December 26, 2021
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Newsroom, 26.12.2021, 13:55
CHRISTMAS New Style Orthodox Christians, and Greek and Roman Catholic Christians
around the world today celebrate the second day of Christmas. In Eastern
Christianity, this day is devoted to Mary, mother of God. In his Nativity
service on the 25th December, Daniel, Patriarch of Romania spoke about the
meaning of the gifts presented by the 3 kings to the newborn Jesus: the gold
means our belief, the incense is a symbol of prayer and the myrrh symbolises a
clean life. At the Vatican, Pope Francis warned
that the world is growing so insensitive to crises and suffering that these now
go unnoticed. Pope Francis, who also called for the Covid vaccine to be made
available in poorer countries as well, said the pandemic undermines the
efforts to settle international conflicts. Old Style Orthodox believers in Russia, Ukraine,
Serbia, and Georgia celebrate Christmas on 7th January.
COVID-19 One year since the start of the Covid vaccine roll-out in Romania,
nearly 7.8 million Romanians are fully vaccinated, and around 2 million also
have the booster dose. This indicates that interest in vaccination has not been
high, except for a few brief periods of enthusiasm or fear triggered by the
pandemic’s successive waves. As many as 349 new SARS-CoV-2 infection cases have
been reported for the past 24 hours, along with 15 related fatalities, the
Strategic Communication Group announced on Sunday. Some 450 patients are in
intensive care, over 90% of them being unvaccinated.
STRATEGY The EU has a new
strategy in place to compete with China-Global Getaway is a response to China’s
2013 New Silk Roads, under which investments of 140 billion euros have been
made so far. With the new instrument, the EU seeks to consolidate the digital
sector, transports and the healthcare, education and research systems around
the world. The investments planned until 2027 amount to 300 billion euro. The EU is also
considering the option of introducing a European export credit mechanism to
help ensure fairer competition conditions for EU
companies in 3rd markets. At present, 165 countries have debts of at
least 385 billion US dollars to China for projects under the New Silk Roads
initiative, while 42 small and medium revenue countries have debts to China in
excess of 10% of their GDP.
UKRAINE Germany and Russia have agreed to
hold a meeting in early January, as part of the efforts to settle the
Russian-Western crisis over the Ukrainian border, German governmental sources
quoted by AFP said. The meeting will be held by the German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz’s foreign and security policy adviser Jens Ploetner, and Kremlin’s
negotiator for Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak. For over a month now, Western Europe has
been accusing Russia of deploying more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian
border for a possible military intervention, and has repeatedly warned Kremlin
on this topic. Russia claims its military is not a threat to anybody and
demands security guarantees from the West, especially with respect to NATO’s
eastwards enlargement. (tr. A.M. Popescu)
