International

Israel starts Covid vaccine jabs for children as young as 5

AFP

Israel rolled out Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged five to 11 on Tuesday, one of only a handful of countries to inoculate minors that young as it seeks to ward off another pandemic wave.

Over the summer, the Jewish state experienced an upsurge in coronavirus infections, fuelled by the Delta variant, and launched one of the earliest campaigns for booster shots.

As infections creep up again, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has pointed at a “children’s wave”, stating on Facebook that about half of the recently confirmed cases were among those below the age of 11.

Authorities had already begun immunising those aged 12 to 17 but decided to lower the age threshold in the wake of trials by Pfizer and recommendations from a panel of Israeli scientists.

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Hours after the campaign to vaccinate younger minors officially launched on Tuesday, Bennett took his nine-year-old son David for a jab at a centre in the coastal city of Herzliya.

“I call on all Israeli parents to come and have their children vaccinated. It is safe and it safeguards our children,” Bennett said.

“It is important to get vaccinated so that children don’t get sick with corona and so that they won’t infect their parents.”

– Parents’ hesitation ‘normal’ –

Doses for younger children were already being distributed on Monday night.

Outside a clinic in Tel Aviv giving the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs to children late Monday, Heli Nave said hesitation among parents was “normal”.

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She said “it is not an easy decision at all”, but the availability of data from the United States — which started immunising five-to-11-year-olds earlier this month — had convinced her.

“Right now during the epidemic, the best tool to protect our children is vaccination,” Nave said.

Another mother in Tel Aviv, 47-year-old Katy Bar Shalom, told AFP she was “excited” for her children to be among the first jabbed in the 5-11 age group.

“We know we need to be vaccinated in order to get back to normal,” she said.

Israel was one of the first countries to launch vaccines against the coronavirus last year thanks to a deal with Pfizer that gave it access to millions of doses in exchange for data on the vaccine’s efficacy.

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More than 5.7 million of the country’s nine million people are now fully vaccinated.

Israeli experts recommended inoculating younger minors following a green light from US regulators.

International

Football Fan Killed in Clashes After Colombian League Match

Fans of Cúcuta Deportivo and their traditional rivals Atlético Bucaramanga clashed outside the stadium following their local league match on Tuesday, leaving one supporter dead and several others injured.

The deceased fan was stabbed, according to a senior police official in Cúcuta who confirmed the cause of death in a video statement. Local media reported that the victim was a supporter of the visiting team, Atlético Bucaramanga.

The match ended in a 2-2 draw. Authorities had banned the entry of Atlético Bucaramanga’s organized supporters into the stadium in an effort to prevent disturbances.

Despite the restrictions, violence broke out in the surrounding areas after the game. Among the injured were three police officers, an institutional source told AFP.

The incident adds to a series of recent violent episodes linked to Colombian football. The most recent occurred in December, when supporters of Atlético Nacional and Independiente Medellín clashed in the stands and on the pitch, leaving 59 people injured.

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International

Missing Spanish Sailor Rescued After 11 Days Adrift in Mediterranean

The man had departed from the port of Gandía, on Spain’s eastern coast, with the intention of reaching the southern Spanish town of Guardamar del Segura, a journey of about 150 kilometers, a spokesperson for Spain’s maritime rescue service told AFP.

Search boats and aircraft were deployed on January 17, but the operation was called off on January 22 after efforts proved unsuccessful. Alerts were then issued to vessels navigating the area in case they spotted any signs of the missing sailor.

As hopes were fading, a surveillance aircraft from the European Union’s border agency Frontex spotted the sailboat on Tuesday, along with a person signaling for help, approximately 53 nautical miles northeast of Bejaia, Algeria.

A nearby vessel, the Singapore-flagged bulk carrier Thor Confidence, carried out the rescue and is expected to bring the man to an end to his ordeal when it arrives on Thursday in the southern Spanish port city of Algeciras.

Maritime rescue services shared images on social media showing a small white sailboat drifting at sea and secured alongside the much larger ship.

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It remains unclear how the sailboat ended up hundreds of kilometers off its intended route or how the man managed to survive for so long alone in open waters.

International

Rubio Says U.S. Could Participate in Follow-Up Russia-Ukraine Talks

The United States could join a new round of talks this week aimed at ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday.

Teams from Kyiv and Moscow met last Friday and Saturday in Abu Dhabi in their first publicly acknowledged direct negotiations to discuss the peace initiative promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

“They are going to hold follow-up talks again this week,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “There could be U.S. participation.”

However, Rubio suggested that Washington’s role may be more limited than during last week’s discussions, which included Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

The secretary of state indicated that progress may have already been made on security guarantees for Ukraine, one of Kyiv’s key demands in any agreement with Moscow after nearly four years of Russian invasion.

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“There is one remaining issue that everyone is familiar with, and that is the territorial claim over Donetsk,” Rubio said, referring to the eastern Ukrainian region that Russia wants Ukraine to cede.

“I know that active efforts are underway to see whether the positions of both sides on this issue can be reconciled. It remains a bridge we have not yet crossed,” he added during the hearing.

Rubio acknowledged that the territorial question would be particularly difficult for Ukraine to resolve.