Personal income in the US jumped 10% in January, beating the market expectation of 9.5% and marking its largest monthly gain since April, according to Department of Commerce on Friday.

The steep increase came after the Congress in December issued $600 stimulus checks for millions of Americans.

Recipients spent those checks quickly that led to personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rise by 2.4% in January. This, however, was below the 2.5% market expectation, but it was a significant improvement from the previous months 0.4% contraction.

Overall, personal income increased by more than $1.9 trillion in January, but personal expenditures rose only $341 billion in January, according to the department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation indicator, rose only 0.3% in January, but it still managed to beat 0.2% market consensus.

Although the Fed said in September it will allow inflation to climb slightly above 2% to revive American economy from the pandemic, PCE price index is only up 1.5% year-over-year./aa

The EU said Thursday that it aims to work on a common approach to vaccine certificates to enable those vaccinated against the coronavirus to travel freely and integrate the certificates into the health and border systems of member countries. 

EU leaders took part in a virtual summit to discuss the bloc’s response to new challenges of the pandemic as well as the future of EU security and defense policies.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and European leaders held a press conference after the summit.

Von der Leyen said the certificates could be available by the summer as the bloc needs three months to create a technical framework.

She also cited Israel's work tracking and documenting a person's vaccination history on so-called Green Passes while stressing the importance of maintaining the functionality of the European single market.

Von der Leyen said the European Commission was working to create a “gateway for interoperability between nations” and noted that it would take about three months for the Commission to get the system in place. She said member states would have to act fast if the program was to be implemented by the summer.

Michel also stated that the bloc's priority was speeding up the production and delivery of vaccines and vaccinations. In a warning to vaccine makers, he said they wanted more predictability and transparency to ensure that pharmaceutical companies comply with their commitments.

The European Commission is currently working on a system of digital vaccine certificates, initially for medical purposes.

It will be up to EU leaders to decide when and how the document could be used for travel once more data is available on the effects of vaccinations.

On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will join EU leaders to discuss the bloc’s security and defense policy.

The EU heads of state and governments will also talk about the bloc’s relations with the countries of the southern neighborhood – Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia./aa

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved the transportation and storage of COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech at temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers for a period of up to two weeks. 

“This reflects an alternative to the preferred storage of the undiluted vials in an ultra-low temperature freezer between -80ºC to -60ºC (112ºF to -76ºF)," said the agency in a statement.

Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said this alternative temperature allows the vials to be transported and stored under more flexible conditions.

"The alternative temperature for transportation and storage will help ease the burden of procuring ultra-low cold storage equipment for vaccination sites and should help to get vaccine to more sites," said Marks in a statement./aa

The US on Thursday marked the administration of 50 million COVID-19 shots since President Joe Biden took office. 

The milestone comes as Biden seeks to fulfill his pledge to administer 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days in office, and having gotten halfway there in just 37 days, he is on pace to far exceed the goal.

Biden described his effort as being "weeks ahead of schedule" after recounting earlier skepticism that he would be unable to administer 100 million shots so early in his presidency.

"Even with the setbacks we've faced during the recent winter storms, which devastated millions of midwestern cities, towns, and also the same in the south," he said at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. "We're moving in the right direction despite the mess we inherited from the previous administration, which left us with no real plan to vaccinate all Americans."

The Biden administration maintains that when it came to office on Jan. 20, the vaccine push was in a dire state with a deluge of logistical difficulties to overcome, including a lack of people to physically administer the shots.

Both of the vaccines being administered in the US -- one from Pfizer-BioNTech and another from Moderna -- require two separate shots spaced weeks apart. They rely on a novel method to combat the coronavirus, using what is known as messenger RNA, or mRNA.

In all, 66,464,947 shots have actually gone into people's arms since the vaccines were granted emergency use authorization in mid-December, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 89 million doses have been distributed.

Early on in the vaccine rollout, logistical difficulties led to doses going to waste as they require extreme refrigeration to remain viable. Other problems have included getting vaccinated individuals their second shot while bringing in new people to get their first dose./aa

A new report released in the Kenyan capital Nairobi Thursday revealed that governments in East Africa used the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the health and economies of the countries, to threaten civil liberties and democracy as a whole. 

The report by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) sought to get to the forefront of protecting and promoting civil liberties in East Africa.

“The crisis has presented an opportunity for authoritarians to strengthen their grip on power and further erode core civil freedoms. This has been especially acute in East Africa where general elections in Tanzania and Uganda have seen an intensification of power abuse and restrictions on freedom of assembly, speech and media,” the report said.

Inge Herbert, the FNF regional director, told a launch conference in Nairobi that “we have witnessed how authoritarian regimes such as John Magufuli [President of Tanzania] and Yoweri Museveni [President of Uganda] have used the pandemic as a pretext to strengthen their grip on power and limit freedom of assembly, speech and social media especially before, during and after elections.”

Nicholas Opiyo, a Ugandan human rights lawyer, who was handcuffed, blindfolded, and whisked away by police in December 2020, was also present at the meeting virtually. He could not join the launch in Nairobi as he is facing money-laundering charges.

Opiyo said, “Respect for the rule of law and civil liberties, in particular, appears to be in steep decline in East Africa. Governments in the region have enacted legislation, instead of promoting civil liberties, restrict the space for their enjoyment. In Uganda, social media and the entire internet were shut down for weeks during the elections, and civil society activists monitoring the elections were arrested and imprisoned. Some are still facing charges.”

The FNF hoped the new research will help fight back authoritarianism and anti-democratic practices.

According to the report, the top concerns of citizens in East Africa are corruption, unemployment, poverty, health care, and abuse by police./aa

The US on Thursday urged the Armenia army not to intervene in domestic politics, after its military called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan,

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Washington is closely monitoring the situation and urged all parties to exercise restraint to avoid any violent actions.

"We remind all parties of the bedrock democratic principle that the state's armed forces should not intervene in domestic politics," Price told reporters while adding that the US has been a steadfast supporter of the development of democratic processes and institutions in Armenia.

"We continue to support Armenia's democracy, and its sovereignty, and we urge its leaders to resolve their differences peacefully, while respecting the rule of law, Armenians' democracy, and its institutions," he said.

The Armenian armed forces chief Onik Gasparyan, along with other senior commanders, released a statement Thursday that called for Pashinyan to step down.

Pashinyan blasted demand as a coup attempt and urged his supporters to take to the streets to resist.

Turkey strongly condemned the attempted coup in Armenia.

“We condemn all military coups or coup attempts, no matter where they take place across the world,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference in Hungary./aa

Turkish security forces confiscated more than 1.1 tons of bootleg alcohol in the northwestern Tekirdag province, sources said Thursday.


Gendarmerie teams raided a residence in the Marmaraereglisi district of Tekirdag and seized 1,150 liters of the alcohol and a distillation system.

One person was arrested in the operation.

Bootleg alcohol is made by using low-cost methyl alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol, which can cause serious health issues and in some cases, even death./aa

At least 10 asylum seekers were held in eastern Turkey, a security source said on Thursday.

This came after police stopped a minibus carrying the asylum seekers, all of them Afghan nationals, on the Erzurum-Erzincan highway, said the source on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

All of them had entered the country through illegal means, it said, adding they were referred to the provincial migration office.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.

The country hosts nearly 4 million refugees, including over 3.6 million Syrians, more than any other country in the world./aa