Month: December 2021

Poland’s president on Monday said he has decided to veto a media bill that would have forced U.S. company Discovery to give up its controlling share in TVN, a Polish TV network.  President Andrzej Duda noted that the bill was unpopular with many Poles and would have dealt a blow to Poland’s reputation as a place to do business.  The bill, recently passed by the lower house of parliament, would have prevented any non-European entity from owning more than a 49% stake in television or radio broadcasters in Poland.  Its practical effect would have targeted only one existing company, Discovery …

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NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has sought a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council next month and contacted Moscow to secure its attendance, an alliance spokesman said Sunday. Stoltenberg has on several occasions in recent months offered to resume dialogue with Moscow through this body, set up in 2002 but currently inactive because of the conflict in Ukraine. But the Russian authorities have not responded favorably. “We are in touch with Russia” about the January 12 meeting, said the NATO spokesman, who asked not to be identified. NATO has consistently denounced Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and has called on …

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France has recorded more than 100,000 virus infections in a single day for the first time in the pandemic and COVID-19 hospitalizations have doubled over the past month, as the fast-spreading omicron variant complicates the French government’s efforts to stave off a new lockdown.  More than 1 in 100 people in the Paris region have tested positive in the past week, according to the regional health service. Most new infections are linked to the omicron variant, which government experts predict will be dominant in France in the coming days. Omicron is already dominant in Britain, right across the Channel.  Meanwhile …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he would ponder various options if the West fails to meet Moscow’s demands for security guarantees, amid heightened tensions involving a massive deployment of Russian troops near Ukraine.  Moscow earlier this month submitted draft security documents demanding an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and military cooperation with countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, among other things.  Speaking at his annual news conference last week, Putin urged the West to meet the demands “immediately,” listing off a litany of grievances about Ukraine and NATO.  He warned that Moscow would have to take adequate measures if …

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As 2021 nears its end, hopes that the coronavirus pandemic might be ending are rapidly fading – as the new omicron variant sweeps across the world. Henry Ridgwell looks back on a tumultuous year in Europe as populations and policymakers struggled to return to normality. Producer: Barry Unger …

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth spoke of the loss of her husband, Prince Philip, on Saturday, remembering the “mischievous twinkle” in his eyes in an unusually personal Christmas message to the nation. The 95-year-old monarch said that while Christmas was a time of happiness for many, it could be hard for those who had lost loved ones, and this year especially she understood why, having lost Philip, 99, in April after 73 years of marriage. “His sense of service, intellectual curiosity and capacity to squeeze fun out of any situation were all irrepressible,” she said in her traditional pre-recorded festive broadcast, paying …

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Scientists declared the eruption on Spain’s La Palma officially over on Saturday, allowing islanders to breathe a sigh of relief nearly 100 days after the Cumbre Vieja volcano began to spew out lava, rock and ash and upended the lives of thousands. After bursting into action on Sept. 19, the volcano suddenly went quiet on Monday Dec. 13 but the authorities, wary of raising false hope, held off until Christmas Day to give the all-clear. “What I want to say today can be said with just four words: The eruption is over,” Canary Islands regional security chief Julio Perez told …

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Senior German and Russian government officials have agreed to a rare in-person meeting next month in an effort to ease political tensions over Ukraine, a German government source said Saturday. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s foreign policy adviser Jens Ploetner and Russia’s Ukraine negotiator Dmitry Kozak agreed to meet after a lengthy phone conversation Thursday, the source said on condition of anonymity. The German government has not made any official comment.  A spokesman for Kozak declined to comment. There has been a flurry of phone calls between western leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months over Russia’s military build-up …

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Pope Francis in his Christmas message on Saturday decried increasing polarization in personal and international relationships, saying only dialog can resolve conflicts ranging from family feuds to threats of war. In his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message, he called on individuals and world leaders to talk to each other rather than dig in their heels, a distancing he said has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Our capacity for social relationships is sorely tried; there is a growing tendency to withdraw, to do it all by ourselves, to stop making an effort to encounter others …

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