Eurotopics.net

Many countries in the Northern Hemisphere are planning to give their citizens third shots of Covid vaccine in the next few months, and Israel has already started. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling for a temporary stop to the boosters so vaccines can be distributed more evenly and the global vaccination rate increased to ten percent. The current average in African countries is just two percent. Commentators disagree, saying this strategy would be ineffective.

Football superstar Lionel Messi is leaving FC Barcelona after 21 years. The 34-year-old's negotiations with the club broke down at the last minute on Thursday, apparently due largely to the Financial Fair Play rules in force in the Spanish league which impose limits on the total amount clubs can pay their players.

For schoolchildren in some countries another school year overshadowed by Covid is starting. European societies are arguing about how to best protect themselves from a new wave of the pandemic. Compulsory vaccination for teachers and vaccines for teenagers are among the measures under discussion. One thing all commentators agree on is that children should not have to pay for the freedom of adults.

The trial of Maria Kolesnikova - one of the three leading Belarusian opposition politicians - began behind closed doors in Minsk on Wednesday. Kolesnikova was arrested when she resisted deportation to Ukraine last autumn by tearing up her passport. Now she and her lawyer Maksim Znak face up to twelve years in prison.

The Bundestag elections this autumn are drawing closer - and with them a new face in the German Chancellery after almost 16 years under Merkel. None of the three top candidates - Armin Laschet, Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock - are inspiring much enthusiasm in Europe's press, but opinions differ as to whether real change can be expected.