EC put forward plan for staying safe from Covid-19 during winter

France will make random border checks to stop people getting infected with Covid-19 by crossing into countries where ski resorts remain open, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Wednesday.

At their semi-virtual sitting on Tuesday, Civil Liberties committee MEPs demanded replies from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri over the alleged involvement of Frontex staff in pushbacks of asylum-seekers by the Greek border guard and claimed for respect to fundamental rights.

The EU criticised on Wednesday Britain's rapid approval of Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine, saying its own procedure was more thorough, news wires reported. The agency has said a day earlier that it would decide by 29 December whether to provisionally authorise the same vaccine.

A Japanese research team said Wednesday it has detected antibodies that neutralized the COVID-19 virus in 98% of people who had been sick with the disease in tests performed six months after they became infected, The Japan times reports.

An overheating world obliterated weather records in 2020, creating an extreme year for hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, floods, droughts and ice melt, the United Nations’ weather agency reported Wednesday.

Every 17 seconds, a person dies in the EU due to Covid-19. It is essential to control the spread of the virus and avoid further deaths and severe illness, says a strategy ‘Staying safe from Covid-19 during winter’ that the College of EU Commissioners adopted on Wednesday.

China’s landing of its third probe on the moon is part of an increasingly ambitious space program that has a robot rover en route to Mars, is developing a reusable space plane and is planning to put humans back on the lunar surface.

The  EU  and  the  US  should  ensure  funding  for  the  development  and  equitable  global distribution of vaccines, tests and treatments-starting by joining and contributing to ACT-A and COVAX initiatives. This is among the first steps suggested in the proposal for a new, forward-looking transatlantic agenda, tabled on Wednesday by the Commission and the EU High Representative.

The Justice Department is investigating whether there was a secret scheme to lobby White House officials for a pardon as well as a related plot to offer a hefty political contribution in exchange for clemency, according to a court document unsealed Tuesday.

When Slovakia held mass testing for Covid-19 more than a month ago PM Igor Matovic hoped it would help the government to tame the decease, save the economy and boost his image as a problem solver. Instead the popularity of the ruling party has plunged in opinion polls and his government hasn’t been able to ease lockdown restrictions.