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Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Sunday there are 76.3 million global COVID-19 cases.The U.S. continues to lead the world in case numbers at 17.6 million, followed by India with 10 million and Brazil with 7.2 million.U.S. lawmakers are expected to vote Sunday on a nearly $1 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package. The package includes, among other things, $300 supplemental unemployment benefits and $600 direct stimulus payments to many Americans.“We can’t continue with Christmas as planned,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Saturday as he announced new restrictions for London and southern England, where a mutant strain of the coronavirus is spreading and where there is now a virtual lockdown, with people urged to stay home.All nonessential stores in the region are set to close, and people should not enter or leave the British capital or large parts of southeastern England.South Korea recorded 1,097 new infections Sunday, the fifth consecutive day it recorded more than 1,000 new cases.A South Korean Justice Ministry official said an outbreak at a prison in Seoul has infected 184 prisoners and one worker.Starting Monday, the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland are banning people arriving from Sydney, where a 70-person coronavirus cluster has emerged in its northern beach suburbs which have now been placed under a strict lockdown until Christmas Eve.Thailand said Sunday it will test more than 10,000 people in the southwestern province of Samu Sakhon after a daily surge of more than 500.
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Like other French ski resorts, the Alpine town of Chatel has been forced to close its lifts over the Christmas period as part of tougher government curbs to contain the coronavirus.But just 5 km (3 miles) away, holidaymakers are schussing down the same slopes on the other side of the border in Switzerland, where less strict restrictions mean it’s business as usual in the Dents du Midi ski region.Chatel mayor Nicolas Rubin was so annoyed by the sharp divergence in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic that he hung Swiss flags from the town hall windows for a week in protest.”Of course we are worried, because beyond the closing of the ski resort the morale and the mental health of people is starting to be affected,” he said. Jean-Francois Vuarand, Chatel’s tourism chief, said the year-end holidays normally generated a fifth of winter season turnover.”The problem is… it is difficult to make customers understand that at the border, in these two nearby areas, there are two different rules for the same activity,” he said.For Quentin Decoursier, owner of restaurant Le Comptoir on the French side, the discrepancy is manifestly unfair.”What is going to happen is that a lot of French people will go there (across the border) and we don’t understand because we have as much right as they have to be open,” he said.While the two countries have similar COVID infection and fatality rates, Swiss authorities have let individual cantons decide whether lifts can operate safely, though Dents du Midi tourism director Sebastien Epiney said his community was also living on the edge.”We are putting in place all our assets to offer a safe product to our customers, but the sword of Damocles is over our heads,” he said.Yoan Perroud, shrugged of the risk of skiing, saying outdoor activity was not as risky as the restaurants and bars that support them.”For me the problem is not the ski slopes, it’s what is next to them,” he said from Les Crosets, a resort on the Swiss side. 
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British and EU negotiators have dug in their heels and each is demanding more concessions from the other as post-Brexit trade talks dragged on into Sunday, deadlocked on fishing rights.Sources from each side said that unless the other backed down on access to U.K. waters, Britain would leave the single market at midnight December 31 without a deal on cross-channel commerce.”We’re continuing to try every possible path to an agreement, but without a substantial shift from the [European] Commission we will be leaving on WTO terms on 31 December,” a British government source said.But an EU diplomat told Agence France-Presse that Brussels had made Britain its last offer on fishing and it was down now to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to decide whether he wanted a deal.”If Britain doesn’t accept the latest EU offer, it will be a ‘no deal’ over fish,” he warned. A European official said: “It’s very blocked.”The tough talk came as both sides engaged in intense negotiations to secure a pact before the end of the month. No deal would risk chaos at EU and U.K. borders, where a pre-deadline rush has caused long lines of lorries.Observers, however, noted that the fishing issue was about finding middle ground between offer and counteroffer in an economically small sector, while the much bigger other main issue, on guaranteeing fair trade competition rules, was closer to settlement.”It’s all down to numbers now,” the European diplomat said.British chief negotiator David Frost arrives at the U.K. delegation office for Brexit talks in Brussels, Dec. 19, 2020. EU fishing rights in British waters were proving to be a hurdle to securing a post-Brexit trade deal.The EU’s lead negotiator, Michel Barnier, has proposed that EU fishermen give up nearly a quarter of the value of the fish they currently catch in U.K. waters. Britain is understood to be holding out for getting back much more than half.The U.K. has suggested this compromise last for three years before it is renegotiated, whereas Europe is holding out for double that.Fishermen ‘sold down the river’EU fishermen fear losing any access to the rich U.K. fishing waters will threaten their livelihoods.”We are in the throes of being sold down the river,” the European Fisheries Alliance said in a statement, urging Barnier to stick to protecting them. “The shape of a deal as currently stands would give a huge blow to the European seafood sector, which is made up of more than 18,000 fishermen and 3,500 vessels with an annual turnover of 20.7 billion euros.”Time is very short to reach an accord. The European Parliament has highlighted a deadline of midnight (2300 GMT) on Sunday to receive a deal for review if its members are to ratify it before the end of the year.Their U.K. parliamentary counterparts are in recess but can be recalled within 48 hours to do likewise.But EU capitals are not binding themselves to the European Parliament’s deadline.France’s European affairs minister, Clement Beaune, said talks would not be called to a halt if they dragged out past Sunday night.’Concerns’ Britain not readyThe urgency of reaching a deal is seen in long lines of trucks at the freight rail link through the Channel tunnel as British companies frantically stockpile.A group of U.K. MPs warned Saturday that Britain had not installed the complex IT systems and port infrastructure needed to ensure trade with the EU runs smoothly.Some disruption is inevitable, deal or no deal, with British and European firms needing to fill out import-export, health and tax forms to send and receive goods to each other.A deal would avoid tariffs but there would still be traffic snarls as checks on truck loads and drivers’ papers are carried out.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is downplaying the severity of a massive cybersecurity breach by suspected Russian operatives that has exposed the networks of government agencies and private sector companies, contradicting the assertions of his secretary of state and lawmakers briefed on the matter.After days of silence, Trump took to Twitter on Saturday for his first comments on the hack, which is thought to have impacted at least 18,000 customers of SolarWinds, a Texas-based software management company. Those affected include the Energy, Treasury and Commerce departments, as well as state and local governments.But unlike intelligence officials and lawmakers, who warned that damage from the breach was ongoing, the president said that “everything is well under control.”“I have been fully briefed,” he wrote. “The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality.”Trump also cast doubt on comments late Friday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said it appeared that Russia was responsible.The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – This Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington.U.S. intelligence and cybersecurity agencies have yet to make a formal attribution for the hack, which they said was under way at least as early as March.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI on Saturday declined to comment on Trump’s tweets, standing by a joint statement issued Wednesday, which described the hack only as part of a “significant and ongoing cybersecurity campaign.”Since then, however, in a series of updated alerts, the cybersecurity unit of the U.S. Homeland Security Department — the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — has warned that the problem was not contained to software from SolarWinds.Other platforms“CISA has evidence of initial access vectors other than the SolarWinds Orion platform,” one alert said, adding that the agency was investigating instances in which other platforms were used to access critical networks.“This threat poses a grave risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations,” CISA said. “This is a patient, well-resourced and focused adversary that has sustained long duration activity on victim networks.”In the meantime, CISA’s former director answered some of the president’s Twitter allegations, rejecting the notion that the hack could have in any way changed the results of November’s presidential election.“Do not conflate voting system security and SolarWinds,” said Christopher Krebs, who had played a leading role in the country’s election security efforts until Trump fired him last month, two weeks after American voters cast their ballots.Trump Fires Security Chief Who Said 2020 Vote Was ‘Most Secure’ in US History President late Tuesday fired the director of the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, alleging Christopher Krebs made ‘highly inaccurate’ comments about security of the November 3 vote “The proof is in the paper,” Krebs said, referring to the widespread use of paper ballot backups. “You can audit or recount again to confirm the outcome. Like they did in Georgia. And Michigan. And Wisconsin. And Arizona. Can’t hack paper.”Do not conflate voting system security and SolarWinds. The proof is in the paper. You can audit or recount again to confirm the outcome. Like they did in Georgia. And Michigan. And Wisconsin. And Arizona. Can’t hack paper.
— Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) December 19, 2020Top lawmakers briefed on the hack also went on social media Saturday, pushing back against Trump’s insistence without evidence that Russia might not be responsible for the breach.“Increasingly clear that Russian intelligence conducted the gravest cyber intrusion in our history,” the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Marco Rubio, tweeted.“The process of determining its extent & assessing the damage is underway,” Rubio said, adding, “Our response must be proportional but significant.”Increasingly clear that Russian intelligence conducted the gravest cyber intrusion in our history
The process of determining its extent & assessing the damage is underway
Remediation will take time & significant resources
Our response must be proportional but significant
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 19, 2020The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Adam Schiff, meanwhile, castigated Trump for his response to the cyber breach.“Another day, another scandalous betrayal of our national security by this president,” Schiff tweeted. “Another dishonest tweet that sounds like it could have been written in the Kremlin.”Another day, another scandalous betrayal of our national security by this president.
Another dishonest tweet that sounds like it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Another obsequious display towards Putin.
And yet another reason that Trump can’t leave office fast enough. https://t.co/ILNh3KnfbT
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 19, 2020Indications of a cyber intrusion went public earlier this month when the private cybersecurity firm FireEye announced its systems had been penetrated and that sensitive information had been stolen.The hack was later traced to updates for network management software from SolarWinds, though officials said the hackers were also using other software and systems to reach inside government and private sector networks.Research by tech giant Microsoft, made public Thursday, indicated the hackers precisely targeted at least 40 organizations. The vast majority were in the United States, but companies in Canada, Mexico, Britain, Belgium, Israel and the United Arab Emirates were also attacked.Not ‘espionage as usual’“This is not ‘espionage as usual,’ even in the digital age,” Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote on the company’s blog. “This is not just an attack on specific targets, but on the trust and reliability of the world’s critical infrastructure.”Former U.S. government officials also expressed concern about the impact of the hack.“The scope of it is large but exactly how large remains to be seen, and exactly how severe remains to be seen,” Michael Daniel, who served as a special assistant to former U.S. President Barack Obama on cyber issues, told VOA’s Russian Service.“The damage could be very, very significant to U.S. national security and to our economic security,” he said.Tom Bossert, a former homeland security adviser to Trump, said Saturday in a thread on Twitter, “It is clear that a foreign government is holding American networks at risk.”“If it’s Russia, as all indications suggest, the free world — led by the United States — must impose costs on the Kremlin,” Bossert added. “Our long-term goals must be to regain network integrity and control and to establish geopolitical deterrence.”It is clear that a foreign government is holding American networks at risk. @SecPompeo took a necessary step attributing the attack to Russia. That step requires formalization. 1/
— Thomas P. Bossert (@TomBossert) December 19, 2020U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday called the cybersecurity breach, “a matter of great concern.”“I want to be clear: My administration will make cybersecurity a top priority at every level of government — and we will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office,” he said in a statement shortly after the latest CISA alert was issued.“Our adversaries should know that, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation,” he added.Biden is set to be inaugurated as the 46th U.S. president on January 20.Wayne Lee and the VOA Russian Service’s Danila Galperovich contributed to this report.
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A report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council criticizes Ukraine’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and warns that the Russian-backed conflict in eastern Ukraine threatens efforts to curb the pandemic. The report, which assesses the impact of COVID-19 on human rights in Ukraine, covers the period from February 20 to December 6.  Issued Friday, it finds measures taken by Ukrainian authorities to slow the spread of COVID-19 are inadequate and failing to protect public health. It says the measures also are worsening the hardships faced by people living in the conflict-affected areas in eastern Ukraine.Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris said restrictions on freedom of movement across the contact line, which separates Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatist rebels, were making it difficult for people to access health care, pensions and other social protections.Brands Kehris said women and older people, who made up most of the civilians crossing the contact line prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, “were particularly affected.  At present, restrictions on movement across the contact line imposed by armed groups of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ are having a disproportionally negative impact.”Brands Kehris said the situation with people in overcrowded detention facilities was at particular risk during the pandemic. She called for the early release of older people with underlying health conditions. She noted that conditions were especially dire for people incarcerated in rebel-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine and in the Russian occupied Crimean Peninsula.Emine Dzhaparova, Ukraine’s first deputy minister for foreign affairs, said the U.N. report showed that COVID-19 was being used to amplify the terrible consequences of Russian aggression against Ukraine.“The pandemic provided Moscow with another opportunity to tighten the grip over the human rights in the occupied territories,” Dzhaparova said. “Residents of Crimea, especially the indigenous people, Crimean Tatars, continue facing searches, arrests and imprisonment. The pretrial detention centers in Crimea are overcrowded. Political prisoners are deprived of proper medical assistance, even despite evident COVID-19 symptoms.”For its part, Russia dismissed all criticism against it and expressed serious concerns about what it called the massive violations of human rights in Ukraine in relation to the pandemic. It accused the Ukrainian government of neglecting the problems of the elderly and disabled, and of failing to address what it described as the horrid conditions of detention.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed new coronavirus lockdown measures in England Saturday, reversing initial plans to ease restrictions during the holiday season after a new strain of the coronavirus was detected in the country. “I know how much emotion people invest in this time of year …I know how disappointing this will be,” Johnson said at a news conference. “There is no alternative open to me.”Britain’s PM Boris Johnson attends a news conference, together with Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer and Patrick Vallance, UK Gov. Chief Scientific Adviser, in response to the ongoing situation with the coronavirus, London , Dec. 19, 2020.Whitty said Britain has alerted the World Health Organization about the strain, which British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday was detected in the south of England.As a result of the new measures that become effective at midnight Saturday night, people in London and southeast England are now under a new higher tier of restrictions, affecting about one-third of the country’s population. They will be required to remain at home except for essential reasons, such as work. Non-essential retail stores will close, along with leisure and entertainment venues.In the U.S., American drug maker Moderna, Inc. and partners have started distributing its COVID-19 vaccine, the second approved for emergency use in the country. Trucks will begin shipping the vaccine to more than 3,700 U.S. locations on Sunday, U.S. Army General Gustave Perna said Saturday during a virtual news conference.FDA Approves Emergency Use of Second Coronavirus VaccineVice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi receive shots Friday Perna said the Moderna vaccine will reach health care workers as early as Monday, but that the delivery of some of the first 20 million doses of vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, Inc. could be delayed until the first week of January.Nearly 76 million people around the world contracted the coronavirus as of midday Saturday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. More Than 75 Million Global Coronavirus CasesUS has more COVID cases than any other countryThe U.S. tops the list as the country with the most cases, with 17.5 million; India is second, with more than 10 million, followed by Brazil, with 7.1 million.  Medical residents staged a protest Friday at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, because they and other frontline medical professionals, including nurses and respiratory therapists, were not included among the staff members scheduled to receive the coronavirus vaccine.  Stanford apologized and has promised to remedy the situation “immediately.”Turkish state-run media said eight people were killed in a fire that broke out in an intensive care unit where COVID-19 patients were being treated.   The Anadolu news agency said the fire erupted Saturday when an oxygen cylinder exploded at Sanko University Hospital in Gaziantep in southern Turkey. A hospital statement said 14 other patients have been transferred to other hospitals.  Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, said Saturday the country would focus on vaccinating high-risk groups over the next several months before beginning to vaccinate the general public. “During the winter and spring seasons, carrying out novel coronavirus vaccination work among some key population groups is of great significance to epidemic prevention,” Zeng, who also is director of State Council’s vaccine R&D working group, said.  The World Health Organization said it has gained access to 2 billion doses of several coronavirus vaccines.  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said access to the vaccines ensures that some 190 countries will be able to inoculate their populations “during the first half of next year.”  South Korea has recorded four straight days of more than 1,000 coronavirus cases.  The government is offering free testing because of the surge, but has not yet decided what, if any, new measures will be imposed to curb the uptick.Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic is the latest European leader to test positive for the coronavirus.  French President Emmanuel Macron has also announced that he has contracted COVID-19.  Both men attended an EU summit last week in Brussels. In Australia, portions of Sydney are set to adhere to new lockdown measures, following an outbreak of 38 cases on the city’s beaches. The lockdown begins late Saturday and goes until midnight Wednesday.   “We’re hoping that will give us sufficient time to get on top of the virus so that we can then ease up for Christmas and the New Year,” said Gladys Berejiklian, the state premier of New South Wales.
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British scientists were scrambling Saturday to work out whether a mutant strain of the coronavirus, which has been spreading rapidly in England this month, may be resistant to the crop of newly developed vaccines.   
 
The strain was first identified on December 13 in the county of Kent in southern England, and initial analysis by government scientists suggests it is “growing faster than the existing variants.”   
 Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference in response to the ongoing situation with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, inside 10 Downing Street, London ,Britain, Dec. 19, 2020.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held an unscheduled meeting of ministers Friday amid mounting alarm about the threat posed by the mutant strain, which has been named VUI — 202012/01. Johnson said at a press conference Saturday there is no evidence so far to suggest vaccines will be any less effective against the new strain, but he added, “There is still much we don’t know.”He noted the new strain is up to 70 percent more transmissible than previous strains.  
 
The British leader announced a virtual lockdown for London and the southeast of England, with people urged to stay at home. All non-essential stores are now to close, and people should not enter or leave the British capital or large parts of southeast of England.  
 More Than 75 Million Global Coronavirus CasesUS has more COVID cases than any other countryHe said,“We can’t continue with Christmas as planned” and noted the relaxation of rules for the holiday that had been previously announced would be reversed. In London and southern England, households now can’t mix to celebrate Christmas. Elsewhere in the country, up to three households can mix but only for Christmas Day itself.  
 
“I must stress how complicated it is to work out, in a situation where things might be growing for other reasons, to really put your finger on that it’s actually the virus that is doing it, but the evidence is pointing in that direction,” Ewan Birney, the deputy director of the European Molecular Biological Laboratory, told the BBC.
 
Midweek health minister Matt Hancock said the new strain may be associated with the faster transmission of the virus in the southeast of England and London, but there was “nothing to suggest” it caused a worse disease, or that it might be resistant to vaccines that have only just received approval in Britain and the U.S.WHO: Equitable, Global Distribution of 2 Billion COVID-19 Vaccine Doses to Begin in 2021Funding shortfall could stop COVAX effort to bring vaccines to poorest nations England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said Britain has alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) about the fast transmissibility of the variant strain. “There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is under way to confirm this,” he said in a statement.
 
Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a government adviser, warned Saturday of his concern. He tweeted, “The new strain of COVID-19 is worrying & real cause for concern & extra caution. Research is ongoing to understand more but acting urgently now is critical. There is no part of the UK & globally that should not be concerned. As in many countries, the situation is fragile.”
 
Johnson also held emergency talks with the first ministers of Britain’s devolved governments in Scotland and Wales. “I attended a four-nation call earlier today to discuss serious concerns over the spread of a new Covid variant,” Wales’ First Minister, Mark Drakeford, tweeted.  
 
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she would be holding discussions with her Cabinet following the four-nation talks and “preventative action may be necessary” to curb the spread of the new strain.  
 Britain’s PM Boris Johnson attends a news conference, together with Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer and Patrick Vallance, UK Gov. Chief Scientific Adviser, in response to the ongoing situation with the coronavirus, London , Dec. 19, 2020.The new variant includes up to 23 changes, including with the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells allowing it to replicate. There have been many mutations in the virus since it emerged last year in Wuhan, China, with 4,000 mutations in the spike protein alone. Virologists say most mutations are insignificant and are part of the expected evolution of the virus, but some may lead to more efficient transmission.  
 
According to the government’s scientific advisers, the new strain is fast becoming the dominant strain, and they say it might be present in other countries.
 
“Scientists are working extremely hard to work out what is going on,” Mark Walport, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), told The Times newspaper.
 
“But it does definitely seem possible that this transmits more easily. It will make the social distancing even more critical,” he added. Government scientists say it could take two weeks for scientists to establish how the new strain reacts to vaccines, but virologists are hoping that a single change won’t diminish the efficacy of vaccines, which are designed to produce antibodies against many different parts of the spike protein.  
 
Hospitals in England are seeing a record number of patients suffering from COVID-19, the disease triggered by the coronavirus. About 38 million people in England already were under tough coronavirus restrictions before Saturday’s announcement. The new measures amount to a virtual lockdown, something Johnson had said just a few days ago he would do everything to avoid.
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Irma Baralija is looking forward to Sunday, when she intends to vote and hopes win her race in the first local election in 12 years held in her hometown — the southern Bosnian city of Mostar.To make that possible, the 36-year-old Baralija had to sue her country in the European Court of Human Rights for letting a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties in Bosnia prevent her, along about 100,000 other Mostar residents, from voting or running in a municipal election for over a decade.By winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes she has “busted the myth (that nationalist parties) have been feeding to us, that an individual cannot move things forward, that we matter only as members of our ethnic groups.”Parties representing only one ethnic group have dominated Bosnian politics since the end of the country’s devastating 1992-95 war, which pitted its three main ethnic factions — Serbs, Croats and Muslims — against each other after the break-up of Yugoslavia.”I hope that my example will inspire citizens of Mostar, when they vote on Sunday, to be brave, to realize that as individuals we can bring positive change,” said Baralija, who is running for a seat in the city council on the ticket of the small, multi-ethnic Our Party.Divided between Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control over the city during the 1990s conflict, Mostar has not held local polls since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared its election rules to be discriminatory and ordered that they be changed.The dominant nationalist Bosniak and Croat political parties, the SDA and the HDZ respectively, have spent over a decade failing to agree about how to do that. Meanwhile, Mostar was run by a de facto acting mayor, HDZ’s Ljubo Beslic, and his office, which included the SDA’s representatives, with no local council to oversee their work or the allocation of nearly 230 million euros from the city’s coffers they have spent over the years.Left without fully functioning institutions, Mostar — one of the Balkan nation’s main tourist destinations — had seen its infrastructure crumble, trash repeatedly pile up on its streets and hazardous waste and wastewater treatment sludge dumped in its only landfill, which was supposed to be for non-hazardous waste.An agreement between the two parties, endorsed by the top European Union and the U.S. diplomats in Bosnia, was finally reached last June — eight months after the court in Strasbourg had ruled in favor of Baralija and gave Bosnia six months to amend its election laws so a vote can be held in Mostar.A city dividedMostar is divided in half by a river. During the war, Croats moved to the western side and Muslims to the east. Since the fighting stopped, the city has had two post offices, two electricity and water suppliers, two phone networks, two public hospitals and more — one crumbling set for each ethnic group.On Sunday, several small, multiethnic parties will be vying for seats in the city council after campaigning on bread-and-butter issues. But the nationalist HDZ and SDA parties hope that, among them, they will secure a two-thirds majority in the council and keep their grip on power.While acknowledging that the nationalists have armies of faithful voters whom they mobilize by stoking ethnic mistrust, non-nationalist election candidates in Mostar hope the past 12 years has shown that those two parties are too corrupt and incompetent.”I think that many people finally realized that the abstract, ethnic interests are meaningless while their children are leaving (Mostar) in droves in search of decent jobs and a decent life” elsewhere in Europe, said Amna Popovac, a candidate from the multi-ethnic Platform for Progress party.The nationalists are now promising to fix the city’s many problems as if “Martians and not they were running Mostar, unchecked, for the past 12 years,” she added.Miljan Rupar’s name will also be on the ballot. The 35-year-old, who is running as a candidate from the multi-ethnic Social Democrat Party, decided to get involved in politics after realizing that over 38 friends and relatives, including his sister, had left Mostar “for good” in search of a better life abroad.Rupar wants his city focused on the future, just like the international school where he teaches physics, the United World College branch in Mostar. The school is one of 17 around the globe and run by a movement founded in 1962 with the aim of overcoming Cold War divisions by bringing high-achieving youngsters from all over to live and learn together.”When I walk into the classroom or attend our bi-weekly assembly and see students and teachers from all over the world, including from various parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who share the same values and goals, it gives me hope,” he said.Political journalist Faruk Kajtaz, however, thinks that hope could prove to be treacherous in the divided city, despite local voters’ well-justified grievances. He notes that not just Mostar but all of Bosnia has long been politically and administratively fragmented along ethnic lines.”Maybe too much is expected from the people of Mostar,” he said. “(But) just the fact that citizens of Mostar will finally get a chance to vote for their local legislators is in itself a big win for democracy.”   
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Bulgaria accuses a Russian diplomat of spying and is expelling him from the country.  “The foreign ministry of the Republic of Bulgaria declared persona non grata a diplomat from the Russian embassy in Sofia and gave him 72 hours to leave the country due to activities incompatible with his diplomatic status,” Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said in a statement Friday.Russia said the charges against its diplomat are “groundless.” Prosecutors say the diplomat had been gathering information for years on the deployment of U.S. troops in Bulgaria. The U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria said in a statement: “We have in recent weeks and months seen too many examples of Russian officials carrying out aggressive actions, from espionage in Bulgaria to poisoning opponents both at home and abroad. Bulgaria is a strong NATO ally and partner and has an unalienable right to defend its sovereignty.”Neither Bulgaria nor Russia revealed the identity of the diplomat, but the Associated Press reports that local media identified the diplomat as Colonel Vasiliy Sazanovich.Bulgaria has expelled at least five Russia diplomats over the past year that it has accused of spying. The eastern European country is a NATO and European Union member, but it was once one of Russia’s closest allies during the Cold War. 
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The Trump administration has notified Congress that it intends to shutter the two remaining U.S. consulates in Russia.The State Department told lawmakers last week that it would permanently close the consulate in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok and temporarily suspend operations at the consulate in Yekaterinburg just east of the Ural Mountains.The notice was sent to Congress on Dec. 10 but received little attention at the time. That timing predates by three days the public emergence of news about a major suspected Russian computer intrusion into U.S. government and private computer systems that has raised grave cybersecurity fears.The department’s notification to Congress, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, says the closures are because of caps placed by Russian authorities in 2017 on the number of U.S. diplomats allowed to work in the country.Artists from Russia’s city of Yekaterinburg work on the ice sculpture “Muse of Victory” during the annual international festival of snow and ice sculptures “Magical Ice of Siberia”, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia Feb. 28, 2019.The moves are “in response to ongoing staffing challenges of the U.S. Mission in Russia in the wake of the 2017 Russian-imposed personnel cap on the U.S. Mission and resultant impasse with Russia over diplomatic visas,” it said.Following the closures, the only diplomatic facility the U.S. will have in Russia will be the embassy in Moscow. Russia ordered the closure of the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg in 2018 after the U.S. ordered the Russian consulate in Seattle closed in tit-for-tat actions over the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain.The consulate in Vladivostok had been temporarily closed in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, and staffers there had already begun removing sensitive equipment, documents and other items. The consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg employ a total of 10 American diplomats and 33 local staff.The exact timing of the closures has yet to be determined. The American staff are to be relocated to the embassy in Moscow, while the locals will be laid off, according to the notice. The department estimated the permanent closure of the Vladivostok consulate would save $3.2 million per year.The closures will leave the U.S. without diplomatic representation in a massive swath of Russia — everywhere east of Moscow — and present a major inconvenience for American travelers in Russia’s far east, as well as Russians in the region seeking visas to come to the United States, as all consular services will be handled out of the Moscow embassy.
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France says it arrested four people linked to a September 25 meat cleaver attack in Paris, outside the former offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The four are of Pakistani origin, as is the main suspect, Agence France-Presse reported. Two people were wounded in the attack. According to news reports, the four were arrested Monday, with one being charged two days later with taking part in a terrorist conspiracy. The remaining three were set to be charged, as well. The four were suspected of knowing about the attack beforehand and encouraging Zaheer Hassan Mahmoud to carry it out, according to a report in the Le Parisien newspaper. Mahmoud, who said he wanted to attack the magazine for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, was arrested after the attack and remains in custody. Two days before the arrest, a French court convicted 13 accomplices in the 2015 gun attack on Charlie Hebdo offices that killed 12 and wounded 11.Charlie Hebdo vacated those offices after the 2015 attack and is now in a secret location. In October, a Chechen refugee in a Paris suburb beheaded a teacher, Samuel Paty, who had shown the Hebdo cartoons to his pupils. 
 
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The Swiss government Friday ordered all bars, restaurants, cultural venues and sports facilities to close next week because of a surging number of coronavirus cases.At a news conference, Health Minister Alain Berset said the new restrictions, which take effect Tuesday, are necessary because the situation in health facilities ”is not tenable in the long term.”The government will also restrict the number of people who can be inside stores, which must close after 7 p.m. and on Sundays and public holidays.While the closures include restaurants and bars at ski resorts, the federal government is leaving it to Switzerland’s 26 cantons — or states — to decide whether to close skiing facilities.But Berset cautioned they should “think carefully” about their decision “because hospitals are full and putting a lot of people on snow slopes can lead to an increase in accidents and we need to be very careful.”The Swiss health minister’s cautionary stance is a reversal from earlier this month. As other European nations announced plans to close their ski facilities for at least the first several weeks of the season, he said Swiss resorts would be allowed to stay open if they put in place safety measures such as masks, proper hygiene, social distancing and limited capacity for bars and restaurants.At the time, he said he realized the stance could raise regional tensions, but said “We are a sovereign country and can decide ourselves what the facts are on our territory.”The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Switzerland has risen over the past two weeks from 43 cases per 100,000 people on December 3 to 50 cases per 100,000 people on Thursday.  
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UNICEF UK, for the first time in its 70-year history, is giving food assistance to Britain’s children whose families have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.   A little more than $1 million will be distributed to 30 organizations.  UNICEF UK’s action has angered a British politician, accusing the United Nations Children’s Fund of playing a “political stunt.” Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said Thursday in the Commons: “I think it’s a real scandal that UNICEF should be playing politics in this way when it is meant to be looking after people in the poorest, the most deprived countries in the world, where people are starving, where there are famines and there are civil wars … It is a political stunt of the lowest order.”Not all politicians agreed with Rees-Mogg.  Ed Davey, the Liberal Democratic Leader, called Rees-Mogg’s comments “abhorrent – a modern-day version of ‘let them eat cake.’”“The only scandal here is this rotten Tory government leaving 4.2 million children living in poverty,” said Angela Rayner, Labor’s deputy leader.  UNICEF UK said in a statement that an estimated 2.4 million British children were already food insecure before the pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron has joined the list of world leaders who has tested positive for the coronavirus.  Macron has left Elysée Palace and is temporarily working at an official residence in Versailles.FILE – The World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge.Dr. Hans Kluge, the regional director of the World Health Organization’s European office, has urged people to stay home during the holidays.  He said in a statement that it is “not worth the risk” of contracting the virus.  Kluge also said the pandemic has created a “growing mental health crisis in Europe.” He added, “From anxieties around virus transmission, the psychological impact of lockdowns and self-isolation, to the effects of unemployment, financial worries and social exclusion – the mental health impact of the pandemic will be long term and far reaching.”There are more than 75 million global COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.The United States has 17.2 million cases, followed by India with almost 10 million and Brazil with 7.1 million cases. 
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In marking International Migrants Day, the United Nations says at least 3,174 migrants have died this year while seeking safety from persecution and violence or in hopes of bettering their impoverished lives.The International Organization for Migration says the number of recorded migrant deaths is likely to be highly underestimated. It says tens of thousands of people embark on dangerous journeys across deserts, jungles and seas. Many thousands do not survive but their deaths, it says, are not recorded.The IOM says the overall number of global migrant deaths recorded this year is lower than in previous years. However, it notes fatalities have increased significantly on some of the migratory routes. For example, IOM spokesman Paul Dillon says at least 593 deaths have been documented in 2020 on route to Spain’s Canary Islands, compared to 45 fatalities in 2018.“An increase in migrants’ deaths was also recorded in South America compared to previous years, with at least 104 lives lost—most of them Venezuelan migrants—compared to fewer than 40 in all previous years,” said Dillion. “This includes at least 23 people who drowned off the coast of Venezuela last weekend. Some 381 men, women and children also lost their lives on the U.S.-Mexican border.”Advocates Warn of More Immigrant Deaths without ICE Action More people will die of the coronavirus in US immigration custody unless the Trump administration rapidly improves conditions and releases more detainees, lawyers and advocates warn, following the first confirmed virus-related death of a detaineeThis year, migration within and on route to Europe claimed the largest number of lives, more than 1,700. Dillon says a significant number of the deaths were among migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.He says migrants are not just statistics. He says they are people who make significant contributions to their countries of migration, especially in this time of coronavirus.“What we see every day are the images of doctors and nurses and support staff in health care facilities and old age homes, many of whom are migrant workers contributing to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saving lives, putting in the long arduous hours on behalf of those who are stricken with the virus,” Dillion said. Dillon says migrants should be welcomed and appreciated for the services and beneficial roles they perform in their adopted societies instead of being vilified and subjected to discrimination.
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