Новости за 23.12.2020

European Union and British negotiators closed in on a trade deal Wednesday, raising hopes a chaotic economic break between the two sides on New Year's Day could be averted, officials said.

A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced the exiled former editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet daily to more than 27 years in jail on espionage and terror charges for one of the reputable paper’s stories.

Gunmen killed more than 100 people in a dawn attack in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia on Wednesday, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said, as residents described fleeing the latest deadly assault in an area bedevilled by ethnic violence.

Demand for Covid-19 tests is soaring in France ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations. Testing laboratories are often fully booked, with whole families sometimes undergoing tests before visiting elderly relatives.

Italy reported 553 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 628 the day before, taking its total toll past 70,000, the health ministry said.

South America is heading for immense economic hardship after being hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has exposed the severity of economic inequality across the continent.

Britain’s health minister said on Wednesday more areas in England would be placed into the highest tier of coronavirus restrictions in a bid to curb the spread of a new, more transmissible variant of Covid-19 suspected to come from South Africa. England also announced a suspension of flights from the country.

The United Nations Security Council has agreed to end the UN and African Union's long-running peacekeeping mission in Darfur when its mandate ceases on December 31. The Council on Tuesday adopted resolution 2559 that closes UNAMID and hands over responsibility for maintaining peace and security in the ravaged region to Sudan's transitional government. The termination of the mission -- deployed since 2007 and which had 16,000 peacekeepers at its peak -- was requested by Sudan's government and recommended by the AU and United Nations. Читать дальше...

Iraqis on Wednesday were outraged, heartbroken but not surprised to hear US President Donald Trump had pardoned for four Blackwater contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. "I lost hope a long time ago," said Fares Saadi, the Iraqi police officer who led the investigations into the shootings at Baghdad's crowded Nisur Square. The Blackwater team, contracted to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq following the American-led invasion in 2003, claimed they were responding to insurgent fire. Читать дальше...

Tensions have been rising in Central African Republic on the run-up to this weekend's presidential and parliamentary elections. Rebels were advancing towards the capital and had already entered large towns, but UN peacekeeps say things are overall under control.

England international Kieran Trippier has been banned for 10 weeks and fined £70,000 ($94,000) for breaching betting rules, the Football Association (FA) announced on Wednesday. The 30-year-old Atletico Madrid defender's worldwide ban from all football and football-related activity will run until February 28. Trippier's ban takes force with immediate effect. The former Tottenham Hotspur star -- who was one of England's standout performers in their run to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals -- denied the seven charges. Читать дальше...

Furious truck drivers stranded at the English port of Dover scuffled with police as Britain sought to get cross-Channel traffic moving after a partial blockade by France to contain a highly infectious coronavirus variant.

London Irish's Premiership match with Bath on Saturday has been cancelled due to several of their players testing positive for coronavirus, Premiership Rugby announced on Wednesday. Their game is the second to be cancelled following that of Newcastle's home match with Leicester after the latter revealed a large number of their players have to self isolate. London Irish returned a small number of positive tests in this week's round of testing, but had further players who presented with symptoms on Tuesday. Читать дальше...

A pilot blamed for infecting two colleagues and causing Taiwan's first local coronavirus transmission since April was fired on Wednesday, his airline said. The island's clean streak of 253 days without local Covid-19 infections ended on Tuesday after a local woman who had contact with the pilot, a New Zealander, tested positive. The man -- who worked for Taiwan's EVA Airways -- was slapped with a fine of Tw$300,000 ($10,600) for failing to "truthfully declare" his contacts and activities to health authorities once he learned he was infected. Читать дальше...

France and Britain reopened cross-Channel travel on Wednesday after a 48-hour ban to curb the spread of a new coronavirus variant but London has warned it could take days for thousands of trucks blocked around the port of Dover to get moving. The major transit hub reopened following an agreement between London and Paris to allow hauliers stranded in the UK to leave the country if they could produce a negative coronavirus test that was less than 72 hours old. "It will take a few days to work our... Читать дальше...

Nine former professional footballers including England internationals Peter Reid and Viv Anderson have requested British Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden ask parliament to review the links "between neurological diseases and heading the ball." Their letter -- British lawmakers have penned a similar one to a Parliamentary Committee -- is the latest action taken by former footballers in their efforts to prevent present day players and young children developing dementia. It comes in the wake of the... Читать дальше...

French skipper Yannick Bestaven extended his lead in the round-the-world Vendee Globe on Wednesday but admitted he was getting goosebumps with the changing weather patterns potentially giving his two main rivals a chance to close up the gap. Bestaven, skippering the foiled Maitre Coq, was 97.8 nautical miles ahead of Charlie Dalin on Apivia at 1100GMT Wednesday and 177.7 nm in front of Thomas Ruyant on LinkedOut. These three, all on craft with foils, which allow them to rise on top of the water and 'fly' across the waves... Читать дальше...

Tensions are rising in the Central African Republic in the run-up to this weekend’s presidential polls. FRANCE 24’s correspondent Clement Di Roma says the city of Bangui is calm despite sporadic fighting, with UN peacekeepers saying the situation is largely under control.

The World Health Organization's international mission to China to investigate the origins of Covid-19 will explore all avenues and is not looking to find "guilty" parties, a team member told AFP. Investigators will head to China in January and to Wuhan, where the first cases were detected 12 months ago in the pandemic that has swept the world, causing giant global health and economic crises. "The meetings we had so far with Chinese colleagues were really productive and very good," said Fabian Leendertz from the Robert Koch Institute... Читать дальше...

The US has purchased an additional 100 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19, with the shots set to be delivered by July, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. That brings the current US supply of Covid-19 vaccine to 400 million doses -- half from Pfizer and half from Moderna -- allowing it to immunize 200 million people under the two-shot regimens. "Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer will deliver at least 70 million doses by June 30, 2021, with the balance of the 100... Читать дальше...

The Chinese city of Wuhan, epicentre of the disease, continues to show signs of recovery in terms of health and its economy. Local officials report GDP is close to 90 percent of its level before the outbreak. FRANCE 24 correspondent Charles Pellegrin filed this report with Anna Hartley and Charlie Wang.

A Frenchman has been arrested on the Indonesian resort island of Bali for alleged possession of illegal drugs and guns, police said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old French national, identified by his initials R J H B, was arrested on Monday after police received a tip-off that he was involved in drug trafficking. Police said he resisted arrest, and later found nearly five grams of crystal methamphetamine and three guns -- a rifle with a stabilizer, a Makarov pistol and a revolver -- at his home. Читать дальше...

French President Emmanuel Macron's health is showing signs of improvement after he tested positive for Covid-19 on December 17, the Élysée Palace said on Wednesday.

Social media is rife with fake news about the Covid-19 vaccine just days after several countries started their vaccination campaigns. Lots of people are worried about potential nasty side effects of the vaccine, while others accuse the media of lying about it. In this series, the FRANCE 24 Observers team is taking on four of the most widespread rumours. In this article, we look at the (false) rumour that a woman got a double dose of the vaccine by mistake.

The Central African Republic's fourth-largest town, which was seized by rebels on Tuesday ahead of elections this weekend, is in the hands of United Nations peacekeepers and national security forces, the UN said.