Covid-19 infections have broken major records in parts of Europe in recent weeks, governments are scrambling to bolster up their defences against the fast-spreading of the Omicron variant. Amid this health crisis, the WHO has called for nations to redouble their efforts to end this pandemic.

Covid-19 infections have broken records in parts of Europe

The COVID-19 infections seem to have broken records in several parts of Europe in recent weeks. Governments are scrambling to bolster up their defenses against fast spreading of Omicron variant.

COVID-19 infections have broken records in parts of Europe

European markets closed sharply lower amid the rapid spread of the omicron Covid-19 variant which triggers stricter containment measures across the continent.

European, Asian markets close lower as omicron worries intensify

For the second year in a row, it's a sombre Christmas in Europe. Just a week ahead of Christmas, parts of Europe are once again going into lockdown mode and tightening covid restrictions as Omicron cases drive up cases and hospitalisations. WION's correspondent Susan Tehrani brings in more on this.

Europe weighs Christmas restrictions amid Omicron scare

Southern Africa has been hit with travel bans after reporting the new Omicron variant. But Europe - with 42 cases of the same variant - faces no such bans. Palki Sharma tells you why such discriminatory policies created Omicron in the first place.

Gravitas: India helps Africa amid Omicron alert

Europe is experiencing a surge in covid-19 cases, a number of newly identified cases are of the recent omicron variant. The European Commission says that the EU needs a daily review of travel restrictions and a rapid deployment of booster doses.

European Commission: EU needs daily review of restrictions amid surge in Omicron variant cases

Dutch health authorities state that the Omicron variant was present in the Netherland even before its first case was reported in South Africa.

Omicron covid variant found in Europe before South Africa

The omicron strain of the coronavirus is cropping up across Europe. The European Commission chief said that the world is in a race against time to understand the new COVID-19 variant.

Omicron adds to Europe’s growing Covid woes, Britain to convene urgent meeting

With Europe facing a massive surge in covid-19 cases, the European Commission chief says the world is in a race against time to understand the new covid variant.

Omicron variant adds to Europe's woes, UK calls G7 meeting to discuss new covid-19 variant

For the second year in a row, it's a sombre Christmas in Europe. Just a week ahead of Christmas, parts of Europe are once again going into lockdown mode and tightening covid restrictions as Omicron cases drive up cases and hospitalisations.

Europe stares at a sombre Christmas in the wake of Omicron surge | Covid-19 News

Parts of Europe are once again going into a lockdown mode because of the surge in cases due to the spread of the Omicron variant. This is the second year in a row that the country is shutting down.

Parts of Europe go into lockdown as Omicron cases surge

The winter season is here, temperatures in parts of Europe have dipped to the freezing point as people expected people are relying on heaters and wood burners to keep themselves warm. However, a new report has warned that wood burning is increasing the contribution to air pollution.

Europe: Wood burners cause half of urban air pollution

European Union threatens Russia with sanctions as it demands 4-way talks between Paris, Berlin, Kyiv and Moscow amid Ukraine invasion fears.

EU wants 4-way talks between Paris, Berlin, Kyiv & Moscow as it threatens Russia with sanctions

Europe has stepped up vaccinations of children aged five to eleven years against covid-19. The move comes at a time when the EU's health agency has warned that immunisation alone would not stop the rapid rise in Omicron cases.

EU ramps up Covid-19 vaccination drive for children aged 5-11

Several protests have been held across Europe against covid mandates, these sporadic protests by anti-vaccination campaigners took an ugly turn when the police had to diffuse a death threat to the state premier of Saxony in east Germany. More details on our next report.

Europe: Violence over proposed covid mandates

Is Russia pushing the world towards the brink of nuclear war? Moscow says it may be forced to deploy mid-range nuclear missiles in Europe. Palki Sharma tells you how tensions between Russia & Europe are growing.

Gravitas: Is Russia pushing the world towards the brink of nuclear war?

Malta will become the first European country to legalise the cultivation and possession of cannabis for personal use.

Malta to legalise cannabis for personal use, supporters hail decision

Toyota Motor Corp committed 8 trillion yen ($70 billion) to electrify its automobiles by 2030, half of it to develop a battery electric vehicle (BEV) line-up, as it looks to tap a growing market for zero-emission cars.

Toyota commits $70 bln to bolster electrification

Russia said it may be forced to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to what it believes as NATO’s plans to do the same.

Russia threatens to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe amid tensions in Ukraine

Amid the ongoing Vienna Talks, where Iran is trying hard for the revival of their nuclear deal, European diplomats denounce & strongly criticize Iran's demands.

European diplomats denounce & strongly criticize Iran's demands

Russia ups the hostile rhetoric as it threatens to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe amid invasion fears in Ukraine. UK PM Boris Johnson asks Putin to de-escalate tensions.

Russia ups the hostile rhetoric | Threatens to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe

Russia on Monday said that it may be forced to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe as a reaction to what it perceives as NATO's plan to do the same.&nbsp;

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's RIA news agency in an interview that Moscow would have to take the step if NATO refused to engage with it on preventing such an escalation.

The comments may heighten tensions as West sees Russia to be preparing for an invasion in Ukraine. The US and its allies are warning Moscow against it.&nbsp;

Missiles that Russia has threatened to deploy are Intermediate nuclear missiles.

Intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe were banned under a 1987 treaty agreed between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in what was hailed at the time as a major easing of Cold War tensions. Washington quit the pact in 2019 after complaining for years of alleged Russian violations.

Ryabkov said there were "indirect indications" that NATO was moving closer to re-deploying INF, including its restoration last month of the 56th Artillery Command which operated nuclear-capable Pershing missiles during the Cold War.

'COMPLETE LACK OF TRUST'

"Lack of progress towards a political and diplomatic solution to this problem will lead to our response being of a military and technical military nature," he said.

"That is, it will be a confrontation, this will the next round, the appearance of such resources on our side. Right now there aren't any, we have a unilateral moratorium. We call for NATO and the U.S. to join this moratorium."

NATO says there will be no new US missiles in Europe and it is ready to deter new Russian missiles with a "measured" response that would only involve conventional weapons.

But Ryabkov said Russia had a "complete lack of trust" in NATO.

"They don't permit themselves to do anything that could somehow increase our security - they believe they can act as they need, to their advantage, and we simply have to swallow all this and deal with it. This is not going to continue."

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden held two hours of talks last week on the Ukraine crisis and Moscow's demand for what it calls legally binding security guarantees from the West.

(With inputs from agencies)

Russia on Monday said that it may be forced to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe as a reaction to what it perceives as NATO's plan to do the same. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's RIA news agency in an interview that Moscow would have to take the step if NATO refused to engage with it on preventing such an escalation.

Russia on Monday said that it may be forced to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe as a reaction to what it perceives as NATO's plan to do the same. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's RIA news agency in an interview that Moscow would have to take the step if NATO refused to engage with it on preventing such an escalation. The comments may heighten tensions as West sees Russia to be preparing for an invasion in Ukraine. The US and its allies are warning Moscow against it. Missiles that Russia has threatened to deploy are Intermediate nuclear missiles. Intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe were banned under a 1987 treaty agreed between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in what was hailed at the time as a major easing of Cold War tensions. Washington quit the pact in 2019 after complaining for years of alleged Russian violations. Ryabkov said there were "indirect indications" that NATO was moving closer to re-deploying INF, including its restoration last month of the 56th Artillery Command which operated nuclear-capable Pershing missiles during the Cold War. 'COMPLETE LACK OF TRUST' "Lack of progress towards a political and diplomatic solution to this problem will lead to our response being of a military and technical military nature," he said. "That is, it will be a confrontation, this will the next round, the appearance of such resources on our side. Right now there aren't any, we have a unilateral moratorium. We call for NATO and the U.S. to join this moratorium." NATO says there will be no new US missiles in Europe and it is ready to deter new Russian missiles with a "measured" response that would only involve conventional weapons. But Ryabkov said Russia had a "complete lack of trust" in NATO. "They don't permit themselves to do anything that could somehow increase our security - they believe they can act as they need, to their advantage, and we simply have to swallow all this and deal with it. This is not going to continue." Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden held two hours of talks last week on the Ukraine crisis and Moscow's demand for what it calls legally binding security guarantees from the West. (With inputs from agencies)

May deploy nuclear missiles in Europe, says Russia

More than half of European workers say they are more productive in their work, thanks to the boom in work from home following the COVID-19 restrictions, a survey showed on Thursday.&nbsp;

As per the survey results, only about 14 per cent of workers want to return to the office for their 9-5 jobs.&nbsp;This survey of 14,000 people across Europe also found that 83 per cent of workers are seeking help from their employers in terms of support in balancing work and home responsibilities.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/work-from-home-and-vaccine-passports-uk-pm-introduces-plan-b-to-battle-surge-in-covid-cases-435295" hreflang="en">Work from home and vaccine passports: UK PM introduces Plan B to battle surge in Covid cases</a>

The survey, commissioned by Samsung Electronics and the consultancy The Future Laboratory, also found that "hybrid working" - a mix of working at home and at the office - also has its downsides. More than a quarter of respondents feel like they worked all hours or into the night when hybrid working was in place.

Eurostat data show that approximately 12 per cent of employed people in the European Union typically worked from home in 2020, compared to less than 5 per cent before the pandemic.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/popular-childrens-books-from-west-including-disney-classics-outdated-sexist-racist-study-435214" hreflang="en">Popular children’s books from west, including Disney classics, ‘outdated, sexist, racist’: Study</a>

"With presenteeism now an outdated concept, employers need to think carefully about how they meet the demands of modern hybrid living," Benjamin Braun, vice president for Samsung Europe, said in a statement.

According to the survey, two-thirds of Europeans have made - or intend to make - home improvements in order to ease hybrid living, such as creating office spaces in their houses, while 41 per cent have moved houses for this purpose.

The survey of the world's largest memory chip and smartphone manufacturer found that 51 per cent said technology was useful for setting boundaries, such as mobile alarms and time management apps.

"We are likely to see tech stepping in to monitor our mental health and happiness as much as our physical health, with smart devices becoming our wellbeing assistants," said Meik Wiking, chief executive of Denmark's Happiness Research Institute, which is collaborating with Samsung on the future of work.

More than half of European workers say they are more productive in their work, thanks to the boom in work from home following the COVID-19 restrictions, a survey showed on Thursday.

More than half of European workers say they are more productive in their work, thanks to the boom in work from home following the COVID-19 restrictions, a survey showed on Thursday. As per the survey results, only about 14 per cent of workers want to return to the office for their 9-5 jobs. This survey of 14,000 people across Europe also found that 83 per cent of workers are seeking help from their employers in terms of support in balancing work and home responsibilities. Also read | Work from home and vaccine passports: UK PM introduces Plan B to battle surge in Covid cases The survey, commissioned by Samsung Electronics and the consultancy The Future Laboratory, also found that "hybrid working" - a mix of working at home and at the office - also has its downsides. More than a quarter of respondents feel like they worked all hours or into the night when hybrid working was in place. Eurostat data show that approximately 12 per cent of employed people in the European Union typically worked from home in 2020, compared to less than 5 per cent before the pandemic. Also read | Popular children’s books from west, including Disney classics, ‘outdated, sexist, racist’: Study "With presenteeism now an outdated concept, employers need to think carefully about how they meet the demands of modern hybrid living," Benjamin Braun, vice president for Samsung Europe, said in a statement. According to the survey, two-thirds of Europeans have made - or intend to make - home improvements in order to ease hybrid living, such as creating office spaces in their houses, while 41 per cent have moved houses for this purpose. The survey of the world's largest memory chip and smartphone manufacturer found that 51 per cent said technology was useful for setting boundaries, such as mobile alarms and time management apps. "We are likely to see tech stepping in to monitor our mental health and happiness as much as our physical health, with smart devices becoming our wellbeing assistants," said Meik Wiking, chief executive of Denmark's Happiness Research Institute, which is collaborating with Samsung on the future of work.

'Yes' to work from home; survey finds that not even 15% Europeans want to go back to office

It was vintage Angela Merkel: The woman who has dominated European politics for the better part of two decades handed over her office to the next German chancellor, thanked her staff, then walked to the door and made an exit — her final one.

After 16 years as leader of Germany and unofficial leader of Europe, Merkel on Wednesday left the office she first took over when President George W. Bush was still in the White House in a characteristically understated way.

“Congratulations dear Mr. Chancellor, dear Olaf Scholz,” Merkel told her successor in a small gathering at the chancellery. “I know from my own experience that it is a moving moment to be elected into this office.”

“It is an exciting, fulfilling duty, a challenging duty, too,” Merkel said, “but if you embrace it with joy it is perhaps one of the most beautiful duties there are to be responsible for this country.”

Long the world’s most powerful female leader, Merkel was the central political figure in Germany and Europe through four U.S. presidents and five British and eight Italian prime ministers. Her steady accretion of authority drew admirers and detractors alike, but she remained a singular source of stability for the continent through repeated crises.

Criticized for having failed to groom a successor, Merkel, a Christian Democrat, may well have done so in the end. Only — much to the frustration of her own party — it was a member of her traditional opposition, Scholz, a Social Democrat and her last finance minister, who was sworn in Wednesday after a campaign that promised continuity.

Still, Merkel’s departure marks the end of a dominant era of German politics that she herself called “eventful and often very challenging” — and the beginning of a new and uncertain chapter for Germany and Europe.

“It was a big period during which you were chancellor of this country and you did big things,” Scholz said after she had formally handed over the chancellery and its staff to him. “There were some big crises we had to deal with, some of them we weathered together.”

“That welded us together and not just these events,” Scholz added. “Between us there was always very trusting collaboration. That is good, I believe, because it shows that we are a strong, capable democracy in which there is a lot of consensus between democrats, cooperation.”

Many who worked closely with the departing German chancellor point to her sense of dedication and willingness to compromise as the basis for her power.

“She was — and she is — the person who was always going in deeply prepared, with a deep sense of responsibility, always looking for the result,” said Dalia Grybauskaite, who first met Merkel in Brussels in 2005 and went on to collaborate with her during her own decade-long term as president of Lithuania. “And she was ready to compromise to achieve that result.”

The full imprint that Merkel, a pastor’s daughter from the former communist East, made on her country and continent will reveal itself only in the years ahead. But for now the fulcrum of her legacy is widely considered to be her decision in 2015 and 2016 to welcome more than 1 million asylum seekers into Germany.

The decision sharply divided her country — particularly along the old East-West fault line — and fueled the emergence of a far-right nationalist movement that grew stronger than at any time since the Nazis.

But it also softened Germany’s image abroad and established her country as a liberal beacon as populism threatened the very foundations of the West’s democratic order.

“Angela Merkel changed Germany’s image in the world — in a way she saved Germany’s honor,” said Naika Foroutan, an immigration expert and professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. “It went against all expectations that this explicit humanitarian gesture would come from Germany. That symbolic turn, that Germany, the country with the ugly face, proved the rock and took people in, is associated with Angela Merkel.”

The other period that defined her time in power was Europe’s debt crisis, and her tightfisted prescription for long years of painful budget cuts as a way out of it — something many southern Europeans still have not forgiven her for more than a decade later.

“In parts of Europe Merkel is seen much more negatively than in other parts of the world,” Foroutan said.

The same is true in Germany itself: Wildly popular in the far more populous West of the country, Merkel is hated in swathes of the former Communist East, where she grew up. The East has become the stronghold of the Alternative for Germany, a party created on her watch and the first far-right party to have made it into the German parliament since World War II.

“I know my face is polarizing,” Merkel conceded two years ago in the eastern city of Chemnitz after it became the scene of violent far-right riots. Toward the end of her time in office, protesters would hold weekly vigils outside the chancellery and show up to public events she attended to shout “Merkel must go!”

At the time, her approval ratings were dropping fast and it looked like she might not make it politically through her full fourth term. It was the pandemic that gave Merkel, a trained scientist of famously calm temperament, another honeymoon in the opinion polls.

Scholz, who was her finance minister during the last four years, has a very similar temperament and capitalized on the parallels. “Not that much will change,” he told the staff in the chancellery on Wednesday.

“The transition from Merkel to Scholz is so harmonious that you’ve got to ask: What is it between those two?” the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung posited in a recent article. “Merkel was often accused of failing to cultivate a successor. But maybe that isn’t true.”

Much to her own party’s irritation, Merkel said that she would “sleep tight at night” knowing that Scholz was running the country. She invited Scholz to accompany her to a Group of 20 meeting in Rome in October to introduce him to leaders like President Joe Biden. She has involved him in every major decision since the election two months ago. Last the two jointly presided over a COVID emergency meeting with the governors of Germany’s 16 states.

During a military farewell ceremony for Merkel last week, she wished Scholz — whom she called “Dear Olaf” — “all the best and a lucky hand and much success.” He promptly replied with a compliment of his own. “Angela Merkel was a successful chancellor,” he said the same night on Twitter. “She tirelessly stood up for her country and during 16 years in which a lot changed, stayed true to herself.”

Many Germans expressed pride in how smoothly Merkel handled the transition, drawing direct comparisons to the refusal of former President Donald Trump and his supporters to recognize the election of Biden.

“We are witnessing a very good democratic transition where there is a basic consensus,” said Christoph Heusgen, Merkel’s former chief foreign policy adviser, who this week took over the presidency of the Munich Security Conference. “I am a little proud of our democracy the way it’s managed this transition without schadenfreude, without hatred, without malice.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Merkel had watched from the visitor’s gallery in parliament — where her own family had sat four times to watch her sworn in — as lawmakers voted Scholz into office. She got a standing ovation from the chamber, before quietly slipping out a back door.

From the moment she took the oath of office in 2005, Merkel embodied a string of firsts — first chancellor born after World War II, first to hail from the former East, first woman. Now she has also made history becoming the first modern chancellor to leave office, not by losing an election or a parliamentary vote, but by deciding she had served long enough.

One of the people who has most closely documented Merkel’s political career is Herlinde Koelbl, a photographer who began taking her portrait in 1991, just after she had come into office as minister for families and children under Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

In an early interview she gave to Koelbl, the outgoing chancellor insisted she wanted to “find the right time to quit politics.” At 67 she is more than a decade younger than Biden and, after a self-imposed period of rest and reflection, can be expected to refocus her energies on promoting ideals and ideas she championed while in office, from global public health to development in Africa.

But comparing Koelbl’s most recent photos to those of the young Merkel, the toll of 16 years at the help of Europe’s largest economy are visible. Gone is the open, curious gaze, replaced by a more distant, skeptical look.

“In the beginning, she had very lively eyes,” Koelbl said, “and now she looks at you, but the liveliness is gone. The glow disappeared in her eyes.”

On Wednesday, as she left the handover ceremony in the chancellery, Merkel appeared relaxed, happy even. Walking to the door, she turned to Scholz.

“And now to work,” she said.

It was vintage Angela Merkel: The woman who has dominated European politics for the better part of two decades handed over her office to the next German chancellor, thanked her staff, then walked to the door and made an exit — her final one.

It was vintage Angela Merkel: The woman who has dominated European politics for the better part of two decades handed over her office to the next German chancellor, thanked her staff, then walked to the door and made an exit — her final one. After 16 years as leader of Germany and unofficial leader of Europe, Merkel on Wednesday left the office she first took over when President George W. Bush was still in the White House in a characteristically understated way. “Congratulations dear Mr. Chancellor, dear Olaf Scholz,” Merkel told her successor in a small gathering at the chancellery. “I know from my own experience that it is a moving moment to be elected into this office.” “It is an exciting, fulfilling duty, a challenging duty, too,” Merkel said, “but if you embrace it with joy it is perhaps one of the most beautiful duties there are to be responsible for this country.” Long the world’s most powerful female leader, Merkel was the central political figure in Germany and Europe through four U.S. presidents and five British and eight Italian prime ministers. Her steady accretion of authority drew admirers and detractors alike, but she remained a singular source of stability for the continent through repeated crises. Criticized for having failed to groom a successor, Merkel, a Christian Democrat, may well have done so in the end. Only — much to the frustration of her own party — it was a member of her traditional opposition, Scholz, a Social Democrat and her last finance minister, who was sworn in Wednesday after a campaign that promised continuity. Still, Merkel’s departure marks the end of a dominant era of German politics that she herself called “eventful and often very challenging” — and the beginning of a new and uncertain chapter for Germany and Europe. “It was a big period during which you were chancellor of this country and you did big things,” Scholz said after she had formally handed over the chancellery and its staff to him. “There were some big crises we had to deal with, some of them we weathered together.” “That welded us together and not just these events,” Scholz added. “Between us there was always very trusting collaboration. That is good, I believe, because it shows that we are a strong, capable democracy in which there is a lot of consensus between democrats, cooperation.” Many who worked closely with the departing German chancellor point to her sense of dedication and willingness to compromise as the basis for her power. “She was — and she is — the person who was always going in deeply prepared, with a deep sense of responsibility, always looking for the result,” said Dalia Grybauskaite, who first met Merkel in Brussels in 2005 and went on to collaborate with her during her own decade-long term as president of Lithuania. “And she was ready to compromise to achieve that result.” The full imprint that Merkel, a pastor’s daughter from the former communist East, made on her country and continent will reveal itself only in the years ahead. But for now the fulcrum of her legacy is widely considered to be her decision in 2015 and 2016 to welcome more than 1 million asylum seekers into Germany. The decision sharply divided her country — particularly along the old East-West fault line — and fueled the emergence of a far-right nationalist movement that grew stronger than at any time since the Nazis. But it also softened Germany’s image abroad and established her country as a liberal beacon as populism threatened the very foundations of the West’s democratic order. “Angela Merkel changed Germany’s image in the world — in a way she saved Germany’s honor,” said Naika Foroutan, an immigration expert and professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. “It went against all expectations that this explicit humanitarian gesture would come from Germany. That symbolic turn, that Germany, the country with the ugly face, proved the rock and took people in, is associated with Angela Merkel.” The other period that defined her time in power was Europe’s debt crisis, and her tightfisted prescription for long years of painful budget cuts as a way out of it — something many southern Europeans still have not forgiven her for more than a decade later. “In parts of Europe Merkel is seen much more negatively than in other parts of the world,” Foroutan said. The same is true in Germany itself: Wildly popular in the far more populous West of the country, Merkel is hated in swathes of the former Communist East, where she grew up. The East has become the stronghold of the Alternative for Germany, a party created on her watch and the first far-right party to have made it into the German parliament since World War II. “I know my face is polarizing,” Merkel conceded two years ago in the eastern city of Chemnitz after it became the scene of violent far-right riots. Toward the end of her time in office, protesters would hold weekly vigils outside the chancellery and show up to public events she attended to shout “Merkel must go!” At the time, her approval ratings were dropping fast and it looked like she might not make it politically through her full fourth term. It was the pandemic that gave Merkel, a trained scientist of famously calm temperament, another honeymoon in the opinion polls. Scholz, who was her finance minister during the last four years, has a very similar temperament and capitalized on the parallels. “Not that much will change,” he told the staff in the chancellery on Wednesday. “The transition from Merkel to Scholz is so harmonious that you’ve got to ask: What is it between those two?” the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung posited in a recent article. “Merkel was often accused of failing to cultivate a successor. But maybe that isn’t true.” Much to her own party’s irritation, Merkel said that she would “sleep tight at night” knowing that Scholz was running the country. She invited Scholz to accompany her to a Group of 20 meeting in Rome in October to introduce him to leaders like President Joe Biden. She has involved him in every major decision since the election two months ago. Last the two jointly presided over a COVID emergency meeting with the governors of Germany’s 16 states. During a military farewell ceremony for Merkel last week, she wished Scholz — whom she called “Dear Olaf” — “all the best and a lucky hand and much success.” He promptly replied with a compliment of his own. “Angela Merkel was a successful chancellor,” he said the same night on Twitter. “She tirelessly stood up for her country and during 16 years in which a lot changed, stayed true to herself.” Many Germans expressed pride in how smoothly Merkel handled the transition, drawing direct comparisons to the refusal of former President Donald Trump and his supporters to recognize the election of Biden. “We are witnessing a very good democratic transition where there is a basic consensus,” said Christoph Heusgen, Merkel’s former chief foreign policy adviser, who this week took over the presidency of the Munich Security Conference. “I am a little proud of our democracy the way it’s managed this transition without schadenfreude, without hatred, without malice.” Earlier on Wednesday, Merkel had watched from the visitor’s gallery in parliament — where her own family had sat four times to watch her sworn in — as lawmakers voted Scholz into office. She got a standing ovation from the chamber, before quietly slipping out a back door. From the moment she took the oath of office in 2005, Merkel embodied a string of firsts — first chancellor born after World War II, first to hail from the former East, first woman. Now she has also made history becoming the first modern chancellor to leave office, not by losing an election or a parliamentary vote, but by deciding she had served long enough. One of the people who has most closely documented Merkel’s political career is Herlinde Koelbl, a photographer who began taking her portrait in 1991, just after she had come into office as minister for families and children under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In an early interview she gave to Koelbl, the outgoing chancellor insisted she wanted to “find the right time to quit politics.” At 67 she is more than a decade younger than Biden and, after a self-imposed period of rest and reflection, can be expected to refocus her energies on promoting ideals and ideas she championed while in office, from global public health to development in Africa. But comparing Koelbl’s most recent photos to those of the young Merkel, the toll of 16 years at the help of Europe’s largest economy are visible. Gone is the open, curious gaze, replaced by a more distant, skeptical look. “In the beginning, she had very lively eyes,” Koelbl said, “and now she looks at you, but the liveliness is gone. The glow disappeared in her eyes.” On Wednesday, as she left the handover ceremony in the chancellery, Merkel appeared relaxed, happy even. Walking to the door, she turned to Scholz. “And now to work,” she said.

Merkel departs, opening a new chapter for Germany and Europe

As fear of a new variant has taken over the region, a Reuters tally state that Europe has surpassed 75 million coronavirus cases. The European Union's public health agency has warned that within a few months, the new Covid variant could be responsible for more than half of all the cases.&nbsp;

Before Omicron was even discovered, Europe had become the epicentre of the pandemic, for the second time.&nbsp;

As of now, the UK has reported the highest total number of coronavirus cases in the region followed by Russia, France and Germany.

The WHO had warned that 700,000 more people could die from coronavirus by March 2022, taking the total to above 2.2 million.&nbsp;WHO had said that it is expected that there will be high or extreme stress on hospital beds in 25 countries, and high or extreme stress in intensive care units in 49 out of 53 countries until March 1, 2022.

Eastern Europe comprised 33 per cent of the total reported cases and nearly 53 per cent of the total reported deaths. This accounts for around 39 per cent of the population in the region.

As per data by Reuters, the pandemic started speeding up in the second half of 2021.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/who-warns-as-europe-could-hit-over-2-million-covid-19-deaths-by-march-2022-431737">Also read |&nbsp;WHO warns as Europe could hit over 2 million COVID-19 deaths by March 2022</a>

In order to battle with the growing cases, the ECDC has recommended vaccine boosters for all adults, prioritising those over 40.&nbsp;

"Available evidence emerging from Israel and the UK shows a significant increase in protection against infection and severe disease following a booster dose in all age groups in the short term," the ECDC said.

Many countries in Europe have already started rolling out the booster shots. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday tweeted that "boosters should be available for adults, with priority for people over 40 and vulnerable people."

Latvia, which is one of the least vaccinated countries in the EU, bodies at were seen piled up on top of each other, unclaimed for days. In the Czech Republic, where only 62 per cent of the population has received just one dose of the vaccine, hospitals are burdened with patients infected by the deadly virus.

(With inputs from agencies)

As fear of a new variant has taken over the region, a Reuters tally state that Europe has surpassed 75 million coronavirus cases. The European Union's public health agency has warned that within a few months, the new Covid variant could be responsible for more than half of all the cases.

As fear of a new variant has taken over the region, a Reuters tally state that Europe has surpassed 75 million coronavirus cases. The European Union's public health agency has warned that within a few months, the new Covid variant could be responsible for more than half of all the cases. Before Omicron was even discovered, Europe had become the epicentre of the pandemic, for the second time. As of now, the UK has reported the highest total number of coronavirus cases in the region followed by Russia, France and Germany. The WHO had warned that 700,000 more people could die from coronavirus by March 2022, taking the total to above 2.2 million. WHO had said that it is expected that there will be high or extreme stress on hospital beds in 25 countries, and high or extreme stress in intensive care units in 49 out of 53 countries until March 1, 2022. Eastern Europe comprised 33 per cent of the total reported cases and nearly 53 per cent of the total reported deaths. This accounts for around 39 per cent of the population in the region. As per data by Reuters, the pandemic started speeding up in the second half of 2021. Also read | WHO warns as Europe could hit over 2 million COVID-19 deaths by March 2022 In order to battle with the growing cases, the ECDC has recommended vaccine boosters for all adults, prioritising those over 40. "Available evidence emerging from Israel and the UK shows a significant increase in protection against infection and severe disease following a booster dose in all age groups in the short term," the ECDC said. Many countries in Europe have already started rolling out the booster shots. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday tweeted that "boosters should be available for adults, with priority for people over 40 and vulnerable people." Latvia, which is one of the least vaccinated countries in the EU, bodies at were seen piled up on top of each other, unclaimed for days. In the Czech Republic, where only 62 per cent of the population has received just one dose of the vaccine, hospitals are burdened with patients infected by the deadly virus. (With inputs from agencies)

As fears of new variant looms, Europe surpasses 75 million Covid cases

The world's biggest automaker complies with tighter emission rules in the region, Toyota Motor Corp said all new vehicle sales in Western Europe will be zero-emission models by 2035.

Toyota will sell only zero-emission cars in Europe by 2035

The United States and Iran both sounded pessimistic about the chances of reviving the 2015 Iran Nuclear deal. Washington said that it had little cause for optimism while Tehran has questioned the sincerity of the American and European negotiators.

US and Iran voice pessimism about revival of 2015 Nuclear deal

The United States, Canada, and European allies expanded sanctions on Belarus placing restrictions on government officials and entities for human rights abuses and official support for "migrant smuggling."

US, Europe expand sanctions on Belarus over 'migrant smuggling'

The Belt and Road initiative faces a new challenger. Is EU's "Global Gateway" a viable alternative to counter Chinese debt traps? Can democracies unite to dismantle Chinese colonies worldwide? Palki Sharma brings you an assessment.

Gravitas: Europe wants to neutralise Chinese debt traps

European countries desperate for a long-term and reliable source of energy to help reach ambitious climate goals are turning to an answer that caused earlier generations to shudder: nuclear power.

Poland wants a fleet of smaller nuclear power stations to help end its reliance on coal. Britain is betting on Rolls-Royce to produce cheap modular reactors to complement wind and solar energy. And in France, President Emmanuel Macron plans to build on the nation’s huge nuclear program.

As world leaders pledge to avert a climate catastrophe, the nuclear industry sees an opportunity for a revival. Sidelined for years after the disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl, advocates are wrangling to win recognition of nuclear energy, alongside solar and wind, as an acceptable source of clean power.

More than half a dozen European countries recently announced plans to build a new generation of nuclear reactors. Some are smaller and cheaper than older designs, occupying the space of two football fields and costing a fraction of the price of standard nuclear plants. The Biden administration is also backing such technology as a tool of “mass decarbonization” for the United States.

“Nuclear is going mainstream in the climate movement,” said Kirsty Gogan, a member of Britain’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board and a founder of TerraPraxis, a nonprofit that supports nuclear energy in the shift to a green economy. “This is a critical decade, and I think we’re going to see real change.”

But not everyone is buying the idea that nuclear is a solution to climate change.

Ten years ago, a few months after an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which forced the evacuation of over 150,000 people, the German government announced it would gradually shut down its nuclear program. Now Germany is at the head of a group of nations that want to defuse efforts to include more nuclear power in Europe’s green energy mix. They are worried about a proliferation of nuclear plants on European soil, and the radioactive waste they produce.

The pushback is creating tensions with France, Europe’s largest nuclear energy producer, which has forged an unusual alliance with Eastern European countries that want to attract more investment for nuclear power, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

The group is pressing the European Union to classify nuclear energy as a “sustainable” investment, a move that would unlock billions of euros of state aid and investment from pension funds, banks and other investors seeking to put money in environmental causes. Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain have joined Germany in trying to beat back the initiative in Brussels.

The nuclear industry’s main selling point is a technology involving scaled-down plants, or small modular reactors, that supporters say are safe, cheap and efficient. The argument is that wind and solar power alone won’t be enough to help countries meet the goals outlined at the U.N. climate summit this month in Glasgow, Scotland.

Nearly 200 countries at the conference pledged new efforts to prevent Earth from heating more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with preindustrial levels. Past that threshold, the risk of deadly heat waves and storms, water scarcity and ecosystem collapse escalates immensely, scientists warn.

But countries are falling far short even as they step up investments in wind and solar power, whose output varies with the elements. The reopening of the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic caused a recent spike in energy prices and set European governments scrambling to secure alternative supplies of power.

Nuclear advocates say that experience shows the need for a new generation of nuclear power.

“Nuclear has a really important role to play in getting to net zero for many countries,” said Tom Samson, chief executive of Rolls-Royce SMR, which has been working for six years on a commercial small modular nuclear reactor design — and feels its moment has arrived.

Rolls-Royce, which announced the venture this month, is jumping into a multibillion-dollar market for small nuclear reactors, competing with companies like NuScale, GE Hitachi and TerraPower (which has Bill Gates as its chairman) in the United States; Électricité de France, the French state-owned power company; China’s National Nuclear Corp.; and KEPCO in South Korea.

Samson pitches the venture as a new approach to an industry notorious for delays and cost overruns, and mostly avoided by investors. Rolls-Royce, which makes jet engines and supplies the power plant for the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet, hopes to build 16 of the plants in Britain and generate export sales as well.

The cookie-cutter components will be factory-built and transportable by truck or ship. Initially the plants are expected to cost 2.2 billion pounds ($3 billion) each, compared with an estimated 22.5 billion pound price tag for a full-size plant now under construction in western England.

Drawings of the Rolls-Royce reactor show a compact, futuristic building in a verdant landscape. One reactor would have roughly one-seventh the output of the largest modern nuclear stations and could power 1 million homes.

Labor unions in Britain and Europe back the initiatives, arguing that nuclear plants generate jobs and are preferable to renewable technologies like a solar field, which don’t require many workers to maintain.

Critics say nuclear power is hardly a solution for accelerating the push to net-zero emissions.

For one thing, new nuclear stations, even small ones, will take up to a decade or more to come online, in part because of regulatory requirements, nowhere near fast enough to address a climate emergency. The first Rolls-Royce reactor wouldn’t be in operation until 2031.

And safety questions have lingered after high-profile nuclear accidents, along with unresolved concerns over the storage of radioactive waste.

Croatia is opposing a nuclear reactor project in Slovenia that would deposit some nuclear waste near their border. Germany is objecting to a planned Polish reactor that the German Green party said would most likely contaminate Germany in the event of an accident.

The ability of small nuclear reactors to produce energy quickly or cheaply enough to matter for countries is also unclear, said Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow and a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hibbs, who is based in Germany, noted that 10 such reactors might be required to do the same job as one large modern nuclear power station.

Said Doug Parr, chief scientist for Greenpeace in Britain: “It doesn’t solve the problems for society; it solves the problems for the nuclear industry.” He added, “They want to come up with a new concept that does not have the bad image of large nuclear.”

Those pushing for a nuclear revival say such concerns are overblown.

In France, Macron this month announced he would reboot the nation’s atomic program to “live up to” France’s commitments to slash carbon emissions. A recent government-commissioned report concluded France probably can’t achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 with only renewable energy.

His government is expected to authorize state-owned Électricité de France to build six new pressurized reactors and spend billions to help EDF produce small modular nuclear reactors by 2030. The work would be a lifeline for EDF, which is over 40 billion euros ($45 billion) in debt after contending with nuclear plant construction delays and cost overruns.

In Eastern Europe, the rush is already underway.

Poland, Romania and Ukraine, long reliant on coal-burning power plants, are among those signing contracts with U.S. and European companies for small-reactor technology. Poland alone plans to build large nuclear reactors and at least half a dozen small ones at coal sites to produce power and create jobs.

“The ability to bring new electric power generation in a shorter time frame and with a lower total project cost is a primary driver,” said John Kotek, vice president for policy development and public affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group in Washington.

Still, Europe’s divide over nuclear power remains sharp enough that policymakers may not be ready to support a nuclear buildup program — even if they sorely want to achieve climate change targets.

“It would be impossible to build any consensus policy in Brussels that would strongly support member states’ investment in nuclear power,” said Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment. “It would be left up to the national governments to do that.”

But as investors look at where to deploy trillions of dollars in assets in the shift away from fossil fuels, nuclear power is becoming harder to ignore.

“The general consensus in climate circles is nuclear is a clean energy source,” said Marisa Drew, chief sustainability officer at Credit Suisse. “If someone can deliver something that is economically viable and scalable and truly green, and do it in a safe way, then we have to embrace that.”

European countries desperate for a long-term and reliable source of energy to help reach ambitious climate goals are turning to an answer that caused earlier generations to shudder: nuclear power.

European countries desperate for a long-term and reliable source of energy to help reach ambitious climate goals are turning to an answer that caused earlier generations to shudder: nuclear power. Poland wants a fleet of smaller nuclear power stations to help end its reliance on coal. Britain is betting on Rolls-Royce to produce cheap modular reactors to complement wind and solar energy. And in France, President Emmanuel Macron plans to build on the nation’s huge nuclear program. As world leaders pledge to avert a climate catastrophe, the nuclear industry sees an opportunity for a revival. Sidelined for years after the disasters at Fukushima and Chernobyl, advocates are wrangling to win recognition of nuclear energy, alongside solar and wind, as an acceptable source of clean power. More than half a dozen European countries recently announced plans to build a new generation of nuclear reactors. Some are smaller and cheaper than older designs, occupying the space of two football fields and costing a fraction of the price of standard nuclear plants. The Biden administration is also backing such technology as a tool of “mass decarbonization” for the United States. “Nuclear is going mainstream in the climate movement,” said Kirsty Gogan, a member of Britain’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board and a founder of TerraPraxis, a nonprofit that supports nuclear energy in the shift to a green economy. “This is a critical decade, and I think we’re going to see real change.” But not everyone is buying the idea that nuclear is a solution to climate change. Ten years ago, a few months after an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which forced the evacuation of over 150,000 people, the German government announced it would gradually shut down its nuclear program. Now Germany is at the head of a group of nations that want to defuse efforts to include more nuclear power in Europe’s green energy mix. They are worried about a proliferation of nuclear plants on European soil, and the radioactive waste they produce. The pushback is creating tensions with France, Europe’s largest nuclear energy producer, which has forged an unusual alliance with Eastern European countries that want to attract more investment for nuclear power, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The group is pressing the European Union to classify nuclear energy as a “sustainable” investment, a move that would unlock billions of euros of state aid and investment from pension funds, banks and other investors seeking to put money in environmental causes. Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain have joined Germany in trying to beat back the initiative in Brussels. The nuclear industry’s main selling point is a technology involving scaled-down plants, or small modular reactors, that supporters say are safe, cheap and efficient. The argument is that wind and solar power alone won’t be enough to help countries meet the goals outlined at the U.N. climate summit this month in Glasgow, Scotland. Nearly 200 countries at the conference pledged new efforts to prevent Earth from heating more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with preindustrial levels. Past that threshold, the risk of deadly heat waves and storms, water scarcity and ecosystem collapse escalates immensely, scientists warn. But countries are falling far short even as they step up investments in wind and solar power, whose output varies with the elements. The reopening of the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic caused a recent spike in energy prices and set European governments scrambling to secure alternative supplies of power. Nuclear advocates say that experience shows the need for a new generation of nuclear power. “Nuclear has a really important role to play in getting to net zero for many countries,” said Tom Samson, chief executive of Rolls-Royce SMR, which has been working for six years on a commercial small modular nuclear reactor design — and feels its moment has arrived. Rolls-Royce, which announced the venture this month, is jumping into a multibillion-dollar market for small nuclear reactors, competing with companies like NuScale, GE Hitachi and TerraPower (which has Bill Gates as its chairman) in the United States; Électricité de France, the French state-owned power company; China’s National Nuclear Corp.; and KEPCO in South Korea. Samson pitches the venture as a new approach to an industry notorious for delays and cost overruns, and mostly avoided by investors. Rolls-Royce, which makes jet engines and supplies the power plant for the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet, hopes to build 16 of the plants in Britain and generate export sales as well. The cookie-cutter components will be factory-built and transportable by truck or ship. Initially the plants are expected to cost 2.2 billion pounds ($3 billion) each, compared with an estimated 22.5 billion pound price tag for a full-size plant now under construction in western England. Drawings of the Rolls-Royce reactor show a compact, futuristic building in a verdant landscape. One reactor would have roughly one-seventh the output of the largest modern nuclear stations and could power 1 million homes. Labor unions in Britain and Europe back the initiatives, arguing that nuclear plants generate jobs and are preferable to renewable technologies like a solar field, which don’t require many workers to maintain. Critics say nuclear power is hardly a solution for accelerating the push to net-zero emissions. For one thing, new nuclear stations, even small ones, will take up to a decade or more to come online, in part because of regulatory requirements, nowhere near fast enough to address a climate emergency. The first Rolls-Royce reactor wouldn’t be in operation until 2031. And safety questions have lingered after high-profile nuclear accidents, along with unresolved concerns over the storage of radioactive waste. Croatia is opposing a nuclear reactor project in Slovenia that would deposit some nuclear waste near their border. Germany is objecting to a planned Polish reactor that the German Green party said would most likely contaminate Germany in the event of an accident. The ability of small nuclear reactors to produce energy quickly or cheaply enough to matter for countries is also unclear, said Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow and a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hibbs, who is based in Germany, noted that 10 such reactors might be required to do the same job as one large modern nuclear power station. Said Doug Parr, chief scientist for Greenpeace in Britain: “It doesn’t solve the problems for society; it solves the problems for the nuclear industry.” He added, “They want to come up with a new concept that does not have the bad image of large nuclear.” Those pushing for a nuclear revival say such concerns are overblown. In France, Macron this month announced he would reboot the nation’s atomic program to “live up to” France’s commitments to slash carbon emissions. A recent government-commissioned report concluded France probably can’t achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 with only renewable energy. His government is expected to authorize state-owned Électricité de France to build six new pressurized reactors and spend billions to help EDF produce small modular nuclear reactors by 2030. The work would be a lifeline for EDF, which is over 40 billion euros ($45 billion) in debt after contending with nuclear plant construction delays and cost overruns. In Eastern Europe, the rush is already underway. Poland, Romania and Ukraine, long reliant on coal-burning power plants, are among those signing contracts with U.S. and European companies for small-reactor technology. Poland alone plans to build large nuclear reactors and at least half a dozen small ones at coal sites to produce power and create jobs. “The ability to bring new electric power generation in a shorter time frame and with a lower total project cost is a primary driver,” said John Kotek, vice president for policy development and public affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group in Washington. Still, Europe’s divide over nuclear power remains sharp enough that policymakers may not be ready to support a nuclear buildup program — even if they sorely want to achieve climate change targets. “It would be impossible to build any consensus policy in Brussels that would strongly support member states’ investment in nuclear power,” said Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment. “It would be left up to the national governments to do that.” But as investors look at where to deploy trillions of dollars in assets in the shift away from fossil fuels, nuclear power is becoming harder to ignore. “The general consensus in climate circles is nuclear is a clean energy source,” said Marisa Drew, chief sustainability officer at Credit Suisse. “If someone can deliver something that is economically viable and scalable and truly green, and do it in a safe way, then we have to embrace that.”

Europe revisits nuclear power as climate deadlines loom

After more than a week sleeping in a frigid encampment on the border between Belarus and Poland, and an abortive foray across the frontier repelled by pepper spray and police batons, Mohammad Faraj gave up this month and retreated to a warm hotel in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

Soon after, however, he watched with surprise and excitement a video report on Facebook claiming that Poland was about to open its border and urging all those who wanted to enter the European Union to gather at a gas station near the encampment that the migrants had nicknamed “the jungle.”

Faraj, a 35-year-old ethnic Kurd from Iraq, rushed back to the squalid camp he had just left, traveling 190 miles from Minsk to the gas station just in time for the opening of the border in early November that he had heard about on Facebook.

The Polish border, of course, remained tightly shut, and Faraj spent the next 10 days back in what he described as “like something out of a horror movie.”

The EU, offering robust support to Poland’s hard-line stand against migrants, has blamed the traumas of recent weeks on its eastern border on the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko.

Belarusian authorities certainly have helped stoke the crisis, offering easy tourist visas to thousands of Iraqis and easing their way to the border with Poland.

But social media, particularly Facebook, also have given Lukashenko a vital assist, as an unpredictable accelerant to the hopes and illusions of people who have fallen prey to the empty promises of profiteers and charlatans on the internet.

Some were in it for money, promising to smuggle migrants across borders for hefty fees; some appeared to bask in the attention they received as online “influencers” for sharing information; others seemed motivated by a genuine desire to help people suffering. There has been no evidence to suggest a coordinated campaign by Lukashenko to target migrants with fake information online.

Fake news on Facebook, said Faraj, who last week was moved from the border encampment along with 2,000 other denizens of “the jungle,” to a giant nearby warehouse converted into a migrant holding center, “poured mud on our heads and destroyed our lives.”

Since July, activity on Facebook in Arabic and Kurdish related to migration to the EU through Belarus has been “skyrocketing,” said Monika Richter, head of research and analysis for Semantic Visions, an intelligence firm that tracked social media activity related to the crisis.

“Facebook exacerbated this humanitarian crisis, and now you have all these people who were brought over and explicitly misled and ripped off,” Richter said.

Researchers said smugglers openly shared their phone numbers and advertised their services on Facebook, including video testimonials from people said to have reached Germany successfully via Belarus and Poland. In one post, a smuggler advertised “daily trips from Minsk to Germany with only a 20 km walking distance.” The journey, a writer warned in another post Oct. 19, is “not suitable for children due to the cold.” Another smuggler with the Facebook username “Visa Visa” pitched trips to Germany from Belarus through Poland. The smuggler said the trip would take eight to 15 hours but added a warning: “Don’t call if you are afraid.”

Friday, despite the bitter experience of so many promises on Facebook that turned out to be false, a ripple of excitement swept across despondent people huddled in the warehouse after reports on social media that it was still possible to get into Europe — for anyone willing to pay $7,000 to a guide who claimed to know any easy route across the Belarus-Poland frontier and through massed ranks of Polish soldiers and border guards on the other side.

Rekar Hamid, a former math teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan who had already paid around $10,000 to travel agents in Iraq for a “package tour” that was supposed to get himself, his wife and young child to Europe but only got them locked up in a warehouse, scoffed at the latest offer as yet another scam. “They keep saying the door is opening, but look where we all are now,” he said, gesturing toward a mass of people huddled on the concrete floor.

Musa Hama, another Kurd from Iraq confined to the warehouse, lamented that no amount of fact-checking would prevent people grasping at straws of hope provided by Facebook. “People are desperate so they believe anything,” he said.

The stampede by migrants to Belarus in the hope of getting into the EU began earlier this year when the authoritarian former Soviet republic relaxed tightfisted visa policies for certain countries, notably Iraq. The relaxation was ostensibly an effort to boost tourism at a time when most Westerners were staying away following a brutal crackdown by Lukashenko in response a contested presidential election.

Sensing a lucrative business opportunity, travel companies in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Region started advertising on Facebook and other platforms about the availability of visas to Belarus. Smugglers used social media to pitch Belarus as an easy backdoor to Europe.

Since July, Semantic Visions has identified dozens of Facebook groups created to share information about migration routes and used by smugglers to advertise their services.

A private group titled “Migration of the powerful from Belarus to Europe” exploded from 13,600 members in early September to roughly 30,000 currently, according to Semantic Visions. Another group, “Belarus Online,” grew from 7,700 members to 23,700 during the same period. On Telegram, a messaging and chat room platform, channels devoted to Belarus as a route to Europe have also attracted thousands of members.

“Our findings reveal the extent to which social media platforms — particularly Facebook — have been used as a de facto market for smuggling into the European Union,” Semantic Visions concluded in a recent report that has been circulated among EU officials.

Facebook, now officially known as Meta after a corporate name change, said it prohibited material that facilitates or promotes human smuggling and has dedicated teams to monitor and detect material related to the crisis. It added that the company was working with law enforcement agencies and nongovernmental organizations to counter the flood of fake news relating to migration.

“People smuggling across international borders is illegal and ads, posts, pages or groups that provide, facilitate or coordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We remove this content as soon as we become aware of it.”

But the events in Belarus have exposed how, even after Facebook experienced a similar abuse of its services during the European migration crisis in 2015, the company still struggles to keep banned material off its platform, especially in non-English languages.

“Facebook is not taking their responsibility seriously, and as a direct consequence of that we see desperate people in the cold, in the mud, in the forest in Belarus, in a desperate situation, all because they believe the misinformation that was provided to them through Facebook,” said Jeroen Lenaers, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands who is a leader on the legislature’s committee that handles migration issues.

It is unclear what, if any, steps Facebook has taken to deal with misleading and potentially dangerous information.

One Kurdish-German influencer widely known online as Karwan Rawanduzy is a popular figure among would-be migrants to Europe, but his online videos and other reports frequently promote bogus stories, like the claim that Poland would open its border in early November.

Rawanduzy’s live posts on a Facebook page named Kurdisch News had more than 100,000 followers before it was disabled in November after the Kurdish-German influencer said a Polish politician had publicly accused him of helping to fuel the crisis. The page also featured videos sent by hungry and cold migrants trapped along the border.

Reached by phone in Hamburg, Germany, Rawanduzy said he was repeating information about pressure on Poland to open the border that he said had been reported by German media. He blamed smugglers and countries including Poland for the misery faced by migrants and that he was simply trying to help the asylum-seekers.

Rawanduzy, 42, describes himself as an immigration activist and a former refugee who left Iraq in 2009, two years after a suicide bombing in Irbil wounded him.

Faraj is still furious that he followed the advice of Rawanduzy, widely known by his first name, Karwan, by rushing from Minsk back to the border. “Everyone knows him, and everyone follows him,” he said. He added: “Karwan tricked us all on Facebook.”

Rawanduzy, who also owns a restaurant, said it was “not for me to feel bad or guilty” about people persuaded by his posts. “It is up to the Iraqi and Kurdish government to feel bad for all the reasons people want to escape.”

After more than a week sleeping in a frigid encampment on the border between Belarus and Poland, and an abortive foray across the frontier repelled by pepper spray and police batons, Mohammad Faraj gave up this month and retreated to a warm hotel in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

After more than a week sleeping in a frigid encampment on the border between Belarus and Poland, and an abortive foray across the frontier repelled by pepper spray and police batons, Mohammad Faraj gave up this month and retreated to a warm hotel in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Soon after, however, he watched with surprise and excitement a video report on Facebook claiming that Poland was about to open its border and urging all those who wanted to enter the European Union to gather at a gas station near the encampment that the migrants had nicknamed “the jungle.” Faraj, a 35-year-old ethnic Kurd from Iraq, rushed back to the squalid camp he had just left, traveling 190 miles from Minsk to the gas station just in time for the opening of the border in early November that he had heard about on Facebook. The Polish border, of course, remained tightly shut, and Faraj spent the next 10 days back in what he described as “like something out of a horror movie.” The EU, offering robust support to Poland’s hard-line stand against migrants, has blamed the traumas of recent weeks on its eastern border on the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. Belarusian authorities certainly have helped stoke the crisis, offering easy tourist visas to thousands of Iraqis and easing their way to the border with Poland. But social media, particularly Facebook, also have given Lukashenko a vital assist, as an unpredictable accelerant to the hopes and illusions of people who have fallen prey to the empty promises of profiteers and charlatans on the internet. Some were in it for money, promising to smuggle migrants across borders for hefty fees; some appeared to bask in the attention they received as online “influencers” for sharing information; others seemed motivated by a genuine desire to help people suffering. There has been no evidence to suggest a coordinated campaign by Lukashenko to target migrants with fake information online. Fake news on Facebook, said Faraj, who last week was moved from the border encampment along with 2,000 other denizens of “the jungle,” to a giant nearby warehouse converted into a migrant holding center, “poured mud on our heads and destroyed our lives.” Since July, activity on Facebook in Arabic and Kurdish related to migration to the EU through Belarus has been “skyrocketing,” said Monika Richter, head of research and analysis for Semantic Visions, an intelligence firm that tracked social media activity related to the crisis. “Facebook exacerbated this humanitarian crisis, and now you have all these people who were brought over and explicitly misled and ripped off,” Richter said. Researchers said smugglers openly shared their phone numbers and advertised their services on Facebook, including video testimonials from people said to have reached Germany successfully via Belarus and Poland. In one post, a smuggler advertised “daily trips from Minsk to Germany with only a 20 km walking distance.” The journey, a writer warned in another post Oct. 19, is “not suitable for children due to the cold.” Another smuggler with the Facebook username “Visa Visa” pitched trips to Germany from Belarus through Poland. The smuggler said the trip would take eight to 15 hours but added a warning: “Don’t call if you are afraid.” Friday, despite the bitter experience of so many promises on Facebook that turned out to be false, a ripple of excitement swept across despondent people huddled in the warehouse after reports on social media that it was still possible to get into Europe — for anyone willing to pay $7,000 to a guide who claimed to know any easy route across the Belarus-Poland frontier and through massed ranks of Polish soldiers and border guards on the other side. Rekar Hamid, a former math teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan who had already paid around $10,000 to travel agents in Iraq for a “package tour” that was supposed to get himself, his wife and young child to Europe but only got them locked up in a warehouse, scoffed at the latest offer as yet another scam. “They keep saying the door is opening, but look where we all are now,” he said, gesturing toward a mass of people huddled on the concrete floor. Musa Hama, another Kurd from Iraq confined to the warehouse, lamented that no amount of fact-checking would prevent people grasping at straws of hope provided by Facebook. “People are desperate so they believe anything,” he said. The stampede by migrants to Belarus in the hope of getting into the EU began earlier this year when the authoritarian former Soviet republic relaxed tightfisted visa policies for certain countries, notably Iraq. The relaxation was ostensibly an effort to boost tourism at a time when most Westerners were staying away following a brutal crackdown by Lukashenko in response a contested presidential election. Sensing a lucrative business opportunity, travel companies in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Region started advertising on Facebook and other platforms about the availability of visas to Belarus. Smugglers used social media to pitch Belarus as an easy backdoor to Europe. Since July, Semantic Visions has identified dozens of Facebook groups created to share information about migration routes and used by smugglers to advertise their services. A private group titled “Migration of the powerful from Belarus to Europe” exploded from 13,600 members in early September to roughly 30,000 currently, according to Semantic Visions. Another group, “Belarus Online,” grew from 7,700 members to 23,700 during the same period. On Telegram, a messaging and chat room platform, channels devoted to Belarus as a route to Europe have also attracted thousands of members. “Our findings reveal the extent to which social media platforms — particularly Facebook — have been used as a de facto market for smuggling into the European Union,” Semantic Visions concluded in a recent report that has been circulated among EU officials. Facebook, now officially known as Meta after a corporate name change, said it prohibited material that facilitates or promotes human smuggling and has dedicated teams to monitor and detect material related to the crisis. It added that the company was working with law enforcement agencies and nongovernmental organizations to counter the flood of fake news relating to migration. “People smuggling across international borders is illegal and ads, posts, pages or groups that provide, facilitate or coordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We remove this content as soon as we become aware of it.” But the events in Belarus have exposed how, even after Facebook experienced a similar abuse of its services during the European migration crisis in 2015, the company still struggles to keep banned material off its platform, especially in non-English languages. “Facebook is not taking their responsibility seriously, and as a direct consequence of that we see desperate people in the cold, in the mud, in the forest in Belarus, in a desperate situation, all because they believe the misinformation that was provided to them through Facebook,” said Jeroen Lenaers, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands who is a leader on the legislature’s committee that handles migration issues. It is unclear what, if any, steps Facebook has taken to deal with misleading and potentially dangerous information. One Kurdish-German influencer widely known online as Karwan Rawanduzy is a popular figure among would-be migrants to Europe, but his online videos and other reports frequently promote bogus stories, like the claim that Poland would open its border in early November. Rawanduzy’s live posts on a Facebook page named Kurdisch News had more than 100,000 followers before it was disabled in November after the Kurdish-German influencer said a Polish politician had publicly accused him of helping to fuel the crisis. The page also featured videos sent by hungry and cold migrants trapped along the border. Reached by phone in Hamburg, Germany, Rawanduzy said he was repeating information about pressure on Poland to open the border that he said had been reported by German media. He blamed smugglers and countries including Poland for the misery faced by migrants and that he was simply trying to help the asylum-seekers. Rawanduzy, 42, describes himself as an immigration activist and a former refugee who left Iraq in 2009, two years after a suicide bombing in Irbil wounded him. Faraj is still furious that he followed the advice of Rawanduzy, widely known by his first name, Karwan, by rushing from Minsk back to the border. “Everyone knows him, and everyone follows him,” he said. He added: “Karwan tricked us all on Facebook.” Rawanduzy, who also owns a restaurant, said it was “not for me to feel bad or guilty” about people persuaded by his posts. “It is up to the Iraqi and Kurdish government to feel bad for all the reasons people want to escape.”

How fake news on Facebook helped fuel a border crisis in Europe

europe-0

Europe, News on Europe, stories on Europe, articles on Europe, Europe stories at Wion, Europe news, Europe latest news

europe 0

Covid-19 infections have broken records in parts of Europe

COVID-19 infections have broken records in parts of Europe

European, Asian markets close lower as omicron worries intensify

Europe weighs Christmas restrictions amid Omicron scare

Gravitas: India helps Africa amid Omicron alert

European Commission: EU needs daily review of restrictions amid surge in Omicron variant cases

Omicron covid variant found in Europe before South Africa

Omicron adds to Europe’s growing Covid woes, Britain to convene urgent meeting

Omicron variant adds to Europe's woes, UK calls G7 meeting to discuss new covid-19 variant

Europe stares at a sombre Christmas in the wake of Omicron surge | Covid-19 News

Parts of Europe go into lockdown as Omicron cases surge

Europe: Wood burners cause half of urban air pollution

EU wants 4-way talks between Paris, Berlin, Kyiv & Moscow as it threatens Russia with sanctions

EU wants 4-way talks between Paris, Berlin, Kyiv & Moscow as it threatens Russia with sanctions

EU ramps up Covid-19 vaccination drive for children aged 5-11

Europe: Violence over proposed covid mandates

Gravitas: Is Russia pushing the world towards the brink of nuclear war?

Malta to legalise cannabis for personal use, supporters hail decision

Toyota commits $70 bln to bolster electrification

Russia threatens to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe amid tensions in Ukraine

European diplomats denounce & strongly criticize Iran's demands

Russia ups the hostile rhetoric | Threatens to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe

May deploy nuclear missiles in Europe, says Russia

'Yes' to work from home; survey finds that not even 15% Europeans want to go back to office