<p><strong>Spain's vaccine refusal database: </strong>Spain plans to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55471282" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">register</a> all people who turn down the opportunity to get a coronavirus vaccine when it is offered to them. The information won't be publicly disclosed nor shared with employers, but it will be sent to European Union health officials. The announcement came as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/spain-to-keep-registry-of-people-who-refuse-covid-vaccine" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">surprise for Brussels</a>, which has yet to explain what it'll do with the data given the EU's robust data privacy laws, or whether it's open to a similar EU-wide database. Vaccination is not mandatory but strongly encouraged by authorities in Spain, which this week surpassed 50,000 COVID-19 deaths and has the world's second highest per capita mortality rate. As vaccines have just started being <a href="https://www.gzeromedia.com/what-were-watching-eu-vaccination-campaign-indian-farm-bill-talks-two-elections-in-africa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">rolled out across the entire EU</a>, we're watching to see whether other member states will set up their own vaccine refusal registries to not only deter <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2020/12/09/which-parts-of-europe-are-likely-to-be-most-hesitant-about-a-covid-19-vaccine" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">skeptics</a> but also provide more accurate information about how many people actually get inoculated.</p><p><strong>Burkina Faso's security push: </strong>At his inauguration ceremony on Monday, Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/burkina-president-vows-push-for-security-at-inauguration-01609173303?tesla=y" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pledged </a>to make security in the West African country a political priority amid ongoing jihadist violence that's caused more than 850,000 people to flee their homes in recent years. Kabore, who will now serve his second term, said he wants to instill "stability and security" to Burkina Faso, where swaths of the country have been taken over by jihadist groups. But it's not just vigilantes and terrorist groups (linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State) that have wreaked havoc on the country of 21 million people in recent years: a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/world/africa/burkina-faso-terrorism.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>New York Times </em></a>expose published this past summer revealed that trigger-happy soldiers in Burkina Faso's army kill as many civilians as jihadists do (it doesn't help that the government has passed draconian legislation banning <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/burkina-faso/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">journalists</a> from reporting on anything that could "demoralize" the armed forces). Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the Sahel region, has been plagued by political corruption and human rights violations from the top down – and lacks the political and institutional strength to fend off a violent insurgency that <a href="https://www.gzeromedia.com/if-youre-worried-about-terrorism-worry-about-the-sahel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">spilled over</a> from neighboring Mali in recent years, tormenting the entire <a href="https://www.gzeromedia.com/if-youre-worried-about-terrorism-worry-about-the-sahel" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_self">Sahel</a>.</p>
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