December 26, 2021

december 26, 2021 Click here for a roundup of local and world news

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)


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Publicat: 2021-12-26 13:55:00
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