EU countries oust Russia diplomats in Navalny tit-for-tat spat

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By Frank Jordans and Lorne Cook | Associated Press

BERLIN — Germany, Poland and Sweden on Monday each declared a Russian diplomat in their country “persona non grata,” retaliating in kind to last week’s decision by Moscow to expel diplomats from the three European Union countries over the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russia had accused diplomats from Sweden, Poland and Germany of attending a demonstration in support of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile political foe.

“We have informed the Russian Ambassador that a person from the Russian embassy is asked to leave Sweden,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter. “This is a clear response to the unacceptable decision to expel a Swedish diplomat who was only preforming his duties.”

Germany’s foreign ministry said Russia’s decision to expel the European diplomats “was not justified in any way,” insisting that the German Embassy staffer had been acting within his rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to “inform himself about developments on site.”

The ministry added that the decision was taken in close coordination with Poland, Sweden and the EU’s diplomatic service. Poland’s foreign ministry tweeted that “in accordance with the principle of reciprocity” it considers “the diplomat working at the Consulate General in Poznan as a persona non grata.”

In a statement, EU lawmakers also appealed to “all EU Member States to show maximum solidarity with Germany, Poland and Sweden and take all appropriate steps to show the cohesiveness and strength of our Union.”

The parliamentarians called for “a new strategy for the EU’s relations with Russia, centered around support for civil society, which promotes democratic values, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and human rights.”

The tit-for-tat expulsions come as EU officials ponder the future of the 27-nation bloc’s troubled relations with Moscow amid deep concern that their large eastern neighbor sees democracy as a threat and wants to distance itself further from the EU.

Moscow’s decision Friday was as an extra slap in the face for the Europeans because it came as the bloc’s top diplomat — foreign policy chief Josep Borrell — was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Borrell said he learned about the expulsions on social media.

“The messages sent by Russian authorities during this visit confirmed that Europe and Russia are drifting apart,” Borrell wrote in a blog on his return to Brussels. “It seems that Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe and looking at democratic values as an existential threat.”

He said the trip left him “with deep concerns over the perspectives of development of Russian society and Russia’s geostrategic choices,” and the expulsions, which he requested be dropped, “indicate that the Russian authorities did not want to seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue.”

Some EU lawmakers criticized Borrell for going, or for not insisting on visiting Navalny, who was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow after spending months in Germany recovering from a poisoning in Russia with what experts say was the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. On Feb. 2, a Moscow court ordered Navalny to prison for more than 2 1/2 years for violating the terms of his probation while in Germany.

Borrell tried to arrange a prison meeting through Lavrov but was told to take it up with the courts.

“If you are familiar with the court procedures in Russia, you will know that it would take much more time than the duration of the visit,” Borrell’s spokesman, Peter Stano, said Monday.

Ultimately, the trip was never uniquely about Navalny. Russia is a major trading partner and the EU depends on it for natural gas. It’s also a key player in talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has a central role in conflicts that impact on European interests, like those in Syria and Ukraine.

Borrell’s aim was to “deliver firm messages” on the broad state of EU-Russia ties as much as on the imprisonment of Navalny, Stano said. EU foreign ministers will debate the issue Feb. 22 in preparation for the bloc’s leaders to weigh Europe’s Russia strategy at a summit on March 25-26.

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But the real challenge is overcoming the vast divisions between countries on how to approach Russia.

EU heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and German and other ambassadors are reluctant to rapidly wade into any sanctions battle over Navalny.

Despite calls for such punitive measures, particularly among some of Russia’s close but small EU neighbors like Lithuania, Borrell said Friday that no country has officially raised any proposals on who or what organizations to hit with sanctions.

Cook reported from Brussels. Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed.

Showdown in Myanmar: Next generation defies coup leaders

Can Myanmar’s military put a lid on it? Across the country, a third day of protest against the coup of last week that called time on five years of democratic transition. Up until 2011, citizens in one of Asia’s poorest countries had mostly been secluded from the outside world. With Facebook and Twitter now cut and the top leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NDL detained, the junta has certainly stacked the odds in its favor.

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Cryptocurrency should be Apple’s future financial gambit, analyst says

no thanks – https://youtu.be/qBlEJ0teznM Nothing from nothing is still nothing. lol RBC Capital Markets believes that Apple starting a cryptocurrency exchange funded through buying Bitcoin could be a smarter move than producing an “Apple Car.”

Credit: AppleCredit: Apple

In a note to investors seen by Coindesk, RBC analyst Mitch Steves says that Apple could generate more than $40 billion from the cryptocurrency market and make the U.S. a leader in crypto over the next couple of decades.

Read more…

Unilever CEO: “Every Single Country” Is Shifting Towards Plant-Based Diets – Olly

vegan food Read The Best VEGAN Article Last Week According to Alan Jope, CEO of international consumer goods company Unilever, consumers worldwide are shifting toward a plant-based diet. Jope says that plant-based foods are not just a fad

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Myanmar general repeats pledge of new election as thousands join protests against coup | Reuters

Myanmar’s military leader said on Monday his junta would hold a new election and hand power to the winner as tens of thousands of people took to the streets for a third day to protest against the coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government.

Source: Myanmar general repeats pledge of new election as thousands join protests against coup | Reuters

Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago as examples of how smaller countries have been responding to COVID-19

‘Smaller countries proved more agile than [most] of their larger counterparts’

COVID-19 CG illustration by Yuri Samoilov on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica are the only two English speaking countries included in an interactive COVID Performance Index that examines how 98 countries with publicly available data have managed the pandemic so far, following their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19.

Researchers at the Australia-based Lowy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan international policy think tank,” attempted to deconstruct various countries’ responses to the pandemic. Trinidad and Tobago ranked at Number 28, while Jamaica came in at Number 31 on the list.

Sorting countries into various categories—by region, political system, population size, and economic development—the study determined whether significant variations exist when it comes to their handling of the pandemic. The findings showed that “no single type of country emerged the unanimous winner in the period examined,” though “smaller countries (with populations of fewer than 10 million people) proved more agile than the majority of their larger counterparts.”

Interestingly, levels of economic development or differences in political systems between countries had less of an impact on outcomes, though countries with “smaller populations, cohesive societies, and capable institutions” were generally found to have a comparative advantage in dealing with the pandemic.

How the study worked

The approach focused on six areas of measurement over the 36 weeks that followed each country’s hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19, up until January 9, 2021: confirmed cases, confirmed deaths, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths per million, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests and tests per thousand people.

From there, the researchers calculated two-week rolling averages of new daily figures for each of the indicators, followed by an average across those indicators for individual countries in each period to produce a score from 0 to 100 (worst to best performing).

How the Americas fared

In the Americas, which includes the Caribbean region, the spread of the pandemic accelerated during the second wave of the pandemic, making it the worst affected region:

Much of that statistic would have been determined by the large number of COVID-19 cases in countries like the United States and Brazil.

Even now, however, Jamaica’s numbers have been steadily climbing and most recently, St. Lucia—which was not included in the study—declared a national state of emergency, which began on February 3. St. Lucia’s population is just over 180,000 people. As of February 3, the country had recorded 757 active cases and 1,479 total cases, with 16 COVID-related deaths.

Did economic power pay off?

Interestingly, the data revealed that while countries with higher per capita incomes had more resources at their disposal and so far, performed better on average than developing countries, it was a lead they lost by the end of 2020 as second waves began to hit and air travel increased transmission rates.

Meanwhile, much of the Global South was actually able to cope well with the initial outbreak of COVID-19, which the researches ascribed to more preparation time and “a greater sense of urgency […] to put in place preventative measures after the scale and severity of the global crisis became known.”

Jamaica, at the outset, quarantined entire communities and issued travel restrictions against countries like the UK, which had high infection rates. The Caribbean is a popular winter destination for both Europeans and North Americans, and many regional territories introduced travel bans in an effort to keep the virus at bay.

Trinidad and Tobago, meanwhile, put a stop to the arrival of cruise ships and on March 16, 2020 closed its borders completely. While the country has been allowing travel exemptions to repatriate nationals, the borders officially remain closed nearly a year later. Most recently, the government announced that permission would be required for travel both to and from the country.

The Lowy researchers deduced that “low-tech” measures like these, including large-scale lockdowns, “may have created a more level playing field between developed and developing countries in the management of COVID-19.”

However, they noted that the “uneven deployment of the first vaccines against COVID-19 could give richer countries a decisive upper hand in crisis recovery efforts, and leave poorer countries fighting against the pandemic for longer.” This is one of the reasons why the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has called for a global summit to address more equitable distribution:

Comparing Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago

It’s interesting to see how the two Caribbean nations compare, positioned as they are at opposite ends of the archipelago–Jamaica to the north and Trinidad and Tobago to the south. The interactive, which allows users to compare up to five specific countries one one graph, made this easy:

Screenshot comparing the COVID-19 response between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago taken from the Lowy Institute Covid Performance Index.

The study’s methodology noted that fewer reported cases and deaths, both in aggregate and per capita, indicate a better response to the virus. More COVID-19 tests being conducted per capita also offers a more accurate picture of the extent of the pandemic at a national level, and lower rates of positive tests naturally suggest greater control over transmission.

As of February 3, 2021, out of a population of close to three million, Jamaica had performed 170,045 COVID-19 tests (approximately 5.6 per cent), while Trinidad and Tobago, with an estimated population of close to 1.4 million people, had tested 85,910 (approximately 6.1 per cent). Of Jamaica’s COVID-19 tests, 16,250 (9.5 per cent) were positive, while Trinidad and Tobago recorded 7,586 positives (8.8 per cent).

Wikipedia has compiled COVID-19 data from countries around the world here, through which the performance of all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states can be tracked.

Written by Janine Mendes-Franco

Myanmar general repeats pledge of new election as thousands join protests against coup

#Myanmar’s military leader said on Monday his junta would hold a new election and hand power to the winner as tens of thousands of people took to the streets for a third day to against the coup that overthrew Aung San Suu #Kyi’s civilian government.

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To know about Mushrooms-[ Helpful in consuming ] in briefly.

mywordstowards

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Today’s topic on :- Lifestyle + Health related + Awareness + Countries + People

Hi friends today’s about health related and lifestyle related topic in briefly and awareness .

Helpful in consuming mushrooms.

Mushrooms allow you to add extra taste without sodium or fat. You can’t go wrong with mushrooms. The ones that aren’t toxic happen to be quite healthy and tasty too. For many years they’ve been used for their unique ability to add flavor in lots of different cultures’ cuisines. Although they’re actually fungi, mushrooms are lumped in the vegetable category for cooking purposes. They’re fat-free, low-sodium, low-calorie, and cholesterol-free. They’re also packed with fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Nutritional benefits vary depending on the type of mushroom.

They are a good source of the following nutrients:

Photo by Irina Iriser on Pexels.com

Antioxidants: Antioxidants help protect the body from damaging…

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