Morning headlines – January 26th 2021

Coronavirus and vaccines

• The EU pressures AstraZeneca. The vaccine from AstraZeneca is at the eleventh hour with the authorizations from the European Medicines Agency. The authorization could be received at the end of the week. The European commissary for health, Stella Kyriakides, has announced that AstraZeneca must take measures to deliver the established quantity, says Mediafax.
• The number of tests in Romania is extremely low. There were only 5.921 RT-PCR tests made and 3.198 antigenic tests in the last day. This is the reason why the number of infections is so low, says Mediafax. Yesterday, 1.551 new COVID-19 cases were recorded.

Global political and military events

• Great Britain does not recognize EU’s diplomatic status. Joseph Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, has condemned, on Monday afternoon, the Great Britain’s refusal to recognize the full diplomatic status of the European ambassador, asking the London Government to solve the problem, says Le Figaro.
• Italy has no government. Prime-minister Giuseppe Conte has announced that he will resign on Tuesday, after a cabinet meeting in the morning, says Reuters. The prime-minister hopes the president Sergio Mattarella will grant him another mandate to establish another government, with bigger support from the Parliament.
• Germania wants a better cooperation with the US. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has discussed, on Monday, on the phone, with the new US president, Joseph Biden, saying that Berlin wants a better transatlantic cooperation, said the German government.
• China responds to US’s actions with military drills. China has announced on Tuesday that it will conduct military drills in the South China Sea, after a group of US ships, led by an aircraft carrier, entered the disputed waters, says AP.
• Trump, closer to impeachment. The article of impeachment of the former US president, Donald Trump, was transferred to the US Senate. The Senate’s procedures will start in two weeks, says Mediafax.
• The UN asks for measures against neo-Nazism. The UN Secretary General has asked for a global coordinated action to establish an alliance against the emergence and spread of neo-Nazism, white supremacists, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and hate speeches provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic, 76 years after the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, says Mediafax.
• Protests in India on the National Day. Tens of farmers in India are demonstrating on the National Day, which marks the constitution’s passage, on January 26^th 1950. The farmers are frustrated due to a law passed by the Parliament in September, says AP.
• Ultraorthodox people are protesting in Israel. Israel, the country that has the biggest vaccination rate, is covered by protests of ultraorthodox people, in Ashdod and Jerusalem. Many ultraorthodox communities have breached the safety regulations, and more than a third of the coronavirus infections in Israel are registered among the ultraorthodox people.

Romania’s defence and security

• The Constitutional Court in Romania is discussing the legitimacy of Government’s ordainment. The Constitutional Court is discussing, on Tuesday, the notifications of the Alliance for Romanians Union (AUR) over the Parliament’s no.31/2020 decision on the ordainment of the Florin Citu Government.