Crimea: Watch as Ukraine warns Russians it's 'big mistake' to visit Crimea in mock ad with Bananarama song after airbase blast

RUSSIAN tourists have been warned not to visit Crimea in a mock advert released by Ukraine featuring the Bananarama soundtrack.

The video comes after blasts hit an airbase on the peninsula, sending holiday makers fleeing from a nearby beach, in an area which is popular with Russian visitors.

Read more at: Watch as Ukraine warns Russians it's 'big mistake' to visit Crimea in mock ad with Bananarama song after airbase blast | The Sun

Ukraine invasion: African Union tells Putin the continent has become 'victim' of the war

African Union head Macky Sall on Friday urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to take into account the suffering in African countries from food shortages caused by the conflict in Ukraine.r Putin to take into account

Read more at: Ukraine invasion: African Union tells Putin the continent has become 'victim' of the war | 360News

U.S. Rights Report Warns Of Global 'Backsliding,' As Blinken Slams Russia Over Ukraine

Ukrainian former world heavyweight boxing champ Wladimir Klitschko declared that Ukraine will "close the sky on our own" amid Russia's war with the eastern European country after the US and its allies have rejected pleas to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine's skies.

"[If] allies and partners cannot close the sky [over Ukraine,] we will constantly get bombarded with rockets and air strikes," Klitschko, the brother of the mayor of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, told CNN on Tuesday.

Klitschko added, "So if you don't close the sky, just give us the weapons. We're going to close the sky on our own. And we have enough of our will to defend our country. We just need the equipment to do it," according to the news outlet.

The ex-boxer and member of the Kyiv Territorial Defense called on world leaders to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and to ramp up economic sanctions against Russia.

“In few places have the human consequences of this decline been as stark as they are in the Russian government’s brutal war on Ukraine,” Blinken said in remarks on the release of the U.S. State Department’s 2021 global human rights report.

“Governments are locking up more critics at home…. We’ve also seen a rise in governments arbitrarily detaining individuals to try to gain leverage in bilateral relationships, to use them as human pawns,” he added.

Read more at: U.S. Rights Report Warns Of Global 'Backsliding,' As Blinken Slams Russia Over Ukraine

Ukraine Conflict: Defiant Putin warns the west: your sanctions are akin to an act of war

Putin warns 3rd parties against creating Ukraine no-fly zone, calls sanctions a ‘declaration of war’

Read more at Defiant Putin warns the west: your sanctions are akin to an act of war

WHO warns of 700,000 more COVID deaths in Europe by March 2022

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that Europe remains “in the firm grip” of the coronavirus pandemic and the continent’s death toll could top 2.2 million this winter if current trends continue.

Another 700,000 Europeans could die by March 1, the WHO said on Tuesday, in addition to the 1.5 million who have already succumbed to the virus.

Read more at WHO warns of 700,000 more COVID deaths in Europe by March | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

'UN General Assembly Meeting 2021: The world must wake up': Tasks daunting as UN meeting opens - by E. Ledere

In person and on screen, world leaders returned to the United Nations’ foremost gathering for the first time in the pandemic era on Tuesday with a formidable, diplomacy-packed agenda and a sharply worded warning from the international organization’s leader: “We face the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetime.”

Read more at: 'The world must wake up': Tasks daunting as UN meeting opens

USA: 'Still in pandemic mode': COVID-19 nowhere near 'under control' in US, warns Anthony Fauci

COVID-19 is “nowhere near under control” in the United States and the cases have surged more than ten times higher than they need to be in order to end the pandemic, US top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday. His remarks follow the warnings about the upcoming coronavirus mutations that he stated could be even more contagious than the delta of the coronavirus lineage. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told Axios in an interview that the US has a mounting caseload of COVID-19 which is "not even modestly good control". "Until the cases dip to 10,000 a day, we are still in full ‘pandemic mode’," the infectious disease expert said.

Read more at: 'Still in pandemic mode': COVID-19 nowhere near 'under control' in US, warns Anthony Fauci

The Netherlands: Climate change poses serious health risk for people in the Netherlands, says expert

The Dutch medicine journal NTvG joined 200 other medical journals worldwide in their call for world leaders to intensify their effort in combating climate change, NOS reported.

Climate change poses an immediate risk for public health, the experts said. “Climate change and the decline in biodiversity is a much larger problem than the pandemic”, NTvG editor-in-chief Olde Rikkert told NOS Radio 1 Journaal. “While you do have a vaccine for the coronavirus, you don’t have that for climate change and biodiversity.”

The experts said they believe the earth is steering towards a two degrees Celsius temperature increase.

Read more at: Climate change poses serious health risk for people in the Netherlands, says expert | NL Times

Digital Currencies: China’s digital yuan is a warning to the world

In April 2020 a grainy screenshot of China’s sovereign digital currency, DCEP (short for Digital Currency/Electronic Payments) or the Digital Chinese Yuan (DCNY), was leaked online. The image showed a wallet for the DCNY provided by the Agricultural Bank of China, with payment functions, QR codes, and the ability to tap phones together to pay offline. While the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) had started researching digital currencies as early as 2014, the screenshot was the clearest indication of how far along in the process they were.

Soon after, pilot programmes were rolled out in a few major cities. In Suzhou, the DCNY was used to pay half of the travel subsidies owed to public servants. In October 2020, more than 47,000 people in the Luohu district of Shenzhen spent 8.8 million yuan (£986,000) during a week-long trial of the digital currency. A total of 1.9 million applicants had signed up to receive one of 50,000 digital freebies – or “red envelopes” – from the government. These packets were each worth 200rmb (£22). During the trial, over 62,000 transactions were made. By May 2020, China had already filed more than 120 patent applications for its official digital currency, more than any other country. In Xiong’an, a new urban centre near Beijing, 19 companies, including foreign brands like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Subway were invited as participants to test the DCNY. As of July 2021, trial users have created more than 20 million digital yuan wallets and executed over £3.6 billion worth of transactions with the new CBDC.

Read more at: China’s digital yuan is a warning to the world | WIRED UK

EU: Coronavirus ′still has the upper hand,′ warns WHO Europe head

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned European countries against becoming complacent in their efforts to put an end to the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the continent, governments have been increasingly easing pandemic-related restrictions as new case numbers in the region continue their downward trend. More social gatherings, sports events and travel across borders are also being permitted.

Read more at: Coronavirus ′still has the upper hand,′ warns WHO Europe head | News | DW | 17.06.2021

Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin warns foreign rivals not to 'cross a red line'

Putin under Pressure and warns not to overstep the red line. Can he survive.

Read more at: Russian President Vladimir Putin warns foreign rivals not to 'cross a red line' | Euronews

Britain-Russia relations: Russia warns UK nuclear arsenal plan harms global security

ussia on Wednesday said it regretted the UK's decision to significantly bolster its stockpile of nuclear weapons by the end of the decade. B

ritain says it plans to increase its arsenal from 180 to 260 nuclear warheads, reversing a previous commitment to reduce its stockpile. What was the Russian response?

Read more at: https://www.dw.com/en/russia-warns-uk-nuclear-arsenal-plan-harms-global-security/a-56899852

New Cold War ? Xi of China warns Davos forum against 'new Cold War' - by Eve Szeftel

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned global leaders at an all-virtual Davos forum Monday against starting a "new Cold War" while he championed multilateralism. Representing the only major economy to record economic growth last year, Xi presented himself as the defender of multilateralism, as he did at the same forum four years ago when Donald Trump was about to assume the United States presidency.

Without naming the US, Xi seemed to have a message for Trump's successor Joe Biden, who entered the White House just a few days ago, but who is not addressing the annual World Economic Forum (WEF).

To build small cliques or start a new Cold War, to reject, threaten or intimidate others... will only push the world into division," Xi told the world's political and economic elite as the Biden administration plans to revitalize global alliances to counter China's growing influence.

Note EU-Digest: Cold war = weapons industry profits - hopefully we in the West don't go on that dangerous route again.

Read more at: Xi warns Davos forum against 'new Cold War' - Business - The Jakarta Post

Turkey: Canan Kaftancioglu, a shining new Turkish political star , has Turkey′s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening rivals with jail

Left-wing CHP leader Canan Kaftancioglu inflicted a humiliating defeat on Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul in 2019. Now the Turkish president wants revenge in court.

Canan Kaftancioglu is a rising political star in Turkey. The popularity ratings of this 48-year-old doctor-turned-politician from the Black Sea region are among the highest in the country.

She had always stood out in the social democratic Republican People's Party (CHP) with her left-wing views, and at the beginning of 2018 she was elected Istanbul's provincial president.

But Kaftancioglu real breakthrough came a good year later after she masterminded one of the most successful election campaigns in Turkish history. This was the campaign of Ekrem Imamoglu, a relatively unknown local, in Istanbul's mayoral elections of March 2019. Few people expected this newcomer to win against the ruling AKP's candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Read more at: Turkey′s Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens rivals with jail | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 17.01.2021

USA: Schwarzenegger's warning highlights danger of US 'spinning out of control'

Former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has issued a powerful condemnation of the Capitol assault and of his fellow Republicans who have enabled President Trump.

The Hollywood actor was born in Europe just after World War 2. He warned that he's seen firsthand in Germany and Austria"how things can spin out of control"

Read more at: Schwarzenegger's warning highlights danger of US 'spinning out of control' | Euronews

The Netherlands: Coronavirus leads to increased risk of extremist attack in the Netherlands - by Victoria Séveno

The Dutch counter-terrorism unit (NCTV) has warned in its quarterly threat assessment that, while there is no indication that an attack is imminent, there is nonetheless an increased risk of attack in the Netherlands from radicalised right-wing extremists. 

Read more: 
NCTV: Coronavirus leads to increased risk of extremist attack in the Netherlands

EU warns Serbia, Kosovo over Israel embassy move

The European Union warned Serbia and Kosovo on Monday that they could undermine their EU membership hopes by moving their Israeli embassies to Jerusalem, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement about the change left officials in Belgrade and Pristina scrambling to limit the political fallout.

In an unexpected move last week, Trump said that Serbia and Kosovo had agreed to normalize economic ties as part of U.S.-brokered talks that include Belgrade moving its embassy to Jerusalem, and mutual recognition between Israel and Kosovo.

It surprised the Europeans, who are leading complex talks between Serbia and its former territory of Kosovo on improving their long-strained relations, while Serbian officials appeared to be watering down their commitment to Trump, and Kosovo sought to allay concerns among Muslim countries.
The 27-nation EU’s long-held policy is that Jerusalem’s status should be worked out between Israel and the Palestinians as part of broader peace negotiations, and that Serbia — as a candidate to join the bloc — should respect that.

“There is no EU member state with an embassy in Jerusalem,” European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said. “Any diplomatic steps that could call into question the EU’s common position on Jerusalem are a matter of serious concern and regret.”

READ MORE AT: 
EU warns Serbia, Kosovo over Israel embassy move | National | swoknews.com

EU - US relations: US warns EU on making friends with China's 'dictator' - by Andrew Bettman

The EU would be abandoning its values if it opted for a deeper partnership with China's "dictatorship", just because it did not get along with US president Donald Trump, the American ambassador to the EU has said.

"The people of China are a wonderful people and I have nothing but respect for them, but general secretary Xi is a dictator," Ronald Gidwitz, the US envoy, told press in Brussels on Monday (22 June), referring to Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Read more at:
US warns EU on making friends with China's 'dictator'

USA: Virus, Not Humans, 'Makes The Timeline,' Fauci Warns As Trump Mulls Easing Restrictions - by Dominique Mosbergen

President Donald Trump may want to reopen the U.S. economy by Easter — but the novel coronavirus wreaking havoc across the globe may have other plans.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, pointed out Wednesday that the virus is determining “the timeline” for the pandemic.

“You’ve gotta be realistic,” Fauci told CNN’s Chris Cuomo when asked when states, including hard-hit California and New York, could expect to see a reduction of infections. “You’ve got to understand that you don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.”

States need to respond to what’s happening in real-time, he continued. “If you keep seeing this acceleration, it doesn’t matter what you say. One week, two weeks, three weeks ― you’ve got to go with what the situation on the ground is.”

“You can’t make an arbitrary decision until you see what you’re dealing with. You need the data,” added Fauci, who ― like other medical professionals ― has urged Americans to “hunker down” and practice social distancing to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Read more at: "Virus, Not Humans, 'Makes The Timeline,' Fauci Warns As Trump Mulls Easing Restrictions

Food Shortages - Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns

Protectionist measures by national governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN’s food body has warned.

Harvests have been good and the outlook for staple crops is promising, but a shortage of field workers brought on by the virus crisis and a move towards protectionism – tariffs and export bans – mean problems could quickly appear in the coming weeks, Maximo Torero, chief economist of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, told the Guardian.

“The worst that can happen is that governments restrict the flow of food,” he said. “All measures against free trade will be counterproductive. Now is not the time for restrictions or putting in place trade barriers. Now is the time to protect the flow of food around the world.”

Read more at: Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns | Global development | The Guardian