WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed a new Atlantic Charter on Thursday, modeled after the 1941 agreement, that outlines eight key areas on which the U.S. and the United Kingdom plan to collaborate.
The revamped charter, which comes during Biden’s first trip abroad as president, says it builds “on the commitments and aspirations set out eighty years ago, affirms our ongoing commitment to sustaining our enduring values and defending them against new and old challenges.”
LONDON (AP) — The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed Saturday to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% in order to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.
G-7 finance ministers meeting in London also endorsed proposals to make the world’s biggest companies — including U.S. based tech giants — pay tax in countries where they have lots of sales but no physical headquarters.
Britain’s Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, the meeting’s host, said the deal would “reform the global tax system to make it fit for the global digital age and crucially to make sure that it’s fair, so that the right companies pay the right tax in the right places.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who attended the London meetings, said the agreement “provides tremendous momentum” towards reaching a global deal that “would end the race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation, and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world.”
The meeting of finance ministers came ahead of an annual summit of G-7 leaders scheduled for June 11-13 in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. The U.K. is hosting both sets of meetings because it holds the group’s rotating presidency.
The dead include a child who was earlier airlifted from the Stresa-Alpine-Mottarone crash scene.
Fourteen people, including at least one child, have been killed and another child is seriously injured after a cable car fell on a mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy on Sunday.
The accident happened on a service transporting passengers from the resort town of Stresa up the nearby Mottarone mountain in the region of Piedmont.
Images from the scene show the wreckage lying in a steep wooded area.
Five Israeli nationals were among the dead, Israel’s foreign ministry says.
The French government has imposed a month-long lockdown on Paris and parts of northern France after a faltering vaccine rollout and spread of highly contagious coronavirus variants forced the president, Emmanuel Macron, to shift course.
Since late January, when he defied the calls of scientists and some in his government to lock down the country, Macron has said he would do whatever was needed to keep the euro zone’s second-largest economy as open as possible. However, this week he ran out of options just as France and other European countries briefly suspended use of the Oxford/AstraZenca vaccine.
The prime minister, Jean Castex, said on Thursday that France was in the grip of a third wave, with the virulent variant first detected in Britain now accounting for about 75% of cases. Intensive care wards are under severe strain, notably in Paris where the incidence rate surpasses 400 infections in every 100,000 inhabitants. “The epidemic is getting worse. Our responsibility now is to not let it escape our control,” Castex told a news conference.
The lockdowns will start from Friday at midnight in France’s 16 hardest-hit departments that, with the exception of one on the Mediterranean, form a corridor from Calais to the capital. Barbers, clothing stores and furniture shops will have to close, though bookstores and other shops selling essential goods can stay open.
Why it matters: European countries reported around 1 million new cases last week, around a 9% increase from the week prior. Last week’s surge ended a six-week decline in new infections, the WHO said Thursday, according to AP.
By the numbers: The variant first found in the United Kingdom, which may be more transmissible and more deadly than the original strain of the virus, is spreading in 27 European countries monitored by WHO, according to AP.
It’s now the dominant strain in at least 10 countries: Britain, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Spain and Portugal.
Meanwhile, the variant first discovered in South Africa has been found in 26 European countries. Vaccine producers Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax have each reported their vaccines, while still effective, offer less protection against the South African variant.
The Brazilian variant, detected in 15 European countries, may be able to reinfect people who survived infections with earlier versions of the coronavirus, according to Reuters.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Heavy snowfall blanketed the Acropolis and other ancient monuments in Athens, caused power cuts and halted COVID-19 vaccinations in the Greek capital on Tuesday as the weather brought many services across the country to a standstill.
While western Europe got some respite from winter weather, temperatures plunged in the southeast of the continent and storms also battered Turkey.
The snow, an unusual sight in the Greek capital of more than 3 million residents, also stopped most public transport services. Hundreds of toppled trees downed power cables, causing blackouts in several suburbs.
ANOTHER monolith has appeared months after the mysterious metal structures started appearing around the globe. This time, one has shown up in the archaeological grounds of the oldest known temple on Earth.
In late November, authorities found a shiny metal monolith in the middle of the Utah desert. Following the first discovery, monoliths appeared in Romania, Spain, Netherlands, California, and even the Isle of Wight. Artists began taking credit for the monoliths, but conspiracy theorists’ tongues are wagging once again after a new monolith appeared in Turkey.
A resident shovels snow under an archway in Wernigerode, Germany, early Sunday morning, Feb. 7, 2021. Low Tristan has caused huge amounts of snow in the Harz mountains, like here in Wernigerode. (Matthias Bein/dpa via AP)
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER
BERLIN (AP) — A snowstorm and strong winds pounded northern and western Germany on Sunday, forcing trains to cancel trips and leading to hundreds of vehicle crashes. Police said 28 people were injured on icy roads.
The German Weather Service DWD urged people to stay at home and authorities brought homeless people into warm shelters amid the sub-freezing temperatures.
National train operator Deutsche Bahn said main train routes between Hamburg and Hannover, Berlin and the west were canceled as snowdrifts piled up on the tracks and power lines. Some train connections in the east were also canceled, though most of the snow came down in the northwest.
(CNN)A Chinese-born alleged drug kingpin accused of presiding over a multi-billion dollar narcotics operation has been arrested by Dutch authorities.
Canadian national Tse Chi Lop was detained at Amsterdam’s Schipol International Airport on Friday, according to Australian Federal Police (AFP), which has taken the lead in a sprawling international investigation. Before his arrest, Tse was one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives.
Authorities allege that Tse, 57, is the leader of the Sam Gor Syndicate, arguably the biggest drug-trafficking operation in Asia’s history. Experts say he isin the same league as notorious drug lords El Chapo and Pablo Escobar.
The carcass of an enormous finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) was discovered near the Italian port of Sorrento earlier this week, the Italian Coast Guardsaid in a Facebook post.
Officials discovered the carcass on Sunday (Jan. 17), before towing it to the nearby port at Naples. The whale measured about 65 feet (20 meters) long and likely weighed more than 77 tons (70 metric tons) — likely making the corpse “one of the largest” ever found in the Mediterranean Sea, according to the agency.
Coast Guard divers first discovered the whale after a young calf swam into the Sorrento harbor in a state of distress, according to news reports. The calf reportedly rammed its head into the harbor walls several times before retreating back underwater; when divers followed it, they discovered the fin whale’s corpse.
The calf is presumed to be the dead whale’s offspring, and the Coast Guard is monitoring for signs of the young whale’s return. Meanwhile, marine biologists in Naples are working to ascertain what killed the whale.
Finback whales (also known as fin whales) are the second-largest animals on Earth, after the iconic blue whale. Finbacks can grow to be 85 feet (25 m) long and weigh up to 80 tons (72 metric tons), according to theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They are considered endangered after commercial whaling decimated the global finback population over the last century.
Today, commercial whaling is illegal throughout most of the world, and boat strikes pose the biggest threat to finbacks, according to NOAA.
In Norway, authorities are investigating the deaths of nearly two dozen people who received the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX).
To date, it has analyzed data from 13 of those individuals.
The Norwegian Medicines Agency concluded that common adverse reactions to mRNA vaccines, including fever and nausea, could have contributed to deaths in elderly and frail patients.
In a nationally televised speech, Rutte said he had informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and pledged that his government would continue work to compensate affected parents as quickly as possible and to battle the coronavirus.
“We are of one mind that if the whole system has failed, we all must take responsibility, and that has led to the conclusion that I have just offered the king, the resignation of the entire Cabinet,” Rutte said.
Not long after delivering his statement, Rutte got on his bicycle and rode to the king’s palace in a forest in The Hague to formally inform him. Dutch television showed Rutte parking his bike at the bottom of steps leading into the palace and walking inside.
The move was seen as largely symbolic; Rutte’s government will remain in office in a caretaker mode until a new coalition is formed after a March 17 election in the Netherlands.
PARIS (AP) — As the wan winter sun sets over France’s Champagne region, the countdown clock kicks in.
Laborers stop pruning the vines as the light fades at about 4:30 p.m., leaving them 90 minutes to come in from the cold, change out of their work clothes, hop in their cars and zoom home before a 6 p.m. coronavirus curfew.
Forget about any after-work socializing with friends, after-school clubs for children or doing any evening shopping beyond quick trips for essentials. Police on patrol demand valid reasons from people seen out and about. For those without them, the threat of mounting fines for curfew-breakers is increasingly making life outside of the weekends all work and no play.
Heavy snowfall from Storm Filomena left thousands of Spanish drivers trapped in their cars on Friday as roads were blocked and Madrid airport was closed.The M-30 and M-40 motorways near Madrid were among more than 400 roads where snow hindered vehicles, traffic authorities said. Citizens were asked to avoid non-essential travel because of the highly unusual blizzard.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday ordered a new lockdown across Britain in an effort to contain a new variant of the coronavirus. In a televised address, Johnson called the next few weeks a “critical moment” in the country’s fight against COVID-19.
The new measure forces the closure of all schools, shutters personal care services such as barbers and hairdressers, and bans in-person dining at restaurants. While fines do apply for those who leave their homes without valid excuses, there are exemptions in place for those gathering food, going to and from childcare, getting medical supplies, or true emergencies.
Residents are asked to limit exercise outdoors to once a day. Meeting more than one person outside your house for picnics or drinks is not allowed.
The port of Dover has been closed to all vehicle traffic leaving the UK for the next 48 hours.
France acted to halt lorry movements in the wake of fresh concerns over the spread of a new strain of coronavirus.
UK ministers and officials will discuss the move at the government’s Cobra emergency committee on Monday.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps urged the public and hauliers not to travel to ports in Kent, saying “significant disruption” was likely in the area.
Kent Police has put Operation Stack into force on the M20 towards Dover to queue lorries caught up in the disruption.
The force said it had implemented the closure of the coast-bound carriageway of the motorway between Junctions 8 and 11 as a “contingency measure”.
The Department for Transport has said that Manston Airport in Kent is being readied to take up to 4,000 lorries to ease congestion in the county.
The Port of Dover is closed to traffic leaving the UK “until further notice” due to border restrictions in France, port authorities said in a statement.”
Both accompanied freight and passenger customers are asked not to travel to the port,” it said. “We understand that the restrictions will be in place for 48 hours from midnight.”
Freight coming to Britain from France will be allowed, but there are fears lorry drivers will not travel to avoid being stuck in the UK.
London (CNN)The hopes of millions of Britons that Covid-19 restrictions would be eased over Christmas were dashed on Saturday, after scientists warned a new strain of the virus is spreading more quickly than others.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a series of stricter coronavirus restrictions, tightening rules around household mixing that were due to be relaxed over Christmas in England, while leaders in Scotland and Wales also introduced more stringent measures. The UK has among the highest Covid death rates in Europe, with more than 67,000 fatalities, and over 2 million cases.
The PM broke the news that London, and large parts of southern and eastern England, where cases are surging, will enter Tier 4 restrictions, similar to a lockdown, on Sunday.
“The spread is being driven by the new variant of the virus,” Johnson said in a hastily called press conference. “It appears to spread more easily and may be up to 70% more transmissable than the earlier strain.”
LILLE, France (AP) — About 100 teenagers rallied in northern France on Friday to pay homage to a transgender student who killed herself this week after facing tensions with school officials for wearing a skirt to class, a case that has drawn online indignation and national attention to the issue of gender identity.
The students held a sit-in and a moment of silence outside the entrance to the Fenelon High School in Lille as school started Friday, expressing their anger and distress at the suicide of their classmate Fouad.
Fouad, 17, killed herself Tuesday in a shelter where she had been staying, the school district said in a statement. She was identified only by her first name according to French policy for protecting minors. A psychological support program was put in place for the students
Activist groups say several thousand people in France are transgender, and that they face routine abuse or discrimination despite regulations against it.
Arnaud Alessandrin, a sociologist at the University of Bordeaux who has written books about gender identity, said the French government is behind European neighbors in terms of transgender rights, and he welcomed the public outcry over Fouad’s death as a sign that awareness is growing.
“A few years ago, people didn’t care” about the suicide of a trans youth, he said. “Today, they are indignant. People are starting to say that it’s not normal.”
Calls for a national lockdown in Sweden, which has stood out from other countries in resisting such steps, are on the rise amid a deadly new wave of the virus.
Officials in Sweden are now weighing their options for entering a coronavirus lockdown after evading initial temporary shutdowns during the pandemic’s first wave of COVID-19 outbreaks.
Bjorn Eriksson, a regional health director, said Tuesday that intensive care units (ICU) in Stockholm “are far beyond 100 percent of capacity,” the New York Times reported.
A fifth monolith has been found in the Netherlands after previous sculptures were spotted in Utah, California, Romania and Russia.
The monolith seems to have been discovered by trippers, who found it in the middle of a nature reserve in the northern region of Frisia.
According to Omrop Fryslan and NOS, there was no trace of how the monolith got into its position and no evidence of footprints near the site.
Unlike the other four monoliths, the Dutch one is made with a matte finish, rather than a metallic one. Some believe it to be a promotion for the New Year.
All five monoliths have been compared to the ones seen in Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.
German authorities on Sunday had to disarm an unexploded 1,100-pound World War II bomb that turned up at a construction site in a trendy Frankfurt neighborhood.
Authorities said 13,000 residents were evacuated and mass transit was halted in the city’s chic Gallus district Sunday for the dismantling of the bomb, which was found by construction crews on Thursday.
Explosives experts were able to dismantle the massive device in about two hours.
Trains were running again by Sunday evening, German rail company Deutsche Bahn said.
Although alarming, the discovery of unexploded devices is not too uncommon in German, even 75 years after the war
Police in Sweden suspect that an elderly woman kept her son locked up inside a filthy apartment for nearly three decades after a relative reportedly found the victim with no teeth and multiple injuries.
(CNN)At least five people were killed, including a 9-month-old baby, and several others injured when a man plowed his car into a group of people in a pedestrian zone in the southwest German city of Trier on Tuesday, police said.
Officers arrested the driver of the car, a 51-year-old German national. He was being questioned by police and will be prosecuted for murder and manslaughter, police said.
The chief public prosecutor said the driver was “severely intoxicated” — with a blood alcohol level of 1.4 — and there are “indications of psychological illness.”
Trier police said the motive was unknown, that the suspect has no police record and his background shows an indication of political motivation.
A mysterious metal monolith has appeared in Romania this week after another similar structure found in the remote Utah desert was removed by an ‘unknown party’. The shiny triangular pillar was found on Batca Doamnei Hill in the city of Piatra Neamt in northern Romania last Thursday.It was spotted a few metres away from the well-known archaeological landmark the Petrodava Dacian Fortress, an fort built by the ancient Dacian people between 82 BC and AD 106
Mysterious metal monolith has appeared in northern Romania after another vanished from the desert in Utah
The shiny triangular pillar was found on Batcas Doamnei Hill in the city of Piatra Neamt last Thursday
One side of the structure, which is 13 feet tall, faces Mount Ceahlau, known locally as the Holy Mountain
An October 22 ruling by the Polish constitutional court to ban abortions of fetuses with congenital defects, even when the fetus has no chance of survival at birth, sparked the protests.
Police blocked protesters from marching in Poland’s capital as demonstrations took place across the country against an attempt to restrict abortion rights and recent police violence. Police and protesters played a game of cat and mouse in Warsaw as officers set up cordons which the protesters sought to evade, pushing them to try to regroup elsewhere in the city center.
The demonstrations are part of what has evolved into Poland’s largest protest movement since communism fell in the country 30 years ago. An October 22 ruling by the Polish constitutional court to ban abortions of fetuses with congenital defects, even when the fetus has no chance of survival at birth, sparked the protests.
Europe remained the biggest global contributor to new Covid-19 cases and deaths in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, despite signs that stricter measures against the spread of the virus are starting to have an impact.
(CNN)Europe remained the biggest global contributor to new Covid-19 cases and deaths in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, despite signs that stricter measures against the spread of the virus are starting to have an impact.
The European region accounted for 44% of global new cases and 49% of global new deaths in the past week, according to the latest weekly WHO report, released Tuesday.
While the number of new cases in the region is declining on a weekly basis, the number of deaths is still rising, with 32,684 new fatalities reported in the previous seven days.
This update comes as countries across the continent grapple with how to allow people to celebrate upcoming holidays, including Christmas, and mitigate the economic pain to businesses while countering the pandemic.
