Colombia is set to begin immunizations against COVID-19 after receiving its first shipment of vaccines on Monday. President Ivan Duque and his health minister accepted the first 50,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and said frontline health care workers and the elderly will be the first to get their shots. Colombia has a contract to buy 10 million doses from Pfizer and it expects to soon receive 1.6 million doses from other laboratories. The government says it intends to vaccinate 35 million people this year, including hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees. Colombia is one of the last countries in Latin America to start vaccinations, behind Ecuador, Panama and Chile. President Duque said his administration was hesitant to start immunizations until it had assurance of getting a steady supply of vaccine to battle the novel coronavirus.  The president also said the arrival of vaccines does not end the use of masks and social distancing. Colombia has more than 2,198,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 57,786 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.  
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Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti said late Monday he is angry and disappointed that 487 people, including former ministers Pilar Mazzetti (Health) and Elizabeth Astete (Foreign Affairs) used their government positions to get vaccinated against COVID-19 outside of the clinical trials. Franciso said in a televised address that they were immunized with the Sinopharm vaccines, which came separately as a complement to those used in clinical trials in Peru. The Peruvian leader blasted the government officials on the list provided by Cayetano Heredia University, saying they failed to fulfill their duty as public servants and failed to show loyalty to the President of the Council of Ministers and himself. Franciso said the list will be sent to the prosecutors and the investigation commission formed by Health Minister Oscar Ugarte to determine the next actions to be taken. Mr.Sagasti said the incident will not impact the country’s effort to secure more vaccines. Peru has one of the highest COVID-19 tallies in Latin America, with more than 1,235,000 confirmed infections and 43,703 deaths, according to Johns Hopkin University Covid Resource Center. 
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron, expressing her commitment to strengthening bilateral relations, a White House statement said on Monday.  “Vice President Harris and President Macron agreed on the need for close bilateral and multilateral cooperation to address COVID-19, climate change, and support democracy at home and around the world,” the statement said. Since President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20, his administration has moved to rebuild ties with allies over global issues, a sharp break from the approach of former President Donald Trump, who advocated “America First.”President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Jan. 21, 2021, in Washington.In the weeks since Biden was inaugurated, the United States has rejoined the World Health Organization and is rejoining the Paris climate accord.   The call was the second Harris has had with a world leader since taking office, a sign that Harris, a former U.S. senator from California, may play a foreign policy role in the Biden administration. Earlier this month, Harris spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, her first call as vice president with a foreign leader. According to the White House statement, Harris and Macron agreed on the need to combat regional unrest in the Middle East and Africa.  Harris praised Macron for his “leadership on the issue of gender equality and for France’s contribution to NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.” The phone call is the second between Washington and Paris since Biden took office and potentially bolsters Macron, who faces election next year. Macron has been criticized for poor management of the COVID-19 crisis and a weak French economy, as well as a failure to fight terrorism from Islamic extremists.  Macron is facing stiff opposition from his long-time challenger Marine Le Pen. 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused fellow NATO ally the United States of supporting terrorists in the wake of the deaths of 13 kidnapped Turks in northern Iraq. He also said a U.S. statement about the killings, which Ankara blamed on Kurdish militants, was a joke.”You [the U.S.] said you did not support terrorists, when in fact you are on their side and behind them,” Erdogan said Monday in comments to supporters. By terrorists, he was referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has been waging a decadeslong insurgency inside southeastern Turkey.Erdogan spoke one day after a U.S. State Department spokesman said in a statement that if the reports of the deaths of Turkish civilians at the hands of the PKK are confirmed, “we condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.” The U.S., European Union and Turkey consider the PKK a terrorist organization.FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony BlinkenLater Monday, the spokesman said in another statement that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken by phone with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. The statement said in part, “The Secretary expressed condolences for the deaths of Turkish hostages in northern Iraq and affirmed our view that PKK terrorists bear responsibility.”FILE – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut CavusogluSeparately, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said it summoned the U.S. ambassador, David Satterfield, to lodge “in the strongest possible terms” Ankara’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to accept Turkey’s version of events immediately.Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday the bodies were discovered in the Gara region, near the Turkey-Iraq border, during an operation against the PKK in which Turkish forces killed 48 militants. The bodies were found in a cave complex.A statement on a PKK website said it was holding prisoners of war, including Turkish intelligence, police, and military personnel, and that they were killed due to the fighting.Analysts say the diplomatic dispute between the NATO allies brings to fore simmering tension over Washington’s support of the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia, in its war against Islamic State. Ankara accuses the YPG of being affiliated with the PKK.”Fighting the PKK became the principal occupation of the Turkish military,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. Around 40,000 people have died in the PKK’s fight for greater minority rights in Turkey.Washington maintains that the YPG is separate from the PKK, but Ankara is demanding that the U.S. administration decide where its loyalties lie.”The U.S. has to give a final decision. If they continue with the PKK in the region [Syria] or with Turkey, this is a most difficult question,” said Turkish presidential adviser Mesut Casin, who is also with Istanbul’s Yeditepe University.Analyst Guvenc says Ankara is nervous over the stance U.S. President Joe Biden will take toward the YPG. Biden served as vice president under Barack Obama, whose administration took the step to militarily back the YPG against the Islamic State group.”We see a good number of those people in Obama’s team will be part of the new administration in foreign and military positions who support the YPG policy,” said Guvenc. “This must be a major source of concern for Ankara. They will be dealing with people they don’t like. Like this special envoy McGurk, his appointment has sent a very strong signal of what is in the offing.”FILE – Then-President Barack Obama’s envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, Brett McGurkGuvenc was referring to Brett McGurk, who served as a special envoy for Syria during the Obama administration. Cavusoglu accused McGurk of being a PKK supporter while in the region.McGurk is now the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.Some observers note that since Biden won election in November, he has yet to speak with Erdogan, a sign of how complex and complicated bilateral relations remain.”It is hard to see how either party will manage to walk around this minefield,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in Washington. He added, “Firm transactionalism is the new buzzword to depict and predict the Biden administration’s approach towards Turkey.”Analysts point out Erdogan is famed for balancing fiery rhetoric with pragmatism and transactionalism. But the Turkish president Monday said relations with its NATO allies have reached a critical moment.”After this, there are two options. Either act with Turkey with no if’s or but’s, without question, or they will be a partner to every murder and bloodshed,” he said.” The terrorist organization on our doorstep, on our borders, is killing innocents.” 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday suggested he would support a global treaty on pandemics that would establish standards for data-sharing and transparency. Johnson made the comment during his usual COVID-19 briefing from his office in London, when asked about the World Health Organization team’s recently concluded visit to Wuhan, China, to investigate the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.  On Friday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan issued a statement saying that while the Biden administration has great respect for WHO’s work and the experts who work for it, he expressed “deep concerns” about the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation team and has questions about the process used to reach them. FILE – Peter Daszak and Thea Fischer, members of the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease, sit in a car arriving at Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, Feb. 2, 2021.The Biden administration called on China to make its data from the earliest days of the outbreak available to the world so that it may better understand this pandemic and be ready for the next one. Johnson agreed with those comments and the Biden administration’s call for transparency and said he would go a step further and support a global pandemic treaty that would create a general agreement on how data is shared and on ensuring transparency.  European Council President Charles Michel first proposed the idea of a pandemic treaty last November at the Paris Peace Forum. Such a treaty would likely be developed with the participation of U.N. agencies, civil society groups and nongovernmental agencies.  Nations signing on to such a treaty would, in the event of a pandemic, have a set of standards and guidelines governing how data is shared with the rest of the world. 
 
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Crowds of seals lie on the sand, some wriggling towards the water, on the northern French coast where they are staging a comeback. Drone images show around 250 wild grey seals, adults and cubs, frolicking at low tide near the town of Marck. Seals started to disappear from the Cote d’Opale in the 1970s, under pressure from fishermen who saw them as rivals for their catch. Seals, which have no natural predators in the English Channel, have been a protected species in France since the 1980s and as a result they have begun to return to the coast. Rescued grey seal cubs wait for fish during their quarantine at LPA animal refuge in Calais, France, Feb. 13, 2021.”At low tide, they settle here to get fat, to rest and to prepare for their upcoming hunt at sea,” seal enthusiast Jerome Gressier told Reuters. According to a 2018 report of the Hauts-de-France region’s Eco-Phoques project, at least 1,100 seals now live in the area. In the region’s Baie de Somme, harbor seal numbers grew by 14.4% between 1990 and 2017, while grey seals rose by 20%, the study found. Gressier uses a long-focus lens to identify injured seals. “It allows us to see if there are any animals who are caught in nets,” he said. “It hurts them enormously if they are caught by the neck.” Injured seals are treated at a nearby animal rescue center in Calais. Center manager Christel Gressier says many of the animals they deal with are seals, some abandoned by their mothers. “At around three weeks, the mother will quickly teach it to hunt, but if the seal is not able to manage, or do it quickly enough, she leaves and she goes about her business,” she said. “It is at this moment that we can intervene for seals that would not have been able to adapt quickly enough.” 
 
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After a weeklong bus ride from Honduras, Isabel Osorio Medina arrived in northern Mexico with the hope President Joe Biden would make it easier for people like him to get into the United States.
“It seems the new president wants to help migrants,” Osorio said as he got ready to check in to a cheap hotel in downtown Tijuana before heading to the U.S. “They’re saying he is going to help, but I don’t know for sure how much is true or not.”
The 63-year-old is among thousands of people who have come to the U.S.-Mexico border with the hope they will be able to ask for asylum and make their way into the U.S. now that former President Donald Trump is no longer in office.  
While Biden has taken some major steps in his first weeks in office to reverse Trump’s hardline immigration policies, his administration has not lifted some of the most significant barriers to asylum-seekers.  
In fact, it’s discouraging people from coming to the country, hoping to avoid what happened under both Trump and former President Barack Obama — border agents getting overwhelmed by migrants, including many Central Americans with children.
“Now is not the time to come,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a recent briefing, “and the vast majority of people will be turned away.”  
Secretary of State Antony Blinken struck a similar tone on Feb. 6 as he announced official steps to end Trump-era agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala that required many asylum-seekers to seek refuge in one of those countries instead of the U.S.  
“To be clear, these actions do not mean that the U.S. border is open,” Blinken said. “While we are committed to expanding legal pathways for protection and opportunity here and in the region, the United States is a country with borders and laws that must be enforced.”  
That message hasn’t reached everyone.  
More people have been arriving at an encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, a dangerous city just south of the Texas border where hundreds of asylum-seekers have been waiting under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.  
It’s possible even more may come after the Biden administration announced Friday that it would slowly allow an estimated 25,000 people to enter the U.S. as their cases are reviewed. The first wave is expected Feb. 19.
Walter Valenzuela, a 37-year-old Honduran, said he had been waiting in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, for months for a chance to either seek asylum or risk an illegal crossing.
For years, asylum-seekers who met the initial threshold of demonstrating a “credible fear” of persecution in their homeland could generally stay in the U.S. until an immigration judge decided whether they qualified for permanent residency, which can take years.  
Trump administration officials believed many asylum claims were fraudulent or lacked merit, submitted by people simply looking to remain in the U.S. But the issue is murky as tens of thousands flee violent gangs, natural disasters and political upheaval.
The Biden administration has signed several executive orders on immigration, including allowing in more refugees and establishing a task force to find the parents of about 600 children who were separated under Trump and still haven’t been reunited.
But it hasn’t ended a public health order Trump issued at the start of the coronavirus pandemic that allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately expel nearly everyone, including asylum-seekers.  
Psaki said the government is still working to develop a “humane, comprehensive process” to evaluate people coming to the U.S.  
“Asylum processes at the border will not occur immediately,” she said. “It will take time to implement.”  
Alan Bersin, who held top positions dealing with border security during the Clinton and Obama administrations, warned that Biden is headed for a crisis if he releases all asylum-seekers into the United States. That would invite fraud and abuse, he said.
“There’s such a pressing sense in the advocate community that is controlling the Biden immigration agenda — they want to reverse all Trump actions,” he said.  
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting.
The number of people apprehended at the border has increased since January, though it’s below some previous periods. Authorities say many are getting caught and returned multiple times.
Complicating matters, a law has taken effect in Mexico that prohibits holding children in migrant detention centers, and the U.S. has stopped sending back some families along parts of the border.
CBP, which doesn’t have capacity to hold families because of COVID-19, in recent weeks has released dozens of people into the U.S. with instructions to appear in court later.
Authorities fear that as word spreads of those releases, more people will come. And asylum is not the only immigration issue creating headwinds for Biden’s administration.
Texas and Arizona have both sued to stop Biden’s 100-day deportation moratorium, which a judge temporarily put on hold. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement officers are complaining about proposed rules to focus on detaining and removing people in the country illegally who pose national security threats or have been convicted of more serious crimes.  
Jon Feere, a senior adviser to ICE under Trump, said such moves are part of a larger pattern that the Biden administration will come to regret.  
“When you send the message that you are not serious about immigration enforcement, you can’t act surprised when you see a massive influx of people that you have to manage,” he said.
Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said last week that as a liaison to the Biden transition team, he found the staff to be “very attentive” to the issues. Some had experience with surges of asylum-seekers under Obama.  
“This wasn’t uncharted waters,” Ortiz said in an interview  produced by the Border Patrol. “It wasn’t like we were starting from scratch.”
The larger debate is lost on Osorio, who came to Tijuana because he heard Biden wants to help people like him. He says he intended to seek asylum based on the dangers he faced as an environmental activist protesting illegal logging in Honduras.
But because he can’t seek asylum at the official border crossing in San Diego, other migrants told him about a place he could try to cross illegally. He said if he encountered the Border Patrol, he would ask for asylum and see what happens.  
“They already told us more or less how to do it,” Osorio said. “We’re going to take a look.”
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expecting their second child, their office confirmed Sunday.
A spokesperson for Prince Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, said in a statement: “We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child.”Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are pictured in this undated handout photo supplied to Reuters, following an announcement that they are expecting their second child.In a black-and-white photo of themselves, the couple sat near a tree with Harry’s hand placed under Meghan’s head as she lies on his lap with her hand resting on her bump.
The baby will be eighth in line to the British throne.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “Her Majesty, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and the entire family are delighted and wish them well.”
The duke told chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall in 2019 that he would only have two children for the sake of the planet.
Goodall said: “Not too many,” and Harry replied: “Two, maximum.”  
Harry and American actor Meghan Markle married at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son Archie was born a year later.
In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They recently bought a house in Santa Barbara, California.
In November, Meghan revealed that she had a miscarriage in July 2020, giving a personal account of the traumatic experience in hope of helping others.
A few days ago, the duchess won a privacy claim against a newspaper over the publication of a personal letter to her estranged father.
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Larry the cat, a four-legged inhabitant of London’s 10 Downing St., is marking a decade as Britain’s mouse-catcher in chief on Monday.
 
The tabby cat was recruited by then-Prime Minister David Cameron to deal with a pack of rats seen scuttling close to the British leader’s official residence and entered Downing Street on Feb. 15, 2011.
 
The former stray, adopted from London’s Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, was given the title Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, an unofficial pest control post. He was the first cat to hold the rat-catching portfolio since the retirement of Humphrey in 1997 and has loyally served three prime ministers.
 
But it seems like yesterday that Larry was just another cat — as opposed to a media superstar — said Lindsey Quinlan, the head of cattery of Battersea.  
 
“Throughout his time at Number 10, Larry has proven himself to not only be a brilliant ambassador for Battersea but also demonstrated to millions of people around the world how incredible rescue cats are,” she said. “His rags to riches tale is yet more proof of why all animals deserve a second chance — one minute they may be an overlooked stray on the streets, the next they could become one of the nation’s beloved political figures, with fans around the world.”
 
Larry, who has met several world leaders, has been largely unfriendly to men but took a liking to former U.S. President Barack Obama. When former President Donald Trump visited in 2019, Larry took a nap under his car.
 
His grip on the public imagination is clear — and political leaders know better than to ignore that popularity. The tomcat was a sentimental topic of conversation in Cameron’s final appearance in parliament as prime minister when he said he wanted to quash a rumor that — perish the thought — he didn’t like Larry.
 
And just to prove it, he whipped out evidence: a picture of Larry lying on his lap.
“He belongs to the house and the staff love him very much — as do I,” he said at the time, explaining why he wasn’t taking Larry with him after leaving office.
 
After the December 2019 election, rumors swirled that Larry might be headed for retirement with the news that the new prime minister, Boris Johnson, was a dog man.  
However, despite the prime minister moving Jack Russell cross Dilyn into Downing Street, Larry remained in office.
 
Reports of his rodent-killing abilities vary. Larry became known for his occasional scraps with neighboring cats — especially Palmerston, chief mouser to the Foreign Office across the street — and fondness for sleep. Palmerston has retired to the country, so things have been a bit quieter of late.
 
These days Larry, now 14, is often seen by photographers patrolling his turf. Visitors to the building can sometimes find him napping on a ledge above a radiator or sleeping on a floor, where dignitaries occasionally have to step over him.
 
At the heart of government, he specializes in power naps.
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The United States has condemned the killing of 13 Turkish citizens by Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. “The United States deplores the death of Turkish citizens in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement late Sunday.  “We stand with our NATO Ally Turkey and extend our condolences to the families of those lost in the recent fighting.” Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said earlier Sunday the victims were kidnapped and killed by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. Akar said the bodies were discovered in the Gara region, near the Turkey-Iraq border, during an operation against the PKK in which Turkish forces killed 48 militants. A statement on a PKK website said it was holding prisoners of war, including Turkish intelligence, police and military personnel, and that they were killed as a result of the fighting. Turkey, the United States and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist group.  Tens of thousands of people have died since it launched an armed insurgency in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. 
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Kosovo’s left-wing reformists were headed for a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, initial results showed Monday, handing them a strong mandate for change from voters fed up with the political establishment. The opposition Vetevendosje (Self-determination) party took home around 48 percent of the vote, according to a tally of more than 90 percent of ballots cast in the Sunday vote.   The triumph nearly doubled the party’s last electoral showing in 2019, reflecting a hunger for new leadership in troubled Kosovo.   “This great victory is an opportunity to start the changes we want,” the party’s firebrand leader Albin Kurti, long a thorn in the establishment’s side, said in a victory speech.  “The election was indeed a referendum on justice and employment and against corruption and state capture,” the 45-year-old added, while warning of “many obstacles” ahead. The snap poll came after a tumultuous year in which the coronavirus pandemic deepened social and economic crises in the former Serbian province, which declared independence 13 years ago after a separatist war led by ethnic Albanian rebels.Albin Kurti leader of the Vetevendosje (Selfdetermination) prepares to cast his vote during Parliamentary elections at a polling station in Pristina on February 14, 2021.Already one of Europe’s poorest economies, Kosovo is now struggling through a pandemic-triggered downturn, with vaccinations yet to start. But for Vetevendosje’s supporters, Sunday’s results sparked hope of better days, with fans honking horns, setting off fireworks and gathering in the main square in the capital Pristina to cheer their victory. The next two largest parties trailed far behind, with around 13 and 17 percent respectively for the ruling centrist Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) — a party of former rebels who have long dominated politics in the country. Both camps admitted defeat, with the LDK’s outgoing Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti pledging to be a “constructive opposition” in parliament.  Tear gas in parliament Once known for provocative stunts such as unleashing tear gas in parliament, Vetevendosje began as a street movement in the 2000s protesting local elites and international influences in Kosovo, which was an UN-protectorate after the war.   It entered electoral politics in 2011 and has tamped down its more radical antics in recent years.    The party ran on an anti-corruption platform, accusing past leaders of squandering Kosovo’s first years of independence through graft and mismanagement while ordinary people suffered.  For most of the past decade, Kosovo has been run by the former commanders who led the late 1990s rebellion against Serb forces.  If they were once feted as independence heroes, the political elite have now become the face of the social and economic ills plaguing the population of 1.8 million, where average salaries are around 500 euros (around $600) a month and youth unemployment tops 50 percent.   “The people are waiting for change, they are waiting for the removal of that which has hindered us, such as corruption and nepotism,” Sadik Kelemendi, a doctor, told AFP before casting his ballot in snow-covered Pristina.  The former rebels were also weakened this year by the absence of top leaders, including ex-president Hashim Thaci, who were detained in November by a court in The Hague on war crimes charges dating back to the 1998-99 rebellion against Serbia.Albin Kurti, a candidate for prime minister of Vetevendosje (Self-Determination), prepares to cast his ballot in parliamentary elections in capital Pristina, Kosovo, Feb. 14, 2021.New generation Vetevendosje now has a clear path to a ruling majority if they team up with minority parties, who are reserved 20 seats in the 120-member assembly, half for the Serb community.   The party also finished first in the last 2019 election, but with little over a quarter of the vote they only lasted some 50 days in power before their shaky coalition with the LDK crumbled.   The stronger showing this time has been attributed in part to Kurti’s new alliance with acting President Vjosa Osmani, 38, who recently left the LDK to join Kurti, turning the two into charismatic duo on the campaign trail. “I think it is about time that Kosovo is led by not only a new generation of politicians in terms of age, but especially in terms of mindset,” Osmani told AFP ahead of the vote.While Kurti himself did not run as an MP — he is banned due to a 2018 court conviction for unleashing tear gas in parliament — his party can still appoint him as their prime minister.  Known for a hardline stance on relations with Serbia, he would face heavy pressure from the West to reboot talks with the northern neighbor, which still denies Kosovo’s statehood.  Their lingering dispute is a source of major tension in the region more than 20 years after the war, and an obstacle for either side in its dreams of joining the European Union. 
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The pro-union Socialist Party appeared set to claim a narrow win in regional elections in Catalonia late Sunday, but the bloc of parties supporting secession by Spain’s northeastern corner were widening their control of the regional parliament.With 95% of the votes counted, the three main parties pledging to carve out an independent Catalan state were likely to increase their number of seats in the regional parliament to 74. In 2017, those same parties won 70 seats of the 135-seat chamber, just two above the majority.The Socialist party led by former health minister Salvador Illa was poised to take 33 seats with over 625,000 votes. The pro-secession Republican Left of Catalonia was also set to claim 33 seats, but with 580,000 votes.But despite the huge boost in support for the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has held talks with the separatists in an attempt to ease tensions with the region, Illa would have a difficult time trying to cobbling together support for a government.The outcome confirms that pro-separatist sentiment has not waned despite the suffering of the COVID-19 pandemic and a frustrated secession bid in October 2017 that left several of its members in prison.However, it was not clear if the separatist parties would be able to overcome the in-fighting that has plagued their bloc since the dream of an easy breakaway from Spain proved elusive.The results shifted the power within the pro-secession camp to the leftist Republican Left of Catalonia party, whose 33 seats edged out the center-right Together for Catalonia, set to win 32 seats.The Republican Left of Catalonia of jailed leader Oriol Junqueras can now dispute the leadership of the bloc with Together for Catalonia, the party of former Catalan chief Carles Puidemont, who fled to Belgium following the ineffective 2017 breakaway bid.Together for Catalonia maintains a more radical stance on severing ties from Spain in the short term, while the Republican Left of Catalonia lowered its tone over the past year and set winning an amnesty from central authorities for Junqueras and other jailed leaders as its top priority — for now.The region’s parliament also was poised to become more fragmented, and more radical.The far-right Vox party entered the Catalan legislature for the first time with 11 seats, confirming its surge across Spain in recent years. Its success came at the expense of the conservative Popular Party, which was left with three seats after a campaign in which it softened its formerly hard-line stance against Catalan secessionists.On the other side of the spectrum, the far-left, pro-secession CUP party improved to nine seats from the four it won in 2017. So once again, the pro-secession forces will need the unpredictable CUP to form a majority.A potential regional government will likely hinge on deal-making between parties that could take days or longer to conclude.While the Socialists rose at the expense of the liberal Citizens, which plummeted to six seats after winning the December 2017 elections with 36, the Catalan political panorama remained unchanged in the essential question: The Mediterranean region bordering with France is still roughly split between those who support the creation of a Catalan state, and those who are fervently for remaining a part of Spain.
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The search for three climbers, who went missing on Pakistan’s K2 mountain earlier this month, has found no trace of them.Iceland’s John Snorri, 47, Chile’s Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, and Pakistan’s Muhammad Ali Sadpara, 45, lost contact with base camp on February 5 during their ascent of what global mountaineers describe as the killer mountain. K2 is the world’s second-highest mountain at 8,611 meters.”An unprecedented search in the history of mountaineering has been ongoing,” Vanessa O’Brien, the first British-American mountaineer to climb K2, said Sunday.She is assisting the search effort as part of the virtual base camp comprising family members in Iceland, Chile, and specialists from around the world, including in Pakistan.”It has been nine long days. If climbing the world’s second-tallest mountain in winter is hard, finding those missing is even more of a challenge,” said O’Brien.When asked whether the men could still be alive despite harsh winter conditions, O’Brien told VOA, “That I don’t know. But on Valentine’s Day, I guarantee you they were loved by their families and their nations.”She explained that specialists, with “devoted support” from Pakistani, Icelandic and Chilean authorities, have scrutinized satellite images, used synthetic aperture radar technology, scanned hundreds of pictures, and checked testimonials and times.”When the weather prevented the rotary machines (helicopters) from approaching K2, the Pakistan Army sent a F-16 (aircraft) to take the photographic surveys,” O’Brien said.Unfortunately, there has been no sign of the missing climbers, she added.Karrar Haidri, an official at the private Alpine Club of Pakistan that promotes mountaineering in the country, said the base camp stopped receiving signals from Snorri and his companions after they reached 8,000 meters.Sonrri made his first winter attempt on K2 in 2019, but was forced to abort it “when two members of his team expressed they did not feel fully prepared” for the expedition. ‘Savage Mountain’K2 has gained the reputation as “Savage Mountain” because while more than 6,500 people have climbed the world’s highest peak, Everest, only 337 have conquered K2 to date.Since 1954, up to 86 climbers have died in their attempt to scale K2, where summit winds reach hurricane force and still-air temperatures can plunge below -65 degrees Celsius.Experts say about one person dies on K2 for every four who reach the summit, making it the deadliest of the five highest peaks in the world.Since the first failed bid in 1987-88, only a few expeditions had attempted to summit K2 in winter.Last month, a 10-member team of Nepali climbers made history when they became the first to climb K2 in winter.Located in the Karakoram range along the Chinese border, K2 was the last of the world’s 14 tallest mountains higher than 8,000 meters to be scaled in winter.Bulgarian alpinist Atanas Skatov died earlier this month on K2. A renowned Spanish climber, Sergi Mingote, fell to his death last month while descending the mountain.
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COVID-19 vaccine rollouts have come with mixed but increasing success in developed countries with functional infrastructure. Delivering lifesaving medicine to those in the remotest locations remains a challenge. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports on a German startup looking to change that.
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Hundreds of women have attended protests in Moscow and St Petersburg on Valentine’s Day in support of Russian women prosecuted for political reasons. 
 
The Chain Of Solidary And Love protest is also dedicated to imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who flew to Germany on February 10. Although no explanation was given for her departure, Navalnaya had recently been detained for taking part in unsanctioned rallies in support of her husband. 
 
Images shared on social media on February 14 show women holding red roses, balloons, and heart signs with the names of female political prisoners written on them. Demonstrators also sang, “Love is stronger than fear,” the motto of the protests.  
The organizers said on their Facebook page that the rallies were dedicated to the women who were “beaten and tortured by police during peaceful protests,” as well as “to everyone who spends their days in courts, police buses, and special detention centers.” 
 
They said the “chain” along Moscow’s Old Arbat Street honors Navalnaya as well as lawyer Lyubov Sobol, Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, municipal deputy Lucy Shtein, Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh, and Doctors’ Alliance head Anastasia Vasilyeva, who all face criminal charges for calling on supporters to rally for Navalny’s release last month. 
 
Later on February 14, Navalny supporters plan a protest using light from mobile phones, flashlights, and candles to express support for him, despite a warning that people taking part could face criminal charges. Navalny’s team has called on people across Russia to switch on their cell phone flashlights for 15 minutes beginning at 8 p.m. local time and shine the light into the sky from their homes or the courtyards of their apartment buildings. FILE – Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is escorted out of a police station on Jan. 18, 2021, in Khimki, outside Moscow, following the court ruling that ordered him jailed for 30 days. 
Navalny, 44, a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested on January 17 after returning to Russia from Germany where he had been treated for a nerve-agent poisoning he says was ordered by Putin. The Kremlin denies it had any role in the attack. 
 
Navalny’s detention sparked outrage across the country and much of the West, with tens of thousands of Russians taking part in street rallies on January 23 and 31. 
 
Police cracked down harshly on the demonstrations, putting many of Navalny’s political allies behind bars and detaining thousands more — sometimes violently  — as they gathered on the streets. 
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Carlos Menem, a former Argentine president who delivered short-lived economic stability and forged close ties with the United States in the 1990s even as he navigated scandal and enjoyed an often flamboyant lifestyle, has died.Argentine President Alberto Fernández confirmed the death of the 90-year-old former leader, who had been ailing in recent weeks.The dapper lawyer from one of Argentina’s poorest provinces, dismissed by critics as a playboy, steered Argentina toward a free-market model that was, at one point, envied by neighbors and favored by investors. Menem’s accomplishments, however, coincided with growing unemployment, economic inequality and foreign debt.Menem was also supremely flexible as a politician, beginning his career as a self-styled disciple of Gen. Juan Domingo Peron, who founded the populist movement that bears his name and placed the economy largely under state control. Menem, who served two terms as president between 1989 and 1999, transformed the country — but in the opposite direction.”I don’t know if I’m going to get the country out of its economic problems, but I’m sure going to make a more fun country,” Menem once said. He relished the company of celebrities, hosting the Rolling Stones and Madonna in Buenos Aires, and memorably shrugged off criticism after receiving a red Ferrari as a gift from an Italian businessman in 1990.”It is mine, mine and mine,” Menem, an auto racing fan, said in front of television cameras. “Why would I donate it?”Later, he reluctantly agreed to auction off the car for $135,000, with the proceeds going to state coffers.The son of Syrian immigrants whose family owned a winery, Menem was a folksy, three-time governor of northwestern La Rioja Province, noted for shoulder-length hair and muttonchop sideburns when he came to international prominence.He won the Peronist Party nomination and surged to victory in 1989 presidential elections, capitalizing on economic and social chaos in Argentina. The country was mired in 5,000% annual inflation and the poor were sacking supermarkets to obtain food.Under Menem, the economy registered strong growth, inflation dropped to single digits and the peso, the national currency, enjoyed unprecedented stability as it was pegged to the U.S. dollar. The long hair and sideburns were gone and the flashy clothes replaced by imported, hand-made suits.The core of Menem’s recovery plan, masterminded by energetic Harvard-educated Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, was the withdrawal of the state from the economy.Menem removed controls on prices and interest rates. He sold the state-owned phone company, airlines, race tracks, steel mills and the oil giant YPF, then South America’s largest company. He cut the state payroll and encouraged foreign investment. He curbed once-powerful labor unions that formed the backbone of the Peronist movement and were angered by state payroll cuts that eliminated jobs.In foreign affairs, Menem withdrew Argentina from the Non-Aligned Movement, a Cold War-era structure that had espoused independence from the United States and — less so — the Soviet Union, and forged strong ties with Washington.Argentine troops participated in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq and joined U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti and the former Yugoslavia.During Menem’s tenure, Argentina was the scene of deadly bombings — against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish center in 1994. Argentina accused Iran of involvement; Iran denied it. Menem was later tried for the alleged cover-up of those responsible for the attack on the Jewish center, but was found not guilty in a trial in 2019.As president, Menem prevailed in disputes with the Argentine military, whose 1976 coup had led to the extrajudicial killings and disappearances of tens of thousands of people. He trimmed armed forces spending and abolished the highly unpopular military conscription system.He dismayed human rights groups by granting a pardon to former military junta members serving sentences of up to life in prison for crimes connected to the disappearance of Argentine dissidents during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. The pardon was extended to former guerrillas in what Menem described as a process of national reconciliation.Menem also renewed relations with Britain, severed after the Argentine dictatorship’s 1982 invasion of the British-held Falkland Islands. The invasion ended in Argentina’s defeat in a 74-day war.Menem was elected governor of La Rioja in 1973, but his first term was cut short by the 1976 coup. The military rulers sent him to prison, along with other politicians. He later was confined for nearly five years in a small village in northern Formosa province.Various controversies trailed Menem after his presidency. In 2001, he was detained for several months for alleged involvement in the sale of Argentine weapons to Croatia and Ecuador in the 1990s, at a time of international embargoes on those countries. He was eventually convicted in the case and sentenced in 2013 to seven years in prison, but he was protected from going to jail because he had been elected as a senator in 2005 and enjoyed immunity. The case was dropped in 2017.His colorful political career aside, Menem was a subject of fascination for his personal life. He dined with actors, models and pop music stars, danced the tango on television, played soccer and posed for the covers of gossip magazines.In 1966 he married the Argentine Zulema Yoma and they had two children: Carlos Facundo, who died at the age of 26 when the helicopter he was piloting crashed, and Zulema María Eva. The marriage was dissolved amid a scandal that included the eviction in 1990 of the then first lady from the presidential residence.In 2001, at age 70, Menem married the Chilean television presenter and former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco, who was 36. The couple had a son, Máximo. The couple divorced in 2011.Menem also had a son with the teacher and later Peronist deputy Martha Meza, whom he met when he was confined in Formosa during the dictatorship. Carlos Nair Meza was 25 years old when Menem acknowledged him as his son. 
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A truth and reconciliation commission could help Mexico come to terms with a legacy of African slavery, civil rights activist Martin Luther King III said during a visit to the Latin American country.King, the eldest son of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, is visiting Mexico to join a government commemoration of Afro-Mexican liberation hero Vicente Guerrero, who as the nation’s second president abolished most slavery in 1829, before the practice was ended in Britain and the United States.Guerrero died 190 years ago Sunday.Mexico has long overlooked the legacy of slavery and its impact on the country’s Black people, who are mostly concentrated in poor coastal villages on the Pacific and Gulf coasts.King, 63, said both Mexico and the United States could consider South African-style reconciliation processes to fully acknowledge the past.”Before you can ever address a problem, you have to acknowledge that it exists,” King said in an interview on Saturday. “A truth and reconciliation commission gives people the opportunity to come and apologize for past conduct, so that you have a new slate.”He said discussions about reparations for slavery should also flow from such a process.Conversations about “reparations in my judgment are certainly in order in places around the world, particularly where people have been enslaved,” he said. “I think the conversations must take place.”Few truth commissions around the world have tackled the legacy of slavery and colonialism directly.However, a 2011 report from Mauritius’ Truth and Justice Commission documented abuses suffered under slavery and indentured labor and recommended some land reparation.African slavery in Mexico was at its height in the late 16th and early 17th centuries after Spain prohibited enslaving the indigenous population, with around 200,000 Africans brought to Mexico.Growing awareness has led more people to self-identify as Afro-Mexican in recent years, with the 2020 census counting 2.5 million people, or 2% of the population, who self-identified as having African descent, up significantly from a count five years earlier.”Black Mexican communities … must be included and must have a voice,” King said. “The goal is to make sure that nobody is invisible. 
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Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia is voting Sunday to elect a new parliament and prime minister, with pro-independent parties aiming to retain control and the Socialist Party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez hoping to take over leadership of the wealthy region for the first time in a decade. Salvador Illa, Spain’s health minister and in charge of the country’s coronavirus response until two weeks ago, leads the ticket of the Socialist Party. The pro-independence parties want not only to maintain their majority in parliament, but also to broaden their base by winning more than 50 percent of the popular vote for the first time.   Opinion polls conducted before the Sunday’s election have predicted a tight race between the Socialists, which were slightly ahead, and the two leading pro-independence parties, the left-wing Republic Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) and the center-right Together for Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya). Political analysts have said that if separatists manage to hold on power, a new drive for independence seems very unlikely, as the movement is divided between moderate and conservative approaches and its top leaders are serving prison terms or have fled Spain after the short-lived 2017 declaration of independence.   Polling stations will close at 8 p.m., local time, and the results are expected by midnight.   
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Kosovo is going to the polls Sunday in an early parliamentary election after the country’s Constitutional Court invalidated the vote to confirm the government formed by the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK.More than 1,000 candidates from 28 political groups are competing for the 120 seats in the legislative body, 10 of which belong to Serbian community and 10 to other minorities.Some 1.8 million people are eligible to vote, including about 100,000 in the diaspora.Last year, the LDK forced a vote in parliament to bring down the 4-month-old government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti of Vetevendosje, the Self-Determination Movement, and replace it with the government of Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti of the LDK.In December, Kosovo’s Constitutional Court supported a Vetevendosje challenge of a vote by a convicted lawmaker that helped confirm the Hoti government.Sunday’s vote is held against an economic downturn caused primarily by the coronavirus pandemic. Kosovo has reported over 64,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 1,500 deaths.Bringing unemployment under control and fighting organized crime and corruption will be the biggest challenges for the new government.Opinion polls taken before Sunday indicated that Vetevendosje would win 45% to 55% of the vote among ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90% of the population.Although it is about twice the number of votes Vetevendosje garnered in 2019 election, it is still below the 61% threshold to govern alone.
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There are 108.5 million global COVID-19 infections, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday. The U.S. has the most cases at 27.5 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 9.8 million.The Telegraph newspaper reports British scientists are developing a universal vaccine that would combat all the variants of the coronavirus and could be available within a year.The British newspaper says scientists at the University of Nottingham are working on a vaccine that would target the core of virus instead of the spike protein that current vaccines focus on.Targeting the core alleviates the need to frequently adjust existing vaccines as the virus mutates.The Telegraph said proteins found in the core of the virus are far less likely to mutate, meaning the vaccine would protect against all current variants and would theoretically have greater longevity.A 58-year-old man in France is reported to be the first person infected for a second time with the highly contagious South African variant of the coronavirus.The man’s reinfection is “rare albeit probably underestimated,” according to the authors of an article in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.New Zealand’s largest city in going into a three-day lockdown, the country’s first in six months. The shuttering of Auckland comes after the discovery of three family members – a father, mother and daughter – with COVID.The rest of the country will be on heightened restrictions.New Zealand is known for having have stamped out the local transmission of the coronavirus, but it regularly detects the virus in travelers to New Zealand who are then placed in quarantine.The mother in the New Zealand family with COVID works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines. Authorities are investigating whether there is a link to an infected passenger.Not all U.S. states are happy about President Joe Biden’s plan to establish 100 COVID vaccine inoculation sites around the country by the end of the month, according to an Associated Press report.The wire service reports that some states have learned that the sites do not come with additional vaccines but would pull vaccines from the state’s existing allocation.A spokesperson for Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said, “Up until now, we’ve been under the impression that these sites do not come with their own supply of vaccine — which is the principal thing we need more of, rather than more ways to distribute what we already have.”Adding to the confusion, AP reported that some states have been told by federal officials that the new sites would come with their own supply of vaccines.
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