#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006876

Surveys have shown that as many as half of unvaccinated workers say they will leave their jobs if theyre forced to get the COVID-19 shot, but in reality few of them actually quit, media said. “In other words, vaccine mandates are unlikely to result in a wave of resignations – but they are likely to lead to a boost in vaccination rates.”

For the first time since June, the rate of new COVID-19 deaths in the United States is expected to decrease over the next four weeks, according to the latest ensemble forecast from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which on Wednesday, for the third week in a row, also predicted that hospitalizations will decrease as well.

Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, the seven-day average of confirmed cases of the pandemic stood at 112,798 nationwide on Wednesday, with its 16-day change striking a 26-percent fall. The COVID-19-related deaths were 1,984 on Wednesday, the first time below 2,000 in recent weeks, with the 14-day change realizing only a 2-percent rise.

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CNN on Thursday quoted Scott Gottlieb, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, as estimating that the Delta-driven wave of the pandemic could run its course by Thanksgiving, and COVID-19 could eventually become more of a seasonal nuisance than a devastating pandemic. However, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday that is dependent on getting a lot more people vaccinated.

A pedestrian passes a mobile vaccine clinic in the Brooklyn borough of New York, United States, on Aug. 23, 2021. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

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The CDC updated on Thursday that 214,043,376 people have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, making up 64.5 percent of the whole U.S. population; fully vaccinated people stood at 184,335,263, accounting for 55.5 percent of the total. There was a little bit scaling back for this rate — it was listed as 55.8 percent by the agency on Wednesday.

However, partly due to lack of vaccination, northwest state Alaska’s COVID-19 case count increased by 72 percent in the past two weeks, the highest in the country and topping state case and death records. The state was averaging 1,289 cases and 12 deaths per day as of Monday. The “Delta variant surge pushes Alaska’s sparse health care infrastructure to the brink,” reported NBC on Wednesday.

With the third-lowest number of intensive care unit beds per person in the country, the state’s hospitals are activating crisis standards, the government is flying in hundreds of health care professionals from out of the state, and public health officials have little recourse as state leaders hold firm on their opposition to mask mandates or distancing restrictions, according to the report.

“Low statewide vaccination rates are making matters worse,” added the report. Alaska has fully vaccinated 50 percent of its population, trailing the U.S. average of 55 percent. Alaska was an early leader in vaccinations and was the first state to open up vaccinations to anyone 16 or older, but COVID-19 rates plateaued in the early summer.

A placard reminding people of having proof of vaccination and photo ID ready is seen in San Francisco, the United States, Aug. 20, 2021. (Photo by Liu Yilin/Xinhua)

STRONG MEASURES

The CDC has issued a call for “urgent action” to increase coronavirus vaccinations among people who are pregnant, saying that immunization rates among that population have lagged, as COVID-19-linked deaths among pregnant people reach their highest levels yet during the pandemic.

In a health advisory released on Wednesday, the CDC said it recommends coronavirus vaccines “before or during pregnancy because the benefits of vaccination outweigh known or potential risks,” adding that its advice applies to “people who are pregnant, recently pregnant … who are trying to become pregnant now, or who might become pregnant in the future.”

More than 125,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases have been recorded among pregnant people as of Monday in the United States, including more than 22,000 hospitalizations and 161 deaths, government data showed. Twenty-two of those deaths were in August, the highest monthly total in the pandemic, per the CDC.

Earlier this week in southeastern state South Carolina, a federal judge temporarily blocked the statewide ban on school mask mandates, arguing that the provision discriminates against students with disabilities.

Judge Mary Geiger Lewis for the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against the one-year law that had been written into the state’s budget and put school districts at risk of losing funding should they require students and staff to wear masks.

“No one can reasonably argue that it is an undue burden to wear a mask to accommodate a child with disabilities,” Lewis wrote in her memorandum opinion, comparing the mask mandate to schools being required to add ramps “to accommodate those with mobility-related disabilities so they could access a free public education.”

On Wednesday, social media giant YouTube announced the most daring decision that it will block all anti-vaccine content, moving beyond its ban on false information about COVID-19 vaccines to include material that contains misinformation about other approved vaccines.

The expanded policy will apply to “currently administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the WHO (World Health Organization),” said the video-streaming platform.

The new policy will also see false claims about routine immunizations for diseases like measles, Hepatitis B and influenza removed from YouTube. That would include cases where vloggers who post content on the platform have claimed that approved vaccines do not work, or wrongly linked them to chronic health effects.

A medical worker prepares a dose of COVID-19 vaccine at the Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles, California, the United States, June 18, 2021. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

VACCINATION DILEMMA

In southeastern state North Carolina, Novant Health, a large hospital network, said on Tuesday that it had fired 175 staffers for failing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“By doing that, by not getting vaccinated, they voluntarily resign,” David H. Priest, chief for safety for Novant Health, said at a briefing.

The departures will not affect staffing at the hospital system of over 35,000 employees, Priest said, because the hospital has been using temporary staff members throughout the pandemic to make up for shortages because of staff members who have fallen ill with COVID-19.

In a statement, Novant Health also said that staff members who obtained religious or medical exemptions will be required to use additional protective equipment and submit to weekly coronavirus testing. “This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated — there are occasionally breakthrough cases, but you can still see that vaccines are holding up,” added Priest.

Surveys have shown that as many as half of unvaccinated workers say they will leave their jobs if they’re forced to get the COVID-19 shot, but in reality few of them actually quit, according to an article in The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization that covers academic research.

“In other words, vaccine mandates are unlikely to result in a wave of resignations – but they are likely to lead to a boost in vaccination rates,” the researchers wrote in the article.

“Houston Methodist Hospital, for example, required its 25,000 workers to get a vaccine by June 7. Before the mandate, about 15 percent of its employees were unvaccinated. By mid-June, that percentage had dropped to 3 percent and hit 2 percent by late July. A total of 153 workers were fired or resigned, while another 285 were granted medical or religious exemptions and 332 were allowed to defer it,” the article quoted a typical case as saying. 

Published : October 01, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006875

PARIS – Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of having illegally financed his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign and sentenced to one year in prison that can be served at home with electronic monitoring, marking another defeat in court for the 66-year-old. Sarkozy was already convicted and sentenced to prison in a separate trial earlier this year.

He appealed that earlier verdict, delaying it from taking effect, and his lawyer said Thursday that he would also appeal the second conviction. Given that short prison sentences in France can typically be waived, it remains unclear whether Sarkozy would have to spend any time incarcerated, even if both appeals were to be rejected.

The trial that resulted in his second conviction on Thursday centered around accusations that his conservative party falsified accounts during his unsuccessful reelection bid in 2012. French election laws mandate that candidates can only spend a certain amount on their campaigns.

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Prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy was involved in a scheme to circumvent those rules and spent almost twice as much as his campaign would have been allowed to. He was one of more than a dozen defendants.

Thursday’s ruling followed years of parallel investigations against Sarkozy, who was the French president from 2007 to 2012 and has portrayed the judicial scrutiny of his actions as politically motivated.

Sarkozy said he did not oversee his campaign finances, and he denied “fraudulent intent,” but the court on Thursday found that he was aware of the possibility that his campaign would overspend and chose to not step in.

In March, he was handed a three-year prison sentence – of which two years were suspended – after he was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling. The charges were centered on whether he was behind a deal with a magistrate to illegally receive information on an inquiry linked to him, using false names and unofficial phone lines.

Sarkozy also continues to face separate accusations that he received illegal payments from the regime of then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi ahead of the 2007 election. Those accusations could weigh more heavily than the charges that led to his convictions this year.

Despite his legal woes, Sarkozy has sought to remain active in French politics, unsuccessfully attempting a run in the 2017 presidential election. He subsequently suggested that his career in politics had come to an end. But among French conservatives, Sarkozy has remained an influential voice and center-right politicians willing to run in next year’s vote have sought his support.

Several high-profile members of the conservative Republicans party, which was founded by Sarkozy, on Thursday backed the former president.

Sarkozy is the second former French president in a decade to be sentenced. His predecessor and former patron, Jacques Chirac, was given a two-year suspended sentence in 2011. Chirac was accused of having handed nonexistent jobs to political allies when he was Paris mayor.

Published : October 01, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006874

About nine months after the arrival of covid-19 shots, dozens of countries have yet to vaccinate 10% of their populations, a milestone seen as crucial in narrowing a glaring gap in access.

The head of the World Health Organization earlier this year called for an urgent push to hit that target by the end of September. But more than 55 countries remain short of the goal, illustrating the problems that the Covax distribution program has faced in its bid to roll out vaccines to every corner of the planet.

Covax earlier this month cut its 2021 supply forecast, hobbled by production delays, export bans and moves by wealthy countries to protect their own people first. Partners in the program have called on countries that already have enough doses to accelerate donations and give up their place in the queue, and urged companies to be more transparent about their supply arrangements.

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“Manufacturers are making a choice not to ship to Covax, and high-income countries are making a choice not to get sufficient doses into these places fast enough,” Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to the WHO, said in an interview. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it.”

Health advocates worry that the slow pace of deliveries around the world will prolong the pandemic and increase the risk more worrisome variants will emerge. When supplies to lower-income regions begin to pick up, getting the inoculations to people is another challenge.

In May, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a “sprint to September” to vaccinate 250 million more people in low- and middle-income countries in just four months. The goal is to reach at least 40% by the end of the year and 70% of the world’s population by the middle of next year.

While Covax has struggled to access doses, many rich countries have raced ahead. Less than 4% of people in low-income countries are vaccinated with at least one dose, compared to about 61% in high-income countries, UN data show.

“Missing this target should be the turbocharger to bring attention to this issue,” Aylward said.

Many of the countries below 10% aren’t even close, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker, with large parts of sub-Saharan Africa below 1%. About 56% of the U.S. is fully vaccinated. The U.K. is at 67%, and Canada is at about 71%, while Portugal, at 84%, has the highest percentage of the fully vaccinated among countries with populations of more than 1 million.

Covax, meanwhile, has fallen short of its targets so far, delivering just 311 million doses to more than 140 countries as of Sept. 27. The effort has been hamstrung by delays in shipments from a key manufacturer of the shots, the Serum Institute of India. Earlier this year, India halted exports to tackle a devastating outbreak at home, yet the country is now expected to restart shipments to Covax from the quarter beginning in October.

Covax also pointed to challenges at manufacturing sites that have affected supply of the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Published : October 01, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006843

The UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF), totalling £11.6 billion over the next 5 years, helps developing countries limit and manage the impacts of climate change, mitigate further global warming from emissions and avert, minimise and address loss and damage

Between 2011 and 2021, UK aid has supported 88 million people to cope with climate change and improved access to clean energy for 41 million people.

The UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF), totalling £11.6 billion over the next 5 years, helps developing countries limit and manage the impacts of climate change, mitigate further global warming from emissions and avert, minimise and address loss and damage. Thailand is included through projects such as the UK Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions Programme (UK PACT).

The results come ahead of COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, which the UK will host in Glasgow in November this year. World leaders will come together to agree on action to tackle the urgent threat of global climate change, with the UK making supporting vulnerable communities a priority in its presidency.

International Environment Minister Zac Goldsmith said:

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“Tackling climate change and protecting vulnerable communities and habitats is truly an international effort. I am proud of the impact that the UK’s International Climate Finance is having in developing countries around the world. By lending to climate friendly businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean, or preventing emissions and boosting biodiversity through the restoration of mangroves, forests, and other habitats, the UK is stepping up to tackle the greatest threats we all face.

“COP26 represents a unique opportunity for more countries to come forward with ambitious financial commitments and urgent action to reduce emissions and protect and restore the natural world.”

The figures show that over the last 10 years, UK funding has:

• provided 41 million people with improved access to clean energy, including connections to off-grid renewable energy sources, access to solar lanterns, or clean cookstoves

• installed 2,400 MW of clean energy capacity, equivalent to 500 offshore wind turbines, capable of powering 1.8 million UK homes

• avoided or reduced 180 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions

• leveraged £3.3 billion of private finance and £5.2 billion of public finance for climate change purposes

Programmes like the Blue Forests initiative in Madagascar see UK funding support local communities, the private sector and government to protect over 20,000 hectares of mangroves, as one of the most effective natural carbon stores on earth. This also provides invaluable storm protection and coastal erosion prevention.

UK funding protects 88 million people from the impacts of climate change

UK funding has also supported the KaXu Solar One Concentrated Solar Power project in South Africa to use mirrors to reflect and concentrate the sun’s rays, generating enough energy to power 80,000 households and saving around 315,000 tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent to taking 66,000 cars off the road.

The Prime Minister also announced that £550 million of international climate finance will be allocated to provide technical assistance to developing countries moving to low-carbon technology and to end the use of coal internationally.

This includes £200 million of funding for UK PACT, the UK’s flagship climate technical assistance programme which provides the UK’s world-leading expertise to public, private and civil society institutions so that they can help countries develop in a more sustainable way – reducing both emissions and poverty.

The UK is asking countries to come forward with specific plans to cut their carbon emissions by 2030, setting them on course for net zero. The UK has already set a new target to reduce emissions by at least 68% by 2030 and 78% by 2035, among the highest in the world.

Last week the Prime Minister and UN Secretary General hosted a climate roundtable with world leaders, where they called on rich economies to step up to meet the goal to mobilise $100bn a year to help vulnerable countries develop cleanly.

Published : September 30, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006841

“Many conservatives dont trust the science and feel that vaccines and masks are some nefarious plot, even though the evidence shows those things offer great protection and keep people alive,” Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West tells Xinhua.

 Battles continue throughout the United States over mask mandates in public schools, and there is no end in sight amid this bitter debate.

Some parents pushed for mask mandates in schools, while others held that it should be up to parents and pediatricians to determine whether their children should mask up.

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The fights have become highly political, in line with the heavy politicization of the responses to the COVID-19 that has killed over 690,000 Americans as of Tuesday, since the pandemic broke out in the country.

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BITTER DEBATE

Many GOP (Republicans) leaders are trying to ban mask mandates in schools. The state of Florida has been in the national spotlight in recent weeks and months, over Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis slapping a ban on mask mandates, arguing that the decision should be up to parents rather than school administrators.

An appeals court has recently sided with the governor, reinstating his mask mandate ban in public schools, although a lawsuit on the hot-button issue is making its way through the court system.

The First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee threw out a decision by Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper that had allowed, on a temporary basis, schools to implement a mask mandate.

The U.S. state of Texas has also grabbed national headlines over the issue.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot is in the midst of a number of political fights with school districts and counties over their efforts to mandate masks in public schools.

Abbot, in an executive order in May, disallowed local governments from implementing mask mandates. But amid the surge of the Delta variant and the slowdown in the vaccination rate, school districts became jittery about the governor’s order.

Officials in several local school districts defied the governor’s orders and implemented mask mandates in public schools.

Many other areas in the United States were engaged in similar battles over whether children should be required to wear masks in schools.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has also jumped into the mix, with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights looking into whether the state is violating the rights of disabled students, who might be at a higher risk of getting sick with COVID-19.

Similar investigations have opened in the U.S. states of South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Iowa.

“Many conservatives don’t trust the science and feel that vaccines and masks are some nefarious plot, even though the evidence shows those things offer great protection and keep people alive,” Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

Students line up for their snacks at Montrara Ave. Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 16, 2021. (Xinhua)

CHILDREN, COVID-19 AND MASKS

As of Sept. 23, over 5.7 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The number of new children COVID-19 cases remains exceptionally high, said the report. Nearly 207,000 cases were added in the week from Sept. 16 to Sept. 23, the fifth consecutive week with over 200,000 children cases being added.

A report published earlier this month from Harvard Medical School found that “most children who become infected with the COVID-19 virus have no symptoms, or they have milder symptoms such as low-grade fever, fatigue, and cough.”

“Early studies suggested that children do not contribute much to the spread of coronavirus. But more recent studies raise concerns that children could be capable of spreading the infection,” the Harvard report found.

The report also noted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation that all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools wear masks while indoors, regardless of whether or not they are vaccinated.

In a New York Times article, Dr. Perry Klass, a contributor, quoted a number of children developmental doctors. They found that while many children use facial expressions to communicate, children are very adaptive, and can read other cues if someone’s face is masked.

But at the same time, the long-term mental, emotional and developmental effects of small children wearing masks at school remains unknown.

Elane Sadler, an office manager in her 40s in the Washington D.C. area, told Xinhua she thinks children wearing masks at school should be a decision of parents and the children’s doctors, rather than “government bureaucrats.”

Linda Abbot, a resident of Washington D.C. in her 60s, said she believed children and teachers should be required to wear masks at school.

Published : September 30, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006840

“… some powerful countries have been coming up with misinformation in regard to the origins of the virus. Without even waiting for scientists conclusions, they have politicized the issue and created some sort of negative narrative against China,” wrote an article published by Nepal Live Today.

Science holds the key to origins tracing of COVID-19, an issue “much politicized” by some powerful countries, and the U.S. attempt to explore the origins of the coronavirus through its intelligence community has exposed its “ugly intention” to check the rise of China, according to a Nepali newspaper.

“Two years since the pandemic, as people in the world are trying to fight against and cope with the pandemic they have also developed an expectation and hope in science, which can only come up with an accurate and just response over the origins,” wrote the article published on Sunday by Nepal Live Today, an English-language online newspaper.

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“Unfortunately, some ‘powerful’ countries have been coming up with misinformation in regard to the origins of the virus. Without even waiting for scientists’ conclusions, they have politicized the issue and created some sort of negative narrative against China,” it said.

Referring to U.S. President Joe Biden’s imposition of a 90-day deadline in May for American intelligence agencies to find out the origins of the virus, the article said, “Many international experts argued this was meant to harm the image of China.”

The U.S. intelligence community released a report in late August, with “nothing specific” but reported disagreement among the intelligence agencies themselves, as “two different agencies came up with two different conclusions,” it said.

“On the contrary, it exposed the ugly intention,” the article observed. “It is an open secret now that the Western powers are bent on checking the rise of China. Baseless accusations on China can be taken as the latest such measure.”

“The issue of virus origins has been much politicized,” it said, adding that “No country has the right to put its own political interests above people’s lives, nor should a matter of science be politicized for the purpose of slandering and attacking other countries,” the article stressed.

A woman receives COVID-19 test at a mobile testing site in New York, the United States, Sept. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Published : September 30, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006838

Hospitals are overwhelmed since there has been a surge in COVID-19 cases in the United States, VOA news has reported.

“The health care systems in some parts of the country are “in dire straits,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“They are running out of beds,” she said, adding that the medical staff have been working hard to get people vaccinated.

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She said that people who are not vaccinated are 10 times more likely to be in the hospital than those who have been inoculated. “Our hospitals are filled with unvaccinated people,” the doctor said.

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Published : September 30, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/international/40006835

Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang said that how China and the United States, two major countries with different histories, cultures, social systems and in different development stages, choose between peaceful coexistence and conflict and confrontation, and win-win cooperation and zero-sum games, concerns the wellbeing of the two peoples and the future of the world.

Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang said on Tuesday that the consequential China-U.S. ties should be brought back to the right track of stable development as soon as possible.

Qin made the remarks when speaking at an online reception, held by the Chinese Embassy in the United States, together with the Chinese Consulates General in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, for the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

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Qin said that how China and the United States, two major countries with different histories, cultures, social systems and in different development stages, choose between peaceful coexistence and conflict and confrontation, and win-win cooperation and zero-sum games, concerns the wellbeing of the two peoples and the future of the world.

Following the spirit of the call of the two heads of state and working with the U.S. side, on the basis of respecting each other’s core concerns and properly managing differences, China will advance coordination and cooperation bilaterally and on major international and regional issues, such as climate change, COVID-19 and economic recovery, so as to bring China-U.S. relations back to the right track of stable development as soon as possible, he said.

The ambassador also extended a sincere invitation to American athletes for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics Games and wished Chinese and American athletes the best of luck in the Games.

On the occasion, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, on behalf of the United States of America, congratulated the PRC as the Chinese people celebrate their National Day and wished the Chinese people peace, happiness, and prosperity.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR) and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that China has achieved exceptional growth over decades, and hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty and severe hardship.

In these challenging times, candid communication is more important than ever, said Lew, and the United States and China have a shared responsibility to stabilize their relationship and move it in a productive direction.

President of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) Craig Allen said that the U.S. business community continues to attach great importance to China and looks forward to strengthening cooperation.

The USCBC member companies stand ready to work together with their customers, suppliers, partners, employees and friends in China to achieve greater economic growth for the benefit of both countries and peoples, he said.

Florence Fang, chairman of the Florence Fang Family Foundation, on behalf of the Chinese community across the United States, extended best wishes on China’s 72nd National Day.

Calling the China-U.S. relationship the most important bilateral relationship, she expressed the hope that the two countries could join forces to support each other and create a peaceful world and a brighter future for humanity.

Fang said overseas Chinese in the United States have unbreakable bonds with China, and hope for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew addresses the “Leader Speak: Treasury Secretaries” event at the China-U.S. SkyClub in New York, the United States, March 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Published : September 30, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006825

The number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia crossed 12.05 million, with 51,740 new cases reported on Wednesday, higher than Tuesday’s tally of 46,658.

Asean also saw 906 additional deaths, an increase from Tuesday’s 860, taking total coronavirus deaths to 261,767 so far.

Vietnam’s famous tourist city of Da Nang has relaxed some Covid-19 restrictions to welcome visitors. Hotels and restaurants are allowed to operate at 30 per cent capacity while customers must be fully vaccinated. Barber shops can accept a maximum three customers at a time. Beach areas will also be opened to tourists, provided they maintain social distancing of at least one metre.

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Sports or activities that have more than 20 participants are prohibited.

The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention on Monday raised its travel advisory for Singapore from level 2 to 3, indicating a “high” level of Covid-19 in the city-state.

The CDC said unvaccinated travellers should avoid nonessential travel to Singapore due to increasing daily cases despite over 82 per cent of its six million population being fully vaccinated.

Singapore reported 2,268 new cases and eight deaths on Wednesday, bringing cumulative cases there to 94,043 patients and a total 93 deaths so far.

Published : September 30, 2021

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40006822

Officials and diplomats across the European Union are getting really frustrated with the French.

The scope of what some are calling President Emmanuel Macron’s “Europe First” strategy – which aims to make the EU more independent from Washington for defense and sensitive technologies – is causing concern in many EU member states and hampering western efforts to forge a united response to the rise of China.

Macron’s stance has become more visible since the humiliating loss of a giant Australian submarine contract this month and has held up preparations for a crucial meeting with U.S. trade officials. The French have also blocked efforts to modernize NATO’s capabilities and fueled divisions at the top of the European Commission, according to diplomats with knowledge of those discussions.

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Opposition to Macron’s approach is most acute in eastern Europe, where many countries see the U.S. as a shield against potential Russian aggression and have little faith in the French – France just acts in its own interests, one eastern diplomat said.

But countries in western Europe are also concerned that Macron may be going too far in his attempts to cut the U.S. out, according to diplomats with knowledge of their discussions.

“The Europeans must stop being naive,” Macron said Tuesday, as he unveiled a new security accord with Greece. “We need to react and show that we have the power and capacity to defend ourselves.” An Elysee official added that the president has no desire to antagonize the U.S. and France has seen public support for its EU sovereignty push.

The fight played out in the run-up to Wednesday’s Trade and Technology Council meeting in Pittsburgh with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

France persuaded the EU to scale down the joint statement, cutting back references to cooperation on semiconductor supplies beyond the short term, and pushed for references to “mutual dependencies” to be dropped, according to drafts seen by Bloomberg. French officials also complained that the document used American rather than European idioms and plans for a joint press conference were scrapped, two officials said.

But more substantive splits have been growing for some time. They come down to how far the EU should allow its supply chains and defense provisions to be integrated with the U.S. and how far it should go to develop its own capabilities.

In private discussions of the commissioners, the EU’s internal markets chief, Thierry Breton has pushed to exclude or restrict non-EU companies from industrial alliances on semiconductors, cloud computing and European defense funding, according to two people familiar with those conversations. Breton – who was appointed by the French government – has made similar arguments about housing sensitive data in the EU, one of the people said. Commission spokespeople didn’t respond to a request for comment.

For France and Breton, Europe needs to do more to champion its own industries and set the terms and conditions for competition. When it comes to issues such as the security of supply chains, Breton sees little difference between the U.S. and China, said one of the officials. That argument was given weight when the U.S. blocked crucial exports during the scramble to source vaccine supplies earlier this year.

Following the furor over the submarine contract, Breton called last week for a “pause and reset” in the EU-U.S. relationship, irritating many EU diplomats and officials who want to build closer ties with the U.S.

In Pittsburgh, however, the EU will be represented by trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis, a Latvian who is a champion of open markets, and fellow Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager. Both support transatlantic cooperation to shape global standards, rather than fencing off the EU single market. That’s why the French are so determined to impose limits on their remit, several officials said.

“Together, we could create a regulatory blueprint for the digital economy that is valid worldwide,” Dombrovskis said in a speech at Johns Hopkins University in Washington on Monday.

The personal rivalries and competing ambitions of senior officials in Brussels are also hampering efforts to establish common ground.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen irritated at least one senior colleague with a television interview in which she demanded explanations from the U.S. over France’s treatment over the Australian submarine contract, according to a person familiar with the issue. She irked others when she unveiled an EU defense summit for March – that’s supposed to be the remit of the president of the European Council, Charles Michel. Member states had no idea the announcement was coming, diplomats said. Von der Leyen’s spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

These things matter, because good will is a precious commodity in the delicate dance of EU negotiations.

The 27 leaders are going to be asked to reach an agreement on their security strategy just a month before the French presidential election, and any mishaps could damage Macron’s attempts to fend off the challenge of the nationalist Marine Le Pen.

France’s maneuvering is also playing out at NATO, where British diplomats are worried that the fallout from the submarine spat could prompt Paris to act on its longstanding concerns about the structure of the alliance. France only rejoined Nato’s command structures in 2009, 43 years after President Charles de Gaulle pulled the plug.

French diplomats have been raising questions about the purpose of the organization that Macron once derided as brain dead.

One person familiar with discussions said France was frustrating NATO efforts to renew and modernize the military alliance so that it can be better tooled and mandated to face emerging and future threats, including counterterrorism efforts.

Another diplomat, from a non-EU country, said that the French argument was essentially that areas such as artificial intelligence, data and mitigating disinformation on big tech platforms should be seen first as a core EU area of focus.

Tuesday’s alliance with Greece includes a mutual defense commitment in parallel to the NATO framework and was vaunted by Macron as an example of European assertiveness. But he also talked about strengthening Europe’s role within NATO, and that is the kind of language he will need to get the rest of the bloc on board.

“This isn’t an alternative to the United States alliance,” he said. “It’s not a substitution, but to take responsibility for the European pillar within NATO and draw the conclusions that we are asked to take care of our own protection.”

Published : September 30, 2021