Euobserver.com

Polish president Andrzej Duda has talked with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, about buying the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, his aide said, as the country looked for ways to speed up vaccination of its citizens, The Guardian writes. The health minister told a Monday press conference that the UK strain is found in 70 percent of infections in the country's current third wave.

Nearly two-thirds of Russians are not willing to receive the country's Sputnik V vaccine, and about the same number believe the new coronavirus was created artificially as a biological weapon, Reuters reports. Most respondents cited side effects - which can include fever and fatigue - as the main reason for not wanting to get vaccinated. Some 64 percent thought the new coronavirus was created as a biological weapon.

People over the age of 55 in Belgium could be given the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, as the government seeks to "reset" its heavily-criticised vaccination programme, The Guardian reports. Belgium decided last month to only giving the vaccine to younger groups. But images of empty vaccination centres has led to an outcry. Just 6.96 percent of the Belgian population has received a jab, compared with 30.14 percent in the UK.

The European Commission is set to unveil a legislative proposal on a "digital green pass" to allow vaccinated people to travel more freely for the summer. But Belgium says the pass risks discrimination against people unable to get the jab.

Slovakia has launched a mass vaccination programme aimed at teachers and childcare workers. Estonia, for its part, has begun inoculating frontline workers including teachers, police officers and members of the armed forces ahead of schedule.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to jail by a court on Monday, after being found guilty of corruption and influence-peddling. Sarkozy received a three-year term, of which two are suspended. He is expected to appeal, and is unlikely to spend any time in prison, given he can wear an electronic bracelet or remain confined at home. Sarkozy was president from 2007 to 2012.

China used coronavirus prevention measures, intimidation and visa curbs to limit foreign reporting in 2020, ushering in a "rapid decline in media freedom," the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) said on Monday, Reuters reports. "All arms of state power - including surveillance systems introduced to curb coronavirus - were used to harass and intimidate journalists, their Chinese colleagues, and those whom the foreign press sought to interview," it said.

More than 20m people in the UK have been given at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the country's health secretary, Matt Hancock, has announced, Deutsche Welle reports. The UK will begin vaccinating people over 40 in March, as the country pushes ahead with first doses. The British government is aiming to give the entire adult population at least one dose of vaccine by the end of July.

Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić has attacked EU proposals to issue 'vaccine passports' enabling people who had had the jab to travel freely, following EU leaders' talks last week. The passports were "meaningless" and "anti-European", he said, because they would force people to take the drug and would create discrimination. France and Germany "were against that in the beginning, but obviously the pressure is huge", Vučić told TV Prva Saturday.

Germany has added France's eastern Moselle region to its list of "variant of concern" areas, triggering tougher entry requirements at the border between the two neighbours, Deutsche Welle writes. Under the new restrictions, almost all travel will be banned. There are only a few exemptions, including lorry drivers and certain key workers. Anyone crossing the border will have to provide a valid negative Covid-19 test.

Italian researchers have discovered that healthcare workers with obesity produced only about half the amount of antibodies in response to a second dose of the jab compared with healthy people, The Guardian writes. Although it was too soon to know what this means for the efficacy of the vaccine, it might imply that people with obesity need an additional dose to ensure they are adequately protected against coronavirus.

The Iranian foreign ministry has announced it is not willing to attend EU-brokered talks with the US over the future of the Iran nuclear deal because Washington has not done enough to lift sanctions against Tehran, The Guardian writes. The new US administration committed to returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, had said it was willing to attend talks, and might lift sanctions at the negotiating table, but not before.

Three policemen were injured, one of them needing hospital care, and 23 people were arrested in anti-lockdown protests in Dublin on Saturday. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the demonstration had "posed an unacceptable risk to both the public and gardaí [police]". "It is utterly horrifying to see our members being placed under incredible ... danger," a police spokeswoman said, after some protesters had discharged fireworks at police at point-blank range.

The EU has asked its ambassador to Cuba to explain why he signed a letter asking US president Joe Biden to stop being "hostile" to Havana.

The increased regulatory scrutiny of tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft has triggered a rise in lobbying activities by these companies in Brussels, and, accordingly, an exponential grow of their budget for these activities.

To help bridge the stubborn gender pay gap, the EU Commission will present pay transparency measures so that differences in wages and salaries do not remain hidden from employees.

The Embassy of Ethiopia would like to set the record straight to the esteemed readership by stating the following facts about the situation in Ethiopia particularly in Tigray.

I hope that the sanctions from the Foreign Affairs Council will increase the likelihood of seeing Alexei Navalny and his supporters leaving Russian prisons alive, unharmed, and in the nearer future than otherwise.

EU leaders restated old vows to slowly develop a joint European military-industrial complex and armed forces at a video-conference Friday. The EU's "autonomy" would be "complementary" to its traditional alliance with the US, EU Council president Charles Michel said. Increasing domestic European production of critical items, such as vaccines, were part of the strategy, the European Commission said. Leaders are to discuss troubled Russia and Turkey relations in March.

Human rights group Amnesty International has said Eritrean troops fighting on the side of Ethiopian government forces massacred hundreds of civilians when conquering the town of Aksum in Ethiopia last November. "There were a lot of ... house-to-house killings," one witness said. The EU recently urged Ethiopia to lift its "blackout" on what is happening in its war-torn Tigray region, where violence was said to be "out of control".