Briefly

RUSSIA

Putin orders jabs to start next week

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a "large-scale" COVID-19 immunization campaign to start by late next week, with doctors and teachers set to be first in line to get a Russian-developed vaccine. Putin's order came hours after the United Kingdom became the first country in the West to authorize the use of a vaccine against the coronavirus. It is using a vaccine developed by US drugmaker Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech. Russia touted its domestically developed vaccine, Sputnik V, as the world's "first registered COVID-19 vaccine" after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August.

UNITED STATES

Trump floats 2024 White House run

US President Donald Trump hinted on Wednesday that he may be ready to move on to planning another run for the presidency in 2024. Trump has refused to concede defeat and his lawyers continue to file legal challenges to the outcome of the Nov 3 election. At a White House holiday reception on Tuesday night, Trump appeared to acknowledge that those efforts could fail, and in that case he would run again."We are trying to do another four years," he told the assembled group, according to a Republican source who was at the event."Otherwise, I'll see you in four years."

FRANCE

Former president dies of coronavirus

Former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a leading advocate of European integration who led his country into a new modern era, has died of COVID-19, his family said. He was 94. Giscard d'Estaing, who had been in hospital several times in recent months for heart problems, died late on Wednesday surrounded by his family at home in the Loire region. He became the country's youngest president in the 20th century when, aged 48 in 1974, he beat his Socialist Francois Mitterrand, to whom he then lost in a failed reelection bid in 1981. French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to his predecessor, saying Giscard d'Estaing's seven-year term had "transformed France".

ETHIOPIA

Aid pact reached for conflict-torn Tigray

The United Nations and the Ethiopian government have reached an agreement on humanitarian access to areas under its control in the Tigray region, UN officials said on Wednesday. The accord "seeks to enable unimpeded, sustained and secure access for humanitarian personnel and services in areas under the control of the federal government in Tigray and the bordering areas of Amhara and Afar regions", the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. An assessment and response mission is under way to the east in border areas of Afar to reach the internally displaced. More than 800,000 people already were in urgent need of assistance in Tigray, including 96,000 Eritrean refugees and 600,000 people who were relying on food aid, the humanitarian officials said.

Agencies - Xinhua