The EU Commission has released draft legislation aimed at tackling the destruction of woodland by introducing import restrictions on products not certified as ‘deforestation-free’.

The draft proposal, which the commission hopes will become binding rules for all member states, seeks to limit the import of beef, cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, and wood if it is not proven “deforestation-free.”

Outlining the legislation, the EU commissioner for climate action policy, Virginijus Sinkevicius, called it a “ground-breaking” proposal that will help fight “illegal deforestation” and “deforestation driven by agricultural expansion.”

The bill comes after nations at the COP26 summit agreed to work to end deforestation by 2030. It would impose two criteria on imports, requiring items to have been produced in accordance with the origin country’s laws, and not on land that has been deforested or degraded since the start of 2021.

It is not clear when the rules would come into effect; legislative proposals by the commission have to be debated and considered by both the EU Parliament and the Council of the EU before they are passed. The implementation of measures could potentially impact the EU’s trade relations with countries like Brazil, where clearing of the Amazon rainforest hit a new record in October.

During the recent COP26 climate summit, 110 world leaders – whose countries contain around 85% of the world’s woodland – committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, pledging around £14 billion ($18.84 billion) of public and private funds towards the goal.

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The EU’s drug regulator has backed the emergency use of Merck’s pill for the treatment for clinically vulnerable Covid-19 patients as cases surge across the continent.

On Friday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) “issued advice” backing the emergency use of the drug developed by Merck in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, although it has not yet been authorized by national authorities.

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© Reuters / Piroschka van de Wouw
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In a statement, the drug regulator said the medicine called Lagevrio – also known as molnupiravir or MK 4482 – “can be used to treat adults with Covid-19 who do not require supplemental oxygen and who are at increased risk of developing severe Covid-19.”

It said the treatment should be administered as soon as possible after Covid-19 is diagnosed and within five days of the start of symptoms. The medicine should be taken twice a day for a period of five days.

The EMA listed the potential side effects of the capsules, including mild or moderate diarrhea, nausea, dizziness and headache. The treatment is not recommended for pregnant women.

The watchdog announced earlier on Friday that it had begun reviewing Pfizer’s medicine Paxlovid for Covid-19 with the same goal “to support national authorities” who may decide on its early use prior to marketing authorization in light of rising cases and deaths in Europe.

On Friday, Austria announced it would enter a new nationwide lockdown from Monday and make vaccination mandatory, while Germany’s health authorities claimed the country had turned into “one big outbreak.”

Both Pfizer and Merck have requested approval for their coronavirus medicines from the US Food and Drug Administration, but it is unclear when it might be granted.

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Hospitals in the Netherlands have begun delaying certain operations to free-up ICU beds during a record wave of Covid-19 infections, while an infectious diseases researcher has warned of an impending ‘Code Black’ in the sector.

The country set a daily national record for new Covid infections on Thursday, registering around 23,600 cases. It was the third day in a row of the figure topping 20,000.

To make more staff available for Covid wards, a number of operations, including those for cancer and heart patients, are being canceled from this week on, Dutch healthcare officials have said. Fewer than 200 beds remained available in Dutch ICUs as of Thursday, while Friday figures show almost half (47.8%) of occupied ICU beds were being used by Covid patients.

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FILE PHOTO. A woman wearing a protective mask walks past a store in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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“These are cancer patients that should actually be operated-on within six weeks of diagnosis, and that won’t be met in all cases. It’s also heart patients,” said a spokesperson for the National Coordination Center for Patient Distribution (LCPS).

Meanwhile, new calculations by an infectious disease modeller at Wageningen University & Research suggest that a so-called ‘Code Black’ in hospitals is looming. The emergency designation means that patient safety is at risk and, if declared, would mean many people with life-threatening illnesses cannot go to the ICU, while doctors have to prioritize who to treat.

According to recent estimates from the Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa), up to 200,000 operations were not performed as a result of urgently needed Covid care since the start of the pandemic. On Thursday, the NZa revealed that almost a quarter of operating rooms across the country are not currently in use due to a combination of Covid patient pressures and rising staff absences due to illness.

It is not yet clear what impact the delayed care will have on public health. In December 2020, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) calculated that an estimated 34,000 to 50,000 ‘healthy life years’ had been lost due to the first Covid-19 wave alone.

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Apple has finally caved to users demanding the ‘right to repair’, allowing owners of iPhones, MacBooks, and other devices to tinker with their electronics at home instead of bringing them to notoriously expensive service centers.

Called Self Service Repair, the feature is set to launch “early next year” in the US before expanding to other countries. Some 200 parts are expected to be available, along with instructions on how to replace them.

Initially, the company will offer repairs for the iPhone 12 and 13, to be followed by Macs with M1 chips. Users will be able to replace the phones’ display, battery, and camera – some of the earliest parts to cease functioning – using original equipment from the company. While Apple encourages only “individual technicians with the knowledge and experience to repair electronic devices,” urging users to take their devices to a professional before cracking them open themselves, the move nevertheless represents a major step for a company that has long been resistant to allowing users to even swap out a battery.

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After rolling out repair instructions and parts for the iPhone 12 and 13, the company will gradually expand users’ abilities to fix their phones themselves without having to wait in line at the Apple Store. Users who attempt to make these repairs on their own will not void their warranty, according to TechCrunch, representing another major change for the tech giant.

Even this week, Apple was sealing off users’ ability to fix their own phones, barring users who replaced their own screens from being able to use Face ID recognition going forward. However, the various departments seem to be coordinating among themselves – users will receive a recycling credit for returning their used or broken part after completing the repair, and the company plans to sell “more than 200 individual parts and tools,” as well as repair manuals customers can peruse before attempting to repair their devices.

The decision to open up Apple’s “right to repair” might not have been entirely that of the company – the Federal Trade Commission wrote to the corporation earlier this year vowing to “address unlawful repair restrictions,” adding it would also “stand ready to work with legislators, either at the state or federal level, in order to ensure that consumers have choices when they need to repair products that they purchase and own.”

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Scientists have used an AI tool to identify which animals are most likely to contract and spread mutated versions of Covid-19. The model highlighted both pets and wild animals as likely reservoirs for the virus.

Using information about their habitats and various biological traits, researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York developed the machine learning tool to figure out which animals had the particular ACE2 protein that the coronavirus was most likely to latch onto. 

Out of 5,400 tested, the scientists narrowed it down to 540 mammalian species.

Some of its predictions have been previously documented as transmission risks, for instance, dogs, cats and bats, while farm animals like pigs and exotic zoo animals were surprise additions.

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Other expected additions are minks, Sunda pangolins, and 35 species of bats – which are together ranked among the top 10% of animals most likely to spread the virus, in line with lab results. 

The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society journal, also ranked water buffalo, a number of primates, including gorillas and 76 rodent species as being more susceptible to infection.

The researchers taught the AI to identify patterns between rates of transmission and some 60 ecological and biological traits collected by earlier studies, including the overlap between the animal and human habitats as well as their respective lifespans, diets, and sizes.

Previously, the specific amino acid sequences had only been mapped out in around 300 species, including about 143 mammals — and figuring out which ones are more prone to infection is key to predicting the spread of the virus, researchers said.

Arinjay Banerjee at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada told the New Scientist that the results will help researchers “track viral infections and the possible emergence of animal-adapted coronavirus variants” around the world. Barbara Han, who led the study, said predictions needed to be followed up with systematic surveillance and lab studies.

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Vaccination of all Hungarian citizens against Covid-19 is inevitable, PM Viktor Orban has said, stating that even the most hardline anti-vaxxers will ultimately face a choice between dying with the virus and getting a jab.

Speaking to Kossuth radio on Friday, the Hungarian leader lashed out at those reluctant to get vaccinated against coronavirus, branding them a threat “not only to themselves but to all others.”

In the end, everyone will have to be vaccinated; even the anti-vaxxers will realize that they will either get vaccinated or die. So, I urge everyone to take this opportunity.

The EU member state is currently experiencing its fourth wave of coronavirus, Orban stated, blaming the situation on those who had not got vaccinated. “If everybody were inoculated, there would be no fourth wave or it would be just a small one,” the PM claimed.

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Apart from urging the unvaccinated to go and finally get their jabs, Orban also promoted booster shots, revealing that he had already taken three doses of a coronavirus vaccine.

“The only thing that protects us from the virus is vaccination. And we are now also seeing, at least the experts are unanimous in saying, that four to six months after the second vaccination, the protective power of the vaccine weakens. Therefore, a third vaccination is justified,” he said.

Hungary has already announced new anti-Covid measures, though somewhat short of the strict measures proposed by the nation’s Medical Chamber on Wednesday. The medical body called for a blanket ban on mass events, and suggested making entry to restaurants, theaters and other indoor venues conditional on bearing a Covid-19 inoculation certificate. Instead, Budapest rolled out compulsory mask wearing for most indoor environments, as well as making booster shots mandatory for all medical workers, starting from Saturday.

A nation of 10 million, Hungary’s total tally of logged Covid cases is hovering just below the one million mark. On Friday, it registered a new daily record, with nearly 11,300 new Covid infections. More than 32,700 people in Hungary have succumbed to the disease over the course of the pandemic.

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At least ten people have been killed and several wounded by security forces during mass demonstrations in Sudan against the recent military coup, a medics organization has said.

“The coup forces used live bullets heavily in different areas of the capital and there are tens of gunshot injuries, some of them in serious condition,” the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) said in a statement.

The group of medics, which supports the protest movement, said several of the injured were in critical condition. It reported ten deaths across Bahri, Omdurman and the capital Khartoum.

According to AFP, citing witnesses, security forces also fired tear gas at protesters in the capital.

Although internet services have been disrupted and telephone lines cut since the military coup on October 25, thousands of people made it to the streets of major cities. 

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which also supports the demonstrators, said people were witnessing “excessive repression” and that there was a “deliberate interruption of voice and internet communications services.”

READ MORE: Protests in Sudan escalate amid reports of victims, videos claim to show military opening fire

Videos posted on social media show protesters wrapping up in national flags, chanting anti-military mottos and demanding the release of activists detained by the military since the takeover. Resistance committees across Sudan adopted the Liverpool Football Club’s chant ‘You Will Never Walk Alone’ as their slogan, which has already become a popular hashtag on Twitter.

On October 25, following a long period of tensions between Sudan’s military and civilian-led government, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan announced the dissolution of both the Sovereign Council and the transitional government, declaring a state of emergency. The apparent military coup immediately prompted mass protests across the country.

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