Portugal's armed forces help nursing homes battle the virus

December 19, 2020

AMADORA, Portugal (AP) — Tears well up in Diana Correia’s eyes as she recalls the October day that 24 of the 55 residents of her nursing home in Portugal tested positive for COVID-19. The stunning discovery set off a scramble to enact the home’s contingency plan and stiffen safety procedures. With some staff sent into isolation, others worked double shifts of up to 16 hours in full protective equipment, leaving them lathered in sweat and bone-weary. Some of the home’s residents, suddenly confined to their rooms or their floor, were bewildered and chafed at restrictions, even trying to take the elevator and escape confinement.

“They were hard times,” Correia says, trying hard to keep her composure. “Very hard times.” As a resurgence of the pandemic in the fall looked set to overwhelm Portuguese nursing homes like Correia’s, and the country’s public health service struggled to cope, the government mobilized all the resources it could. That included deploying military units.

The soldiers’ mission: fan out across the country to visit hundreds of nursing homes and help shore up their defenses against the pandemic. Long-term care facilities have proven vulnerable worldwide during the pandemic. The age of their residents, their physical closeness inside what is essentially a large house, and the residents’ underlying health problems put them in peril. On top of that, nursing home staff in Portugal commonly work in several different care homes and travel between them on public transport.

Noting that international data on nursing home COVID-19 deaths is “imperfect and limited,” a study of 21 countries by the London-based International Long-term Care Policy Network, which includes scientific researchers, found in October that those homes’ average share of coronavirus deaths was around 46%.

The European Centre for Disease Control, an EU agency that monitors 31 countries, said the same month that up to 66% of all fatal COVID-19 cases have been among nursing home residents. By that measure, Portugal hasn’t fared badly. Care home deaths through Dec. 14 accounted for 30% of the country's COVID-19 fatalities, the General Directorate for Health told The Associated Press.

On Friday, Portugal's total deaths reached almost 6,000. At the end of September, fearing a calamity, the Portuguese government sent a distress call to its military. As well as helping with contact tracing, disinfecting buildings and providing beds for hundreds of virus patients at military hospitals, the armed forces were now being asked to buttress nursing home protections.

Dr. Maria Salazar, a physician and a colonel in the Portuguese Air Force, swiftly drew up a nationwide program to train care home staff at their workplace. The program also ensures the staff get the specific medical advice they need in almost daily online Q&A sessions with doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

Within a week, the program was launched, coordinated from the CECOM military operations command center near Lisbon. About 140 teams of one to three people, taken from the Portuguese Army, Navy and Air Force, have traveled across the country since early October. They have already been to more than half of the targeted 2,770 care homes.

Salazar, a 49-year-old gastroenterologist, says the military presence is reassuring for nursing home staff and residents who were spooked by the virus threat and desperately short of medical know-how.

“Suddenly, all these staff ... felt like they didn’t know what they were doing and they were scared to death,” Salazar says. At the root of some muddled decision-making was, simply, fear. “We’ve identified that very clearly,” she says.

In a first phase, troops go in person to the nursing homes and give talks with slideshows that go through the rudimentary rules of cooking, laundry, cleaning and social distancing. It’s COVID-19 101. Correia, the technical director of an AFID charitable association nursing home in Amadora, just north of Lisbon, acknowledges it’s nothing her staff haven’t heard many times before. The difference is who the instructions are coming from.

“It’s a voice from the outside, a military voice with all the weight that carries,” she says. In a recent afternoon session at the AFID home, 10 of Correia’s staff listened intently to Sgt. Ari Silva, from the No. 2 Lancers Regiment, whose barracks are nearby. Wearing military fatigues, a beret and an olive-green face mask, Silva asked his audience how many times they had washed their hands that day. A man sitting at the front said four.

Silva was unimpressed: “Friend, I've done at least double that,” he said. The benefits of the military presence are as much psychological as practical, says 38-year-old Correia. “We feel like someone outside of here feels concern for us,” she said. “It’s not just us who are concerned.”

Hospital fire kills 9 COVID-19 patients at ICU in Turkey

December 19, 2020

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A fire broke out Saturday at an intensive care unit treating COVID-19 patients in southern Turkey after an oxygen cylinder exploded, killing nine people, the health minister said.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said the fire took place at the privately-run Sanko University Hospital unit in Gaziantep, 530 miles (850 kilometers) southeast of Istanbul. It cited a hospital statement identifying the victims as being between 56 and 85. The fire was quickly brought under control.

The statement said 14 patients undergoing intensive care treatment were transferred to other hospitals. An investigation is underway. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that nine people were killed in the fire, raising the earlier estimate of eight dead by the hospital and the Gaziantep governor’s office. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

The governor’s office said 19 patients were in the unit when a “high pressure oxygen device” exploded at 4:45 a.m. (0145GMT). Other than the fatalities, no others were injured in the fire, it said. Intensive care units across Turkey currently have a 74% bed occupancy rate due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to government figures, although medical associations say the figure is higher and their hospitals are overrun with COVID-19 patients.

On Friday evening, Turkey’s Health Ministry reported 26,410 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s total since March to 1.98 million. The figure includes asymptomatic cases, which Ankara did not report in the four months up to late November, prompting criticism that the government was trying to hide the extent of the country’s outbreak.

Turkey hit a record daily high of 246 COVID-19-related deaths reported Friday for an overall reported coronavirus death toll of 17,610.

UK nixes Christmas gatherings, shuts London shops over virus

December 19, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Families must cancel their Christmas gatherings and most shops have to close in London and much of southern England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Saturday as he imposed a new, stricter level of coronavirus restrictions on the region to curb rapidly spreading infections.

Johnson said Saturday that the capital and other areas in southern England currently under Tier 3, the highest level of coronavirus restrictions, will move to an even stricter new Tier 4 that requires all non-essential shops, hairdressers and indoor leisure venues to close after the end of business hours Saturday.

With just five days to go until Christmas, Johnson also announced that a planned easing of socializing rules that would have allowed up to three households to meet in “Christmas bubbles” from Dec. 23 to Dec. 27 , will be canceled for Tier 4 areas and sharply curtailed in the rest of England.

Households

No mixing of households will be allowed in Tier 4 except under very limited conditions outside in public places. In the rest of England, people will be allowed to meet in Christmas bubbles for just one day instead of five, as the government originally planned.

“It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you we cannot proceed with Christmas as planned,” Johnson said. He said he concluded there was “no alternative open to me” and people must sacrifice this Christmas to have a better chance of protecting the lives of loved ones.

“I know how much emotion people invest in this time of year, and how important it is for grandparents to see their grandchildren,” Johnson said. “But when the virus changes its method of attack, we must change our method of defense.”

A fast-moving new variant of the coronavirus that is more than 70% more transmissible than existing strains appears to be driving the rapid spread in London and southern England, Johnson said. London now has the highest infection rates in England.

“There’s no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness,” he stressed, or that vaccines will be less effective against it. England's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said the U.K. has alerted the World Health Organization that the new variant identified this week appears to be accelerating the spread of COVID-19. The government's scientific advisers came to that conclusion based on preliminary modelling figures, and they are continuing to analyze the available data, he said.

Viruses mutate regularly, and scientists have found thousands different of mutations among samples of the virus causing COVID-19. But many of these changes have no effect on how easily the virus spreads or how severe symptoms are.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, told reporters after receiving notification from England this week that the U.N. health agency had “no evidence this variant behaves differently” and that it was similar to a variant initially reported among mink in Europe. She said scientists would study the virus strain to see if there might be any difference in how it prompts an immune response in people.

Wales and Northern Ireland, which have their own devolved governments and independent rules for controlling the virus, have already announced fresh lockdowns once Christmas is over. U.K. officials reported another 28,507 confirmed cases on Friday, and 489 deaths of people within 28 days of testing positive for the virus. The U.K. has Europe’s second-highest COVID-19 death toll behind Italy, standing at 66,541 as of Saturday.

Shut down by corona, Berlin restaurant opens for homeless

December 18, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t made life on the streets of Berlin any easier for Kaspars Breidaks. For three months, the 43-year-old Latvian has faced homeless shelters operating at reduced capacity so that people can be kept at a safe distance from one another. And with fewer Berliners going outdoors, it’s much harder to raise money by panhandling or collecting bottles to sell for recycling.

But on a chilly winter morning this week Breidaks found himself with a free hot meal and a place to warm up, after the German capital’s biggest restaurant, the Hofbraeu Berlin — itself closed down due to coronavirus lockdown restrictions — shifted gears to help the homeless.

“Other homeless people at the train station told me about this place,” Breidaks said, removing a furry black hat with long ear flaps as he sat on a bench in the warm, spacious beer hall near Berlin’s landmark Alexanderplatz square. “I came here for hot soup.”

It was a restaurant employee who volunteers at a shelter who proposed opening up the shuttered Bavarian-style beer hall — patterned after the famous Munich establishment of the same name — to the homeless.

It was a clear win-win proposition, said Hofbraeu manager Bjoern Schwarz. As well as helping out the homeless during tough times the city-funded project also gives needed work to employees — and provides the restaurant with welcome income.

In cooperation with the city and two welfare organizations, the restaurant quickly developed a concept to take in up to 150 homeless people in two shifts every day until the end of the winter, and started serving meals on Tuesday.

It’s only a small number compared with the 3,000 restaurant guests, primarily tourists, who would pack the establishment during good times. But the spacious halls have proved perfectly suited to bring in the homeless and give them each plenty of space to avoid infections.

“Normally, during Christmas time, we would have many groups here for Christmas parties and then we’d serve pork knuckles, half a duck or goose ... but not at the moment,” said Schwarz. “We’re still doing delivery, but obviously that’s only a drop in the bucket.”

In addition to serving food and non-alcoholic drinks and offering the warmth of indoors, the restaurant provides its bathrooms for the homeless to wash up, and the GEBEWO and Berlin Kaeltehilfe relief groups have workers on hand to provide counseling and new clothes, if needed.

For its new clientele, the restaurant opened a second-floor, wooden-decorated hall, and put up 40 long tables. “We’ll offer them something different from the regular soup kitchen food — real dishes on porcelain plates, with different sides, we’ll try to offer Christmas-style dishes with lot of flavors,” Schwarz said.

Breidaks came to Germany three months ago looking for work. But he says a promised meat factory job never materialized and he ended up on the streets of Berlin begging for the money needed to replace a stolen passport and buy a bus ticket back home.

He's one of an estimated 2,000 to 12,000 people who remain homeless in this city of 3.6 million, even after another 34,000 were put up in community shelters, hostels and apartments by social services and private welfare groups.

“The corona pandemic has seriously worsened the situation for homeless people, they live in very precarious conditions,” said Elke Breitenbach, the Berlin state government’s senator for social issues, whose department supports the restaurant-turned-shelter financially.

“They don't have enough to eat and when it's cold they must have places to warm up,” Breitenbach added. On Thursday, the first shivering group that entered the Hofbraeu along with Breidaks were served either Thuringia-style bratwurst with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and onion sauce, or a vegetarian stew with potatoes, zucchini, bell pepper and carrots. For dessert there was apple strudel with vanilla sauce.

For Breidaks, that was more than he had expected after spending a night with sub-zero temperatures huddled up next to the walls of a big department store on Alexanderplatz. “All I need is hot soup," he said. "And, God willing, I will go back home in January.”

Air pollution in eastern Europe adds to pandemic health woes

December 17, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — With the arrival of cold and foggy winter weather amid the pandemic, eastern Europe is facing an extra respiratory health hazard — air pollution. Countries such as Bosnia and Serbia in the Balkans, and even European Union nations Poland and Croatia, traditionally report high levels of dangerous pollution from heating in winter months.

The United Nations has warned in previous years that people in all major cities across the Western Balkans face alarming levels of air pollution that are reducing their life expectancies. This year, the problem is coupled with the soaring COVID-19 infections.

Thousands of new cases have been reported daily in most countries in the region. Hospitals are practically full and many departments treating other diseases or chronic ailments have been converted to COVID-19 wards, bringing the health systems in the former Communist-run nations near breaking-point.

“We have this pressure from two sides now, one (from the virus) and another from polluted air,” said Igor Spaic, a resident of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, which is one of the most polluted cities in Europe.

“Smog is dangerous for children and corona is dangerous for older people ... there is great pressure on people and their lives today here,” Spaic added. Sarajevo on Thursday was enveloped in thick smog as authorities warned high-risk groups to reduce activity and told schools to keep children inside.

Dirty air is a chronic problem in the city of some 270,000, which is nestled in a narrow valley surrounded by mountains, and has few anti-pollution measures in place. Bosnia — and much of the Balkans — relies largely on coal for heating. Socialist-era giant power plants in both Bosnia and Serbia lack modern environmental protection measures, and citizens heat their homes with cheap coal.

Additionally, the use of old, highly-polluting vehicles is widespread in the impoverished region that went through devastating wars in the 1990s. Poor architectural planning in Sarajevo and Belgrade have left the overpopulated cities with blocked air flow and few green areas.

The U.S. embassy in Sarajevo early Thursday described the city's air as “hazardous," changing it to “very unhealthy" later in the morning. The embassy uses its own air quality monitoring equipment to measure PM 2.5 fine particulate matter and define air quality.

Sarajevo authorities said windless weather forecast in coming days likely will increase unhealthy substances in the air. The city's public health institute urged measures such as the reduction of heating temperature to reduce coal consumption, more environmentally-friendly city transport vehicles and more frequent cleaning of streets.

Sarajevo resident Sead Secercehajic said masks worn for protection against COVID-19 might confer an additional advantage on wearers: "We can’t (smell) the stench of this fog.” Belgrade's 2 million residents woke up to thick fog and motionless air, particularly in the lower parts of the city. The Belgrade city website described the air as “polluted," warning citizens to limit outside activity.

High pollution was also reported Thursday throughout Poland, a major producer and consumer of coal for energy. The concentration of dangerous dust particles was particularly bad in the southern, coal-mining and industrial areas.

The problem has long plagued Poland and is blamed for high numbers of deaths each year. But this year medical experts say it’s worse due to the pandemic. Lung disease specialist Tadeusz Zielonka told the Onet news portal this week that Poles face a particularly dangerous winter from the triple threat of smog, flu and COVID-19.

“Smog is like a lockpick that opens the door of infection,” said Zielonka, who works at the Medical University of Warsaw. “Smog not only opens the door to the coronavirus, but is also a means of transport for it.”

AP writers Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.

A pandemic atlas: Italy becomes Europe's viral epicenter

December 16, 2020

ROME (AP) — On the morning of Feb. 20, Dr. Annalisa Malara went to work at the public hospital in tiny Codogno, Italy, and broke protocol by ordering up a coronavirus test for a patient. In so doing, she confirmed that Europe’s coronavirus outbreak was under way.

Malara’s intuition — to test a 38-year-old Italian marathoner who hadn’t traveled to China or been in contact with a known positive case — sounded the alarm to Italy and the rest of the world: The virus had not only arrived in the West but was circulating locally.

Italy would go on to become the epicenter of COVID-19 in Europe and a cautionary tale of what happens when a health care system in even one of the wealthiest parts of the world collapses under the weight of the pandemic sick and dead.

And when a second wave hit in September, even the lessons learned from the first weren’t enough to spare Italy’s disproportionately old population. Despite plans and protocols, monitoring systems and machinery that were put in place to hedge against the expected flu season onslaught, another 30,000 people died, hospitals once again were brought to the breaking point and Italy reclaimed the dishonor of leading Europe in the gruesome death count.

“It changes you inside,” said Simona Romani, who lost her mother-in-law on Oct. 28 during the peak of Italy’s second wave, after just two days in the hospital. “You are powerless before an invisible enemy.”

By mid-December, Italy had reported about 3,070 cases per 100,000 population. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After suffering so much in spring, Italy won international praise for having tamed the virus thanks to the West’s first nationwide lockdown: All non-essential production and commercial activity ground to a halt for 10 weeks from March to May. No gelato, no pizza, no cappuccino at the bar downstairs.

Cooped up at home, Italians were deluged with a steady barrage of terrifyingly effective media programming: Local governors on Facebook Live videos nudged doctors and nurses to come out of retirement to help colleagues who were overwhelmed with patients and were themselves falling sick. And night-time talk shows featured exhausted hospital staff in sweaty scrubs begging Italians to stay home.

Residents were allowed outside only for essential work, medical appointments or necessities like grocery shopping, and only then with a certificate. Police set up checkpoints and issued fines. But it worked. By Aug. 1, Italy added a daily 295 new infections nationwide and had only 43 people in intensive care, a nearly 100-fold decrease in ICU-saturation from the springtime high. The daily 6 p.m. lockdown ritual of blaring the national anthem and cheers for medical workers gave way to the 6 p.m. aperitivo at the bar with friends and a giddy sense of having beaten it.

But by late August, infections began creeping back up again as Italians returned from Sardinia and the Croatian coast where they had danced the nights away, maskless, at beachfront discos that became ground zero for the second wave of infection.

Industrial, densely populated Lombardy, which bore the brunt of the toll in spring, got slammed again in the fall. In March, the province of Bergamo registered a 571% increase in excess deaths, and cemeteries and crematoria were so full that army convoys trucked caskets out of town.

By October, Italy’s business capital, Milan, was buckling under and led the region and country in new infections and deaths. The government divided up the peninsula into yellow, orange and red zones of risk and Lombardy was labeled red as it once again failed to protect its elderly.

The 200-bed field hospital that the Lombardy region built to great fanfare in spring with 20 million euros in donations — half from ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi — was finally put to use. And that’s where Malara, the anesthesiologist from tiny Codogno who diagnosed Italy’s first homegrown COVID-19 patient, now finds herself working.

After risking her job to go outside medical protocol to diagnose Patient No. 1, Malara told local media she is now volunteering at the Milan field hospital to treat COVID-19 patients, who now exceed 1 million.

Her aim? “To give back the precious and vital help that was given to us in March and April.”

A pandemic atlas: Spanish system fails, and the elderly die

December 16, 2020

MADRID (AP) — Patiently lining up, distanced, to buy bread. Watching grandchildren grow via screens. Cheering for a soccer team miles away from the stadium. Gathering for dinner, in reduced groups, at 7 p.m. — early enough so the party can be wrapped before curfew hits.

In 2020, Spaniards normalized things unimaginable only 12 months before. They also rediscovered how expressive eyes can be; mask-wearing is mandatory and widespread. But 2020 also will go down as the year in which an unknown virus shook the foundations of the social contract and exposed a system that failed to prevent so many deaths.

By March 13, when Spain announced a state of emergency, the virus already had been creeping in for weeks. At first, it appeared to have entered with sun-seeking vacationers and soccer fans returning from a game in Italy. But people who died of pneumonia as early as February were later confirmed to have been infected with the new coronavirus.

Two weeks after the first serious outbreaks hit Europe, Spain followed the Italian rulebook step by step, leaving most people secluded at home and paralyzing the economy. Politicians keep repeating that the system didn’t collapse during that first wave, when the country recorded 929 deaths in a single day. Many show pride in the “miracle” of multiplying hospital beds and intensive-care units to cope with the ill.

But ask health professionals and they will tell you that the actual cost was overworked staff who were sickened more than anywhere else in the world and suffered a huge emotional toll. Universal health care has been the backbone of Spain’s welfare state for decades. If officials in charge weren’t able to foresee an epidemic that was slowly but steadily morphing into a pandemic, something clearly went wrong. And it took weeks for doctors and nurses to receive vital protective equipment.

But perhaps the most tragic aspect of all was discovering how a rapidly aging society was unable to protect its elderly. At least 20,000 died in nursing homes during the first three months — overwhelmed hospitals turned away the very women and men who had lifted Spain out of the Franco-era isolation and paid a lifetime of contributions to its social security system.

And yet despite the increasing mistrust in the system, Spaniards showed an exemplary capacity for endurance and resilience. There were rulebreakers, just like everywhere else, among young people who insisted on partying, quarantine-skippers and virus deniers, along with opportunistic shows of political sectarianism.

But the country as a whole put up with arguably the world’s most uncompromising nationwide lockdown. For weeks, Spain stayed at home and sacrificed its economy in a way that will probably burden its future for years.

The virus spread came to a near-total halt. The prime minister declared victory. But eager to reopen, the tourism industry lobbied the government. People hurried out, eager to reunite with loved ones and make up for the lost time. It was meant to be a different summer, but a summer after all.

Very soon, contagion shot back up, this time placing Spain at the forefront of the resurgence in Europe. Then came hours of parliamentary debates, thousands of protocols for everything from re-opening hotels to properly handling COVID-19 corpses, and pledges to do better. But as the year draws to a close, no standardized and effective test and trace system has been rolled out nationwide.

Politicians blamed rule breakers and, with some of their measures, stigmatized the poor who couldn’t afford to isolate or work from home. Some even went as far as blaming the “lifestyle” of migrants.

Experts, who are demanding an external and independent investigation, blame a mix — a rush to reactivate the economy, bars and restaurants prioritized over schools or parks, plus observance of rules in public but relaxation indoors.

But did political incapacity also play a role? Some Spanish regional governments showed an embarrassing short-sightedness, trying to save money by shorting expenditures for primary care or to fund contact tracing.

By mid-December, Spain had reported 3,747 cases per 100,000 population. At year's end, Spaniards were showing a lack of faith in their institutions, with the doubts most apparent in official polls that found that 55% were suspicious of any COVID-19 vaccination and would not rush to get one.

PM: Sweden's health officials misjudged new infection wave

December 15, 2020

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Health officials in Sweden, which opted not to impose a national lockdown in response to the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, misjudged the power of the virus's resurgence, the country's prime minister said Tuesday.

“I think that most people in the profession didn't see such a wave in front of them, they talked about different clusters,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told the Aftenposten newspaper. Lofven, who heads a Social Democrat-Green Party coalition, spoke hours before a commission that has looked into Sweden’s handling of the pandemic was to release its preliminary conclusions.

Over the summer, Sweden’s left-leaning minority government had said a commission would be appointed once the crisis was over but came under pressure to act sooner. Sweden’s statistical agency said Monday it had recorded a total of 8,088 deaths from all causes in November — the highest mortality ever reported in the Scandinavian country since the first year of the Spanish flu that raged across the world from 1918 through 1920.

In November 1918, 16,600 people died in the Scandinavian country, said Tomas Johansson of Statistics Sweden. This year Sweden has seen 320,098 coronavirus infections and 7,514 virus-related deaths, a death toll much higher than neighbors Norway, Finland or Denmark.

In the fall, Sweden saw a rapid increase in new coronavirus cases that strained its health care system. Infections have spread quickly among Swedish medical staff, pushing the government to back more restrictions, including a nationwide ban on the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. in bars and restaurants.

Sweden has also imposed its tightest virus restrictions to date by banning public gatherings of more than eight people.

Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

UK urged to rethink easing of restrictions around Christmas

December 15, 2020

LONDON (AP) — The British government on Tuesday appeared to be holding out against calls to reassess its plans to ease coronavirus restrictions over the Christmas period following a spike in new cases that will see tougher rules imposed on London.

With the number of new cases rising at an exponential rate in many parts of the country, there are growing concerns that the planned limited relaxation of restrictions next week will see a further escalation in infections and additional pressure on the National Health Service in the new year.

The British government, which devises the public health strategy for England, along with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, agreed last month to allow a maximum of three households to mix between Dec. 23 and Dec. 27, regardless of what local restrictions are in place in the areas where they live.

There are a myriad of restrictions across the U.K., largely based on the prevalence of the virus in geographic areas, limiting the number of people allowed to gather both inside and out of the home. London will join other major cities in England, including Birmingham and Manchester, in the highest level of restrictions — so-called Tier 3 — on Wednesday. This will involve, among other new restrictions, the closure of pubs and restaurants apart from takeouts and deliveries and the banning of anyone meeting someone else from another household. People living in Tier 3 areas, which from Wednesday will be the majority of the population of England, are not allowed to meet socially in a private garden or at most outdoor public venues with anybody they do not live with.

With restrictions being tightened in many parts of the country, questions are being raised about the wisdom of allowing a relaxation around Christmas. That's particularly true in Wales, where infections have risen especially fast over the past few weeks.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan was among those calling on the government to look again at the easing of coronavirus restrictions over Christmas. “The concern is this — the rules have been relaxed for five days, allowing household mixing for up to three different households and inevitably when people are in their own households, they tend to be less vigilant," he told BBC Radio. “And my concern is that many people may have the virus and not realize it. They could pass the virus on to older relations.”

So far, the British government is resisting changing course, but the message around Christmas gatherings appears to have been finessed. Stephen Barclay, a Treasury minister, said it's about “finding the right balance" of seeking to avoid criminalizing people while at the same time reminding everyone of the risks.

“It’s important people do the minimum that is possible,” he told Sky News.

Assad regime has 'nowhere left to go,' says ex-US envoy

January 21, 2021

The Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad "has nowhere left to go" and "cannot escape" international accountability, the former US special envoy for Syria said on Twitter just hours after his role ended with the inauguration of US President Joe Biden.

"From Washington, we see clearly that the Assad regime cannot escape the pressure of the Caesar Act [sanctions]," tweeted Joel Rayburn. "Nor can it overcome its international isolation. My message to Damascus at the end of my tenure is this: you have nowhere left to go."

The former special envoy, who is also the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Levant Affairs, added that the regime in Damascus had reached its limit and that it has "no choice but to accede to 2254." This was a reference to the UN Security Council resolution in 2015 that called for a ceasefire, political solution and transition in Syria.

In a video he posted separately, Rayburn said that he will hope and pray that the Syrian people would one day experience "that same joy and pride in a peaceful transition of power" as he felt in the transition of the presidency from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

Rayburn's stepping down from his role at the State Department this month was, he clarified last week, not due to any personal or political reasons. "[It is] a normal rotation of personnel that happens during a transition from one administration to another."

Biden has not yet appointed a new special envoy for Syria, but concerns have already been raised over his administration's resemblance to its predecessors, which had interventionist foreign policies for the Middle East.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210121-assad-regime-has-nowhere-left-to-go-says-ex-us-envoy/.

World leaders laud US return to climate fight under Biden

January 21, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — World leaders breathed an audible sigh of relief that the United States under President Joe Biden is rejoining the global effort to curb climate change, a cause that his predecessor had shunned.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron were among those welcoming Biden's decision to rejoin the the Paris climate accord, reversing a key Trump policy in the first hours of his presidency Wednesday.

“Rejoining the Paris Agreement is hugely positive news,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. Britain, which is hosting this year's U.N. climate summit, looked forward to working with the Biden administration on the issue, he said.

Macron likewise tweeted his joy at the U.S. rejoining the Paris pact, saying that with Biden, “we will be stronger to face the challenges of our time. Stronger to build our future. Stronger to protect our planet.”

The accord, forged in the French capital in 2015, commits countries to put forward plans for reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is released from burning fossil fuels.

Former President Donald Trump had questioned the scientific warnings about man-made global warming, at times accusing other countries of using the Paris accord as a club to hurt the United States. By contrast, Biden put the fight against climate change at the center of his presidential campaign and on Wednesday immediately launched a series of climate-friendly efforts to bring Washington back in step with the rest of the world on the issue.

“A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear now.” Experts say any international efforts to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally 1.5C (2.7F), as agreed in the Paris accord would struggle without the contribution of United States, which is the world's second biggest carbon emitter.

Scientists say time is running out to reach that goal because the world has already warmed 1.2 C (2.2 F) pre-industrial times.

Biden's US revives support for WHO, reversing Trump retreat

January 21, 2021

GENEVA (AP) — The United States will resume funding for the World Health Organization and join its consortium aimed at sharing coronavirus vaccines fairly around the globe, President Joe Biden’s top adviser on the pandemic said Thursday, renewing support for an agency that the Trump administration had pulled back from.

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s quick commitment to the WHO — whose response to the pandemic has been criticized by many, but most vociferously by the Trump administration — marks a dramatic and vocal shift toward a more cooperative approach to fighting the pandemic.

“I am honored to announce that the United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization,” Fauci told a virtual meeting of the WHO from the United States, where it was 4:10 a.m. in Washington. It was the first public statement by a member of Biden’s administration to an international audience — and a sign of the priority that the new president has made of fighting COVID-19 both at home and with world partners.

Just hours after Biden’s inauguration Wednesday, he wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres saying the U.S. had reversed the planned pullout from the WHO that was expected to take effect in July.

The withdrawal from the WHO was rich with symbolism — another instance of America's go-it-alone strategy under Trump. But it also had practical ramifications: The U.S. halted funding for the U.N. health agency — stripping it of cash from the country that has long been its biggest donor just as the agency was battling the health crisis that has killed more than 2 million people worldwide. The U.S. had also pulled back staff from the organization.

Fauci said the Biden administration will resume “regular engagement” with WHO and will “fulfill its financial obligations to the organization.” The WHO chief and others jumped in to welcome the U.S. announcements.

“This is a good day for WHO and a good day for global health,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “The role of the United States, its role, global role is very, very crucial.” The two men hinted at a warm relationship between them, with Fauci calling Tedros his “dear friend” and Tedros referring to Fauci as “my brother Tony.”

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called it “great news” in an email. “The world has always been a better place when the U.S. plays a leadership role in solving global health problems including the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio and other diseases,” he said.

Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke wrote on Facebook: “This is going to have a huge impact on the world’s ability to fight the pandemic. It is decisive that the United States is involved as a driving force and not a country that is looking for the exit when a global catastrophe rages.”

Fauci also said Biden will issue a directive Thursday that shows the United States’ intent to join the COVAX Facility, a project to deploy COVID-19 vaccines to people in need around the world — whether in rich or poor countries.

Under Trump, the U.S. had been the highest-profile — and most deep-pocketed — holdout from the COVAX Facility, which has struggled to meet its goals of distributing millions of vaccines both because of financial and logistic difficulties.

WHO and leaders in many developing countries have repeatedly expressed concerns that poorer places could be the last to get COVID-19 vaccines, while noting that leaving vast swaths of the global population unvaccinated puts everyone at risk.

While vowing U.S. support, Fauci also pointed to some key challenges facing WHO. He said the U.S. was committed to “transparency, including those events surrounding the early days of the pandemic.” One of the Trump administration’s biggest criticisms was that the WHO reacted too slowly to the outbreak in Wuhan, China, and was too accepting of and too effusive about the Chinese government’s response to it. Others have also shared those criticisms — but public health experts and many countries have argued that, while the organization needs reform, it remains vital.

Referring to a WHO-led probe looking for the origins of the coronavirus by a team that is currently in China, Fauci said: “The international investigation should be robust and clear, and we look forward to evaluating it.”

He said the U.S. would work with WHO and partner countries to “strengthen and reform” the agency, without providing specifics.

Associated Press writers Cara Anna in Nairobi, Kenya, and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

Twin suicide bombings rock central Baghdad, at least 28 dead

January 21, 2021

BAGHDAD (AP) — Twin suicide bombings ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital Thursday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 73 others, officials said. The rare suicide bombing attack hit the Bab al-Sharqi commercial area in central Baghdad amid heightened political tensions over planned early elections and a severe economic crisis. Blood smeared the floors of the busy market amid piles of clothes and shoes as survivors took stock of the disarray in the aftermath.

No one immediately took responsibility for the attack, but Iraqi military officials said it was the work of the Islamic State group. Iraq's military said at least 28 people were killed and 73 wounded in the attack and said some of the injured were in serious condition. Several health and police officials said the toll might be higher. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The Health Ministry announced all of its hospitals in the capital were mobilized to treat the wounded. Maj. Gen. Tahsin al-Khafaji, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, which includes an array of Iraqi forces, said the first suicide bomber cried out loudly that he was ill in the middle of the bustling market, prompting a crowd to gather around him — and that's when he detonated his explosive belt. The second detonated his belt shortly after, he said.

“This is a terrorist act perpetrated by a sleeper cell of the Islamic State,” al-Khafaji said. He said IS “wanted to prove its existence" after suffering many blows in military operations to root out the militants.

The suicide bombings marked the first in three years to target Baghdad's bustling commercial area. A suicide bomb attack took place in the same area in 2018 shortly after then-Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi declared victory over the Islamic State group.

No one immediately took responsibility for Thursday's attack, but Iraq has seen assaults perpetrated by both the Islamic State group and militia groups in recent months. Militias have routinely targeted the American presence in Iraq with rocket and mortar attacks, especially the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. The pace of those attacks, however, has decreased since an informal truce was declared by Iran-backed armed groups in October.

The style of Thursday's assault was similar to those IS has conducted in the past. But the group has rarely been able to penetrate the capital since being dislodged by Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition in 2017.

IS has shown an ability to stage increasingly sophisticated attacks across northern Iraq, where it still maintains a presence three years after Iraq declared victory over the group. Iraqi security forces are frequently ambushed and targeted with IEDs in rural areas of Kirkuk and Diyala. An increase in attacks was seen last summer as militants took advantage of the government's focus on tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

The twin bombings Thursday came days after Iraq's government unanimously agreed to hold early elections in October. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had announced in July that early polls would be held to meet the demands of anti-government protesters.

Demonstrators took to the streets in the tens of thousands last year to demand political change, and an end to rampant corruption and poor services. More than 500 people were killed in mass demonstrations as security forces used live rounds and tear gas to disperse crowds.

Iraq is also grappling with a severe economic crisis brought on by low oil prices that has led the government to borrow internally and risk depleting its foreign currency reserves. The Central Bank of Iraq devalued Iraq's dinar by nearly 20% last year to meet spending obligations.

Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed.

Turkey refuses to deport Iranian journalist

January 20, 2021

Turkey will not deport Iranian journalist Mohammad Mosaed back to Iran, security sources have revealed. Instead, he is being allowed to remain while his application for asylum is processed,

According to a statement released on Monday by the Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mosaed was arrested by the Turkish authorities at the weekend for entering the country illegally.

The Iranian authorities sentenced him in August to four years in prison on charges of "colluding against national security" and "spreading propaganda against the system." His sentence, he was told at the time, would start after two days.

Mosaed then fled from Iran and arrived in the Turkish city of Van, where he alerted the Turkish authorities to his presence in the country by calling the emergency services on Sunday to save him from freezing to death. The award-winning journalist was detained by police and he contacted the CPJ and filed an application for international protection that was received by the authorities in Van.

"We believe that Mohammad Mosaed has a well-founded fear of persecution should he be returned to Iran," said Sherif Mansour, the CPJ's Middle East and North Africa Coordinator. He called on the Turkish government to respect its obligations under international law; to refrain from deporting Mosaed; to consider any request for political asylum that he may make; and to assure that his rights are protected through due process of law.

According to a security source, Turkey won't deport him. "There is capital punishment in Iran and he is a journalist, not a mobster," the source told Middle East Eye.

In recent years, numerous Iranian dissidents and activists have sought refuge in Turkey fearing persecution in their home country. The government in Ankara has often refused to deport such dissidents. Iranian activist Maryam Shariatmadari, for example, was not deported when her residency permit expired last year.

There have, however, been a number of cases in Turkey where dissidents have been assassinated or kidnapped by Iranian agents. Dissident and former intelligence agent Masoud Maulavi Vardanjani was assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019, a killing apparently instigated by Iranian diplomats in the country.

A year later, the Ahvazi activist Habib Chaab was abducted in Istanbul by Iranian agents and smuggled across the border into Iran where he is being held in detention.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210120-turkey-refuses-to-deport-iranian-journalist/.

Turkish pilots, official face 12 years jail for Ghosn flight

January 20, 2021

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday sought the maximum possible 12 years in prison each for a Turkish private airline official and two pilots accused of smuggling the former Nissan Motor Co. chairman out of Japan, Turkey’s state news agency reported.

In the third hearing in the trial of seven people over Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic escape in 2019, prosecutors also requested that the court acquits two other pilots of the charge of “illegally smuggling a migrant,” Anadolu Agency said. They recommended instead that the two — who flew him from Istanbul to Beirut — be tried on charges of failing to report a crime.

Delivering their final opinion on the case, the prosecutors also demanded that charges against two flight attendants be dropped. The trial was adjourned until Feb. 24, when the court in Istanbul could deliver verdicts.

Ghosn, 66, who was arrested over financial misconduct allegations in Tokyo in 2018, skipped bail while awaiting trial there. He was flown by pilots Noyan Pasin and Bahri Kutlu Somek from Osaka to Istanbul on a private plane and then transferred onto another plane for Beirut, where he arrived Dec. 30, 2019. He is believed to have been smuggled inside a large, foam-covered music box.

All four pilots and two flight attendants have denied involvement in the plans to help Ghosn flee, insisting that they did not know that he was aboard the flights. During the opening hearing, airline official Okan Kosemen claimed he was made aware that Ghosn was on the plane to Istanbul only after it landed. He admitted helping smuggle Ghosn onto the second, Beirut-bound plane, but claimed he was threatened and feared for his family’s safety.

Turkish airline company MNG Jet has admitted that two of its planes were used illegally in Ghosn’s escape, flying him to Istanbul, and then to Beirut. The company said its employee had admitted to falsifying flight records so that Ghosn’s name didn’t appear on them.

Ghosn, who has French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship, led Japanese automaker Nissan for two decades. He is wanted on charges of breach of trust in misusing company assets for personal gain, and violating securities laws in not fully disclosing his compensation.

He has said that he fled because he could not expect a fair trial in Japan. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan. In addition to his trial in Japan, the businessman is facing a number of legal challenges in France, including tax evasion and alleged money laundering, fraud and misuse of company assets while at the helm of the Renault-Nissan alliance.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

After vote, Greece to double reach of western coastal waters

January 20, 2021

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Lawmakers in Greece Wednesday overwhelmingly approved legislation to extend the country's territorial waters along its western coastline from six to 12 nautical miles. In the 284-0 vote, representatives of four opposition parties backed the center-right government, while members of the Greek Communist Party abstained.

Although the move does not directly affect an ongoing maritime boundary dispute with Turkey to the east, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament that Greece was adopting a more assertive foreign policy.

“It's a clear message to those who are trying to deprive our country of this right,” Mitsotakis said. Greece’s western coastline faces Italy and borders Albania at its northern tip. But the expansion is aimed at underscoring the country’s right to implement the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which set the 12-mile limit in 1982.

Greece and Turkey, neighbors and NATO allies, are at odds over sea boundaries and mineral rights in the Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean in a dispute that caused a tense military standoff last year.

Under pressure from western allies, Turkey and Greece will resume talks aimed at reducing tensions on Jan. 25, restarting a process that was suspended five years ago. Turkey says an extension of Greece’s territorial waters eastward would be considered an act of war, arguing that Greek islands would effectively block its access to the Aegean. The longstanding dispute between the two countries has been fueled by the discovery of large offshore gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean in recent years.

Greece has signed recent agreements with Italy and Egypt for the delineation of maritime exploration rights and is in talks with Albania to take a maritime boundary dispute to an international court.

Theresa May rebukes Boris Johnson as UK welcomes Biden era

January 20, 2021

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the start of a new U.K.-U.S. chapter on Wednesday under incoming U.S. President Joe Biden, even as his predecessor Theresa May accused Johnson of “abandoning” the U.K.’s moral leadership in the world during the tumultuous Trump era.

May, who resigned in 2019 amid turmoil over Brexit, has been critical of Johnson’s handling of Britain’s exit from the European Union. The open criticism is unusual because both prime ministers represent the Conservative Party.

Writing in the Daily Mail newspaper, May slammed Johnson’s threat last year to breach the legally binding Brexit treaty he had signed with the EU, and his decision to abandon a commitment to spending 0.7% of Britain’s GDP on foreign aid.

May said “to lead we must live up to our values.” “Threatening to break international law by going back on a treaty we had just signed and abandoning our position of global moral leadership as the only major economy to meet both the 2% defense spending target and the 0.7% international aid target were not actions which, in my view, raised our credibility in the eyes of the world,” May said.

Since Biden won the U.S. election in November, Johnson has tried to shake off criticism that he became too close to outgoing President Donald Trump. The two men’s populist, crowd-pleasing styles have often drawn comparisons.

Johnson’s supporters argue that all British prime ministers have to forge strong relationships with the occupant of the White House. May was the first world leader to visit Trump after his inauguration in 2017, though their personal relationship was never warm.

Johnson has congratulated Biden and noted that they share priorities, including combating climate change and bolstering international institutions. Johnson told the House of Commons that he looked forward to working with Biden “and with his new administration, strengthening the partnership between our countries and working on our shared priorities from tackling climate change, building back better from the pandemic and strengthening our transatlantic security.''

Gas explosion rips through Madrid building, killing 4

January 20, 2021

MADRID (AP) — A powerful gas explosion tore through a residential building in central Madrid on Wednesday, killing four people and ripping the façade off the structure. A tower of smoke rose from the building, where repairs were being done to a gas boiler, and billowed through Toledo Street, near the city's center. Aerial footage shared by Spain’s National Police showed rubble covering a nearby schoolyard — though Madrid's mayor said no one was seriously injured at the school.

All students and staff were inside the school buildings at the time of the blast. At least 11 people were injured in the explosion, one seriously, the Madrid emergency service said in a tweet. The Spanish government’s representative for the Madrid region, José Manuel Franco, confirmed three casualties and the Catholic parish that owned the damaged building said the fourth victim was an electrician, a father of four, who was working on the boiler and had initially been considered missing.

A police spokesman on the ground told reporters that firefighters were trying to put out a small fire inside the building before they could bring in dogs, rescue teams, and experts to assess the structure of the damaged premises.

An Associated Press reporter saw emergency workers carry two bodies away from the area, one that firefighters covered with a blue blanket and another shrouded in reflective emergency sheeting. The building belongs to the nearby La Paloma Catholic Parish and hosted the offices and apartments for some of its priests, Madrid Archbishop Carlos Osoro told Spanish public broadcaster, TVE. He confirmed that none of the clerics were among the victims.

Emy Lee Grau, a local resident who was watching television in a building across the street, said that the moment of the blast was “terrifying.” “Everything shook, it felt like the roof was falling on us. We were terrified when we saw the amount of smoke coming out of the church’s building,” the 20-year-old Madrid resident told The Associated Press.

A nearby nursing home was evacuated and no injuries were initially reported among the 55 residents, Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida told reporters. They were taken to a hotel across the street and were later sent to other care homes, officials said.

Martínez Almeida also said that some mild damage had been identified in the school, where he said people suffered no more than “scratches.” Neighborhood resident Leire Reparaz said she heard the explosion and wasn't immediately sure where it was coming from.

“We all thought it was from the school. We went up the stairs to the top of our building and we could see the structure of the building and lots of gray smoke,” the 24-year-old said.

Associated Press photographer Paul White contributed to this report.

Boats emerge from Sahara sand to transport migrants to Spain

January 20, 2021

DAKHLA, Western Sahara (AP) — Beneath a star-packed sky in the Sahara, smugglers and handymen unearth a boat buried in the sand, a made-to-order vessel for carrying migrants from the North African coast to Spain’s Canary Islands.

With seasoned skill, the men hoist the blue-bottomed wooden boat atop a four-wheel drive vehicle that will take it from this inland hideaway to the Western Sahara shore. From there, the boat is meant to take 20 to 30 migrants into the Atlantic Ocean and across what the European Union’s border agency calls “the most dangerous migratory route in the world."

The boat handover is a crucial but little-seen piece of the migrant smuggling chain in disputed Western Sahara — a business that thrived last year, as the coronavirus pandemic plunged many Africans into poverty and, with other routes choked off, migration to the Canary Islands jumped eight-fold to the highest rates ever recorded.

Encouraged by aid from Spain and the EU, the Moroccan authorities who control Western Sahara — where some residents have long sought independence — are increasingly cracking down and thwarted a recent boat transfer witnessed by The Associated Press.

But many others succeed, as smugglers dodge police helicopter searchlights in the desert and reach fishing towns on the coast around Dakhla. The peninsula city boasts a thriving fishing port, and kitesurfing enthusiasts flock to its waters. But in recent months, its beaches have become a hot spot for smuggling networks eyeing the Canaries, 500 kilometers (300 miles) north.

Although irregular crossings to Europe dropped overall in 2020, the Canary Islands route saw a significant rise, with some 22,600 migrants arriving, making Spain the main point of entry for migrants trying to reach European shores last year, according to EU and Spanish government figures. At least 600 people died or disappeared trying to make the journey.

The resurgence of the route has been driven in part by COVID-19. The pandemic has wiped out livelihoods across Morocco by cutting off tourism revenue and periodically shutting down local businesses. While in the past most arrivals in the Canaries were from sub-Saharan Africa, now about half are Moroccans. Boats also routinely set out from the West African shores of Guinea, Gambia and Mauritania, according to the International Organization for Migration.

A resident of Dakhla who organizes trips for migrants said economic difficulties drove him to work for a smuggling network. “We had to make money and feed our families,” the 32-year-old told the AP on condition of anonymity because what he does is illegal.

He says he puts together one trip per week, while competitors send out up to 10 boats a night. He estimates as many as half of the migration attempts fail, either because of problems before departure or at sea.

One recent failure was visible on the shores of the Dakhla peninsula: the freshly charred remains of a migrant boat that caught fire. The fate of those aboard is unclear. IOM’s Missing Migrants Project provisionally recorded 601 deaths or disappearances on the Canary route last year, including at least 109 who left from Dakhla or were found near Dakhla. They are still investigating another eight missing boats with 355 people aboard.

The Dakhla resident said migrants pay $2,000 for the trip — a vast sum in Morocco, where the typical worker earns a few hundred dollars a month — but wouldn't say how much he earns himself. “I don’t know where they get the money from, but they want to leave at any cost," he said.

One recent night, a group of smugglers left Dakhla and headed inland, followed by a vehicle carrying a dozen handymen. They drove past police checkpoints then turned off the highway into the endless expanse of desert. The driver had a GPS coordinate on a phone and crossed the sand with the experience of someone who seemed to have taken the route many times.

At the meeting point, the men found a white tent and a young boat-builder — and unearthed a large boat. Just as they prepared to head back, the smugglers received a message about police “movement” and were told to leave the boat. Within minutes, the vessel was deep beneath the sand again — and the tent and equipment gone.

As the men drove back toward town, police stopped their car and searched it for signs of smuggling — but found none. The carpenter said he built the boat in the desert to avoid attracting attention — a common practice, though smugglers also sometimes simply buy boats from fishermen. The carpenter, who said he earns about 20,000 dirham ($2,000) per vessel, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the connection to smuggling networks.

When such boats make it to Dakhla, they find plenty of takers. It can take up to four days to get to the Canaries, and people arrive in terrible shape. They generally don’t take food on the journey and very little water, if any, according to migration agencies.

But deterring people from taking the risk is a huge challenge in a global economic crisis. As crossings surged last year to the highest level since EU border agency began collecting data in 2009, Spain sent top government officials to Senegal and Morocco in November to discuss how to stop the crossings.

The EU provides development aid to African countries to help them manage migration and has also set up a 5 billion-euro ($6 billion) trust fund to address the problem. For its part, Moroccan police have said they prevented nearly 10,000 migrants from crossing to Europe last year, and the government agreed to take back Moroccans who are deported.

But still hundreds of people attempt the journey. Already six deaths have been recorded in 2021 on the Canary route, most recently a boy who drowned. “It is absolutely one of the most deadly routes to the European Union," Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told EU lawmakers Tuesday. "And we don’t know actually how many lives have been lost.”

Associated Press journalists Lorne Cook in Brussels, Renata Brito in Barcelona and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

EU sighs with relief as Biden readies to enter White House

January 20, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s top officials breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday that Joe Biden will be taking over as president of the United States, but they warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump and that trans-Atlantic ties will be different in the future.

“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, hailing Biden’s arrival as “resounding proof that, once again after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”

“The United States are back, and Europe stands ready to reconnect with an old and trusted partner to breathe new life into our cherished alliance,” she told EU lawmakers, hours before Biden was to be sworn in at his inauguration ceremony in Washington.

European Council President Charles Michel, who chairs summits between the EU’s 27 heads of state and government, said that trans-Atlantic relations have “greatly suffered in the last four years. In these years, the world has grown more complex, less stable and less predictable.”

“We have our differences and they will not magically disappear. America seems to have changed, and how it’s perceived in Europe and the rest of the world has also changed,” said Michel, whose open criticism of the Trump era contrasted starkly with the silence that mostly reigned in Europe while the Republican leader was in the White House.

This change, Michel said, means “that we Europeans (must) take our fate firmly into our own hands, to defend our interests and promote our values,” and he underlined that “the EU chooses its course and does not wait for permission to take its own decisions.”

The Europeans have invited Biden to a summit, quite probably in Brussels, in parallel with a top-level NATO meeting as soon as he’s ready. Michel said the EU’s priority is to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, rebuild the global economy and boost security ties with America.

Snow blankets Saudi Arabia and Algeria as temperatures plummet

January 19, 2021 

Snow fell in Saudi Arabia and Algeria at the weekend as temperatures plummeted to below freezing. Residents of the southern Aseer region in the Kingdom also saw an extremely rare snowfall on Thursday when temperatures dropped as low as minus 2o Celsius in the mountainous region, the lowest recorded level in half a century.

Local residents and foreigners rushed to the area to see the snow-covered desert and surrounding hills, reported GeoNews. Camels were pictured standing in heavy drifts of snow in the area around Aseer.

Saudi Arabians living in Tabuk close to border with Jordan have also reported unusual weather patterns this month. January is normally the coldest month in Saudi Arabia, with temperatures hovering around an average of 20oC. In Tabuk, however, they tend to fall to an average of 4oC during the winter months.

In North Africa, meanwhile, snow has also fallen in the north-western Algerian desert town of Ain Sefra. Photographer Karim Bouchetata captured the stunning sight of Saharan sand dunes covered in a thin layer of snow.

Temperatures in the town, known as the "Gateway to the Desert" due to its position in the Atlas Mountains almost 1,000 meters above sea level, dropped to minus 3oC on Wednesday. Ain Sefra also reported snow in 2018, for the third time in 40 years.

Snow is extremely rare in deserts, though not completely unknown. High pressure systems of cool air move over the deserts, picking up moisture on the way and causing very low temperatures.

Although desert snow usually melts very quickly, the freezing temperatures in Saudi Arabia and Algeria have meant that it has lasted longer than usual.

Last year, snow fell in Baghdad for only the second time this century. The last recorded snowfall in the city was in 2008, but many residents said it was the first time they had ever seen snow. The people of Baghdad are more used to heat than cold, experiencing temperatures of up 50oC during the summer months.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210119-snow-blankets-saudi-arabia-and-algeria-as-temperatures-plummet/.