Month: December 2021

Russia has vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that warns about the security implications of climate change, with its envoy calling it “unacceptable” for his government.  “We are against creating a new area for the council’s work which establishes a generic, automatic connection between climate change and international security, turning a scientific and socio-economic issue into a politicized question,” Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vassily Nebenzia said just before casting his veto. Twelve Security Council members voted to adopt the resolution Monday, while China abstained and India voted no. “The force of the veto can block the approval of a text, but …

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An imprisoned Azerbaijani activist says he is now refusing to drink water as he enters his 38th day of a hunger strike to protest what he calls his wrongful imprisonment. Initially detained on narcotic possession charges, Saleh Rustamov, a government critic and opposition activist, was later sentenced to seven years and three months of imprisonment on additional charges including money laundering and illegal entrepreneurship. Numerous human rights organizations and international observers view the charges as politically motivated. Rustamov previously warned authorities that he would continue his hunger strike until death. On Monday, his lawyer, Bahruz Bayramov, told VOA that Rustamov …

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Britain has recorded its first death from the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the death Monday, the day after he warned during a nationally televised speech that Britain was facing a “tidal wave” of new infections from omicron. Johnson announced his government was launching a campaign to get everyone in the country a third shot of the COVID-19 vaccine by New Year’s Eve, accelerating his previous deadline by a full month. The prime minister said that more than 40 military planning teams will be deployed across the country to establish vaccination centers, and ordered primary …

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A wide range of businesses reopened to the public in Austria Monday, one day after authorities ended recent national lockdown restrictions to battle the latest surge of COVID-19 infections. The lockdown had been imposed last month.  Under the revised rules, however, unvaccinated people will still be restricted from leaving their homes except for work or essential business, such as grocery shopping or doctors’ visits.  As of Sunday, theaters, museums and holiday markets were allowed to reopen, although some regions chose to stagger their reopening. Vienna, for example, will let cafes and restaurants fully reopen next week.  In all cases, there will be an 11 p.m. curfew for restaurants, and masks will still be required on public transportation and inside stores and public spaces.  Austria’s Health Ministry says the …

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Rescuers were pulling out bodies on Monday from the rubble of houses destroyed by a suspected gas explosion on Saturday in the Sicilian town of Ravanusa, with the national fire service confirming at least seven people had died in the incident.  Sniffer dogs found four bodies in the early hours of the morning, including a nurse that was nine-months pregnant, and firefighters and men from the Civil Protection Department were extracting them from the wreckage, according to a Reuters Witness.  Three bodies were found in the night between Saturday and Sunday and two people are still missing, a spokesman for the national fire service said on RAI NEW24 television.  In the …

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As Europe starts vaccinating younger children, countries are pursuing very different strategies in what will be a major test of parents’ willingness to get their kids inoculated.  One region in Italy is sending in clowns and jugglers to clinics, France and Germany are targeting only the most vulnerable kids, while Denmark has been administering shots even before the specially-designed vials and syringes have arrived.  “Vaccination must be a game, a joyful moment when children can feel at ease,” said Alessio D’Amato, health chief of the central Lazio region, in a video as he declared Dec. 15 “Vax Day” for children in the region.  The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the use of Pfizer’s …

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In Oslo, Norway, on Friday, dignitaries from around the world gathered to celebrate the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Filipina journalist Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. But as speeches were delivered and medals presented, voices outside Oslo City Hall were asking whether the most prestigious prize in the world, as many believe it to be, has lost its shine. In recent decades, the prize has sometimes gone to individuals who, many believe, have failed to live up to the standard articulated by the founder of the prize, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. His instruction was that …

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is attending talks that began Saturday among Group of Seven foreign ministers in Liverpool, with a call from British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to unite against authoritarianism. The appeal from Truss came as ministers from the world’s wealthiest democracies, informally known as the G-7, discuss Russia’s build-up of troops along the border it shares with Ukraine, containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and addressing the military’s seizure of Myanmar. “We need to come together strongly to stand up to aggressors who are seeking to limit the bounds of freedom and democracy,” Truss said as she opened …

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