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Britain’s prime minister announced a fresh round of lockdowns Monday, closing schools and nonessential shops, as the country begins vaccinating health care workers and the elderly.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said people must stay at home until at least mid-February, noting that British hospitals are under more strain now than they have been at any point during the pandemic.“If the rollout of the vaccine program continues to be successful. If deaths start to fall as the vaccine takes effect. And critically, if everyone plays their part by following the rules, then I hope we can steadily move out of lockdown,” Johnson said in a televised address Monday.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Chase Farm Hospital in north London, Jan. 4, 2021, part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.The announcement comes days after British health officials confirmed a variant of the coronavirus that doctors say is far more contagious than the original.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that a case of the same variant had been confirmed in an older New York state resident who had not traveled recently.NEW: The Wadsworth Lab has confirmed New York State’s first case of the U.K. variant (B.1.1.7) of the virus that causes COVID.An individual from Saratoga County, New York, tested positive for the strain. The individual had no known travel history.— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) Brian Pinker, 82, receives the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Sam Foster at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, England, Jan. 4, 2021.British officials say half a million doses of the vaccine are ready for use.The AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and more easily transported than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine because it does not need to be kept at extremely cold temperatures. The Pfizer shot has already been administered to many health care professionals in Britain and the United States.France, which is administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, pledged Monday to increase the speed at which it is inoculating its health care workers after facing criticism from the public.FILE – A man applies finishing touches to graffiti representing a vaccine, amidst the spread of coronavirus disease, in Kolkata, India, Jan. 2, 2021.In Russia, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that more than 800,000 people had received the domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine and that 1.5 million doses had been distributed throughout the country of 147 million.The Kremlin is pinning its hopes on mass vaccinations, not nationwide restrictions, to stop the spread of the virus and save its struggling economy from the hit of another lockdown.The coronavirus has killed more than 1.8 million people globally since emerging in China in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins.Experts fear the worst is yet to come, predicting a sharp rise in cases and deaths after weeks of holiday gatherings.VOA’s Fern Robinson contributed to this report.
 
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A British judge has ruled that Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, cannot be extradited to the United States because of the risk he could commit suicide in U.S. detention.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser delivered the verdict Monday.“I am satisfied the procedures described by the U.S. will not prevent Mr. Assange from finding a way to commit suicide and for this reason I have decided extradition would be oppressive by reason of mental harm and I order his discharge,” Baraitser told the court.
Assange faces 18 U.S. federal charges relating to allegations of hacking, theft of classified material, and the disclosure of the identities of U.S. informants. Prosecutors have already appealed the verdict.FILE – In this May 19, 2017 photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange greets supporters outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.Supporters of Assange celebrated outside the Old Bailey criminal court as the decision was read out. His partner, Stella Moris, called on the U.S. to drop the charges.
“Today’s victory is the first step towards justice in this case. We are pleased that the court has recognized the seriousness and inhumanity of what he has endured and what he faces. But let’s not forget the indictment in the U.S. has not been dropped. We are extremely concerned that the U.S. government has decided to appeal this decision,” Moris told reporters. “I call on the president of the United States to end this now.”
Baraitser concluded that Assange would have a fair trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, and that he should answer the charges of hacking, theft and disclosure of the identities of U.S. informants. Baraitser said, however, that she had reached the verdict after considering evidence from psychiatrists who said that Assange was planning to commit suicide if he were to be extradited. She added that the conditions in which he would be jailed, in almost solitary confinement, meant that the U.S. prison system could not prevent him taking his life.Assange’s lawyers argued the entire prosecution was politically motivated and that extradition would pose a threat to journalism, claims U.S. prosecutors denied.
“The court today came to the right decision in barring his extradition, but her judgment made some incredibly problematic findings from a free speech point of view,” Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told the Reuters news agency. “I think British journalists and free speech organizations need to be taking a close look at this judgment, and, of course, we will be over the coming days. But this was not a win from a free speech point of view in terms of her findings on the criminalization of journalistic conduct and the application of the Official Secrets Act, and I think this will be a matter for discussion in the coming days.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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Press freedom campaigners echoed those concerns. Rebecca Vincent, director of international campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, wrote on Twitter: “We fully believe that Assange was targeted for his contributions to journalism, and would have liked to see a strong position from the court in favor of journalistic protections and press freedom. That wasn’t the case; extradition was prevented only on mental health grounds.”
In 2010 and 2011, Assange oversaw the publication by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of diplomatic cables and military reports relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange says the leak exposed abuses by the U.S. military.
The Julian Assange supporters celebrate after a ruling that he cannot be extradited to the United States, outside the Old Bailey in London, Jan. 4, 2021.
Ultimately, the British judge ruled that concerns over Assange’s mental health override the U.S charges, said Marcy Wheeler, an American author on national security and civil liberties, and founder of the website emptywheel.“This is the third time this has happened with the United States trying to extradite people from the U.K. And there have been cases where it has been closely fought for terrorism defendants as well,” Wheeler told VOA.
Assange’s lawyers plan to submit an application for bail in the coming days. It is possible that Assange could face prosecution in Britain, said Wheeler.
“I wouldn’t rule out the United States and the U.K. cooperating to doing something like that because it is the kind of thing they do on national security cases. These (U.S.) charges argued that Assange revealed coalition informant identities, not just U.S. informant identities, which would be understood to include British informants.”
Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012 after facing accusations of rape in Sweden, a case that was later dropped. He stayed there for seven years until Ecuador allowed British police to arrest him in April 2019. He was then jailed for 50 weeks for breaching bail.
For now, Assange is back in London’s Belmarsh prison pending his bail application. The appeal process against the ruling could take several months or more, with the British justice system facing severe disruption amid the coronavirus pandemic. 
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A British judge has ruled that Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website Wikileaks, cannot be extradited to the United States to answer charges of hacking and theft of classified material because of the risk he could commit suicide in U.S. detention. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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In separate meetings Monday, shareholders of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Groupe PSA voted Monday to merge the U.S.-Italian and French carmakers to create the world’s fourth-largest auto company by volume.
Both companies’ shareholders overwhelmingly approved the merger, which analysts say was designed to ensure the survival of both firms.
Addressing separate meetings, Groupe PSA chief executive officer Carlos Tavares and FCA chairman John Elkann spoke of the “historic” importance of the vote, which combines legacy car companies, each significant to the industrial histories of the United States, France and Italy.
The new company, to be called Stellantis, will produce 14 brands, from FCA’s Fiat, Maserati and U.S.-focused Jeep, Dodge and Ram, to PSA’s Peugeot, Citroen, Opel and DS. PSA has traditionally focused more on the European market.  
Tavares, who will run the new company, told reporters that “affordability, sustainability and safety,” will be the top three priorities, with an emphasis on clean energy technology.
In terms of sales and number of cars produced, the company will rank behind Volkswagen, Toyota and Renault-Nissan.
The merger has been in the works for about a year, in hopes of creating a company better positioned to compete with the world’s other leading automakers. Analysts say it remains to be seen if the new firm can preserve jobs and its traditional brands in a global market still suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.
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This year marks the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The December collapse was jolting in its speed and followed a failed coup by hard-liners against then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.  Many Russians will celebrate the anniversary privately, although no formal ones are planned by state authorities. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”  But it is an event also preoccupying the Kremlin today, analysts and Western diplomats say, a haunting historical example of how quickly an authoritarian state can unravel. They say a lesson being drawn inside the Kremlin is to double-down on using state power to maintain control.  Bracing for challenge They point to the poisoning of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny last year as a sharp escalation in a Kremlin campaign seemingly aimed at squashing dissent and silencing alternative political voices.  FILE – German army emergency personnel load into their ambulance the stretcher that was used to transport Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on at Berlin’s Charite hospital, Aug. 22, 2020.Speaking at an online event hosted last month by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russian pollster Denis Volkov said the Kremlin is aiming to “demobilize the critics, to make them passive, to make them inactive.” Last year, Putin changed Russia’s constitution, paving the way for him to remain in power potentially until 2036. The amendment was backed in a referendum by 79% of Russians who cast a vote, although there were also allegations of irregularities, including voter coercion and multiple voting.  But that does not appear to have reassured the Kremlin or made it any more confident about the future. Navalny’s poisoning suggests the Kremlin remains on edge and nervous about future challenges to its authority. FILE – Russian lawmakers vote on a third reading of constitutional amendments at the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament in Moscow, Russia, March 11, 2020.According to Andrei Kolesnikov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, the Kremlin is facing a growing number of problems and is trying to prepare for all possible scenarios. Unrest in neighboring Belarus, which has been rocked since August by mass protests against the rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, as well as disturbances in Kyrgyzstan, is heightening Kremlin alarm.  “The only goal of Putin and Putin’s elite is to keep themselves in power,” Kolesnikov said.  The analysts say numerous recent pieces of legislation emphasize the Kremlin’s apparent determination to continue to increase efforts against Putin’s domestic opponents ahead of what is likely to be a big political year in Russia, with parliamentary elections scheduled for September. They say the Kremlin senses the political winds are shifting against the government, which goes some way in explaining the timing of the attempted assassination of Navalny and measures strengthening state power. Navalny fell ill in August 2020 on a flight home from Siberia to Moscow. The pilot diverted the plane so Navalny could receive life-saving treatment. The political activist is recuperating in Berlin, where he was treated. Tests in Berlin indicated the presence of the nerve agent Novichok in his body.   Western governments say Navalny was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent, the same toxin that British officials say was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England in 2018. The European Union has sanctioned FSB (Russian intelligence service) chief Alexander Bortnikov and senior Kremlin officials over the attack.  The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning.  FILE – People hold various posters supporting Khabarovsk region’s governor Sergei Furgal, during an unsanctioned protest in support of Sergei Furgal, who was interrogated and ordered to be held in jail for two months, in Khabarovsk.Russian officials appear to have been surprised by anti-Kremlin protests last year in Khabarovsk in Russia’s far east, where locals reacted furiously to the arrest on criminal charges of the region’s popular governor and political outsider, Sergei Furgal. In a national poll conducted last year, the Levada Center said 47% of respondents said they had a positive view of the Khabarovsk protests. Putin’s approval ratings have also been slipping. Putin recently spoke about the final years of the Soviet era.  “The Soviet Union had everything, but there was not enough for everyone,” he said. “Back then, the problem was due to a shortage. But now, it could be because people do not have enough money to buy certain products at the prices we see on the market.”  
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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Monday the government is not ruling out new restrictions as the coronavirus continues to spread even in areas with the strictest constraints.In television interviews, Hancock said a new variant spreads more easily than the original strains of the virus and Britain’s three-tiered system of restrictions is proving less effective at controlling it.Hancock said that while new restrictions might be necessary, ultimately it is up to people’s behavior. He said people should act as if they already have the virus and take greater care around others.“Yes, it’s about the government rules, and absolutely we’re prepared to bring in, unfortunately, tougher rules if they are needed on the public health advice. But it’s on all of us,” Hancock said.The health secretary praised the National Health Service (NHS) for its vaccination program, saying it has successfully inoculated more than a million people at 700 sites around the country and that there would be more than a thousand sites by the end of the week.Hancock also praised the latest vaccine, produced in a joint effort between the University of Oxford and drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, saying British science is leading the world.Britain reported 55,157 new cases on Sunday, and 455 new deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The nation set a daily record for new cases Saturday with 57,853. 
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Norwegian officials insisted Monday that there was “still hope” in finding survivors in air pockets five days after a landslide killed at least seven people as it carried away homes in a village north of the capital. Three people are still missing.
 
Police spokesman Roger Pettersen said search efforts in the landslide-hit village of Ask, 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of Oslo, are still considered “a rescue operation.” But only bodies have been found in the last few days.
 
The region’s below-freezing temperatures are “working against us, but we have been very clear in our advice to the (rescuers) that as long as there are cavities where the missing may have stayed, it is possible to survive,” said Dr. Halvard Stave, who taking part in the rescue operation.  
 
Temperatures in Ask were -8 degrees Celsius (17.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday.
 
“I would still describe the situation as very unreal,” Anders Oestensen, the mayor of Gjerdrum municipality, where Ask is located.
 
Search teams patrolled with dogs as helicopters and drones with heat-detecting cameras flew over the ravaged hillside in Ask, a village of 5,000 that was hit by the worst landslide in modern Norwegian history. At least 1,000 people were evacuated.
 
The landslide early Wednesday cut across a road through Ask, leaving a deep, crater-like ravine. Some buildings ae now hanging on the edge of the ravine, which grew to be 700 meters (2,300 feet) long and 300 meters (1,000 feet) wide. At least nine buildings with over 30 apartments were destroyed.
 
“This is completely terrible,” King Harald V said after the Norwegian royals visited the landslide site on Sunday.
 
The limited number of daylight hours in Norway at this time of year and fears of further erosion have hampered rescue operations. The ground is fragile at the site and unable to hold the weight of heavy rescue equipment.
 
The exact cause of the accident is not yet known but the area is known for having a lot of quick clay, a material that can change from solid to liquid form. Experts said the quick clay, combined with excessive precipitation and damp winter weather, may have contributed to the landslide.  
 
In 2005, Norwegian authorities warned people not to construct residential buildings in the area saying it was “a high risk zone” for landslides, but houses were eventually built there later in the decade.
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Rescue workers have uncovered a seventh body from a landslide that buried homes in a village near Norway’s capital, police said Sunday, but hopes persist that three people still missing might yet be found alive. The tragedy occurred early Wednesday when several houses were destroyed and shifted hundreds of meters under a torrent of mud in the village of Ask, 25 kilometers (15 miles) northeast of Oslo. Police spokesman Bjorn Christian Willersrud told journalists they hoped to find survivors in the landslide zone. “It is still a rescue operation until we decide otherwise,” he said. Earlier Sunday, the head of the rescue operation, Goran Syversen, told reporters: “We are working hard in the depression created by the landslide.”  “We have five teams working at the same time. They are doing very difficult work which is not without risk. Nevertheless, we are making good progress,” he said. Police said the latest body was found near where two others had been recovered, but they gave no further details. The teams, backed up by sniffer dogs, helicopters and drones, have now found three bodies Sunday, one on Saturday and three on Friday. Three of the victims, two men and a woman, have been identified as Eirik Gronolen, 31, Lisbeth Neraas, 54 and Bjorn-Ivar Grymyr Jansen, 40. But police have published the names of all 10 people, including a 2-year-old and a 13-year-old, who went missing Wednesday. Ten people were also injured in the landslide, including one seriously who was transferred to Oslo for treatment. About 1,000 people of the town’s population of 5,000 have been evacuated, because of fears for the safety of their homes as the land continues to move. “It is a completely surreal and terrible situation,” one of the evacuees, Olav Gjerdingen, told AFP, adding that his family were sheltering at a hotel. The rescuers received a visit Sunday from King Harald, his wife, Sonja, and Crown Prince Haakon, who lit candles for the victims in a local church. “I’m having trouble finding something to say, because it’s absolutely horrible,” the king said after the visit. “This terrible event impacts us all. I sympathize with you who are beginning the new year with sadness and uncertainty,” he said in a televised statement. The authorities have banned all aircraft from the disaster area until Monday afternoon while they conduct aerial searches. “We are searching where we believe we might still find survivors,” said the head of the team of firefighters, Kenneth Wangen, adding that the search zone had been expanded. The rescue teams, who are also seeking to save family pets, were digging channels in the ground to evacuate casualties. Some local people have lit candles near the perimeter of the disaster site in tribute to the victims.
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A Spanish-flagged humanitarian ship on Sunday was seeking a port of safety for 265 migrants its crew rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in the last few days. The Open Arms charity tweeted that its vessel on Saturday had safely brought aboard 96 migrants who had been adrift in a wooden boat with without life vests in international waters. It said the passengers, most of them from Eritrea, included two women and 17 minors and were suffering from hypothermia.  In a separate operation two days before that rescue, Open Arms took aboard 169 migrants, who had departed Libyan shores, where many human traffickers are based.  The traffickers launch vessels, many of them flimsy rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats, crowded with migrants who hope to reach European shores to seek asylum.  Some are fleeing conflict or persecution, but many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have been rescued at sea in recent years are fleeing poverty and thus are denied asylum by European Union countries.  Italy and fellow EU nation Malta have often refused docking permission to the humanitarian rescue boats, contending that most migrants want to reach jobs or relatives in northern Europe. Italian and Maltese government authorities have insisted other European nations do their share.  
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Blame COVID-19 travel restrictions or Brexit but whatever the cause, some British citizens trying to return to their homes in several European countries this weekend have been barred from boarding flights. Airlines refused documents that before Brexit had been valid proof of the Britons’ status as residents in Spain, Italy and Germany, although Spanish authorities claimed that the issue had been resolved by mid-Sunday. Their ordeal came amid heightened travel restrictions because of a coronavirus variant that has been blamed for faster contagion in Britain and highlights the bureaucratic complexities resulting from Britain’s departure from the 27-nation European Union. Both Spanish and British authorities said Sunday that the green-colored certificate of EU citizenship with a foreign national identification number issued by Spain is still valid for British citizens residing in Spain under the bilateral provisions that followed Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc on December 31.  But the travelers say British Airways and Iberia, which are part of the IAG group, have been refusing to let them board for the past two days.  Iberia said in a statement late Sunday that a communication from Spain’s border police January 1 had created “some confusion” and that it was later clarified. British Airways didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Around 300,000 British citizens are registered as permanent residents in Spain, although before Brexit, many more had been living full or part time in the country without officially registering. Patricia Moody, a 69-year-old retiree who has called the southern Spanish town of Zurgena home for nearly four years, was among a group of at least nine people unable to board a Madrid-bound BA/Iberia flight from London’s Heathrow Airport on Saturday. Moody said she and her husband, who she says needs to see his doctor back in Spain, have spent 1,900 pounds ($2,600) on getting tested for the virus, traveling to the airport and booking new tickets after they were refused boarding. Their second attempt was also futile. “Throughout all the months of negotiating Brexit, we were always assured that nothing would change for us,” she said. Referring to the airlines and authorities in both countries, she added: “It’s horrendous and we are suffering because of their incompetence.” Following the discovery of the coronavirus variant in Britain, many European nations have banned all travel from the British Isles except for their own nationals and British citizens with residency rights.  Travelers to Pisa, Italy, and Berlin have also reported similar hurdles in boarding planes operated by Ryanair and Lufthansa despite carrying documents that had been accepted by the Italian and German governments, respectively.Matt Bristow, a spokesman for the British in Germany association of residents in that country, said: “This appears to be a case of U.K. airport staff not knowing what documents to accept or applying the rules more stringently than the German border police would.” Spain has been rolling out a new system to register permanent foreign residents called TIE, but it’s suffering a backlog because of the high number of requests. Authorities told AP that proof of application for the TIE and the “green certificate” for EU citizens were still valid to travel for British residents under the new health restrictions in place until January 19.  “This should not be happening,” the British embassy in Spain said in a Facebook post. “The Spanish authorities have today re-confirmed that the green residency document will be accepted for travel to return to Spain, as stated in our travel advice.” But Sam Dakin, a 32-year-old English-language teacher based in Barcelona for the last four years, and his partner, who has been in the Spanish city for eight years, said they needed more assurances before they could rebook flights. The couple had been blocked from flying Saturday morning despite carrying their certificate and then were refused boarding on another flight Saturday evening that British Airways had initially said they could take. “Just because the government adviser said that we could travel, we don’t know whether that will happen when we turn up at the counters,” Dakin said. “We just don’t know where we’re going to get answers.” In a statement, Spain’s Foreign Ministry said there had been “an isolated communication problem with some airlines that affected a very small number of travelers” and that air traffic between the U.K. and Spain was proceeding “with normality” by mid-Sunday.
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