Europe

PARIS, Jan 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US, Britain, France and Australia have all announced record numbers of daily Covid-19 cases as the WHO warned that Omicron’s dizzying spread increased the risk of newer, more dangerous variants emerging.
 
  Britain breached 200,000 cases for the first time on Tuesday, Australia posted almost 50,000 and France registered more than 270,000, all three countries easily topping their previous records.
 
  But dwarfing even those numbers was the 1,080,211 reported by the United States on Monday, a global record.
 

MOSCOW, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Kazakhstan could solve its own problems and it was important that no one interfered from the outside, RIA news agency reported.

It quoted Peskov as saying Kazakhstan had not requested Russian help to deal with protests, triggered by a fuel price increase, that prompted the resignation of its government on Wednesday.

PARIS, Jan 5 (Reuters) - The government on Wednesday defended President Emmanuel Macron's use of coarse language in a stepped-up campaign against France's unvaccinated, after his words drew condemnation from the opposition and mixed reactions from voters.

Macron said he wanted to "piss off" unvaccinated people by making their lives so complicated they would end up getting jabbed. He was speaking in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper in which he also called unvaccinated people irresponsible and unworthy of being considered citizens.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Sweden’s public health authorities on Wednesday advised restaurants, cultural venues and leisure centers to ask their customers to show digital proof of COVID-19 vaccination starting next week.

The recommendation from the Swedish Public Health Agency isn’t a legal requirement but voluntary guidance for businesses. Sweden’s digital certificates only show vaccination status — not proof of a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s foreign policy chief insisted on Wednesday that the 27-nation bloc must have a bigger role to play alongside Washington and Moscow to defuse the West’s standoff with Russia over Ukraine.

In the diplomatic flurry surrounding the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border the EU has largely been a bystander. This highlights a deeper frustration in Brussels: even though the EU is a massive global economic powerhouse, its strategic geopolitical footprint remains disproportionately small.

LONDON (AP) — Health authorities eased COVID-19 testing requirements across the United Kingdom on Wednesday, a move that could ease staffing shortages that are hitting public services from hospitals and ambulances to trains and garbage collection amid an omicron-fueled infection surge.

MOSCOW (AP) — Protesters in Kazakhstan’s largest city stormed the presidential residence and the mayor’s office on Wednesday and set both buildings on fire, according to new reports, as demonstrations sparked by a rise in fuel prices in the Central Asian nation escalated sharply.

Police fired on some protesters at the presidential palace before fleeing. They have clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in recent days, deploying water cannons in the freezing weather, tear gas and concussion grenades.

05 Jan 2022; MEMO: A member of the European Parliament, Moritz Korner, suggested to the European Central Bank (ECB) on Sunday that BionTech founders couple, Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin, to be depicted on one of the Euro bank notes, DW reports.

"Important European figures like the BioNTech founding couple, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, should be printed on the new Euro notes," said Körner,

"Their work has saved the lives of millions of Europeans." he also added.

05 Jan 2022; MEMO: A petition calling for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to be stripped of his knighthood has been signed by almost 700,000 people.

If the goal of one million signatures is hit, it will become one of the top signed petitions on the change.org website.

05 Jan 2022; MEMO: Over 100 organisations from across the UK have expressed their opposition to the Nationality and Borders Bill that is to be debated in the House of Lords today.