Europe
Omicron unravels travel industry's plans for a comeback
Tourism businesses that were just finding their footing after nearly two years of devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are being rattled again as countries throw up new barriers to travel in an effort to contain the omicron variant.From shopping districts in Japan and tour guides in the Holy Land to ski resorts in the Alps and airlines the world over, a familiar dread is rising about the renewed restrictions.Meanwhile, travelers eager to get out there have been thrown back into the old routine of reading up on new requirements and postponing trips.Abby Moore, a librarian and associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, was scheduled to leave for Prague on Wednesday. But the day before her flight, she started having doubts when she saw that Prague had closed its Christmas markets and imposed a city-wide curfew.
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“I wasn’t really concerned about my trip until the Czech Republic started what looked like a mini-lockdown process,” said Moore, who decided to reschedule her travel to March.Less than a month after significantly easing restrictions for inbound international travel, the U.S. government has banned most foreign nationals who have recently been in any of eight southern African countries. A similar boomerang was seen in Japan and Israel, both of which tightened restrictions shortly after relaxing them.While it is not clear where the variant emerged, South African scientists identified it last week, and many places have restricted travel from the wider region, including the European Union and Canada.For all the alarm, little is known about omicron, including whether it is more contagious, causes more serious illness or can evade vaccines.Still, governments that were slow to react to the first wave of COVID-19 are eager to avoid past mistakes. The World Health Organization says, however, that travel bans are of limited value and will “place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.” Other experts say travel restrictions won’t keep variants out but might give countries more time to get people vaccinated.London-based airline easyJet said Tuesday that renewed travel restrictions already appear to be hurting winter bookings, although CEO Johan Lundgren said the damage is not yet as severe as during previous waves. The CEO of SAS Scandinavian Airlines said winter demand was looking up, but now we “need to figure out what the new variants may mean.”“In the past year, each new variant has brought a decline in bookings, but then an increase once the surge dissipates,” said Helane Becker, an analyst with financial services firm Cowen. “We expect the same pattern" this time.
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Israel’s decision to close the country to foreign visitors is hitting the nation’s tourism industry as it geared up for the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays. The country only opened to tourists in November, after barring most foreign visitors since early last year.Just over 30,000 tourists entered Israel in the first half of November, compared to 421,000 in November 2019, according to government figures.Joel Haber, a Jerusalem-based guide, said during a typical Hanukkah holiday his calendar would be chock full of food tours through Jerusalem’s colorful Mahane Yehuda market. Instead, he has just one tour a day.“Tour operators like me are the first to get hit and the last to emerge and are directly prevented from working by a government decision,” Haber said.In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, revered by Christians as Jesus’ birthplace, local businesses expected a boost from Christmas tourism. The Bethlehem Hotel, one of the largest in the city, has operated at a fraction of capacity for the past 18 months.“Everyone who had bookings over the next two weeks has canceled, while others are waiting to see what happens next,” said the hotel’s manager, Michael Mufdi. “I don’t know how much longer we can last, but we are doing our best.”The pandemic already caused foreign tourism in Japan to shrink from 32 million visitors in 2019 to 4 million last year, a trend that has continued through this year.As worries surfaced about omicron, Japan on Wednesday tightened its ban on foreign travelers, asking airlines to stop taking new reservations for all flights arriving in the country until the end of December. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pushed for avoiding “the worst-case scenario” and reversed a relaxation of travel restrictions that had been in effect just three weeks.The crowds of Chinese shoppers who used to arrive in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district in a stream of buses to snap up luxury items have long disappeared. Restaurants and bars have been forced to restrict hours.In Asakusa, a quaint part of town filled with souvenir shops, rickshaw drivers, and stalls selling traditional sweets, news of the omicron variant made little difference this week. Vendors say there hasn’t been any business for months except for a few local customers.Boat charter operator Tokyo Water Taxi started on the city’s waterfront in 2015, when hopes were high for cashing in on the booming tourism trade. With the variant pushing the return of foreign visitors far into the future, the company is trying to look on the bright side.“It’s growing popular with Tokyo residents, who have lost other ways to entertain themselves,” said company spokeswoman Yuha Inoue.In Europe, Alpine ski resorts worry about how to keep up with requirements such as ensuring all skiers are vaccinated or recovered from infection and have tested negative for the virus.Matthias Stauch, head of the German ski lift operators association VDS, said many are small family businesses that lack the staff to perform such checks. Meanwhile, the association is warning about “massive” economic damage to the tourism sector if there is another lockdown.Travel executives argue that government decisions about restrictions should wait until more is known about omicron, but they admit it's a difficult call.“If you wait, by the time you have all the data it's probably too late to stop community spread because (the virus) is already here," said Robert Jordan, the incoming CEO at Southwest Airlines. “If you jump ahead, you run the risk of the measures being more impactful than the actual cases.”About a month ago, Javier Barragan and his husband booked a visit to Paris for later this month. When news of omicron hit, they were concerned but decided to go ahead with the trip.“The way that it was in the news, there’s a sense of ‘Oh, is this worse? Is this different?’” said Barragan, who lives in New York. France’s health protocols — the couple will have to submit vaccine cards to enter the country — made them feel more comfortable. Also, both got booster shots.They did, however, buy travel insurance that will cover cancellation for most any reason.
Camped in Calais, migrants renew resolve to try for England
At the makeshift camps in France near Calais and Dunkirk, migrants are digging in, waiting for their chance to make a dash across the English Channel despite the deaths of at least 27 people this week when their boat sank a few miles (kilometers) from the French coast.
Police have stepped up patrols in recent days and the weather has worsened, making this a bad time to attempt a crossing. But most migrants say the tragedy won’t prevent them from climbing into a flimsy inflatable boat packed with up to 50 people in hopes of reaching Britain.
“I don’t afraid of anything,” a 22-year-old from Iran who identified himself only as Kawa said in halting English. “Water? If we die … sorry to say this but we already died. Nobody accepts us anywhere. We’re useful. Useless, sorry,” he said, correcting himself. “Just look at these people.”
Kawa and his father spent the past six years in the Denmark, where they say they never felt free because they constantly had to report to police and other authorities. Now they want to reach England, and eventually Canada, because “they are good to Iranians.”
They are among a group of about 150 young Kurdish men and a smattering of families camped Saturday on a disused railroad line in hopes of escaping the damp ground below. Alongside a collection of incongruously bright red, green and blue tents near Dunkirk, they pull hoods over their heads, hunch shoulders inside winter jackets and huddle next to small fires to stay warm as an early winter chill grips northern Europe. The smell of burning plastic hangs in the air as the migrants use anything they can find as fuel.
Read: France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea
The coast around Calais has long been the jumping-off point for migrants anxious to get to the U.K. But this week’s disaster underscores the combination of dreams and despair that drives people to camp in drizzling rain with temperatures hovering around 40 Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) for the chance to risk their lives at sea.
But first they have to pay smugglers about 2,500 pounds ($3,300) for a seat in a boat.
Ari, who like other migrants declined to give his last name for fear of being deported if he is caught, is a physics teacher from Iraq who left home because he couldn’t find work.
He says he is frightened about the crossing — but the chance for a better life is worth the risk.
“Everyone is scared But everyone here — they die (a little) every day," he said, giving a subtle nod to the camp littered with rotting banana peels, soggy shoes and tents abandoned by migrants who have already left for England.
Wednesday’s tragedy came amid a jump in the number of migrants trying to cross the channel in inflatables and other small craft after the COVID-19 pandemic limited air and ship travel and Britain’s departure from the European Union curtailed cooperation with neighboring countries in processing asylum-seekers and other migrants.
More than 23,000 people have already entered the U.K. on small boats this year, up from 8,500 last year and just 300 in 2018, according to data compiled by Parliament.
Despite this increase, the number of people applying for asylum in Britain is still relatively low compared with other European countries. Migrants heading for Britain usually do so because of family, historical or geopolitical reasons, said Nando Sigona, chair of International Migration and Forced Displacement at the University of Birmingham.
“So people in Calais are there because they want to come here,” he said.
Britain has criticized France for not doing enough to stop the boats before they are launched, but migrants say police have become more active since the deaths.
So they are simply waiting for things to calm down and the weather to improve.
Amanj, 20, a Kurdish activist from Iran, says he has no choice but to press on. His father was recently jailed and the family doesn’t know what happened to him. Amanj fears he could be next.
“Maybe I would die if I was in Iran, you know. Maybe I was … killed by police with a gun, Nobody knows," he said. “If not today, maybe tomorrow you die anyway."
Read: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead
Fifteen miles (25 kilometers) to the west at a camp outside Calais, migrants from Sudan kick a soccer ball around a patch of bare ground and hang laundry on a fence in hopes it will dry in the weak sunshine.
Patrick yearns to reach Liverpool and study political science. He says he has tried to smuggle himself onto a vehicle heading for Britain every day for the past six months. Now he’s ready to try the boats, if he can find the money.
“I dream of England,'' he said “I know that some people died in the sea, but I will try by sea or by any other way.”
In Calais, aid groups have taken over a warehouse where they collect supplies like sleeping bags, food and firewood that they distribute to migrants at designated spots around the city.
Opie Cook, 27, is sorting vegetables for a vat of salad after taking a leave of absence from her job at HP to help the migrants.
“It’s sad that it has taken such a tragedy for this to be talked about again,’’ she said.
Back in the camps, men take off their shoes and nudge their feet as close to the campfires as possible, trying to dry them off and stay warm.
Amid the despair, there is also determination.
Ari, the teacher from Iraq, traveled first to Belarus before taking a train through Poland, then through Germany to reach the channel coast.
His destination is Bournemouth, where he has family. And he intends to make it.
“We want to get free,’’ he says. “That’s why we’re here.’’
Russia jails 5 people over coal mine disaster that killed 51
A Russian court on Saturday ordered five people to remain in pre-trial detention for two months pending an investigation into a devastating blast in a coal mine in Siberia that resulted in dozens of deaths.
Russian authorities reported 51 deaths after a methane explosion rocked the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia on Thursday — 46 miners and five rescuers. The tragedy appears to be the deadliest in Russia since 2010.
Read: Russia: Death toll in Siberian coal mine blast raised to 52
The Central District Court in the city of Kemerovo ruled to jail the director of the Listvyazhnaya mine, Sergei Makhrakov, his deputy Andrei Molostvov and section supervisor Sergei Gerasimenok. They are facing charges of violating industrial safety requirements for hazardous production facilities that resulted in multiple deaths. If convicted, they may be imprisoned for up to seven years.
Two officials of the local branch of Rostekhnadzor, Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog — Sergei Vinokurov and Vyacheslav Semykin — have also been jailed for two months on the charge of negligence that led to two or more deaths, punishable by up to seven years in prison as well.
Law enforcement officials said Friday that miners had complained about the high level of methane in the mine. Russia’s top independent news site, Meduza, reported that this year authorities suspended the work of certain sections of the mine nine times and issued fines of more than 4 million rubles (roughly $53,000) for safety violations.
A total of 285 miners were in the Listvyazhnaya mine Thursday morning at the time of explosion, which quickly filled the mine with toxic smoke. A total of 239 people were rescued shortly after the blast, and more than 60 sought medical assistance for an assortment of injuries.
Officials on Thursday said 11 miners and three rescuers perished while searching for others in a remote section of the mine. Thirty-five miners were still trapped in the mine when rescuers were forced to halt their search several hours into it because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas.
Three more rescuers went missing and had been presumed dead along with the trapped miners by Thursday might. However, on Friday morning, search teams found one rescuer in the mine who was still alive and conscious. He has suffered shock and carbon monoxide poisoning of moderate severity and is undergoing treatment at a hospital.
Read:US seeks balance as fears grow Russia may invade Ukraine
Officials have described his rescue as a “miracle” and said that finding any other survivors at that point was highly unlikely.
Kemerovo Governor Sergei Tsivilyov on Saturday announced the resumption of the search operation, saying that “we need to lift everybody (to the surface).” He noted, however, that rescue crews must act “cautiously."
“We don't have the right to lose even a single person more,” Tsivilyov wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
Later Saturday, search teams recovered the bodies of five miners.
COVID variant spreads to more countries as world on alert
The new potentially more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in more European countries on Saturday, just days after being identified in South Africa, leaving governments around the world scrambling to stop the spread.
The U.K. on Saturday tightened its rules on mask-wearing and on testing of international arrivals after finding two cases. New cases were confirmed Saturday in Germany and Italy, with Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong also reporting that the variant has been found in travelers.
In the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, said he would not be surprised if the omicron variant was already in the United States, too.
“We have not detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this degree of transmissibility ... it almost invariably is ultimately going to go essentially all over,” Fauci said on NBC television.
Because of fears that the new variant has the potential to be more resistant to the protection offered by vaccines, there are growing concerns around the world that the pandemic and associated lockdown restrictions will persist for far longer than hoped.
Nearly two years since the start of the pandemic that has claimed more than 5 million lives around the world, countries are on high alert. Many have already imposed travel restrictions on flights from southern Africa as they seek to buy time to assess whether the omicron variant is more transmissible than the current dominant delta variant.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was necessary to take “targeted and precautionary measures” after two people tested positive for the new variant in England.
“Right now this is the responsible course of action to slow down the seeding and the spread of this new variant and to maximize our defenses,” he told a news conference.
Among the measures announced, Johnson said anyone arriving in England must take a PCR test for COVID-19 on the second day after their arrival and self-isolate until they provide a negative test. And if someone tests positive for the omicron variant, then he said their close contacts will have to self-isolate for 10 days regardless of their vaccination status — currently close contacts are exempt from quarantine rules if they are fully vaccinated.
READ: Philippines extends travel ban on Bangladesh, 9 other countries as Delta variant spreads
He also said mask-wearing in shops and on public transport will be required and said the independent group of scientists that advises the British government on the rollout of coronavirus vaccines has been asked to accelerate the vaccination program. This could involve widening the booster program to younger age groups, reducing the time period between a second dose and a booster and allowing older children to get a second dose.
“From today we’re going to boost the booster campaign," he said.
Britain's Department of Health said the two cases found in the U.K. were linked and involved travel from southern Africa. One of the two new cases was in the southeastern English town of Brentwood, while the other was in the central city of Nottingham. The two confirmed cases are self-isolating with their households while contact tracing and targeted testing takes place.
The British government also added four more countries — Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia — onto the country's travel red list from Sunday. Six others — Botswana, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe — were added Friday. That means anyone permitted to arrive from those destinations will have to quarantine.
Many countries have slapped restrictions on various southern African countries over the past couple of days, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Thailand and the United States, in response to warnings over the transmissibility of the new variant. This goes against the advice of the World Health Organization, which has warned against any overreaction before the variant was thoroughly studied.
Despite the banning of flights, there are mounting concerns that the variant has already been widely seeded around the world.
Italy and Germany were the latest to report confirmed cases of the omicron variant.
An Italian who had traveled to Mozambique on business landed in Rome on Nov. 11 and returned to his home near Naples. He and five family members, including two school-age children, have since tested positive, the Italian news agency LaPresse said. All are isolating in the Naples suburb of Caserta in good condition with light symptoms.
The variant was confirmed by Sacco hospital in Milan, and Italy’s National Health Institute said the man had received two doses of the vaccine. Italy’s health ministry is urging all regions to increase its tracing of the virus and sequencing to detect cases of the new variant first identified in South Africa.
In Germany, the Max von Pettenkofer Institute, a Munich-based microbiology center, said the omicron variant was confirmed in two travelers who arrived on a flight from South Africa on Nov. 24. The head of the institute, Oliver Keppler, said that genome sequencing has yet to be completed, but it is “proven without doubt that it is this variant,” German news agency dpa reported.
The Dutch public health institute said the omicron variant was “probably found in a number of the tested persons” who were isolated after arriving Friday in Amsterdam on two flights from South Africa. The institute said in a statement that further sequencing analysis is underway to determine for sure that it is the new variant. The results were expected Sunday. A total of 61 people were tested.
Israel said it detected the new strain in a traveler who had returned from Malawi and was tracing 800 travelers who returned recently from southern African countries. And Australia said early Sunday its scientists were working to determine whether two people who tested positive for COVID after arriving from southern Africa are infected with the omicron variant.
The variant’s swift spread among young people in South Africa has alarmed health professionals even though there was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease.
A number of pharmaceutical firms, including AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, said they have plans in place to adapt their vaccines in light of the emergence of omicron. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said they expect to be able to tweak their vaccine in around 100 days.
Professor Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, which developed the AstraZeneca vaccine, expressed cautious optimism that existing vaccines could be effective at preventing serious disease from the omicron variant, noting that most of the mutations appear to be in similar regions as those in other variants.
“At least from a speculative point of view we have some optimism that the vaccine should still work against a new variant for serious disease, but really we need to wait several weeks to have that confirmed," he told BBC radio.
Some experts said the variant’s emergence illustrated how rich countries’ hoarding of vaccines threatens to prolong the pandemic.
Fewer than 6% of people in Africa have been fully immunized against COVID-19, and millions of health workers and vulnerable populations have yet to receive a single dose. Those conditions can speed up spread of the virus, offering more opportunities for it to evolve into a dangerous variant.
“One of the key factors to emergence of variants may well be low vaccination rates in parts of the world, and the WHO warning that none of us is safe until all of us are safe and should be heeded," said Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London.
READ: Covid’s new variant: Bangladesh plans to ban flights with South Africa
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Saturday with his South African counterpart, Naledi Pandor, and they stressed the importance of working together to help African nations vaccinate their populations, the State Department said in a statement. It said Blinken praised South Africa's scientists for quickly identifying the omicron variant and the government for its transparency in sharing this information, “which should serve as a model for the world.”
At least 2 people dead during first winter storm in UK
At least two people have died in the U.K. after the year's first winter storm battered parts of the countries with gusts of nearly 100 mph (160 kph).
The storm, which was named Arwen by the country's Met Office, hit parts of the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland particularly hard, causing road causing road closures, train delays, power cuts and high waves.
Cumbria Police, in northwest England said a man died after a tree fell on him just before 11 p.m. on Friday. In Northern Ireland, a man was killed when his car was hit by a falling tree.
Also read: Italian Coast Guard rescues 550 migrants from stormy seas
Though the worst of the storm appears to have passed, people have been advised to be wary of traveling on Saturday, as train networks reported disruption to services amid still-high winds and heavy snow.
“Storm Arwen has delivered some dangerously strong winds overnight, with gusts in excess of 90 mph recorded," the Met Office's chief meteorologist Steve Ramsdale said. “The strong winds will move south across the U.K. through the day, gradually weakening.”
Also read:Record-breaking storm douses drought-stricken California
As Europe virus cases surge, UK plows on with its new normal
The bars are shut in Vienna, and the Christmas market is empty in Munich, as several European nations tighten up or even lock down to combat a spike in coronavirus infections.
Meanwhile in London, couples sip mulled wine at a seasonal market near the River Thames, full-capacity audiences fill the seats at the nearby National Theatre, and friends huddle over pints in pubs throughout the city.
Read: EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant
Not for the first time in the pandemic, Britain is out of step with many of its neighbors. But this time, it’s happy to be different.
The U.K. has endured three nationwide lockdowns and recorded nearly 145,000 deaths from the coronavirus, the highest toll in Europe after Russia. Now, it is watching as hospitals struggle with surging cases in countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, bringing lockdowns and restrictions. But while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a “blizzard from the east” could still ruin Britain’s Christmas, many scientists say the wind is now blowing the other way.
“We are not behind Europe in this wave. They are behind us,” said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.
The surge that is now hitting mainland Europe, driven by the highly transmissible delta strain of the virus, walloped Britain in the summer, just as the government removed all remaining legal restrictions on the economy and daily life.
Read: France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea
Because Britain got delta in the summer, when respiratory viruses are transmitted less readily, “it wasn’t so explosive as we would expect it to be in the winter, and as we’re now seeing in in some European countries,” Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease modelling at the University of Edinburgh, said.
“I think the U.K. got its delta wave at a fortuitous time, whereas Austria, for example, it’s the exact opposite,” he said. Austria, where average daily deaths have almost doubled in the past two weeks, has gone into lockdown, and authorities there plan to mandate vaccinations beginning Feb. 1.
The World Health Organization said this week that Europe is the only region of the world where coronavirus cases are rising, and the continent could see another 700,000 deaths by the spring unless urgent measures are taken soon.
But Britain stands somewhat apart.
Many scientists predicted the country would see a spike in cases after July 19 — dubbed “Freedom Day” by the media — when almost all restrictions were lifted. It didn’t happen.
Infection rates that were then among the highest in Europe, drifted up and down but never soared again as feared, though they remain stubbornly high. Britain is recording more than 40,000 new cases a day, a level last seen during the past winter’s surge. But a relatively high vaccination rate — particularly among the elderly — means hospitalizations and deaths are far lower than in previous waves. Still, 130 people a day died in the past week after testing positive for COVID-19.
Britain’s hospitals have not been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, though they are extremely busy as the health system struggles to clear a huge backlog built up during the pandemic. Johnson’s Conservative government has so far not had to trigger its “Plan B,” which would reintroduce mask mandates and work-from-home orders to ease pressure on the health system.
But if life in Britain these days can feel unusually normal — even festive, as many embrace the holiday season with renewed enthusiasm — it is a new, more constrained normal.
Visitors from countries where restrictions are still in place are sometimes taken aback by Britain's voluntary, variable approach to mask use and social distancing. But Ivo Vlaev, a behavioral scientist at the University of Warwick who has studied data from across Europe, says people in the U.K. have largely stuck to protective measures — including limiting their contacts with others — even when they were no longer required by law. Movement data suggests Britons still travel and mix less than before the pandemic.
Read: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead
“It seems to be the case that in U.K. people are more compliant in general across all health-protective behaviors” than in some other European nations, Vaev said.
Partly, he says, the reason is “fear — we actually are quite afraid to go out and do the usual stuff” after Britain's harsh pandemic experience.
While some European countries are turning to compulsion to get more people vaccinated, the U.K. is sticking with persuasion. Britain does not widely require proof of vaccination attend events or workplaces, and the government has ruled out mandating vaccines for everyone, though health and social care workers have been ordered to get shots.
Britain hasn't seen as much resistance to the vaccine as many other countries, and about 88% of people aged 12 and up have had at least one dose. But only about 68% of the whole population is fully vaccinated, a lower figure than in some other European nations, partly because the U.K. was slower than many of its neighbors to offer shots to children aged 12 to 15, and has not yet approved vaccines for younger kids.
The government’s focus is on giving booster doses to those most vulnerable to serious illness, offering a third shot to everyone 40 and up six months after their second.
“Get your booster as soon as you can,” the prime minister said this week. “Because it is by vaccinating our country that we have been able to get your staff back to their place of work, to open our theaters, our restaurants and get back for longer now than any comparator country, to something like normal life.”
Some public health specialists and opposition politicians say the government is relying too much on vaccination to keep the virus at bay. They want the return of mandatory masks, social distancing and other measures.
But some epidemiologists are cautiously optimistic that enough is being done to keep a lid on the virus over the winter. Perhaps ironically, Hunter says Britain’s heavy coronavirus toll puts it in a stronger position than those countries where the virus is now surging.
Read: Italian Coast Guard rescues 550 migrants from stormy seas
“They’ve got populations that are not as well immunized, whether that is from vaccine or infection, as we have,” he said. “We still have a lot more immunity from natural infection than most European countries, and we’re rolling out the booster. That is why we will have less of a troublesome winter than most.”
EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant
The European Union said Friday it is planning to stop air travel from southern Africa to counter the spread of a new COVID-19 variant as the 27-nation bloc is battling a massive spike in cases.
“The last thing we need is to bring in a new variant that will cause even more problems,” said German Health Minister Jens Spahn.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that she “proposes, in close coordination with the member states, to activate the emergency brake to stop air travel from the southern African region.”
A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province.
Read:South African scientists detect new virus variant amid spike
Germany said von der Leyen's proposal could be enacted as soon as Friday night. Spahn said airlines coming back from South Africa will only be able to transport German citizens home, and travelers will need to go into quarantine for 14 days whether they are vaccinated or not.
Germany has seen new record daily case numbers in recent days and passed the mark of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday.
A fourth spike of the coronavirus is hitting the 27-nation EU especially badly, with governments scrambling to tighten restrictions in an attempt to contain spread. The flight ban proposal came in the wake of similar action from Britain on Thursday.
The U.K. announced that it was banning flights from South Africa and five other southern African countries effective at noon on Friday, and that anyone who had recently arrived from those countries would be asked to take a coronavirus test.
U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were concerns the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the dominant delta strain, and “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective” against it.
The coronavirus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.
Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.
Read:Can new variants of the coronavirus keep emerging?
The World Health Organization’s technical working group is to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether to give it a name from the Greek alphabet.
The World Health Organization says coronavirus infections jumped 11% in Europe in the past week, the only region in the world where COVID-19 continues to rise. The WHO’s Europe director, Dr. Hans Kluge, warned that without urgent measures, the continent could see another 700,000 deaths by the spring.
The EU's emergency brake mechanism has been set up to deal with such emergencies.
Where the epidemiological situation of a third country or region worsens quickly, in particular if a variant of concern or of interest has been detected, member states should adopt an urgent, temporary restriction on all travel into the EU. This emergency brake should not apply to EU citizens, long-term EU residents and certain categories of essential travelers, who should nevertheless be subject to appropriate testing and quarantine measures, even if fully vaccinated.
Such restrictions should be reviewed at least every two weeks.
France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea
Helicopters buzzed above the waves and vessels were already scouring the cold waters when French maritime rescue volunteer Charles Devos added his boat to the frantic search for a flimsy migrant craft that foundered in the English Channel, killing at least 27.
What Devos found was gruesome. But not, he later sorrowfully acknowledged, wholly unexpected. With migrants often setting off by the hundreds in flotillas of unseaworthy and overloaded vessels into the busy shipping lane crisscrossed by hulking freighters, and frequently beset by treacherous weather, waves and currents, Devos had long feared that tragedy would ensue.
That came this week, with the deadliest migration accident to date on the dangerous stretch of sea that separates France and Britain.
“We picked up six floating bodies. We passed by an inflatable craft that was deflated. The little bit of air remaining kept it afloat,” Devos told reporters.
“I’d been somewhat expecting it because I’d say, ‘It’s going to end with a drama,’” he said.
Also read: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead
France and Britain appealed Thursday for European assistance, promised stepped-up efforts to combat people-smuggling networks and also traded blame and barbs in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly sinking that shone a light on the scale and complexity of Europe’s migration problems.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent French President Emmanuel Macron and the EU leadership a letter Thursday proposing joint sea, air and land patrols starting as soon as next week. France has resisted the idea. Johnson also proposed an agreement allowing Britain to send back migrants to France.
Macron appealed to neighboring European countries to do more to stop illegal migration into France, saying that when migrants reach French shores with hopes of heading on to Britain “it is already too late.”
Macron said France is deploying army drones as part of stepped-up efforts to patrol its northern coastline and help rescue migrants at sea. But he also said that a greater collective effort is needed, referring to France as a “transit country" for Britain-bound migrants.
Also read: Italian Coast Guard rescues 550 migrants from stormy seas
“We need to strengthen cooperation with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, but also the British and the (European) Commission,” he said on a visit to Croatia. “We need stronger European cooperation.”
Migration is an explosive issue in Europe, where leaders often accuse one another of not doing enough to either prevent migrants from entering their countries or from continuing on to other nations.
Ministers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain and EU officials will meet on Sunday to discuss increasing efforts to crack down on migrant-smuggling networks, Macron's government announced.
They will convene in Calais, one of the French coastal towns where migrants gather, looking for ways to cross to the British coast that is visible from France on clear days. Seaside communities on both sides of the channel were reeling Thursday from the sinking's horrific toll.
“This was unfortunately something that could have been foreseen, a scenario of horror that we’d feared and dreaded,” said Ludovic Hochart, a police union official in Calais.
Across the channel, in the British port of Dover, small business owner Paula Elliot said: “It’s dreadful that people have lost their lives."
“The vessels that they take, are traveling in, are not fit for purpose,” she said. "They probably don’t understand how arduous the journey is going to be, and especially at this time of year, it’s so much colder than in the summer.”
Devos, the rescue volunteer, told reporters in comments broadcast by coastal radio Delta FM that the flimsy craft used by migrants for the crossing are increasingly overloaded, with as many as 50 people aboard.
Macron described the dead in Wednesday's sinking as "victims of the worst system, that of smugglers and human traffickers.”
France has never had so many officers mobilized against illegal migration and its commitment is “total,” he said.
Ever-increasing numbers of people fleeing conflict or poverty in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Eritrea or elsewhere are risking the perilous journey from France, hoping to win asylum or find better opportunities in Britain.
The crossings have tripled this year compared to 2020. Shipwrecks on the scale of that seen Wednesday are not uncommon in the Mediterranean Sea, where just this year about 1,600 people have died or gone missing, according to U.N. estimates.
The French prosecutors’ office tasked with investigating the sinking said the dead included 17 men, seven women and two boys and one girl thought to be teenagers. Magistrates were investigating potential charges of homicide, unintentional wounding, assisting illegal migration and criminal conspiracy, the prosecutors’ office said.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said children and pregnant women were among the dead. Two survivors from the sinking were treated for hypothermia. One is Iraqi, the other Somali, Darmanin said. He said authorities are working to determine the victims’ nationalities.
Destabilized by shock and sadness, aid workers and Calais residents held a silent vigil Thursday night in the port city to honor the dead, huddling beneath a cold rain and lighting candles in their memory.
Macron's government vowed to bring those responsible for the tragedy to justice, piling pressure on investigators. Darmanin announced the arrests of five alleged smugglers who he said are suspected of being linked to the sinking. He gave no details. The prosecutors' office investigating the deaths confirmed five arrests since Wednesday but said they didn't appear to be linked to its probe.
Darmanin said a suspected smuggler arrested overnight was driving a vehicle registered in Germany and had bought inflatable boats there.
He said criminal groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain are behind people-smuggling networks. He called on those countries to cooperate better against smugglers, saying they don’t always respond fully to French judicial requests for information.
“Britain and France must work together. We must no longer be, in effect, the only ones able to fight the smugglers,” the minister said.
In their immediate response to the sinking, French authorities initially gave differing figures on the number of dead, from at least 27 to 31. The figure that Darmanin used Thursday morning on RTL radio was 27.
The minister also took a swipe at British government migration policies, saying France expels more people living in the country without legal permission than the U.K. Illegal migration from France's northern shores to Britain has long been a source of tension between the two countries, even as their police forces work together to try to stop crossings. The issue is often used by politicians on both sides pushing an anti-migration agenda.
Darmanin also suggested that by hiring people living in the country illegally, British employers are encouraging illegal migration to English shores.
“English employers use this labor to make the things that the English manufacture and consume," he said. “We say ‘reform your labor market.’”
U.K. officials, meanwhile, criticize France for rejecting their offer of British police and border officers to conduct joint patrols along the channel coast with French police.
Macron advocated an immediate funding boost for the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, according to his office.
“France will not allow the Channel to become a cemetery,” Macron said.
Russia: Death toll in Siberian coal mine blast raised to 52
A devastating explosion in a Siberian coal mine Thursday left 52 miners and rescuers dead about 250 meters (820 feet) underground, Russian officials said.
Hours after a methane gas explosion and fire filled the mine with toxic fumes, rescuers found 14 bodies but then were forced to halt the search for 38 others because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire. Another 239 people were rescued.
The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies cited emergency officials as saying that there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia.
The Interfax news agency cited a representative of the regional administration who also put the death toll from Thursday's accident at 52, saying they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
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It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region.
A total of 285 people were in the Listvyazhnaya mine early Thursday when the blast sent smoke that quickly filled the mine through the ventilation system. Rescuers led to the surface 239 miners, 49 of whom were injured, and found 11 bodies.
Later in the day, six rescuers also died while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine, the news reports said.
Regional officials declared three days of mourning.
Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Demeshin told reporters that the fire most likely resulted from a methane explosion caused by a spark.
The miners who survived described their shock after reaching the surface.
“Impact. Air. Dust. And then, we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” one of the rescued miners, Sergey Golubin, said in televised remarks. “We didn’t even realize what happened at first and took some gas in.”
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Another miner, Rustam Chebelkov, recalled the dramatic moment when he was rescued along with his comrades as chaos engulfed the mine.
“I was crawling and then I felt them grabbing me,” he said. “I reached my arms out to them, they couldn’t see me, the visibility was bad. They grabbed me and pulled me out, if not for them, we’d be dead.”
Explosions of methane released from coal beds during mining are rare but they cause the most fatalities in the coal mining industry.
The Interfax news agency reported that miners have oxygen supplies normally lasting for six hours that could only be stretched for a few more hours.
Russia's Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the fire over violations of safety regulations that led to deaths. It said the mine director and two senior managers were detained.
President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the dead and ordered the government to offer all necessary assistance to those injured.
Thursday’s fire wasn’t the first deadly accident at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In 2004, a methane explosion left 13 miners dead.
In 2007, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 miners in the deadliest mine accident since Soviet times.
In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia's far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analyzed the safety of the country's 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them, or 34%, potentially unsafe.
The Listvyazhnaya mine wasn't among them at the time, according to media reports.
Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, inspected the mine in April and registered 139 violations, including breaching fire safety regulations.
Sweden's first female prime minister quits hours later
Hours after being tapped as Sweden’s first female prime minister, Magdalena Andersson resigned Wednesday after suffering a budget defeat in parliament and her coalition partner the Greens left the two-party minority government.
The government’s own budget proposal was rejected in favor of one presented by the opposition that includes the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. Sweden’s third-largest party is rooted in a neo-Nazi movement. The vote was 154-143 in favor of the opposition’s budget proposal.
Andersson, leader of the Social Democratic party, decided it was best to step down from the post more than seven hours after she made history by becoming the first woman to lead the country.
”For me, it is about respect, but I also do not want to lead a government where there may be grounds to question its legitimacy,” Andersson told a news conference.
Read: Sweden's parliament approves first female prime minister
Andersson, who was finance minister before briefly becoming prime minister, informed parliamentary Speaker Andreas Norlen that she is still interested in leading a Social Democratic one-party government.
Norlen, the speaker of Sweden’s 349-seat parliament, said he will contact Sweden’s eight party leaders ”to discuss the situation.” On Thursday, he will announce the road ahead.
Andersson said that “a coalition government should resign if a party chooses to leave the government. Despite the fact that the parliamentary situation is unchanged, it needs to be tried again."
Even though the Green Party pulled its support for her government, it said it is prepared to stand behind Andersson in a new vote to tap a prime minister.
But the Greens said it was in the best interests of the party to pull support for her after the budget defeat in parliament.
“We have a united party behind us saying we can not sit in government that implements a policy (the Sweden Democrats) negotiated. We must look our voters in the eye and feel pride,” said Marta Stenevi, Green Party spokesperson as the party chose to resign from the government.
The other Green Party spokesperson Per Bolund said “that is something we deeply regret.”
Earlier in the day, Andersson said she could “govern the country with the opposition’s budget.”
The approved budget was based on the government’s own proposal but of the 74 billion kronor ($8.2 billion) that the government wanted to spend on reforms, just over 20 billion kronor ($2.2 billion) will be redistributed next year, Swedish broadcaster SVT said. The approved budget aims at reducing taxes, increased salaries for police officers and more money to different sectors of Sweden’s judiciary system.
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Andersson's appointment as prime minister had marked a milestone for Sweden, viewed for decades as one of Europe’s most progressive countries when it comes to gender relations, but which had yet to have a woman in the top political post.
Andersson had been tapped to replace Stefan Lofven as party leader and prime minister, roles he relinquished earlier this year.
Earlier in the day, 117 lawmakers voted yes to Andersson, 174 rejected her appointment while 57 abstained and one lawmaker was absent.
Under the Swedish Constitution, prime ministers can be named and govern as long as a parliamentary majority — a minimum of 175 lawmakers — is not against them.
Sweden’s next general election is scheduled for Sept. 11.