PARIS: Europe scrambled Thursday to regain control over a resurgent coronavirus as governments urged boosters and jabs for young children in a sign of growing unease over a pandemic that has killed 1.5 million people on the continent.
Berlin, Paris and Lisbon were among capitals weighing tighter Covid restrictions and broader vaccination campaigns as surging cases and the encroaching winter threaten to undo hard-won gains against the virus over the summer.
In the Czech Republic, President Milos Zeman returned to hospital just hours after being released to name a new prime minister as he tested positive for Covid-19.
With governments already struggling to cope with the more infectious Delta variant, the discovery of a new and troubling strain in South Africa was a stark reminder that the fight against Covid-19 is far from won.
In Germany, outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel urged more stringent controls, France stepped up booster shots, and the European Union's medicines agency gave the green light to a vaccine for five-year-olds.
Even countries with relatively high rates of vaccination are now tightening Covid measures that have only recently been relaxed.
Merkel implored the new government succeeding her to take quick, decisive measures as the country reported a record 351 Covid fatalities in the past 24 hours, taking the official death toll since the start of the pandemic past 100,000.
Warning that "every day counts", Merkel urged her successor government for "more contact restrictions".
Germany has had to call on hospitals elsewhere in the EU for help as some clinics face overload.
The country last week began requiring people to prove they are vaccinated, have recovered from Covid-19 or recently tested negative before they can travel on public transport or enter workplaces.
Several of the worst-hit areas have cancelled Christmas markets and barred the unvaccinated from bars, gyms and leisure facilities.
Germany's Covid-19 crisis has in part been blamed on its relatively low vaccination rate of about 69 percent, compared to other Western European countries such as France, where it is 75 percent -- even though new cases hit a seven-month high on Wednesday.
A German campaign for booster shots has been marred by supply and logistics snags.
In Paris, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Covid-19 booster shots would be accessible to all adults starting this weekend.
From January 15, people over 18 would need to show proof of a top-up vaccine dose to maintain a valid Covid pass, which is required to enter restaurants, bars, gyms and other public venues.
Adding pressure, the EU Commission recommended that the bloc's vaccination certificate should become invalid once the holder's latest dose is more than nine months old.
Elsewhere in Europe, the streets of the Slovak capital Bratislava were deserted as a new partial Covid lockdown came into effect.
Even Portugal, which has an 86-percent vaccination rate, said it would impose work from home in the New Year and close bars and discotheques.
Belgium, which reimposed tougher curbs only last week, has seen an uptick far worse than projected, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said.
The Czech government earlier Thursday implemented a 30-day state of emergency, which includes closing Christmas markets as well as nightclubs.
Hospitals in the east of the country are reaching capacity and some have begun moving patients across the country by helicopters and ambulance.
The spiking cases see Europe re-emerge as the pandemic's epicentre, with the continent battling sluggish vaccine uptake in some nations, the highly contagious Delta variant, colder weather sending people indoors and the easing of restrictions.
An AFP tally of official figures showed Thursday that more than 1.5 million people have died from Covid-19 in Europe.
Scientists in South Africa said they had detected a new variant with multiple mutations, blaming it for a surge in infection numbers.
The number of daily infections in Africa's hardest-hit country has increased tenfold since the start of the month.
Back in Europe, the European Medicines Agency approved the Pfizer/BioNTech jab for five to 11 year olds, clearing the way for vaccinations in an age group where the virus is rapidly spreading, and bringing the EU into line with the US, Israel and Canada.
A World Health Organization study found that Covid vaccines had saved at least half a million lives in Europe.
Europe scrambles for COVID-19 control with boosters, jabs for kids
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Europe scrambles for COVID-19 control with boosters, jabs for kids
- Berlin, Paris and Lisbon were among capitals weighing tighter Covid restrictions and broader vaccination campaigns
Frenchman on Indonesian death row to be sent home
Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipino mother on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.
Senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra signed a deal for the transfer of Serge Atlaoui, a 61-year-old arrested in 2005 at a drug factory near Jakarta, in a video call with French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin.
“I think this is a process that has been quite long... but under the current government the negotiation has been relatively swift,” Yusril told reporters at a press conference alongside French ambassador to Indonesia Fabien Penone.
The deal caps months of talks for the transfer of the Frenchman, who will likely be repatriated on February 4, Yusril told AFP on Friday.
Atlaoui is currently suffering from an illness in a Jakarta prison and receives weekly treatment at a hospital, raising the stakes of his transfer.
“It is obviously a great relief to finally learn of the agreement concluded between France and Indonesia for the transfer of Serge,” Atlaoui’s French lawyer Richard Sedillot told AFP.
“These last few days have been difficult, since the conclusion of the agreement has been postponed several times,” he said.
Atlaoui’s fate upon his return to France remains unclear.
The father of four long maintained his innocence, insisting he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant.
He was initially sentenced to life in prison, but the Supreme Court in 2007 increased the sentence to death.
Activists campaigning for an end to the death penalty hailed the agreement.
“We are delighted with this transfer decision... and to know that Serge Atlaoui can now return to France after everything he has experienced,” Raphael Chenuil-Hazan, executive director of NGO Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), told AFP.
He said Atlaoui “has largely served his sentence and well beyond that” and called for the French government to grant him clemency.
Atlaoui was held on the island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, known as Indonesia’s “Alcatraz,” following the death sentence, but he was later transferred to the city of Tangerang, west of Jakarta.
He was due to be executed in 2015 alongside eight other drug offenders, but won a reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an outstanding appeal run its course.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.
At least 530 people are on death row in the Southeast Asian nation, according to data from rights group KontraS, mostly for drug-related crimes.
Indonesia’s Immigration and Corrections Ministry said more than 90 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.
Last month, Filipino inmate Mary Jane Veloso tearfully reunited with her family after nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row.
The Indonesian government recently signalled it will resume executions, on hiatus since 2016.
US arrests, deports hundreds of ‘illegal immigrants’: Trump press chief
- Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign and began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling entry to the United States
Washington: US authorities arrested 538 migrants and deported hundreds in a mass operation just days into President Donald Trump’s second administration, his press secretary said late Thursday.
“The Trump Administration arrested 538 illegal immigrant criminals,” Karoline Leavitt said in a post on social platform X, adding “hundreds” were deported by military aircraft.
“The largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway. Promises made. Promises kept,” she said.
Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign and began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling entry to the United States.
On Thursday Newark city mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “raided a local establishment... detaining undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant.”
The mayor said one of those detained during the raid was a US military veteran, “this egregious act is in plain violation” of the US Constitution.
An ICE post on X said: “Enforcement update ... 538 arrests, 373 detainers lodged.”
New Jersey Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim said they were “deeply concerned” about the Newark raid by immigration agents.
“Actions like this one sow fear in all of our communities — and our broken immigration system requires solutions, not fear tactics,” they said in a joint statement.
Trump has vowed to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history,” impacting an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States.
On his first day in office he signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area while vowing to deport “criminal aliens.”
His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed during Trump’s first presidency, under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.
The White House has also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.
Earlier in the week the Republican-led US Congress green-lit a bill to expand pretrial incarceration for foreign criminal suspects.
Trump frequently invoked dark imagery about how illegal migration was “poisoning the blood” of the nation, words that were seized upon by opponents as reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
Southeast Asian cities among world’s most polluted, ranking shows
- Air pollution is caused by a combination of crop-related burning, industrial pollution and heavy traffic
- Weeks earlier, Vietnam’s capital Hanoi was ranked the world’s most polluted
BANGKOK: Southeast Asian cities were among five most polluted in the world on Friday according to air-monitoring organization IQAir, with Ho Chi Minh City ranked second-most polluted, followed by Phnom Penh and Bangkok fourth and fifth, respectively.
In the Thai capital, a thick smog was seen covering the city’s skyline. Workers, especially those who spend most of their time outdoors, were suffering.
“My nose is constantly congested. I have to blow my nose all the time,” said motorcycle taxi driver Supot Sitthisiri, 55.
Air pollution is caused by a combination of crop-related burning, industrial pollution and heavy traffic.
In a bid to curb pollution, the government is allowing free public transportation for a week, Transport Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit said.
Some 300 schools in Bangkok were closed this week, according to the city administration.
“They should take more action, not just announce high dust levels and close schools. There needs to be more than that,” said Khwannapat Intarit, 23.
“It keeps coming back, and it’s getting worse each time.”
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in a social media post that companies and government agencies should allow staff to work from home to reduce car use and construction sites should be using dust covers.
“The government is fully committed to solving the dust problem,” she said.
In Vietnam’s largest city, IQAir said the level of fine inhalable particles in Ho Chi Minh City was 11 times higher than the recommended level by the World Health Organization.
Weeks earlier, the capital Hanoi was ranked the world’s most polluted, prompting authorities to issue a warning about the health risks from air pollution and urging the public to wear masks and eye protection.
Governments in Southeast Asia were pushing for longer-term solutions to bring pollution down including a carbon tax and promoting the use of electric vehicles.
‘Get them out’: freed Belarus prisoners fear for those still inside
- The Viasna rights group says Belarus currently has 1,256 political prisoners, and all opposition leaders are either in jail or in exile
BIALYSTOK: Having missed almost four years of her son’s life while incarcerated in a Belarusian prison, Irina Schastnaya still wants to zip up the 14-year-old’s coat, struggling to digest how tall he grew in her absence.
German was 10 when security services broke into their home in Minsk, raiding the flat and arresting his mother in front of him for challenging authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s rule.
“I managed to say to him: ‘German don’t worry, everything will be fine,” she told AFP, recalling the November 2020 morning that “changed our lives forever.”
Her arrest was just one of a huge crackdown on dissent orchestrated by Lukashenko after tens of thousands protested his 2020 election victory, claiming widespread fraud.
In power since 1994, the Moscow ally is set to secure another term in power this weekend in an election with no real competition.
The Viasna rights group says Belarus currently has 1,256 political prisoners, and all opposition leaders are either in jail or in exile.
Within days of Schastnaya’s 2020 arrest, German’s father fled the country with the boy — settling in Kyiv, before leaving for Poland when it became clear Russia may invade Ukraine.
Schastnaya was sentenced to four years for editing a Telegram channel critical of the government.
Sent to Penal Colony Number Four in the city of Gomel, she was made to sew military and construction uniforms at the prison factory.
But she spent most of the time “thinking of German.”
They were allowed one video call a month — under the close watch of a prison officer.
“He did not like those calls,” she said. “He could literally see the person listening in the frame.”
They were reunited in September 2024, when Schastnaya was released and fled Belarus to join her family in Poland’s Bialystok — close to Belarus and long a hub for exiles.
“When I opened the door, I saw this tall guy,” she told AFP, still visibly shaken.
“It’s like heaven and earth. It’s not the same mothering... He was 10 when I was arrested, he still held my hand when we walked in the street.”
Like other ex-prisoners AFP spoke to, Schastnaya now has one wish: to get those who remain behind bars out — by all “possible and impossible” means.
Schastnaya says her son has adapted to life in Poland.
But she has not.
She often drives up to the nearby Belarus border, “just to have a look.”
A few months ago, she was in prison, sleeping on the top bunk in a room with some 30 women.
Like all political prisoners, her uniform and bed was marked with a “yellow label,” signifying a “tendency for extremism and other destructive activities,” she said.
After being released she decided to flee, fearing she would “not be free for long” or could be barred from leaving.
She is encouraged by a wave of pre-election pardonings back home, hoping more will come.
“We have to get them out any way possible,” she said.
“Some people have not seen their kids in years.”
In Poland’s Gdansk, former political prisoner Kristina Cherenkova, 34, has been scouring for information of those recently pardoned.
Authorities do not release names, but information trickles out through relatives and lawyers.
A wedding decorator, Cherenkova took part in 2020 protests in her small town of Mazyr and refused to leave Belarus when the crackdown started.
She was eventually arrested in 2022 for a social media post criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which it launched in part from Belarusian territory.
Cherenkova also ended up in the Gomel prison, before being released last year.
“Around 10 percent of the women are political prisoners there,” she estimated.
“I am happy to see some of the names released. But there are a lot of people left, many friends.”
While in prison, she said she witnessed pardonings being delayed by slow Soviet-like bureaucracy.
Daria Afanasyeva, a Belarusian feminist living in Warsaw freed last year, also said “everything should be done” to secure freedom for more political prisoners — “including talks with the regime.”
“It’s not just one person in prison, it’s their whole family,” the pink-haired activist said, adding that many feel intense “guilt” for relatives suffering on the outside.
Arrested in 2021, Afanasyeva said the solidarity among political prisoners helped her through her 2.5-year sentence.
“Thanks to the KGB for getting me a best friend,” she joked.
But the prison ordeal still “eats up” her life.
“There is snow in Warsaw, people are happy... But I’m just thinking that if there’s snow in the prison, the girls there are clearing it.”
Afghan women’s group hails court’s move to arrest Taliban leaders for persecution of women
- The Afghan Women’s Movement for Justice and Awareness called the ICC decision a “great historical achievement”
An Afghan women’s group on Friday hailed a decision by the International Criminal Court to arrest Taliban leaders for their persecution of women.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced Thursday he had requested arrest warrants for two top Taliban officials, including the leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Since they took back control of the country in 2021, the Taliban have barred women from jobs, most public spaces and education beyond sixth grade.
In a statement, the Afghan Women’s Movement for Justice and Awareness celebrated the ICC decision and called it a “great historical achievement.”
“We consider this achievement a symbol of the strength and will of Afghan women and believe this step will start a new chapter of accountability and justice in the country,” the group said.
The Taliban government has yet to comment on the court’s move.
Also Friday, the UN mission in Afghanistan said it was a “tragedy and travesty” that girls remain deprived of education.
“It has been 1,225 days — soon to be four years — since authorities imposed a ban that prevents girls above the age of 12 from attending school,” said the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva. “It is a travesty and tragedy that millions of Afghan girls have been stripped of their right to education.”
Afghanistan is the only country in the world that explicitly bars women and girls from all levels of education, said Otunbayeva.
