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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is calling on Russia to release top Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. ECHR said in a press release Wednesday that it “grants an interim measure in favor of” Navalny and “asks the Government of Russia to release him.”  The court’s ruling demanded that Navalny be released immediately, warning that failure to do so would mark a breach of the European human rights convention.The court pointed to Rule 39 of its regulations, citing “the nature and extent of risk to the applicant’s life.”  FILE – This photo shows the inside of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, eastern France, Feb. 7, 2019.Navalny, 44, has been jailed since his return to Russia last month. Moscow said he violated the terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany from a poisoning attack. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction ECHR has ruled to be unlawful.  Navalny was treated in Germany following a nerve-agent poisoning in Siberia last August. He blamed Russia for the poisoning, a charge denied by the Kremlin.  Several western countries have called for Navalny’s release, threatening to impose sanctions against Russia over the case. The Russian Justice Ministry warned in a statement that the ECHR’s demand would represent a “crude interference into the judicial system” of Russia and “cross the red line.” ECHR is the international court of the Council of Europe, Europe’s main human rights forum. As a member of the EU, Russia is a member of the court.  In the past, it has complied with ECHR’s rulings to compensate Russian citizens who contested verdicts in Russian courts, but it has never faced a demand by the court to release someone who has been detained.  
 
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A top Russian diplomat says the Taliban insurgency is “flawlessly” adhering to the terms of a 2020 peace deal with the United States to help end the war in Afghanistan and is urging Washington not to renege on its commitments.Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s presidential envoy to Afghanistan, spoke ahead of Wednesday’s NATO conference aimed at determining whether to meet a May 1 deadline agreed to with the Taliban for the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan. He also spoke as the number of attacks carried out by the Taliban continue to rise.The meeting in Brussels of NATO defense ministers comes amid increased allegations the Islamist insurgent group has committed serious breaches of the February 29, 2020, pact by not reducing Afghan battlefield violence and not cutting ties with international terrorist groups.A new U.S. Department of Defense report said Wednesday that the Taliban’s links remain intact with al-Qaida.“The Taliban continues to maintain relations with al-Qaida … [the terror network’s] members were integrated into Taliban forces and command structures” said Sean O’Donnell, the department’s acting inspector general.And on Monday, the U.N. mission in the country published a new report that points to a sharp increase in targeted killings of Afghan human rights defenders and journalists in recent months.’Much higher’ Taliban violenceThe Taliban have denied they are behind the assassination spree, but Afghan officials blame the insurgents, and independent observers also say the group’s denial is not convincing.“Taliban violence is much higher than historical norms,” General Scott Miller, the head of U.S. forces and the NATO-led noncombat Resolute Support mission, told Reuters on Wednesday. “It just doesn’t create the conditions to move forward in what is hopefully a historic turning point for Afghanistan.”The increase in violence prompted U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to review the deal before deciding on whether to bring home the remaining 2,500 American soldiers from the South Asian nation to close what has been the longest military intervention in U.S. history.Despite that, the Russian state-owned Sputnik News Agency quoted Kabulov as saying, “The Taliban adhere to the agreement almost flawlessly — not a single American soldier has died since the agreement was signed — which cannot be said about the Americans.”The Russian envoy accused the U.S. military of “repeatedly” carrying out airstrikes against Taliban-held Afghan area positions “under various pretexts.”NATO Chief: No Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan ‘Before the Time Is Right’ Washington has reduced the number of US forces in the country to 2,500 from nearly 13,000 a year agoKabulov also downplayed the presence of al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan, saying the terror network has about 500 militants in the country and they do not constitute a major security challenge.“If the new [U.S] administration decides not to withdraw [the troops], it will violate the agreement with the Taliban. It doesn’t look good for anyone. The Taliban have announced the war will continue [if foreign troops extend their stay],” said Kabulov.Through an “open letter,” the Taliban also urged the Biden administration on Tuesday to stick to the troop withdrawal agreement, describing it as “the most effective way of ending” the war in Afghanistan.American officials maintain the U.S. has reduced its forces in Afghanistan from nearly 13,000 a year ago to 2,500 to meet its obligations outlined in the agreement. They also acknowledge the U.S. military has suffered no casualties since the signing of the accord with the Taliban that bound insurgents not to stage attacks against foreign troops.Meeting soughtKabulov said Moscow is trying to host a multination meeting this month on how to nudge the Afghan warring parties back to the negotiating table for peace talks that stemmed from the U.S.-Taliban agreement but have been suspended since early last month.The Taliban and Afghan government negotiators have accused each other of dragging their feet in the talks that started last September but failed to produce tangible results.Kabulov said China, the U.S., Iran and Pakistan have been invited to the proposed meeting to develop a “collective mechanism to push the warring Afghan sides to return to table” and “declare a cease-fire at least for the period of the negotiation process.”The Russian envoy said he would travel to Islamabad this week for “consultations” with Pakistani officials on the Afghan peace process. A Pakistani foreign ministry source told VOA the Russian diplomat was scheduled to arrive in the country on Friday.Taliban Urges US Public to Demand Early Pullout From AfghanistanBiden administration is reviewing whether the Taliban is honoring its commitments before deciding to withdraw remaining 2,500 US troopsKabulov blamed the Afghan government for delaying the start of the intra-Afghan talks that were originally scheduled to begin last March.“The Kabul administration has already done a lot of stupid things: It delayed the start of negotiations in anticipation of a change of administration in Washington, thinking that the next administration would behave differently,” alleged Kabulov.He went on to assert the delay in starting the negotiations had allowed the Taliban to expand their influence to “three-quarters of the territory of Afghanistan” and “strengthen their negotiating position.”Criticism of Taliban defenseA senior Afghan interior ministry official, Sediq Sediqqi, criticized Kabulov for defending the Taliban. “No one should just close their eyes and say that the Taliban adhered to the terms. If that was the case, Afghans would have lived in a cease-fire and peace, the talks would continue and there would have been a solution. Taliban are the main violator and they at war with Afghans,” Sediqqi tweeted.Critics acknowledge Biden faces a tough challenge in deciding how to proceed in Afghanistan, but they say abandoning the timelines agreed upon with the Taliban will have consequences.”If the U.S. extends its military presence beyond May 1, there’s a good chance the Taliban will declare the Doha deal null and void, its war against the U.S. will be back on, a nascent and fragile intra-Afghan dialogue will fall apart, and we will be back to square one,” said Michael Kugelman at Washington’s Wilson Center. 
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The U.S.- German pharmaceutical partners Pfizer-BioNTech announced Wednesday they have struck a deal with the European Commission — the European Union’s executive branch – for another 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, with an option to purchase an additional 100 million doses.
In a statement Wednesday, the companies said the agreement is in addition to one signed with the EU last year for 300 million doses through 2021.
The additional doses are expected to be delivered in 2021, with an estimated 75 million to be supplied in the second quarter.
Including the option for 100 million doses, the EU has now potentially stockpiled 600 million doses for use through this year. The regional bloc is being criticized by some of its member states for its slow rollout of the vaccine program.
Last week, in comments to the European Parliament, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen apologized for some of the decisions that contributed to delays, but she expressed no regrets for the extra time taken to ensure the vaccines were efficient and safe before they were approved.
Through its drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the EU has so far approved three vaccines for use among its member states. Along with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, the EMA has given emergency approval to vaccines produced by Moderna and AstraZeneca.
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Britain wants to see proof that Sheikha Latifa, one of the ruler of Dubai’s daughters, is still alive after the BBC showed a video in which she said she was being held against her will in a barricaded villa, the foreign minister said on Wednesday.
 
“It’s deeply troubling and you can see a young woman under deep distress,” Dominic Raab said.
 
In the video, shown as part of the BBC’s Panorama current affairs programme, Latifa, 35, said: “I am a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail.”
 
She said she was making the video in the bathroom of the villa, the only room she could lock herself into, adding: “All the windows are barred shut, I can’t open any window.”
 
Asked whether he would support seeing some kind of proof from the United Arab Emirates that Sheikha Latifa was alive, Raab told Sky News television: “Given what we’ve just seen, I think people would just at a human level want to see that she’s alive and well.”
 
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the United Nations was looking into the situation.
 
“That’s something obviously that we are concerned about but the U.N. Commission on Human Rights is looking at that,” he told reporters. “I think what we’ll do is wait and see how they get on. We’ll keep an eye on that.”
 
The Dubai government’s media office referred questions about the video to Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum’s law firm, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
 
Reuters could not independently verify when or where the video was recorded.
 Free Latifa” Campaign
 
Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum drew international attention in 2018 when a human rights group released a video made by her in which she described an attempt to escape Dubai.
 
Last March, a London High Court judge said he accepted as proved a series of allegations made by Sheikh Mohammed’s former wife, Princess Haya, in a legal battle, including that the sheikh ordered the abduction of Latifa. The sheikh’s lawyers rejected the allegations.
 
Asked if Britain would impose sanctions on the UAE after the video, Raab said: “It’s not clear to me that there would be the evidence to support that.”
 
The Free Latifa campaign, which has lobbied for her release, said it had managed to smuggle a phone to Latifa, which had been used to send a series of secret video messages taken over the past two years.
 
Before Tuesday, the only time Latifa had been seen since she was brought back to Dubai was when her family released photos of her sitting with Mary Robinson, a former Irish president and a United Nations high commissioner for human rights, in late 2018.
 
But Robinson told the BBC she had been “horribly tricked” during the visit and never asked Latifa about her situation, fearing it would exacerbate a mental condition she was told the princess had.
 
Mohammed has a vast horse racing stable in Britain and has been pictured with Queen Elizabeth at Royal Ascot horse races.
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Britain’s foreign secretary will call for a U.N. Security Council resolution Wednesday on local cease-fires in order to get COVID-19 vaccines to millions of people in conflict areas.  “We have a moral duty to act, and a strategic necessity to come together to defeat this virus,” Dominic Raab will tell a high-level session of the U.N. Security Council on the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, according to a statement from his office. Britain presides over the 15-nation body this month. The United Nations has pushed for equitable global access to the COVID-19 vaccine, emphasizing that no country is safe until all are. Uneven inoculations could also lead to virus mutations and new vaccine-resistant variants.  More than 160 million people are at risk of not receiving COVID-19 vaccinations because of instability and conflict, in places including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. Britain says temporary cease-fires negotiated on a case-by-case basis when vaccines are available and ready for distribution in those areas could facilitate the safety of aid workers administering them and the civilians who receive them.FILE – A woman clad in mask due to the COVID-19 pandemic walks next to a child by tents at Camp Roj, housing people who were relocated from al-Hol camp, in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province, Sept. 30, 2020.Britain points to a successful effort in Afghanistan in 2001 as evidence that local cease-fires can work. There, a two-day pause in fighting allowed thousands of healthcare workers to inoculate nearly 6 million children against polio.  Diplomats said Raab is expected to announce negotiations on a council resolution at the meeting, with the aim of circulating a first draft among members by the end of the week for discussion. It would call for local cease-fires, access to vulnerable populations and funding for the effort.  The initiative faces an uphill battle if a similar effort by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is any indicator. In late March, as the coronavirus was making its way across the planet, he launched a call for a global cease-fire to assist international containment efforts. It took the Security Council three months to agree a resolution supporting his call, after bickering between the then Trump-led U.S. delegation and China over the origins of the virus. While fighting has cooled in some conflict zones, there has been no global pause in fighting.  The high-level session will be the international debut of new Biden administration Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who will join the virtual session and make remarks. Nine other foreign ministers are expected to participate, as well as one prime minister.  U.N. Chief Guterres, the head of UNICEF and the CEO of the vaccination alliance Gavi, will be among the meeting’s briefers.  Wednesday’s session comes ahead of a G7 leaders meeting on Friday, which Britain will also chair and will focus on COVID-19 recovery. 
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The new head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) says in these challenging times, it’s no time for “business as usual,” noting that “deep and wide-ranging reforms are needed” within the world trade body. More with VOA’s Mariama Diallo.  
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be using his first ministerial meeting with NATO allies Wednesday to try to repair the frayed relationship, acknowledging that long-standing ties were, at times, strained under former U.S. President Donald Trump.The change in tone and approach, as senior U.S. defense officials described it Tuesday, comes as the United States and NATO are staring down major decisions on force levels in Afghanistan and on how to best confront powers like Russia and China, which remain set on bending international norms in their favor.But the officials said the Biden administration believes the ability to make progress on any of the pressing issues facing the alliance depends on putting the relationship back on solid footing.”It is fair to say that over the last four years, the public perception of the U.S. commitment and our intent have been a little bit unclear,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters ahead of the start of two days of virtual meetings.Austin “is really focused on trying to revitalize our relationship with the alliance,” the official said, adding the secretary intends to assure NATO that Washington’s commitment to mutual defense, referred to as Article 5 under the treaty, “remains ironclad.”NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference ahead of a NATO defense minister’s meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Feb. 15, 2021.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg signaled a desire to reset the U.S.-NATO relationship earlier this month.“There’s no denying that over the last four years, we had some challenging times. And there’s no secret that also I had some difficult discussions with the former president,” he said. “It is in the security interests of both Europe and North America, the United States, to start again.”Yet while the Biden administration and NATO seek to mend any lingering rifts, they are being confronted by their first major decision — what to do in Afghanistan, where the U.S. faces a May deadline for withdrawing its remaining 2,500 troops from the country.Afghanistan“There have not been any decisions on Afghanistan troop levels,” the senior defense official said, calling the NATO ministerial a chance for the U.S. to consult with alliance members, who have another 7,000 troops stationed there.”The United States and NATO went into Afghanistan together. We will adjust together. And if the time is right, we will leave together,” the official added, echoing comments from the FILE – A convoy of U.S. troops, a part of NATO’s reinforcement of its eastern flank, drive from Germany to Orzysz in northeast Poland, March 28, 2017.US forces in EuropeWashington’s NATO allies are also going to want to hear about the fate of U.S. troops currently stationed across Europe.Under the direction of Trump, the U.S. announced last July it would be pulling about 12,000 troops from Germany, sending some of them to Belgium, Italy and Poland, while bringing the rest back home. Under Biden, that plan has been put on hold. And Washington is likely to assure allies that at the least, U.S. forces will not be pulling back.”I would in no way expect to see anything that would look like, say, a withdrawal,” a senior U.S. defense official said. “The posture in Europe is critical to U.S. national security interests.”RussiaAlong with assuring U.S. European allies of a continued U.S. presence, defense officials will also prioritize standing up to Russia.“Revitalizing the U.S. relationship with the alliance, a change in our tone and approach, a desire to work with our allies and partners … that is all inextricably tied to what we have seen from Russia,” the senior defense official said.Defense spendingOne area where there is likely to be some degree of continuity from the Trump administration to the Biden administration is on defense spending.Pentagon officials said Tuesday while they are appreciative of the NATO allies who have made good on the alliance-wide pledge for all members to spend 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, it is not enough.”We expect all allies to live up to this commitment,” the senior defense official said. “There’s more work to be done … you’re going to very much hear that.”VOA Afghan service contributed to this report. 
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The Dutch government’s COVID-19 policy suffered a major blow Tuesday when a judge ordered the curfew it imposed lifted immediately, saying the government misused its emergency powers. The government immediately appealed the ruling. Prime Minister Mark Rutte imposed the curfew in January in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. The curfew — which allows only people with a pressing need to be outdoors between 9 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. — was the nation’s first since World War II. It was scheduled to end February 9 but was extended last week until at least March 3.The curfew spawned several days of sometimes violent protests when it was first implemented. A group that led several of those protests, Viruswaarheid (“Virus Truth”), brought the case that the court ruled on Tuesday.At a news conference following the ruling, Rutte defended the curfew, saying it was designed to bring the virus under control. He said that while he wants people to have their freedoms, he wants them to be safe as well. He urged people to continue obeying the curfew whether the government’s appeal is successful or not.The Associated Press reports a hearing held Tuesday to consider a government request to allow the curfew to continue, pending the appeal, was halted after a few minutes when a member of Viruswaarheid accused the presiding judge of bias. AP reports the full appeal will be considered on Friday. 
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Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél was arrested Tuesday after a 24-hour standoff between him and his free speech supporters on one side and Catalan anti-riot police on the other. Along with more than 50 supporters, Hásel barricaded himself in rectorate building of Lleida University, located some 160 kilometers west of Barcelona, to resist reporting to serve a prison sentence and to campaign for free speech.“We will win! They will not bend us with all their repression. Never!” the 32-year-old rapper yelled to TV news cameras during his arrest.Hasél, whose birth name is Pablo Rivadulla Duró, has gained attention across Spain for demanding a change to the country’s so-called “Gag Law.” The 2015 legislation, called the Citizen Safety Law, imposes fines for protesting in front of parliament or taking and sharing photographs of police officers. The law became more restrictive during Spain’s mandatory coronavirus quarantine, according to the country’s newspaper El País.Over 200 artists, including film director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Javier Bardem, signed a petition against his jail term. Amnesty International condemned Hasél’s arrest as “terrible news for freedom of expression in Spain.”Last week, the left-wing coalition government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced it would change Spain’s criminal code to eliminate prison terms for free speech offenses. But the government did not specify when it would take action or whether Hasél’s protests inspired the changes.This is not the first time Hasél has clashed with law enforcement. He has faced charges on at least four occasions for assault, praising armed extremist groups, breaking into private premises or insulting the country’s monarchy. In 2014, he was given a two-year sentence, which was suspended, for a song criticizing former King Juan Carlos. In 2018, he was sentenced to nine months in jail for 64 tweets he posted between 2014 and 2016 calling for insurrection. Spain’s National Court rejected his appeals to be kept out of prison, alleging it would be “discriminatory” to do so.Overnight, Hasél tweeted that he chose to go to prison instead of seeking exile.“We cannot allow them to dictate what we can say, what we can feel or what we can do,” he said. “They will arrest me with my head up high for not giving in to their terror, for adding my grain of salt to everything I am saying. We all can do it.”
 
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The prospect of vaccine passports is getting closer in Europe — with more governments considering introducing them not only for travelers, but also to help reopen bars, restaurants and concert halls.Asked whether the introduction of vaccine passports is likely, Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, told reporters Monday some international travel likely would require proof of coronavirus inoculation.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a vial of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine during a visit to a vaccination center in Orpington, South-East of London, Britain, Feb. 15, 2021.“Some countries, clearly, are going to be wanting to insist that people coming to their country have evidence of a vaccination — just as people have insisted in the past that you have evidence you are vaccinated against yellow fever or other diseases,” he said. European governments have been split about whether to endorse a system of vaccine passports, but the travel, tourist and hospitality sectors are desperate to get business going again and say they can’t afford another lost summer.But civil libertarians worry the continent will be divided along a new haves and have-nots fault-line, and this week Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, provoked a political uproar when he told a radio interviewer that Britons may have to present evidence of vaccination to enter bars and grocery stores.FILE – Britain’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominic Raab walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain, Feb. 3, 2021.“It’s something that hasn’t been ruled out and it’s under consideration, but of course you’ve got to make it workable,” Raab said.His comment earned a sharp rebuke not only from civil libertarians but from Conservative lawmakers.“For everyday life, I don’t think you want to require people to have to have a particular medical procedure before they can go about their day-to-day life,” lawmaker Mark Harper said. “That is not how we do things in Britain.”Elsewhere in Europe, more governments are exploring the idea of introducing vaccine passports — at least for travel. Denmark’s finance minister, Morten Bødskov, last week raised the prospect of inoculation passports being introduced by the end of the month, which would make the Scandinavian country the world’s first to do so. Denmark is currently under a strict pandemic lockdown.“Denmark is still hard hit by the corona pandemic,” he said. “But there are parts of Danish society that need to move forward, and a business community that needs to be able to travel.” FILE – Jytte Margrete Frederiksen, 83, is one of the first Danes vaccinated against COVID-19, in Ishoj, Denmark, Dec. 27, 2020.Estonia is working with the World Health Organization (WHO) on a project to create standardized electronic vaccination certification the country hopes could become the “gold standard” and attract global recognition.Marten Kaevats, an adviser to the Estonian government on technology, told AFP the primary challenge for a globally endorsed system is to ensure that anyone checking the certificate can “trust the source.” The Estonian solution is looking at producing a digital version of the extant paper yellow-card used to prove yellow fever vaccination.Estonia, a tech trailblazer that’s been a pioneer in government e-services, isn’t alone in exploring a possible a digital vaccine passport program that can command global respect. Britain, Greece, Iceland, Hungary, Lithuania and pharmaceutical companies have all announced initiatives. Some are looking at using QR codes, or even facial recognition technology.The challenge is further complicated by the different data-systems countries have for keeping electronic health records that are not mutually recognized across borders. And most countries don’t even maintain digital health records.Kaevats told AFP it is unlikely that a global digital ID will emerge in the coming months, and it is more likely there will be a muddling through in a messy and arbitrary way with a mix of paper and electronic certificates appearing.People wait at the reception hall of a COVID-19 vaccination mega center in Athens, Feb. 15, 2021.Greece has urged the European Commission to shape a common understanding on how a vaccination certificate should be structured, so it could be accepted in all member states. But the EC is struggling — and officials say it becomes even more complicated when trying to fashion a framework for the recognition of certificates that might be developed by countries outside the European Union.There also are disagreements over what rules should apply to travelers who received vaccines not approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Experts at the WHO have withheld recommending vaccination passports for travel, deterred by fears of a messy and dispute-filled implementation and worried by the insufficient guarantee that those who have been inoculated can’t spread the virus, if they still contract it themselves and are asymptomatic.Some international airlines, including the Middle East’s Etihad, which has become the first airline to vaccinate all operational crew, say they already are planning to require passengers to produce pre-travel inoculation documentation. Some airlines are planning to add to their apps a requirement for passengers to add details of their vaccination before being able to book. Growing backlashBut vaccine passports and the emerging idea of inoculation certification being needed to enter restaurants, bars, concert halls and sports stadiums also is prompting a backlash from rights and privacy campaigners. They say that would be unfair when there is not universal access to vaccines and that such plans would be a backdoor way to make vaccinations mandatory, infringing on the freedom of those who refuse vaccines.In Britain, rights campaigners reacted with dismay Tuesday when the country’s vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, told the BBC the government would not forbid businesses from pressing ahead with their own inoculation certification standards for customers and even for employees. “It’s up to businesses what they do,” he said. Zahawi previously had rejected the idea of vaccine passports, saying that the use of them would be “wrong” and “discriminatory.”British ministers appear to be in a quandary, with no firm agreement within the cabinet about the way forward. While Foreign Minister Rabb has openly touted the possibility of vaccine certificates being required for domestic in-country activities, other ministers have briefed against the idea, saying they are sure there will be no formal endorsement of vaccine passports for domestic use.While Johnson said Monday that Britons should not be expected to present paperwork to enter a pub, he shied away from discussing whether care homes and other businesses should be able to insist employees be inoculated.FILE – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks at a Reuters Newsmaker event in London, Nov. 25, 2019.Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who has been campaigning for a global coronavirus vaccine passport system, said this week, “We have the technology that enables us to do this securely and effectively. The need is obvious.” He added, “The arguments against it really don’t add up.”But critics say the result will be to divide people, and countries, between vaccine haves and vaccine have-nots, affecting the developing and poor nations much more than rich ones. Some experts estimate that most African nations are unlikely to see mass vaccination programs until 2023 or even 2024.FILE – A syringe and a pack of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are seen on the opened window of a pass-through at the newly opened vaccination center, in the former Berlin Tegel Airport, in Berlin, Feb. 10, 2021.Germany’s ethics council, an independent government-funded body, has urged that no special conditions be accorded to the inoculated. It has said much is still unknown about whether vaccinated people can still spread the virus, and that introducing privileges for the vaccinated could prompt civil unrest with the have-nots feeling they are being elbowed aside.France’s European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, has firmly objected to vaccine passports. “We are very reluctant,” he said. “It would be shocking, while the campaign is still just starting across Europe, for there to be more important rights for some than for others.” 
 
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European markets were mixed Tuesday amid growing optimism over the release and distribution of more COVID-19 vaccines around the world, coupled with a steady decline of new coronavirus cases.    
 
Britain’s benchmark FTSE index was up 0.1% at midday.  The CAC 40 index in France gained one-half of one point (+0.01%), while Germany’s DAX index was down more than 13 points (-0.09%).  
 
Asian markets, meanwhile, posted strong numbers earlier Tuesday. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index finished 1.2% higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged 1.9%. South Korea’s KOSPI index earned 0.5%, while the TSEC in Taiwan rose 0.6%. 
Mumbai’s Sensex index was down 0.1%. Shanghai’s Composite index remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.    
 
Elsewhere, the  S&P/ASX index in Australia closed up 0.7%.
 
In commodities trading, gold is selling was $1,815.80 an ounce, down 0.4%. U.S. crude was selling at $59.62 per barrel, up 0.2%, and Brent crude oil was selling 0.9% higher, at $63.01 per barrel.  
 
All three major U.S. indices, which were inactive Monday for the federal President’s Day (Washington’s Birthday) holiday, were trending higher in futures trading ahead of Wall Street’s opening bell.  
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Colombia is set to begin immunizations against COVID-19 after receiving its first shipment of vaccines on Monday. President Ivan Duque and his health minister accepted the first 50,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and said frontline health care workers and the elderly will be the first to get their shots. Colombia has a contract to buy 10 million doses from Pfizer and it expects to soon receive 1.6 million doses from other laboratories. The government says it intends to vaccinate 35 million people this year, including hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees. Colombia is one of the last countries in Latin America to start vaccinations, behind Ecuador, Panama and Chile. President Duque said his administration was hesitant to start immunizations until it had assurance of getting a steady supply of vaccine to battle the novel coronavirus.  The president also said the arrival of vaccines does not end the use of masks and social distancing. Colombia has more than 2,198,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 57,786 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.  
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Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti said late Monday he is angry and disappointed that 487 people, including former ministers Pilar Mazzetti (Health) and Elizabeth Astete (Foreign Affairs) used their government positions to get vaccinated against COVID-19 outside of the clinical trials. Franciso said in a televised address that they were immunized with the Sinopharm vaccines, which came separately as a complement to those used in clinical trials in Peru. The Peruvian leader blasted the government officials on the list provided by Cayetano Heredia University, saying they failed to fulfill their duty as public servants and failed to show loyalty to the President of the Council of Ministers and himself. Franciso said the list will be sent to the prosecutors and the investigation commission formed by Health Minister Oscar Ugarte to determine the next actions to be taken. Mr.Sagasti said the incident will not impact the country’s effort to secure more vaccines. Peru has one of the highest COVID-19 tallies in Latin America, with more than 1,235,000 confirmed infections and 43,703 deaths, according to Johns Hopkin University Covid Resource Center. 
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron, expressing her commitment to strengthening bilateral relations, a White House statement said on Monday.  “Vice President Harris and President Macron agreed on the need for close bilateral and multilateral cooperation to address COVID-19, climate change, and support democracy at home and around the world,” the statement said. Since President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20, his administration has moved to rebuild ties with allies over global issues, a sharp break from the approach of former President Donald Trump, who advocated “America First.”President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Jan. 21, 2021, in Washington.In the weeks since Biden was inaugurated, the United States has rejoined the World Health Organization and is rejoining the Paris climate accord.   The call was the second Harris has had with a world leader since taking office, a sign that Harris, a former U.S. senator from California, may play a foreign policy role in the Biden administration. Earlier this month, Harris spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, her first call as vice president with a foreign leader. According to the White House statement, Harris and Macron agreed on the need to combat regional unrest in the Middle East and Africa.  Harris praised Macron for his “leadership on the issue of gender equality and for France’s contribution to NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.” The phone call is the second between Washington and Paris since Biden took office and potentially bolsters Macron, who faces election next year. Macron has been criticized for poor management of the COVID-19 crisis and a weak French economy, as well as a failure to fight terrorism from Islamic extremists.  Macron is facing stiff opposition from his long-time challenger Marine Le Pen. 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused fellow NATO ally the United States of supporting terrorists in the wake of the deaths of 13 kidnapped Turks in northern Iraq. He also said a U.S. statement about the killings, which Ankara blamed on Kurdish militants, was a joke.”You [the U.S.] said you did not support terrorists, when in fact you are on their side and behind them,” Erdogan said Monday in comments to supporters. By terrorists, he was referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has been waging a decadeslong insurgency inside southeastern Turkey.Erdogan spoke one day after a U.S. State Department spokesman said in a statement that if the reports of the deaths of Turkish civilians at the hands of the PKK are confirmed, “we condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.” The U.S., European Union and Turkey consider the PKK a terrorist organization.FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony BlinkenLater Monday, the spokesman said in another statement that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken by phone with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. The statement said in part, “The Secretary expressed condolences for the deaths of Turkish hostages in northern Iraq and affirmed our view that PKK terrorists bear responsibility.”FILE – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut CavusogluSeparately, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said it summoned the U.S. ambassador, David Satterfield, to lodge “in the strongest possible terms” Ankara’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to accept Turkey’s version of events immediately.Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday the bodies were discovered in the Gara region, near the Turkey-Iraq border, during an operation against the PKK in which Turkish forces killed 48 militants. The bodies were found in a cave complex.A statement on a PKK website said it was holding prisoners of war, including Turkish intelligence, police, and military personnel, and that they were killed due to the fighting.Analysts say the diplomatic dispute between the NATO allies brings to fore simmering tension over Washington’s support of the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia, in its war against Islamic State. Ankara accuses the YPG of being affiliated with the PKK.”Fighting the PKK became the principal occupation of the Turkish military,” said international relations professor Serhat Guvenc of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. Around 40,000 people have died in the PKK’s fight for greater minority rights in Turkey.Washington maintains that the YPG is separate from the PKK, but Ankara is demanding that the U.S. administration decide where its loyalties lie.”The U.S. has to give a final decision. If they continue with the PKK in the region [Syria] or with Turkey, this is a most difficult question,” said Turkish presidential adviser Mesut Casin, who is also with Istanbul’s Yeditepe University.Analyst Guvenc says Ankara is nervous over the stance U.S. President Joe Biden will take toward the YPG. Biden served as vice president under Barack Obama, whose administration took the step to militarily back the YPG against the Islamic State group.”We see a good number of those people in Obama’s team will be part of the new administration in foreign and military positions who support the YPG policy,” said Guvenc. “This must be a major source of concern for Ankara. They will be dealing with people they don’t like. Like this special envoy McGurk, his appointment has sent a very strong signal of what is in the offing.”FILE – Then-President Barack Obama’s envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, Brett McGurkGuvenc was referring to Brett McGurk, who served as a special envoy for Syria during the Obama administration. Cavusoglu accused McGurk of being a PKK supporter while in the region.McGurk is now the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.Some observers note that since Biden won election in November, he has yet to speak with Erdogan, a sign of how complex and complicated bilateral relations remain.”It is hard to see how either party will manage to walk around this minefield,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in Washington. He added, “Firm transactionalism is the new buzzword to depict and predict the Biden administration’s approach towards Turkey.”Analysts point out Erdogan is famed for balancing fiery rhetoric with pragmatism and transactionalism. But the Turkish president Monday said relations with its NATO allies have reached a critical moment.”After this, there are two options. Either act with Turkey with no if’s or but’s, without question, or they will be a partner to every murder and bloodshed,” he said.” The terrorist organization on our doorstep, on our borders, is killing innocents.” 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday suggested he would support a global treaty on pandemics that would establish standards for data-sharing and transparency. Johnson made the comment during his usual COVID-19 briefing from his office in London, when asked about the World Health Organization team’s recently concluded visit to Wuhan, China, to investigate the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.  On Friday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan issued a statement saying that while the Biden administration has great respect for WHO’s work and the experts who work for it, he expressed “deep concerns” about the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation team and has questions about the process used to reach them. FILE – Peter Daszak and Thea Fischer, members of the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease, sit in a car arriving at Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, Feb. 2, 2021.The Biden administration called on China to make its data from the earliest days of the outbreak available to the world so that it may better understand this pandemic and be ready for the next one. Johnson agreed with those comments and the Biden administration’s call for transparency and said he would go a step further and support a global pandemic treaty that would create a general agreement on how data is shared and on ensuring transparency.  European Council President Charles Michel first proposed the idea of a pandemic treaty last November at the Paris Peace Forum. Such a treaty would likely be developed with the participation of U.N. agencies, civil society groups and nongovernmental agencies.  Nations signing on to such a treaty would, in the event of a pandemic, have a set of standards and guidelines governing how data is shared with the rest of the world. 
 
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Crowds of seals lie on the sand, some wriggling towards the water, on the northern French coast where they are staging a comeback. Drone images show around 250 wild grey seals, adults and cubs, frolicking at low tide near the town of Marck. Seals started to disappear from the Cote d’Opale in the 1970s, under pressure from fishermen who saw them as rivals for their catch. Seals, which have no natural predators in the English Channel, have been a protected species in France since the 1980s and as a result they have begun to return to the coast. Rescued grey seal cubs wait for fish during their quarantine at LPA animal refuge in Calais, France, Feb. 13, 2021.”At low tide, they settle here to get fat, to rest and to prepare for their upcoming hunt at sea,” seal enthusiast Jerome Gressier told Reuters. According to a 2018 report of the Hauts-de-France region’s Eco-Phoques project, at least 1,100 seals now live in the area. In the region’s Baie de Somme, harbor seal numbers grew by 14.4% between 1990 and 2017, while grey seals rose by 20%, the study found. Gressier uses a long-focus lens to identify injured seals. “It allows us to see if there are any animals who are caught in nets,” he said. “It hurts them enormously if they are caught by the neck.” Injured seals are treated at a nearby animal rescue center in Calais. Center manager Christel Gressier says many of the animals they deal with are seals, some abandoned by their mothers. “At around three weeks, the mother will quickly teach it to hunt, but if the seal is not able to manage, or do it quickly enough, she leaves and she goes about her business,” she said. “It is at this moment that we can intervene for seals that would not have been able to adapt quickly enough.” 
 
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After a weeklong bus ride from Honduras, Isabel Osorio Medina arrived in northern Mexico with the hope President Joe Biden would make it easier for people like him to get into the United States.
“It seems the new president wants to help migrants,” Osorio said as he got ready to check in to a cheap hotel in downtown Tijuana before heading to the U.S. “They’re saying he is going to help, but I don’t know for sure how much is true or not.”
The 63-year-old is among thousands of people who have come to the U.S.-Mexico border with the hope they will be able to ask for asylum and make their way into the U.S. now that former President Donald Trump is no longer in office.  
While Biden has taken some major steps in his first weeks in office to reverse Trump’s hardline immigration policies, his administration has not lifted some of the most significant barriers to asylum-seekers.  
In fact, it’s discouraging people from coming to the country, hoping to avoid what happened under both Trump and former President Barack Obama — border agents getting overwhelmed by migrants, including many Central Americans with children.
“Now is not the time to come,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a recent briefing, “and the vast majority of people will be turned away.”  
Secretary of State Antony Blinken struck a similar tone on Feb. 6 as he announced official steps to end Trump-era agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala that required many asylum-seekers to seek refuge in one of those countries instead of the U.S.  
“To be clear, these actions do not mean that the U.S. border is open,” Blinken said. “While we are committed to expanding legal pathways for protection and opportunity here and in the region, the United States is a country with borders and laws that must be enforced.”  
That message hasn’t reached everyone.  
More people have been arriving at an encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, a dangerous city just south of the Texas border where hundreds of asylum-seekers have been waiting under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.  
It’s possible even more may come after the Biden administration announced Friday that it would slowly allow an estimated 25,000 people to enter the U.S. as their cases are reviewed. The first wave is expected Feb. 19.
Walter Valenzuela, a 37-year-old Honduran, said he had been waiting in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, for months for a chance to either seek asylum or risk an illegal crossing.
For years, asylum-seekers who met the initial threshold of demonstrating a “credible fear” of persecution in their homeland could generally stay in the U.S. until an immigration judge decided whether they qualified for permanent residency, which can take years.  
Trump administration officials believed many asylum claims were fraudulent or lacked merit, submitted by people simply looking to remain in the U.S. But the issue is murky as tens of thousands flee violent gangs, natural disasters and political upheaval.
The Biden administration has signed several executive orders on immigration, including allowing in more refugees and establishing a task force to find the parents of about 600 children who were separated under Trump and still haven’t been reunited.
But it hasn’t ended a public health order Trump issued at the start of the coronavirus pandemic that allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately expel nearly everyone, including asylum-seekers.  
Psaki said the government is still working to develop a “humane, comprehensive process” to evaluate people coming to the U.S.  
“Asylum processes at the border will not occur immediately,” she said. “It will take time to implement.”  
Alan Bersin, who held top positions dealing with border security during the Clinton and Obama administrations, warned that Biden is headed for a crisis if he releases all asylum-seekers into the United States. That would invite fraud and abuse, he said.
“There’s such a pressing sense in the advocate community that is controlling the Biden immigration agenda — they want to reverse all Trump actions,” he said.  
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting.
The number of people apprehended at the border has increased since January, though it’s below some previous periods. Authorities say many are getting caught and returned multiple times.
Complicating matters, a law has taken effect in Mexico that prohibits holding children in migrant detention centers, and the U.S. has stopped sending back some families along parts of the border.
CBP, which doesn’t have capacity to hold families because of COVID-19, in recent weeks has released dozens of people into the U.S. with instructions to appear in court later.
Authorities fear that as word spreads of those releases, more people will come. And asylum is not the only immigration issue creating headwinds for Biden’s administration.
Texas and Arizona have both sued to stop Biden’s 100-day deportation moratorium, which a judge temporarily put on hold. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement officers are complaining about proposed rules to focus on detaining and removing people in the country illegally who pose national security threats or have been convicted of more serious crimes.  
Jon Feere, a senior adviser to ICE under Trump, said such moves are part of a larger pattern that the Biden administration will come to regret.  
“When you send the message that you are not serious about immigration enforcement, you can’t act surprised when you see a massive influx of people that you have to manage,” he said.
Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said last week that as a liaison to the Biden transition team, he found the staff to be “very attentive” to the issues. Some had experience with surges of asylum-seekers under Obama.  
“This wasn’t uncharted waters,” Ortiz said in an interview  produced by the Border Patrol. “It wasn’t like we were starting from scratch.”
The larger debate is lost on Osorio, who came to Tijuana because he heard Biden wants to help people like him. He says he intended to seek asylum based on the dangers he faced as an environmental activist protesting illegal logging in Honduras.
But because he can’t seek asylum at the official border crossing in San Diego, other migrants told him about a place he could try to cross illegally. He said if he encountered the Border Patrol, he would ask for asylum and see what happens.  
“They already told us more or less how to do it,” Osorio said. “We’re going to take a look.”
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expecting their second child, their office confirmed Sunday.
A spokesperson for Prince Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, said in a statement: “We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child.”Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are pictured in this undated handout photo supplied to Reuters, following an announcement that they are expecting their second child.In a black-and-white photo of themselves, the couple sat near a tree with Harry’s hand placed under Meghan’s head as she lies on his lap with her hand resting on her bump.
The baby will be eighth in line to the British throne.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “Her Majesty, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and the entire family are delighted and wish them well.”
The duke told chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall in 2019 that he would only have two children for the sake of the planet.
Goodall said: “Not too many,” and Harry replied: “Two, maximum.”  
Harry and American actor Meghan Markle married at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son Archie was born a year later.
In early 2020, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They recently bought a house in Santa Barbara, California.
In November, Meghan revealed that she had a miscarriage in July 2020, giving a personal account of the traumatic experience in hope of helping others.
A few days ago, the duchess won a privacy claim against a newspaper over the publication of a personal letter to her estranged father.
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Larry the cat, a four-legged inhabitant of London’s 10 Downing St., is marking a decade as Britain’s mouse-catcher in chief on Monday.
 
The tabby cat was recruited by then-Prime Minister David Cameron to deal with a pack of rats seen scuttling close to the British leader’s official residence and entered Downing Street on Feb. 15, 2011.
 
The former stray, adopted from London’s Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, was given the title Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, an unofficial pest control post. He was the first cat to hold the rat-catching portfolio since the retirement of Humphrey in 1997 and has loyally served three prime ministers.
 
But it seems like yesterday that Larry was just another cat — as opposed to a media superstar — said Lindsey Quinlan, the head of cattery of Battersea.  
 
“Throughout his time at Number 10, Larry has proven himself to not only be a brilliant ambassador for Battersea but also demonstrated to millions of people around the world how incredible rescue cats are,” she said. “His rags to riches tale is yet more proof of why all animals deserve a second chance — one minute they may be an overlooked stray on the streets, the next they could become one of the nation’s beloved political figures, with fans around the world.”
 
Larry, who has met several world leaders, has been largely unfriendly to men but took a liking to former U.S. President Barack Obama. When former President Donald Trump visited in 2019, Larry took a nap under his car.
 
His grip on the public imagination is clear — and political leaders know better than to ignore that popularity. The tomcat was a sentimental topic of conversation in Cameron’s final appearance in parliament as prime minister when he said he wanted to quash a rumor that — perish the thought — he didn’t like Larry.
 
And just to prove it, he whipped out evidence: a picture of Larry lying on his lap.
“He belongs to the house and the staff love him very much — as do I,” he said at the time, explaining why he wasn’t taking Larry with him after leaving office.
 
After the December 2019 election, rumors swirled that Larry might be headed for retirement with the news that the new prime minister, Boris Johnson, was a dog man.  
However, despite the prime minister moving Jack Russell cross Dilyn into Downing Street, Larry remained in office.
 
Reports of his rodent-killing abilities vary. Larry became known for his occasional scraps with neighboring cats — especially Palmerston, chief mouser to the Foreign Office across the street — and fondness for sleep. Palmerston has retired to the country, so things have been a bit quieter of late.
 
These days Larry, now 14, is often seen by photographers patrolling his turf. Visitors to the building can sometimes find him napping on a ledge above a radiator or sleeping on a floor, where dignitaries occasionally have to step over him.
 
At the heart of government, he specializes in power naps.
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The United States has condemned the killing of 13 Turkish citizens by Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. “The United States deplores the death of Turkish citizens in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement late Sunday.  “We stand with our NATO Ally Turkey and extend our condolences to the families of those lost in the recent fighting.” Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said earlier Sunday the victims were kidnapped and killed by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. Akar said the bodies were discovered in the Gara region, near the Turkey-Iraq border, during an operation against the PKK in which Turkish forces killed 48 militants. A statement on a PKK website said it was holding prisoners of war, including Turkish intelligence, police and military personnel, and that they were killed as a result of the fighting. Turkey, the United States and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist group.  Tens of thousands of people have died since it launched an armed insurgency in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. 
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Kosovo’s left-wing reformists were headed for a landslide victory in parliamentary elections, initial results showed Monday, handing them a strong mandate for change from voters fed up with the political establishment. The opposition Vetevendosje (Self-determination) party took home around 48 percent of the vote, according to a tally of more than 90 percent of ballots cast in the Sunday vote.   The triumph nearly doubled the party’s last electoral showing in 2019, reflecting a hunger for new leadership in troubled Kosovo.   “This great victory is an opportunity to start the changes we want,” the party’s firebrand leader Albin Kurti, long a thorn in the establishment’s side, said in a victory speech.  “The election was indeed a referendum on justice and employment and against corruption and state capture,” the 45-year-old added, while warning of “many obstacles” ahead. The snap poll came after a tumultuous year in which the coronavirus pandemic deepened social and economic crises in the former Serbian province, which declared independence 13 years ago after a separatist war led by ethnic Albanian rebels.Albin Kurti leader of the Vetevendosje (Selfdetermination) prepares to cast his vote during Parliamentary elections at a polling station in Pristina on February 14, 2021.Already one of Europe’s poorest economies, Kosovo is now struggling through a pandemic-triggered downturn, with vaccinations yet to start. But for Vetevendosje’s supporters, Sunday’s results sparked hope of better days, with fans honking horns, setting off fireworks and gathering in the main square in the capital Pristina to cheer their victory. The next two largest parties trailed far behind, with around 13 and 17 percent respectively for the ruling centrist Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) — a party of former rebels who have long dominated politics in the country. Both camps admitted defeat, with the LDK’s outgoing Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti pledging to be a “constructive opposition” in parliament.  Tear gas in parliament Once known for provocative stunts such as unleashing tear gas in parliament, Vetevendosje began as a street movement in the 2000s protesting local elites and international influences in Kosovo, which was an UN-protectorate after the war.   It entered electoral politics in 2011 and has tamped down its more radical antics in recent years.    The party ran on an anti-corruption platform, accusing past leaders of squandering Kosovo’s first years of independence through graft and mismanagement while ordinary people suffered.  For most of the past decade, Kosovo has been run by the former commanders who led the late 1990s rebellion against Serb forces.  If they were once feted as independence heroes, the political elite have now become the face of the social and economic ills plaguing the population of 1.8 million, where average salaries are around 500 euros (around $600) a month and youth unemployment tops 50 percent.   “The people are waiting for change, they are waiting for the removal of that which has hindered us, such as corruption and nepotism,” Sadik Kelemendi, a doctor, told AFP before casting his ballot in snow-covered Pristina.  The former rebels were also weakened this year by the absence of top leaders, including ex-president Hashim Thaci, who were detained in November by a court in The Hague on war crimes charges dating back to the 1998-99 rebellion against Serbia.Albin Kurti, a candidate for prime minister of Vetevendosje (Self-Determination), prepares to cast his ballot in parliamentary elections in capital Pristina, Kosovo, Feb. 14, 2021.New generation Vetevendosje now has a clear path to a ruling majority if they team up with minority parties, who are reserved 20 seats in the 120-member assembly, half for the Serb community.   The party also finished first in the last 2019 election, but with little over a quarter of the vote they only lasted some 50 days in power before their shaky coalition with the LDK crumbled.   The stronger showing this time has been attributed in part to Kurti’s new alliance with acting President Vjosa Osmani, 38, who recently left the LDK to join Kurti, turning the two into charismatic duo on the campaign trail. “I think it is about time that Kosovo is led by not only a new generation of politicians in terms of age, but especially in terms of mindset,” Osmani told AFP ahead of the vote.While Kurti himself did not run as an MP — he is banned due to a 2018 court conviction for unleashing tear gas in parliament — his party can still appoint him as their prime minister.  Known for a hardline stance on relations with Serbia, he would face heavy pressure from the West to reboot talks with the northern neighbor, which still denies Kosovo’s statehood.  Their lingering dispute is a source of major tension in the region more than 20 years after the war, and an obstacle for either side in its dreams of joining the European Union. 
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The pro-union Socialist Party appeared set to claim a narrow win in regional elections in Catalonia late Sunday, but the bloc of parties supporting secession by Spain’s northeastern corner were widening their control of the regional parliament.With 95% of the votes counted, the three main parties pledging to carve out an independent Catalan state were likely to increase their number of seats in the regional parliament to 74. In 2017, those same parties won 70 seats of the 135-seat chamber, just two above the majority.The Socialist party led by former health minister Salvador Illa was poised to take 33 seats with over 625,000 votes. The pro-secession Republican Left of Catalonia was also set to claim 33 seats, but with 580,000 votes.But despite the huge boost in support for the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has held talks with the separatists in an attempt to ease tensions with the region, Illa would have a difficult time trying to cobbling together support for a government.The outcome confirms that pro-separatist sentiment has not waned despite the suffering of the COVID-19 pandemic and a frustrated secession bid in October 2017 that left several of its members in prison.However, it was not clear if the separatist parties would be able to overcome the in-fighting that has plagued their bloc since the dream of an easy breakaway from Spain proved elusive.The results shifted the power within the pro-secession camp to the leftist Republican Left of Catalonia party, whose 33 seats edged out the center-right Together for Catalonia, set to win 32 seats.The Republican Left of Catalonia of jailed leader Oriol Junqueras can now dispute the leadership of the bloc with Together for Catalonia, the party of former Catalan chief Carles Puidemont, who fled to Belgium following the ineffective 2017 breakaway bid.Together for Catalonia maintains a more radical stance on severing ties from Spain in the short term, while the Republican Left of Catalonia lowered its tone over the past year and set winning an amnesty from central authorities for Junqueras and other jailed leaders as its top priority — for now.The region’s parliament also was poised to become more fragmented, and more radical.The far-right Vox party entered the Catalan legislature for the first time with 11 seats, confirming its surge across Spain in recent years. Its success came at the expense of the conservative Popular Party, which was left with three seats after a campaign in which it softened its formerly hard-line stance against Catalan secessionists.On the other side of the spectrum, the far-left, pro-secession CUP party improved to nine seats from the four it won in 2017. So once again, the pro-secession forces will need the unpredictable CUP to form a majority.A potential regional government will likely hinge on deal-making between parties that could take days or longer to conclude.While the Socialists rose at the expense of the liberal Citizens, which plummeted to six seats after winning the December 2017 elections with 36, the Catalan political panorama remained unchanged in the essential question: The Mediterranean region bordering with France is still roughly split between those who support the creation of a Catalan state, and those who are fervently for remaining a part of Spain.
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The search for three climbers, who went missing on Pakistan’s K2 mountain earlier this month, has found no trace of them.Iceland’s John Snorri, 47, Chile’s Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, and Pakistan’s Muhammad Ali Sadpara, 45, lost contact with base camp on February 5 during their ascent of what global mountaineers describe as the killer mountain. K2 is the world’s second-highest mountain at 8,611 meters.”An unprecedented search in the history of mountaineering has been ongoing,” Vanessa O’Brien, the first British-American mountaineer to climb K2, said Sunday.She is assisting the search effort as part of the virtual base camp comprising family members in Iceland, Chile, and specialists from around the world, including in Pakistan.”It has been nine long days. If climbing the world’s second-tallest mountain in winter is hard, finding those missing is even more of a challenge,” said O’Brien.When asked whether the men could still be alive despite harsh winter conditions, O’Brien told VOA, “That I don’t know. But on Valentine’s Day, I guarantee you they were loved by their families and their nations.”She explained that specialists, with “devoted support” from Pakistani, Icelandic and Chilean authorities, have scrutinized satellite images, used synthetic aperture radar technology, scanned hundreds of pictures, and checked testimonials and times.”When the weather prevented the rotary machines (helicopters) from approaching K2, the Pakistan Army sent a F-16 (aircraft) to take the photographic surveys,” O’Brien said.Unfortunately, there has been no sign of the missing climbers, she added.Karrar Haidri, an official at the private Alpine Club of Pakistan that promotes mountaineering in the country, said the base camp stopped receiving signals from Snorri and his companions after they reached 8,000 meters.Sonrri made his first winter attempt on K2 in 2019, but was forced to abort it “when two members of his team expressed they did not feel fully prepared” for the expedition. ‘Savage Mountain’K2 has gained the reputation as “Savage Mountain” because while more than 6,500 people have climbed the world’s highest peak, Everest, only 337 have conquered K2 to date.Since 1954, up to 86 climbers have died in their attempt to scale K2, where summit winds reach hurricane force and still-air temperatures can plunge below -65 degrees Celsius.Experts say about one person dies on K2 for every four who reach the summit, making it the deadliest of the five highest peaks in the world.Since the first failed bid in 1987-88, only a few expeditions had attempted to summit K2 in winter.Last month, a 10-member team of Nepali climbers made history when they became the first to climb K2 in winter.Located in the Karakoram range along the Chinese border, K2 was the last of the world’s 14 tallest mountains higher than 8,000 meters to be scaled in winter.Bulgarian alpinist Atanas Skatov died earlier this month on K2. A renowned Spanish climber, Sergi Mingote, fell to his death last month while descending the mountain.
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