In recent weeks they also stormed the track at the British Grand Prix, earning themselves the support of Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton.

Others have had a more mixed reaction to the group’s protests. From branding them as ‘extreme’ and ‘unnecessary’ to accusations of privilege among those who took part.

So who are the activists behind these contentious protests and what exactly do they want?

We spoke to two members of Just Stop Oil to find out in their own words.

Who are Just Stop Oil?

Founded back in December, Just Stop Oil was created to put pressure on the UK government to stop new and existing fossil fuel deals. It is a coalition of different groups inspired by organisers from Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion.

Their message has spread and, as group member Indigo Rumbelow tells Euronews Green, has brought a much broader range of participants than people might expect.

“Right now in prison is Dr Diana Warner. She’s a GP, and she’s 62,” Indigo says.

“And there’s, also in prison, a 29 year old bricklayer from the north of England, Josh Smith.”

Smith was part of the group that disrupted the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 3 July.

Twenty year old Hannah Torrance Bright is a student at Glasgow School of Art. She is also one of the people that glued themselves to Horatio McCulloch’s painting ‘My Heart Is In The Highland’ at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow in June.

Hannah glued to Horatio McCulloch's painting ‘My Heart Is In The Highland’ at 
Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow.Just Stop Oil

“I’m doing stuff that I never thought I would be doing in my entire life,” she says.

But being terrified of the consequences of the climate crisis is one of the reasons Hannah says she is taking part. Regardless of whether people are engaged with the issue, she says, it’s not “us versus them” as everyone will be affected.

“I think we’re all scared. So much of the response around this has just been out of fear, and hyper focusing on little details of what we’re doing to avoid actually talking about the bigger issue.”

What do Just Stop Oil want?

As the name suggests, Just Stop Oil’s demands are relatively straightforward.

“We demand that the government immediately halts all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK,” Indigo explains.

They aren’t here to be liked, she says, comparing what they are doing to the suffragettes and adding that any effective social movement won’t be immediately popular.

“I want a future and I want my government to stop trying to kill me.”

It isn’t about personal actions or small individual choices but the government’s response to an “emergency” situation. We are rapidly running out of time to take action, Indigo adds.

In the words of the UK’s ex-chief scientific advisor Sir David King in 2021, what we do in the next three or four years will determine the future of humanity.

“And I guess in the short term, directly from our actions, what I want from people who aren’t in the government, is to join us,” says Indigo.

“It’s so easy. I’m not doing this because I’m brave or insane or any of those things. I’m just doing it because I care and I’m afraid.”

Why are they gluing themselves to paintings?

The two activists say that, though Just Stop Oil has specific targets for their actions, the widespread nature of their protests is meant to break through the illusion that everything is okay.

“The aim was just to say to our culture, basically, that you can’t be hiding from this. At this stage, everyone is responsible, everyone is going to be impacted by the climate crisis,” says Hannah.

The art world, she says, doesn’t exist in isolation.

“I’m an art student, myself, and it does sometimes feel like the art world views itself as existing in isolation from the rest of the world. But, you know, the climate crisis affects all of us.”

Stewards remove a Just Stop Oil protester from a match between Tottenham Hotspur 
and West Ham United in March. IAN KINGTON/AFP

They have targeted the oil industry, art galleries and even football matches where protesters tied themselves to goalposts at Premier League football matches back in March.

“That’s just the beginning,” Indigo adds.

“We want to show that this illusion that everything is okay is just not true and that we’re in an emergency, and we should act like that.”

What does Just Stop OIl have to say to their critics?

In recent weeks, Just Stop Oil’s actions have attracted a lot of attention through the media and social networks. Not all of it has been positive.

So what do they have to say to those who believe these actions are ‘unnecessary’ or ‘extreme’?

“I think the fact that it has got so much media attention, that it has got so many people talking about it – [people] for whom this was off their radar before – I don’t think it’s in any way unnecessary,” Hannah says.

The art student adds that she isn’t doing this because she wants to, it isn’t for fun. Regardless of how people react, the consequences of the climate crisis are impacting people around the world right now.

“I don’t think it’s extreme at all. You know, we glued ourselves to the frames of the paintings,” she says.

“I think the fact that the government is effectively displacing half the [world’s] population is a lot more extreme.”

Activists from Just Stop Oil sit on top of a fuel tank truck, as police officers 
stand guard, during a protest, at a roundabout in west London, Britain, April 
14 2022. HENRY NICHOLLS/REUTERS

Hannah adds that 3.5 billion people are expected to be made climate migrants in the next 50 years. With the unfathomable impacts of climate change and the warnings of scientists, she believes inaction, particularly by those in power, is the more extreme approach.

“Instead of putting that fear into outrage at us, put it into outrage at what the government is doing to all of us and the entire planet right now – and then do something.”

Indigo adds that it isn’t a never-ending campaign. Rather, the group is posing the UK government a question.

“It’s either going to stop licencing new oil, which will end our campaign of civil disobedience or to continue licencing new oil, in which case we will continue.”

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It comes after the first case was detected in a person who recently flew into the UK from Nigeria on May 7.

The patient received specialist care in an isolation unit at Guy’s and St Thomas’ infectious disease hospital unit in London, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

The UKHSA didn’t release any details about the person’s sex or age but said it was working to identify anyone who has been in close contact with the infected patient, including people who traveled on the same flight.

The latest cases are from the same household but are not linked to the earlier case. Of the two patients, one was receiving treatment at St Mary’s Hospital in London while the other one was isolated, UKHSA said.

Public Health Scotland has now begun assisting in tracing contacts of one of the patients north of the border where “a small number of individuals” were now in quarantine, a standard procedure the agency said.

What are the symptoms of monkeypox?

Monkeypox is a relative of smallpox, a disease that was eradicated in 1980, but is less transmissible, causes milder symptoms and is less deadly.

The illness typically lasts for two to four weeks and symptoms can appear anywhere from five to 21 days after infection.

Monkeypox symptoms usually begin with a mix of fever, headaches, muscle aches, backache, chills, exhaustion, and swollen lymph nodes.

This latter symptom is typically what helps doctors distinguish monkeypox from chickenpox or smallpox, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Once you have a fever, the key feature of monkeypox, a nasty rash, tends to develop one to three days later, often starting on the face and then spreading to other parts of the body.

The number of lesions may range from a few to thousands.

The lesions will go through an ugly ripening process, from macules (flat lesions) to papules (raised lesions), vesicles (fluid-filled lesions), then pustules (pus-filled lesions) and then finally scabs (crusty lesions) before eventually falling off.

File - A 7-year-old Zairian girl with monkeypox in the acute stage, day 7 of rash, 
and monkeypox in a 3-year-old Zairian boy with rash in the scabbing stage, 
DRC, 1970-1977.WHO /Mark V. Szczeniowski

Why is it called monkeypox?

Monkeypox virus belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae. It was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in lab monkeys kept for research, hence the name.

But monkeys might not be the ones to blame for outbreaks, and the natural reservoir of monkeypox remains unknown, though the WHO says rodents are the most likely.

“In Africa, evidence of monkeypox virus infection has been found in many animals including rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian poached rats, dormice, different species of monkeys,” says the UN health agency.

Where is monkeypox found?

Human monkeypox primarily causes outbreaks in the tropical rainforest regions of Central and West Africa and is not typically seen in Europe.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had the first recorded human case of monkeypox in 1970.

Since then, cases have been reported in 11 African countries: Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan.

The first outbreak of monkeypox reported outside of Africa was linked to the importation of infected mammals in 2003 in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

More recently, in 2018 and 2019, two travelers from the United Kingdom, one from Israel, and one from Singapore, all with travel history in Nigeria, were diagnosed with monkeypox following a large outbreak there, according to Europe’s own health agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC),

How do you catch monkeypox?

You can catch the virus from the bite or scratch of an infected animal, by eating bush meat, being in direct contact with an infected human, or touching contaminated bedding or clothing.

The virus enters the body through skin lesions, the respiratory tract, or mucous membranes (the eyes, nose, or mouth).

Human-to-human transmission is thought to occur primarily through large respiratory droplets, which generally cannot travel more than a few feet, so prolonged face-to-face contact would be needed.

A child affected by monkeypox receives treatment at a center of the 
NGO Doctors Without Borders, in Zomea Kaka, in the Central African Republic, 
on October 18, 2018. CHARLES BOUESSEL / AFP

Should I be worried?

Monkeypox “is usually a mild self-limiting illness and most people recover within a few weeks,” the UKHSA said in its statement confirming the case.

“It is important to emphasize that monkeypox does not spread easily between people and the overall risk to the general public is very low,” said Dr. Colin Brown, the agency’s director of clinical and emerging infections.

Although its symptoms are milder than those of smallpox, monkeypox has been shown to cause death in as many as 11 percent of infected patients compared to about 30 percent of smallpox, according to the WHO.

Mortality is higher among children and young adults, and immunocompromised individuals are especially at risk of severe disease.

Treatment and prevention

There is currently no specific treatment recommended for monkeypox, and it usually goes away on its own.

Vaccination against smallpox is believed to be highly effective in preventing monkeypox, but because smallpox was declared eradicated more than 40 years ago, first-generation smallpox vaccines are no longer available to the general public.

A newer vaccine developed by Bavarian Nordic for the prevention of smallpox and monkeypox has been approved in the European Union, the United States and Canada (under the trade names Imvanex, Jynneos and Imvamune), and antivirals are also under development.

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The development of a new generation of nuclear power will ensure its rapid expansion, he says, as a “clean, reliable and safe energy source”.

So what is driving the UK’s push for nuclear?

Nuclear energy plays an important part in the UK’s plans to ensure energy independence – particularly from Russian natural gas, according to a Dept. for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesperson.

“In light of high global gas prices and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, we need to ensure Britain’s future energy supply is bolstered by reliable, affordable power that is generated in this country,” they say.

“New nuclear will not only provide this but will also create high-quality jobs and drive economic growth.”

To meet its target of ‘net zero’ by 2050, Britain urgently needs to move away from fossil fuels.

And many climate scientists and international organizations argue that a global shift toward nuclear power is essential to tackle the climate emergency and meet increasing energy demands.

In contrast to fossil fuels, a nuclear plant does not directly release carbon in its operation. It is also unaffected by external climatic factors, such as cold snaps or very light winds, therefore creating a reliable energy output.

Boris Johnson at the Russia Ukraine War Summit.Henry Nicholls/AP

Adrian Bull, BNFL chair in Nuclear Energy Systems at The University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute is a firm supporter of nuclear.

“Reaching Net Zero UK emissions by 2050 will be a huge challenge, and we’ll need every form of low carbon generation we can muster. Nuclear – the only proven and practical way of delivering vast quantities of low carbon power 24/7 in the UK – must have a role to play alongside wind, solar, tidal and other renewable options,” he tells Euronews Green.

“The role of advanced reactors providing heat for hydrogen and other uses, as well as electricity, is also vitally important. The steps being taken now would have been better a decade or more ago, but we can still reach Net Zero if we move fast!”

Currently, 16 percent of the UK’s electricity is generated from its six nuclear power reactors, but by the end of this decade, only one will still be producing power.

Therefore, plans to pursue the expansion of the country’s nuclear energy sector are a huge turnaround for the industry.

But nuclear energy is a divisive issue

Although described by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency as among “the safest and most secure facilities in the world”, Chernobyl, Windscale, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have shown that malfunctions can be catastrophic.

Radioactive materials can persist for many thousands of years and, when released into the environment, contaminate everything from the air, water and soil, to humans, animals and plants.

35 years after the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, and just outside the 30-mile radius exclusion zone, high levels of radioactivity are still found in grain, meat, dairy products and many trees. Traces of radiation have also been found 200 miles from the exclusion site, which may remain uninhabitable for years to come.

Even in the absence of any accident, high-level radioactive waste is produced in a facility’s day-to-day operations which can remain hazardous for thousands of years.

Nearly 350,000 tonnes are in temporary storage around the world, with some canisters already showing signs of deterioration.

An abandoned Ferris wheel stands in the park in the ghost town of Pripyat, 
Ukraine, close to the Chernobyl nuclear plant.AP Photo

Which countries have succeeded in disposing of nuclear waste safely?

The UK, like many other countries, favors “deep geological disposal” as the preferred solution for the final disposal of the most radioactive waste but, as yet, have not found a community willing to host the £12bn (€14.1bn) facility.

So far only Finland has managed to implement this plan, creating around 100 nuclear waste disposal tunnels at depths of over 400 meters, to keep the waste isolated for the required 100,000 years. But, according to former Director of Research for the Geological Survey of Finland, Matti Saarnisto, freezing temperatures during the next ice age could lead to damage to this storage facility.

Nuclear reactors require huge amounts of water, so are built on the coast or near lakes. Dr. Paul Dorfman, head of the UK’s Nuclear Consulting Group, says this has given rise to new risks.

“With extreme weather events today becoming the norm in the future, existing risk mitigation measures become increasingly obsolete. The corollary to this analysis is that present and planned UK coastal nuclear installations will be at significant risk,” says Dr. Dorfman.

“Nuclear’s lower-carbon electricity unique selling point sits in the context of the much larger picture – that UK coastal nuclear will be one of the first, and most significant, casualties to ramping climate impact. UK nuclear is quite literally on the front-line of climate change – and not in a good way.”

But the Nuclear Industry Association UK, claims that “no industry generates higher quality, more skilled and more secure jobs than the nuclear industry”.

More than 60,000 people across the country are employed in the civil nuclear sector, operating current power stations, decommissioning old ones and building new ones.

Decommissioning is an extremely complex, lengthy, and costly process. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estimates it will cost British taxpayers over £130bn (€153.5bn) to decommission its civil nuclear sites and take around 120 years before these old sites are clean enough to be released for unrestricted use.

In the case of Sellafield and Dounreay, extensive contamination means this will never be possible.

What is the role of renewables in the UK?

Although nuclear power is often touted as the best way to tackle climate change, scientists like Dr. Dorfman don’t believe that to be true.

He thinks the energy transition can and will take place using renewables like solar, wind and waves alone.

Due to technological advances, renewables are now a reliable energy source, even in times of low power input. Several countries, including Iceland and Norway, are already producing more than 90 percent using these, and global renewable electricity capacity is forecast to increase dramatically by 2026.

This is equivalent to the current global power capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear combined.

Critics also claim that the time and costs involved with nuclear make it unviable. It can take up to 10-15 years plus, from planning to construction, and we need to act now, to prevent a climate emergency. Renewables cost one-fifth of new nuclear to build – since 2009, costs for utility-scale solar have dropped by 90 percent, and wind by 70 percent, while nuclear has increased by over 30 percent.

Wind farm in the UK.Canva

Amory Lovins, the energy expert and adviser to major firms and governments in more than 65 countries, sums this up when he says, “If the climate’s a problem, we need to invest judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most solution per dollar, the most solution per year.

“Otherwise, we’re making things worse.”

The post More nuclear power in the UK will ‘create high quality jobs’ – so why is there so much opposition? appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

Britain’s Environment Agency has issued 184 flood warnings — meaning floods are expected — including two severe warnings for the Greater Manchester area with an “immediate risk to life”.

Many residents were on Sunday told by the Greater Manchester Council to prepare for a possible evacuation as heavy rains brought in by Strom Franklin were expected to fall on grounds saturated by the precipitations observed during Storm Dudley and Storm Eunice over the past week.

The Met Office had issued an amber weather warning for Northern Ireland, which was forecast to be hit with the strongest winds. A yellow warning for wind was meanwhile decreed for most of England.

The meteorological agency has warned that disruptions to travel could take place.

Three people were killed in England by Storm Eunice, which swept through Ireland on Friday morning and northern European countries over the weekend.

At least 13 people also lost their lives in the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Belgium, and Ireland combined.

The storm caused major travel disruptions and brought down power for millions of households across the UK and northern Europe.

More than 55,000 customers were still without power across the UK on Sunday evening, according to Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. More than 1.35 million customers had meanwhile been reconnected.

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The UK has accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine as fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine grow.

The Foreign Office said in a statement Russian intelligence officers had been in contact with a number of former Ukrainian politicians as part of plans for an invasion and that former parliamentarian Yevgen Murayev was being considered as a potential leader.

“The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking,” said UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

“Russia must de-escalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy.”

The British foreign ministry did not provide evidence to back its accusations.

Russia will face severe economic sanctions if it installs a “puppet regime” in Ukraine, Britain’s deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday.

“There’ll be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime,” Raab told Sky News.

‘Stop spreading nonsense’

Murayev, the man named by London, lost his seat in the Ukrainian parliament when his party failed to win five percent of the vote in the 2019 elections. He is the founder of TV channel Nash, which regulators have been seeking to shut down since last year, accusing it of airing pro-Russian propaganda.

Four other politicians named by the UK as possible Russian picks were Mykola Azarov, Sergiy Arbuzov, Andriy Kluyev, and Volodymyr Sivkovich.

Murayev said on Sunday his country needed new leadership.

“The Ukrainian people need rule of law, peace, sound and pragmatic economic and social policies, and new political leaders,” Murayev wrote on Facebook.

Moscow has insisted it has no plans to invade Ukraine, despite currently having about 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border. The Russian foreign ministry dismissed London’s claims as “disinformation” and urged London to “stop spreading nonsense”.

In Washington, DC, US National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said Russia’s alleged “plotting” was “deeply concerning”.

“The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically elected partners in Ukraine,” Horne said.

The claims came hours after a senior UK defense source said Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu had accepted an invitation to meet his UK counterpart Ben Wallace to discuss the crisis.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks as Russian troops mass on Ukraine’s border along with an arsenal of tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery and missiles.

These accusations came at the end of a week of intense international diplomacy, which concluded with Washington and Moscow’s top diplomats, Antony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov, failing to make a major breakthrough but agreeing to keep working to ease tensions.

‘Very expensive enterprise’

Andrey Kortunov, director of the Russian International Affairs Council, told Al Jazeera the UK allegations were implausible.

“If you want to stage a successful coup you need to have a lot of support from the inside, which Putin apparently doesn’t have,” Kortunov said.

“On top of that, if you change the government, you own Ukraine … and that would be a very expensive enterprise for the Russian leadership.”

The analyst said Moscow may be mobilizing troops out of concern that Ukraine may try to regain the Donbas region by force, rather than preparing to invade.

Moscow seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 after Ukrainians deposed their pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. A few weeks later, a pro-Russian rebellion broke out in eastern Ukraine that has since killed more than 13,000 people.

The UK is among a handful of Western nations rushing weapons to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, while other countries including Germany have refused to supply arms to Kyiv.

The US has sent 90 tonnes of ammunition to Ukraine as part of an additional $200m of “lethal aid” approved by President Joe Biden in late December.

Ukraine has also been enlisting civilians in military training programs. Arsen Herasimenko, a university student in plant science, said he had chosen to enlist.

“I have to protect my family,” he told Al Jazeera. “Of course, I hope this situation will de-escalate and that I can continue my scientific work.”

The government is hoping to form at least 25 brigades for deployment around the country.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Kyiv, said the units were part of a new “strategic defense plan” to provide backup in case the army is overwhelmed.

“These [popular resistance] units are now part of the military,” she said. “Thirty-two percent of Ukrainians say they are ready to enlist.”

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UK Chief of Defense Staff Tony Radakin has announced his country’s plans to develop hypersonic missiles to compete with Russia’s growing military strength.

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European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen has warned that the Omicron variant could be dominant in Europe by mid-January.

Many countries are reimposing travel restrictions and other measures weeks after the variant was first detected in South Africa.

Germany’s decision late on Saturday is a response to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which forced London’s mayor Sadiq Khan to declare a “major incident” on Saturday in the British capital.

The change takes effect on Sunday at midnight.

More than 65,000 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in London over the past seven days, with 26,418 cases reported in the last 24 hours – the highest number since the start of the pandemic.

Here are the latest updates for Sunday:

7 mins ago (10:27 GMT)

Report: Iran announces 1st case of omicron variant

Iran has detected its first case of infection by the omicron variant of the coronavirus, state TV reported.

Iran has vaccinated some 60 percent of its population of roughly 85 million people with two doses of coronavirus vaccines.

Officials urged people who got two doses of the vaccine to get their third dose as soon as possible.

1 hour ago (09:30 GMT)

London Mayor: Inevitable we will have more COVID restrictions

New COVID-19 restrictions are inevitable as without them Britain will see public services such as the National Health Service (NHS) on the verge of collapse, London Mayor Sadiq Khan told BBC Television.

Khan declared a “major incident” on Saturday to help the capital’s hospitals cope with a surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the fast-spreading Omicron coronavirus variant.

“I think it’s inevitable,” Khan told the BBC when asked about the likelihood of further restrictions. “If we don’t bring in new restrictions sooner rather than later you’re going to see even more positive cases and potentially public services like the NHS on the verge of collapse, if not collapsing.”

1 hour ago (09:29 GMT)

UK health minister Javid: I understand Frost’s reasons for quitting

British health minister Sajid Javid said he understood why Brexit minister David Frost, who quit over disillusionment with the direction of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, had resigned.

“I do understand his reasons. He is a principled man, principled people do resign from the government,” Javid told Sky News when asked about the resignation.

1 hour ago (09:06 GMT)

UK is monitoring COVID data closely, to act if necessary: health minister

The British government is monitoring the latest COVID-19 data on an almost hourly basis and will do whatever is necessary to tackle the spread, health minister Sajid Javid told Sky News.

Javid said analysis of the data suggested around 60 percent of all new COVID-19 cases in England are the fast-spreading Omicron variant, but the country was in a better position than last Christmas thanks to things such as vaccinations and testing.

Asked about reports of possible further measures, Javid said: “We will do what is necessary but it has got to be backed up by the data … we are watching the data, discussing it with our scientists and our best advisers almost on an hourly basis and we will monitor that very carefully we will keep the situation under review.”

3 hours ago (08:01 GMT)

China administered a total of 2.67bn doses of COVID-19 vaccines

China administered about 12 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines on December 18, bringing the total to 2.67 billion, data from the National Health Commission showed.

3 hours ago (07:52 GMT)

Omicron less effective at attacking lungs than other variants: Study

British research has found Omicron might be less efficient at attacking the lungs than earlier COVID-19 variants.

The Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease study concluded mutations on the virus’s spike protein, which makes it able to avoid antibodies, may also reduce how it replicates in the lungs and causes severe disease.

“These observations highlight that Omicron has gained immune evasion properties whilst compromising on properties associated with replication and pathogenicity,” the study’s abstract stated.

Study leader Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge, said there are still challenges ahead despite the seemingly positive findings.

He tweeted: “What does this all mean? Efficient infection of lung cells could correlate with the severity of lung disease. Syncitia or fused cells are often seen in respiratory tissues taken following severe disease. Delta was very good at both, in contrast to Omicron. Further work is needed.”

9 hours ago (01:40 GMT)

Biden to deliver Tuesday speech on Omicron variant amid COVID rise

US President Joe Biden will deliver a speech on Tuesday addressing the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing a White House official.

Biden is expected to go beyond his “Winter Plan” with additional steps to help communities in need, the report said.

Earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris admitted that the government “didn’t see Omicron coming”.

“And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants,” she said.

10 hours ago (00:48 GMT)

Australia says it is well prepared for mounting COVID-19 cases

Australian officials on Sunday said there was no need to clamp down on Christmas festivities even as new COVID-19 infections climbed in Sydney, with the country’s high vaccination rate helping keep people out of the hospital.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said he was confident Australia would not need to follow the Netherlands, which has reimposed a strict lockdown over the Christmas and New Year period to curb the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

“We’re going into summer, we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and a very different set of circumstances. So we don’t see that’s a likely situation in Australia,” Hunt told reporters in a televised media conference.

“We’re well prepared and people are overwhelmingly … continuing to do an amazing job,” Hunt said, referring to the more than 90% of Australians over 16 who have been fully vaccinated.

10 hours ago (00:24 GMT)

Dutch head into Christmas ‘lockdown’ to stop Omicron

The Netherlands will go into “lockdown” over the Christmas period to try to stop a surge of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has announced.

All non-essential shops, restaurants, bars, cinemas, museums and theatres must shut from Sunday until January 14, while schools must close until at least January 9, Rutte said on Saturday.

People are now only allowed two guests at home, except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, December 26 and the New Year period when four guests are permitted.

“I stand here tonight in a somber mood,” Rutte told a televised press conference.

“To sum it up in one sentence, the Netherlands will go back into lockdown from tomorrow.

“It is inevitable with the fifth wave and with Omicron spreading even faster than we had feared. We must now intervene as a precaution.”

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The success of Fahie’s PR campaign, however, will ultimately depend on the conclusions of the inquiry, which are expected in January. The probe began early this year after ex-BVI Governor Augustus Jaspert went public with accusations ranging from run-of-the-mill mismanagement and graft to organized crime and cocaine trafficking with the participation of senior officials.

The BVI is a British Overseas Territory. Its chief executive is a governor appointed by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, on the advice of the U.K. government. The premier, Fahie, is elected by the territory’s House of Assembly and presides over a small Cabinet.

In an interview in the grand Mayfair offices of BVI House, the territory’s de facto embassy in London, Fahie branded allegations of gangsterism “irresponsible.”

Fahie, who also serves as minister for finance, admitted that deep reforms are needed to improve governance in the BVI. But he complained that Jaspert had gone public through the media without first using his own powers to dig into the allegations.

Furthermore, Fahie said, the ex-governor kicked off the inquiry without considering how resource-intensive it would be for the country of around 30,000 people, which is trying to recover from the pandemic as well as the devastating hurricane season of 2017.

“It poses a heavy challenge on the public officers,” said Fahie, declaring that the probe’s scope has widened to cover virtually every government decision of the past decade.

“Any country that has to be evaluated with such wide terms of reference would show some area where they have to improve administratively,” he said.

“The inquiry has consumed the entire public service,” he added. “And so far, it has shown no proof of corruption in the BVI.”

That comment hardly tells the whole story, not least because no final conclusions of any kind are due until January. But the judge running proceedings has already said the evidence he has seen suggests “that governance in the BVI is not all that it should be.”

Fahie’s assurances also don’t wash with groups like the NGO Tax Justice Network, which ranks the BVI as the world’s top corporate tax haven. Local media and the auditor general’s office have, for their own part, long flagged corruption concerns in areas such as public procurement.

Outright organized crime, however, is the thorniest question at the heart of the British taxpayer-funded inquiry, which started its final hearings last week. To date, no specific proof or indication of BVI’s officialdom’s involvement in such activities has emerged in the public evidence sessions — which has emboldened Fahie to reach out to media, accusing London of overreach.

There’s a concern among some of the BVI’s citizens and officials that the inquiry commission will propose a colonial-style power grab, imposing direct rule from London and stripping the territory of its autonomy. The U.K. took a similar decision with the Turks and Caicos Islands in 2009 after another inquiry found “a high probability of systematic corruption or serious dishonesty,” including suspicions of drug trafficking.

Fahie wouldn’t give a direct answer on whether the BVI should declare independence. But he declined to rule out the possibility, provided that the country is “ready” and willing to institute “order” before taking that step.

Grave allegations

The picture was painted by Jaspert — who now serves as the U.K. Home Office’s director-general of delivery — suggests corruption and criminal activity at the highest levels.

He gave more detail to his accusations in lurid testimony last month, describing a drug-trafficking network with involvement by government figures. Alongside longer-standing and well-known concerns of maladministration and petty corruption, it was “allegations of links to organized criminality and to those involved in the cocaine trafficking trade as well, including allegedly amongst those in the highest holders of office” that made him go public, he explained.

While not naming names, he said: “credible public officers, leaders of some of our institutions, as well as credible members of the public” had come to him with specific allegations.

Since then, however, Jaspert has been keeping a low profile. A U.K. government spokesperson said it would be “inappropriate” for Jaspert to comment on the ongoing probe. Jaspert also declined to speak directly with POLITICO for this story.

Mark Collins, the territory’s police commissioner, is another key player who has declined to comment on the allegations, citing the ongoing inquiry. Collins answers directly to the London-appointed governor rather than the BVI’s elected government.

Drugs denial

The BVI, which sits close to the U.S. mainland, has long struggled to shake suspicions that it’s becoming a hub for the cocaine trade out of South America. Before Jaspert went public, the BVI suffered a reputational blow in 2020 when 2.35 tonnes of cocaine — worth some worth $250 million — were discovered, leading to the arrest of a police officer.

On the home front, successive BVI governments have also come under fire for failing to provide transparent decision-making on public spending and contracts. Independent media have suggested this has been going on for years with the full knowledge and tacit approval of the British government since it hand-picks the BVI’s governors.

This line of criticism also emerges from investigations by the auditor general’s office, one of the few existing checks on the government. For years, it has published scathing reports on dubious or outright illegal decisions by the government — with only muted reaction from London.

Fahie, for his part, remains adamant that no inference of official collusion with drugs smuggling can be drawn from the current inquiry. And he defends his own patch, the financial services industry, calling it “one of the best regulated in the world.”

He also relishes his image as a former high-school assistant principal and practicing Methodist who still plays the organ during Sunday service in the churches on the islands he governs.

Fahie does concede there are “deficiencies” and potential “areas of improvement” in the administration of the BVI. Those include the frequent awarding of public contracts without open tenders; opaque recruitment policies to public office; and the generally poor state of record-keeping and accountability for official decisions, he admits.

But Fahie points to reforms set in motion under his watch — such as a code of conduct for elected representatives, as well as transparency and freedom of information measures — as evidence that he’s committed to improving the standing of the country.

“Transformation of the public service will take us a few years,” he said.

Easy demeanor aside, he pulls no punches on the subject of Jaspert. The ex-governor “needs to give the people of the Virgin Islands an apology, and not just throw mud on the wall and hope that something sticks,” Fahie demanded.

He praised the BVI’s new governor, John Rankin, who reports to Overseas Territories Minister Amanda Milling and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, whose Foreign Office is supporting the corruption investigation.

“The British government has put in place a governor who is responsible in his speech, experienced and respectful in the way he carries out his duties,” he said, in a nod to Rankin’s previous job as governor of Bermuda. “That shows a step in the right direction.”

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The Taliban, which seized power in August is seeking international recognition and assistance to avoid a humanitarian disaster and ease Afghanistan’s economic crisis.

But, as the group transitions from a rebel army to governing power, they are struggling to contain the threat from the Afghanistan chapter of Daesh.

“US citizens who are at or near the Serena Hotel should leave immediately,” the US State Department said on Monday, citing “security threats” in the area

‘Increased risks’

“In light of the increased risks you are advised not to stay in hotels, particularly in Kabul (such as the Serena Hotel),” Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added.

Since the Taliban takeover, many foreigners have left Afghanistan, but some journalists and aid workers remain in the capital.

The well-known Serena, a luxury hotel popular with business travelers and foreign guests, has twice been the target of attacks by the Taliban in the past.

In 2014, just weeks before the presidential election, four teenage gunmen killed nine people.

In 2008, a suicide bombing left six dead.

The terror threat has partly overshadowed Taliban efforts to improve their international standing.

Over the weekend, senior Taliban and US delegations held their first face-to-face talks in the Qatar capital Doha since the US withdrawal.

The talks “focused on security and terrorism concerns and safe passage for US citizens, other foreign nationals and our Afghan partners,” according to State Department spokesman Ned Price.

The post US, UK tell citizens to avoid Kabul hotels over security threats appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.