WORLD

US President-elect Joe Biden has said America under him would reclaim its credibility to lead the free world, insisting that the world faces an "enormous vacuum" without America's leadership.

Biden's remarks came as he held a meeting with his national security team to discuss different strategic challenges.

Biden said there are several pressing national security issues his administration is preparing to tackle when he takes office next month, including the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis.

Austria has officially given Sikhism, a recognition as a practicing religion in its country. Sikhs in the country will be able to use Singh and Kaur after their forename, mention Sikhism as their religion, and register themselves as Sikhs after the Sikh religion was officially registered by the Austrian government.

While talking to media over the phone from Vienna on Monday, Jatinder Singh Bajwa, secretary Gurdwara Guru Nanak Dev Ji Parkash, 22nd District, Vienna, said now the Sikhs and their children would be able to use Singh and Kaur after their forenames which they earlier used to write in the ‘extra name’ column.

About the process of registration of Sikhism in Austria, he informed that there were seven gurdwara’s in Austria out of which three were in Vienna with one gurdwara each in Klagenfurt, Linz, Graz and Salzburg.

European Union nations kicked off a coordinated effort on Sunday to give COVID-19 vaccinations to the most vulnerable among the bloc’s nearly 450 million people, marking a moment of hope in the continent’s battle against the worst public health crisis in a century.

Health care workers, the elderly and leading politicians got some of the first shots across the 27-nation bloc to reassure the public that the vaccinations are safe and represent the best chance to emerge from the pandemic.

“It didn’t hurt at all,” said Mihaela Anghel, a nurse at the Matei Bals Institute in Bucharest who was the first person to get the vaccine in Romania. “Open your eyes and take the vaccine.” In Rome, five doctors and nurses wearing white scrubs sat in a semi-circle at the Spallanzani infectious diseases hospital to receive their doses.

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message Friday that fraternity was a watchword for these unusually troubled times exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

"At this moment in history, marked by the ecological crisis and grave economic and social imbalances only worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, it is all the more important for us to acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters," he said in his "Urbi et Orbi" message.

He said this call for solidarity was especially aimed at "people who are the most fragile, the sick and all who at this period find themselves without work or in grave difficulty due to the economic consequences of the pandemic and to women who have been subjected to domestic violence during these months of confinement."

The pontiff also touched on the plight of children caught up by war, singling out victims in Syria, Yemen and Iraq in his Christmas message.

India on Thursday said there has been no change with regard to the invitation to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to be the chief guest at next year’s Republic Day celebrations in the wake of the detection of a new and more infectious Covid-19 variant in the UK.

UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab had announced the acceptance of India’s invitation to Johnson during a recent visit to New Delhi.

Asked whether the spread of the new variant of coronavirus in the UK, which has already resulted in several countries restricting the entry of travellers from Britain, would affect the invitation to Johnson, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said there had been no change.