Spain has concluded this morning the evacuation of people from Afghanistan, the day after the terrorist attacks on Kabul airport. An A400M aircraft arrived in Dubai from the Afghan capital at 7.20 am, and a second plane was scheduled to land at 8.20 am. With these two flights the Spanish evacuation of Afghan collaborators and their families concludes. The last 81 Spaniards who were still in Afghanistan, including military and embassy staff, 4 Portuguese military, and 83 Afghan collaborators -14 from Spain, 19 from Portugal and 50 from NATO- are also returning in the two planes. Their arrival at the Torrejón base, on an Air Europa flight, is scheduled for 16:45.

The Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries has been in a struggle between life-and-death since he was shot five times, including once in the head, on a street in central Amsterdam on Tuesday afternoon. Police are holding two suspects (including the perpetrator of the attack), but have not yet released their identities. In any case, all eyes are on the Mocro Maffia, a group of criminal organizations that base their business on drug trafficking (especially cocaine) and that in recent years had been the target of De Vries' journalistic investigations. These gangs, mainly made up of people of Moroccan origin, have their epicentre in the port of Rotterdam (through which they import the substances that they then distribute in Europe) and operate above all in the Netherlands and Belgium, but their tentacles reach Latin America and also the Costa del Sol, one of the traditional entry points for drugs in Europe.

The capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, was set to host this Monday for the first time an LGTBI Pride march. But, finally, the organizers of the event have canceled it as a result of violent protests by far-right groups (who have assaulted the headquarters of the entity and have assaulted journalists) and after finding that the government, security forces and the influential Georgian Orthodox Church had turned their backs on them.

On Thursday, the Portuguese government ordered an imposed night curfew in 45 municipalities in the country, including the capital, Lisbon, and the second most populous city, Porto. In total, about four million Portuguese (out of a population of about ten million) are affected by the measure, which prohibits leaving home between 11pm and 5am in localities where the cumulative incidence exceeds 120 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for two weeks.

Four Catholic churches were burned last week in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The police are convinced that the fires were arson and, although the investigation is still open, it is assumed that the fires are related to the recent discovery of hundreds of bodies and unidentified graves that correspond to students of the former schools for indigenous children, run by religious communities (mostly Catholic) and in which the abuse of children was widespread.

The Hungarian government has taken another step in its crusade against LGTBI rights. The country's Parliament has passed a law that prohibits talking about homosexuality in schools or include content that is considered to promote homosexuality or sex change among school materials or television spaces aimed at minors, including advertisements. The law has been approved thanks to the absolute majority of Fidesz, the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and has also received the support of the far-right Jobbik, while the rest of the opposition has chosen not to participate in the vote.

Minimal agreements, crossed reproaches but a timid hope on the improvement of the relations between the United States and Russia. This is the balance of the summit that the Presidents of the two countries, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, have held this Wednesday in Geneva, in an attempt to redirect relations that are at their worst moment since the end of the Cold War. And, to say the least, both agreed that the meeting was positive. Putin described it as "constructive" and "pragmatic" and said he saw "a spark of hope" for the recovery of mutual trust. Biden specified that the issue was not trust but the defense of "their own interests", but affirmed that there is "a genuine perspective on a significant improvement" in relations.

Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich, who was arrested after the plane in which he was flying was forced to make an emergency landing in Minsk, has appeared by surprise on Monday at a press conference called by the government of Aleksandr Lukashenko to give explanations about the incident. Protasevich, who has been imprisoned for three weeks, appeared alongside four government representatives (two of whom were in uniform) and said he is ready to take responsibility for the crimes he says he committed.

The Israeli police have charged this Friday at noon against groups of Muslims in the Esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem. The agents have fired rubber bullets, tear gas and sound grenades against the faithful who had left the Al-Aqsa mosque after Friday prayers, as reported by several media and as can be seen in some videos spread through social networks.

Both Israel and Hamas have taken advantage of the first hours of truce to proclaim themselves victors of the conflict that, during the previous eleven days, left at least 248 dead in Gaza and 12 in Israel. "Hamas can no longer hide. The offensive has been a great success for Israel", said acting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, who was pleased to have "eliminated more than 200 terrorists, including 25 commanders" of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. For his part, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke of "victory" and added that "what will come after this battle will not be what it was before". "You will see many [diplomatic] contacts and successes. We have seen our nation wake up to support Jerusalem, Palestine and the resistance", he said from Doha, where he lives.

The ceasefire in Gaza still seems a distant option. Despite the growing pressure from the international community for Israel to stop its offensive on the Strip, the acting prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has assured that he is "willing to continue this operation until the objective is achieved". Netanyahu has expressed this position in a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, hours after U.S. President Joe Biden told him that he expected "a significant de-escalation today on the road to a cease-fire". The Israeli leader thanked Biden for his support but added that he will not stop until he manages to return "calm and security" to the citizens of Israel.

The Israeli army began on Thursday night to Friday a military intervention in the Gaza Strip, after four days of bombing. The armed forces had announced during the day that they had ground units ready and "in different stages of preparation" to start a ground operation in the Strip, and finally the action was confirmed minutes after 23 h, at Catalan time (after midnight in Israel). "There are troops attacking Gaza, along with the air force", said army spokesman Jonathan Conricus. However, in a contact with the press shortly after, the Israeli army has pointed out that the attack does not include ground troops at the moment, but air strikes and artillery fired from outside the Strip.

Two doses of the Pfizer vaccine is not enough to be immunised for life against covid-19. Uğur Şahin, co-founder of the German laboratory BioNTech, which developed this vaccine, confirmed on Wednesday that, after nine months to a year after the second injection, it will be necessary to receive a third one so that the level of protection offered by the vaccine does not drop more than necessary. And, from then on, the operation will have to be repeated every twelve to eighteen months.

David Beriain, a journalist from Navarre, and Roberto Fraile, a Basque journalist, have been killed in Burkina Faso. The two men were part of a convoy that was attacked by a group of armed men on Monday, and were initially reported missing. The Spanish government confirmed their deaths on Tuesday, and sources from Burkina Faso's security forces have told Reuters that an Irish citizen who was travelling with them has also been killed, although there is no official confirmation so far. Movistar++, for whom Beriain had been working, has identified this third victim as Rory Young, president of Chengeta Wildlife, an organization dedicated to combating poaching in Africa. The two journalists were preparing a documentary, precisely, on the fight against poaching in Burkina Faso.

The European Union could be immunised against covid-19 on 14 July. This is the forecast made by the Commissioner for the Internal Market, the French Thierry Breton: "We clearly have in our hands the capacity to deliver [to member states] between 300 and 350 million doses by the end of June," Breton said on Sunday night in an interview with the French television channel TF1. This would allow, according to him, "to achieve immunity at continent level" around July 14, coinciding with France's national holiday.

The German government believes it would be a good option to buy doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, and do so even independently from the European Union. The German Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, said hw could "imagine that we will close contracts [with Russia], and that we will close them quickly". In fact, according to Spahn, the German authorities are in close contact with the Russian authorities on vaccine-related issues. Spahn also made it clear that, if necessary, Germany will not wait for the European Union to act before buying Sputnik V units: "In fact, I am very much in favour of doing it ourselves at the state level if the European Union doesn't do something."

Cases of thrombosis in people recently vaccinated with AstraZeneca's vaccine have led Spain to join other countries that have decided to temporarily suspend the administration of the vaccine developed by Oxford University. The Health Ministry announced yesterday the suspension for two weeks - pending a recommendation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) - of immunisation with the AstraZeneca vaccine after an urgent meeting of the Interterritorial Council to communicate the "precautionary and temporary" suspension to the autonomous communities. Germany, France and Italy had taken the same decision "as a precaution" hours earlier.

Germany has announced that as a preventive measure it is suspending vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine due to the detection of several suspected cases of thrombosis and thus joins the list of countries that are pausing the campaign with this vaccine following several cases of blood clots in patients who had received it.

The first deputy mayor of Paris City Hall, Emmanuel Grégoire, opened Pandora's box on Thursday night when, on a radio interview, he said that the French capital could be in lockdown for three weeks to drastically reduce the number of cases of covid-19 and thus "have the prospect of reopening everything" afterwards. Later, the number two of the city council led by the Socialist Anne Hidalgo has clarified his words to make it clear that it was only a hypothesis, but the basic idea remains: the restrictions currently in force in France are "extremely restrictive", they are dragging on for too long, they are not having "sufficiently convincing" health results and they do not guarantee that, in the end, it will not be necessary to go into lockdown too.

New extension in the anticovid restrictions in Germany. For more than 100 days bars, restaurants, theaters, cinemas, nightclubs and gyms in the Germanic country have closed, and it will continue to be so for at least three more weeks. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the presidents of the 16 Länder have agreed on Wednesday to keep current measures in place to contain the pandemic at least until March 7, although it had been announced that they would be lifted this Sunday. In fact, Merkel intended to extend the deadline for another week, until the 14th, but has come up against the opposition of the lands.