The French presidency of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who died on Wednesday aged 94, was marked by a series of breakthroughs on women's rights, most famously with the legalisation of abortion in 1975. But was the self-styled "moderniser" a driving force behind the reforms or was he merely in tune with the changing times?

Among the many tributes and reflections prompted by Giscard's death late on Tuesday, a number of social media posts, generally written by men, earned swift rebukes for suggesting the late president had "granted" women key rights. Some said women should be "grateful" to VGE, as Giscard was commonly known. Bernard-Henri Lévy, a public intellectual, referred to him as "the man to whom French women owe so much".

Progress on women's rights is, indeed, a major legacy of Giscard's single-term presidency, arguably surpassing his much-touted contribution to European integration. Landmark achievements of his seven-year tenure, between 1974 and 1981, include the legalisation of abortion, the reinstatement of divorce by mutual consent, and free contraception. A centrist, Giscard was also the first president to hand women full ministerial portfolios. In a pioneering move soon copied around the world, he appointed the very first secretary of state - the equivalent of a junior minister - for "the condition of women".

The European Commission condemned US plans to expand sanctions, calling them a violation of international law and warning that Brussels would be prepared to defend its interests if Washington moved forward with its plans. Prior to sanctions, the US repeatedly proposed replacing Russian gas deliveries with more expensive US LNG supplies.

It's pandemic pandemonium all over again.

Brussels has urged EU capitals to avoid a disjointed lifting of containment measures that could lead to a third wave of coronavirus infections, but countries are already moving ahead with their own plans to ease restrictions ahead of the winter holidays. Public health experts say that could be a big mistake that will ultimately lead to more deaths.

Austria is bickering with its neighbors -- Germany, Italy and France -- over whether to reopen ski resorts, and even if the EU agrees on a path forward, Switzerland -- a non-EU country -- still plans to reopen. Poland has opened up malls and shops. France is now allowing religious services with up to 30 people, with further relaxation of control measures planned by mid-December. Museums, cinemas and theaters are expected to reopen, and a curfew will replace a stay-at-home order.

ROME -- Italy has moved a step closer toward justice for murdered doctoral student Giulio Regeni, but is concerned that its European allies aren't providing support.

Prosecutors in Rome on Thursday charged four members of the Egyptian security forces with the kidnap, torture and murder of Ph.D. student Regeni, whose body was found on the side of a highway on the outskirts of Cairo in February 2016.

Michele Prestipino Giarritta, Rome's chief prosecutor, said at an Italian parliamentary commission hearing on Thursday: "This is an extremely important result," and added that "we owed it to Giulio's memory."

But politicians and campaigners lamented a lack of solidarity from Italy's neighbors, which they say continues to undermine efforts to get to the truth.

Other European countries did not join Italy in recalling their ambassadors to Egypt after the murder, restricting themselves to statements of disapproval, and France this week rolled out the red carpet for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. French President Emmanuel Macron said at a press conference that he had addressed human rights with el-Sisi, but "won't make our defense and economic cooperation conditional upon these [human rights] disagreements."

A prominent leader of the "Querdenker" (lateral thinker) movement in the eastern German city of Leipzig contracted COVID-19 and had to be hospitalized, reported Leipziger Volkszeitung (LVZ) newspaper on Saturday.      

The man, who was a co-organizer of the anti-lockdown demonstration in the city on November 7, was apparently brought to the hospital a week after the protest.

"One of the well-known lateral thinkers who demonstrated in Leipzig was intubated eight days later," said the director of the Leipzig University Hospital, Professor Christoph Josten, at a press conference.

"The virus does not differentiate between people, no matter who they are," the doctor added.

PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, prompting a track-and-trace effort across Europe following numerous meetings between the French leader and EU heads of government in recent days.

Since Macron had met a number of European head of states and governments these past days, there is a stampede of testing all over Europe.

Luckily for Ireland: Taoiseach tests negative for Covid-19 following close contact with Macron

Of the nearly 3,000 people who responded, 74 had already obtained citizenship and 693 more were in the final stage of the process, according to the statement.

Additionally, immigration authorities have been ordered to reduce the residency period needed for citizenship to two years from the usual five in the case of "great services rendered."

Last year, around 112,000 foreigners acquired French nationality, including more than 48,000 by naturalization, 10% fewer than in 2018.

Angel Merkel

Anton Hofreiter (Grüne)

Björn Höcke (AfD)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's strong push to conclude the EU-China deal in the last days of the year has left a bad aftertaste among a group of EU countries who said they felt ignored.

Officials from Italy, Poland, Belgium and Spain criticized the way Germany pushed through the investment agreement with China in the final days of the German presidency of the Council of the EU, despite their warnings that the timing was tone deaf to slave labor concerns in China and risked alienating incoming U.S. President Joe Biden.

The officials said they felt steamrolled by Merkel and the "German engine" inside the European Commission, in particular Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and trade department director Sabine Weyand, who are both German.

The Queen may go public after having COVID vaccine, Times reports https://t.co/UHy6dH7kQe pic.twitter.com/L9TJzMP4Oh

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 6, 2020

Irish fear loss of British potatoes post Brexit

UK spuds ideal for chipping and deep-frying face import ban when transition ends January 1.

 DUBLIN -- Potatoes are a staple food for the Irish, but many of their spuds come from Britain -- and that supply chain is about to be smashed by Brexit.

The Irish Department of Agriculture warns that all British potatoes, including seed plants, will be banned from importation once transition arrangements end January 1.

Even in the event of a trade deal, the department has told growers, processors and distributors that the flow of British potatoes to Ireland will stop January 1 and not be restored for months, because Britain's application to export potatoes "must go through the EU law-making process."

Ireland's food promotion agency, Bord Bia, says one in four Irish people visits their local "chipper" for this guilty-pleasure meal at least once a week.

Fast food chains are scrambling to find alternative sources for the 80,000 tons of British-made chips normally consumed in Ireland annually. Only about 10,000 tons of chip-grade potatoes are grown within Ireland.

Possibly related:

COVID-19 crisis: Belgians called upon to eat more fries

In Belgium, the birthplace of "French fries," mountains of potatoes are piling up as global demand drops amid coronavirus shutdowns. Belgium's potato industry is now appealing to citizens to do their part and double their consumption of the Belgian specialty.

Direct freight ferry route between Rosslare and Dunkirk? (or Antwerp) Problem solved...

David Whyte (@d_whyte100) edits a fine collection of exposés on corruption in Britain which covers subjects as diverse as Police corruption after Hillsborough, the Private Finance Initiative and the Big 4 Accountancy Companies.https://t.co/CSXe5PJ2i8

— Steve W (@StevenW69808657) December 6, 2020

+UPDATE+

INEOS - owned by the billionaire Brexit supporter Jim Ratcliffe - officially ends its plans to build new Grenadier car in Bridgend, UK.

The car will now be built in Hambach, Lorraine.....in France

— Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺 (@nicktolhurst) December 8, 2020

Except possibly a few days to iron out the text. And then another few days to get the translations checked.* And the EU will obviously vote to ratify this in one day, probably December 31st. And then a six month waiver on road and air transport to get past the initial border problems.

*How does this work, anyway? Does the UK get to review the EU's translations before signing the English version? Or under the UK sovereignty clause, does the English version take precedence in any dispute?

Earlier this week the UK government said tariffs will be suspended in the UK from 1 January, when the current post-Brexit transition period ends. But the US responded saying the UK had no right to impose the tariffs anyway.

The US Trade Representative said only the EU sued the US at the WTO, while the UK "did not bring a case in its individual capacity. Therefore, the UK has no authority from the WTO to participate in any such action after it no longer is part of the EU."

🟨🟥 NIP General Election Forecast, 2024 pic.twitter.com/TEWsjkCFSs

— Northern Independence Party 🟨🟥 (@FreeNorthNow) December 12, 2020

You know it's bad when even the Pakistanis don't want you https://t.co/rNOAKch8qo

— Sheraz Al Angrezi (@Alshaheedi_P) December 21, 2020

C'est un blocus continental autrement plus efficace que celui décrété par Napoléon en 1806 qui isole désormais le Royaume-Uni du reste de l'Europe et d'une partie du reste de la planète.

I don't like Boris Johnson, but even I think that's a bit harsh. pic.twitter.com/HfgmgBLXn6

— Otto English (@Otto_English) December 20, 2020

how does he not realize how spectacularly this would backfire https://t.co/ba3OR57qL6

— the french wash n' fold🌹 (@uhshanti) December 3, 2020

Police: Suspicious blast wounds 3 in Nashville on Christmas

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- An explosion shook the largely deserted streets of downtown Nashville early Christmas morning, shattering windows, damaging buildings and wounding three people. Authorities said they believed the blast was intentional.

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said police were responding to a report of shots fired when they encountered a recreational vehicle blaring a recording that said a potential bomb was to detonate in 15 minutes. Police evacuated nearby buildings and called in the bomb squad.

"Shortly after that, the RV exploded," Drake said at a midday news conference.

Surveillance video published on a Twitter account Friday that appeared to be recorded from across the street captured an audio recording that included the warning, "... if you can hear this message, evacuate now." The blast was captured on the surveillance video seconds later.

More than just an amusing meme, Karen allowed for a new kind of discourse about racism to gain credence in the US.

"We as a culture have adopted this stance that white women are more virtuous and not complicit in upholding racism in particular," said Apryl Williams, a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. "They just sort of go along with it, but they're not conscious actors. The Karen meme says, no, they are conscious actors. These are deliberate actions. They are complicit. And I think that's why it strikes a nerve with people."

Told ya. https:/t.co/fmfhDqwo5I pic.twitter.com/icJApW9L4H

— Jacob Bacharach (@jakebackpack) December 27, 2020

Hooooly crap. A pharmacy worker in Wisconsin intentionally destroyed 500 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. I assumed they had put it on the counter to get something behind it and forgot to put it back in the fridge, like every single one of us has done with milk at some point. https:/t.co/WhjNxJMeEM

— Kevin version 2021 (@MapsCats) December 31, 2020

Seems fine really.

"[Israel's Nation-State Law] turns out to be its critics' worst nightmare: a legal norm that legalizes Jewish supremacy and Arab inferiority in Israel."@Haaretzcom Editorial [_link]

— New Israel Fund (@NewIsraelFund) December 1, 2020

India: Unknown disease leaves 1 dead, scores hospitalized

At least one person has died and over 200 others were hospitalized in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with an unidentified illness, local health authorities said on Monday.

The first cases were noted on Saturday evening in the ancient city of Eluru and since then, patients have experienced symptoms ranging from nausea and anxiety to loss of consciousness, local doctors reported.

[...]

"All patients tested negative for COVID-19. Air pollution, water or food contamination is also ruled out after tests were carried out. It is some mystery illness and more lab tests are being carried out to find out what it is," Rao said.

A man believed to be the longest-serving inmate for non-violent, marijuana charges has been released from a Florida prison, and is set to spend the holidays with family for the first time in more than 31 years.

France Diplomacy - From the press briefing (16 October 2019)

Q: The wife of Ruhollah Zam, the Iranian dissident arrested by the Revolutionary Guards, has asked the French authorities for help. What is France's response?

A: Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian national, has refugee status in France and as such has a residence permit issued in conjunction with asylum proceedings. Mr. Zam does not have French citizenship.
Mr. Zam is therefore free to enter and leave the country, and did leave on October 11.

Iran executes dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam - state media [_link] pic.twitter.com/sb2gALDlJP

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 12, 2020

As part of a deal to normalize relations between Israel and Morocco on Thursday, President Donald Trump made a U-turn on long-standing U.S. policy and said Washington would recognize Rabat's claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara.

A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara is mostly administered by Morocco but is home to an independence movement led by the Polisario Front. The U.N. has supervised talks aimed at organizing a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara since a 1991 ceasefire agreement, which recently broke down amid border tensions.

Trump tweeted that "Morocco recognized the United States in 1777. It is thus fitting we recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara."

A spokesperson for the EU's diplomatic service said in response to the U.S. announcement that the bloc's position regarding Western Sahara "has not changed."

"The EU regards Western Sahara as a non-self governing territory in the sense of the U.N., for which a dedicated U.N. process is ongoing to determine its final status and which the EU supports," said European External Action Service spokesperson Peter Stano.

Morocco has occupied the largest part of Western Sahara since the 1975 "Green March" invasion, during the last days of the Franco dictatorship in Spain. The Polisario Front is supported by Algeria, neighbor and rival of Morocco since the 1962 independence.

Facebook announced on Tuesday it has removed hundreds of accounts linked to rival French and Russian networks that sought to sway public opinion in Africa.

The social media company said the actions mark the first time it has detected networks at odds with one another directly interacting and criticizing the other as being "fake."

One of the networks was tied back to the French military while two others were linked to a well-known Russian troll farm, and its alleged Russian financier, Evgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin has been indicted in the US on charges tied to Russia's attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

The networks' campaigns largely focused on the Central African Republic, ahead of its elections later this month, as well as other African nations including Mali, Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Libya.

"How could such a big act of mass murder have no author?" Ken said.

When Qaddafi fell, with Libya in chaos, Ken entered the country to investigate- and make a film about it. And through amazing detective work he managed to identify the bombmaker who actually made the bomb (2/3)

— Patrick Radden Keefe (@praddenkeefe) December 16, 2020

The European Union's member states have abstained en masse from a United Nations resolution against the `glorification of Nazism'.

In all, 155 countries backed the motion, which was presented by Russia on Friday (21 November) under the title "Glorification of Nazism: inadmissibility of certain practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance".

Three countries voted on Friday against the Russian resolution: Ukraine, Canada and the United States.

Fidel Castro: The CIA's 7 Most Bizarre Assassination Attempts

Fidel Castro survived no fewer than 634 attempts on his life, according to his former secret service chief.

Whether that figure is accurate or not, Cuba's iconic dictator provided an almost-mythical adversary for what became an obsessive, error-prone assassination campaign by the CIA.

... Castro has his old underwear incinerated so they cannot be laundered with deadly chemicals to assassinate him.

Navalny's Underpants Smeared With Poison, Would-Be Assassin Reveals | VOA |

'Sapere aude'

Pompeo says U.S. began work to set up consulate in Western Sahara https://t.co/F9oKLZfhb3 pic.twitter.com/g4GIvPodQa

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 24, 2020

PA calls on UN Security Council to stop Israel settler attacks [_link]

— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) December 26, 2020

Erdogan says Turkey has issues with "people at the top level" in Israel; ties could have been "very different" if not for those issues.[_link]

— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) December 25, 2020

#BREAKING Uganda continues descent into first world status after the country refuses to accredit civil society groups and foreign missions to observe forthcoming election, which is reminiscent of polls in troubled nations like US where violence and voter suppression are routine.

Bar offe sin di 20, ristorént sin di 22

Birthaüsar offe sin di achte abas un ristorént offe sin di zene un schülar un studjént ka schual. Dise di bichtegarstn diferentz pinn lest dekrèt von Rat Vorsitzar übar dar pandemì, inngevüart in Trentino pinn vorschrif untarschribet haüt von vorsitzar vodar Provìntz Maurizio Fugatti. Ma makse nèt vennen in di öffentleschen plètz in mearar baz sèks laüt auz baz az soin mittlebar un di sunta stianda gespèrrt di geschèft. Vor bazta ågeat di skilage saitma nå `zarbata aftnan protokòll zo magase offetüam. Ma vorst in laüt boda håm mearar baz 70 djar zo stiana a pizzle ar a bege.

Timnit Gebru says she's facing retaliation for conducting research that was critical of Google and sending an email "inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager."

On December 2, the AI research community was shocked to learn that Timnit Gebru had been fired from her post at Google. Gebru, one of the leading voices in responsible AI research, is known among other things for coauthoring groundbreaking work that revealed the discriminatory nature of facial recognition, cofounding the Black in AI affinity group, and relentlessly advocating for diversity in the tech industry.

But on Wednesday evening, she announced on Twitter that she had been terminated from her position as Google's ethical AI co-lead. "Apparently my manager's manager sent an email [to] my direct reports saying she accepted my resignation. I hadn't resigned," she said.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Gebru said that the firing happened after a protracted fight with her superiors over the publication of an AI ethics research paper. One of Gebru's tweets and a later internal email from Jeff Dean, head of Google AI, suggest that the paper was critical of the environmental costs and embedded biases of large language models.

How W.E.B. Du Bois Meticulously Visualized 20th-Century Black America https://t.co/31NIal62H5

— Nicole Fabricant (@nikifab77) December 6, 2020

The Exhibit of American Negroes was the antithesis to nearly everything the Paris Exposition stood for, with Du Bois's infographics identifying statistics of Black property ownership, population growth, employment rates, mortality, education, and other metrics of social uplift.

UVM administrators claim their decision is based in cold, hard math: Religion just doesn't have enough majors. But the number of majors a department has does not equal how much revenue a department generates. Enrollments do that, and UVM's award-winning faculty members consistently over-enroll their courses. Not to mention that UVM Religion grads are shaping conversations about religion at the national level--you can't put a price on that kind of impact (no matter how much tuition costs these days).

✊✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿

Ａｌｌ Ｔｏｇｅｔｈｅｒ: #NoToRacism

🏟️ @PSG_inside pic.twitter.com/o7QA6ewKZq

— İstanbul Başakşehir (@ibfk2014) December 9, 2020

Quite a humourous anthology (pun intended).

So yeah. That's one of several monographs I've exhumed in the past 12 hrs without recourse to Germs, Guns, and Steel "theory" of domesticated bliss in the Levant, because Twitter brought to my attention an early-stage revival of academic interest in 14th century European ("black") death. This time around, by employing documentary, archaeological, paleogenetic, and molecular conjecture aspiring authors--solicited by one Monica Green, de facto representative of the American Historical Association's interest--intend to identify the origin, or paleolithic reservoir, of Y. pestis. Inexplicably, the leading nominees are west or east Africa (Great Lake region, "Ethiopia") and Issyk Kul (cradle of the Mongol "Golden Horde"). "The Four Black Deaths":

... I contend that reservoir was uniquely active, and that it seeded new plague reservoirs elsewhere. But it did so starting in the thirteenth century, not the fourteenth, and it did so in a centrifugal pattern. The most important contribution of genetics is not that it verifies the pathogen (though it does that definitively), but that in so doing, it brings Yersinia pestis's history up to the present day, to be scrutinized by the tools of modern science. Importantly, it also shifts the history of plague away from a litany [!] of human outbreaks--or rather, recorded human outbreaks--as its measure, and follows the biological record of the bacterium instead, as it can now be reconstructed through both aDNA and the results of field studies of modern plague in the wild. As a single-celled organism that replicates, under ideal conditions, about a dozen times a day,Y. pestis needs to be understood from an ecological perspective: its modes of transmission, its rates of change. Most of those factors can never be known precisely for historical out-breaks that occurred hundreds of years ago. But they do suggest certain biological parameters that we, as historians of the human past, should go looking for, and the time frame in which to do so. In what follows, I agree with Hymes that we should look closely at the thirteenth century, not the fourteenth, to find the Black Death's origins. Like Hymes (and other investigators before him), I agree that we need to look beyond the geographies explicitly flagged by our written sources, and seek Y. pestis's history in its real, wild animal haunts. And like Hymes, I connect the expanded geography and chronology of this new [!] Eurasian disease regime with a specific human vector: the Mon-gols. ...

The Chinese government denies the claims, insisting that the camps are "vocational training schools" and the factories are part of a massive, and voluntary, "poverty alleviation" scheme.

But the new evidence suggests that upwards of half a million minority workers a year are also being marshalled into seasonal cotton picking under conditions that again appear to raise a high risk of coercion.

"In my view the implications are truly on a historical scale," Dr Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington who uncovered the documents, told the BBC.

"For the first time we not only have evidence of Uighur forced labour in manufacturing, in garment making, it's directly about the picking of cotton, and I think that is such a game-changer.

"Anyone who cares about ethical sourcing has to look at Xinjiang, which is 85% of China's cotton and 20% of the world's cotton, and say, `We can't do this anymore.'"

🔴 BREAKING - Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing dies at 94 https://t.co/26jN2RyuDb pic.twitter.com/PGWUolDCv6

— FRANCE 24 - Breaking (@BreakingF24) December 2, 2020

Chuck Yeager, pilot who broke the sound barrier, dies at 97

US Air Force officer and test pilot Chuck Yeager, known as "the fastest man alive," has died at the age of 97.
Yeager broke the sound barrier when he tested the X-1 in October 1947, although the feat was not announced to the public until 1948.
His second wife, Victoria, confirmed to CNN Monday night that Yeager had passed after she tweeted from Yeager's verified Twitter account that the World War II flying ace had died.

"An incredible life well lived, America's greatest pilot," she tweeted.
His legacy captured later generations as well, being featured in the book and 1983 film, "The Right Stuff."

John Lennon's Children, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr Honor Legend on 40th Anniversary of His Killing

John Lennon's sons and Beatles mates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr honored the legend on Tuesday (Dec. 8), which marked the 40th anniversary of his death.

The iconic musician was fatally shot in front of his New York City apartment on the evening of Dec 8, 1980, by Mark David Chapman. He was 40.

"A sad sad day but remembering my friend John with the great joy he brought to the world. I will always be proud and happy to have known and worked with this incredible Scouser! X love Paul," McCartney wrote, along with a touching picture of the duo snapped by McCartney's late wife, Linda.

China probes mystery pneumonia outbreak amid SARS fears https://t.co/AXHRviB47K

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 31, 2019

Adolf Hitler Uunona has been elected with 85 percent of the vote for a seat on the regional council in the former German colony, where street names, people and places still have German names. However, Adolf Uunona as he prefers himself to be known, says he wants to assure people that he has no plans for world domination.

He told German tabloid paper Bild: "My father named me after this man. He probably didn't understand what Adolf Hitler stood for. As a child I saw it as a totally normal name. Only as a teenager did I understand that this man wanted to conquer the whole world."

He appears on the election nomination list as Adolf H. Uunona. He won the seat on the ticket of the ruling SWAPO party which has ruled Namibia since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990. He also said that while his wife calls him Adolf, it would be too late for him to change his name officially.