Christmas in Bethlehem is usually a festive and colorful season. This year, festivities in the Palestinian town are set to return — but the COVID pandemic is still casting a shadow on the celebrations.

With Europe still grappling with Covid-19, Talking Europe speaks to Christa Schweng, President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

West African bloc ECOWAS said they hoped to have an election plan from Mali by the end of this year, after a meeting with the interim leaders. Mali's authorities had previously said elections could be delayed.

The ambitious goal to fully vaccinate the entire adult population is proving difficult. People are not returning to receive their second dose, and motivating them poses complex challenges.

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Thursday.⁣

At least one officer was injured and 11 demonstrators were arrested in an unofficial rally in Munich as police described the behavior of protesters as "aggressive."

The pandemic claimed more than 600,000 lives in Brazil. But an effective vaccination campaign has turned the tide. While the pandemic may not be causing the havoc it did in the first half of 2021, it remains a major challenge.

The head of the World Health Organization says rich countries are merely prolonging the pandemic by fueling vaccine inequality. "No country can boost its way out of the pandemic," he says.

Instead, mRNA vaccines use mRNA created in a laboratory to teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Friday.⁣⁣

The omicron variant of the coronavirus is less likely to land patients in hospital in comparison with delta.

The person who died was between the ages of 60 and 79, according to the Robert Koch Institute health body. Germany has also registered a spike in omicron infections in recent days.