Month: May 2021

The European Medicines Agency approved on Friday the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children aged 12 to 15, in what the drug regulator called “an important step forward in the fight against the pandemic” in a statement.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine for that age group earlier this month after clinical trials showed it was safe.

The E.M.A.’s opinion will now be sent to the European Commission, the bloc’s administrative arm, for final approval, which it is expected to do swiftly. It will then be up to the national governments of the member countries

BERLIN — Germany is formally recognizing as genocide the killing of tens of thousands of people from two ethnic groups in what is now Namibia in the early 20th century, the foreign ministry said on Friday, a major acknowledgment of colonial-era crimes.

Germany is asking for forgiveness and establishing a fund worth more than a billion euros to support projects in the affected communities.

Successive German governments denied the country’s responsibility for the killings, in contrast to its earnest and transparent atonement for the Nazi Holocaust that has been a cornerstone of the country’s post-World War II identity.

The recognition

PARIS — After nearly three decades of recriminations over France’s role in Rwanda’s genocide of 1994, the leaders of the two countries on Thursday stood side by side in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, declaring a new chapter in their relations.

After laying a wreath at the Kigali Genocide Memorial and observing a minute of silence, President Emmanuel Macron of France said his country had, “a duty to confront history and to recognize its part of the suffering it inflicted on the Rwandan people.” President Paul Kagame of Rwanda later said the visit was “about the future, not the past.”

Mr.

AMMAN, Jordan — A fragile cease-fire remains intact, but the work to rebuild after the short but deadly war between Israel and Hamas has just begun, the top American diplomat said Wednesday at the close of a Middle East trip intended to keep simmering tensions from erupting anew.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was returning to Washington from the brief but urgent visit with new promises to help fund a massive humanitarian and reconstruction effort in the Gaza Strip, pockets of which were decimated during 11 days of hostilities between Hamas, the militant group that controls the

LONDON — Russia is increasingly pressuring Google, Twitter and Facebook to fall in line with Kremlin internet crackdown orders or risk restrictions inside the country, as more governments around the world challenge the companies’ principles on online freedom.

Russia’s internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, recently ramped up its demands for the Silicon Valley companies to remove online content that it deems illegal or restore pro-Kremlin material that had been blocked. The warnings have come at least weekly since services from Facebook, Twitter and Google were used as tools for anti-Kremlin protests in January. If the companies do not comply, the regulator has

WARSAW — Since his teenage years as a rebellious high school student in Belarus and continuing into his 20s while in exile abroad, Roman Protasevich faced so many threats from the country’s security apparatus — of violent beatings, jail, punishment against family members — that “we all sort of got used to them,” a fellow exiled dissident recalled.

So, despite his being branded a terrorist by Belarus late last year — a capital offense — Mr. Protasevich was not particularly worried when he set off for Greece from Lithuania, where he had been living, earlier this month to attend a