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March 11, 2021

EU-US Relations: New transatlantic partnership for global change in motion

In a letter sent to Manfred Weber – the chairman of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political organization in the EU Parliament, Council, and Commission – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban officially announced that his political party, Fidesz, would resign from the center-right group.

Orban’s decision to pull Fidesz out of the faction came after the EPP, which has dominated EU politics for over 20 years, moved to enact a new rule change that would have paved the way for Fidesz to be suspended from its ranks.

Reas more at: New transatlantic partnership for global change in motion | New Europe

March 10, 2021

The Netherlands: Lessons from the Netherlands on staying in power

Ask Dutch people about Mark Rutte, their prime minister since 2010, and they recite the ritual Dutch paean to any hero who remains “normaal”: how the eternal bachelor lives in an ordinary flat, having refused to move into the official residence; how he doesn’t even have a coffee machine, just a kettle; how he cycles to work, teaches social studies once a week at a high school in an immigrant neighbourhood of The Hague and, finally, has no noticeable political beliefs. Rutte himself, a Germanophile, likes to quote the late West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt: “Anyone having visions should see a doctor.”

Read more at: Lessons from the Netherlands on staying in power | Financial Times

March 9, 2021

Cancer Treatment: Cure for cancer the next target for Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine inventor Ugur Sahin

The man who invented the first vaccine against the deadly coronavirus is prioritizing a cure for cancer as his post-pandemic target.

Ugur Sahin, the co-founder and chief executive of BioNTech, the firm which developed the earliest authorized vaccine in partnership with Pfizer, told Arab News that successful cancer treatment, using similar techniques he developed in the fight against COVID-19, was his next goal.

Sahin, who developed the vaccine along with his wife Ozlem Tureci, who is BioNTech’s chief medical officer, was appearing in the latest episode of Frankly Speaking, the series of video interviews with leading global policy-makers and business people.

Read more at: Cure for cancer the next target for Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine inventor Ugur Sahin

March 8, 2021

Excercise: Why winter exercise can be especially hard on the lungs - by Laura Glowacki

Canadian Olympic hopeful Katherine Stewart-Jones can't remember when she first started experiencing a cough she and other cross-country skiers call "race hack," but she said it was probably when she started competing in her early teen years.

"Sometimes, it goes like all the way into your back ... it's just this burning sensation," she said. "I'll lean over and just don't want to get up for a while because it hurts.

Read more at: Why winter exercise can be especially hard on the lungs | CBC News

March 7, 2021

The Netherlands: Dutch dance lovers offered lockdown relief at test event

Dance music lovers in Amsterdam were offered a short relief from COVID-19 lockdown on Saturday, treated to their first live show in over a year while serving as guinea pigs in a research project

A total of 1,300 people were allowed at a carefully orchestrated test event in Amsterdam’s biggest music hall, the ZiggoDome, which in normal times has a capacity of up to 17,000.

Read more at: Dutch dance lovers offered lockdown relief at test event | Reuters

March 6, 2021

EU-British:Relations: Breton: No AstraZeneca jabs exported from the Netherlands after EU export controls - by illian Deutsch

AstraZeneca subcontractor Halix has not sent any Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine doses to the U.K. after the EU implemented export controls, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said Wednesday.

In January, the Commission introduced new export controls requiring companies to get authorization from national authorities to export vaccines outside the bloc.

Since then, "everything has stayed in the EU," Breton said, adding that AstraZeneca hasn't requested to send vaccines abroad since the authorization scheme.

Read more: Breton: No AstraZeneca jabs exported from the Netherlands after EU export controls – POLITICO

March 5, 2021

EU: Covid: What’s the problem with the EU vaccine rollout?

The European Union has been criticised for the slow pace of coronavirus vaccinations in its member states.

It has introduced export controls on vaccines produced in the EU after its rollout was hit by supply problems and delays. They were used for the first time on 4 March, when Italy blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia.

The scheme, set up in June 2020, allows the EU to negotiate the purchase of vaccines on behalf of its member states. It says this can help reduce costs and avoid competition between them.

Member states do not have to join the scheme, but all 27 EU countries chose to do so.

Read more at: Covid: What’s the problem with the EU vaccine rollout? - BBC News