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John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89.Le Carre died Saturday in Cornwall, southwest England, Saturday after a short illness, his literary agency, Curtis Brown, said Sunday. The death was not related to COVID-19.In such classics as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Honorable Schoolboy,” Le Carre combined terse but lyrical prose with the kind of complexity expected in literary fiction. His books grappled with betrayal, moral compromise and the psychological toll of a secret life. In the quiet, watchful spymaster George Smiley, he created one of 20th-century fiction’s iconic characters — a decent man at the heart of a web of deceit.For le Carre, the world of espionage was a “metaphor for the human condition.”Born David Cornwell, le Carre worked for Britain’s intelligence service before turning his experience into fiction in works including “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.””I’m not part of the literary bureaucracy if you like that categorizes everybody: Romantic, Thriller, Serious,” le Carre told The Associated Press in 2008. “I just go with what I want to write about and the characters. I don’t announce this to myself as a thriller or an entertainment.”I think all that is pretty silly stuff. It’s easier for booksellers and critics, but I don’t buy that categorization. I mean, what’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities?’ — a thriller?”His other works included “Smiley’s People,” “The Russia House” and, in 2017, the likely Smiley farewell, “A Legacy of Spies.” Many novels were adapted for film and television, notably the 1965 productions of “Smiley’s People’ and “Tinker, Tailor” featuring Alec Guinness as Smiley.Le Carre was drawn to espionage by an upbringing that was superficially conventional but secretly tumultuous.Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, southwest England, on Oct. 19, 1931, he appeared to have a standard upper-middle-class education: the private Sherborne School, a year studying German literature at the University of Bern, compulsory military service in Austria — where his tasks involved interrogating Eastern Bloc defectors — and a degree in modern languages at Oxford University.It was an illusion: his father, Ronnie Cornwell, was a con man who was an associate of gangsters and spent time in jail for insurance fraud. His mother left the family when David was 5; he didn’t meet her again until he was 21.It was a childhood of uncertainty and extremes: one minute limousines and champagne, the next eviction from the family’s latest accommodation. It bred insecurity, an acute awareness of the gap between surface and reality — and a familiarity with secrecy that would serve him well in his future profession.  “These were very early experiences, actually, of clandestine survival,” le Carre said in 1996. “The whole world was enemy territory.”  After university, which was interrupted by his father’s bankruptcy, he taught at the prestigious boarding school Eton before joining the foreign service.  Officially a diplomat, he was in fact an operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 — he’d started as a student at Oxford — and then its overseas counterpart MI6, serving in Germany, then on the Cold War front line, under the cover of second secretary at the British Embassy.  His first three novels were written while he was a spy, and his employers required him to publish under a pseudonym. He remained “le Carre” for his entire career. He said he chose the name — square in French — simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it.  “Call for the Dead” appeared in 1961 and “A Murder of Quality” in 1962. Then in 1963 came “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” a tale of an agent forced to carry out one last, risky operation in divided Berlin. It raised one of the author’s recurring themes — the blurring of moral lines that is part and parcel of espionage, and the difficulty of distinguishing good guys from bad. Le Carre said it was written at one of the darkest points of the Cold War, just after the building of the Berlin Wall, at a time when he and his colleagues feared nuclear war might be imminent.  “So I wrote a book in great heat which said, ‘a plague on both your houses,'” le Carre told the BBC in 2000.It was immediately hailed as a classic and allowed him to quit the intelligence service to become a full-time writer.  His depictions of life in the clubby, grubby, ethically tarnished world of “The Circus” — the books’ code-name for MI6 — were the antithesis of Ian Fleming’s suave action-hero James Bond and won le Carre a critical respect that eluded Fleming.  Smiley appeared in le Carre’s first two novels and in the trilogy of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy,” “The Honorable Schoolboy,” and “Smiley’s People.”  Le Carre said the character was based on John Bingham — an MI5 agent who wrote spy thrillers and encouraged le Carre’s literary career — and the ecclesiastical historian Vivian Green, the chaplain of his school and later his Oxford college, “who became effectively my confessor and godfather.” The more than 20 novels touched on the sordid realities of spycraft but le Carre always maintained there was a kind of nobility in the profession. He said in his day spies had seen themselves “almost as people with a priestly calling to tell the truth.””We didn’t shape it or mold it. We were there, we thought, to speak truth to power.”  
“The Perfect Spy,” his most autobiographical book, looks at the formation of a spy in the character of Magnus Pym, a boy whose criminal father and unsettled upbringing bear a strong resemblance to le Carre’s own. His writing continued unabated after the Cold War ended and the front lines of the espionage wars shifted. Le Carre said in 1990 that the fall of the Berlin Wall had come as a relief.  “For me, it was absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I was sick of writing about the Cold War. The cheap joke was to say, ‘Poor old le Carre, he’s run out of material; they’ve taken his wall away.’ The spy story has only to pack up its bags and go where the action is.”  That turned out to be everywhere. “The Tailor of Panama” was set in Central America. “The Constant Gardener,” which was turned into a film starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, was about the pharmaceutical industry’s machinations in Africa.  “A Most Wanted Man,” published in 2008, looked at extraordinary rendition and the war on terror. “Our Kind of Traitor,” released in 2010, took in Russian crime syndicates and the murky machinations of the financial sector.  In 1954, le Carre married Alison Sharp, with whom he had three sons before they divorced in 1971. In 1972 he married Valerie Eustace, with whom he had a son, the novelist Nick Harkaway.  Although he had a home in London, le Carre spent much of his time near Land’s End, England’s southwestern most tip, in a clifftop house overlooking the sea. He was, he said, a humanist but not an optimist.  “Humanity — that’s what we rely on. If only we could see it expressed in our institutional forms, we would have hope then,” he told the AP. “I think the humanity will always be there. I think it will always be defeated.”
 
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The Trump administration acknowledged Sunday that several U.S. institutions were hacked on behalf of a foreign government.
 
Experts believe Russia is likely behind the attack on the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments in what U.S. media is calling one of the most sophisticated attacks on U.S. government systems in years.
 
Both the FBI and the cybersecurity arm of the Department of Homeland Security were investigating the breach. The extent of the intrusion, a motive, or whether other agencies were affected were not immediately known.
 
U.S. National Security Council officials met Saturday at the White House to discuss the attack by a “sophisticated hacking group,” which stole information related to internet and telecommunications policymaking.
 
Two of the people said the breaches are related to a disclosed hack on FireEye, a U.S. cybersecurity company with government contracts.”The United States government is aware of these reports, and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said.The Reuters news agency, which first reported the breach, said U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that hackers used similar means to break into other government agencies besides Treasury.Later Sunday, the Commerce Department confirmed one of its agencies was breached.  “We have asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate, and we cannot comment further at this time,” a statement from the department said.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Homeland Security Department, was led until recently by Christopher Krebs, who was fired by President Donald Trump. Krebs has not been replaced.  He was dismissed after he said the November national election was “the most secure in American history,” angering Trump who has claimed, without evidence, that voting and vote-count irregularities led to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over him.Several federal agencies are investigating, and the extent of the intrusion is not known. 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered a Christmas lockdown amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases in the country.Under new emergency measures, which will last from December 16 until January 10, all schools and non-essential shops across Germany are to close and bars and restaurants will remain shut.In a bid to deter outside gatherings during the period, the sale of fireworks is banned and so, too, drinking alcohol in public. The only concession for Christmas is that up to 10 people will be allowed to meet indoors — currently a maximum of five people from two different households is allowed to gather in homes.Religious events in churches, synagogues and mosques may take place, if strict hygiene rules are observed, but communal singing is banned.“I would have wished for lighter measures. But due to Christmas shopping, the number of social contacts has risen considerably,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin after a meeting of federal and state leaders. “There is an urgent need to take action,” she added.People stand around a mulled wine to-go stand at a Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz square, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Berlin, Germany, Dec.10, 2020.Infection rates have hit record levels in Germany in the past few days and the country now has the 12th highest number of cases in the world.More than 20,000 new cases were reported by authorities Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 1,320,716, and 21,787 Germans have died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. The country’s intensive care unit capacity is at a critical level, and doctors say that only five- to 10 percent of intensive care beds are available in some parts of the country.Germany’s Finance Ministry announced it was planning further support for businesses and workers impacted by the lockdown, saying, “Companies, the self-employed and freelancers who are affected by closures from December 16 will receive financial support.”Germany isn’t alone in struggling to suppress transmissions and in some European countries, criticism is mounting of governments for failing to prevent a second pandemic wave. In Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who was praised for his decisiveness in battling the first coronavirus wave earlier this year, is being accused of pursuing an “amateurish” approach this time round.A nurse tends to a patient inside a COVID-19 intensive care unit of the Tor Vergata Polyclinic Hospital in Rome, Italy, Dec. 13, 2020.According to an official tally, Italy is nearing 64,000 deaths from COVID, overtaking Britain, which for weeks has held the lead position in European fatalities. The World Health Organization says Italy is now registering 1,036 deaths per million residents, the second highest after Peru.Conte held back from ordering a second national lockdown as the second wave started in September — despite appeals from some regional governors. In March, he imposed a tough 10-week lockdown, which tamed the first wave.The Italian leader has now ratcheted up restrictions for the Christmas period, but some epidemiologists say the move has been too late. Italian microbiologist Andrea Crisanti said, “Italy’s first wave was bad luck but the second wave unforgivable A sign of poor management and amateurish preparation.”Since September, Italy has recorded more than 28,000 COVID deaths.Matteo Villa, an analyst at the Institute for International Political Studies, Italy’s oldest research institution, specializing in political and international affairs, said the government dithered and failed to prepare the health system in between waves. “If you can act sooner, even a bit lighter in the measures, they work better than acting harshly a bit later or too late,” he said.Conte’s poll ratings are now sliding, and his coalition government is being buffeted by desertions and squabbles over the disbursement of recovery funds from the European Union. Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister, has threatened to collapse the coalition government, which also features the populist Five Star movement as well as the Democratic Party, Italy’s main center-left party, by withholding the backing of his centrist Italia Viva party.Earlier this month, many European governments looked poised to ease coronavirus restrictions for the Christmas period, despite warnings from medical scientists.Gabriele Vinzi, 3, and his brother Samuele Vinzi, 4, react along with their parents as they receive a call via Zoom by a man dressed as Santa Claus, amid theCOVID-19 pandemic, in Rome, Italy, Dec. 8, 2020.They came under mounting public pressure to salvage something of the holiday spirit and they grappled with how far they should go in easing lockdowns or lifting curfews, fearing that having a merry Christmas will likely mean suffering a miserable new year. Now most are heading in the opposite direction with tighter restrictions.Last week, the French prime minister announced he would still lift the country’s lockdown on Tuesday as planned but retain some strict restrictions and impose some new ones for Christmas because of worrying health data. Jean Castex had hoped to lift many more rules but said the virus is not letting him. A new 8 p.m. curfew is being imposed.“We are not yet at the end of the second wave, and we won’t be at the goal we set of 5,000 new cases per day,” he said, adding, “We know that the gatherings over the holidays present a risk.”We need to keep our guard up, stay vigilant,” Castex said.  
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Security forces in Belarus have detained dozens of people as opposition demonstrators staged scattered marches and rallies in Minsk and other cities to pressure strongman leader Alexander  Lukashenko to make political concessions. Human rights group Vyasna said that nearly 180 people were detained during the protests on December 13, with most of the arrests reported in Minsk. According to local news outlet Nasha Niva, more than 120 marches took places across the country, with numbers at each rally ranging from dozens to several hundred. Some protesters marched in outlying residential areas of Minsk, waving white-and-red flags, a symbol of the opposition, and chanting “Long live Belarus.” The demonstrations came as opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was scheduled to appear at events in Germany, as part of her efforts to rally international support for Belarus’s beleaguered opposition. The country has been roiled by unprecedented political opposition since early August when Lukashenko was declared victor of a presidential election that opposition leaders said was flawed. Activists have defied often violent police tactics and organized weeks of demonstrations and rallies. Still, the only hints of concession that Lukashenko has shown are suggestions he has made about drafting a new constitution. In contrast to past weekend demonstration, Minsk authorities did not shutter the subway system on December 13, and no major Internet disruptions were reported. Many of Belarus’s opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, including Tsikhanouskaya, who says she won the August election. Tsikhanouskaya, who now lives in exile in neighboring Lithuania, hailed protesters who had gathered “despite repressions, violence and cold. “They resist Lukashenko’s regime because the people of Belarus want to live in a democratic and free country,” she said in a post to Twitter. The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenko as the winner of the vote. The European Union imposed sanctions on Lukashenko and his allies citing election rigging and a violent police crackdown.  
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Chief negotiators of the European Union and Britain are meeting in Brussels Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to overcome the differences and reach a post-Brexit trade deal. With Britain’s end-of-year departure from the EU quickly approaching, the EU’s Michel Barnier and Britain’s David Frost have until the evening to hammer out a framework governing trade between the two entities. At stake is Britain’s quest for zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the EU’s single market. Stumbling blocks include fishing rights and penalties Britain would face for violating the EU’s fair competition rules. “We want to be treated like any other independent self-respecting democracy. If the EU can accept that at a political level, then there’s every reason to be confident but there is still, I think, a long way to go,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said early Sunday on Sky News TV.    FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 9, 2020.Meanwhile, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson are expected to talk later Sunday to decide whether to continue or abandon negotiations, a spokesman for British government said. “The prime minister will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the UK will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time,” a British source said as the talks were in progress Saturday. A no-deal Brexit would be economically disruptive in Britain, across Europe and beyond.        
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A soft snow fell as a clutch of visitors equipped with a Geiger counter wandered through the ghostly Ukrainian town of Pripyat, frozen in time since the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.More than three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster forced thousands to evacuate, there is an influx of visitors to the area that has spurred officials to seek official status from UNESCO.”The Chernobyl zone is already a world-famous landmark,” guide Maksym Polivko told AFP during a tour on a recent frosty day.”But today this area has no official status,” the 38-year-old said of the exclusion zone where flourishing wildlife is taking over deserted Soviet-era tower blocks, shops and official buildings.That could change under the government initiative to have the area included on the UNESCO heritage list alongside landmarks like India’s Taj Mahal or Stonehenge in England.Officials hope recognition from the U.N.’s culture agency will boost the site as a tourist attraction and in turn bolster efforts to preserve aging buildings nearby.The explosion in the fourth reactor at the nuclear power plant in April 1986 left swathes of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus badly contaminated and led to the creation of the exclusion zone roughly the size of Luxembourg.Ukrainian authorities say it may not be safe for humans to live in the exclusion zone for another 24,000 years. Meanwhile, it has become a haven for wildlife with elk and deer roaming nearby forests.Dozens of villages and towns populated by hundreds of thousands of people were abandoned after the disaster, yet more than 100 elderly people live in the area despite the radiation threat.In Pripyat, a ghost town not far from the Chernobyl plant, rooms in eerie residential blocks are piled with belongings of former residents.’The time has come’Polivko said he hoped the upgraded status would encourage officials to act more responsibly to preserve the crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure surrounding the plant.”All these objects here require some repair,” he said.It was a sentiment echoed by Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, who described the recent influx of tourists from home and abroad as evidence of Chernobyl’s importance “not only to Ukrainians, but of all mankind.”A record number of 124,000 tourists visited last year, including 100,000 foreigners following the release of the hugely popular Chernobyl television series in 2019.Tkachenko said obtaining UNESCO status could promote the exclusion zone as “a place of memory” that would warn against a repeat nuclear disaster.”The area may and should be open to visitors, but it should be more than just an adventure destination for explorers,” Tkachenko told AFP.The government is set to propose specific objects in the zone as a heritage site before March, but a final decision could come as late as 2023.After the explosion in 1986, the three other reactors at Chernobyl continued to generate electricity until the station finally closed in 2000. Ukraine will mark the 20th anniversary of the closure Tuesday.Tkachenko said the effort to secure UNESCO status was a new priority after work on a giant protective dome over the fourth reactor was completed in 2016.With the site now safe for 100 years, he said he hoped world heritage status would boost visitor numbers to 1 million a year.It’s a figure that would require an overhaul of the local infrastructure and overwhelm a lone souvenir kiosk on the site selling trinkets such as mugs and clothing adorned with nuclear fallout signs.”Before, everyone was busy with the cover,” Tkachenko said of the timing of the heritage initiative.”The time has come to do this.”
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Trade talks between Britain and the European Union continued into the night Saturday ahead of the latest make-or-break deadline, as the Royal Navy readied armed ships to patrol U.K. fishing waters in case of a no-deal Brexit.Negotiations in Brussels were to continue Sunday, the day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen have set as a deadline to decide whether any trade deal is still possible.”Talks are continuing overnight, but as things stand the offer on the table from the EU remains unacceptable,” a U.K. government source said. “The prime minister will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: Any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the U.K. will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time.”A senior EU source, echoing von der Leyen’s words Friday, said: “The defense of the single market is a red line for the European Union. What we have proposed to the United Kingdom respects British sovereignty. It could be the basis for an agreement.”Four 80-meter (260-feet) British ships have been placed on standby, part of increased contingency planning on both sides of the English Channel, and evoking memories of the Cod Wars with Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic in the 1960s and ’70s.Johnson said on Friday it was “very, very likely” the talks would fail, and that Britain would revert to World Trade Organization (WTO) terms with its largest single trading partner.European leaders have also been told the chances of a deal are slim, with both sides at loggerheads over rules to govern fair competition and fishing rights in British territorial waters.FILE – Trucks queue along the A16 motorway to board ferries to reach England, near Calais, France, Dec. 9, 2020. British-EU trade talks were teetering Dec. 12, 2020.Deal or no deal, Britain will leave the EU single market and customs union on the evening of December 31, more than four years after a landmark referendum on membership of the bloc.’Robust enforcement’As the talks limped on, hardline pro-Brexit Conservative MPs sought assurances from Johnson that the navy should be deployed to protect British waters.Lawmaker Daniel Kawczynski said it would help “prevent illegal French fishing” when EU access ends, stoking nationalist fervor but sparking criticism even within the Tory ranks.But another Conservative, Tom Tugendhat, chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, tweeted in French that the whole process posed “a real and present risk of poisoning relations” between France and Britain.And Tobias Ellwood, a former British army captain who now heads Parliament’s defense select committee, said confrontations in the channel would only be welcomed by Britain’s enemies.”We’re facing the prospect of our overstretched Royal Navy squaring up to a close NATO ally over fishing rights,” he told BBC radio. “This isn’t the Elizabethan times anymore. It’s global Britain,” he added, referring to the country’s new post-EU foreign policy.”We need to be building alliances, not breaking them apart,” he added.The river-class patrol vessels of the Fishery Protection Squadron — the Royal Navy’s oldest front-line squadron with a history dating back more than 500 years — already enforce U.K. and EU fisheries law.The Ministry of Defense confirmed it has conducted “extensive planning and preparation” for a range of post-Brexit scenarios from January 1 and has 14,000 personnel on standby to help with the transition.Planning difficultiesWTO terms would mean tariffs and quotas, driving up prices for businesses and consumers, and the reintroduction of border checks for the first time in decades.That has already raised the prospect of heavy traffic clogging roads leading to seaports in southern and southeast England, as bureaucracy lengthens waiting times for imports and exports.Transport companies have also warned that EU member Ireland could see import volumes shrink in the event of new customs procedures for goods routed through Britain.”As an industry we’re looking to plan ahead but there’s so many unknowns it becomes difficult,” said Road Haulage Association director Martin Reid.
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Russia resumed construction on a gas pipeline to Germany on Friday, one year after the United States opposed the joint international project because of possible threats to Europe’s energy security, project managers said. Work on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was suspended in December 2019 after it became a source of conflict between Russia and the West. Nord Stream 2 is intended to double the annual gas capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline. In a statement, Nord Stream 2 officials confirmed construction had resumed under the Baltic Sea, saying “the pipelay vessel Fortuna will lay a 2.6-kilometer section of the pipeline in the German Exclusive Economic Zone in water depths of less than 30 meters.” Germany’s maritime authority notified shippers to avoid part of the Baltic Sea where the Nord Stream 2 will be built until December 31. Work on the 100-kilometer undersea pipeline is 90% complete. When finished, Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, which bypass Ukraine, will be responsible for the transfer of more than half of Russia’s total gas exports to Europe. Washington had criticized Europe for its overdependence on Russian energy and threatened sanctions against European partners in the pipeline project. The majority stakeholder in the project, Russian gas giant Gazprom, together with its European partners, Germany’s Wintershall and Uniper groups, the Dutch-British giant Shell, France’s Engie and Austria’s OMV, will spend about $11.5 billion on the project. Gazprom’s stock value rose 3.5% Friday on the Moscow stock exchange. 
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The World Health Organization (WHO) says action and money are needed to ensure coronavirus vaccines are available around the world as Western nations approve them.
During Friday’s COVID-19 briefing at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus applauded the fact Britain was already vaccinating its citizens and that Canada, the United states and others would not be far behind. He said to have safe and effective vaccines for a virus that was completely unknown a year ago is an “astounding scientific achievement.”
The WHO chief noted it would be an even greater achievement to ensure all countries have equal access to those vaccines. Tedros said the U.N. agency has worked hard over the past year to secure political commitments from world leaders for equal access to vaccines and he said he wants to see those commitments translated into action.  
He said the WHO needs $4.3 billion to procure vaccines for the world’s neediest countries and urged donors to help fill a funding gap.  
The director-general said the organization is working with its partners to ensure developing countries have infrastructure in place to deliver vaccines to their populations. Through its COVAX vaccine cooperative and the 189 countries participating, Tedros said the WHO has secured nearly a billion doses of three potential vaccines.  Americans Await Final Approval of First COVID-19 Vaccine as Deaths Reach Record HighUS Food and Drug Administration widely expected to authorize emergency use after special panel votes to recommend approval   But Tedros said closing the funding gap is crucial to ensuring the entire world is protected.
“We have all seen images of people being vaccinated against COVID-19. We want to see these same images all over the world, and that will be a true sign of solidarity,” he said Friday.
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Turkish exporters say they have become a casualty of what analysts describe as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aggressive foreign policy. Turkey’s relations with its Saudi partners suffer as a result of Ankara’s push to exert its influence in the Mediterranean and in Africa. Exporters say they are being shut out of Middle Eastern markets — prompting Turkey to start changing its approach.Turkish companies like industrial boilermaker Erensan are paying a heavy price for Turkey’s strained relations across the Middle East and North Africa, says Erensan’s CEO Ali Eren.”We shifted, so to speak, from the Middle East,” said Eren. “With Saudi Arabia also not good relations, Egypt not good relations, so we shifted a little bit to the East to Indonesia for example and to Bangladesh which turned out to be good markets for us as well. But it’s not automatically done because we have to work first to get into the market.” FILE – Couple walks along Istiklal Street at the popular touristic neighbourhood of Beyoglu after a partial weekend curfew started during the COVID-19 outbreak in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 21, 2020.Reports of a Saudi trade boycott has hit Turkey’s massive textile industry, which supplies many of the big international brands. Egypt has sided with Saudi Arabia in a growing, bitter rivalry.International relations expert Emre Caliskan at the University of Oxford says Turkey sees Riyadh as thwarting its efforts to penetrate North African markets.”Turkey wants to be an economic player in the region. Turkey has an export orientated economy,” said Caliskan. “So whenever Turkey started have a better relationship with some countries this could be Morocco and Algeria. They always found a country trying to position itself towards Saudi Arabia.People wearing masks for protection against the spread of coronavirus, walk in the Spice Market, or the Egyptian Bazaar, in Istanbul, Nov. 17, 2020.”The Turkish leadership and the Saudis felt the need to reassess the situation and to be able to start a dialogue in their interest as you said, maybe it could be the start of a normalization of relations with Cairo, why not?,” he said.With Ali Eren’s boiler business is still counting the cost of Turkey’s regional isolation, Eren welcomes talk of a rapprochement.”Egypt has been a loss for us, but we are not worried it’s going to come back on us again because politics change,” said Eren.For exporters like Eren who are also reeling from the pandemic, repairing ties with the Saudis cannot come soon enough.
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Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced Friday that beginning Monday, the self-isolation period after contact with confirmed COVID-19 carriers will be shortened from 14 to 10 days in the nation.
At her COVID-19 news briefing in Edinburgh, Sturgeon also said that the four-day reduction in the self-isolation period would apply to travelers returning from high-risk countries. She said the new policy was based on recommendations from Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
She said the chief medical officers in all four British jurisdictions – Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have agreed to the reduction.
In an interview with the Associated Press, British Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries said the new policy was based on studies conducted by the SAGE and a separate advisory group on emerging respiratory virus threats. Harries said those studies found people were least likely to transmit COVID-19 at the end of their infection.  
She said reducing the self-isolation period would allow a “reasonable balance” between managing the risk to the public and intruding on people’s lives.
Sturgeon reported 1,001 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24-hour period. It was the first time in about two weeks that the daily rate was over 1,000. But that number was the result of nearly 25,000 test results, reflecting a positivity rate of less than five percent — which is considered a good sign.
The first minister also announced that non-essential shops across much of western Scotland — including Glasgow — have reopened for the first time in three weeks, She urged people to follow rules, avoid crowded shops, and shop alone or in small groups.
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British health officials are warning that people with a “significant history” of allergic reactions should not receive the new coronavirus vaccine that was rolled out in a mass vaccination program Tuesday, pending investigation of two adverse reactions.  Britian is the first western country to begin the mass vaccinations, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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