Month: November 2021

A new draft agreement was released Friday morning at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, detailing how countries plan to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the target agreed in Paris in 2015 and seen as critical in avoiding the worst effects of climate change. The deal must be agreed to and signed by all parties at the Glasgow summit, which is due to end at 6 p.m. local time Friday. However, negotiations could continue into the night and through the weekend. The new text is the second draft to be released this week. It …

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday people have a duty to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine as a way of protecting not only themselves, but others as well. She made the comments in a virtual conversation with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. COVID-19 cases are soaring in Germany. A record high daily count of 50,000 new infections were reported Thursday. A week ago, the daily tally was 33,000 new cases. “The virus is still among us and threatens the health of its citizens,” German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz …

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Fans of England’s Crystal Palace soccer club were in a taunting mood. They unfurled a banner in the stands at the team’s stadium in south London during a match against Newcastle United, mocking their rivals’ new owner — the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who was portrayed wielding a blood-stained scimitar. The banner included a mock-up of the pseudo-categories the Palace fans suggested English football authorities require of owners of the country’s top soccer teams. The requirements included terrorism, beheadings, civil rights abuses and murder, and they were ticked off on a clipboard in the banner under the heading “Premier …

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The United States and European members of the U.N. Security Council condemned Belarus on Thursday for what they called the “cynical instrumentalization of migrants,” as tensions simmered along the Polish-Belarusian border. “We … condemn the orchestrated instrumentalization of human beings whose lives and well-being have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus, with the objective of destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations,” Estonian Ambassador Sven Jürgenson said on behalf of seven Western nations. The flow of migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan rose …

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The mix of parties now working to form the next Czech government spans the spectrum from conservative to liberal, but all appear to share a commitment to the democratic principles espoused by founding President Vaclav Havel. And that, says a former Havel aide, could be bad news for China and Russia.  Havel, the erudite playwright whose writings and dissident activities helped undermine communism in Europe, “would be quite pleased” with the state of his country following last month’s parliamentary election, said Jiri Pehe, who advised the former Czech president in the late 1990s. Havel died in 2011.  The election unseated …

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Germany’s carnival season, a series of festivals among German Catholics, began Thursday but under strict COVID-19 restrictions, because of a surge in new infections in the nation. Costumed revelers in the western city of Cologne had to line up Thursday to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccinations before they could start the outdoor celebrations. Last year’s festivals were canceled altogether because of the coronavirus pandemic.  The carnivals are being held despite the fact Germany is undergoing a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, setting a record Wednesday for the number of daily infections. And while the vaccine requirement was strictly enforced, …

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German Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the presumptive leader of the next government, presented an updated financial forecast Thursday indicating increased revenues for future government projects. At a news conference in Berlin, Scholz said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent “fourth wave” of new infections and the worldwide supply chain problems, Germany’s tax revenue over the next few years would be higher than the estimates made in May. Scholz said the new revenue forecast showed all levels of government collecting about $205 billion more in revenue through 2025 than the earlier prediction. He credited the higher-than-expected revenue to “a …

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Russia’s best known human rights group, Memorial, said on Thursday it had been notified by the Supreme Court that prosecutors had demanded it be dismantled over violations of the “foreign agents” law, a move it said was politically motivated. The move threatens to silence an organization that was born out of the “glasnost” reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s and became a leading voice in civil society. Focused in its early days on the crimes of the Stalinist era, Memorial has spoken out more recently against the repression of opposition figures, activists, journalists and others under President …

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The European Commission lowered its forecast for Spanish growth this year as the country’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic lagged behind other European nations. The commission said Thursday it estimates that the rise of Spanish gross domestic product will be 4.6% this year and 5.5% next year, almost two points less than earlier forecasts of 6.5% this year and 7% in 2022. Spain was the European economy hit hardest by COVID-19, and its recovery has been slower than those of its continental neighbors. At the end of the third quarter, Italy’s GDP was 1.4% below its level at the end …

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Iran is facing renewed scrutiny for its deadly suppression of nationwide protests in 2019, as a London tribunal organized by rights groups began hearing testimony Wednesday from relatives of those killed and others regarding alleged crimes committed in the crackdown.   The event known as an international people’s tribunal opened in London’s Church House conference center. Its goal is to investigate alleged Iranian atrocities, including the alleged killing by security forces of hundreds of protesters and wounding of thousands more during the November 2019 protests.   A panel of human rights law and international relations experts from Britain, Indonesia, Libya, South Africa and the United States led the …

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Simon Louagie dreaded losing Talbot House, a World War I soldiers’ club that has become an institution in remembrance tourism on the Western Front where soldiers from all corners of the globe fought amid untold carnage just over a century ago.  For months last year, a COVID-19 lockdown closed the club which had always been an open house. Once it was for Commonwealth soldiers who fleetingly shed the fear of battle in Flanders fields that was within earshot. For generations since, people found history, solace, wisdom and an understanding at Talbot House about why the motto of this region in …

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