RIYADMEDIA

There were words of welcome Wednesday from across the world for Joe Biden as he was sworn in as America’s 46th president. They were mixed with parting shots from some leaders aimed at his predecessor, Donald Trump, who left Washington hours before the swearing-in. 
  
As the inauguration has been atypical — with no crowds and the Capitol guarded by thousands of National Guardsmen — so, too, the reaction has been out of the ordinary from overseas leaders.  
  
Some European leaders who had tempestuous relations with Donald Trump did not hold back on their relief at seeing President Biden installed.  
 
“Once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday. 
  
“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been waiting for so long. Europe is ready for a new start with our oldest and most trusted partner,” she told European lawmakers in Brussels. She said she hoped Biden would be able to repair divisions in the United States and that his inauguration would be “a message of hope for a world that is waiting for the U.S. to be back in the circle of like-minded states.”European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen addresses European lawmakers during a plenary session on the inauguration of the new U.S. president and the current political situation, at the European Parliament in Brussels, Jan. 20, 20 Europe welcomes Biden 
  
German President Frank Walter Steinmeier called Wednesday “a good day for democracy.”  
 
 “I am relieved that Joe Biden is sworn in as president today and coming into the White House. I know that this feeling is shared by many people in Germany,” he said in a statement.  
  
Steinmeier praised the strength and endurance of American democracy, saying, “In the United States, (democracy) held up against a lot of pressure. Despite internal hostility, America’s institutions have proven strong — election workers, governors, judiciary and Congress.” 
  
Other European leaders avoided referring to past difficulties and appeared to be trying to make sure they are seen as good allies for the incoming administration.  
 
“In our fight against COVID and across climate change, defense, security and in promoting and defending democracy, our goals are the same and our nations will work hand in hand to achieve them,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.  
  
Johnson told the House of Commons he looked forward to welcoming the new U.S. president to Britain later this year for a G-7 summit of the world’s leading nations and for a climate conference to be held in Glasgow.  
  
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, was also focused on the future. 
 
“We are looking forward to the Biden presidency, with which we will start working immediately in view of our presidency of the G-20,” he told Italian lawmakers on Tuesday. “We have a strong common agenda, ranging from the effective multilateralism that we both want to see, to climate change, green and digital transition and social inclusion.” 
  
But Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez did not mince his words about what he thinks Biden’s election win means. 
 
“The (election) victory of Biden represents the victory of democracy over the ultra-right and its three methods, the massive deception, the national division and the abuse, even violent, of democratic institutions,” he said at a public event. “Five years ago, we thought Trump was a bad joke, but five years later, we realized he jeopardized nothing less than the world’s most powerful democracy.” 
  
The Trump administration and EU leaders clashed on several issues, including international trade and climate change, a reflection of deeply different world views. FILE – A NATO and a US flag flutter in the wind outside NATO headquarters in Brussels.Reaffirming NATO ties 
 
Trump upbraided Europeans for not spending enough on their defense, an issue that’s also likely to be raised by the Biden administration, but probably more diplomatically. At times, Trump painted Europe as a foe and sometimes questioned the value of NATO, a clear break with traditional transatlantic relations since World War II.   
  
Trump’s combative style, as well, was very different from what Europeans have experienced from other post-WWII American leaders.  
 
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted congratulations to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, adding: “Today is the start of a new chapter for the transatlantic Alliance. … A strong NATO is good for both North America and Europe.”I congratulate President @JoeBiden on his #InaugurationDay. A strong #NATO is good for both North America & Europe, as none of us can tackle the challenges we face alone. Today is the start of a new chapter & I look forward to our close cooperation! https://t.co/cUB90k7XaW— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) January 20, 2021Biden is widely seen as the most pro-Atlanticist American president since George H.W. Bush. 
  
Two years ago, at a security conference 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 then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, their nerves were soothed by Biden, when he quipped in his address: “This too shall pass. We will be back.”  
  
Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic say they are now determined to repair frayed relations and to steady democracies roiled by unprecedented domestic political turmoil and challenged by authoritarian powers. 
 Asia reacts to President Biden 
  
Strengthening democracy, though, was not in the mind of China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, who told a press briefing Wednesday: “In the past four years, the U.S. administration has made fundamental mistakes in its strategic perception of China … interfering in China’s internal affairs, suppressing and smearing China, and causing serious damage to China-U.S. relations.” 
  
She said China’s leaders hope that the Biden administration will “meet China halfway and, in the spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, push China-U.S. relations back to the right track of healthy and stable development as soon as possible.” 
  
Also, in Asia, around 100 Japanese supporters of Trump took to the streets of Tokyo Wednesday, waving American and Japanese flags and unfurling banners with false claims that Trump was “the true winner” of last November’s presidential election.  
 
“We wanted to show that many people in Japan are supporting President Trump,” the organizer, Naota Kobayashi, told Reuters. “We all chanted together so that our voice can fly over the Pacific Ocean and reach the U.S.” 
  
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani focused on the 2015 nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew the United States, saying he hoped Biden would reenter the pact and lift American sanctions imposed on Iran.  
 
“The ball is in the U.S. court now. If Washington returns to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, we will also fully respect our commitments under the pact,” Rouhani said in a televised Cabinet meeting. 
 US-Russia ties 
  
Reaction from Russian officials has been muted. Ahead of the inauguration, Russian leader Vladimir Putin remained silent, but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing that he did not foresee a change in American-Russia relations. 
  
“Nothing will change for Russia. Russia will continue to live just the way it has lived for hundreds of years, seeking good relations with the U.S.,” he told reporters. “Whether Washington has reciprocal political will for that will depend on Mr. Biden and his team.” 
 
The Kremlin-controlled daily Izvestia newspaper noted “the prospects for Russian-U.S. relations under the new U.S. leader do not encourage optimism so far.” 
  
But Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s final leader, called for Moscow and Washington to repair strained ties. 
 
“The current condition of relations between Russia and the United States is of great concern,” Gorbachev told state-run news agency TASS. “But this also means that something has to be done about it in order to normalize relations. We cannot fence ourselves off from each other.” 
  
  
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that France is neither regretful nor apologetic about the atrocities committed in its former colony, Algeria, ahead of a key report on France’s colonial past. 
 
Between 1954 and 1962, Algerian revolutionaries and French forces engaged in a bloody war in which both sides committed war crimes but that ultimately led to the independence of the North African country. 
 
Macron said France has “no repentance nor apologies” for its occupation of Algeria or its actions during the eight-year war. He said the French government instead will undertake “symbolic acts” to make up for its past deeds. 
 
Nearly 60 years on, the war continues to strain French-Algieran ties, prompting France to put in efforts at restoring cordial relations. 
 
So far, Macron has been the only French president to recognize France’s criminal involvement in colonial Algeria. 
 
During his presidential campaign in 2017, he described France’s 132-year colonization of Algeria as a “crime against humanity” during an interview with an Algerian television channel. Macron’s comment caused a stir in France and was widely criticized by the far right. 
 
In 2018, he acknowledged that French forces used torture during the Algerian war — the first time any French leader had made such an admission. 
 
He tasked a French historian, Benjamin Stora, to assess the European country’s dealings in Algeria and propose ways of reconciliation. The report is expected to be published later Wednesday. 
 
The Elysee Palace said Macron will take part in a three-day commemorative event next year to mark the 60th anniversary since the end of the war in Algeria. 
 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labor Party opposition leader Keir Starmer expressed good wishes Wednesday to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on his Inauguration Day.  Speaking in Parliament during his weekly question time with lawmakers, Johnson said he is looking forward to working with Biden and with his new administration “strengthening the partnership between our countries and working on our shared priorities.” Johnson mentioned climate change, pandemic recovery and “strengthening our transatlantic security” as shared priorities between the two nations. Starmer also stood to welcome Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, calling their upcoming inauguration “a victory for hope over hate and a real moment for optimism in the U.S. and around the world.” In an editorial Wednesday in the British Daily Mail newspaper, former British Prime Minister Theresa May said Biden and Harris give Britain “partners for positive action to make the world a safer place.” May used the same editorial to sharply criticize Johnson, her successor as prime minister, saying his government had “abandoned global moral leadership.” 
 
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Leaders of the European Union Wednesday hailed the inauguration of Joe Biden as a “new dawn” in America.
Speaking at the European Parliament in Brussels, ahead of Biden’s swearing-in as the 46th president of the United States, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “This time-honored ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol will be a demonstration of the resilience of American democracy and the resounding proof that once again after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”
European Council President Charles Michel was equally effusive but frank about how the U.S.-EU relationship changed under President Donald Trump. He said, “Today is more than a transition; today is an opportunity to rejuvenate our transatlantic relationship, which has greatly suffered in the last four years.”    
The European Council is the E.U.’s political arm. Michel invited Biden to attend the council’s “extraordinary council meeting in Brussels, that can be in parallel to a NATO meeting.” He said European leaders want to work with the U.S. on boosting multilateral cooperation, ending the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling climate change, and joining forces on security and peace, among other issues.
The European leaders acknowledged the events of the last two weeks in Washington – the siege on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. Michel said Biden’s inauguration is evidence the attackers failed and called on Biden to work with Europe.
“On the first day of his mandate I address a solemn proposal to the new U.S. president: let’s build a new founded pact for a stronger Europe, for a stronger America and for a better world,” he said.
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Indigenous people in Brazil’s rainforest are getting their long awaited first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus, which has infected thousands in their community and killed hundreds of others. The Brazilian military flew medical workers and 1,000 doses of the CoronaVac Chinese vaccine into the Amazon rainforest on Tuesday and began vaccinating the indigenous people, who celebrated the arrival of the vaccine. Isabel Ticuna, one of the people in her village to get inoculated said, “the vaccination is so important for all of our indigenous community, for all the villagers. It was this that we were waiting for.” The coronavirus pandemic has taken a tremendous toll on Brazil’s indigenous people because a large part of the population does not have immediate access to a medical facility. The coronavirus has killed 926 indigenous people in Brazil and infected more than 46,000, according to a tribal umbrella organization called Articulation of Indigenous People of Brazil.  So far, Brazil has confirmed more than 8,500,000 cases and 210,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University COVID Resource Center. 
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Nearly 680 non-governmental organizations in Turkey have condemned a new law aimed at increasing oversight of them, with critics saying it threatens to silence one of the country’s last independent and critical voices. “It’s creating a huge chilling effect,” said Yaman Akdeniz, co-founder of the Freedom of Expression Society, “They [government] want to create fear, and it has been successful so far with this law; there is fear in civil society.” The controversial measure took effect three weeks ago, shortly after it received parliamentary approval. The law ostensibly seeks to comply with a United Nations Security Council demand on preventing the financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  But international rights groups accuse the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using the reform as a means to silence critical NGOs. “The law calls itself one thing, fighting proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But within this law is this ulterior motive of going after NGO’s on a rather wide basis,” said senior Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair Webb, of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. The rights group said the measure was rushed to parliament December 18 “without consultation with the civil society organizations it will affect most.” HRW also said in a recent statement that only six of the law’s 43 articles include means and regulations to combat the financing of terrorism. Under the new law, if any NGO board member or professional employee is put on trial on terrorism offenses, the Interior Ministry or a judge can appoint a “trustee” to run the NGO for the duration of the court case.”This system does not operate on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty,” said Akdeniz. “Being prosecuted is enough for the court to appoint a trustee. When that person takes control of the association, if there is any funding, that trustee will spend it as they wish. For example, the first thing a government trustee can do is to sack the employees and replace them, and this will completely change the NGO.”  The government has widely used trustees to replace elected mayors in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast. Dozens of mayors of the pro-Kurdish HDP have been removed following the launching of terrorism investigations.Demonstrators clash with Turkish riot police in Istanbul, during a “March for Democracy” called by Republican People’s Party (HDP), after three opposition MPs were revoked and sent to prison at Silivri, June 15, 2020.”In Turkey, we see tens of thousands are charged and being prosecuted under Turkey’s very broadly written and vague anti-terrorism legislation, without any evidence that they are materially connected to armed groups,” added Sinclair-Webb. “It’s very easy to see this pattern of prosecutions applied to people critical of the government. So, NGOs critical of the government are going to be very vulnerable under this new NGO law. ” Akdeniz has first-hand experience of challenging the vagaries of Turkey’s anti-terror laws, with much of his NGO’s work helping to defend people facing prosecution for social media posts that violate the country’s anti-terror laws. “We are providing legal assistance to a lady who is facing nine separate prosecutions, all to do with her Facebook activity,” said Akdeniz. Under the new legislation, government permission is now required for projects receiving overseas funding, a move Akdeniz says is aimed at the European Union.   “One of the main reasons is to hit the EU because the EU announced it would not give substantial funding to Turkish authorities [because of human rights concerns] but instead give it to civil society. I think Ankara is reacting; if you are going to fund civil society, we are going to regulate civil society,” said Akdeniz. The measure could also target Turkish NGOs that distribute EU funding. “Let’s say I am funding a women’s NGO whose members have been arrested, and under investigation, they [Interior minister] have the right to come to me and close down my organization,” said Murat Celikkan, co-director of Hafiza Merkezi, an Istanbul-based human rights NGO, which last year supported 48 such groups with EU funds. “With this new law, especially for rights-based NGOs which are very important for democracy and reforms in Turkey, it will be impossible to move to act as there is the threat of authorities confiscating everything you have or closing you down without even a trial or any judgment,” said Celikkan.  The government says Turkey faces terrorist threats, and its legislation meets international norms. The Interior Ministry has said it will publish regulations on how the law will be implemented. “We don’t know what will happen,” said Celikkan, adding, “We have to wait for the regulations on how they will implement the legislation. Will they target pro-Kurdish NGOs, human rights NGOs, Islamic NGOs which are critical of the government or everyone?” 
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The inauguration of Joe Biden represents not only a new chapter for the United States, but for the world. For allies and adversaries alike, new relationships with the world’s superpower are already taking shape.In much of Europe, there is a mood of optimism.“After Joe Biden was elected, you could hear a collective sigh of relief going through European corridors of power,” said Rem Korteweg, foreign policy analyst at the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands. “The climate agenda, global trade policy, multilateral institutions and European security are very much on the top of the agenda of European leaders when it comes to talking to Joe Biden. He is a very strong supporter of the transatlantic security relationship and is a steadfast supporter of NATO.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold a video conference, Dec. 30, 2020.Meanwhile, European trade with the U.S. is stumbling. Under Trump, the United States and Europe slapped tariffs on some imports of each other’s goods. French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said this week that Europe would try to end spiraling tit-for-tat tariffs.“At the top of the agenda will be to clearly say ‘stop’ to the trade war between the U.S. and Europe. ‘Stop’ to the sanctions from the U.S. administration on French vineyards, for instance. ‘Stop’ to the Boeing-Airbus case, which is clearly not in the interest of neither the U.S. nor European countries,” Le Maire told reporters.Britain has traditionally been seen as the transatlantic bridge between the U.S. and Europe. But its ties to the EU have been cut by Brexit.“So, when it comes to trade issues, or perhaps also climate change or areas of economic regulation, or dealing with financial crises, the United Kingdom is not going to be America’s first port of call,” Korteweg said.Biden has in the past been a vocal critic of Britain’s exit from the EU. Britain insists its “special relationship” with the U.S. will be unaffected, and analysts say London remains a key security partner for Washington. Britain is due to host the G-7 meeting in June, and the COP26 climate summit in November.In this photo made available by 10 Downing Street, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab gestures during a coronavirus media briefing at 10 Downing Street, in London, April 16, 2020.British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said Tuesday reviving the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, from which the U.S. withdrew in 2018 under Trump, is a top priority.“It is welcome that President-elect Biden and the new administration has talked about coming back into the JCPOA, enhancing and strengthening it,” Raab told British lawmakers.Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has brought health and economic crises to both Europe and the United States. In the near term, analysts say dealing with the deadly health emergency will likely take priority on both sides of the Atlantic. 
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The European Union’s executive arm, the EU Commission, called on member states Tuesday to speed up their COVID-19 vaccination programs, saying nations should have at least 80% of their priority populations – front-line workers and people over 80 – vaccinated by March. At a news conference in Brussels, Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said the goal is to have 70% of the EU’s adult population immunized by summer. European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas speaks during a news conference on actions to prevent a possible COVID-19 third wave, at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 19, 2021.The EU has sealed six vaccine contracts for more than 2 billion doses, with Moderna, AstraZeneca-Oxford, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac. But only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use so far in the bloc, enough to vaccinate 380 million people, more than 80% of the bloc’s population. Compared with Britain, the United States and United Arab Emirates, the EU as a whole got a late start with its vaccination programs, and individual nations lagged behind that as well.  In a statement from her Twitter account Tuesday, EU Commission Chair Ursula Von der Leyen said meeting the 70% vaccination goal by summer could be “a turning point in our fight against the virus.”EU Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides talks during a plenary session on EU global strategy on COVID-19 vaccinations at the EU parliament in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 19, 2021.According to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, 400,000 EU citizens have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The European Commission has been weighing a Greek proposal to issue vaccination certificates to help get travelers to their vacation destinations more quickly and avoid another disastrous summer for Europe’s tourism sector. Kyriakides said the commission is working with member states to allow a vaccination certificates program to be quickly implemented across the bloc. 
 
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The incoming Biden administration will work “to cease funding for further construction” of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary nominee Alejandro Mayorkas, who told senators Tuesday that U.S. law will dictate whether individuals in migrant caravans are allowed to remain in the United States. 
 
Mayorkas appeared for his Senate confirmation hearing one day after reports surfaced that Biden intends to propose an eight-year path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants shortly after taking office Wednesday, signaling an immediate focus on a topic that has both consumed and paralyzed Congress for decades. Biden to Propose 8-year Path to Citizenship for Immigrants It would provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the US without legal statusRepublican lawmakers pressed Mayorkas on whether the Biden administration would spend $1.4 billion that Congress appropriated late last year to continue border wall construction, one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities that has been fiercely opposed by Democrats, including President-elect Joe Biden. 
 
Mayorkas said he would examine whether existing funds must be spent and underscored Biden’s opposition to further wall appropriations. He did not signal any intention by the incoming administration to tear down wall sections already built. FILE – President Donald Trump signs a plaque that bears his name on the 450th mile of the border wall in Texas, January 12, 2021. 
The hearing came as a caravan of Central American migrants pushes north toward the United States. Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah asked Mayorkas if the caravan would be allowed to enter the United States or turned back at the border. 
 
“We are a nation of immigrants and we are also a nation of laws, and I intend to apply the law,” the Cuban-born Mayorkas responded. “If people qualify under the law to remain in the United States, then we will apply the law accordingly. If they do not qualify to remain in the United States, then they won’t.” 
 
The nominee rejected calls by progressive elements of the Democratic coalition that helped elect Biden to defund U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within DHS that, among other duties, carries out deportations of undocumented immigrants. Alejandro Mayorkas, nominee to be Secretary of Homeland Security, testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 19, 2021. 2015 DHS inspector general’s report The hearing lasted more than two hours and featured repeated questions about Mayorkas’ role in the granting of U.S. visas to wealthy foreign investors when he served as director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during the former Obama administration. A 2015 DHS inspector general’s report concluded that Mayorkas intervened in the EB-5 investor program at the behest of some powerful Democrats in a way that “created an appearance of favoritism and special access.” Mayorkas noted that the report found no legal wrongdoing. 
 
“The inspector general did not take issue with the disposition of the cases in which I became involved because I studied the law, and I followed the facts, and that is my North Star. And it always has been. And any suggestion to the contrary, is incorrect,” Mayorkas said.  FILE – District of Columbia National Guard stand outside the Capitol, January 6, 2021, after a day of rioting protesters.DHS after Capitol riot If confirmed, Mayorkas would be the first Latino and first immigrant to lead that Department of Homeland Security. In addition to leading USCIS, he served as Obama’s deputy secretary of DHS, the third-largest federal agency in the nation.   DHS was created after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, a period when threats originating abroad were seen as paramount. 
 
Addressing the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol carried out by Trump loyalists, Mayorkas expressed horror and said authorities have yet to learn everything that happened that day.  
 
He vowed to “do everything” to ensure that “the tragic loss of life, the assault on law enforcement, the desecration of the building that stands as one of the three pillars of our democracy, the terror that you felt your colleagues, staff and everyone present will not happen again.” 
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Russia dismissed calls Tuesday for opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s release and threats of sanctions after his arrest, calling the issue a national matter.Responding to calls for sanctions against Moscow a day after Navalny was arrested, a Kremlin spokesperson said Navalny’s case would be dealt with internally.FILE – Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov listens during a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 19, 2019.“We can’t and are not going to take these statements into account,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday.”This is about a Russian citizen not complying with Russian law. This is an absolutely domestic matter, and we will not allow anyone to interfere in it,” he went on.Navalny returned Monday to Russia after spending months in Germany recovering from poisoning — an attack he blames on Russian security forces backed by longtime president Vladimir Putin. Putin has denied these allegations.A Russian court Monday sentenced Navalny to 30 days in a Moscow prison over parole violations, setting the stage for a later trial that could send the Kremlin’s most vocal critic to prison for several years. Authorities converted the Moscow suburban police station where the opposition leader had been held for less than 24 hours into a makeshift courtroom. They claim Navalny violated his parole rules of a 2014 corruption conviction — a case European human rights groups have called “arbitrary.”Navalny and his legal team were given little advance notice of the hearing, in sharp contrast to Russian state media cameramen who were in position to film the deliberations as they unfolded. 
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Hundreds of members of Serbia’s military lined up on Tuesday in their camouflage uniforms at an exhibition hall in Belgrade where nurses injected them with a Chinese-made vaccine against COVID-19.
Last week Serbia received one million doses of Chinese Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first European country to start a mass inoculation program with it.
Serbia is vaccinating essential workers such as police officers, teachers and soldiers after last month starting to treat the elderly in care homes and medical workers with its supplies of vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech , and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
Belgrade maintains close ties with Beijing and Chinese companies have invested billions of euros in Serbia, mainly in infrastructure and energy projects.
Defense minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said over 700 members of the military, including himself had been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine.
“I have been inocculated with the Chinese vaccine which we completely trust … I’ve said I will get the same vaccine as our troops,” Stefanovic told reporters.
More than 20,000 Serbians have been vaccinated so far since the mass inoculation began in late December.
Over the weekend, President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia expects to get another 250,000 doses of the Sputnik vaccine and 20,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines in the coming days.
In the Western Balkan region, inoculation has started only in Serbia and Albania, while Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia have not yet received supplies of any vaccine.
China approved the shot developed by Sinopharm’s BIBP in late December, its first COVID-19 vaccine for general public use. No detailed efficacy data has been released, but BIBP has said the vaccine is 79.34% effective based on interim data.
In Serbia, which has a population of about 7 million, 3,771 people have died from COVID-19 and 347,111 fell ill with it.
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The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned three individuals, fourteen entities, and six vessels for their ties to a Mexico-based network involved in the sale of Venezuelan oil benefitting the government of President Nicolas Maduro.The list of actors designated by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) includes an Italian and a Swiss citizen, as well as a Venezuelan-Spanish dual citizen. The listed entities include organizations based in places like Malta, Panama and Zimbabwe. Two U.S. companies based in New York City were also designated.Starting today, U.S. property of the sanctioned entities is frozen, while U.S. based companies that are more than 50% owned by the designated individuals and entities are blocked. “Those facilitating the illegitimate Maduro regime’s attempts to circumvent United States sanctions contribute to the corruption that consumes Venezuela,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “The United States remains committed to targeting those enabling the Maduro regime’s abuse of Venezuela’s natural resources.”Last June, OFAC designated five other actors for their participation in a sanctions-evasion scheme benefitting the Maduro regime and the state-controlled oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA). PdVSA and the Venezuelan Central Bank have also been sanctioned under President Donald Trump. As of October 2020, the Treasury Department had imposed sanctions on around 160 Venezuelan or Venezuelan-connected individuals, while the State Department had revoked the visas of more than 1,000 individuals and their families, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.The U.S. is among the Western nations that recognized opposition leader Juan Guido as Venezuela’s interim president. 
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Lawyers for the Duchess of Sussex asked a British judge on Tuesday to settle her lawsuit against a newspaper before it goes to trial by ruling that its publication of a “deeply personal” letter to her estranged father was “a plain and a serious breach of her rights of privacy.”
Meghan’s latest attempt to protect her privacy laid bare more details of her fraught relationship with her estranged father, who claims he has been “vilified” as a dishonest publicity-seeker.
The former Meghan Markle, 39, is suing Associated Newspapers for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement over five February 2019 articles in the Mail on Sunday and on the MailOnline website that published portions of a handwritten letter to her father, Thomas Markle, after her marriage to Britain’s Prince Harry in 2018.
Associated Newspapers is contesting the claim, and a full trial is due to be held in the autumn at the High Court, in what would be one of London’s highest-profile civil court showdowns for years.
The duchess is seeking a summary judgment that would find in her favor and dismiss the newspaper’s defense case. Her lawyer, Justin Rushbrooke, argued that the publisher had “no real prospect” of winning the case.
“At its heart, it’s a very straightforward case about the unlawful publication of a private letter,” he said at the start of a two-day hearing, held remotely because of coronavirus restrictions.
Lawyers for the duchess say Thomas Markle, a retired television cinematographer, caused anguish for Meghan and Harry before their May 2018 wedding by giving media interviews and posing for wedding-preparation shots taken by a paparazzi agency. In the end, he didn’t attend the wedding ceremony after suffering a heart attack.
Rushbrooke said Meghan’s letter, sent in August 2018, was “a message of peace” whose aim was “to stop him talking to the press.”
He said the duchess took steps to ensure the five-page, 1,250-word letter wouldn’t be intercepted, sending it by FedEx through her accountant to her father’s home in Mexico. The letter implored Thomas Markle to stop speaking to the media, saying: “Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces.”
The last sentences, read out in court, were: “I ask for nothing other than peace. And I wish the same for you.”
Rushbrooke said the fact that the duchess is a public figure “does not reduce her expectation of privacy in relation to information of this kind.”
He said “the sad intricacies of a family relationship … is not a matter of public interest.”
Lawyers for Associated Newspapers argue that Meghan wrote the letter knowing it would eventually be published. They say it came into the public domain when friends of the duchess described it in anonymous interviews with People magazine.
Thomas Markle says he allowed the Mail to publish portions of the letter to “set the record straight” after reading the People article.
In a written witness statement submitted by the defense, he said the article “had given an inaccurate picture of the contents of the letter and my reply and had vilified me by making out that I was dishonest, exploitative, publicity-seeking, uncaring and cold-hearted, leaving a loyal and dutiful daughter devastated.”
“I had to defend myself against that attack,” he said.
“The letter was not an attempt at a reconciliation. It was a criticism of me,” Markle added. “The letter didn’t say she loved me. It did not even ask how I was. It showed no concern about the fact I had suffered a heart attack and asked no questions about my health. It actually signaled the end of our relationship, not a reconciliation.”
In October, judge Mark Warby agreed to Meghan’s request to postpone the trial, scheduled to begin this month, until October or November 2021. He said the reason for the delay should remain secret.
Meghan, an American actress and star of TV legal drama “Suits,” married Harry, one of the grandsons of Queen Elizabeth II, in a lavish ceremony at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son, Archie, was born the following year.
A year ago, Meghan and Harry announced they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said was the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They recently bought a house in Santa Barbara, California.
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The Museum of London announced this week that is has acquired, as part of its protest collection, a nearly-three-meter tall “baby blimp” depicting U.S. President Donald Trump as a snarling, diapered baby.
The helium-filled balloon was originally designed by a group of Londoners seeking to protest Trump’s visit to their city in 2018. The blimp was flown around the British capital during the visit and has been flown in other nations including France, Denmark, Argentina, Ireland and Demark to protest the president and his policies.
In a statement, Museum Director Sharon Ament said the museum had been seeking to acquire the balloon for about two years. She said London has always been a city open to protest. She said, “By collecting the baby blimp we can mark the wave of feeling that washed over the city that day and capture a particular moment of resistance.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a consistent and vocal critic of Trump, gave his approval for the balloon to originally fly over London during the U.S. president’s 2018 visit. The museum says it has been in touch with the owners of a balloon made of mylar in hopes of acquiring it as well. 
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Turkey imposed advertising bans Tuesday on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest for not complying with a new law requiring social media companies to appoint a local representative to handle content removal orders.
 
The rules that went into effect in October have drawn criticism from human rights and media freedom groups who argue Turkey’s government is trying to stifle dissent.
 
The law calls for a local representative to respond to requests to remove content that violates privacy and personal rights within 48 hours.
 
Facebook said Monday it would appoint such an envoy, while highlighting in a statement the need for users to be able to freely express themselves.
 
Other companies have complied with the rules, including YouTube, TikTok, Dailymotion and VKontakte.
 
Any company that does not comply faces the possibility of having its bandwidth reduced, making it difficult for users to access the service.
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Mexico expects to receive its last Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines against COVID-19 Tuesday for the next three weeks as it supports a United Nations’ proposal to limit purchases in order to make vaccines available to poor countries. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Mexico will get 200,000 doses of the Pfizer- vaccine on Tuesday before its shipments are temporarily suspended. The Mexican leader says the temporary suspension of Pfizer shipments will not impact his efforts to get vaccines to all citizens. He said the government is already making deals so that the Chinese vaccine CanSino starts arriving, as well as the Sputnik V vaccine from a Russian laboratory and the AstraZeneca vaccine from the University of Oxford. Mexico expects to receive five million doses of the Pfizer vaccine once its shipments resume next month. So far, Mexico has confirmed 1, 649,502 coronavirus cases and 141,248 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. 
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A powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit San Juan Province in Argentina late Monday night, according to early reports from the U.S. Geological Survey.  A series of aftershocks, with a lower magnitude than the quake also occurred.  The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said the earthquake in west central Argentina did not pose a tsunami threat and no warning was posted.  Initial reports indicate the quake, which hit at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers beneath the epicenter near Pocito, Argentina, had the potential to damage buildings and infrastructure, but there were no immediate reports of widespread damage.  
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Guatemalan forces used tear gas and batons Monday to break up a group of Honduran migrants near the border who were hoping to travel to the United States. Roughly 2,000 migrants had camped out at a roadblock on the two-lane highway to Chiquimula near the village of Vado Hondo for nearly two days. Some threw stones at Guatemalan forces that were attempting to disperse the crowd, prompting them to use tear gas and batons. Guatemalan authorities reported that the road was once again open to traffic Monday, but most migrants remained on Guatemalan soil. Some Hondurans have reportedly agreed to be bused back across the border, diminishing the group of nearly 8,000 attempting to travel to the United States. Honduran migrants react while accompanied by a police officer after Guatemalan security forces cleared a road where the migrants have been camping after authorities halted their trek to the United States, in Vado Hondo, Guatemala, Jan. 18, 2021.Migrants say they are fleeing lawlessness and poverty, as the COVID-19 pandemic and two hurricanes in November ravished the already impoverished country. Monday’s clash follows an unsuccessful push by about 100 migrants to break through the roadblock on Sunday. Many migrants showed visible injuries from batons after the clash with Guatemalan troops.   Some migrants say they hope the Biden administration will be more sympathetic than the Trump administration to their pleas for a better life. Speaking to Reuters news agency, a Biden transition official discouraged migrants from continuing their journey to the United States. “Overcoming the challenges created by the chaotic and cruel policies of the last four years, and those presented by COVID-19, will take time,” the official said, adding that “the journey to the United States remains extraordinarily dangerous, and those in the region should not believe anyone peddling the lie that our border will be open to everyone next month.” Traveling on foot, the migrants say they are willing to brave a journey of thousands of kilometers through Guatemala and Mexico to reach the U.S., escaping poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence, and natural disasters in their country.  Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico have said they are collectively taking security and public health measures because of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent unauthorized border crossings.   Last month, Honduran authorities stopped a caravan before it reached the Guatemalan border. Last year, other caravans were broken up by Guatemala’s authorities before reaching Mexico.  
 
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President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday renewed his attack on the U.S. investigation of a former Mexican defense secretary and warned that the U.S. Justice Department should consider carefully its threat to suspend cooperation with Mexico. López Obrador defended the decision by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office not to pursue charges against retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, and he mocked the results of the seven-year investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “How are you going to accuse someone based on photographs of phone screens?” López Obrador said in reference to hundreds of pages of evidence the U.S. government shared with Mexico after dropping charges against Cienfuegos and returning him to Mexico in November. On Friday, Mexico published all of the information the U.S. had shared, spurring a rare public rebuke from the Justice Department that expressed disappointment in Mexico’s decision to drop the case against Cienfuegos.  “The United States Department of Justice is also deeply disappointed by Mexico’s decision to publicize information shared with Mexico in confidence,” the U.S. department said in a statement Friday. “Publicizing such information violates the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance between Mexico and the United States, and calls into question whether the United States can continue to share information to support Mexico’s own criminal investigations.” López Obrador responded Monday: “I hope they think about it carefully, because I could say the same, too. We are disappointed with the DEA’s work.” López Obrador accused the DEA of making up the case against Cienfuegos. The intercepted message exchanges allegedly between Cienfuegos and members of the H-2 cartel suggest the then highest-ranking member of Mexico’s military was helping the cartel by keeping the military off their backs and going after their rivals. But López Obrador said the language used and the spelling mistakes committed by the person identified by U.S. prosecutors as Cienfuegos would not be possible from a mid-level officer, much less a high-ranking one. “They put it together in an improper way, without professionalism, without ethics,” the president said. “No foreign government can undermine the dignity and prestige of our nation.” López Obrador has heaped more responsibility — and power — on the armed forces than any recent president. The military was furious with Cienfuegos’ arrest in October at Los Angeles International Airport. The U.S. case also implicated other members of the military. Following Cienfuegos’ return, Mexico’s congress passed a law that will restrict U.S. agents in Mexico and remove their diplomatic immunity. Despite the heated rhetoric, López Obrador said he expects Mexico’s relationship with the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden to be unaffected. But he said things would be done differently in the bilateral security relationship.  “We cannot allow foreign agents to take charge of the functions of Mexico’s government,” he said. 
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Western leaders have demanded the release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was arrested Sunday on arrival in Moscow after receiving medical treatment in Germany. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Hundreds of students protested in Rome on Monday to demand more classrooms, transport to school and better access to education.After almost 10 months of remote learning, it was the first day back for high school pupils, yet many chose to demonstrate instead. For most high schools, only half of the students from each class were allowed to return to ensure enough space between desks for social distancing.”Remote learning is not working,” said high school student Simone Shiaze.He added, “Many families cannot afford providing digital devices to their children to attend internet lessons regularly.”According to Save the Children Italy, 34,000 high school students are at risk of dropping out from school due to the hardships they faced in following the remote learning mode.United Nations cultural agency UNESCO reported that more than 10 million students were affected by COVID-19 restrictions in Italy.Italy on Sunday registered 12,545 new infections, raising to 2,381,277 the number of confirmed cases to date.Health Ministry figures also included 377 deaths since Saturday, bringing the overall known death toll to 82,177, one of the highest in Europe.  
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The decision by social media giants to police more content, along with banning U.S. President Donald Trump and some of his supporters from posting, is intensifying a debate in Europe over how to regulate platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.The hotly contested debate has mostly focused on whether governments should intervene to censor and curtail freedom of speech, or whether they should protect opinion from being blocked or scrubbed by the social media giants, however offensive the views. But a growing number of European leaders sees a third way to reduce fake news, hate speech, disinformation and poisonous personal attacks — by treating social media providers not as owners of neutral platforms connecting consumers with digital content creators but as publishers in their own right. This would help sidestep fears over state censorship of speech, they say.Amending laws to make them legally responsible, just as traditional newspapers and broadcasters are for the content they carry, would render the social media companies liable for defamation and slander lawsuits. By blocking content and banning some users, social media companies have unwittingly boosted the argument that they are content providers, as they are now in practice taking on a greater role as editors of opinion.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference in Downing Street on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, in London, Dec. 24, 2020.“I do think there’s a real debate now to be had about the status of the big internet companies and whether they should be identified as mere platforms or as publishers, because when you start editorializing, then you’re in a different world,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a parliamentary committee last week. Many European Union leaders have criticized social media companies for banishing Trump and his supporters from their platforms. Facebook has blocked or deleted content that uses the phrase, “Stop the Steal,” which refers to false claims of election fraud. Twitter says it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts of QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping pedophiles in government, business and the media.German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the media during a statement at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2020 on the results of the US elections.German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her concerns about the blocking and deleting, calling it a step too far.“The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance,” her spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, told reporters.Some countries led by populist governments, such as Poland, are considering drafting legislation that would prohibit Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies from censoring opinions, fearing the social media giants will censor them.But political pressure is also mounting in other countries for the state to regulate speech and to police social media platforms.The idea that social media companies should be subject to similar regulation as newspapers and television and radio broadcasters is not new. Newspaper owners have long bristled at the social media platforms being treated differently under the law from traditional media. They have complained that Facebook and others are piggy backing off the content they produce, while reaping massive profits selling ads.FILE – The Facebook application is displayed on a mobile phone at a store in Chicago, July 30, 2019.Last year, Facebook pushed back on the idea of social media platforms being treated like traditional media, arguing in a report that they should be placed in a separate category halfway between newspapers and the telecommunications industry. The company agreed that new regulatory rules are needed but argued they should focus on the monitoring and removal of mechanisms that firms might put in place to block “harmful” posts, rather than restrictions on companies carrying specific types of speech or being liable for content. Johnson’s advocacy of treating social media giants like traditional media is being echoed in the United States, where Congress passed the Communications Decency Act in 1996. The measure largely allowed the companies to regulate themselves and shielded them from liability for much of the content posted on their platforms.Section 230 of the legislation stated: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Ironically, Section 230 has drawn the disapproval of both Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. Both have called for the section’s repeal, which would make social media legally responsible for what people post, rendering them vulnerable to lawsuits for defamation and slander. Last week, Biden told The New York Times he favored the internet’s biggest liability shield being “revoked, immediately.” 
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Extreme cold has hit large parts of Europe, with freezing temperatures cracking railroad tracks in Poland, snow blanketing the Turkish city of Istanbul and smog spiking as coal was being burned to generate heat.
Temperatures dropped to minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 Fahrenheit) in some Polish areas overnight, the coldest night in 11 years. Many trains were delayed on Monday after rail tracks at two Warsaw railway stations cracked.
Hand-in-hand with the cold came a spike in smog in Warsaw and other parts of Poland, as the cold prompted an increase in burning coal for heat. The smog levels were so high in Warsaw that city officials urged people to remain indoors.
Just across Poland’s southwestern border, the Czech Republic experienced the coldest night this year with temperatures dropping below minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) in many places.
The lowest temperature, of minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 Fahrenheit), was recorded Monday in Orlicke Zahori, a mountainous village 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Prague and near the Polish border, according to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.
The freezing weather was expected to ease and be replaced by heavy snowfall in the northeastern Czech Republic, the institute said.
In Istanbul, traffic was brought to a halt by the layer of snow covering the city, with cars stalled or skidding on the roads. The flurries were to continue throughout the day.
In Germany, fresh snow, slippery roads and fallen trees led to several car accidents on Sunday and overnight, the dpa news agency reported. A driver died in southwestern Germany after his car shot over a mound of snow.
The Nordic region — where winter weather is the norm — also saw snow and subfreezing temperatures, with the coldest temperatures predictably recorded in the Arctic. Norway’s meteorological institute tweeted a tongue-in-cheek message on Monday, saying: “we encourage all knitting lovers to send woolen clothes to their friends in the north.”
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European markets are mixed Monday as investors pull back in response to last week’s dismal U.S. retail figures, along with the worsening COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol building.   
 
Britain’s FTSE index is down 0.3% at midday.  France’s CAC-40 index is also 0.3% lower, while the DAX index in Germany is up 10 points but unchanged percentage-wise (+0.08%).   
 
Asian markets began the trading week on a downward spiral hours earlier.  Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index fell 0.9%.  Australia’s S&P/ASX index closed down 0.7%.  The KOSPI index in South Korea plunged 2.3%, while Taiwan’s TSEC lost just over 4 points, but was virtually unchanged percentage-wise (0.03%) and the Sensex in Mumbai was down 0.9%.
 
Shanghai’s Composite index closed 0.8% higher and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose just over one percent, spurred by news that China’s economy grew 2.3% in 2020, overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic that has shattered much of the global economy.   
 
In commodities trading, gold is up 0.1%, selling at $1,831.80.  U.S. crude oil is selling at $52.19, down 0.3%, and Brent crude is selling at $54.82, down 0.5%.    
 
All three major U.S. indices are closed in observance of the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. federal  holiday.  
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