Thousands of Brazilians hit the beach this past weekend in Rio de Janeiro, despite warnings from authorities bracing for a new wave of COVID-19 cases. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi 
 
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A top British police official Tuesday said officers have issued about 45,000 fines for violations of COVID-19 restrictions and that they will issue more to keep the infection from spreading. The chair of Britain’s National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt, made the comments at a news conference, along with Home Secretary Priti Patel. Hewitt said he makes no apology for the fines levied because too many people were still choosing not to abide by the rules. He warned there would be more officers out on patrol to catch those who he said were “endangering us all.” Britain is among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic and is in the midst of a third national lockdown to stop rapidly spreading infections. The nation reported 1,243 more deaths Tuesday, bringing the current number of fatalities to 83,203. Patel described the figures as “horrifying” and stressed the “absolutely critical” need for people to follow the rules. Patel said she supported the efforts of police officers, and that a minority of people were putting the entire nation at risk by not following the rules. She said, “Our ability to get through the coming weeks and months depends on each and every one of us contributing to what is truly a national effort.” 
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With days to go before the inauguration of Joe Biden as America’s 46th president, America’s European allies are preparing for the new administration.  
For Europe’s leaders Biden’s return to the White House, which he left four years ago as Barack Obama’s vice president, along with familiar faces in key foreign and security jobs, is reassuring.
 
And it is even more so in the wake of last week’s violence against Congress by agitators supporting U.S. President Donald Trump, focused on deep-state conspiracy theories, who sought to reverse the result of Biden’s presidential election win. It is an assault that has left Europeans as disoriented and shaken as Americans.  
 Europe Expects Improved Transatlantic Relations, But Not a Return to Status Quo European leaders and officials are not expecting transatlantic relations to snap back to the way things were before Donald Trump was elected US presidentAt a security conference two years ago in Munich, European leaders were tugging at Biden’s sleeves in the margins, urging him to run for office. After enduring a rough-and-tough “America First” speech from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, their nerves were soothed by Biden, now seen as the most pro-Atlanticist president since George H.W. Bush, when he quipped in his address: “This too shall pass. We will be back.”  
 
Biden and his team of top advisers, his nominee for U.S. secretary of state, Tony Blinken, and his picks for top jobs at the CIA and in the National Security Council, including Jake Sullivan and Amanda Sloat, are known quantities on the other side of the Atlantic, having served in the Obama administration. Sloat, a former senior State Department official, will lead the NSC’s European desk. “Amanda is a great professional who knows Europe well,” says David O’Sullivan, a retired Irish diplomat and former EU envoy in Washington.
 
Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are now determined to repair frayed relations and to steady democracies roiled by unprecedented domestic political turmoil and challenged by authoritarian powers. There will be quick agreement on a range of issues with both Brussels and Washington eager for close collaboration, according to analysts. Biden already has committed to rejoining the Paris climate accord and says he will reverse Trump’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization.FILE – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a panel discussion at the annual Munich Security Conference, in Munich, Germany, Feb. 16, 2019.Washington and Brussels are likely to move quickly to shape an initiative on how the moribund World Trade Organization can be reformed and rules-based multilateral global governance generally strengthened, say analysts. They also expect a bid to iron out trade disputes. Last month, the European Commission called for the U.S. and the EU to “work closely together on solving bilateral trade irritants.” There is some hope in Brussels of Biden lifting Trump-era tariffs imposed on EU steel and aluminum imports.
 
That could pave the way to settle a longstanding dispute over subsidies to airplane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus. The EC also laid out a wish list for cooperation, including on the pandemic, climate change, technology, security and defense. The list was designed to demonstrate how in tune Europe is with some of Biden’s priorities. It also was, though, an early pitch of EU positions where there are differences, readying for negotiations.
 
Additionally, individual European countries have been courting the new administration. Biden has said he wants to convene a global summit of democracies to forge common goals that serve the cause of freedom and rally democracies to counter authoritarian alternatives. Victoria Nuland, a veteran diplomat slated for a top job at the State Department, recently said: “It’s time to stand up and defend it [democracy].”  
 
She added: “We’ve got problems not only dealing with the autocracies out there … we’ve got backsliding countries all over the world who may have elections, but they’re not behaving like democracies in terms of protecting free press and free judiciaries and upholding the rule of law. And we have problems inside our own societies.”
 
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Saturday: “We are ready to work with the United States on a joint Marshall Plan for democracy,” a reference to the U.S. campaign launched in 1948 to rebuild 18 war-torn Western European nations. Maas said there were “no better, closer, more natural partners in the 21st century than America and Europe.”
 
Britain, too, is ratcheting up outreach to Washington with four top cabinet ministers slated to visit the U.S. capital in the next few weeks. With an eye on the possibility that Biden would defeat Trump, Prime Minister Boris Johnson started advocating in June for the establishment of a D-10 group of leading democracies.
 Under Biden, Europe Hopes for Compromise in US Digital Tax DebateAfter years of resistance by Trump administration, Europeans now hope incoming Biden administration will be willing to compromise – or face possible digital taxLast week, Johnson appointed a cabinet minister to take charge of the COP26 climate change summit, which Britain will host in November in Glasgow. The appointment came after Biden aides warned London it needed to ramp up summit preparations or risk not being taken seriously by the new administration.  
 
Johnson’s government has been quick to outline how well-aligned it is with many of Biden’s key priorities, including strengthening NATO, especially in cybersecurity. It also is boosting its own defense spending. And last month it backed off reneging on parts of a year-old Brexit withdrawal agreement. That could have resulted in border posts being established on the frontier between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, a breach of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Peace deal.  
 
Both moves were “responses to Biden’s victory,” says Lisa Nandy, the foreign affairs spokesperson of Britain’s Labor Party. She told VOA: “It has been made very clear and not just by Biden, but by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats, that Britain needs to start repairing relations with the EU. Britain has lot of work to do to show that we are still relevant post-Brexit.”FILE – Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks ahead of a meeting at European Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 6, 2015.While there’s much to uniting the two continents, a simple return to how things were before Donald Trump’s presidency isn’t likely, policymakers and analysts agree. Major adjustments will have to be made because of domestic political developments both in the U.S. and Europe—and because of changed geopolitics.
 
Since Biden was last in the White House, China has become even more assertive and the Kremlin has amended the Russian Constitution, paving the way for Vladimir Putin to remain in power in Moscow for the foreseeable future. Both China and Russia have been accused of waging hybrid warfare against the West in a bid to unravel Western democracies by meddling in democratic elections, launching invisible cyber hacks against both the U.S. and Europe, and running online disinformation campaigns.  
 
As Americans and Europeans swap their to-do lists, they say there are many crossovers but also concede differences, as well.  
 
“A lot of commentators focus on how America has changed under Donald Trump. But Europe has also changed,” says Hans Kundnani of Britain’s Chatham House. He cites the growing debate in Europe about the bloc developing “strategic autonomy” with the goal of increasing EU self-sufficiency and independence at a time of growing geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China.
 
Biden aides say they don’t fear a more autonomous Europe, saying a marriage is strengthened when both partners are strong, as long as they don’t start going separate ways.
 
But EU ambitions to become a bigger global player are likely to expose some frictions—especially when it comes to handling China. Kundnani says Europe is likely to bristle at Washington’s efforts to draw the EU into alignment with the U.S. on China. He predicts there’ll be resistance with efforts to get Europe to decouple from China and to take more seriously the geopolitical and security implications of European companies trading with Beijing. “I’m thinking here particularly of Germany,” Kundnani says.
 
Biden wants a “united front” when it comes to China to increase leverage on Beijing. But to the disappointment of Biden aides, the EU last month struck an investment deal with Beijing, which on paper appears to open up China to more European investment hedged with fewer barriers.
 
Days before the agreement was sealed, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, urged the Europeans to delay the agreement, calling in a tweet for “early consultation with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices.”
 
Critics on both sides of the Atlantic say the deal will give China preferential access to European markets while Beijing continues to tamp down Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and maintain detention centers in Xinjiang province, where China’s Communist government has interned more than a million Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group, according to rights groups.
 
Even before Trump was elected, there was a bipartisan consensus in Washington that Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own security, but several countries have been dragging their feet. Biden will continue to push, say his aides, for equitable burden-sharing, but he won’t engage in the episodic questioning of the very value of the transatlantic defense pact President Trump did in bruising encounters with European leaders. European slowness in rebalancing NATO may remain a source of transatlantic tension, experts assert.
 
NATO aside, Biden has highly ambitious foreign policy goals, which may stretch the EU’s capacity to move fast and secure agreement among its 27 members.
 
“It’s going to take a lot of knitting and a lot of coordination to deal with the many things coming at us, from health to economy to China to tech, all of these kinds of things,” Nuland cautioned at a research group event last month. She said the U.S. will embrace Europe tightly, adding, “Maybe too tightly, so we’ll have to see how that goes.”
 
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Ford Motors Co. has announced it will cease its manufacturing operations in Brazil, where it has been operating for more than a century and controls 8% of the automotive industry.
 
In an effort to maintain global operating margins, the company announced Monday two plants will be shut down immediately, while a third one will close by the end of 2021. The decision, which will cost Ford about $4.1 billion in pretax charges, is expected to leave about 5,000 people unemployed.
 
“With more than a century in South America and Brazil, we know these are very difficult, but necessary, actions to create a healthy and sustainable business,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said. “We are moving to a lean, asset-light business model by ceasing production in Brazil.”
 
Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes lamented the decision, but he said in a statement that it “goes against the strong recovery observed in the majority of the country’s industrial sectors.”
 
Meanwhile, Brazil’s center-right House Speaker Rodrigo Maia said on Twitter it represents “a sign of the lack of credibility of the Brazilian government,” of which he has become a fierce critic.
 
“I hope that Ford’s decision alerts the government and the parliament so that we can move forward in modernizing the State and guaranteeing legal security for private capital in Brazil,” Maia added.
 
The fifth largest automaker in Brazil, Ford indicated it will continue to serve the Brazilian market with cars sourced from neighboring countries, including Argentina and Uruguay. It also said it will maintain its South America headquarters and proving grounds in São Paulo, as well as its product development center in the northeast state of Bahia.
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Colombia is warning potential migrants from Venezuela about an increase in sexual trafficking and exploitation cases in Colombia. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.Camera: Nelson Abril
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European markets are mixed Tuesday as the worsening coronavirus pandemic around the world, coupled with political turmoil in the United States, is putting a damper on trading activity.   At the midday point of the trading day, London’s FTSE index is down 0.6%, the CAC-40 index in Paris is nearly 3 points lower but unchanged percentage-wise (-0.04%) and Frankfurt’s DAX index is up nearly 4 points but is also unchanged (+0.03%).Asian markets were mixed earlier Tuesday.  The Nikkei index in Tokyo finished 25 points higher, but was virtually unchanged percentage-wise (+0.09%), while the Shanghai Composite rose 2.1%.  Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index rose 1.3%, and Mumbai’s Sensex closed 0.5% higher. Pandemic and Political Turmoil Leave Asian Markets Mixed TuesdayGold, oil markets posting solid gains Sydney’s S&P/ASX index lost 0.2%.  Seoul’s KOSPI index closed 0.7% lower, while the TSEC index in Taipei was down 0.3%.      In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,858.40, up 0.4%.  U.S. crude oil is selling at $52.90 per barrel, up 1.2%, while Brent crude is also 1.2% higher, selling at $56.35 per barrel. With the opening bell on Wall Street looming, the three major U.S. indices — the Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq — are all trending positively in futures trading.
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The Trump administration redesignated Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” Monday, just nine days before U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office.   The move places new sanctions on Cuba shortly before President-elect Joe Biden takes office and could complicate any efforts by the incoming Biden administration to revive Obama-era detente with Havana.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the designation Monday, citing Cuba’s continued harboring of U.S. fugitives, its refusal to extradite Colombian rebels, as well as its support for Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Cuba has a long-standing alliance with Maduro, and the two countries cooperate on trade and travel. The designation reimposes major restrictions on Cuba, including barring most travel between Cuba and the United States, as well as the transfer of money between the two countries.  FILE – Vintage cars drive on the seafront boulevard El Malecon in Havana, Cuba, December 29, 2020.“With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice,” Pompeo said in a statement Monday.   Trump has clamped down on Cuba since coming to power in 2017, working to reverse former President Barack Obama’s efforts at rapprochement. Obama formally removed Cuba from the terrorism list in 2015, a step toward restoring diplomatic ties with Havana that same year.   Since Trump came to power, he has steadily increased restrictions on flights, trade and financial transactions between Washington and Havana.   Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez condemned Monday’s action, writing on Twitter that it is hypocritical and a “cynical designation of Cuba.” “The U.S. political opportunism is recognized by those who are honestly concerned about the scourge of terrorism and its victims,” he said. Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks, the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that he was outraged by Trump’s designation. “For four years, the Trump administration’s policy towards Cuba has been focused on hurting the Cuban people,” he said, adding that Trump “has always seen Cuba as a political football with zero regard for the long-suffering Cuban people.” He urged Biden to reverse the designation when he takes office.  “It is essential that the State Sponsor of Terrorism list be used judiciously to maintain its seriousness and integrity,” Meeks said. Cuba has repeatedly refused to turn over U.S. fugitives that have been granted asylum, including Joanne Chesimard, who fled a New Jersey prison following her conviction for killing a New Jersey state trooper in the 1970s.   
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Thousands of girls in Canada have been married before turning 18, researchers said Monday, warning that a rise in unofficial child marriages could make the practice harder to prevent and call into question the country’s global leadership.More than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to girls younger than 18 in Canada between 2000 and 2018, found a study from McGill University in Montreal.Yet that number is just the tip of the iceberg, as more and more child marriages in recent years have been common-law unions, informal arrangements that provide fewer rights, it found.At least 2,300 common-law partnerships, defined legally as relationships where a couple has lived together for at least a year, involved children under 18 as of 2016, the study showed.The findings contrast with Canada’s positioning as a global leader in the United Nations-backed drive to end child marriage worldwide by 2030, said Alissa Koski, co-author of the study.”Our results show that Canada has its own work to do to achieve its commitment to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (on ending child marriage),” the university professor said.”All the while it is advocating for an end to child marriage elsewhere, the practice remains legal and ongoing across Canada,” Koski said.Canada’s Office of the Minister for Women and Gender Equality was not immediately available for comment.The country committed at least $62.5 million to tackle child marriage worldwide from 2011 to 2016 and has led or supported several U.N. resolutions on the issue in recent years, according to Girls Not Brides, a global campaign group.Girls who marry young are often pulled out of school and are at higher risk of marital rape, domestic abuse and pregnancy complications, activists have said.Canadian law permits children to marry from the age of 16 with parental consent or a court order.About 95% of child marriages in Canada were informal as of 2016, compared with less than half in 2006, the study found.The shift could be in response to growing public disapproval of children entering wedlock, according to the authors, who said informal unions could be more harmful than formal marriage as they offered less social, legal and economic protection.In Quebec, individuals in common-law unions are not entitled to alimony or property if the union ends, the authors said.”This raises questions about how best to address the issue,” the authors said in a statement. “Preventing common-law unions among children will require different and innovative approaches that address the deeper motivations for this practice.”Worldwide, an estimated 12 million girls are married every year before the age of 18 – nearly one girl every three seconds.U.N. experts have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to an extra 13 million child marriages over the next decade.
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Pope Francis changed church law Monday to formally allow for more roles for women within the Catholic Church. The decree, called “Spiritus Domini” (The Spirit of the Lord), allows women to serve as readers and altar servers, as well as to assist priests during service or in administering Holy Communion. It officially updates the Code of Canon Law to reflect that “lay persons … can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte,” instead of the previous version “lay men.” In many dioceses, women have already been allowed to carry out such activities. The decision comes as a formal move from Francis, who has publicly advocated for a more diverse and inclusive church, to impede conservative bishops from enforcing male-only altar services in their jurisdictions. “The decision to confer these offices even on women, which entails stability, public recognition and a mandate on the part of the bishop, will make more effective everyone’s participation in the work of evangelization,” the decree says. Francis, however, reiterated that priesthood continues to be a male-only path.  “The church does not have the faculty in any way to confer priestly ordination on women,” the pope wrote in a Monday letter to Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. For years, Francis has analyzed the possibility of expanding women’s roles within the church. In April 2020, the pope established a commission to study whether women should be granted the right to become ordained deacons. This would allow women to preach and baptize, but not to conduct Mass. 
 
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The British government Monday launched an ambitious coronavirus vaccination plan, with the goal of having 15 million citizens inoculated by the middle of next month. In a statement, the health department said the plan is to have 2,700 vaccination sites around the country, with one located within 16 kilometers of every person in Britain by the end of January. Health officials say rural areas will be served by mobile vaccination units. The health department said officials hope to be able to deliver at least 2 million vaccinations per week by the end of the month, with all residents and staff in more than 10,000 care homes across Britain having access to the shot. The plan calls for 206 active hospital sites, as well as 1,200 local vaccination sites — including primary care networks, community pharmacy sites and mobile teams. The health department said by the end of this month there will also be 50 mass vaccination centers around Britain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking with reporters at a newly opened center in Bristol, described the situation as “a race against time.” “We can all see the threat that our NHS (National Health Service) faces, the pressure it’s under, the demand in intensive care units, the pressure on ventilated beds, even the shortage of oxygen in some places,” he said. Johnson said 2.4 million COVID-19 shots had been administered in Britain and that about 40% of 80-year-olds there had been vaccinated, along with around a quarter of elderly residents in care homes. COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus. The death toll in Britain has been soaring. It now stands at more than 81,500 — the world’s fifth-highest toll — while more than 3 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University. 
 
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Pope Francis, in another step towards greater equality for women in the Roman Catholic Church, on Monday changed its law to formally allow them to serve as readers at liturgies, altar servers and distributors of communion.
 
In a decree, the pope formalized what already has been happening in many developed countries for years. But by introducing the change in the Code of Canon Law, it will be impossible for conservative bishops to block women in their diocese from having those roles.
 
But the Vatican stressed that these roles were “essentially distinct from the ordained ministry,” meaning that they should not be seen as an automatic precursor to women one day being allowed to be ordained priests.
 
“The pontiff, therefore, has established that women can accede to these ministries and they are attributed by a liturgical function that institutionalizes them,” the Vatican said in an explanatory note.
 
In the decree, called “Spiritus Domini” (The Spirit of the Lord), Francis said he had taken his decision after theological reflection.
 
He said many bishops from around the world had said that the change was necessary to respond to the “needs of the times.”
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Britain’s hospitals are on the brink of being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients and the country’s National Health Service is facing its “worst crisis in living memory,” a senior government official warned Sunday.  The blunt warning from England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, came as members of the government’s main advisory panel, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, warned that nationwide lockdown measures introduced after Christmas were too lax and, being flouted too often by people meeting friends in parks and congregating at supermarkets.  They are urging the closure of nurseries and the end of “support bubbles” that allow for two households to mix. Ministers say they are not planning to tighten up the measures more but will start enforcing lockdown rules strictly and have ordered police to be forward-leaning and issue fines.    People queue for COVID-19 testing at a mass screening centre at Charlton Athletic Football Club as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in London, Britain, Jan. 3, 2021.Some medical workers say the breaking point has already been reached in London and parts of southern England. British coronavirus deaths Sunday surpassed 80,000 for the pandemic, 10,000 more than the civilian death tally during World War II. The country has seen four consecutive daily increases of more than 1,000 deaths.  Dr. Zudin Puthucheary, a critical care consultant, told Sky News the NHS is “breaking in front of us.” He said he was “scared and angry.” The majority of hospitals in Britain’s capital have already reportedly reached over-capacity. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, declared Friday a “major incident.” In a statement, he said, “The threat this virus poses to our city is at crisis point. The number of cases in London has increased rapidly with more than a third more patients being treated in our hospitals now compared to the peak of the pandemic last April,” he added. Puthucheary, who works at the Royal London Hospital, said there’s a shortage of critical care nursing staff and warned intensive care units “are full beyond bursting.” He also said, “We’ve cannibalized staff from all around the hospital — volunteers are pouring in to try and look after these patients and deliver the best care we can. Staff are breaking themselves to make this happen and keep our patients safe — and it’s not going to be enough.” FILE – Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaks at a press conference inside 10 Downing Street on further restrictions to be put in place due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in London, Dec. 23, 2020.Speaking on the BBC, Health Secretary Matt Hancock declined to speculate on whether the government would introduce stricter rules “because the most important message is not whether the government will further strengthen the rules. The most important thing is that people stay at home and follow the rules that we have got.” Almost 60,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in Britain Saturday. Ministers say they are in a vaccine race against the virus and plan to open seven mass vaccination centers this week, with more in the pipeline. Neil Ferguson, a government adviser and professor at London’s Imperial College, predicted the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 would soar by another 20 percent. “It will be quite difficult to avoid another 20,000 deaths,” he told reporters. But with one in 30 Britons having the virus, he said the country could be through the pandemic within nine months, as a consequence of the vaccination program and the development of herd immunity. “I think we will see growth rates slow,” Ferguson said. “We may see a decline, and that may be slightly aided by the fact that there is quite a lot of herd immunity in places like London,” he added. Paramedics are also reporting they are being forced to treat patients in ambulances for hours at a time because no beds are available. Many hospital managers have ordered staff not to speak to the media unless they have prior clearance to do so and unlike last year, television crews are finding it hard to get permission to film wards. Some doctors have written anonymously of their experiences in hospitals and paint a grim picture of patients being treated in corridors because intensive care units (ICU) are full.  “We have several patients who are not ‘fit’ for ICU in the current climate,” wrote one consultant  for the new site Unherd.com. “Before COVID, they most likely would have been given a chance, but not now. When we think that these patients have suffered enough, and are unlikely to ever recover, we start talking about making them comfortable. It’s partly that we need the beds for patients with a better chance, and partly that we feel it is cruel to keep these people suffering when their chances of survival are slim. It’s difficult to work out which of those is your true motivation.” Governments across Europe say their hospitals are also stretched, especially in Sweden. And they’re watching with rising anxiety developments in Britain, where transmission rates are being driven by a more contagious mutant strain that’s now being identified across the continent.  Spain’s health minister, Salvador Illa, warned at a press conference Friday the country faces “difficult weeks ahead.” With coronavirus cases surging, he warned, “The data is bad. The incidence rate, the pressure on hospitals, the positivity rate of PCR tests and the number of deaths are rising. The evolution of the pandemic is worsening.” The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests are considered the most reliable in detecting the coronavirus.  
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Greece’s government has presented a bill to parliament that doubles the country’s territorial waters along its western frontiers, allowing it to exploit untapped energy reserves that can boost its ailing economy. Greece wants to also expand its frontiers along its eastern borders, in the Aegean but its neighbor, Turkey, rejects the move, saying it would spell war. Still, the two NATO allies, that have seen relations plummet dangerously in the last year over energy rights, are gearing for a fresh effort at exploratory talks to sort out their differences.In presenting the bill for ratification by parliament, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said it marked a historic moment for the country, part of a bigger attempt to shield its sovereign interests as Greece and Turkey remain locked in a dangerous standoff over energy and maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean.The bill is the result of years of negotiations between Greece and Italy, redefining their maritime boundaries and establishing an exclusive economic zone that allows Athens to now survey the Ionian waterway and seabed that divides Greece and Italy for up to 19 kilometers from Greece’s western coast.That’s twice as much as before.A similar agreement is also being sought out with Albania which recently agreed to take the maritime case to arbitration at the international court at The Hague – something which Greece has also been trying to convince Turkey to do to sort out long-standing differences involving the Aegean Sea, an oil-and minerals-rich waterway that divides the two NATO allies.Bent on exploring untapped gas and oil reserves in the seabed that surrounds Greece, Athens has long been keen to extend its borders along its eastern frontiers – a move that Turkey has been strongly resisting, saying that any such designs would choke off its access to the Aegean, turning the waterway into somewhat of a Greek lake.Ankara has warned that any decision by Athens to extend territorial rights in the Aegean would spark war – a threat Greece is reluctant to ignore, especially after the two NATO allies came to the brink of an all-out conflict in that exact waterway just 20 years ago.Relations between the two age-old foes have seesawed for years since then. But in the past year, they escalated dangerously because of oil and gas drilling projects underway in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean.And while Turkey has snubbed repeated attempts by the European Union to mediate exploratory talks with Greece, it now appears to be returning to the negotiating table.In recent days, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held crucial talks with key EU officials.More are expected to follow as Ankara, according to analysts, appears to be trying to rekindle its ties with the West after U.S. sanctions were imposed on the country’s defense industry for purchasing a Russian anti-ballistic system in breach of its NATO alliance commitment. The EU is also warning of sanctions it too may impose in March.Dimitris Keridies, a Greek lawmaker and professor of international relations, explains.In this sense, he said, Erdogan is almost predictable in how he is behaving. He’s clearly under pressure and he wants to restore relations with European states, Israel, Arab states and the U.S., especially with the new president coming in, to show a different face to all, mainly the Europeans, ahead of a March summit that will decide on the fate of those sanctions.Greece has long welcomed any Turkish return to exploratory talks; but it wants them to take place under an agreed agenda of topics, says Tassos Hadjivassiliou, a leading lawmaker.If they want to return to the negotiating table, Hadjivassiliou said, then they have to agree to the agenda of the talks. And that, he explains, can include nothing more than issues surrounding exploitation in the Aegean Sea. Any other issues are just unacceptable claims.It remains unclear what the finalized agenda will feature. But government officials in Athens tell VOA the exploratory talks may begin within weeks. 
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Security has been stepped up at Germany’s Bundestag (lower house of parliament) after the storming of the Capitol in Washington by rioters last week, Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble has told lawmakers, Bild am Sonntag weekly reported.”Berlin state police have arranged for a reinforcement of their forces around the Reichstag building,” it quoted Schäuble as saying in a letter to lawmakers.A spokeswoman for the Bundestag confirmed that Schäuble had written to lawmakers about the current situation but declined to give details of the content of the letter.Bild am Sonntag also reported that Schäuble had asked the Foreign Ministry for a report on the Washington violence and would “clarify with the federal government and the state of Berlin what conclusions should be drawn for Bundestag security.”Angry supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, voted out of office in a November election, broke into the Washington Capitol, seat of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, on Wednesday. Five people died, including a police officer.In Berlin, protesters against coronavirus restrictions stormed the steps of the parliament building during a demonstration in August. 
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U.S. federal prosecutors have filed motions saying that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández took bribes from drug traffickers and had the country’s armed forces protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States.The documents quote Hernández as saying he wanted to “‘shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos’ by flooding the United States with cocaine.”The motions filed Friday with the U.S. Southern District of New York do not specifically name the president, referring to him as “CC-4,” or co-conspirator No. 4, but clearly identify him by naming his brother and his own post as president.The president, who has not been charged, has repeatedly denied any connection to traffickers despite the 2019 conviction of one of his brothers, Juan Antonio Hernandez. During that trial, the president was accused of accepting more than $1 million from Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — an accusation repeated in the new motions.He has said that traffickers are falsely accusing him to seek vengeance for clamping down on them. The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new filings.The motions seek pretrial approval to admit evidence in the case of Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, who was arrested in Miami in March. And they expand upon allegations filed shortly after the arrest accusing Hernandez of taking bribes in exchange for protection from law enforcement.Fuentes Ramirez is accused of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States, and the motions filed Friday accuse him of producing “hundreds of kilograms a month” of cocaine and of having several people killed to protect his illicit business.”By late 2013, the defendant partnered directly with CC-4 and high-ranking officials in the Honduran military. At this time, CC-4 was pursuing election as the president of Honduras as a member of the Partido Nacional de Honduras (the “National Party”),” the motion said.It added that a witness “would testify that they and other drug traffickers were paying massive bribes to CC-4 in exchange for protection from law enforcement and extradition to the United States,” and that the president-to-be “accepted approximately $1 million in drug trafficking proceeds that was provided to his brother by the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín Guzmán Loera.”Prosecutors say he had agreed to work through the president’s now-convicted brother.The motions also implicate senior military, police, political and business figures in laundering money and bribery.Hernandez, who had been president of congress before being elected president in 2013, was reelected in 2017 to a term that ends in January 2022. He has cooperated with the Trump administration and its efforts to stem migration from his nation and others in Central America.During a January 2020 visit to Honduras, acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said, “Honduras is a valued and proven partner to the United States in managing migration and promoting security and prosperity in Central America.”
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A shawarma shop in Moscow was forced to close a day after it opened following an outcry over its provocative Josef Stalin-themed branding, the shop’s owner told Reuters on Saturday.The Stalin Doner shop featured a portrait of the controversial communist leader above its front door. Inside, a man dressed in the Stalin-era security service uniform served customers meat wraps named after Soviet leaders.”We fully opened the day before yesterday and served around 200 customers,” shop owner Stanislav Voltman said.”There were no legal reasons [to close the shop],” he added, but said that police had forced him to remove the Stalin sign, and then “colossal pressure” from local authorities forced him to shut completely.The branding was hotly debated on social media, with some commenters condemning it as distasteful.Stalin’s rule was marked by mass repression, labor camps and famine. Nearly 700,000 people were executed during the Great Terror of 1936-38, according to conservative official estimates.However, many in the former Soviet Union still regard him primarily as the leader who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II, ensuring the country’s very existence.”I had expected some social media hype,” Voltman said. “But I had not expected that all TV stations, all the reporters and bloggers would flock here and queue up like they do in front of the Lenin mausoleum.”
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An avalanche that hit a Russian ski resort near the Arctic city of Norilsk late Friday killed three members of a family and buried four buildings under snow, authorities said. Officials said rescuers recovered the bodies of a 38-year-old woman, her 45-year-old husband and their 18-month-old child. A 14-year-old was pulled from the snow alive and was hospitalized with frostbite, officials said.Snowstorm Strikes Spain, Forcing Road Closures, Suspension of Flights, Train ServicesAuthorities have called in the military to rescue people stranded in their vehiclesThe regional office of Russia’s emergency services said in a statement Saturday that the rescue mission involved 242 people and 29 vehicles, working under severe weather conditions throughout the night to dig out the buildings covered with snow and ice.Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it has opened a criminal probe to determine if the buildings’ owners had adequate safety measures in place. Norilsk is Russia’s northernmost city, located over 2,870 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
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Spain has activated the red weather alert for the first time Saturday as heavy snowfalls have hit large parts of the country, including the capital, since Thursday. Besides Madrid, which recorded the heaviest snowfalls since 1971, the regions of Aragon, Valencia, Castilla La Mancha and Catalonia also were hard-hit by the snowstorms.The unusual blizzard blocked traffic and left thousands of people trapped in cars or in train stations and airports, since they suspended all services as the snowfalls continued Saturday.The storm made driving difficult or caused the closure of over 430 roads by Saturday morning, according to Spain’s transit authorities, which advised people to stay indoors and avoid all nonessential travel.Authorities have mobilized the military to rescue people stranded in their vehicles and  trapped everywhere from small roads to major arteries.The national AEMET weather agency has said the snow would continue until Sunday, as the temperatures remain very low, before Storm Filomena begins moving northeast.According to AEMET’s weather forecast, 20 centimeters of snow was anticipated in large parts of the country, but the accumulation reached more than 50 centimeters even in urban areas.
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Germany, France and Britain each plan to boost their military presence in the Indo-Pacific region, a move analysts say is aimed at countering China and showing support for the U.S., Japan and other regional allies.Germany will send a frigate to patrol Indo-Pacific waters later this year. Britain will deploy the British carrier strike group (CSG) with the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier at its core with no first deployment date announced.France will join Japan and the U.S. to conduct amphibious training in southwestern Japan in May. The three countries also submitted a joint, unsigned note to the United Nations.The note emphasized “the importance of unhampered exercise of the freedom of the high seas” in the South China Sea, according to an op-ed written by Mark Valencia, an adjunct senior scholar at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Haikou, in China’s Hainan Province, for the South China Morning Post.According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies prepared from a survey conducted before the advent of the global pandemic: “China is seen as holding slightly more political power and influence than the United States in Southeast Asia today and considerably more power relative to the United States in 10 years,” and in terms of “economic power and influence, the region views China as much more influential than the United States today, and this gap is expected to grow in the next 10 years.”’Need to uphold the international order’Experts say that the European countries boosting their military presence in the Indo-Pacific region will strengthen their alliances with the United States and Japan and maintain common values and rule-based order in the region.Zachary Hosford, acting director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the European countries “want to signal to the United States that they are aligned with Washington in recognizing both the need to uphold the international order and the Chinese government’s challenges to that order – including through the illegal and destabilizing building of military bases on artificial islands.”Elli-Katharina Pohlkamp, a visiting fellow of the Asia program at European Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA Mandarin, “I believe alliances and defense cooperation can be strengthened and the interoperability of the forces can be enhanced. The China factor is definitely encouraging the enhancement of security ties between Europe and Japan.” This depends on the Japan’s China policy under recently installed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, which Pohlkamp said “is not very clear yet.”Steven Lamy, an international relations professor at the University of Southern California said, “They are making sure China knows that they will check any unilateral action that threatens trade and security in Asia.”Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), however, believes that the European nation’s deployment is primarily symbolic.“I do think there is concern that the United States is increasingly focused on the Indo-Pacific, so some in Europe want to demonstrate that they can be helpful in Asia, too,” Cooper said. “That is a positive sign, in my view. This has more of a signaling value than a military value, but the message is still a useful one. But I think it is also important to note that the EU-China investment deal is potentially more important as a signal than these military deployments, so we need to make sure that our security and economic efforts are both pointed in the same direction.”’Values-based trade agenda’On Dec. 30, the EU and China concluded negotiations on a wide-ranging investment treaty.President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said, “Today‘s agreement is an important landmark in our relationship with China and for our values-based trade agenda.”Other objectivesBritish and German Asia-Pacific deployments have objectives beyond countering China’s expansion in the region.Jamie Shea, a former NATO official and senior fellow at the think tank Friends of Europe, said the U.K.’s actions were intended to show aspirations to be “Global Britain” after Brexit, as its departure from the EU is known.“This aspiration focuses largely on the Asia-Pacific region as the U.K. is convinced that new trade agreements with the countries in this region are key to the U.K.’s future economic growth,” Shea told VOA. “So a U.K. military capability to project power in the Asia-Pacific, based around the country’s two recently acquired new aircraft carriers, is key to demonstrating the U.K.’s strategic relevance to the region. The Royal Navy is the priority here as ships can be deployed flexibly and are a good way of demonstrating presence.” Shea added that Britain’s defense procurement and its decision to send the HMS Queen Elizabeth to the South China Sea also signals to Washington that the U.K. remains willing and able to be a major strategic ally.While Germany has no desire to be a global military power, it has key economic and trading interests in Asia that it wishes to protect, Shea noted.“Germany has no desire to become embroiled in the regional disputes in Asia, such as in the South and East China seas, but the occasional dispatch of a frigate and participation in a maritime exercise is a useful way to build confidence and develop partnerships and interoperability with Germany’s major trading partners in the region,” Shea said.According to Japan’s Kyodo News, Japan’s defense minister, Nobuo Kishi, last month expressed his desire for German frigates to participate in exercises with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, which he hoped would pass through the South China Sea.The British government announced on Jan. 4 that the British Royal Navy’s carrier strike group has reached initial operating capability ahead of its first operational deployment later this year.The carrier strike group commander, Commodore Steve Moorhouse, tweeted Jan. 4, “In practical terms, my Strike Group is now at Very High Readiness, meaning we are at 5 days’ notice to deploy, if required, in response to global events & in defence of British interests.”In practical terms, my Strike Group is now at Very High Readiness, meaning we are at 5 days’ notice to deploy, if required, in response to global events & in defence of British interests.— Commander UK Carrier Strike Group (@smrmoorhouse) January 4, 2021In response to the HMS Queen Elizabeth’s deployment to the South China Sea, Tan Kefei, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Defense, said, “The Chinese military will take the necessary measures to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests and firmly safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea.”Adrianna Zhang of the VOA Mandarin Service contributed to this report.  
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Deutsche Bank AG will pay nearly $125 million to avoid U.S. prosecution on charges it engaged in foreign bribery schemes and manipulated precious metals markets, the latest blow for a bank trying to rebound from a series of scandals.Germany’s largest lender agreed to the payout as it entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, and a related civil settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.Almost all of the payout relates to charges Deutsche Bank violated the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) over its dealings in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, China and Italy, court papers show. Nearly two-thirds of the payout is a criminal fine.The settlements were made public Friday at a hearing in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York.”Deutsche Bank engaged in a criminal scheme to conceal payments to so-called consultants worldwide who served as conduits for bribes to foreign officials and others,” in order to win and retain “lucrative business projects,” Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme in Brooklyn said in a statement.A bank spokesman said, “We take responsibility for these past actions,” which occurred from 2008 to 2017, following thorough internal probes and full cooperation with authorities.Five years of lossesDeutsche Bank has been trying to restore profitability after five years of losses, including by exiting some businesses and reducing its workforce by 18,000.It has also been trying to restore its image in Washington amid several investigations into its dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime client.Prosecutors accused Deutsche Bank of violating books-and-records provisions of the FCPA, which forbids companies with U.S. operations from paying bribes elsewhere.They said the violations included disguising bribes paid to a client’s decision-maker in Saudi Arabia as referral fees and recording millions of dollars of payments to an intermediary for an Abu Dhabi official as consultancy fees.The SEC also accused Deutsche Bank of making improper payments to a consultant to help establish a clean energy investment fund with a Chinese government entity, and to an Italian tax judge for referring wealthy clients.In the metals case, prosecutors accused Deutsche Bank traders of placing fraudulent trades, known as spoofing, to induce other traders to buy and sell futures contracts at prices they otherwise would not have.In 2019, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $16.2 million to resolve SEC charges it violated the FCPA by hiring unqualified relatives of government officials in China and Russia in order to win or retain business.
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Spain was on high alert Friday as a cold snap covered much of the country with snow disrupting road, sea and air traffic, while authorities warned that worse might be in store over the weekend. Parts of central Spain, including the capital, are expected to receive more than 24 hours of continuous snowfall as Storm Filomena moves north from the Straits of Gibraltar, the national AEMET weather agency forecast. The heavy snowfall that in some areas started Thursday was leading to serious disruptions by mid-Friday on about 270 roads and canceled or delayed more than 40 flights, according to Spain’s road and airport authorities. In the southern Canarias archipelago, where rainfall and strong winds have paired with unusually rough seas with giant waves, emergency services rescued 65 people Friday from a ferry that ran aground the night before while trying to approach a dock in the Gran Canaria island. The rescued passengers, including a baby and six crew members who had to wait 14 hours on the vessel because of the difficulty of the operation to bring them to shore, were “exhausted but safe and healthy,” according to a tweet by the island’s government. In Toledo, a historic city of 85,000 south of Madrid and capital of the central Castilla La Mancha region, authorities have called for help from the army to clear roads and prohibited all circulation of vehicles without winter tires or chains. AEMET says up to 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) of snow could accumulate in large parts of Spain and the buildup could reach up to 50 centimeters (almost 20 inches) in mountainous areas. The storm is expected to weaken and move northeast by Sunday, the agency said. 
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Relatives of those killed by Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane last January say they do not want blood money from Tehran but rather an international trial to hold its leaders accountable, a procedure contingent on overcoming lengthy hurdles under global conventions.The Jan. 8, 2020, downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by Iranian missiles shortly after it took off from Tehran killed all 176 people on board, most of them Iranians and Iranian Canadians who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada. Iran has described the downing as a mistake by air defense personnel but has not held anyone accountable.In the last nine days of December, five people based in Canada and the U.S. who lost loved ones on the plane spoke to VOA Persian about what they want to see happen next in their pursuit of justice as they prepared to mark the first anniversary of the tragedy.Several of them said they reject unilateral Iranian offers of financial compensation or “blood money.”Navaz Ebrahim’s sister and brother-in-law Niloofar Ebrahim and Saeed Tahmadesbi, who were killed in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)The Iranian Cabinet Mehrzad Zarei’s 17-year-old son, Arad, who died in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)The other litigation involves several victims’ families Shahin Moghaddam’s wife, Shakiba Feghahati, and son Rosstin, who were among the 176 people killed in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)Edmonton, Canada, resident Javad Soleimani, husband of crash victim Elnaz Nabiyi, said the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not been aggressive enough in pushing for Iran to face a trial at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Other victims’ relatives echoed that criticism.Javad Soleimani’s wife Elnaz Nabiyi, one of those who died in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)Two international civil aviation conventions to which Canada and Iran are signatories require states to try to FILE – Canada’s Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, March 20, 2018.Canada also is seeking to change international rules that entitle Iran to lead the official investigation of the crash as the country where the incident happened.“For the party that is responsible for the crash to be investigating itself is just not credible in our view. So we are pursuing changes in the process,” Goodale said.As a fourth remedy, Ottawa is working with the four other countries that lost citizens in the crash — Afghanistan, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine — in a “coordination group” to try to launch reparation negotiations with Iran.Goodale said the coordination group has had at least one technical meeting with Iran to examine how negotiations would be conducted. However, he said one critical element for starting negotiations is missing, namely the official Iranian investigation’s final report that would give the parties a set of facts to use in debating reparations.Under United Nations rules, Iran provided a draft of the report in late December to Ukraine, which operated the downed jet, and to the U.S. and France, which built it. Tehran is not required to share the draft with Ottawa and has not done so.Goodale said Ukraine, the U.S. and France have up to two months to comment on the Iranian draft and Tehran then will have another month to potentially revise it based on those comments.“If this process drags on for months, the coordination group countries will need to consider starting negotiations with Iran before the final report is released, because we all feel the anguish of the families,” Goodale said.In December, Iranian Foreign Ministry Alireza Ghandchi’s wife Faezeh Falsafi and two children Daniel and Dorsa, passengers killed in Iran’s shoot-down of a Ukrainian plane near Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. (Courtesy of family)Ontario-based Alireza Ghandchi, whose wife and two children died on the downed plane, said Iran’s investigation of its role in the crash has been marked by delays and excuses.“It’s a pattern that has been constant for the past 42 years,” Ghandchi said, referring to the length of time since Iran’s ruling Islamist clerics seized power in a 1979 revolution.Iranian forces that shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet had been on alert for a U.S. response to a missile strike Iran launched on American troops in Iraq hours earlier. Iran had attacked the U.S. troops, wounding dozens, in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad five days previously.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here and here for the original Persian versions of the story. 
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The World Health Organization says wealthy nations have bought most of the current supply of available COVID-19 vaccine, leaving the world’s poorest nations unable to obtain them.At the agency’s regular briefing Friday in Geneva, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO-organized international vaccine cooperative, COVAX, has now secured contracts for 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which it is prepared to roll out in low-and-middle-income countries as soon as they are delivered.Tedros said the vaccine cooperative has first right of refusal on an additional billion doses. But 42 countries – 36 wealthy nations and six “middle-income” nations – are operating COVID-19 vaccines programs.  That leaves no additional available vaccine for the poorer nations.Adding to the problem, Tedros said both high and middle-income countries, that are part of the COVAX program, are making additional bilateral deals for vaccine. “This potentially bumps up the price for everyone and means high-risk people in the poorest and most marginalized countries don’t get the vaccine,” he said.The WHO chief said the hoarding of vaccine by the richest nations – which he calls “vaccine nationalism” – is self-defeating and hurts the entire world. On the other hand, Tedros said equitably sharing vaccines saves lives, stabilizes health systems and would help the global economy recover more quickly.Tedros emphasized that vaccinating equitably helps reduce transmission, which also lessens the virus’ opportunity to mutate.He called on manufacturers to prioritize vaccine supply and rollout through COVAX, and he urged countries that have contracted for more vaccine than they will need to also donate and release it to COVAX immediately.He said, “Remember, ending the COVID-19 pandemic is one of humanities great races, and whether we like it or not, we will win or lose this race together.”
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London Mayor Sadiq Khan Friday declared a “major incident” in the city, due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 there, which he said could overwhelm the National Health Service if it remains unchecked.Khan posted a statement to his official Twitter account and told reporters that he has never been more concerned about the pandemic than he is now. He cited an Office of National Statistics estimate saying one in 30 people in the British capital now has the virus, and said in some areas, it is closer to one in 20.In his statement, the mayor cited signs the virus may be out of control. He said the London Ambulance Service is now taking up to 8,000 emergency calls a day, compared to 5,500 on a typical busy day, and there are now 35 percent more people hospitalized with COVID-19 in London than the peak in the spring.The mayor says he has reached out to Prime Minister Boris Johnson for financial support for Londoners who need to self-isolate and are not able to work.  He is urging residents to stay at home if possible and to wear face masks if they must go out.A major incident is defined as being “beyond the scope of business-as-usual operations, and is likely to involve serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or welfare, essential services, the environment or national security.” It is an event or situation with a range of serious consequences, which requires special arrangements to be implemented by one or more emergency agency.
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