BRUSSELS (Reuters) -- NATO is considering a longer-term military posture in eastern Europe to strengthen its defenses, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, as tensions remained high over Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine.
“We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, presence, in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that but there is a process now going on within NATO”, he told reporters in Brussels. NATO currently has troops rotating in and out of eastern Europe, a so-called persistent, but not permanent, presence.

***
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — A former Costa Rican president took an early lead in a national election that seemed likely to head to a runoff between the top candidates. José María Figueres, who was the country’s president from 1994 to 1998, had 27.3% of the vote in preliminary results released by the Supreme Elections Tribunal Monday with 80% of the votes counted. Figueres is the candidate for the National Liberation Party. There are 25 presidential candidates running and if none of them captures at least 40% of the vote, a runoff will be held April 3 between the top two vote-getters. Figueres was trailed by Rodrigo Chaves of Social Democratic Progress with 16.6%, and Fabricio Alvarado, who lost to President Carlos Alvarado four years ago, with 15% for his New Republic party. Former vice president Lineth Saborio for Christian Social Unity had 12.5%, and Eli Feinzaig of the Liberal Progressive party had 12.2%. Any of the four could potentially face Figueres in the second round of voting, but it appeared likely it would be a second-round race in April between Figueres and Chaves.

***
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) -- Libya’s eastern-based parliament said on Monday there would be no elections this year and it would choose a new interim prime minister on Thursday, potentially setting up a new factional struggle over control of government. The parliament, which has been working on a political roadmap since the collapse in December of a planned election process amid disputes over the vote’s rules and constitutional basis, voted on Monday to adopt the plan. The internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU), which was installed a year ago through a UN-backed peace process, says its mandate is still valid and that it has no intention of stepping aside. It is not yet clear whether that means Libya is moving towards a new division between rival warring administrations or to another phase of negotiations as the political and military elite reconfigure their alliances to maintain power.

***
BEIJING (Reuters) -- Authorities in China’s southwestern city of Baise ordered residents to stay at home from Monday and avoid unnecessary travel as they enforced curbs that are among the toughest in the nation’s tool-box to fight rising local infections of COVID-19. The outbreak in Baise, which has a population of about 3.6 million and borders Vietnam, is tiny by global standards, but the curbs, including a ban on non-essential trips in and out, follow a national guideline to quickly contain any flare-ups. The effort takes on extra urgency during the staging of the Winter Olympics, which began on Friday and run until Feb. 20, as well as a busy travel season for the Lunar New Year holiday. Dozens of athletes for the Games, hosted by the capital Beijing and the northern province of Hebei, have tested positive and moved into isolation, but events have not been seriously affected. Baise, in the region of Guangxi, reported 99 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms between Saturday and noon on Monday, Pang Jun, deputy director of the regional health commission, told a news briefing.

***
ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) -- The cyclone that battered parts of Madagascar over the weekend killed at least 20 people, displaced 50,000 and destroyed crops that were close to being harvested, the head of the United Nations’ food aid agency in the country said on Monday. Cyclone Batsirai slammed into the Indian Ocean island late on Saturday, knocking down houses and electricity lines along the southeastern coastline until it moved away late on Sunday, leaving some towns and villages partially or totally destroyed. “The impact was severe and harsh and we are still counting casualties,” said Pasqualina Di Sirio, country director for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Madagascar. With a population of nearly 30 million, Madagascar had already been dealing with the aftermath of Cyclone Ana, which killed 55 people and displaced 130,000 just two weeks earlier.

***
BAMAKO (Reuters) -- Mali’s government has asked the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) to lift sanctions that will have severe consequences for the population, it said on Monday. West Africa’s 15-nation ECOWAS bloc and the UEMOA regional monetary union both imposed sanctions on Mali on Jan. 9 after the military junta that first seized power in a 2020 coup decided to delay a national election. The UEMOA, which has eight member countries including Mali, instructed all financial institutions under its umbrella to suspend Mali with immediate effect. Mali blamed the sanctions for $31 million in bond defaults last week. read more. The government said in a statement released Monday that it had never been formally notified of the sanctions by UEMOA, which it said were a violation of procedure, calling the measures “disproportionate, inhumane, illegitimate and illegal”.