Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun and Airbus CEO Jeffrey Knittel have urged US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg to delay deployment of C-band spectrum for 5G wireless service. The companies have said the rollout will affect key aircraft instruments. 

“5G interference could adversely affect the ability of aircraft to safely operate,” said the letter, which has been obtained by Reuters.

Aviation regulators and manufacturers have expressed concerns that C-band 5G will interfere with radio altimeters on commercial aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration forced a delay in 5G despite having no proof of harm to flight communication.  

The instruments send out radio signals in the 4.2–4.4 GHz region and wait for a response. The aircraft can compute its height above the ground by monitoring the time it takes for the signal to return to the sensor. Pilots can get a more precise reading from radio altimeters than from barometric altimeters, which rely on air pressure.

The aviation sector is afraid that rogue 5G transmissions could interfere with their computations.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission have been at odds over the 5G C-band rollout for a long time.

The FCC set aside a 220 MHz guard band, limiting mobile carriers to 3.7–3.98 GHz despite finding no credible evidence of interference. The FCC stated that this is "twice the minimum guard band requirement indicated in initial comments by Boeing and ASRC."

 Amazon.com Inc. has disabled comments, reviews or ratings on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s book, ‘The Governance of China’. The move was part of a broader campaign so that Amazon could continue with business in China. The book talks about Xi Jinping’s doctrine of 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.' ‘The Governance of China’ has been published in Pashto, Hindi, Sinhalese, Dari and English.

The reviews and ratings were disabled two years ago after Beijing passed a judgement saying that the company should disable customer ratings and reviews in the country. The company had been receiving requests from watchdogs to take down certain content in 2018, mostly sensitive ones. 

An Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg News that it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations, wherever we operate, and China is no exception”.

US firms, such as Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn, have exited the Chinese market this year, citing an increasingly challenging business and legal environment in the country, a Reuters report reads.

The World Health Organization's top official in Europe urged governments on Tuesday to prepare for a “significant surge" in coronavirus cases across the continent due to the omicron variant, which is already dominant in several countries.

“We can see another storm coming," WHO Europe regional director Dr. Hans Kluge said at a press conference in Vienna.

“Within weeks, omicron will dominate in more countries of the region, pushing already stretched health systems further to the brink."

Omicron has been detected in at least 38 of the WHO European region's 53 members, Kluge added, noting that it is already the dominant variant in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Portugal.

Last week, 27,000 people died from coronavirus in the region and an additional 2.6 million cases were reported, Kluge said.

Although these cases include all variants, not just omicron, he noted this figure is 40 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

“The sheer volume of new COVID-19 infections could lead to more hospitalisations and widespread disruption to health systems and other critical services," he said.

Thus far, Kluge said 89 per cent of those with confirmed omicron infections in Europe reported symptoms common with other coronavirus variants, including cough, sore throat, fever. The variant has mostly been spread by young people in their 20s and 30s in the region, he added.

Although much remains unknown about omicron, Kluge said it appears to be more infectious than previous variants, leading to “previously unseen transmission rates" in countries with a significant number of omicron cases. In those countries, cases of the variant are doubling every 1.5 to 3 days.

European governments should keep ramping up their vaccination campaigns, introduce additional measures to slow the spread of the variant, and prepare critical infrastructure like health care systems for the coming surge, Kluge said.

Singapore has enhanced safety measures for all airport workers who interact with arriving passengers at the Changi Airport here amidst the rapid spread of the Omicron variant overseas, the country's civil aviation authority said on Wednesday.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), airport workers who interact with passengers, even those in public areas like the taxi stand, must don enhanced personal protective equipment, including N95 masks and face shields.

''We are picking up more Omicron cases because of the rapid spread of the variant across many countries/regions. Thus far, our enhanced testing regime for travellers has helped us to detect 65 confirmed Omicron cases,'' the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

The move will help limit Singapore's exposure to imported Omicron COVID-19 cases, the Channel News Asia quoted the MOH as saying.

All frontline workers will also be subject to a stricter testing regime. They will ''minimally'' be placed on seven-day polymerase chain reaction (PCR) rostered routine testing (RRT), instead of the current seven-day antigen rapid test (ART) RRT cycle, said the authority.

Singapore aircrew will undergo an ''enhanced'' seven-day PCR RRT regime, ''with an employer-supervised ART on the third day of the cycle'', it said.

CAAS' announcement comes on the same day the MOH announced that all new ticket sales for vaccinated travel lane (VTL) flights and buses (going to neighbouring Peninsular Malaysia) will be frozen from December 23 to January 20 next year.

All travelers who already hold a ticket on a VTL flight or bus and meet all other VTL requirements can continue to travel under the quarantine-free travel scheme.

The MOH will also temporarily reduce the VTL quotas and ticket sales for travel after January 20, 2022.

In a statement, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said that it would temporarily reduce the capacity and ticket sales for travel into Singapore or Malaysia via VTL (Land by bus) from January 21, 2022, by half - the equivalent of 24 one-way bus rides per day.

The MTI said it would continue to monitor the situation closely and adjust the VTL (Land) capacity, taking into account the public health situation in both countries and globally.

New VTL (Land) bus tickets will not be sold for travel into Singapore or Malaysia from 11.59 PM on December 22, 2021, to 11.59 PM on January 20, 2022. The land VTL between the two countries was launched on November 29, 2021.

''With aggressive contact tracing and ringfencing measures, we have, for now, been able to limit onward community transmission. But it is a matter of time before the Omicron variant spreads in our community,'' the MTI said.

Singapore's border measures will help to buy the country time to study and understand the Omicron variant, and to strengthen its defenses, including enhancing its healthcare capacity, and getting more people vaccinated and boosted, it said.

Meanwhile, Singapore reported 280 new COVID-19 cases and two fatalities as of noon on Tuesday, according to the Channel report.

Among the new cases, 221 cases are from the local community, five from migrant workers' dormitories, and 54 imported or those arriving here.

Seventy-one of these infections were confirmed to be Omicron cases, said the MOH. These are 65 imported cases and six local infections.

As of Tuesday, Singapore has recorded 276,385 COVID-19 cases and 817 deaths related to coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

President Joe Biden appeared determined Tuesday to return to the negotiating table with Senator Joe Manchin, the holdout Democrat who effectively tanked the party's signature USD 2 trillion domestic policy initiative with his own jarring year-end announcement.

Biden, responding to reporters' questions at the White House, joked that he holds no grudges against the conservative West Virginia senator whose rejection of the social services and climate change bill stunned Washington just days ago.

Instead, the president spoke passionately about the families that would benefit from the Democrats' ambitious, if now highly uncertain, plan to pour billions of dollars into child care, health care and other services.

"Sen. Manchin and I are going to get something done," Biden said.

The president's off-the-cuff remarks constitute his first public statement as Democrats struggle to pick up the pieces from Manchin's announcement over the weekend that he would not support the bill, as is. Manchin essentially crushed Biden's sweeping policy measure in the 50-50 Senate, siding with all Republicans who oppose the bill.

Biden spoke forcefully of the economic pressures that strip away the "dignity of a parent" trying to pay the bills, and the assistance millions could receive from the federal government with the legislation. He also said his package would help ease inflationary pressures and pointed to analyses suggesting it would boost the economy.

"I want to get things done," Biden said. "I still think there's a possibility of getting Build Back Better done." But the Democrats face serious questions over whether the $2 trillion initiative can be refashioned to win his crucial vote or the party will be saddled with a devastating defeat.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was set to assemble Senate Democrats later Tuesday for a private virtual caucus meeting to discuss next steps.

Schumer vowed Monday that the chamber would vote early in the new year on Biden's "Build Back Better Act" as it now stands so every senator has the opportunity to make their position known on the Senate floor, not just on television." That was a biting reference to Manchin's sudden TV announcement  against the bill on Sunday.

But Manchin and his party are so far apart, his relationships so bruised after months of failed talks, it's unclear how they even get back to the negotiating table, let alone revive the sprawling more than 2,100-page social services and climate change bill.

Biden and Manchin spoke later Sunday, according to a person familiar with the call, first reported by Politico. It was cordial and respectful, said the person who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The setback has thrown Biden's signature legislative effort into deep doubt at a critical time, closing out the end of the president's first year and ahead of congressional midterm elections when the Democrats' slim hold on Congress is at risk.

Coupled with solid Republican opposition, Manchin's vote is vital on this and other initiatives, including the Democrats' priority voting rights legislation that Schumer also promised would come to an early vote.

Steeped in the politics of a state that Biden lost decisively to Donald Trump, Manchin has little to gain from aligning too closely with fellow Democrats, raising fresh questions over whether he still has a place in the party.

In a radio interview Monday, he reiterated his position that the social and environment bill has far too much government spending  on child care, health care and other programs  without enough restrictions on incomes or work requirements.

But the lifelong Democrat was less clear when asked if the party still has room for him  describing himself as "fiscally responsible and socially compassionate."

Manchin said: "Now, if there's no Democrats like that then they have to push me wherever they want."

After months of talks with the White House and fellow Democrats, he lashed out at hard-line tactics against him by those he said "just beat the living crap out of people and think they'll be submissive."

While Manchin has said he cannot explain the bill to constituents in West Virginia, a union representing coal miners, including some of the nearly 12,000 from his home state, put out a statement urging the lawmaker to "revisit his opposition" to the package.

Cecil Roberts, the president of the United Mine Workers of America, outlined the ways the package would benefit union members, including those in West Virginia, which is the most coal-dependent state in the country.

Some of those provisions include language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung. The bill would also provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields, potentially employing miners who have lost their jobs, according to the union.

The next steps remain highly uncertain for the president and his party, with Congress on recess for the holiday break.

The White House appeared to take interest in Manchin's preference for a reimagined bill that would tackle a few top priorities, for longer duration, rather than the multifaceted and far-reaching House-passed version.

But it will be extraordinarily difficult for progressive and centrist Democrats to rebuild trust to launch a fresh round of negotiations having devoted much of Biden's first year in office to what is now essentially a collapsed effort.

The sweeping package is among the biggest of its kind ever considered in Congress, unleashing billions of dollars to help American families nationwide  nearly all paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

House investigators issued subpoenas to 10 former officials who worked for Donald Trump at the end of his presidency, an effort to find out more about what the president was doing and saying as his supporters violently stormed the US Capitol on Jan 6 in a bid to overturn his defeat.

The subpoenas issued Tuesday, which included demands for documents and testimony from former senior adviser Stephen Miller and former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, bring the House panel tasked with investigating the insurrection even closer inside Trump's inner circle — and closer to Trump himself.

They come a day after the committee subpoenaed six other associates of the former president who spread mistruths about widespread fraud in the election and strategized about how to thwart President Joe Biden's victory.

"The Select Committee wants to learn every detail of what went on in the White House on January 6th and in the days beforehand," said Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel.

"We need to know precisely what role the former president and his aides played in efforts to stop the counting of the electoral votes and if they were in touch with anyone outside the White House attempting to overturn the outcome of the election." Later Tuesday, a federal judge rejected Trump's request to block the National Archives from releasing White House documents concerning the Jan 6 insurrection to the House committee. Trump has filed notice that he will appeal the ruling, and it is likely to eventually reach the US Supreme Court.

It is so far unclear if the Jan 6 panel will subpoena Trump, though the committee's leaders have said they haven't ruled anything out. The panel has now issued more than 30 subpoenas, including to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, longtime ally Steve Bannon and others who were close to the former president.

The House later voted to hold Bannon in contempt after he said he would not comply, and the Justice Department is still deciding whether to prosecute the case. Meadows and others have "engaged" with the committee, according to lawmakers, but may still be held in contempt if they do not fully comply.

The panel has already interviewed more than 150 witnesses, and lawmakers have said they want to not only probe the attack itself but its origins — namely the lies that Trump spread about massive voter fraud even though all 50 states had certified Biden's win and courts across the country rejected his claims.

The violent mob of Trump's supporters echoed those false claims as they pushed past police, broke through windows and doors and threatened lawmakers who were certifying the election that day.

Trump continued to push the false narrative in a statement responding to the subpoenas, saying the committee "is studying the PROTEST when it should be studying the Fraudulent Election that led to the protest".

The 10 former officials who were subpoenaed Tuesday either could not be reached or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The panel said Tuesday that it had issued subpoenas for Miller, who Thompson said had "participated in efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud" and McEnany, who the committee said was present at times with Trump as he watched the insurrection and spoke at a rally that morning.

The panel is also demanding documents and testimony from Keith Kellogg, former Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser, writing in the subpoena that it wants to hear from him because "you were with President Trump as the January 6 attack on the US Capitol unfolded and have direct information about the former president's statements about, and reactions to, the Capitol insurrection".

His subpoena says that according to several accounts, Kellogg urged Trump to send out a tweet aimed at helping to control the crowd.

Other former Trump White House aides subpoenaed Tuesday include personal assistant Nicholas Luna, who the panel said may have witnessed a phone call from Trump to Pence pressuring him not to certify Biden's win; special assistant Molly Michael, who the committee said sent information about election fraud to "various individuals at the direction of President Trump"; deputy assistant Ben Williamson, a senior adviser to Meadows; deputy chief of staff Christopher Liddell, who was in the White House on Jan 6 and considered resigning, according to reports; and personnel director John McEntee and special assistant Cassidy Hutchinson, who the committee said were also in the White House that day and at the rally.

The panel also subpoenaed former Justice Department official Kenneth Klukowski, who Thompson said communicated with Jeffrey Clark, a former assistant attorney general, about a letter Clark had drafted urging officials in Georgia to delay certification of the voting results in that state because of purported fraud.

The letter said Clark and Klukowski spoke before a Jan 3 meeting at the White House in which Trump openly contemplated replacing acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen with Clark. Rosen and other leaders at the department had pushed back on the false fraud claims.

The committee has also subpoenaed Clark, who appeared for a deposition last week but declined to testify, partly based on Trump's claims that documents the committee is trying to obtain from the National Archives are privileged.

Trump has sued to shield the documents from the panel but Biden has so far said he will allow the release of most of them.

On Monday, the panel issued subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump's 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centres ahead of Jan 6.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum says it has compiled evidence of increasing government repression against Uyghur Muslims in China's western Xinjiang region.

In a new report released Tuesday, the museum's Centre for the Prevention of Genocide says there is now a reasonable basis to believe that previously alleged crimes against humanity versus the Uyghurs are growing amid a concerted campaign to hide their severity.

The Chinese government has done its best to keep information about crimes against the Uyghurs from seeing the light of day," said Tom Bernstein, the chairman of the museum's Committee on Conscience. "The Chinese government must halt its attacks on the Uyghur people and allow independent international monitors to investigate and ensure that the crimes have stopped.

China has repeatedly rejected charges of human rights abuses and atrocities in the region.

The report, which cites witness testimony, publicly available information from dissidents and accounts provided by human rights groups, expands on the museum's March 2020 findings that the Chinese Communist Party had persecuted, unlawfully imprisoned and otherwise severely deprived Uyghurs of their physical liberty.

The new findings include allegations of forced sterilization, sexual violence, enslavement, torture and forcible transfer. The US government has already determined that China's actions against Xinjiang's Uyghur Muslim and other minority populations amount to genocide.

"The Chinese government's assault on the Uyghur community  marked by the incarceration of between one and three million people as well as abuses such as forced sterilisation, torture, sexual violence, and forced labour  is alarming in scale and severity, said Naomi Kikoler, director of the museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

The damage inflicted upon Uyghur individuals, families, and their community has left deep physical and emotional scars. The trauma from these atrocities will harm generations of Uyghurs.

Kikoler said the 59-page report, To Make Us Slowly Disappear: The Chinese Government's Assault on the Uyghurs," should serve as a wake-up call for the international community to boost pressure on Beijing to halt the repression in Xinjiang.

China has said that allegations of rights abuses are lies. Just last month, China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun attacked a statement signed by 43 countries condemning the reported torture and repression of Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, where foreign governments and researchers say an estimated 1 million people or more have been confined in camps.

Zhang denounced the groundless accusations and unfounded lies and accused the United States and other signatories of poisoning the atmosphere of cooperation and using human rights as a pretext for political maneuvering to provoke confrontation.

Echoing the Chinese government's long-standing position, he strongly defended Beijing's efforts to develop Xinjiang, saying the lives of its people are getting better by the day and your plot to obstruct China's development is doomed to failure.

The Associated Press reported in October that China's control of Xinjiang had entered a new era in the four years since Beijing launched the brutal crackdown that swept up to a million or more Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities into detention camps and prisons.

Chinese authorities have scaled back many of the most draconian and visible aspects of the region's high-tech police state, including razor wire that once ringed public buildings, the AP reported after two visits to Xinjiang.

The WHO, on Tuesday, said that there could be a shortage of one to two billion syringes needed to administer COVID-19 vaccines in 2022 and that this could slow down regular immunisation and compromise needly safety. 

“We could have a global shortage of immunisation syringes that could, in turn, lead to serious problems such as slowing down immunisation efforts as well as safety concerns,” WHO expert Lisa Hedman told Reuters.

She also said, that compared to 6 billion immunisation syringes manufactured a year, 6.8 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally.  Hedman added that unless more factories produce more devices, required for shots, a shortage is inevitable.  

The WHO expert also said that a shortage could impact youngsters getting vaccinated, which could impact public health for years to come. 

Meanwhile, the heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, WHO and the World Trade Organization held a follow-up session of High-Level Consultations with the CEOs of leading COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing companies on Tuesday, news.un.org reported.

The meeting's goal was to figure out how to make vaccine distribution more equitable so that vaccines would go to the countries that needed them the most. All participants agreed to collaborate in order to acquire clarification on donations, vaccination swaps, and delivery dates. The CEOs and heads of the four organisations discussed how to best address trade bottlenecks, how to improve the donation process, what additional steps are needed to reach the 40 per cent vaccination target in all countries by the end of the year, and how to improve transparency and data sharing with the IMF-WHO Vaccine Supply Forecast Dashboard and the Multilateral Leaders Task Force.

India on Tuesday told the UNSC that it has always strived to foster global solidarity across the world with its development partnership efforts fully respecting national priorities and ensured that its assistance does not create indebtedness, in an apparent swipe at China.

Addressing the UN Security Council open debate on Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Exclusion, Inequality and Conflict' held under the current Presidency of Mexico, Minister of State for External Affairs Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh said whether it is with India's neighbours under the Neighbourhood First policy or with African partners or with other developing countries, India has remained and will continue to be a source of strong support to help them build back better and stronger.

India has always strived to foster global solidarity across the world with our development partnership efforts fully respecting national priorities and ensuring that our assistance remains demand-driven, contributes to employment generation and capacity building and does not create indebtedness. This is particularly true in countries in the post-conflict phase, Singh said.

Singh's remarks appeared to be a thinly-veiled reference to China.

There have been global concerns over debt traps and regional hegemony by China using its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. China is doling out huge sums of money for infrastructure projects in countries from Asia to Africa and Europe. The Donald Trump administration had been extremely critical of the BRI and had been of the view that China's "predatory financing" is leaving smaller counties under huge debt endangering their sovereignty.

Singh further said that international efforts in the maintenance of peace and security need to be inclusive. The process of implementing a peace agreement must run along with the provision of humanitarian and emergency assistance, resumption of economic activity, and the creation of political and administrative institutions that improve governance and include all stakeholders, particularly women and disadvantaged sections.

We also need to avoid politicising humanitarian and developmental assistance in conflict situations. The humanitarian action must be primarily guided by the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, he said.

India also stressed that the international community needs to walk the talk by ensuring a predictable and enhanced flow of resources to countries in the post-conflict phase. The developmental assistance in line with the national priorities should go a long way towards sustainable peace.

Further, he said it is important to actively support the post-conflict reconstruction agenda, particularly in Africa and in this regard, the UN Peacebuilding Commission's efforts should be strengthened.

These efforts should include prioritising the needs of the host state and coordinating the role of international financial institutions, the private sector and civil society organisations, Singh said.

Singh noted that some regional and sub-regional organisations have become more capable of addressing the conflict situations and member states have reposed faith increasingly in their capacity, bringing positive synergy to the actions of the UN and Security Council.

The Security Council has the responsibility to support this trend and encourage and enable those regional and sub-regional organisations, he said adding that India believes the existing framework of cooperation such as the Joint UN-AU Framework for an enhanced partnership in Peace and Security needs to be implemented more proactively.

Initiatives such as AMISOM, G-5 Sahel Joint Force and Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) need more robust support from the Security Council and the international community. PTI YAS AKJ  AMS 11092253

President Sebastian Pinera was impeached Tuesday by the lower house of Chile's congress, setting up a trial in the nation's Senate over allegations he favoured the sale of a family property while in office.

The vote to impeach got the bare minimum of 78 votes needed in the 155-member Chamber of Deputies and followed a marathon 20-hour session. Sixty-seven legislators voted against impeachment, including several members of the opposition. Others abstained or were absent.

It is unlikely he will be removed by the 43-member Senate, where the opposition has only 24 of the 29 votes needed to remove a president.

The accusation stems from publication of the so-called Pandora Papers, which revealed offshore financial dealings of prominent figures around the world, including Pinera, one of Chile's wealthiest people.

The leaked documents revealed that one of Pinera's sons used offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands for sale of the Dominga mining project, which his family co-owned.

The final payment on the mine's sale in 2011 hinged on the government declining to declare its location in north-central Chile a nature preserve. The government, by that time headed by Pinera, did not do so, despite appeals from environmentalists. But nor did subsequent governments.

When investigators looked into the case a few years later, Pinera said he had not been involved in managing the companies and had not even realized the connection with Dominga.

The president's office noted last month that Pinera's first term as president, from 2010 to 2014, hadn't started when the sale was agreed to, that prosecutors and courts decided in 2017 that no crime had been committed and that Pinera had not been involved. It said all due taxes were paid in Chile.

Pinera's holdings are now managed in a blind trust, according to the statement.

The national prosecutor's office has said it is is once again investigating the case, however.

In order to get the majority needed for impeachment, Socialist Deputy Jaime Naranjo effectively stalled for 14 hours, reading a series of documents, until Deputy Giorgio Jackson was able to enter the chamber to vote following a mandatory quarantine period after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Another deputy voted despite awaiting results of a coronavirus test. He slipped into the building through a side door to avoid health checks.

The minister of the presidency, Juan Jose Ossa, called the impeachment a political show, a media show. It's sad for democracy. Pro-government Deputy Andres Molina said, It causes me shame, personally.

Just before voting, Jackson said, "There are people who think what happened yesterday and today in the chamber is shameful. But I think what is shameful is having a president who speculates."

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on prisoners. By March 2021, an estimated 527,000 prisoners globally had contracted the virus, a number that has continued to grow as the pandemic goes on.

This, unfortunately, is not surprising.

There are longstanding issues within prisons — overcrowding, inadequate medical treatment, and a lack of ventilation to name just a few — that make them spaces where viruses can easily spread.

Many prisoners — who often come from the most marginalized groups in societies — also have underlying medical conditions.

Finally, prisoners have not been prioritized when it comes to accessing personal protective equipment or vaccines during the pandemic.

Releasing prisoners during the pandemic Recognising these issues, the World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies stated in May 2020 calling on governments around the world to release prisoners who were "at particular risk of COVID-19" and those who "could be released without compromising public safety." Since the start of the pandemic, over a million prisoners have reportedly been released worldwide.

The largest-scale releases, according to Penal Reform International, have been reported in Turkey (more than 114,000 prisoners), Iran (104,000), the Philippines (82,000), India (68,000), Iraq (62,000), and Ethiopia (40,000).

Some European countries, including France and Norway, reportedly released more than 15 percent of their prison populations.

Jordan released 30 percent, Penal Reform International statistics show. Releases also occurred in the United States, but prison populations did not decrease significantly, even though COVID-19 cases were at times 5.5 times higher in prisons than the general population.

In Canada, prisoners were freed across the country during the first wave, mainly from provincial jails, including the release of 2,300 prisoners in Ontario by April 2020.

This is unprecedented. While governments throughout history have granted prisoners early release en masse, including during pandemics or in pursuit of various political agendas, it has never happened on such a large scale.

Problems with pandemic prisoner release These releases have had a positive impact on prisoners who have been freed and their families. However, new research, including ongoing work by lawyer and global governance graduate student Ashley Mungai and me, reveals significant issues.

Many governments promised releases but were slow to follow through. The United Kingdom announced that up to 4,000 prisoners would be considered for release in April 2020, but only 57 were released by May of that year.

Often, there is little publicly available data on releases, making it difficult to hold governments accountable.

For many prisoners, being released did not lead to freedom. Globally, an estimated 42 percent of prisoners were granted conditional releases. Some were released temporarily, including in Iran.

In the U.S., some of the approximately 23,000 prisoners released to home confinement — which is itself a restriction on one's freedom — may be sent back to prison after receiving vaccinations.

In Thailand, prisoners were sent to work in factories.

In Myanmar, releases occurred as part of an annual New Year's amnesty. Historically, many countries have had annual amnesties, such as during Bastille Day in France. But prisoners shouldn't have to wait for holidays to be freed amid an infectious disease pandemic.

Many categories of prisoners were also excluded from pandemic releases. In Turkey, for example, political prisoners and those awaiting trial were not considered.

Incarceration rates rising The release of prisoners also appears to be a short-lived response to COVID-19. Since the first wave, when an estimated 475,000 prisoners were released worldwide, far fewer have been freed. The incarcerated population has increased in many countries. While the prison population initially went down by 15 percent in Canada — including a decrease of 41 percent in Nova Scotia — it was going up by September 2020, even though COVID-19 has continued to spread in prisons. Finally, the number of people released from prison is often much lower than the number being arrested. In Sri Lanka, for example, only 3,000 prisoners have been granted early release, whereas approximately 40,000 have been arrested for violating pandemic curfews. One of the common concerns raised about releasing prisoners is that it will undermine public safety. Yet research has shown this hasn't been the case. Instead, governments can release prisoners safely and effectively when there is the political will to do so.

This discussion about public safety also overlooks the fact that prisons do not make communities safer, but rather perpetuate harm. The pandemic has made this more obvious than ever and has also put a spotlight on longstanding problems within prisons.

Instead of being a temporary response to COVID-19, early releases should be one of many decarceration measures implemented to build a future without prisons.

Standing knee-deep in seawater, Tuvalu Foreign Minister Simone Kofe delivered his address to the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, urging the need for action before island nations like his are rendered underwater by climate change and rising sea levels.

“In Tuvalu, we are living the reality of climate change and sea level rise, as you stand watching me today at COP26. We cannot wait for speeches when the sea is rising around us all the time,” he said in his video address, as the camera gradually zoomed out from a close-up of him, to reveal him standing in the sea.

“Climate mobility must come to the forefront. We must take bold alternative action today, to secure tomorrow,” he said.

The video message has since gone viral.

Calling climate change and sea level rise an existential threat to low-lying countries like Tuvalu, he said, “We are sinking. But so is everyone else.”

"In Tuvalu, our islands are sacred to us. They contain the mana of our people. They are the home of our ancestors. They are the home of our people today. We want them to remain the home of the people in the future."

Many island nations were unable to physically send their representatives to COP26, owing to pandemic restrictions and the higher cost of travel these days.

In a similar display, several children from Tuvalu posed with placards while standing in the sea, demanding strong climate action.

One twitter user pointed out the similarity between Kofe’s action and a 2011 art installation in Berlin.

Polish riot police reinforced Poland's eastern border on Tuesday, a day after hundreds of migrants tried to storm across the razor-wire border fence from Belarus. Thousands of migrants still remained on the Belarussian side and Polish authorities feared the tense standoff could escalate.

Polish authorities reported that the situation on the border which is also the eastern border for the 27-nation European Union and NATO was calm overnight and Tuesday morning, but after Monday's border scrum they said they were bracing for any possibility.

Poland's Defence Ministry said Tuesday that a large group of Belarusian forces was moving toward the migrants, who were camping out on the border.

Major Katarzyna Zdanowicz, from the region's border guards, estimated 3,000-4,000 migrants were along the border, including about 800 in the vicinity of the large makeshift migrant camp. She also said there was a greater concentration of Belarusian services on the border to control, steer and direct these people.

She said the Polish assessment comes from aerial observations, and alleged that Belarus authorities were taking journalists to the border area to present the situation to the people of Belarus as propaganda.

There was no way to independently verify what was happening because journalists have limited ability to operate in Belarus and a state of emergency in Poland kept reporters and others out of the border area.

A day earlier, tensions flared as a large group of migrants sought to illegally push their way into Poland, escalating a crisis that has been simmering for months in which Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian regime has encouraged migrants to illegally enter the EU. Belarus borders EU nations Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

The EU reacted Tuesday by tightening visa rules for Belarus officials over what it's calling a hybrid attack by Belarus against the entire bloc. EU headquarters said it was partially suspending an agreement it has with Belarus that eases visa rules.

The move hits Belarusian government officials, lawmakers, diplomats and top court representatives. It increases travel red tape and requires them to provide extra documents and pay more for visas.

 In videos posted on Twitter by Polish police, the migrants were camping out in tents and cooking over camp fires in near-freezing temperatures. The Polish police played an announcement warning the migrants that crossing the Polish border is only allowed at official border crossings, where visas are required.

But as of early Tuesday, the nearest crossing point in Kuznica was closed.

The UN refugee agencies the UNHCR and International Organisation for Migration called the situation alarming. They said they have been in contact with both the Polish and Belarusian governments and urged them to ensure that the large group in the makeshift camp received humanitarian assistance.

For months thousands of migrants, mostly from the Mideast, have sought to illegally enter Poland, and have often ended up stuck in a forested area of swamps and bogs, pushed back and forth between Belarusian and Polish forces.

One man who lives in Bialowieza, a Polish village in the restricted area, told The Associated Press that he has met many migrants and they are often very thirsty, hungry and in need of boots or medical care. He is among local volunteers providing food and other aid to the migrants and spoke on condition of anonymity because Polish authorities discourage such help.

They are in really bad condition and the situation is getting worse" as the temperatures drop, he said.

He said some of the migrants are not aware of where they are, believing they are already in Germany and appeared to have been very disinformed by Belarusian soldiers and guards." He said some were looking for taxis, unaware that no taxis are allowed in the closed zone. So far at least eight migrants have reportedly died in the difficult crossing.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, accompanied by Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, went to the border on Tuesday morning to meet with border guards and other security officials. Morawiecki praised them and said: We do not know what else Lukashenko's regime will come up with this is the reality."

Meanwhile, Lithuania's government on Tuesday asked parliament to declare a state of emergency along the border with Belarus for a month beginning at midnight. It would reach five km (three miles) inland, as well as in migrant accommodation facilities in Vilnius and elsewhere.

Poland has received strong signals of solidarity from the EU, other EU nations and the United States in the confrontation with Belarus. Analysts and some officials believe that Lukashenko is acting with the backing of Russia.

Germany's outgoing interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said all EU countries must stand together, because Lukashenko is using people's fates with the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin to destabilise the West.

"The Poles are fulfilling a very important service for the whole of Europe, he said.

Many migrants have flown to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on tourist visas, and from there travel by taxi to the border with Poland. The EU is seeking to pressure airlines not to facilitate such trips.

Although direct flights from Iraq to Minsk were suspended in August, migrants have been flying into Belarus via flights from Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and even Russia, according to recent internal EU migration reports seen by the AP.

On social media, smugglers have advertised transportation from Belarus to Germany by car. Many of the migrants have ended up in Germany, but some travelled all the way to Finland by ferry. 

India on Tuesday dismissed reports that it had signed up to the Action Agenda on Sustainable Agriculture at the ongoing COP26 climate summit in Glasgow as baseless and factually incorrect.

The Sustainable Agriculture Policy Action Agenda for the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture and Global Action Agenda for Innovation in Agriculture' was pegged as a highlight over the weekend at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

"All continents were represented, with countries including India, Colombia, Vietnam, Germany, Ghana, and Australia," noted the UK's COP26 release around the announcement.

"Certain media reports have stated that India has signed the COP26 Action Agenda on Sustainable Agriculture at the ongoing Climate summit at Glasgow. It is clarified that such statements are baseless and factually incorrect," said Gaurav Khare, official spokesperson of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, who is part of the Indian delegation at the COP26 summit.

 "A National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) is one of the Missions within the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) that is operational in the country to deal with the issue of climate change. The mission aims to evolve and implement strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the changing climate," he said.

The spokesperson noted that the NMSA was approved for three major components Rainfed Area Development (RAD); On Farm Water Management (OFWM); and Soil Health Management (SHM). Subsequently, four new programmes were introduced namely Soil Health Card (SHC), Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North Eastern Region (MOVCDNER) and Sub Mission on Agroforestry (SMAF).

"During 2015-16, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) was operationalised and subsumed under Per Drop More Crop (PDMC) component of PMKSY. In addition to aforementioned programmes under NMSA, Restructured National Bamboo Mission (NBM) was launched in April 2018. Several steps are being taken to ensure that Indian agriculture remains on the path of sustainability, he highlighted. 

President Daniel Ortega won a fourth consecutive term in the Nicaraguan elections held on Sunday. His wife Vice President Rosario Murillo will continue as Vice President. 

Ortega had prevented opposition candidates from contesting by imprisoning seven would-be presidential candidates, including Cristiana Chamorro who had a higher favorability rating of 53 per cent, compared with 39 per cent for Ortega. 

Ms Chamorro is the daughter of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who defeated Ortega in the 1990 presidential elections.

Ortega has been in power continuously since 2007 after removing the constitutional term limit. He was earlier president from 1985-90 and part of the ruling Junta from 1979 to 1984. He and his wife Rosario are running the country like a family dynasty similar to the Somoza dynasty which ruled from 1937 to 1979. 

Ortega was part of the glorious Sandinista revolution which overthrew the Somoza dynasty in 1979. He was admired when he accepted the defeat in the 1990 election gracefully and waited for his time till 2007. But since then he has eroded democracy by his authoritarian way of rule. He has promoted his wife and children to positions of power. Most of the other leaders of the Sandinista revolution have turned opponents to Ortega’s family regime. 

The US, European Union and some Latin American countries including Costa Rica have condemned the elections as a fraud. The US has imposed sanctions on Nicaragua and personally against Ortega’s family members. Due to the political oppression and economic difficulties, over 100,000 Nicaraguans have migrated to Costa Rica as refugees and thousands have sought asylum in the US.

Nicaragua has joined Venezuela as another sham democracy in Latin America. Both Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution and Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution began with lofty socialistic ideals. Both have now betrayed these ideals and given a bad name to socialism and revolution, besides ruining the two countries.

The author is an expert in Latin American affairs

The armed forces of Colombia have captured Dairo Antonio Usuga, better known as Otoniel—reputedly one of the country’s biggest drug lords since Pablo Escobar.

“This is the biggest blow against drug trafficking in our country this century, President Ivan Duque said during a broadcast video message. “This blow is only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s”.

A police officer died during the operation, he said.

Otoniel was one of the leaders of Los Urabenos, which the US State Department calls an extremely “violent criminal organisation comprised of former members of terrorist organisations”. He has been accused of sending dozens of cocaine shipments to the US and of killing police officers, recruiting minors, and sexually abusing children. Since the death of his brother in a 2012 raid, Otoniel has been in charge of the group.

He was associated with a former paramilitary organisation, AUC, which rejected the demobilisation process and re-armed in 2006.

Colombia has been hunting Otoniel for years. In 2015, the BBC reported that 1,200 security force personnel were after him, more than double the 500 who hunted Pablo Escobar. Operation Agamemnon, launched in 2016, saw dozens of Otoniel’s lieutenants killed or captured and forced him to constantly be on the move. As a result of back issues, he reportedly insisted on sleeping on orthopaedic mattresses wherever he was hiding out.

Intelligence from both the US and the UK led Colombian special forces to Otoniel’s jungle hideout, which was protected by eight rings of security.

According to a White House report, the production of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine, jumped 16 per cent in 2020 with a record 245,000 hectares dedicated to it.

Singapore cannot go into an indefinite lockdown and standstill, but also cannot "simply let go and let things rip", Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

"We have to travel this road to get to living safely with COVID-19. We want to get there with as few casualties as possible," Lee said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

Singapore's multi-ministry task force announced on Saturday a slew of measures for the effective opening up of the affluent city-state.

These include requiring vaccination for all staff returning to the workplace from Jan 1, 2022, as well as adding China's Sinovac to the national vaccination program and expanding the home recovery scheme to certain pregnant women, The Straits Times newspaper reported.

The task force is co-chaired by Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, and Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.

In his post, Lee highlighted the weekly infection growth rate -- the ratio of community causes in the past week over the week before.

Two weeks ago, this figure was 1.5, meaning that cases were doubling roughly every fortnight.

It now stands at 1.15, meaning that cases are growing 15 percent each week. This works out to case numbers doubling about every month.

If the ratio drops below one and Singapore's hospital and intensive care unit situations remain stable, some measures can be eased, Lee said.

"Many of you have written to express your frustrations about the restrictions, while others have voiced concerns that we are opening up too fast!" he noted.

"I fully understand how you feel. It has been a long journey, and the continuing uncertainty and disruption are hard on all of us." Certain sectors, such as the food and beverage industry, have had an exceptionally tough time, the Prime Minister explained.

He urged everyone to continue doing their part and exercise social responsibility as Singapore works towards living safely with the virus.

This includes taking vaccinations or booster doses when offered, as they reduce an individual's chances of getting seriously ill, he said.

"Let's continue to stay safe and keep working together," Lee added.

The Health Ministry reported 3,598 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, which includes 790 from migrant workers' dormitories, and six deaths from complications due to the virus. Three hundred people have died from coronavirus-linked complications while 169,261 infections have been reported since the virus broke here last year.

Two people were killed and seven others injured in a gas explosion at a residential building in the Chinese port city of Dalian on Sunday.

A huge fire that broke out after the explosion has been extinguished and the wounded were admitted to the hospital, state-run CGTN-TV reported The cause of the accident is being investigated.

This is the second such explosion in a week.

On October 21, four people were killed and 47 others injured in a gas explosion at a restaurant in Shenyang, the capital of north-eastern China's Liaoning province.

Video footage shared online shows the massive destruction of a three-story building, with debris littered across the area and nearby buildings affected. Cars parked near the restaurant were also damaged.

China reported 43 new Covid cases, including four locally transmitted infections in Beijing, health authorities said on Sunday.

The four new locally transmitted coronavirus cases detected in Beijing pushed the total infections in the city during the current outbreak to 13.

The four people, who live in the same residential community in Beiqijia Township located in the northern suburban district of Changping, are all close contacts of previously confirmed cases, the municipal health commission said.

They have been sent to a designated hospital for treatment and epidemiological investigation is underway, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

National Health Commission (NHC) said besides the four infections in Beijing, 39 other cases were reported from different parts of the country. This includes 17 imported cases.

Of the new 26 local cases, seven were reported in Inner Mongolia, six each in Gansu and Ningxia, four in Beijing, and one each in Hebei, Hunan, and Shaanxi, the commission said.

Of the 17 imported cases, eight were reported in Zhejiang, four in Shanghai, and one each in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan.

No death from COVID-19 was reported on Saturday, the Xinhua report said.