Britain’s House of Commons voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve a trade deal with the European Union, the last major step in London’s yearslong split from the continent’s 27-member governing body. With a day to spare, lawmakers voted 521-73 in favor of the Brexit deal that Britain reached with the EU last week. It will become British law after passing through the unelected House of Lords and gets a formal royal assent from Queen Elizabeth. Britain left the EU almost a year ago, but its economic split will be finalized Thursday at midnight in Brussels. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, left, and European Council President Charles Michel show signed EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreements at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Dec. 30, 2020.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel signed the agreement in Brussels early Wednesday. The documents were then flown by a Royal Air Force plane to London for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to add his signature. “The agreement that we signed today is the result of months of intense negotiations in which the European Union has displayed an unprecedented level of unity,” Michel said. “It is a fair and balanced agreement that fully protects the fundamental interests of the European Union and creates stability and predictability for citizens and companies.” Johnson heralded the pact as “a new relationship between Britain and the EU as sovereign equals.” UK chief trade negotiator David Frost looks on as Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement at 10 Downing Street, London, Dec. 30, 2020.It has been 4 1/2 years since Britain voted 52% to 48% to leave the bloc it joined in 1973. Starting Friday on New Year’s Day, the trade deal ensures that Britain and the EU can continue to trade goods without tariffs or quotas. That should help protect the $894 billion in annual British-EU trade, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on it. But Brexit will also bring inconvenience, such as the need for tourists to have insurance when traveling between the EU and Britain and for companies to fill out millions of new customs declarations. But Johnson said Brexit would turn Britain from “a half-hearted, sometimes obstructive member of the EU” into “a friendly neighbor — the best friend and ally the EU could have.” He said Britain would now “trade and cooperate with our European neighbors on the closest terms of friendship and goodwill, whilst retaining sovereign control of our laws and our national destiny.” 
 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law legislation that human rights watchdogs and opposition politicians have said will undermine democratic processes.The legislation, which came into force on December 30, included a series of amendments to the controversial law on “foreign agents” to allow individuals and public entities to be recognized as “foreign agents” if they are considered to be engaged in political activities “in the interests of a foreign state.”Entities that have received the label will be required to report their activities and face financial audits.Putin Signs Amendments Allowing Large Fines for ‘Foreign Agents’ Law ViolationsCritics say law is used to muzzle dissent, discourage the free exchange of ideas and a free pressPutin signed a separate bill imposing penalties of up to five years in prison to those identified as “foreign agents” who do not register as such or fail to report on their activities.Grounds for being recognized as a “foreign agent” could be holding rallies or political debates, providing opinions on state policies, actions promoting a certain outcome in an election or referendum, or participation as an electoral observer or in political parties if they are done in the interest of a foreign entity.Amnesty International has slammed the proposed legislation, saying it would “drastically limit and damage the work not only of civil society organizations that receive funds from outside Russia but many other groups as well.”Critics say the “foreign agent” law, originally passed in 2012 and since expanded through amendments, has been arbitrarily applied to target Russian civil society organizations, human rights defenders, and political activists.Putin also signed a bill allowing media regulator Roskomnadzor to partially or fully restrict or slow access to foreign websites that “discriminate against Russian media.”The legislation is expected to affect major social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
…

The year 2020 is ending with good news about two more potential vaccines that could slowly bring an end to the global COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 1.8 million people out of a total of nearly 82 million infections.   Britain’s medical regulatory agency announced Wednesday that it has granted emergency authorization of a coronavirus vaccine developed jointly by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Late-stage clinical trials of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine revealed it to be 70% effective against COVID-19. The vaccine had a 62% efficacy rate for participants given a full two doses, but tests of a smaller sub-group revealed it to be 90% effective when given a half-dose followed by a full dose weeks later.   The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is the second to be approved by Britain for its mass inoculation effort, which began earlier this month with the vaccine developed by U.S.-based Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.  The new vaccine will be distributed across the country within days, with Britain having already ordered 100 million doses.   Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs to be stored in super-cold refrigerators at temperatures below 70 degrees Celsius, the newly approved vaccine can be stored at normal temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, making it easier to transport and administer to people in poorer and remote nations.   But the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has come under intense scrutiny over the number of people who took part in the smaller sub-group, which was just 2,741, and whether it is effective for people over age 55.   In a related development, Chinese state-owned drug maker Sinopharm is seeking regulatory approval for its COVID-19 vaccine after it was found to be 79.3 percent effective against the disease in a final large-scale clinical trial. The vaccine, developed by Sinopharm’s subsidiary Beijing Biological Products Institute, is one of five vaccines developed by Chinese companies that have already been administered to more than one million people in China under its emergency use program while still undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials.   The United Arab Emirates granted emergency use approval for a Sinopharm-developed vaccine earlier this month after it was shown to be 86% effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of the virus in a late-stage clinical trial back in September.   Wednesday’s vaccine news comes just days after several European Union countries began inoculating its citizens after receiving a first shipment of 10,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  Vaccinations also began Wednesday in Singapore, with a 46-year-old nurse the first in the city-state to be inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  The nurse is one of more than 30 staffers at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases to receive the first dose of two-shot vaccine, with the second dose to be delivered sometime in January.  Singapore, which has one of the lowest rates of total infections with just 58,569, including 29 deaths, is the first Asian nation to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  It expects to have enough vaccine doses for all its 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021. Meanwhile, another potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S.-based drug maker Novavax has begun final-stage testing in the United States. The trials involving 30,000 volunteers will focus on high-risk older adults, as well as people from Black and Hispanic communities who have been disproportionately affected by the virus.    
…

Argentina’s Senate voted early Wednesday to legalize abortion, setting off cheers from the crowd of thousands of people gathered outside who supported the measure.
 
The 38-29 vote came after 12 hours of debate.   
 
The bill allows abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy.  After that time, abortions are allowed in cases of rape or if the mother’s life is in danger.
 
The country’s lower house approved the measure earlier this month, and President Alberto Fernández supported it.
 
Fernández tweeted after the vote that “safe, legal and free abortion is now the law,” and that Argentina is “a better society that expands women’s rights and guarantees public health.”
 
Argentina is the largest country in Latin America to legalize abortion.
 
Pope Francis, who is from Argentina, reflected the Catholic Church’s opposition in a tweet before the vote.  He wrote, “The Son of God was born an outcast, in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God.”
…

Argentina was on the cusp of legalizing abortion Tuesday over the objections of its influential Roman Catholic Church, with the Senate preparing to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling party and already has passed in the lower house. 
 
If passed, the bill would make Argentina the first big country in predominantly Catholic Latin America to allow abortion on demand. The vote is expected to be close after what was expected to be a marathon debate, beginning at 4 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) and likely to stretch into Wednesday morning. 
 
Demonstrators both for and against the bill came from around the country to stand vigil in front of the Senate building in Buenos Aires. Argentine senators attend a session to debate an abortion bill in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 29, 2020.”Argentina is a pro-life country,” one woman, who said she was from Cordoba province, told local television as she sat in a folding chair under an umbrella sheltering her from the Southern Hemisphere summer sun. She and others who knelt in prayer nearby said they were against the proposed change in law. 
 
Maria Angela Guerrero of the Campaign for Legal Abortion activist group, speaking to reporters in front of the Senate, said she was “cautiously optimistic” the bill would pass. 
 
On the other side of the debate is the Catholic Church, which is calling on senators to reject the proposal to allow women to end pregnancies up to the 14th week. Argentina is the birthplace of Pope Francis. 
 
Argentine law now allows abortion only when there is a serious risk to the health of the mother or in cases of rape. 
 A woman against an abortion bill prays as Argentina’s Senate prepares to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling party and has already passed the lower house, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 29, 2020.Legal abortion is extremely rare in Latin America because of the long history of opposition by the Church. Across the region, abortions are available on demand only in Communist Cuba, comparatively tiny Uruguay, and some parts of Mexico. 
 
The change in law has been rejected by Argentina’s Congress before, but this is the first time such a bill is being presented to lawmakers with support from the ruling government. In 2018, before center-left Peronist Alberto Fernandez was elected president, a similar bill was rejected by a slim margin. 
 
The measure is accompanied by side legislation aimed at assisting women who want to continue their pregnancies and face severe economic or social difficulties. 
…

Five people, including a 12-year-old girl, died after a magnitude-6.4 earthquake swept through central Croatia Tuesday, destroying several buildings, injuring at least 20 people and causing tremors in neighboring countries, according to officials.
 
The epicenter of the quake, Petrinja, a town of about 25,000 people, sustained the worst damage. On Monday it was hit by a 5.2 quake. Tuesday’s quake saw people run out onto rubble-covered streets for safety.
 
“The biggest part of central Petrinja is in a red zone, which means that most of the buildings are not usable,” Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said when he and other government ministers arrived in Petrinja after the earthquake.
 
State television reports four people were killed In Glina. The prime minister confirmed the fifth casualty was a young girl in Petrinja.
 
The army has been dispatched to the area to help rescue people from the rubble. At least two people are seriously injured. Rescue operations also are underway in Sisak, a neighboring town.
 
Some injured people have been treated for “fractures, concussions and some have had to be operated on,” said Tomislav Fabijanic, head of emergency medical services in Sisak.
 
Plenkovic said people will have to be moved from Petrinja “because it was unsafe” to be here.”
 
The government says it also has made arrangements for people displaced by the quake to find accommodations. The Croatian army is providing about 500 places for victims, while others will be housed in hotels and other habitable places, according to the government.
 
Twelve countries including Serbia, Slovenia, Austria and Bosnia also felt tremors, according to Hina, Croatia’s news agency.
 
Buildings shook for a couple of minutes in the city of Graz and the Carinthia province in Austria. Local news media report residents said their furniture and furnishings shook for several minutes.
 
In Slovenia, the STA news agency reports authorities shut down its nuclear power plant as a precautionary measure.
 
Croatia’s Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said the country has sought help from the European Union and is awaiting assistance.
 
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter she spoke with Plenkovic and instructed an envoy to travel to Croatia as soon as possible.
 
Earthquakes are not uncommon in Croatia, but ones as strong as this have not been felt since the 1990s, when the village of Ston was destroyed.    
…

Britain and Vietnam signed a free trade agreement on Tuesday, Vietnam’s trade ministry said, days before Britain completes its transition out of the European Union.The deal, which will for Britain replace the existing EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), will take effect on Dec. 31, the ministry said in a statement.Trade between Vietnam and Britain has risen by an average of 12% a year over the past decade to reach $6.6 billion last year, and the deal will help boost Vietnam’s exports of garments, footwear products, rice, seafood and wooden furniture, it said.Since leaving the EU in January, Britain has been striking out alone and negotiating new trade deals with countries to replace those the bloc had negotiated.Tuesday’s deal will ensure Britain does not lose access to preferential tariffs in one of the fastest growing and most open economies in Asia.The free trade agreement with Britain has the same provisions as those of EVFTA, the ministry said. EVFTA came into effect in August and was due to cut or eliminate 99% of tariffs on goods traded between Vietnam and the EU.”The agreement will create a framework for comprehensive, long-term and sustainable economic cooperation between the two countries,” the ministry said. 
…

An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck a town in Croatia on Tuesday, with the emergency services saying many people had been injured and video footage showing people being rescued from rubble near the epicenter.The GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences said the quake hit at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).The N1 news channel reported that the epicenter was in the town of Petrinja, 50 km from Croatia’s capital Zagreb.N1 quoted a Petrinja town official as saying that a 12-year old child in Petrinja had been killed, but gave no details.It showed footage of rescuers there pulling out a man and a child from the debris. Both were alive.Other footage showed a house with a roof caved in. The reporter said she did not know if anyone was inside.Tomislav Fabijanic, head of emergency medical service in Sisak near Petrinja, said there were many injured in Petrinja and in Sisak.”There are fractures, there are concussions and some had to be operated on,” he said,Slovenia’s STA news agency said that the country’s sole nuclear power plant which is 100 km from the epicenter was shut down as a precaution.There was no further information available on casualties.The quake could be felt in the capital Zagreb, where people rushed onto the streets, some strewn with broken roof tiles and other debris. It was also felt in neighboring Bosnia and Serbia.On Monday a magnitude 5.2 earthquake hit central Croatia, also near Petrinja. In March, an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 hit Zagreb causing one death and injuring 27 people. 
…

French couturier Pierre Cardin, who made his name by selling designer clothes to the masses, and his fortune by being the first to exploit that name as a brand for selling everything from cars to perfume, died on Tuesday aged 98. In a career spanning more than 60 years, Cardin drew scorn and admiration from fellow fashion designers for his brash business sense, and influenced catwalks with his space-age, futuristic bubble dresses and geometrical cuts and patterns. Cardin, who was a mentor to designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, was active in fashion circles until the last, still taking young designers under his wing, attending parties and events and regularly visiting his Paris office by Jaguar. FILE – French fashion designer Pierre Cardin poses in front of his 1954-1956-1957 fashion creations in his museum called “Past-Present-Future” in Paris, Nov. 12, 2014.Cardin was the first designer to sell clothes collections in department stores in the late 1950s, and the first to enter the licensing business for perfumes, accessories and even food – which later drove profits for many other fashion houses. “It’s all the same to me whether I am doing sleeves for dresses or table legs,” a telling quote on his website once read. Hard as it may be to imagine decades later, Armani chocolates, Bulgari hotels and Gucci sunglasses are all based on Cardin’s realization that a fashion brand’s glamour had endless merchandising potential. Over the years his name has been stamped on razor blades, household goods, and tacky accessories – even cheap boxer shorts. He once said it would not bother him to have his initials, PC, etched into rolls of toilet paper, and he was also the inspiration for a phallus-like perfume flask. His detractors accused him of destroying the value of his brand and the notion of luxury in general. But he seemed largely unaffected by criticism. “I had a sense for marketing my name,” Cardin told Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in 2007. “Does money spoil one’s ideas? I don’t dream of money after all, but while I’m dreaming, I’m making money. It’s never been about the money.” He maintained that he built his business empire without ever asking a bank for a loan. Born near Venice on July 2, 1922, to French parents of Italian descent, Cardin was educated in the not-so-glamorous French city of Saint Etienne. He went to work for a tailor in nearby Vichy at age 17 and dreamt for a time of becoming an actor, doing some work on the stage as well as modeling and dancing professionally. ‘Beauty and the beast’ When he came to Paris in 1945, he made theatrical masks and costumes for Jean Cocteau’s film, “Beauty and the Beast,” and a year later joined the then-unknown Christian Dior. His first big commercial venture, when he teamed up with the Printemps department store in the late 1950s, led to him being briefly expelled from the rarified guild of French fashion designers, the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture. Couturiers in that club were forbidden at that time to show outside their Paris salons, let alone in department stores. He also blazed a trail outside France long before other fashion multinationals in search of new markets. He presented a collection in Communist China in 1979 when it was still largely closed to the outside world. And just two years after the Berlin Wall came down, in 1991, a Cardin fashion show on Moscow’s Red Square attracted a crowd of 200,000. Cardin also expanded into new businesses, buying fabled Paris restaurant Maxim’s in the 1980s and opening replica outlets around the world. He leveraged the investment further by launching Minim’s, a chain of fancy fast-food joints that reproduced the Belle Epoque decor of the original exclusive Paris eatery. His empire embraces perfumes, foods, industrial design, real estate, entertainment and even fresh flowers. True to his taste for futuristic designs, Cardin also owns the Palais des Bulles, or Bubble Palace, a residence-cum-events-venue woven into the cliffs on one of the most exclusive strips of the French riviera. Not too far away, there is also a chateau in the village of Lacoste that once belonged to the Marquis de Sade. In February this year he teamed up with a designer seven decades his junior. Pierre Courtial, 27, unveiled a collection at Cardin’s studio on Paris’s chic Rue Saint-Honore, with pieces that echoed some of the veteran designer’s geometrical esthetics. Cardin said he still rated originality above anything else. “I’ve always tried to be different, to be myself,” he told Reuters. “Whether people like it or not, that’s not what matters.” 
…

Britain must vaccinate 2 million people a week to avoid a third wave of the coronavirus outbreak, a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has concluded. Britain has had more than 71,000 deaths from the coronavirus and has recorded more than 2.3 million cases of COVID-19 infections as of late Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University data. “The most stringent intervention scenario, with tier 4 [restrictions] England-wide and schools closed during January and 2 million individuals vaccinated per week, is the only scenario we considered which reduces peak ICU burden below the levels seen during the first wave,” the study said. “In the absence of substantial vaccine roll-out, cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths in 2021 may exceed those in 2020,” it said. FILE – Staff members deliver injections of the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to patients in their cars at a drive-in vaccination center in Hyde, Greater Manchester, northwest England, Dec. 17, 2020.An accelerated uptake of 2 million vaccinated per week “is predicted to have a much more substantial impact,” it added. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his scientific advisers have said a variant of the coronavirus, which could be up to 70% more transmissible, was spreading rapidly in Britain, although it is not thought to be more deadly or to cause more serious illness. That prompted tight social mixing restriction measures for London and southeast England, while plans to ease curbs over Christmas across the nation were dramatically scaled back or scrapped altogether. Media reports over the weekend said that the United Kingdom will roll out the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine starting January 4, with its approval by the country’s medical regulator expected within days. Earlier this month, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to roll out the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech. The British government said Thursday that 600,000 people in the United Kingdom have received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine since inoculations began. 
 
…

A roadside bomb killed three French soldiers Monday, according to the French government, which said their armored vehicle struck the explosive device in the Hombori region of Mali. The soldiers were part of France’s Operation Barkhane mission, which is fighting an Islamist extremist insurgency in Africa’s Sahel region. They were working as part of a 5,000-troop mission “in an area where terrorist groups are attacking civilians and threatening the regional stability,” according to Florence Parly, France’s defense minister. The French Defense Ministry has identified the soldiers as Brig. Chief Tanerii Mauri, 28, Fighters 1st Class Dorian Issakhanian, 23, and Quentin Pauchet, 21. French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated in a press statement “France’s determination to continue the fight against terrorism” and praised the efforts of the soldiers in restoring peace and stability in the troubled region. Forty-four other French soldiers have died since January 2013 when French troops began their mission in the Sahel. In September, three soldiers in an armored vehicle hit an explosive device in Tessalit, also in northern Mali. Two of them died and the third was injured. Jihadists have killed thousands of civilians and soldiers in recent years as they expanded their activities to other parts of the region, such as Burkina Faso and Niger. 
 
…

Aurora Leticia Cruz has tried to keep up with her blood pressure medication since fleeing Guatemala more than a year ago, but the limbo she finds herself in — stuck in a sprawling camp at the Texas border after traversing Mexico — has made that hard. When Cruz felt woozy on a recent day as her blood pressure skyrocketed, it could have ended in tragedy, leaving her 17-year-old granddaughter and two toddler great-grandchildren alone in the camp in Matamoros. But instead, a nurse practitioner from Oregon and a Cuban doctor, who like Cruz is awaiting U.S. asylum proceedings, were able to pull up her medical record and prescribe the correct dosage.  The health care workers who helped Cruz are with Global Response Management, a nonprofit that is attempting to go beyond crisis response and build a system to make it easier to track the health of migrants along their journey from Central America to the U.S. border. Cruz’s medical record was created in June by the group, which has been collecting patient information. FILE – Dairon Elisondo Rojas, a doctor from Cuba who is seeking asylum in the U.S., checks a woman at a clinic set up for asylum-seekers hoping to enter the U.S. and living and waiting in Matamoros, Mexico, Nov. 19, 2020.”I envision this as a relay race in which we are passing the medical baton to other providers as people work their way north,” said Blake Davis, a paramedic from Maine who volunteers for the organization. The efforts are part of a growing trend in humanitarian aid that has accelerated amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has highlighted the difficulties in getting basic health care to migrants. With public hospitals overwhelmed by virus cases, migrants with heart conditions or problematic pregnancies have nowhere to go. Others have been prescribed ineffective medications because a changing array of doctors are forced to treat them without any medical history. Led by U.S. military veterans, Global Response Management is staffed by volunteers primarily from the U.S. and paid asylum-seekers who were medical professionals in their homelands. The group has treated thousands of migrants over the past year at two clinics in Matamoros, including one inside the camp. Medics with the group have innovated to bring care to the austere environment, building on what they learned from the organization’s work with displaced people in countries such as Bangladesh and Iraq.  They have used telemedicine to consult specialists in the United States and connected a portable device to an iPhone to perform a sonogram. They have also worked with local leaders in the camp to control the spread of the coronavirus by encouraging mask wearing, increasing the number of hand-washing stations and setting up an isolation area. Only one person from the camp has been hospitalized with the virus, even as medical facilities in the area struggled to keep up with infected patients this summer. Treatment in transitBut the group’s goal is not just to care for migrants once they reach the border. It wants to offer health care along the routes migrants take.  “Humanitarian aid has to be thought of in a different light,” said executive director Helen Perry, an Army Reserve nurse.  FILE – Volunteer Mark McDonald enters data at a clinic set up for asylum-seekers waiting in Matamoros, Mexico, Nov. 19, 2020.It’s uncertain how long the camp will exist since U.S. President-elect Joe Biden pledged to undo the Trump administration policy known as Remain in Mexico, which has forced tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait across the border while their cases are considered by U.S. courts. Regardless, there will continue to be people fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, and aid agencies are trying to figure out how to protect them.  Davis, the paramedic from Maine, plans to set up a clinic next year in Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border. He recently flew over the isolated terrain migrants traverse in Guatemala to view the challenge medical teams would face in treating people in transit. “There is nothing out there for them to get help,” Davis said. “We want to be able to fill that void.”  The group is working to connect migrants to health care and other resources by asking them what they need via WhatsApp. The idea is to make contact as early as possible with migrants, treat their health problems before they worsen, and create a system where their records can be accessed by doctors along the way.Challenges  It is a daunting task that will require finding the migrants, many of whom are trying to avoid detection, and winning their trust. The group’s members also must get government officials on board.  And they must tread carefully, so the health data cannot be used against the migrants. As they do in Matamoros, the group will label each record with a number, rather than a name. Other aid groups are also tackling the challenge. The International Rescue Committee next month is launching InfoDigna, an interactive map in Mexico that connects migrants to shelters, health care providers and other services wherever they are. It will offer live chats to answer migrants’ questions about everything from the latest COVID-19 restrictions to the status of immigration court operations. InfoDigna is part of the group’s global digital information service, which informs asylum-seekers from Italy to Colombia via smart phones. “It meets people where they’re at,” said Edith Tapia, who coordinates the effort in Mexico. The organizations are stepping into a gap that the World Health Organization has urged governments of host countries to fill, but few have. The issue of how to care for vulnerable people on the move is only likely to grow: A record 80 million people are fleeing poverty, conflict and environmental disasters, according to the WHO. FILE – Maria de Jesus Ruiz Carrasco, center, from Cuba and seeking asylum in the U.S., uses crutches as she arrives at a clinic in Matamoros, Mexico, to have her broken leg bandages changed.Maria de Jesus Ruiz Carrasco says she would have lost her foot if Global Response Management hadn’t stepped in.  The 31-year-old Cuban woman was rescued by Border Patrol agents who found her along the Rio Grande with a broken leg in October after she crossed from Matamoros.  She underwent two surgeries at a hospital in Brownsville, Texas. But two weeks later, Carrasco was sent back to Matamoros with an oozing wound and 14 pins in her leg. U.S. Customs and Border Protection guidelines recommend asylum-seekers with medical problems not be returned to Mexico.  The agency said that because of privacy laws it could not discuss Carrasco’s case, but generally if a patient is “cleared for travel” upon release from a medical facility, then the asylum-seeker may be returned to Mexico. Decisions are made case by case. A Mexican official at the border directed Carrasco, who was on crutches and in need of help, to the Global Response Management clinic, where she met Mileydis Tamayo, a nurse from Cuba who is also seeking asylum. Tamayo has been treating Carrasco’s wound for 10 weeks. “If this group wasn’t here,” Tamayo said later, “many people would be in very bad shape.” 
 
…

The European Union has endorsed the post-Brexit trade deal with Britain set to go into effect on January 1.“Green light. EU ambassadors have unanimously approved the provisional application of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” said spokesman Sebastian Fischer of Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency.The deal, announced last Thursday, still must be retrospectively ratified by the European Parliament, which is expected in late February.The approval provisionally allows tariff-free trade with Britain to continue after the country officially leaves the EU single market on New Year’s Day.Ambassadors from the 27 EU member states met in Brussels on Monday to approve the accord.Britain’s parliament is expected to approve it on Wednesday.
…

Earlier this year, Russia claimed victory in the global race for a vaccine against the coronavirus. But as Charles Maynes reports from Moscow, the Kremlin’s new challenge is the vaccine’s rollout, and convincing Russians the drug is both safe and effective. 
Camera: Ricardo Marquina
…

The European Union has endorsed the post-Brexit trade deal with Britain set to go into effect on January 1.“Green light. EU ambassadors have unanimously approved the provisional application of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” said spokesman Sebastian Fischer of Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency.The deal, announced last Thursday, still must be retrospectively ratified by the European Parliament, which is expected in late February.The approval provisionally allows tariff-free trade with Britain to continue after the country officially leaves the EU single market on New Year’s Day.Ambassadors from the 27 EU member states met in Brussels on Monday to approve the accord.Britain’s parliament is expected to approve it on Wednesday.
…

Seventeen people are missing and presumed dead after a Russian fishing boat sank in the northern Barents Sea Monday morning, authorities said in a statement carried by local media. “The crew consisted of 19 people. Two people were rescued,” the Russian Emergency Ministry said. Officials believe that ice accumulation on the trawler caused the accident. The privately owned ship Onega, based in Murmansk, capsized and sank near the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Barents Sea. Four vessels have been deployed for a search and rescue operation in the area and a criminal investigation is already underway.    The Russian-flagged fishing boat had been in operation since 1979.   
…

About 200 British holidaymakers forced to respect a 10-day quarantine in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier fled secretly in the night, the municipality said Sunday.About 200 out of an estimated 420 British holidaymakers stricken in Verbier by the quarantine measures imposed by the Swiss government on travelers coming from Britain since December 14, left right away, reported the newspaper SonntagsZeitung.The upscale resort of Verbier, very popular with British customers, hoped to welcome thousands of skiers from Great Britain, but the discovery of the new British variant of the novel coronavirus has shattered those hopes.Some British tourists staying in Verbier left immediately, but others decided to stay a little longer, the communications officer for the municipality of Bagnes, Jean-Marc Sandoz, said.Many remained in quarantine for a day before slipping away, he told the ATS news agency.”It was when they saw that the meal trays remained intact that the hoteliers noticed that the customers had left,” Sandoz said.”We can’t blame them. In most cases, quarantine was untenable. Imagine being four in a hotel room of 20 meters square,” he added.
 The tourists left “a little angry with Switzerland” and with the feeling of having been “trapped,” he added.British tourists normally represent 21% of the clientele of this Valais resort, voted the best ski resort in Switzerland for the past two years.Two cases of the new British variant of the coronavirus have been detected in Switzerland and one in neighboring Liechtenstein, the Swiss Ministry of Health said Sunday.Two cases of the South African variant have also been reported.
 
…

Turkey’s defense minister said that any attack by eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar on its personnel in the North African country would be met with force.”A war criminal, murderer Haftar and his supporters must know that they will be seen as a legitimate target in case of any attack on Turkish forces” by his troops, Hulusi Akar said in an address to Turkish units in Tripoli late on Saturday and made available to media on Sunday.His comments come days after Haftar said his forces would “prepare to drive out the occupier by faith, will and weapons,” referring to Turkish troops operating in support of Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA).”If they take such a step, they will be unable to find any place to flee to,” Akar said, referring to Haftar’s forces. “Everyone should come to their senses.”Turkish support for the GNA earlier this year helped repel a 14-month offensive against the capital by Haftar, who is backed by Russia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates.The two sides struck a cease-fire agreement in October, setting the stage for elections at the end of next year.Akar on Saturday made an unscheduled visit to Tripoli where he discussed, according to Libyan officials, military cooperation between Ankara and the GNA.Turkey’s defense minister said political talks based on the cease-fire sought to find a solution.”What matters here is that everyone should contribute to a political solution. Any action other than that would be wrong,” he added.Haftar had said there would be “no peace in the presence of a colonizer on our land” during his speech on Thursday.    
…

Several European Union countries began vaccinating against COVID-19 Sunday.In Italy, a nurse, a university professor and a doctor were the first people to receive the initial vaccine dose at Rome’s Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital.In Spain, the vaccination began at Los Olmos nursing home in Guadalajara.In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babis was among the first people inoculated, as vaccinations began nationwide.In Germany Saturday, 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla, who lives in a retirement home, received the first of her two shots.In Hungary, it was a doctor, Arienne Kertesz from South Pest.In Slovakia, an infectious disease specialist was the first in line.The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were limited to 10,000 doses in most EU countries. Each nation decides its own vaccination program, but all are vaccinating the most vulnerable first.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it “a touching moment of unity” in a video celebrating the beginning of the rollout of the vaccine to nearly 450 million people.The vaccination in EU countries began as a new coronavirus variant, more contagious and more dangerous, spread internationally, adding emphasis to the World Health Organization’s warning that the current pandemic will not be the last.The warning came in a video message on Sunday by WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.The world must learn from COVID-19 and address “the intimate links between the health of humans, animals and the planet,” Tedros said in his remarks for the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.“For too long the world has operated on a cycle of panic and neglect,” he said. “We throw money at one epidemic and when it’s over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one.”Tedros said every country needs to invest in what he called the supply of care: the ability to avoid, detect and mitigate all kinds of emergencies.The new virus strain is 50% to 74% more contagious than its predecessors, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, raising fears of more hospitalizations and deaths in 2021 than in 2020.Effective Monday, U.S. authorities said passengers arriving from Britain must test negative for COVID-19 before departure. 
…

Although small in the face of South America’s giants, Haiti is slowly developing its cocoa industry, earning better incomes for thousands of farmers and refuting the stereotype that culinary art is the preserve of wealthy countries.Haiti’s annual production of 5,000 metric tons of cocoa pales in comparison to the 70,000 metric tons produced per year by neighboring Dominican Republic, but the sector’s development is recent in the island nation.Feccano, a federation of cocoa cooperatives in northern Haiti, became the first group to organize exchanges in 2001 by prioritizing farmers’ profits.”Before, there was the systematic destruction of cocoa trees because the market price wasn’t interesting for farmers who preferred very short-cycle crops,” said Guito Gilot, Feccano’s commercial director.The cooperative now works with more than 4,000 farmers in northern Haiti.By fermenting its members’ beans before export, Feccano has been able to target the market for fine and aromatic cocoa.”Feccano’s customers pay for quality: they don’t have the New York Stock Exchange as a reference,” Gilot said.Just-in-time collectionSmelling potential, Haiti’s private sector began investing in the cocoa industry, which until then had been supported solely by non-governmental organizations and humanitarian efforts.By setting up its fermentation setter in 2014 in Acul-du-Nord, the company Produit des iles (PISA) entered the market. But the logistical challenges are many.”The producers we work with farm less than a hectare, often divided into several plots, whereas, in Latin America, a small producer already owns four or five hectares,” said Aline Etlicher, who developed the industry at PISA.”We buy fresh cocoa, the same day as the harvest so the farmer no longer has the problems of drying and storing that they would have if they sold it to an intermediary,” the French agronomist said.In recent months, this just-in-time bean collection from all sites has been more challenging because many roads were regularly blocked because of socio-political unrest.Maintaining organic and fair-trade certifications for the cocoa is delicate, but the Haitian style has made its mark abroad.”Today there are bars sold in the United States that are called Acul-du-Nord,” Etlicher said.”With our customers, we are part of the ‘bean to bar’ movement of chocolate makers who transform the cocoa bean into the chocolate bar,” she said, adding that by cutting out the middleman, Haitian producers’ revenues have doubled.And on the other end of the chain, bean processing remains local.’Plant your cocoa’For master chocolatier Ralph Leroy, making a rum ganache — Haitian, just like all the products he uses — was not an obvious choice.After years in Montreal, he returned home to Haiti as a haute-couture stylist.His shift to cocoa began when he made clothes out of chocolate for a culinary trade show. The training he then underwent for a year in Italy fueled his passion as much as his pride.”The first week, I think I was insulted when the professor said, ‘Chocolate is made for Europe. You there, plant your cocoa, we buy the cocoa and do the work,'” he recalled.Today, Leroy runs the chocolate company he founded in 2016, Makaya, and the edible sculptures that come out of his workshop are a huge sensation at parties. His company now has about 20 employees who share his passion.”Even in cooking schools, we don’t learn this. I learned everything here and I am very, very proud,” said Duasmine Paul, 22, head of Makaya’s laboratory.Echoes of car horns reach the ears of Makaya employees carefully sorting cocoa beans, a side effect of the chaotic traffic that paralyzes Haitian capital Port-au-Prince at the end of the year.From his workshop, where he also concocts chocolate-based cocktails, Leroy sees as sweet revenge the great marketing of his bars.”The greatest pleasure is when, before traveling, Haitians come here to buy a lot to offer abroad. It’s become their pride. And also when Europeans come and buy all the stock. … I tell myself that I am doing a good job,” he says with a burst of laughter.
…

At the entrance to Argentina’s Congress is a plaque reminding legislators that Our Lady of Lujan is the patron saint of the country’s political parties, a not-so-subtle nod to religion in a nation considering whether to allow abortions.As Argentina’s Senate prepares to vote on a bill that would legalize the practice, the Catholic Church has joined forces with evangelical Christians to fight the measure tooth and nail.The bill, which aims to legalize voluntary abortions at up to 14 weeks, was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 11 and will be debated and voted on in the Senate on Tuesday.Two years ago, a similar bill passed the lower house but was defeated in the Senate following a determined campaign by both Catholics and evangelicals.Argentina’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and a 1994 reform removed the requirement that the president be Catholic.However, it retains a reference to God in its preamble and its second article guarantees government support for the Catholic Church.”The Catholic Church in Argentina has great sway. There’s a very strong Catholic culture in the political world,” sociologist Fortunato Mallimaci, who wrote a book on what he says is the myth of Argentine secularism, told AFP.”Religious groups look for state support and the state, when it feels weak, looks for support from religious groups. Today the Catholic Church wields more political than religious clout,” he said.Catholicism is a strong force in Argentina, the homeland of Pope Francis.The state pays a salary to archbishops and subsidizes Catholic schooling, which accounts for 36% of education in Argentina, according to Mallimaci.Francis stays silentHowever, Catholicism has been losing influence as evangelical Christianity gains ground.According to a 2019 poll by a government agency, 62% of Argentines identify as Catholic, 18.9% as non-religious and 15.3% as evangelical.The Catholic Church’s sway can be seen in Argentina’s delay compared to other countries in adopting a number of laws: divorce was legalized only in 1987, sex education introduced in 2006, gay marriage approved in 2010 and a gender identity law passed in 2012.Abortion is currently only allowed in two cases: rape and a danger to the mother’s life.”There is an opposition and huge rejection from the Catholic Church, which weighs heavily” on the chances of the law passing, constitutional lawyer Alfonso Santiago told AFP.However, Santiago believes the relationship between the government of President Alberto Fernandez, who sponsored the abortion bill, and the Catholic Church will remain strong regardless of which way the vote goes.”I don’t think there will be a break in collaboration on other issues. It didn’t happen before” when, for example, same-sex marriage was approved, he said.While Francis has in the past likened abortion to hiring an assassin, he’s remained silent over the current debate.Protest strength”The problem for the Catholic Church if abortion is legalized is that it will be up to it, and not the state, to ensure that its faithful comply with a prohibition that will be only religious,” Mallimaci said.A 2020 government poll found that 22.3% of Catholics in Argentina believe that a woman should have the right to an abortion if she wants one.Meanwhile 55.7% said it should be permitted only in certain situations while just 17.2% supported a blanket ban.Since 2018, evangelicals have come to the fore in protesting legalization.”They have the momentum of the reborn,” said Mallimaci, pointing to the light blue handkerchiefs brandished by evangelicals at their protests, as a counterweight to the green ones sported by abortion rights activists. “Catholics don’t mobilize in that way.”Despite their constant growth, evangelical churches in Argentina “don’t have the same political weight as in other countries, such as Brazil where they can count on a parliamentary bloc.”Their strength, however, lies is in street protests and they will be out in force Tuesday in front of Congress, face-to-face with abortion rights demonstrators.
…

A fast-food eatery at Pompeii has been excavated, helping to reveal dishes that were popular for the citizens of the ancient Roman city who were partial to eating out.Pompeii Archaeological Park’s longtime chief, Massimo Osanna, said Saturday that while about 80 such fast-foods spots have been found at Pompeii, it is the first time such a hot-food-drink eatery — known as a thermopolium — was completely unearthed.A segment of the fast-food counter was partially dug up in 2019 during work to shore up Pompeii’s oft-crumbling ruins. Since then, archaeologists kept digging, revealing a multisided counter, with typical wide holes inserted into its top. The countertop held deep vessels for hot foods, not unlike soup containers nestled into modern-day salad bars.Plant and animal specialists are still analyzing remains from the site, with its counter frescoed with a figure of an undersea nymph astride a horse. Images of two upside-down mallards and a rooster, whose plumage was painted with the typical vivid color known as Pompeiian red, also brightened the eatery and likely served to advertise the menu.Another fresco depicted a dog on a leash, perhaps not unlike modern reminders to leash pets. Vulgar graffiti were inscribed on the painting’s frame.A fresco depicting two ducks and a rooster on an ancient counter discovered during excavations in Pompeii, Italy, is seen in this handout picture released Dec. 26, 2020.Valeria Amoretti, a Pompeii staff anthropologist, said “initial analyses confirm how the painted images represent, at least in part, the foods and beverages effectively sold inside.” Her statement noted that duck bone fragment was found in one of the containers, along with remains from goats, pigs, fish and snails. At the bottom of a wine container were traces of ground fava beans, which in ancient times were added to wine for flavor and to lighten its color, Amoretti said.”We know what they were eating that day,” said Osanna, referring to the day of Pompeii’s destruction in 79 A.D. The food remains indicated “what’s popular with the common folk,” Osanna told Rai state TV, noting that street-food places weren’t frequented by the Roman elite.One surprise find was the complete skeleton of a dog. The discovery intrigued the excavators, since it wasn’t a “large, muscular dog like that painted on the counter but of an extremely small example” of an adult dog, whose height at shoulder level was 20 to 25 centimeters, Amoretti said. It’s rather rare, Amoretti said, to find remains from ancient times of such small dogs, discoveries that “attest to selective breeding in the Roman epoch to obtain this result.”Also unearthed were a bronze ladle, nine amphorae, which were popular food containers in Roman times, a couple of flasks and a ceramic oil container.Successful restaurateurs know that a good location can be crucial, and the operator of this ancient fast-food eatery seemed to have found a good spot. Osanna noted that right outside was a small square with a fountain, with another thermopolium in the vicinity.Pompeii was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which is near present-day Naples. Much of the ancient city still lies unexcavated. The site is one of Italy’s most popular tourist attractions.Human remains were also discovered in the excavation of the eatery.Those bones were apparently disturbed in the 17th century during clandestine excavations by thieves looking for valuables, Pompeii authorities said. Some of the bones belonged to a man, who, when the Vesuvius volcano erupted, appeared to have been lying on a bed or a cot, since nails and pieces of wood were found under his body, authorities said. Other human remains were found inside one of the counter’s vessels, possibly placed there by those excavators centuries ago.
…

The coronavirus pandemic has dominated the news this year, and it’s no different this holiday season. Despite public health warnings not to travel, many Americans boarded planes to celebrate Christmas with loved ones in other cities. Meanwhile, Europe is receiving its first shipments of a vaccine against the virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti has our update.
…