3inEU kick out Russian envoys
BERLIN — Germany, Poland and Sweden on Monday each declared a Russian diplomat in their country “persona non grata,” retaliating in kind to last week’s decision by Moscow to expel diplomats from the three European Union countries over the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Russia had accused diplomats from Sweden, Poland and Germany of attending a demonstration in support of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile political foe.
“We have informed the Russian Ambassador that a person from the Russian embassy is asked to leave Sweden,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter. “This is a clear response to the unacceptable decision to expel a Swedish diplomat who was only preforming his duties.”
Germany’s foreign ministry said Russia’s decision to expel the European diplomats “was not justified in any way,” insisting that the German Embassy staffer had been acting within his rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The ministry added that the decision was taken in close coordination with Poland, Sweden and the EU’s diplomatic service. Poland’s foreign ministry tweeted that “in accordance with the principle of reciprocity“it considers “the diplomat working at the Consulate General in Poznan as a persona non grata.”
EU lawmakers also appealed to “all EU Member States to show maximum solidarity with Germany, Poland and Sweden and take all appropriate steps to show the cohesiveness and strength of our Union.”
The parliamentarians called for “a new strategy for the EU’s relations with Russia, centered around support for civil society, which promotes democratic values, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and human rights.”
The expulsions come as EU officials ponder the future of the 27-nation bloc’s relations with the Kremlin amid concern that their large eastern neighbor sees democracy as a threat and wants to distance itself further from the EU.
GENEVA — The head of the World Health Organization said Monday that the emergence of new COVID-19 variants has raised questions about whether existing vaccines will work, calling it “concerning news” that the vaccines developed so far may be less effective against the variant first detected in South Africa.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing that South Africa’s decision Sunday to suspend its vaccination campaign using the AstraZeneca vaccine is “a reminder that we need to do everything we can to reduce circulation of the virus with proven public health measures.”
He said it was increasingly clear that vaccine manufacturers would need to tweak their existing shots to address the ongoing genetic evolution of the coronavirus, saying booster shots would most likely be necessary, especially because new variants of the virus are now spreading globally and appear likely to become the predominant strains.
Tedros added that WHO expected to make a decision “in the next few days” on whether it would recommend an emergency use listing for the AstraZeneca vaccine. That designation would allow millions of doses to be shipped to poor countries as part of a U.N.-backed effort to distribute COVID-19 vaccines worldwide known as COVAX.
Last week, Tedros said that more than three quarters of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in just 10 countries and that immunization in nearly 130 countries had yet to start. Despite WHO’s aim of starting COVID-19 vaccination in poor countries at the same time as wealthy countries, COVAX hasn’t delivered any vaccine doses anywhere.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, said all available evidence to date shows the vaccines developed so far reduce deaths, hospitalizations and severe disease.