Vaccination around the world

During this week, several countries commented on their vaccination plan against Covid-19. The EU plans to approve the Pfizer vaccine on 29 December and the Moderna vaccine on 12 January. When vaccines are approved by the EMA, it is up to the European Commission to make the final decision. The distribution of vaccines in the community, which is governed by the principle of solidarity, will be carried out on a population basis. In the United Kingdom, the British Health Secretary announced that aid would be on its way Wednesday morning, after UK regulators granted authorization for the vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. The country ordered 40 million doses of the vaccine. In Russia, Putin ordered large-scale vaccinations against Covid-19 to begin on Wednesday, adding that the main focus should be “vaccinating the two risk groups: doctors and teachers”.

EU budget veto

Poland’s deputy prime minister suggested withdrawing his veto from the European Union budget, saying that a budget veto for the period between 2021-2027 and the recovery fund would harm Poland and other EU countries financially. Poland asked for a binding statement of interpretation on the rule of law. Since last month, Poland and Hungary have maintained their position, but there have been talks on circumventing these vetoes in recent days, so Gowin had already been alerted to the fact that even if the veto remained, the EU would still have the chance to reach an agreement on the recovery fund among the 25 other countries. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reiterated that Warsaw and Budapest agreed to support each other’s position.

Other stories

• Boris Johnson and the president of the European Commission instructed their negotiators to resume trade talks on Sunday. Trade negotiations were interrupted on Friday.

• As for the conflict launched by Addis Ababa on 4 November, it remains difficult to contact Tigré and humanitarian organizations are concerned about civilians. On December 2, an agreement for humanitarian aid was announced by the UN, but no official date was found for the sending of the first convoy.

• On Wednesday, members of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong were sentenced for participating in an illegal demonstration against the local government in 2019. During the reading of the sentence, about 100 people protested.

• This Wednesday, Israel approved the proposal to dissolve parliament in case the national budget is not approved, which, if confirmed, will lead to early elections. The current crisis was caused by the approval of the budget, which Netanyahu has refused.

• French law, which prohibited the disclosure of police images, caused “doubts” and will be reformulated. Demonstrations against the law brought together 52,350 people, including 5,000 in the capital, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

• President Donald Trump ordered the majority of US troops to leave Somalia “in early 2021”, the Pentagon said on Friday.

• OPEC and Russia agreed to start increasing oil production provisionally next month.

• Iran’s parliament passed a bill to increase uranium enrichment and block nuclear inspections if sanctions are not lifted, following the assassination of a nuclear scientist. The Government rejected it.

• The Indian government failed on Saturday to break the deadlock with farmers protesting agricultural reforms and a new meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, according to the Minister of Agriculture and union leaders.

• The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that could expel companies that do not accept to be audited on the American stock exchanges.