.  

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and  Agence France-Presse. 
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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has scheduled a special meeting of allied ambassadors and top Russian officials for next week as both sides seek dialog to prevent open conflict over Ukraine, a NATO official said on Tuesday. 

Worried about Russia’s military build-up along Ukraine’s border, the Western military alliance has been seeking a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council for months but the forum seemed in jeopardy after an espionage dispute in October. 

The meeting of the council, a format used for dialog since 2002, will take place in Brussels on Jan. 12 after U.S. and Russian officials hold security talks on Jan. 10 in Geneva. 

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, flew to Ukraine on Tuesday for a two-day trip to show support for Kyiv, which aspires to join the bloc and NATO. 

Moscow wants guarantees that NATO will halt its eastward expansion and end military cooperation with Ukraine and Georgia, which have territorial disputes with Russia. 

Moscow also denies U.S. assertions that it is planning an invasion of Ukraine and accuses Kyiv of building up its own forces in the east of the country. 

“Any dialog with Russia would have to proceed on the basis of reciprocity, address NATO’s concerns about Russia’s actions… and take place in consultation with NATO’s European partners,” the NATO official said. 

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, confirmed that Russian officials will attend the NATO meeting in Brussels. 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and other senior Russian officials are expected to attend the Brussels talks, after meeting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Geneva. 

On Jan. 13, talks will continue in the broader format of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which includes the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states. 

The EU’s Borrell, who was central to the bloc’s strategy of increased sanctions on top Russian officials in 2021, believes “the EU cannot be a neutral spectator in the negotiations if Russia really wants to discuss Europe’s security architecture,” according to an EU spokesperson. 

The European Union sees Ukraine as a “strategic partner,” the spokesperson said. 

Borrell, accompanied by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, will visit Ukraine’s contact line with Russian-backed separatist rebels during his visit. EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss their next steps later in January. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with eastern NATO allies Monday about Russia’s military buildup along Ukraine’s border, calling for a “united” NATO stance.

In a phone call Monday with his counterparts in nine eastern NATO countries, known as the Bucharest Nine, Blinken said the United States was committed to “close consultation and coordination with all of our Transatlantic Allies and partners as we work toward de-escalation through deterrence, defense and dialogue,” according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price. 

Blinken called for “a united, ready and resolute NATO stance for the collective defense of Allies” according to Price.

In addition, Blinken “underscored the United States’ unwavering commitment” to NATO’s Article 5, which calls for the joint defense of any member of the seven-decade-old military alliance, which formed after World War II. 

Ukraine is not a member of NATO but has petitioned to join the alliance for more than a decade, a stance that has angered Russia. 

Russia has been demanding that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and reduce its deployments in central and eastern Europe. 

In a Sunday phone call, U.S. President Joe Biden told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the United States and its allies would “respond decisively” should Russia further invade Ukraine.

Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, with the West protesting and imposing sanctions.

Biden has made little progress with Russian President Vladimir Putin in getting him to withdraw about 100,000 troops stationed along Russia’s border with the former Soviet republic, although U.S. officials have said they do not believe Putin has decided to invade Ukraine.

The U.S. and Russian leaders held a 50-minute phone call last Thursday, with Biden again warning Putin that the United States and its Western allies would impose significant economic sanctions against Moscow if Putin were to carry out a Ukraine invasion. Biden said last month that he is not considering sending U.S. troops to Ukraine. 

The United States has been dispatching small arms and ammunition to Ukraine, along with Javelin missiles it says should be used only in defense.

The Kremlin said last week that Putin warned Biden that new U.S. sanctions on Russia could lead to a complete rupture in Washington-Moscow relations.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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Five world powers have agreed to work together to stop the further spread of nuclear arms and to avoid nuclear conflict, according to a joint statement.

“We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented,” said the five permanent U.N. Security Council members China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, collectively known as the P5.

“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the countries added.

The statement Monday from the P5 countries comes as tensions escalate between Western nations and Moscow over Russia’s troop buildup at its border with Ukraine. Relations between the U.S. and China are also strained over disagreements such as alleged human rights abuses by Beijing, disputes over the South China Sea and Chinese military flights near Taiwan.

Despite the tensions, the five nuclear powers said they saw “the avoidance of war between nuclear-weapon states and the reduction of strategic risks” as their “foremost responsibilities.”

The statement came after a scheduled review on Tuesday of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was postponed to later in the year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The five world powers said they were committed to a key article in the treaty, which calls for countries to work toward full disarmament of nuclear weapons in the future.

The Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed the declaration.

“We hope that, in the current difficult conditions of international security, the approval of such a political statement will help reduce the level of international tensions,” it said in a statement. 

Monday’s declaration also comes as diplomats resume talks aimed at reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump quit the nuclear deal in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Iran, and reimposed U.S. sanctions. Iran retaliated a year later by publicly exceeding nuclear activity limits agreed on as part of the 2015 deal. President Joe Biden has said he wants to honor the deal again if Iran does the same.

The U.S. has repeatedly warned that time is running out for Iran to agree to a new deal.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence-France Presse. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday the nation’s current surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant is going to put “considerable” pressure on the National Health Service but that there is no need for new restrictions at this time. 

Johnson made the comments to reporters while visiting a vaccination center in Buckinghamshire. The prime minister said while his government will continuously monitor the situation, the current measures Britain has in place are the right ones to combat the spread of the virus. 

Last month, as new infections driven by the omicron variant began to rise, the government implemented what they called “Plan B” measures, which include working from home, if possible, the use of masks on public transportation and getting tested if going to meet someone you do not normally associate with, among other rules. 

Some students to wear masks 

The British health minister also issued a statement saying that beginning Tuesday, they recommend that secondary school students wear masks in the classroom. 

Johnson said the difference between Britain and much of the rest of Europe is its high rate of vaccination, and they are continuing to build up defenses against the virus with boosters.

He said one of the reasons he made the appearance at the vaccination center was to encourage people to get booster shots, saying, “a third jab really does make a big, big, difference.” The British prime minister said the majority of people currently in the country’s intensive care units have not been vaccinated, and about 90% have not been boosted. 

The highly transmissible omicron variant has caused Britain’s daily new caseload to soar over Christmas and the New Year’s weekend, with 137,583 infections and 73 deaths reported for England and Wales on Sunday, with numbers for Scotland and Northern Ireland to be announced after the holiday weekend. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to reset relations with Moscow and is planning a face-to-face meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin later this month.

Senior German officials were already scheduled to get together with Russian counterparts in January in a bid to ease geopolitical tensions amid rising alarm that the Kremlin is planning a further military incursion into Ukraine.

According to a report Monday by Germany’s Bild newspaper, foreign policy adviser Jens Plotner has been discussing with the Kremlin a meeting between the German leader and Putin for more than two weeks. The paper, which has a reputation of breaking domestic German political stories well ahead of media rivals, reported that Scholz is seeking “a new start” in relations with Moscow and wants to focus on energy politics and Ukraine.

US-Russia talks

Senior U.S. and Russian officials are to meet in Geneva for talks set for January 9 and 10 to discuss Russia’s military build-up on its border with Ukraine, where it has deployed around 100,000 troops, according to Western and Ukrainian intelligence officials.

Western leaders and officials have already rejected as nonstarters Russian demands, including a halt to further NATO enlargement and a rollback of any alliance military presence in the former Soviet satellite states of Central Europe.

The Geneva talks, which are to be led on the American side by senior State Department officials, are slated to be followed by Russia-NATO council talks and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Western leaders have warned of severe consequences if the Kremlin decides to mount another attack on Ukraine in a repeat of 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and used armed proxies to seize a large part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, bordering Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters Friday that he advised Putin when they spoke by phone a day earlier that the upcoming talks could only work if the Russian leader “de-escalated, not escalated, the situation” going forward. Biden said he also sought to make plain to Russia’s leader in his second conversation in a month with Putin that U.S. and European allies are ready to punish Russia with tough economic sanctions.

“I made it clear to President Putin that if he makes any more moves into Ukraine, we will have severe sanctions,” Biden said. “We will increase our presence in Europe with NATO allies.”

Kremlin officials, though, have doubled down on warnings to the West about making a “colossal mistake” that could have enormous ramifications for an already fraught U.S.-Russian relationship.

Unease among some European nations

But despite the tough talk from Washington, there is unease among smaller European nations who fear bigger Western powers may try to cut a deal with Moscow without their buy-in.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is demanding that all European nations, formal Western alliance members or not, be included in the security negotiations between Russia, the United States and NATO.

Niinistö has reiterated his country’s right to join NATO if it wants, a flat rejection of the Russian demand that NATO admits no new members.

“Finland’s room to maneuver and freedom of choice also include the possibility of military alignment and of applying for NATO membership, should we ourselves so decide,” Niinistö said in a strong New Year’s address.

He said Russia’s ultimatums “are in conflict with the European security order,” and he wants a significant role for the European Union in any negotiations to help express the security needs and views of smaller nations.

“In this situation, Europe cannot just listen in,” Niinistö said. “The sovereignty of several member states, also Sweden and Finland, has been challenged from outside the union. This makes the EU an involved party. The EU must not settle merely with the role of a technical coordinator of sanctions.”

Germany’s concerns

Scholz’s New Year’s address to Germans was milder, and while warning of a punishing Western response to any further Russian aggression toward Ukraine, he emphasized the importance of “constructive dialogue” with Russia.

The German chancellor has come under pressure from allies and members of his coalition government, including Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, leader of the country’s Green Party, to withhold any formal approval for Russian natural gas to be transported through the just-completed Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline linking Russia and Germany.

Central and eastern European countries criticized former Chancellor Angela Merkel for her support of the Nord Stream 2 project. They say the pipeline risks deepening European dependence on Russian gas. Last month, Poland’s prime minister publicly called on Scholz to oppose the startup of Nord Stream 2, warning that the pipeline could be used as a coercive economic weapon by Russia.

Aside from what tactics to employ, splits persist also among Western powers over assessments of Putin’s intentions. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has downplayed the risk of Russian military action, saying the Kremlin wants to explore diplomacy and is not preparing “for action.”

Some Italian officials say they fear talk of impending war could take on a life of its own, impacting and shaping the behavior of Russia and the United States. They also point to the draft security treaties Russia presented to the U.S. last week as indicating a willingness for further talks. 
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The websites of one of Portugal’s biggest newspapers and of a major broadcaster, both owned by the country’s largest media conglomerate Impresa, were down on Monday after being hit by a hacker attack over the weekend.

Expresso newspaper and SIC TV station both said they reported the incident to the criminal investigation police agency PJ and the National Cybersecurity Center (CNCS) and would file a complaint.

The alleged hackers, calling themselves Lapsus$ Group, published a message on the websites saying internal data would be leaked if the media group failed to pay a ransom. The message included email and Telegram contact info.

The group did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

Lapsus$, which claims that it gained access to Impresa’s Amazon Web Services account, also sent a phishing email to Expresso subscribers and tweeted from the newspaper’s verified Twitter account.

The same group allegedly hacked Brazil’s Health Ministry website last month, taking several systems down, including one with information about the national immunization program and another used to issue digital vaccination certificates.

CNCS’s coordinator, Lino Santos, told the online newspaper Observador it was the first time the group launched an attack in the country.

Websites of Expresso and SIC have been offline since Sunday, with the pages showing a message saying they are “temporarily unavailable” following the attack and would return “as soon as possible.”

In the meantime, both media organizations are publishing news stories on their social media channels. They described it as an “unprecedented attack on press freedom in the digital age.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday that the United States and its allies would “respond decisively” should Russia further invade Ukraine.

In a phone call, the two leaders also discussed diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions over Russia’s massive troop buildup along Ukraine’s eastern flank.

Biden and Zelenskiy discussed measures to “de-escalate tensions in Donbas and active diplomacy to advance implementation of the Minsk Agreements,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement released after the call ended.

However, Biden “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement said, adding that Biden also “underscored the commitment” of the U.S. to the principle of “nothing about you without you.”

Biden has made little progress with Russian President Vladimir Putin to get him to withdraw about 100,000 troops stationed along Russia’s border with the former Soviet republic, although U.S. officials do not believe Putin has decided whether to invade Ukraine.

The U.S. and Russian leaders held a 50-minute phone call last Thursday, with Biden again warning Putin that the United States and its Western allies would impose significant economic sanctions against Moscow were Putin to carry out a Ukraine invasion, although Biden has ruled out a military response.

Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, with the West protesting and imposing weaker sanctions.

The Kremlin in turn said last week that Putin told Biden in their call that new, tougher sanctions could lead to a complete rupture In Washington-Moscow relations.

The U.S. has been dispatching small arms and ammunition to Kyiv, along with Javelin missiles it says should only be used in defense.

The White House says that Russian and American officials will participate in three separate rounds of talks this month: first through bilateral talks scheduled to start January 10, and then through multiparty talks with the NATO-Russia Council, and with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.  

“President Biden reiterated (in his call with Putin) that substantive progress in these dialogues can occur only in an environment of de-escalation rather than escalation,” Psaki said.  

In the talks ahead, Russia is demanding that NATO, the seven-decade-old military alliance formed after World War II, deny membership to Ukraine and reduce its deployments in central and eastern Europe. White House officials have declined to discuss details of private talks. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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The German operator of a cruise ship that has been stuck in Lisbon’s port due to an outbreak of the coronavirus among its crew pulled the plug on the voyage on Sunday after some passengers tested positive, port authorities said.

The AIDAnova, with 2,844 passengers and 1,353 crew on board, docked in Lisbon on Dec. 29 while en route to the island of Madeira for New Year’s Eve celebrations but was unable to continue the journey after 52 cases of COVID-19 were detected among the fully vaccinated crew.

It had been allowed to leave port and head to the Spanish island of Lanzarote on Sunday, but now another 12 people have tested positive, including four passengers, captain of the port Diogo Vieira Branco told TSF radio.

“The company’s protocol was immediately actioned, with those infected, who are asymptomatic or displaying light symptoms, immediately isolated on the ship … and the company decided to end the cruise and disembark the passengers,” he said.

The passengers would be transported home by air, he added, without specifying when.

The company, AIDA Cruises, which is a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., did not reply to a Reuters request for comment.

Reuters footage showed passengers still enjoying afternoon sun on decks with their drinks, and local media said the disembarking would begin after 6 a.m. on Monday.

The crew who had tested positive between Wednesday and Friday were transferred to Lisbon hotels and were in isolation there.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised people to avoid traveling on cruise ships regardless of their vaccination status.

The move delivered another blow to the industry that only returned to the seas in June after a months-long suspension of voyages caused by the pandemic.
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France has lowered the age of its mask mandate to 6-year-old children, officials announced Saturday. The news comes just days before schools reopen Monday, following the winter holiday break.

While the mandate requires children to wear masks in indoor public places, the mandate will also include outside locations in cities like Paris and Lyon where an outside mandate is already in place.

The wildly contagious omicron variant, French authorities said Saturday, has resulted in four consecutive days of over 200,000 new infections.

The chief executive of Britain’s National Health Service Confederation told the BBC Saturday that the surge in COVID cases fueled by omicron may force hospitals to ban visitors.

“It’s a last resort. But, when you’re facing the kind of pressures the health service is going to be under for the next few weeks, this is the kind of thing managers have to do,” Matthew Taylor said.

Europe has surpassed 100 million cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began nearly two years ago, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Worldwide, nearly 290 million cases have been recorded.

Nearly 5 million of Europe’s cases were reported in the last seven days, with 17 of the 52 countries or territories that make up Europe setting single-day new case records thanks to the omicron variant, Agence France-Presse reported Saturday.

More than 1 million of those cases were reported in France, which has joined the U.S., India, Brazil, Britain and Russia to become the sixth country to confirm more than 10 million cases since the pandemic began, Reuters reported.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday that it has recorded 289.3 million global COVID cases and 5.4 million deaths.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, Agence France-Presse, and the Associated Press. 

 
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The European Union has drawn up plans to label some natural gas and nuclear energy projects as “green” investments after a yearlong battle between governments over which investments are truly climate-friendly.

The European Commission is expected to propose rules in January deciding whether gas and nuclear projects will be included in the EU “sustainable finance taxonomy.”

This is a list of economic activities and the environmental criteria they must meet to be labeled as green investments.

Green label

By restricting the “green” label to truly climate-friendly projects, the system aims to make those investments more attractive to private capital and stop “greenwashing,” where companies or investors overstate their eco-friendly credentials.

Brussels has also made moves to apply the system to some EU funding, meaning the rules could decide which projects are eligible for certain public finance.

A draft of the commission’s proposal would label nuclear power plant investments as green if the project has a plan, funds and a site to safely dispose of radioactive waste. To be deemed green, new nuclear plants must receive construction permits before 2045.

Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by December 31, 2030, and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

Gas and nuclear power generation would be labeled green on the grounds that they are “transitional” activities, defined as those that are not fully sustainable but have emissions below industry average and do not lock in polluting assets.

“Taking account of scientific advice and current technological progress as well as varying transition challenges across member states, the commission considers there is a role for natural gas and nuclear as a means to facilitate the transition towards a predominantly renewable-based future,” the European Commission said in a statement. 

To help states with varying energy backgrounds to transition, “under certain conditions, solutions can make sense that do not look exactly ‘green’ at first glance,” a Commission source told Reuters, adding that gas and nuclear investments would face “strict conditions.”

EU countries and a panel of experts will scrutinize the draft proposal, which could change before it is to be published later in January. Once published, it could be vetoed by a majority of EU countries or the European Parliament.

What is green?

The policy has been mired in lobbying from governments for more than a year, and EU countries disagree on which fuels are truly sustainable.

Natural gas emits roughly half the CO2 emissions of coal when burned in power plants, but gas infrastructure is also associated with leaks of methane, a potent planet-warming gas.

The EU’s advisers had recommended that gas plants not be labeled as green investments unless they meet a lower 100g CO2e/kWh emissions limit, based on the deep emissions cuts scientists say are needed to avoid disastrous climate change.

Nuclear power produces very low CO2 emissions but the commission sought expert advice this year on whether the fuel should be deemed green given the potential environmental impact of radioactive waste disposal.

Environmentalists opposed

Some environmental campaigners and Green EU lawmakers criticized the leaked proposal on gas and nuclear.

“By including them … the commission risks jeopardizing the credibility of the EU’s role as a leading marketplace for sustainable finance,” Greens president Philippe Lamberts said.

Austria opposes nuclear power, alongside countries including Germany and Luxembourg. EU states including the Czech Republic, Finland and France, which gets around 70% of its power from the fuel, see nuclear as crucial to phasing out CO2-emitting coal fuel power. 

 
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The Holocaust survivor Gertrude Pressburger, who became famous during Austria’s 2016 presidential campaign with a video message in which “Mrs. Gertrude” warned of hatred and exclusion triggered by the far right, has died at 94.

Pressburger died Friday after a long illness, her family told the Austrian press agency APA on Saturday. 

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen tweeted that “the death of Gertrude Pressburger fills me with deep sadness … Mrs. Pressburger had the courage to tell her story as a Holocaust survivor. She had the courage to stand by her opinion. To address facts. To speak the truth.”

Pressburger was born and raised in Vienna, the daughter of a carpenter. Her Jewish family converted to Catholicism in the early 1930s, but that did not keep them from being persecuted by the Nazis after Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938.

After her father was arrested and tortured by the Nazis’ Gestapo secret police for alleged political activity, the family was able to escape to Yugoslavia and later to Italy, APA reported.

In 1944, the family was captured and deported to the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp in Germany-occupied Poland, where her mother and two younger brothers were murdered. Her father was also killed by the Nazis.

Pressburger returned to Vienna after the war, but initially did not talk about her horrific sufferings during the Holocaust. Eventually, she decided to open up about the Holocaust and about the antisemitic experiences she suffered in post-war Austria.

“I did not come back to Vienna to be oppressed again. I swear to myself that I will not put up with anything anymore. I’m going to fight with my mouth,” APA quoted her as saying.

Pressburger also published a memoir that she co-wrote with author Marlene Groihofer. In the book “Gelebt, Erlebt, Ueberlebt” or “Lived, Experienced, Survived” she described her family’s arrival in Auschwitz in 1944.

Her mother and the two brothers were sent away on a truck. Gertrude herself was sent in another direction and she quickly lost sight of her father too. Pressburger constantly looked for her family members in the death camp until a stranger approached her, pointed to the smoke coming out of the chimneys behind the barracks and told her that all the people driven away on the truck were gassed and burned already. That, Pressburger, wrote, was the moment when she understood that they had been murdered.

In 2016, Pressburger addressed Austria’s younger generation in an online video, warning against the humiliations and exclusion of minorities amid the far-right rhetoric in the country’s presidential election. She called on young Austrians to go out and vote. The video was watched and shared several million times.

“I just said what I thought. That’s it. And that hit home. I never understood why,” she told APA afterwards.

Van der Bellen, who is from the Green Party, later said he was sure her video appeal had some influence on the election result, which saw him narrowly win only after a re-run against the far-right Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer.

“We will never know for sure, but that it had an impact, that is to say an effect, and especially on young and very young people, I am convinced of that,” Van der Bellen said.
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Pope Francis ushered in the new year Saturday by praising the skills women bring to promoting peace in the world, and he equated violence against women to an offense against God.

The Roman Catholic Church marks Jan. 1 as a day dedicated to world peace, and a late-morning Mass in Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Basilica paid tribute to the Virgin Mary’s special place in the faith as the mother of Jesus.

Mothers “know how to overcome obstacles and disagreements, and to instill peace,” Francis said during his homily.

“In this way, they transform problems into opportunities for rebirth and growth. They can do this because they know how to ‘keep,’ to hold together the various threads of life,” the pontiff said. “We need such people, capable of weaving the threads of communion in place of the barbed wire of conflict and division.”

Francis urged everyone to step up efforts to promote mothers and to protect women.

“How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity,” the pope said, referring to the Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God.

He lavished praise on women, including mothers, saying they “look at the world not to exploit it but so that it can have life. Women who, seeing with the heart, can combine dreams and aspirations with concrete reality, without drifting into abstraction and sterile pragmatism.”

While pledging in his papacy to give women greater roles in the church, Francis has also made clear that the priesthood is reserved for men.

In a tweet before the New Year’s Day Mass, Francis elaborated on his hope and strategy for peace.

“All can work together to build a more peaceful world, starting from the hearts of individuals and relationships in the family, then within society and with the environment, and all the way up to relationships between peoples and nations,” Francis tweeted.

Except for the pope and members of a chorus made up of boys and adults, participants in the Mass wore face as part of COVID-19 precautions.

Francis, who is 85 and vaccinated against the coronavirus, wore a surgical mask during a New Year’s Eve prayer service which a Vatican cardinal presided over at the basilica. It was a rare departure from his shunning of masks during public ceremonies throughout the two-year pandemic. 

 
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Britain recognized the scientists and medical chiefs at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19 in Queen Elizabeth’s annual New Year’s honors list, while James Bond actor Daniel Craig was given the same award as his famous onscreen character. 

Craig, who bowed out from playing the fictional British spy after five outings following the release of “No Time to Die” this year, was made a Companion in The Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film. 

Bond was also a CMG, so the honor means Craig has now matched all his titles, having been made an honorary Commander in the Royal Navy in September. 

There were also major honors for the high-profile officials and others involved in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. 

The chief medical officers for England, Scotland and Wales – Chris Whitty, Gregor Smith and Frank Atherton – were given knighthoods. There were also honors for the deputy medical officers for England, with Jonathan Van-Tam knighted and Jenny Harries made a dame. 

The government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, who had previously been knighted, was made a Knight Commander of The Order of The Bath. 

There were also awards for those involved in producing vaccines including Pfizer Chief Development Officer Rod MacKenzie, Sean Marett, the chief business and commercial officer at BioNTech, and Melanie Ivarsson, the chief development officer at Moderna. 

Cyclist Jason Kenny, who achieved his seventh gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games, more than any other Briton has won, was also knighted. His wife, Laura, who is the nation’s most successful female Olympic athlete and became the first to win gold at three successive Games, received a damehood. 

Among the 78 Olympian and Paralympians to be included in the list were gold medal winners swimmer Adam Peaty and diver Tom Daley, who received OBEs. 

Emma Raducanu, who stunned the tennis world by becoming the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title with victory in the U.S. Open, was another sporting figure to be honored with an MBE. 

Songwriter Bernie Taupin, best known for his collaborations with Elton John including his 1997 reworking of “Candle in the Wind” that John sang at the funeral of Princess Diana, was awarded a CBE. 

There were also damehoods for veteran actresses Joanna Lumley and Vanessa Redgrave for their services to drama, entertainment and charity. 

The New Year’s honors have been awarded since Queen Victoria’s reign in the 19th century and aim to recognize not just well-known figures but people who have contributed to national life through often unsung work over many years. 

“These recipients have inspired and entertained us and given so much to their communities in the UK or in many cases around the world,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

 
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President Joe Biden plans to speak Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a White house official said Friday, a day after Biden spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on how to reduce tensions on the Ukraine-Russia border. 

Biden will reaffirm support for Ukraine, discuss Russia’s military build-up on its borders and review preparations for diplomatic efforts to calm the situation in the region, the official said Friday. 

The U.S. and Russian leaders exchanged warnings over Ukraine in Thursday’s call, but their countries voiced some optimism afterwards about planned security talks in January to address Russian military actions that drew the threat of sanctions from Washington and its allies. 

The leaders’ exchange set the stage for lower-level engagement between the countries that includes the U.S.-Russia security meeting on January 9-10, followed by a Russia-NATO session on January 12, and a broader conference including Moscow, Washington and other European countries on January 13. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to lay the groundwork for the talks Friday in calls with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and others, the State Department said. 

In conversations with the foreign ministers of Canada and Italy, Blinken discussed a united response to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine and their consensus to impose “severe costs” on Moscow for any such actions. 

 
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For the second time in a month, US President Joe Biden has spoken directly to his Russian counterpart and urged him to de-escalate, as President Vladimir Putin continues to amass soldiers near the border with Ukraine. But administration officials said Putin provided no assurances of his intentions. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin spoke frankly for nearly an hour late Thursday amid growing alarm over Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine, a simmering crisis that’s recently deepened as the Kremlin has stiffened its demands for increased security guarantees and test-fired hypersonic missiles to underscore its demands. 

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser said Biden reaffirmed the U.S. threat of new sanctions against Russia in case of an escalation or invasion, to which Putin responded with a warning of his own: that such a U.S. move could lead to a complete rupture of ties. 

“It would be a colossal mistake that would entail grave consequences,” said Yuri Ushakov. He added that Putin told Biden that Russia would act as the U.S. would if offensive weapons were deployed near American borders. 

Putin requested the call, the second between the leaders this month, ahead of scheduled talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials set for January 10 in Geneva.

White House officials said that the call began at 3:35 p.m. EST and concluded 50 minutes later, after midnight in Moscow.

What Russia wants 

Russia has made clear it wants a written commitment that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO and that the alliance’s military equipment will not be positioned in former Soviet states, demands that the Biden administration has made clear are nonstarters. 

The White House said ahead of the call that Biden would tell Putin that a diplomatic path remained open even as the Russians have moved an estimated 100,000 troops toward Ukraine and Kremlin officials have turned up the volume on demands for new guarantees from the U.S. and NATO. 

Those demands are to be discussed during the talks in Geneva, but it remains unclear what, if anything, Biden would be willing to offer Putin in exchange for defusing the crisis. 

Draft security documents Moscow submitted demand that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. 

The U.S. and its allies have refused to offer Russia the kind of guarantees on Ukraine that Putin wants, citing NATO’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country. They agreed, however, to hold talks with Russia to discuss its concerns. 

Pretext to invade? 

The security proposal by Moscow has raised the question of whether Putin is making unrealistic demands in the expectation of a Western rejection that would give him a pretext to invade.

Steven Pifer, a career foreign service officer who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in the Clinton administration, said the Biden administration could engage on some elements of Russia’s draft document if Moscow was serious about talks.

Key NATO members have made clear there is no appetite for expanding the alliance soon. The U.S. and allies could also be receptive to language in the Russians’ draft document calling for establishing new consultative mechanisms, such as the NATO-Russia Council and a hotline between NATO and Russia. 

“The draft treaty’s proposed bar on any NATO military activity in Ukraine, eastern Europe, the Caucasus or Central Asia is an overreach, but some measures to limit military exercises and activities on a reciprocal basis might be possible,” Pifer, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in an analysis for the Washington think tank.

Biden planned to tell Putin that for there to be “real progress” in the talks they must be conducted in “a context of de-escalation rather than escalation,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters before the call. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

Biden and Putin, who met in Geneva in June to discuss an array of tensions in the U.S.-Russia relationship, are not expected to take part in the January talks. 

In the December 7 video call, the White House said, Biden put Moscow on notice that an invasion of Ukraine would bring sanctions and enormous harm to the Russian economy. Russian officials have dismissed the sanction threats. 

Last week, Russia test-fired Zircon hypersonic missiles, a provocative move that Peskov said was meant to help make Russia’s push for security guarantees “more convincing.” The test was the first time Zircon missiles were launched in a salvo, indicating the completion of tests before the new missile enters service with the Russian navy next year and arms its cruisers, frigates and submarines. 

U.S. intelligence earlier this month determined that Russian planning was underway for a possible military offensive that could begin as soon as early 2022, but that Putin had yet to determine whether to move forward with it. 

No immediate threat seen

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, said Thursday that his country believed there was no immediate threat of a major Russian invasion. 

“Our experts say that the Russian Federation just physically can’t mount a big invasion of our territory,” Danilov said. “There is a time period needed for preparations.” 

The U.S. military has flown surveillance flights in Ukrainian airspace this week, including a flight Thursday by an Air Force E-8C JSTARS aircraft, according to Chuck Pritchard, a spokesman for U.S. European Command. That plane is equipped to provide intelligence on ground forces. 

Pritchard said such flights are conducted with European allies routinely and the missions this week were “not in response to any specific event.” 

Moscow and NATO representatives are expected to meet in the days after the Geneva talks, as are Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes the United States. 

Russia has denied an intention of launching an invasion and, in turn, accused Ukraine of hatching plans to try to reclaim control of the territories held by Moscow-backed rebels by force. Ukraine has rejected the claim. 

‘Aggressive’ course by West seen

At the same time, Putin has urged the West to move quickly to meet his demands, warning that Moscow will have to take “adequate military-technical measures” if the West continues its “aggressive” course “on the threshold of our home.” 

As Biden prepared for the talks with Putin, the administration also sought to highlight the commitment to Ukraine and drive home that Washington is committed to the “principle of nothing about you without you” in shaping policy that affects European allies. 

Biden, who is spending the week in his home state of Delaware, spoke to Putin from his home near Wilmington. The White House distributed a photo of the president speaking to the Russian leader from a desk lined with family photos. 

Ahead of the call, Putin sent a telegram to Biden with New Year’s and Christmas wishes, which was posted on the Kremlin site on Thursday, along with other holiday messages to world leaders. 

“I am convinced that in the development of our agreements reached during the June summit in Geneva and subsequent contacts that we can move forward and establish an effective Russian-American dialogue based on mutual respect and in consideration of each other’s national interests,” Putin wrote. 
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