In the spotlight: thanks to China, Serbia vaccinates with a vengeance
A health worker prepares a dose of Chinese-made Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine at the Belgrade fair transformed into a vaccination center, February 4, 2021. AFP - ANDREJ ISAKOVIC
Text by: Courrier des Balkans Follow |
Florentin Cassonnet
3 min
A press review presented in partnership with "Le Courrier des Balkans".
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After receiving a million doses in mid-January, Serbia was the first European country to have authorized the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, still in phase 3 testing.
Since then, the
vaccination campaign
against covid-19 has been in full swing in the country.
A win-win partnership for Belgrade and Beijing.
In Serbia, the “Chinese big brother” is indeed a major investor.
But this comes at a price, that of silence in the face of
conditions close to slavery
for Chinese workers at the Bor copper mine, bought in 2018 by the state-owned Zijin.
Several surveys reveal that they are underpaid, malnourished, crammed into unsanitary containers, deprived of exit and subjected to an inhuman work regime.
Pristina-Jerusalem
On Monday February 1, Israel became the 117th state to recognize Kosovo, breaking a series of "de-recognitions" obtained by Serbia.
In return, Pristina reiterated its promise to open its embassy in Jerusalem, as requested by the "Washington Accord" signed under the aegis of Donald Trump in September 2020. At the risk of angering the European Union.
Hospitals
catch fire
in Romania.
On January 29, the Matei Balş Institute in Bucharest, the country's most advanced hospital in the treatment of infectious diseases, including Covid-19 - 5 deaths.
In November 2020, it was at the regional hospital of Piatra Neamț - 10 dead.
At issue: the
archaic conditions
in Romanian hospitals and "the long chain of improvisations" in which caregivers are forced to do their work.
History and video games
Virtually replaying the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart is possible with several video games where users can create their own scenarios.
For example, one can go "to liquidate [the KLA commander] Jashari".
In fact in these games, the enemy is always Albanian, Croatian or Bosnian.
At the risk of encouraging revisionism and Serbian nationalism, and of promoting radicalization online.
Survey
.
In 1936, they got up before dawn: 1,800 Yugoslavs left for Spain to fight against Franco's fascist units.
As a sign of gratitude, since 2020, the descendants of veterans of the International Brigades can obtain Spanish citizenship.
Return on a
glorious and forgotten
history
.
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