Euobserver.com

The first known case in the US caused by the Omicron variant is a fully vaccinated person who had previously travelled to South Africa, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Omicron has been reported in at least two dozen countries, including several EU member states, Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Israel. The US government has asked fully vaccinated people to get a booster to increase protection against infection.

The US urged Russia on Wednesday (1 December) to pull back its troops from the Ukrainian border, Reuters reported, warning that a Russian invasion would provoke hard-hitting sanctions. "We don't know whether president [Vladimir] Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so in short order," US secretary of state Antony Blinken said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called for direct negotiations with Russia to end an eight-year war with pro-Russian separatists in his country's eastern part. "We must tell the truth that we will not be able to end the war without direct talks with Russia," Zelensky told lawmakers. On Tuesday, Russia reportedly amassed 115,000 troops around Ukraine, in regions it has annexed and where it is backing separatist fighters.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and rising cost for raw materials, renewable energy had another year of record growth, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Wednesday. About 290GW of new renewable energy generation capacity - most of it wind and solar - has been installed, beating the previous record of last year. The IEA expects renewable energy generating capacity to overtake fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined by 2026.

More than eight months after the Dutch election, the end of the longest-running cabinet formation may be in sight, Het Financieele Dagblad reported on Wednesday. The four negotiating parties hope to present a coalition agreement in the week before the Christmas recess, which starts on Friday, 17 December. Prime minister Mark Rutte and his fourth cabinet could then possibly start in early January.

The Omicron variant poses a "race against time," the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said, adding that the EU should also discuss whether mandatory vaccination is necessary

The EU proposal does not mention China directly, but it offers to counter Beijing's almost €3 trillion Belt and Road programme - which critics say has pushed some countries to unsustainable level of indebtedness.

"If Brazil is stripping its forests, that is because it has to repay foreign debts. Countries like Brazil, or African countries, are encouraged to borrow dollars instead of their own currency" explains South African economist Ann Pettifor.

The EU Commission presented a proposal to allow relaxing EU asylum laws in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia for six months. It says all rights will be respected - but deflected questions on whether a Polish law on pushbacks complies.

Former European Council president Herman van Rompuy plus local authorities warned EU policymakers against making the Conference on the Future of Europe a one-off exercise, arguing that democracy will continue to be under pressure after 2022.

The suggestions below were put on paper after the inspiring and intensive consultations held in Strasbourg last week with the exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, her team and MEP friends of democratic Belarus in the European Parliament.

Poland's president on Tuesday (30 November) signed into law legislation that will limit the access of aid charities and journalists to its border with Belarus as the country grapples with a simmering migrant crisis, Reuters reports. The law is a blow to the opposition parties that advocated for unlimited media access, an amendment approved by the upper house of parliament on Friday but rejected by the lower house.

Germany's incoming chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday positioned himself in favour of mandatory Covid-19 vaccination from February 2022, a party source said, according to the AFP. The news come after several politicians called for the federal and state governments to introduce mandatory jabs to push up the country's inoculation rate of 68 percent. Mandatory vaccination has became a hot topic in the EU, after Austria announced such a move.

The Omicron Covid-19 variant was present in Europe at least 10 days ago, before South African health experts alerted the world to their concerns around the newly-identified variant, The Guardian writes. The Dutch health authority said it found the Omicron variant in two local cases going back 11 days, showing it was already in Europe before the reports came out of South Africa on 24 November.

Frankfurt's higher regional court has found a 29-year-old guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity resulting in death, sentencing him to life in prison. The Frankfurt case is the first in the world to decide whether a former member of the so-called Islamic State group played a role in the attempted genocide of the Yazidi religious group. The defendant passed out when the verdict was read aloud in court.

The oil major Shell is considering a return to Libya with a plan to develop new oil and gas fields and infrastructure, as well as a solar project, two sources told Reuters, a decade after exiting the North African country because of unrest. The plan marks a rare new oil and gas foray by the energy major as it seeks to cut fossil fuel investment and slash greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Commission on Wednesday is set to reveal a €300bn plan to propel the EU's infrastructure and global influence, reports the Associated Press. The programme is expected to mobilise both private and public capital. Asked if the plan aims to counter China's influence, a commission spokesperson is cited as saying they want to "cooperate with our partners".

Barbados has gained its independence, after 396 years of rule by the British, The Guardian reports. Dame Sandra Mason was sworn in as president by the chief justice and took the oath of allegiance to her country, replacing the British Queen as head of state. A handover ceremony was attended by Britain's Prince Charles and the singer Rihanna, who is Barbadian.

French far-right pundit Eric Zemmour announced on Tuesday that he will run for president in next year's election, staking his claim in a video peppered with anti-immigrant rhetoric and warnings France must be saved from decline, France24 writes. Zemmour is the most stridently anti-Islam and anti-migrant of the challengers seeking to unseat president Emmanuel Macron in the April 2022 vote.

According to Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg "it is important to distinguish between Nato allies and partner Ukraine. Nato allies, there we provide [Article 5] guarantees, collective defence guarantees, and we will defend and protect all allies."