Morning headlines – January 7th 2021

Coronavirus and vaccines

•  the European Medicines Agency has approved, on Wednesday, the use in the EU of the vaccine produced by the US company Moderna. The Agency recommends the European Commission to issue the authorization for vaccine’s introduction on the market, based on the same mechanism used for Pfizer-BioNTech.
• Almost 60.000 doctors were vaccinated in Romania so far.
• Globally, more than 15 million vaccine doses were administrated in 35 countries. According to Bloomberg, vaccinating billions of people will be one of the biggest logistical challenges.
• The US has vaccinated more than 5 million people, China almost 4,5 million, followed by Israel and Great Britain, which have vaccinated 1,3 million people each, says Digi24.

Global political and military events

• the confirmation procedure of the US elections’ results was resumed, after the insurgency of Donald Trump’s supporters, which have taken control of the Capitol on January 6^th. The members of the Congress have reunited in the common session on Wednesday night, January 6^th, to confirm the results of the Electoral College’s vote, where Joe Biden got 306 votes, comparing to Trump who got only 232 votes.
• January 6^th will be remembered as a turning point day for the US democracy, as the president tried to change the vote through protests, without having the support of its own party or close collaborators: The Capitol was evacuated by the law enforcement forces, after Trump’s supporters stopped the Congress’s reunion, the Washington DC mayor declared a state of emergency for 15 days, the National Guard was mobilized, four people are dead, among them a woman, who got shot, and Twitter deleted a post of Donald Trump, where he was praising the insurgents, and blocked his account.
• The democrats got the majority in the US Senate, after the elections for the two senator positions from Georgia, where Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won in front of republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loefler. The republicans and the democrats will have 50 senators, but the Democratic Party will have the advantage of having a decisive vote from vice-president Kamala Harris. According to the US Constitution, the US vice-president is chairing the superior chamber of the Congress.
• The Chinese army starts the crisis management, getting ready for war. According to Chinese media, if at the beginning of 2020, president Xi Jinping was asking the military to be ready to the management of any crisis, now, the first 2021 order of the Chinese president is for the military to be ready for war and use the conflicts at the border to buckle down.
• Israel has attacked, last night, villages in Syria, being the third attack in the last 10 days, says Reuters.

Romania’s security and defence

• Great Britain wants to deport 30 Romanians next week, using an air line. The British Minister of Home Affairs has announced that all measures to control the spread of the new coronavirus strain will be taken.
• The EU Cyber Security Center, to be located in Bucharest, will produce investments worth of 4,5 million euro in the following years, and the big tech companies will open offices in Romania, says Mediafax.

Translated by Andreea Soare