Europe
As Europe virus cases surge, UK plows on with its new normal
The bars are shut in Vienna, and the Christmas market is empty in Munich, as several European nations tighten up or even lock down to combat a spike in coronavirus infections.
Meanwhile in London, couples sip mulled wine at a seasonal market near the River Thames, full-capacity audiences fill the seats at the nearby National Theatre, and friends huddle over pints in pubs throughout the city.
Read: EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant
Not for the first time in the pandemic, Britain is out of step with many of its neighbors. But this time, it’s happy to be different.
The U.K. has endured three nationwide lockdowns and recorded nearly 145,000 deaths from the coronavirus, the highest toll in Europe after Russia. Now, it is watching as hospitals struggle with surging cases in countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, bringing lockdowns and restrictions. But while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a “blizzard from the east” could still ruin Britain’s Christmas, many scientists say the wind is now blowing the other way.
“We are not behind Europe in this wave. They are behind us,” said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.
The surge that is now hitting mainland Europe, driven by the highly transmissible delta strain of the virus, walloped Britain in the summer, just as the government removed all remaining legal restrictions on the economy and daily life.
Read: France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea
Because Britain got delta in the summer, when respiratory viruses are transmitted less readily, “it wasn’t so explosive as we would expect it to be in the winter, and as we’re now seeing in in some European countries,” Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease modelling at the University of Edinburgh, said.
“I think the U.K. got its delta wave at a fortuitous time, whereas Austria, for example, it’s the exact opposite,” he said. Austria, where average daily deaths have almost doubled in the past two weeks, has gone into lockdown, and authorities there plan to mandate vaccinations beginning Feb. 1.
The World Health Organization said this week that Europe is the only region of the world where coronavirus cases are rising, and the continent could see another 700,000 deaths by the spring unless urgent measures are taken soon.
But Britain stands somewhat apart.
Many scientists predicted the country would see a spike in cases after July 19 — dubbed “Freedom Day” by the media — when almost all restrictions were lifted. It didn’t happen.
Infection rates that were then among the highest in Europe, drifted up and down but never soared again as feared, though they remain stubbornly high. Britain is recording more than 40,000 new cases a day, a level last seen during the past winter’s surge. But a relatively high vaccination rate — particularly among the elderly — means hospitalizations and deaths are far lower than in previous waves. Still, 130 people a day died in the past week after testing positive for COVID-19.
Britain’s hospitals have not been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, though they are extremely busy as the health system struggles to clear a huge backlog built up during the pandemic. Johnson’s Conservative government has so far not had to trigger its “Plan B,” which would reintroduce mask mandates and work-from-home orders to ease pressure on the health system.
But if life in Britain these days can feel unusually normal — even festive, as many embrace the holiday season with renewed enthusiasm — it is a new, more constrained normal.
Visitors from countries where restrictions are still in place are sometimes taken aback by Britain's voluntary, variable approach to mask use and social distancing. But Ivo Vlaev, a behavioral scientist at the University of Warwick who has studied data from across Europe, says people in the U.K. have largely stuck to protective measures — including limiting their contacts with others — even when they were no longer required by law. Movement data suggests Britons still travel and mix less than before the pandemic.
Read: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead
“It seems to be the case that in U.K. people are more compliant in general across all health-protective behaviors” than in some other European nations, Vaev said.
Partly, he says, the reason is “fear — we actually are quite afraid to go out and do the usual stuff” after Britain's harsh pandemic experience.
While some European countries are turning to compulsion to get more people vaccinated, the U.K. is sticking with persuasion. Britain does not widely require proof of vaccination attend events or workplaces, and the government has ruled out mandating vaccines for everyone, though health and social care workers have been ordered to get shots.
Britain hasn't seen as much resistance to the vaccine as many other countries, and about 88% of people aged 12 and up have had at least one dose. But only about 68% of the whole population is fully vaccinated, a lower figure than in some other European nations, partly because the U.K. was slower than many of its neighbors to offer shots to children aged 12 to 15, and has not yet approved vaccines for younger kids.
The government’s focus is on giving booster doses to those most vulnerable to serious illness, offering a third shot to everyone 40 and up six months after their second.
“Get your booster as soon as you can,” the prime minister said this week. “Because it is by vaccinating our country that we have been able to get your staff back to their place of work, to open our theaters, our restaurants and get back for longer now than any comparator country, to something like normal life.”
Some public health specialists and opposition politicians say the government is relying too much on vaccination to keep the virus at bay. They want the return of mandatory masks, social distancing and other measures.
But some epidemiologists are cautiously optimistic that enough is being done to keep a lid on the virus over the winter. Perhaps ironically, Hunter says Britain’s heavy coronavirus toll puts it in a stronger position than those countries where the virus is now surging.
Read: Italian Coast Guard rescues 550 migrants from stormy seas
“They’ve got populations that are not as well immunized, whether that is from vaccine or infection, as we have,” he said. “We still have a lot more immunity from natural infection than most European countries, and we’re rolling out the booster. That is why we will have less of a troublesome winter than most.”
Global Covid cases top 259 million
The overall number of Covid cases has surged past 259 million amid the global race to vaccinate masses against the infectious disease.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 259,380,413 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,173,924, Thursday morning.
The US has recorded 48,090,894 cases to date and more than 775,369 people have died so far from the virus in the country, as per the university data.
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 22,043,112 cases as of Wednesday, while its Covid death toll rose to 613,339.
Read: French prime minister positive for COVID-19, as cases rise
India's Covid-19 tally rose to 34,535,763 on Wednesday, as 9,283 new cases were registered in 24 hours across the country, as per the federal health ministry data.
Besides, 437 deaths due to the pandemic since Tuesday morning took the total death toll to 466,584.
The World Health Organization’s Europe office says projections show its 53-country region could face another 700,000 deaths in the pandemic by next spring, topping two million in total, reports AP.
WHO Europe, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, also cited growing evidence of a decline in protection against infection and mild disease through vaccines, and said a “booster dose” should be given as a priority to the most vulnerable populations -- including people with weakened immune systems -- as well as people over age 60 and healthcare workers.
Read: As virus surges in Eastern Europe, leaders slow to act
The UN health agency’s international headquarters in Geneva, however, has repeatedly called for a moratorium on the use of boosters through year-end so that doses can be made available for many developing countries that have faced a severe lack of the Covid vaccines compared to the rich world.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported three more Covid-linked deaths for the second consecutive day along with 312 fresh cases in 24 hours till Wednesday morning.
With this, the daily case positivity rate rose to 1.49 percent on Wednesday from Tuesday’s 1.45 percent, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The positivity rate kept rising for the last three days as it was 1.42 percent on Monday and 1.16 on Sunday.
Among the deceased, two were women and one was a man. Each of the deceased was from Chattogram, Rajshahi and Khulna divisions.
With the fresh numbers, the total fatalities rose to 27,961 while the caseload mounted to 1,574,948.
However, the mortality rate remained static at 1.78 percent.
The fresh cases were detected after testing 20,770 samples, the directorate added.
Besides, the recovery rate remained static at 97.73 percent, with the recovery of 338 more patients during the 24-hour period.
On Saturday, Bangladesh logged zero Covid-linked deaths with 178 cases.
So far, 3,54,14,244 people have fully been vaccinated in the country while 5,64,02,543 received the first dose as of Tuesday, according to the directorate.
Poland’s far right demands strong borders in Belarus crisis
Thousands marched in Warsaw on Thursday to mark Poland’s Independence Day, led by far-right groups calling for strong borders, while its troops blocked hundreds of new attempts by migrants to enter the country illegally from neighboring Belarus in a tense standoff.
Security forces patrolled the capital for the parade, which was peaceful, unlike those in recent years that have seen violence by some extremists.
“Today there are not only internal disputes. Today there are also external disputes. Today there is an attack on the Polish border,” march leader Robert Bakiewicz said in a speech, adding that all Poles should support those who are protecting the eastern frontier.
The march was overshadowed by events unfolding along Poland’s border with Belarus, where thousands of riot police, troops and border guards are turning back migrants, many from the Middle East, who are trying to enter the European Union. Makeshift camps have sprung up in forests on the Belarusian side near a crossing at the Polish town of Kuznica, and with temperatures falling and access to the frontier restricted, there are fears of a humanitarian crisis.
Read: China’s leader Xi warns against ‘Cold War’ in Asia-Pacific
EU officials have accused Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko of using the migrants as pawns in a “hybrid attack” to retaliate for sanctions imposed on his authoritarian regime for a harsh internal crackdown on dissent.
With the EU weighing more sanctions on Belarus, Lukashenko threatened to cut off Russian natural gas supplies to Europe that pass through a pipeline in his country. “I would recommend the Poles, Lithuanians and other brainless people to think before they talk,” he said.
The U.N. Security Council discussed the crisis privately but took no action, though six of its Western members condemned the use “of human beings whose lives and well-being have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus” and called on the international community “to hold Belarus accountable” and “to stop these inhumane actions.”
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, called the EU members’ decision to raise the Belarus-Poland issue in the U.N.’s most powerful body “a total shame.” He said Belarus is not to blame that people who came legally to Belarus want to enter EU countries.
Courts and Warsaw’s liberal Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski had banned the Independence Day march, which celebrates Poland’s statehood, but right-wing authorities in the national government overrode the order and gave the gathering the status of a state ceremony.
The government’s support for the far-right leaders of the march underlined how Poland’s right-wing ruling party wants their backing. It also is engaged in a political fight with the EU over changes to Poland’s judiciary, seen in Brussels as an erosion of democratic norms, along with rhetoric viewed as discriminatory to LGBT groups.
Read: Global Covid cases near 252 million
In 2017, the parade drew tens of thousands and featured white nationalist and antisemitic slogans. The next year, the president, prime minister and other leaders marched the same route as the nationalists.
In seeking to ban the march, Trzaskowski argued that Warsaw, which was razed by Nazi Germany in World War II, is no place for “fascist slogans.”
Groups marched with Poland’s white-and-red flags Thursday, but some also waved the green flags of the National Radical Camp displaying a stylized hand with a sword, a far-right symbol dating to the 1930s.
The standoff near the frontier crossing at Kuznica, 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Warsaw, was on the minds of many at the march, and one banner in Warsaw read: “We Thank the Defenders of Poland’s Borders.”
Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik tweeted that some security forces “will go directly from Warsaw to defend our border with Belarus. When marching, remember this!”
About 15,000 Polish troops have joined riot police and guards at the border. The Belarusian Defense Ministry accused Poland of an “unprecedented” military buildup there, saying that migration control didn’t warrant such a force.
The Polish Defense Ministry said the migrants made a number of attempts to cross the border since Wednesday, as they have all week.
Near the village of Bialowieza, where a few hundred migrants threw debris across the razor-wire fence at Polish troops and then tried to destroy it, shots were fired in the air to deter them, the ministry said. Near the village of Szudzialowo, migrants attacked a soldier in the chest with a tree branch, but he fired two warning shots in the air and was unhurt, the ministry said, adding that the attackers fled deeper into Belarus.
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Since the start of the year, there have been 33,000 attempts to cross the border illegally, with 17,000 in October alone, the border guard service said.
At least eight migrants have died, officials said, and conditions have been getting worse with freezing nighttime temperatures. Video from Russian state media Thursday showed hundreds of migrants pushing and scrambling to get aid that was delivered to them, along with a woman being treated for what the report said was hypothermia.
Mulusew Mamo, a UNHCR representative in Belarus who visited the migrants, called the situation there “catastrophic.”
“And in a day, it will be more catastrophic, I think,” Mamo said, adding that aid is being distributed via the Red Cross and will continue for several days.
The crisis has been brewing since summer, with migrants trying to cross from Belarus to Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Many want to head for Germany, but Finland also is a destination.
Warsaw has taken a hard line, depicting the migrants as dangerous criminals and changing its law to allow the arbitrary rejection of asylum applications, something condemned by the U.N. refugee agency.
But Poland has largely gotten support on the border issue from Europe, facing only mild criticism for pushing the migrants back.
The problem “is not Poland,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “The problem is Lukashenko and Belarus and its regime, and so Poland has earned our European solidarity in this situation.”
But Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said it was “shocking” to see Europe’s inability to properly handle such a relatively low number of migrants at the Poland-Belarus border.
“A few thousand people at Europe’s Polish border, many of whom have fled some of the worst crises in the world, is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of people displaced to countries that are much poorer elsewhere,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko’s main ally, for the second time in as many days. The Kremlin said they discussed the Poland-Belarus border and the importance of a “quick settlement” along international humanitarian norms.
Merkel’s office said she stressed the crisis was “brought about by the Belarusian regime, which is using defenseless people in a hybrid attack against the European Union.”
Moscow and Minsk have close political and military ties, and Russia sent two nuclear-capable strategic bombers on a training mission over Belarus for a second straight day in a strong show of support.
Lukashenko has emphasized the need to boost military cooperation in the face of what he has described as aggressive actions by NATO, which includes Poland.
The EU is looking at the role some airlines have played in carrying migrants and asylum-seekers to the bloc’s doorstep, and there are reports that it is mulling sanctions against them.
Russia’s national carrier Aeroflot strongly denied any involvement, saying it isn’t conducting any regular or charter flights to Iraq or Syria and didn’t have any between Istanbul and Minsk.
A Turkish official with direct knowledge of the issue said Turkish Airlines would halt selling tickets to Iraqi and Syrian nationals for flights to Minsk as part of measures being considered by Turkey to help resolve the crisis. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the issue and because he was not authorized to announce company policy.
Iraq’s Deputy Migration Minister Karim al-Nuri told the Russian state news agency Sputnik that his country will help its citizens who want to return from Belarus, working through its embassy in Russia because it doesn’t have one in Belarus.
Europe bolsters pioneering tech rules with help from Haugen
European lawmakers have pioneered efforts to rein in big technology companies and are working to strengthen those rules, putting them ahead of the United States and other parts of world that have been slower to regulate Facebook and other social media giants facing increasing blowback over misinformation and other harmful content that can proliferate on their platforms.
While Europe shares Western democratic values with the U.S., none of the big tech companies — Facebook, Twitter, Google — that dominate online life are based on the continent, which some say allowed European officials to make a more clear-eyed assessment of the risks posed by tech companies largely headquartered in Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the U.S.
But that’s only part of the explanation, said Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at digital rights group EDRi.
Read:Could Facebook sue whistleblower Frances Haugen?
The question, Penfrat said, should also be: “Why is the U.S. so much lagging behind? And that may be because of the immense pressure from the homegrown companies” arguing to officials in Washington that stricter rules would hobble them as they compete with, for example, Chinese rivals.
Drawing up a new package of digital rules for the 27-nation European Union is getting a boost from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who answered questions Monday in Brussels from a European Parliament committee. It's the latest sign of interest in her revelations that Facebook prioritized profits over safety after the former data scientist testified last month to the U.S. Senate and released internal documents.
If the EU rules are done right, “you can create a game-changer for the world, you can force platforms to price in societal risk to their business operations so the decisions about what products to build and how to build them is not purely based on profit maximization," Haugen told lawmakers. “And you can show the world how transparency, oversight and enforcement should work.”
Since Haugen left Facebook, the company has renamed itself Meta as it focuses its business on a virtual reality world called the metaverse.
“I’m shocked they picked this name,” she said. In the book that inspired the term, “the metaverse is a dystopian thing, that people’s lives are so unpleasant that they need to hide in the system for half of their day.”
Haugen has been on a European tour, meeting lawmakers and regulators in the EU and United Kingdom who are seeking her input as they work on stricter rules for online companies amid concerns that social media can do everything from magnify depression in teens to incite political violence. A wider global movement to crack down on digital giants is taking cues from Europe and gaining momentum in the U.S. and Australia.
Europe has been a trailblazer in applying more scrutiny for big tech companies, most famously by slapping Google with multibillion-dollar fines in three antitrust cases. Now, the European Union is working on a sweeping update of its digital rulebook, including requiring companies to be more transparent with users on how algorithms make recommendations for what shows up on their feeds and forcing them to swiftly take down illegal content such as hate speech.
The rules are aimed at preventing bad behavior, rather than punishing past actions, as the EU has largely done so far.
France and Germany also are bringing in legislation requiring social media platforms to take down illegal content quicker, though these rules would be superseded by the EU ones, which are expected to take effect no earlier than 2023.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has only recently started cracking down on big tech companies, with regulators fining Facebook and YouTube over allegations of privacy violations and the government suing over their huge share of the market in the last couple of years. American lawmakers have proposed measures to protect kids online and get at the algorithms used to determine what shows up on feeds, but they all face a long road to passing.
While Haugen’s testimony and the documents she has provided have shed light on how Facebook’s systems work and spurred efforts in the U.S., European lawmakers may not be that surprised by what she has to say.
Read:Ex-Facebook manager criticizes company, urges more oversight
“The fact that Facebook is disseminating polarizing content more than other kinds of content is something that people like me have been saying for years,” said Alexandra Geese, a European Union lawmaker with the Green party. “But we didn’t have any evidence to prove it.”
European lawmakers have been interested in digging in to algorithms, as they work on requiring platforms to be more transparent with users on how artificial intelligence makes recommendations on what content people see.
“It’s rather about looking under the hood and regulating the kind of mechanisms that a company, a platform established to disseminate content or to direct people down rabbit holes into extremist groups,” Geese said. What Haugen is doing is “shifting the focus, and I think this is something that many other people before didn’t see.”
In the U.K., which left the European Union last year, the government also is working on raft of digital regulations, including an online safety bill that calls for a regulator to ensure tech companies comply with rules requiring them to remove dangerous or harmful content or face big financial penalties.
For the European Union, there’s still a lot of wrangling over the final details of the rules, two packages known as the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which the EU Commission hopes to get approved next year.
Free speech campaigners and digital rights activists worry that EU rules requiring platforms to swiftly remove harmful content will lead to overzealous deletion of material that isn't illegal. In a bid to balance free speech requirements, users will be given the chance to complain about what content is removed.
In London, there's been a similar debate over how to define harmful but illegal content.
Both the EU and U.K. rules call for hefty fines worth up to 10% of a company's annual global turnover, which for the biggest tech companies could amount to billions of dollars in revenue.
Leaders vow to protect forests, plug methane leaks at COP26
World leaders promised to protect Earth’s forests, cut methane emissions and help South Africa wean itself off coal at the U.N. climate summit Tuesday — part of a flurry of deals intended to avert catastrophic global warming.
Britain hailed the commitment by over 100 countries to end deforestation in the coming decade as the first big achievement of the conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow, known as COP26 — but experts noted such promises have been made and broken before.
The U.K. government said it has received pledges from leaders representing more than 85% of the world’s forests to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Among them are several countries with massive forests, including Brazil, China, Colombia, Congo, Indonesia, Russia and the United States.
More than $19 billion in public and private funds have been pledged toward the plan.
“With today’s unprecedented pledges, we will have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and instead become its custodian,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “Let’s end this great chainsaw massacre by making conservation do what we know it can do, and that is deliver long-term sustainable jobs and growth as well.”
Read: At COP26, over 100 countries pledge to end deforestation
Experts and observers said fulfilling the pledge will be critical to limiting climate change, but many noted that such grand promises have been made in the past — to little effect.
“Signing the declaration is the easy part,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Twitter. “It is essential that it is implemented now for people and planet.”
Alison Hoare, a senior research fellow at political think tank Chatham House, said world leaders promised in 2014 to end deforestation by 2030, “but since then deforestation has accelerated across many countries.”
Brian Rohan, head of forests at environmental law charity ClientEarth, said that to succeed, the pledge “needs teeth.”
Forests are important ecosystems and provide a critical way of absorbing carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — from the atmosphere. But the value of wood as a commodity and the growing demand for agricultural and pastoral land are leading to widespread and often illegal felling of forests, particularly in developing countries.
“We are delighted to see Indigenous Peoples mentioned in the forest deal announced today,” said Joseph Itongwa Mukumo, an Indigenous Walikale and activist from Congo.
He called for governments and businesses to recognize the effective role Indigenous communities play in preventing deforestation.
“These are billions in investment towards environmental preservation, but it’s very difficult for this money to reach Indigenous communities, reach traditional communities,” said Chief Ninawa, a leader of the Huni Kui people from the Amazon attending the summit.
Luciana Tellez Chavez, an environmental researcher at Human Right Watch, said the agreement contains “quite a lot of really positive elements.”
The EU, Britain and the U.S. are making progress on restricting imports of goods linked to deforestation and human rights abuses, “and it’s really interesting to see China and Brazil signing up to a statement that suggests that’s a goal,” she said.
But she noted that Brazil’s public statements don’t yet line up with its domestic policies and warned that the deal could be used by some countries to “greenwash” their image.
The Brazilian government has been eager to project itself as a responsible environmental steward in the wake of surging deforestation and fires in the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands that sparked global outrage and threats of divestment in recent years. But critics caution that its promises should be viewed with skepticism, and the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is an outspoken proponent of developing the Amazon.
Read: COP26 must deliver a better future for everyone
G20 leaders to tackle energy prices, other economic woes
Leaders of the Group of 20 countries gathering for their first in-person summit since the pandemic took hold will confront a global recovery hampered by a series of stumbling blocks: an energy crunch spurring higher fuel and utility prices, new COVID-19 outbreaks and logjams in the supply chains that keep the economy humming and goods headed to consumers.
The summit will allow leaders representing 80% of the global economy to talk — and apply peer pressure — on all those issues. Analysts question how much progress they can make to ease the burden right away on people facing rising prices on everything from food and furniture to higher heating bills heading into winter.
Health and financial officials are sitting down in Rome on Friday before presidents and prime ministers gather for the G-20 Saturday and Sunday, but the leaders of major economic players China and Russia won’t be there in person. That may not bode well for cooperation, especially on energy issues as climate change takes center stage just before the U.N. Climate Change Conference begins Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland.
Here’s a look at some of the economic issues facing G-20 leaders:
THE PANDEMIC RECOVERY
The International Monetary Fund says the top priority for the economic recovery is simple: speed up the vaccination of the world population. Yet big headlines on vaccine cooperation may not be forthcoming at the Rome summit.
The G-20 countries have supported vaccine-sharing through the U.N.-backed COVAX program, which has failed to alleviate dire shortages in poor countries. Donated doses are coming in at a fraction of what is needed, and developed countries are focused on booster shots for their own populations.
Negotiations before the summit have not focused on a large number of vaccines that could be made available, though countries talked about strengthening health systems.
Meanwhile, rising consumer prices and government stimulus programs to help economies bounce back from the pandemic may be discussed, but central banks tend to deal with higher prices and stimulus spending is decided at the national level.
Read: No pathway to reach the Paris Agreement’s 1.5˚C goal without the G20: UN chief
GLOBAL TAXES
One major economic deal is already done: The G-20 will likely be a celebration of an agreement on a global minimum corporate tax, aimed at preventing multinational companies from stashing profits in countries where they pay little or no taxes.
All G-20 governments signed on to the deal negotiated among more than 130 countries, and it now faces an ambitious timeline to get approved and enacted through 2023.
U.S. President Joe Biden has tied his domestic agenda to it — creating a global minimum tax can allow the United States to charge higher taxes without the risk of companies shifting their profits to tax havens. U.S. adoption is key because so many multinational companies are headquartered there.
The agreement also helps remove trade tensions between the U.S. and Europe. It allows nations including France, Italy and Spain to back off digital services taxes that targeted U.S. tech companies Google, Facebook and Amazon.
Biden goes to the G-20 with his tax and economic agenda still subject to congressional negotiations. That means he will be unable to show that the U.S. is leading on global corporate taxes, though his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said G-20 leaders understand the nature of congressional talks.
“They’ll say, ‘Is President Biden on track to deliver on what he said he’s going to deliver?’ And we believe one way or the other, he will be on track to do that,” Sullivan said.
HIGH ENERGY PRICES
The summit offers an opportunity for dialogue on high oil and gas prices because it includes delegations from major energy producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, major consumers in Europe and China, and the U.S., which is both.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to participate remotely.
“Perhaps the most important thing the G20 could do is to tell those among them that are major energy suppliers that they should think about their future,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank.
If energy prices are too high in the developed world, it will only speed up the move away from fossil fuels, “which is ultimately, in the long run, bad for the suppliers,” he said.
The White House says Biden intends to engage with other key leaders about energy prices, with oil recently hitting a seven-year high in the U.S. at over $84 per barrel and the international Brent crude benchmark reaching a three-year peak at over $86.
“We are definitely in an energy crisis, there is no other way to put it,” said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at Rystad Energy and an expert in oil market demand.
But he said it’s unlikely the G-20 “can take any decision that has immediate impact.”
So far, Saudi-led OPEC and allies including Russia, dubbed OPEC+, have ignored Biden’s pleas to increase production faster than its pace of 400,000 barrels per day each month into next year.
In one bright spot, Russian President Vladimir Putin told state-controlled company Gazprom to pump more gas into storage facilities in Europe, where prices have quintupled this year and fears have spread about winter shortages.
But producing nations “are in a powerful position,” Galimberti said. “There is no one who can put pressure on OPEC+.”
Read:G20 leadership vital in defense against COVID-19: UN chief
SUPPLY CHAINS
Biden will press for countries to share more information about troubles with supply chains that have slowed growth in the developed world. Port and factory closures, shortages of shipping containers and rising demand have contributed to backlogs at ports and delays for deliveries of everything from bicycles to computer chips used in smartphones and cars.
Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said the president would push for more transparency about identifying logjams with other governments: “How do we know, at every level, where there may be bottlenecks or breaks in the supply chain so that we can quickly respond to them?”
Trade expert Chad P. Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, agreed that sharing information can be helpful but said “there’s very little anyone can do” now about the backups over a lack of shipping containers.
Longer term, leaders can discuss efforts to diversify supply of key goods such as masks, other medical protective equipment and semiconductors.
“There is a call to diversify some production of semiconductors geographically” away from Asia, Bown said.
The U.S. and the European Union are talking about finding ways to incentivize chip production at home without starting a subsidy war — for instance, by agreeing on which sectors of the semiconductor industry each side would seek to attract.
Foxconn aims to build EV factories in Europe and India by 2024
Foxconn will build electric vehicle factories in Europe, India and either North or South America by 2024, as the key iPhone assembler looks to rapidly expand its presence in the booming EV industry, the company chairman said.
The Taiwanese tech titan and world's largest contract electronics manufacturer has made EVs a key part of its growth strategy, reflecting a maturing smartphone market, reports Nikkei Asia.
Read: Nine countries to follow additional measures as India revises COVID-19 guidelines for international travellers
"Regional manufacturing will be a key to developing our EV business globally," Foxconn Chairman Young Liu told reporters on the sideline of an industry event in Taipei on Wednesday. "We will share details of a European facility, followed by India and then the South American market."
Liu said all plans will involve partnering with local governments or government-recommended enterprises. "In Europe, through collaboration, we will work indirectly with German automakers."
A new American plant, he added, would serve the South American market though it could end up being located in Mexico, which has become an important hub for automotive supply chains and a key manufacturing base for Foxconn.
Foxconn has already made overseas forays into EVs. It recently acquired a manufacturing plant from Lordstown Motors in the U.S. state of Ohio, which the company will use to produce full-size electric pickup trucks for the American market from April 2022. Foxconn is also building a production facility in Thailand with state-backed oil and gas company PTT to serve Southeast Asia. In China, the company is collaborating with Zhejiang Geely Holding.
Liu said Foxconn can offer open software solutions and chassis designs for carmakers, which they can customize for their target markets.
"In the past, any company set to make a brand-new car will need an investment of at least 10 billion New Taiwan dollars ($359 million), but Foxconn's service could help all the players save on cost and development time."
Read: India hits 1 billion Covid vaccination milestone
The iPhone assembler has vowed to turn its nascent EV venture into a $35 billion business in five years. Foxconn's revenue from its automotive-related business is projected to surpass NT$10 billion for the first time this year.
Foxconn on Monday unveiled three EV prototypes -- an SUV, luxury sedan and bus -- made by Foxtron, its joint venture with Taiwanese automaker Yulon Motors.
Yulon Chairperson and CEO Lilian Chen said her company will be one of the first to adopt Foxtron's prototypes.
Romania to recruit 40,000 foreign workers; Bangladesh to seize opportunity
Romania, a country in southeastern Europe, has decided to recruit around 40,000 workers from abroad, paving the way for Bangladesh to send more workers to that country.
“This is a new area. We’ve already sent around 1,000 workers. We can send more. They’ve (Romania) decided to recruit around 40,000 workers from abroad,” said Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen while talking about his recent visit to Romania.
He said the Romanian government prefers government-to-government recruitment as they feel more comfortable to recruit people in a better regulated way.
“There’s no space for illegal entry there,” said the Foreign Minister, adding that some 860 Bangladeshis entered Germany from Romania illegally.
These 860 people will be sent back to Bangladesh from Germany through International Organization for Migration (IOM).
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The Foreign Minister said Romania needs construction workers, electricians, household helpers, workers in manufacturing units apart from doctors and nurses.
“They’ll (Romania) identify in which areas they need workers from Bangladesh and in which area we can provide,” Dr Momen said, adding that they will have to follow it up to reach an understanding.
Russian Nobel winner: Peace Prize is for my paper, not me
As editor of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov was well aware that his independent Russian newspaper — a persistent critic of the Kremlin, government corruption and human rights abuses in Russia — was seen as a top contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the prestigious award wasn't on his mind when the announcement came down that he'd been named co-winner. At the time Friday, Muratov was absorbed in an argument on the phone with a reporter, Elena Milashina.
“At that time, there were several calls from Oslo. But only a reckless person would say to Milashina ‘Wait, I’ll talk to Oslo and then you and I will quarrel,” Muratov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Finally, he was told by his paper's spokeswoman that he had won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, along with journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines, for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.
Read:Journalists from Philippines, Russia get Nobel Peace Prize
The 59-year-old Muratov was similarly casual, even sardonic, about the recognition of the prize that came from the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. In the radio interview, the host asked him for comment on Peskov's statement. Muratov said he hadn't read it and the host offered to read it to him.
“Should I rise?” Muratov said, then heard that Peskov said “he is committed to his ideals, he is talented, he is brave.”
“All the above is certainly true,” Muratov responded.
Other reactions from Kremlin circles were far less generous.
“The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most controversial nominations of the Nobel Committee. Such decisions devalue the prize itself, it is already difficult to be guided by it,” said Dmitry Kiselev, whose weekly news magazine program on state TV is larded with paeans to Russian President Vladimir Putin and disdain for the opposition.
Considering how critical Novaya Gazeta has been toward Putin and his government, Peskov's congratulatory words could be seen as determined spin-control. They also likely reflect relief that the Norwegian Nobel Committee did not chose another Russian nominee for the Peace Prize — imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Navalny's dramatic arrest this year when he returned from Germany after recuperating from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin gave him international prominence. Many of his supporters were disappointed that his bravery in confronting Russia's government did not earn him the Nobel.
Lyubov Sobol, one of Navalny's closest and most visible aides, congratulated Muratov on Twitter, but added that she believes Navalny is “the most important fighter for peace in our country.”
Muratov, though pleased by the recognition, agreed.
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“I can tell you directly that if I were on the Nobel committee, I would have voted for him for his absolutely crazy courage,” he said.
Novaya Gazeta has courted controversy since its founding in 1993 by Muratov and other former colleagues at the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, the onetime organ of the Communist Youth League. The goal was to create “ an honest, independent, and rich publication that would influence national policy,” according to his citation for the 2007 International Press Freedom Award.
Although the Nobel has brought him intense international attention, Muratov has been at pains to downplay his personal prominence, saying repeatedly that he regards the award as being given to the whole paper and as a tribute to its six reporters or contributors who have been killed.
The most famous victim was Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on Russia's Chechnya wars and was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building in 2006. Muratov's Nobel award was announced one day after the 15th anniversary of her killing. Although six people were convicted of involvement in the shooting, whoever ordered it has not been identified and the statute of limitations on the case expired on Thursday.
Yuri Shchekochikhin, a reporter investigating corrupt business deals and the possible role of Russian security services in the 1999 apartment house bombings blamed on Chechen insurgents, died in 2003 of poisoning and the culprits were never found. Anastasia Baburina was shot to death in 2009 after a news conference with a lawyer representing the family of a Chechen girl raped and murdered by a Russian military officer; the lawyer also died in the attack.
The paper and its journalists also have endured an array of threats, ranging from a severed goat's head and funeral notices sent to the paper, to mysterious dustings of powder at the home of a reporter.
Read: Nobel in chemistry honors 'greener' way to build molecules
Prominent investigations at the paper in recent years include reporting on the alleged torture and murders of gay men by Chechen officials, publishing bodycam footage of Russian prison officials torturing an inmate and the beheading of a detainee in Syria by men believed to be Russian mercenaries working for a contractor closely tied to Putin.
The paper's report on the “Blue Whale” phenomenon in which Russian youths reportedly were lured online into committing suicide was criticized as possibly overstated, but a Russian man later claimed to have organized it and was sentenced to prison.
The Nobel Peace award raised concerns about whether it could subject Novaya Gazeta to being designated as a “foreign agent” under Russian law, a term applied to organizations and individuals who receive foreign funding and are engaged in unspecified political activity. The stipulation apparently is aimed at undermining their credibility.
“I hope that this status of Muratov will protect Novaya Gazeta from the status of a foreign agent and will become some kind of protection for Russian journalists, who are massively announced as foreign agents,” said Yevgenia Albats, editor of the Novoye Vremya news magazine. “I hope this will help Russian journalism survive in these difficult conditions.”
But a few hours after the Nobel announcement, the Russian Justice Ministry added nine more journalists and three more organizations to its list of foreign agents.
Catholic Church in France had 3,000 child abusers
An independent commission examining sex abuse within the Roman Catholic Church in France believes 3,000 child abusers — two-thirds of them priests — have worked in the church over the past 70 years.
The estimate was given by the commission president, Jean-Marc Sauvé, in an interview published Sunday in the newspaper Journal du Dimanche. The commission has been investigating for 2 1/2 years. Its full findings are scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
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In the interview, Sauvé did not give a figure on the number of sex abuse victims but said the report does include a new estimate.
Asked about the commission's work investigating child abusers, he said: “We evaluated their number at 3,000, out of 11,500 priests and church people since the 1950s. Two-thirds are diocesan priests."
He said 22 cases have been forwarded to prosecutors for alleged crimes that can still be pursued. More than 40 cases of alleged crimes that are too old to be prosecuted but that involve suspects who are still alive have been forwarded to church officials, Sauvé said.
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“From 1950 to 1970, the church is completely indifferent to the victims: They don't exist, the suffering inflicted on children is ignored,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “The periods that followed were different.”
He added: “Our objective is to furnish a concrete diagnosis of all the abuses, to identify the causes and draw all of the consequences."