europe
NZ foreign minister on Zoom diplomacy, making history, and her wicked tattoo
Diplomats like to remain neutral but Nanaia Mahuta let the veil slip a little when a winner was declared in the U.S. election by tweeting a smiley-face emoji.
With hope high for vaccine, Britain prepares to roll it out
With major COVID-19 vaccines showing high levels of protection, British officials are cautiously — and they stress cautiously — optimistic that life may start returning to normal by early April.
Russian virus vaccine to cost less than $10 per dose abroad
Russia released new results Tuesday claiming its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was highly effective, and promised it would cost less on international markets than vaccines by some of its Western competitors.
Europe hopes for reset, end to 'damage control' under Biden
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Tuesday he hopes a reset of U.S.-European relations under the Biden administration can end years in which Europe was mainly concerned with “damage control.”
EU-UK talks suspended after team member tests positive for COVID-19
The negotiations between representatives from the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) had to be halted on Thursday after a member of the EU team tested positive for COVID-19, EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said.
Alleging sex abuse, 4 sue Vatican over handling of McCarrick
Four accusers of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick have filed a lawsuit against the Vatican, arguing it should be held liable for allowing the now-disgraced cleric to serve in multiple positions in New York and New Jersey when it knew of numerous allegations of sexual abuse against him.
Holy smoke! German customs seizes 10 tons of shisha tobacco
German authorities have seized 10.2 metric tonnes (11.2 tons) of water pipe tobacco they say was being smuggled into Berlin from the Mideast to avoid import taxes, officials said Thursday.
FAA clears Boeing 737 Max to fly again
After nearly two years and a pair of deadly crashes, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Boeing’s 737 Max for flight.
Europe, Gates pledge funds to get vaccines to poor nations
European governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged Thursday to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funds for a global effort aimed at ensuring eventual vaccines against the coronavirus are quickly available to poor countries — though it remains unclear how that might actually happen.
Covid-19 cases in Italy exceed one million
Some 32,961 new cases were registered on a daily basis, which brought the country's total to 1,028,424 -- comprising active infections, recoveries, and fatalities -- since the pandemic officially broke out here in late February, reports Xinhua.
Of all the new daily cases, some 23,248 were new active infections, and the total figure of actively infected people in the country thus rose to 613,358.
The vast