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U.S. releases intelligence report implicating Saudi crown prince in killing of Jamal Khashoggi

InternationalFeb 27. 2021The Committee to Protect Journalists along with other press freedom and human rights groups hold a candlelight vigil in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington on the first anniversary of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, Oct. 2, 2019. Washington Post photo by Marvin Joseph.

By The Washington Post, Karen DeYoung

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration will impose no direct punishment on Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite the conclusion of a long-awaited intelligence report released Friday that he “approved” the operation, administration officials said.

“The relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference. By making public the intelligence report – withheld by the Trump administration for two years – and taking other actions, President Joe Biden has moved toward a promised “recalibration” of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, he said.

But for many lawmakers, human rights activists and Saudi dissidents, it was not enough.

The crown prince “should suffer sanctions, including financial, travel and legal – and the Saudi government should suffer grave consequences as long as he remains in government,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., whose legislation in early 2019 mandated release of the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Wyden was joined in those sentiments by a number of Democrats, although others spoke vaguely only of further “accountability.” Few Republican lawmakers ventured a public opinion.

The Open Society Justice Initiative, which has been in court since early last year to force release of intelligence on the Khashoggi murder, said “the U.S. and other governments must take immediate measures to hold the Crown Prince and the Saudi government accountable for their flagrant disregard for the rule of law.”

Senior administration officials sharply rejected suggestions that its decision not to sanction the crown prince was a continuation of President Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with the Saudi rulers, and Mohammedin particular.

The United States, “as a matter of practice has not generally applied sanctions on the highest leadership” of countries with which it has diplomatic relations, said a senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House.

“Having looked at this extremely closely, over the last five weeks or so, really, the unanimous conclusion is that there’s just another more effective means to dealing with these issues going forward,” the official said.

Barring unforeseen palace upheaval, Mohammed, 35, the grandson of the kingdom’s founder and heir to the throne currently occupied by his 85-year-old father, King Salman, will soon be the absolute ruler of a major U.S. regional security partner, officials noted. The crown prince already serves as de facto leader of the kingdom in place of his ailing father.

At the same time Biden has expressed displeasure with the repressive Saudi monarchy, he has called the kingdom an important regional partner, saying the United States will continue counterterrorism cooperation and defensive assistance against regional threats, including Iran.

But the White House delayed Biden’s initial call with Salman until a month after the inauguration and made clear it did not want his son on the line. Neither side mentioned whether the Khashoggi issue was discussed on the call, which took place Thursday.

Sanctioning Mohammed would place him on a short list that includes North Korea’s Kim Jong Un; Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko; Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela; Syria’s Bashar Assad; and the late Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. It would be viewed in the kingdom as an enormous insult and make an ongoing relationship extremely difficult, if not impossible.

For the present, the administration has said it does not intend to deal with the crown prince in any capacity other than as Saudi defense minister, a position he also holds. He will not be extended an invitation to visit the United States any time soon.

In new measures announced Friday, the State Department imposed what it called “the Khashoggi ban,” visa restrictions against anyone found to be “acting on behalf of a foreign government” and involved in “serious, extraterritorial counter-dissident activities.” It said that 76 Saudi “individuals believed to have been engaged in threatening dissidents overseas, including but not limited to the Khashoggi killing,” had already been listed.

The Treasury Department is also imposing sanctions on Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, who served as a close aide to Mohammed as deputy chief of Saudi intelligence. He was fired from the post a few weeks after Khashoggi was killed and implicated by Saudi prosecutors in the murder plot. But the Trump administration, while sanctioning 17 other Saudi operatives, declined to list him, for reasons it never explained.

Responding to the released report, Saudi Arabia said that it “completely rejects the negative, false and unacceptable assessment pertaining to the Kingdom’s leadership.” A statement issued by the Foreign Ministry said the report contained “inaccurate information and conclusions.”

But while it said “the Kingdom rejects any measure that infringes on its leadership, sovereignty, and the independence of its judicial system,” the ministry also affirmed a “robust” and “thriving” partnership between Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The unclassified report, by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), confirmed classified conclusions reached by the CIA just weeks after the killing of Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and contributing columnist for The Washington Post.

The two-page report said the intelligence community based its conclusions on the absolute control the crown prince, known as MBS, had over decision-making in the kingdom, his “support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” and the participation in the operation of his senior aides and security officials.

“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill” Khashoggi, the report said. “Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

As part of his review of relations with Saudi Arabia, Biden has cited Saudi human rights violations and political repression, the prosecution of the Saudi-led war in Yemen and the Khashoggi killing. He has already stopped the U.S. sale of offensive weapons used in the war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels and paused for review all other weapons purchases by the kingdom, the world’s largest customer for U.S. defense goods.

Release of the report marks the end of a long process that began when Khashoggi, lured to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up documents, was drugged and dismembered by Saudi agents. His remains have never been found.

The CIA, based in part on intercepts of text messages and telephone calls, along with an audio recording of the actual killing, quickly contradicted the Saudi government’s claims that the crown prince was not involved. After a classified briefing just weeks after Khashoggi’s death, lawmakers said the evidence was irrefutable.

“If the crown prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” then-Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told reporters.

But Trump, who had also been briefed, continued to insist there were no firm conclusions, asking, “Well, will anybody really know?”

Although his administration imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials with alleged direct involvement in the killing itself, Trump insisted that the U.S. security alliance and massive Saudi purchases of U.S. weaponry were more important than holding the top Saudi leadership accountable.

“We do have an ally, and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good,” he told Fox News after hearing the intelligence evidence.

In the early 2019 measure introduced by Wyden, Congress demanded that the ODNI produce an unclassified report of U.S. intelligence conclusions, including names of involved Saudi officials at all levels, giving the administration 30 days to release it.

For the next two years, Trump ignored the law, while he and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the White House official in charge of the Saudi portfolio, continued to develop a close relationships with Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia, while convicting 11 intelligence agents of the murder in a closed-door trial – with five death sentences later commuted to 20 years – avoided directly addressing the CIA findings and instead raised Trump’s skeptical public comments.

The crown prince, during a 2019 interview with “60 Minutes,” pointed out that the United States had never released “an official statement” implicating him. “There isn’t clear information or evidence that someone close to me did something,” he said.

Asked about the reported CIA finding, he said, “If there is any such information that charges me, I hope it is brought forward publicly.”

Last year, on the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder, Biden said in a statement that, as president, he would “reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

At her confirmation hearing last month, Biden’s national intelligence director Avril Haines was asked whether she would release the ODNI report. She replied she would “follow the law.”

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Biden is hiking up the cost of carbon. It will change how US tackles global warming

InternationalFeb 27. 2021Excessive rainfall from storms along the Central California coast caused mudslides and rockfalls in vulnerable areas of the Dolan Wildfire burn scar area closing portions of Highway 1 in Big Sur, Calif., shown Jan. 28, 2021. More intense storms are causing havoc nationwide. Washington Post photo by Melina Mara

By The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Friday dramatically altered the way the U.S. government calculates the real-world cost of climate change, a move that could reshape a range of consequential decisions, from whether to allow new coal leasing on federal land to what sort of steel is used in taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects.

The administration plans to boost the figure it will use to assess the damage that greenhouse gas pollution inflicts on society to $51 per ton of carbon dioxide – a rate more than seven times higher than that used by former president Donald Trump’s administration. But the number, known as the “social cost of carbon,” could reach as high as $125 per ton once the administration conducts a more thorough analysis.

In a recent interview, Biden’s national climate adviser, Gina McCarthy, said the administration is setting an initial price to inform its policies “and then work more diligently about what the actual cost might be as we move forward, and get the information that we need to be able to do that.”

The ultimate figure will be incorporated into decisions across the federal government, including what sort of purchases it makes, the kind of pollution controls it imposes on industry and which highways and pipelines are permitted in the years to come. Just as important, the move sends a powerful signal to the private sector and to ordinary Americans that the choices the country makes now could lock in disastrous consequences on both current and future generations – or help to avert the worst impacts.

“A new social cost of carbon can tip the scales for hundreds of policy decisions facing the federal government,” said Tamma Carleton, assistant professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Any policy, project, or regulation that lowers emissions will now have a higher dollar value, reflecting the many benefits future Americans enjoy when emissions fall today.”

“Confronting climate change will cost money,” she added. And putting a higher price on global warming’s damages “highlights the large hidden costs of doing nothing.”

While this is not a new tax that consumers would have to pay, it would make it harder for fossil fuel projects to win government approval by factoring in their long-term costs to society.

For example, if the Trump administration had applied the Obama-era calculation to its rollback of federal mileage standards, the costs of that rule would have far outweighed the benefits and would have been much harder to justify. And any federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin would be unlikely to win approval: University of Chicago professor Michael Greenstone noted that the climate damages associated with that mining “are six times larger than the market price of that coal.”

There is mounting evidence that climate change impacts are already costing the United States and other countries billions of dollars each year, but policymakers are not fully accounting for these damages when they approve projects or make purchases that will cause more planet-warming pollution. Wildfires, more intense storms, increased flooding and heat waves linked to rising greenhouse gas emissions are already taking their toll in the United States and overseas, and scientists expect those calamities to grow worse over time.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, has estimated that last year there were “22 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters across the United States, shattering the previous annual record of 16 events.” If the world does not curb its overall carbon output, according to a recent academic paper, future warming could raise the average mortality rate in Los Angeles roughly 20 percent by the end of the century.

For many Americans, the costs are already clear.

Herve Hamon directs planning and zoning for Dorchester County, Md., which recently published a plan saying sea-level rise “will lead to the failure of conventional septic systems, contaminated drinking water supplies, loss of productive agricultural land and damage to seafood processing infrastructure.” By 2050, the plan projects, the cost of flood damage will rise from $11 million to $66 million, and “790 buildings are expected to be constantly wet.”

Hamon and his colleagues are struggling to figure out how to maintain road infrastructure to waterfront homes given the expanding water on the county’s south side, even as more people want to build there. If national policymakers can curb greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on their impact, he said in an interview, it could reduce the county’s sea-level rise threat.

“For us, having anything that would slow down the degradation would be fantastic,” he said. “The less it rises the better it is, and the longer the county will function.”

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, whose state suffered several billion dollars in wildfire-related losses last year, called the move “fantastic” in an interview, saying the approach allows elected officials to “measure climate risk in a way that people can actually understand, and in a way that can shape policy.”

But many industry groups remain nervous about putting a higher price tag on carbon emissions, and are warning the administration it needs to listen to them before settling on a final figure for doing so. On Tuesday, a coalition of business groups – including the American Chemistry Council, the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners, the Portland Cement Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – wrote White House officials to say they expected them to provide “ample channels and opportunities for public and stakeholder input” as they update the government’s cost-benefit approach.

Nick Loris, an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, criticized the accounting mechanism as an ineffective way to pursue climate policy, in part because changes in assumptions from one administration to the next can result in vastly different estimates.

“It’s concerning to me that a figure that has such wild swings . . . could ostensibly determine whether or not the benefits of a project outweigh the costs,” Loris said. “It doesn’t give you any policy or regulatory certainty, or really any confidence in rulemaking if the costs can swing that wildly.”

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called the move Friday “a backdoor carbon tax” that would lead to higher energy costs.

“The administration is laying the traps to justify punishing new regulations,” Barrasso said in a statement. “Since the president can’t rationalize the crippling costs of his climate policies, he needs to exaggerate the benefits.”

The federal government first started incorporating the cost of climate impacts into its decision-making under President George W. Bush, after a federal court invalidated its mileage standards on the grounds that they did not address the damages associated with carbon dioxide. President Barack Obama made the issue a priority, establishing an interagency working group that set the number at $37 per ton by the end of his presidency.

In 2017, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended that the federal government update the methods it uses to estimate the real-world, economic impacts of climate change. But that same year the Trump administration disbanded the federal working group that had been created to study those figures, and slashed the carbon price to between $1 and $7 per ton by excluding climate damages projected overseas.

Even as the Trump administration backtracked, Democratic-leaning states have pressed ahead.

In December, for example, New York state adopted a “value of carbon guidance” ranging between $79 and $125 that it will apply to policies and programs going forward. Colorado, Minnesota and Virginia require regulators to factor in the cost of climate damages when evaluating new power generation applications, and Illinois and Maine also incorporate this into their electricity sector policies.

“They certainly have swayed the decisions these states are making,” said Kevin Rennert, who directs Resources For the Future’s Social Cost of Carbon Initiative.

While the Biden administration has now set an initial price to inform its analysis of policies ranging from gas mileage standards to purchasing, it will now embark on a months-long process to determine a longer-lasting one. That price will take other factors into account, such as the fact that the poor suffer more from climate impacts than the wealthy and more recent scientific findings on climate impacts.

In the meantime, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is waiting for action. He has watched as the Minnesota climate has grown warmer and wetter, with more extreme weather. In recent years, faster snowmelts have overwhelmed sewer tunnels and landslides have caused millions of dollars in damage to local parkways.

“There have been some major changes over just the last several years that have had dramatic impact on city coffers,” Frey said. “This is a climate issue.”

And one that Minneapolis can’t tackle alone, even though it also has imposed a $42 per ton estimate for the costs of climate change.

“We’re not an island, obviously. We are impacted by what Phoenix and Cleveland and Baltimore and the entire state of Texas does … Carbon does not respect borders,” Frey said. That is why a federal standard is essential, he added.

“It really should be baked into every decision.”

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Digital health passports promise to simplify travel, but come with a lack of standards

InternationalFeb 27. 2021

By The Washington Post, Lori Aratani

The latest information on travel requirements, coronavirus test results and someday perhaps, proof of vaccinations – all available in one handy place. That’s the appeal of the digital health passport.

In recent months, technology companies, trade groups and nonprofit foundations around the globe have launched versions of a digital health passport. It’s a tool they say could become indispensable for travelers as proof of a negative coronavirus test becomes the norm for travel and as airlines and countries seek ways to streamline travel and prevent fraud.

But there are growing concerns that the sheer number of options and lack of standards could complicate travel as airlines and governments move to adopt platforms that might not play well together.

American, Alaska and Iberia airlines, for example, are partnering with VeriFly. Emirates and Ethiad Airways are using the International Air Transport Association’s TravelPass on selected flights. United Airlines is working with CommonPass, a platform developed by a Swiss nonprofit called the Commons Project Foundation, on certain international flights but also has developed its own version integrated into its travel app.

Hawaii has developed its own version of a digital health pass used to track visitors and ensure they are following state-imposed rules for quarantine and testing. But the state also recently inked a partnership with CLEAR, allowing visitors to use the company’s digital platform to book testing appointments and verify results.

Officials at American said their partnership with VeriFly has made it easier to move travelers through the check-in process since VeriFly will tell customers whether they have met requirements for their destinations, even before they arrive at the airport. Automating that process eliminates the need for agents to manually process each traveler’s paperwork.

“It’s about making the travel experience less stressful for our customers,” said Preston Peterson, director of customer experience innovation for American Airlines.

Even before the pandemic, airlines had embraced digital platforms for tasks that used to require face-to-face interaction, but the pandemic has given many companies added incentive.

In 2018, Dulles International Airport officials launched a program they hoped would replace paper boarding passes with facial scans on select international flights. Last year, Reagan National Airport began piloting a Transportation Security Administration program using facial scans at security checkpoints.

The travel industry has seized on preflight testing as a strategy for reopening borders. Hawaii has allowed visitors to skip quarantine if they can prove they have tested negative for the virus. The industry hopes more destinations will follow suit.

But the additional requirements also bring additional burdens – paperwork and a patchwork of rules that vary by destination. Shifting to digital credentials could smooth out the process.

“It boils down to being able to process large quantities of people in a reasonable amount of time,” said Jeremy Drury, director of digital and technology service at Star Alliance, the world’s largest carrier alliance with 26-member airlines. “You have to have a process in place to allow the journey to be as seamless as it was before covid. Having a paper-based solution isn’t going to do that.”

The array of options doesn’t have to be a problem if the industry can agree on standards that span the various platforms and allow users to choose one that meets their needs, Drury said.

“You don’t carry six purses, you shouldn’t have to carry six digital wallets,” Drury said.

Ease of use is the focus of the Good Pass Health Collaborative, an initiative launched in early February. Led by ID2020, a U.S.-based organization that advocates for digital IDs and is crafting standards for coronavirus passports, its goal is to build a consensus for how the platforms will operate, including how they will protect users’ privacy.

“Many of these efforts are moving forward and being implemented at different airports by different airlines, by different solution providers, but without guidance around standards,” said Dakota Gruener, ID2020’s executive director.

The collaborative’s focus is weaving together various efforts that will adhere to a common set of principles laid out in a recent white paper. The passports must be: “privacy-protecting, user-controlled, interoperable, and widely accepted for international travel.”

Without agreed-upon standards, travelers could find themselves in a situation where documentation that’s deemed acceptable by one airline isn’t by another, Gruener said.

The white paper warns that lack of agreement “could undermine acceptance, adoption, and ultimately, the utility of digital health passes.”

Gruener said she remains confident an agreement can be forged.

“We can get there – even with multiple systems – as long as solutions adhere to open standards and participate in a common governance framework,” she said.

For industry groups, like the Airports Council International, a member of the Good Health Pass Collaborative, reaching an agreement is critical.

“We’ve got to make sure that the system in interoperable. Interoperability is key. Trustworthiness is key,” said Michael Rossell, senior vice president of international relations and corporate secretary at Airports Council International. “We support all of this because it’s going to be absolutely essential, because otherwise, we’re not going to be able to give the confidence to governments in order to reopen the borders.”

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FBI focuses on video of Capitol Police officer being sprayed with chemicals before he died in pro-Trump riot

InternationalFeb 27. 2021Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick

By The Washington Post, Matt Zapotosky, Spencer S. Hsu

WASHINGTON – Investigators have uncovered video appearing to show someone spraying a chemical irritant at Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and other law enforcement personnel fending off rioters in last month’s attack, though they have yet to identify the person or tie the activity directly to Sicknick’s death, according to people familiar with the matter.

Sicknick’s death has long vexed investigators exploring the Jan. 6 riot, as they have struggled to figure out how precisely he died and whether someone could be held criminally accountable in connection with the death.

Investigators determined Sicknick did not die of blunt force trauma, people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. U.S. Capitol Police in a statement Jan. 8 said that Sicknick died “due to injuries sustained while on duty.” No autopsy or toxicology report has been made public, unusual seven weeks after a death.

Capitol Police said in a statement Friday the medical examiner’s report was not yet complete, adding, “We are awaiting toxicology results and continue to work with other government agencies regarding the death investigation.”

The video could offer prosecutors a path to charging someone in connection with Sicknick’s death – though they still have to identify the assailant, and would then have to establish that the spraying proved fatal. Prosecutors, instead, might consider bringing assault charges.

The FBI captured screenshots of people visible in the video, one person familiar with the matter said, and in the last month released the images publicly hoping to identify them. The bureau did not mention Sicknick or depict the chemical spraying when distributing the images.

Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment. The new video was previously reported by CNN. The New York Times reported more of its contents on Friday.

Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin said Friday that prosecutors have now charged more than 300 people in connection with the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol, when a mob supportive of then-President Donald Trump stormed passed barricades and sparred with police inside and outside the building. They have arrested more than 280, Carlin said.

Sicknick, a 42-year-old from South River, N.J., joined the Capitol Police in 2008. He was the sixth Capitol Police officer to die in the line of duty since 1952, and the fourth to be a victim of an attack on the Capitol grounds. Those who knew Sicknick said he was conservative and supported Trump, but his political views did not align neatly with one party.

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Yellen seeks debt transparency as IMF eyes expanded firepower

InternationalFeb 26. 2021Janet Yellen, then chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, speaks during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington on Dec. 13, 2017. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Saleha Mohsin

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for greater transparency around the use of International Monetary Fund resources and on existing stocks of debt as global finance chiefs consider an expansion in the IMF’s lending firepower.

“Transparent and comprehensive debt data will help promote sustainable growth,” Yellen said in a letter to her Group of 20 counterparts Thursday ahead of a virtual meeting Friday of finance ministers and central bankers. She said that while an expansion in the IMF’s resources could help low-income nations in the fight against the coronavirus, the G-20 and others need to work toward “greater transparency and accountability” in the use of the fund’s firepower.

The IMF is eyeing a $500 billion boost to its reserve assets, called special drawing rights or SDRs, which the U.S. and others including France and Italy are likely to support, Bloomberg News has reported.

A key concern among private debtholders, along with Republican critics in the U.S. Congress, has been the scale of China’s loans to developing nations. The worry is that fresh loans to some countries could end up flowing to pay off obligations to China; such concerns contributed to holding up a bondholder deal with Zambia last November.

Yellen’s letter is “very helpful” and raises an important issue for the G-20,” IMF Communications Director Gerry Rice said at a briefing Thursday.

SDR allocations served the world “very well at the time of the global financial crisis, and our view is that it could serve the world well again in this crisis,” he said.

Yellen also made an appeal for multilateral cooperation among the G-20, in a sharp reversal from Trump-era unilateralism that triggered rifts between the U.S. and many allies.

“No one nation alone can declare victory” over the historic health and economic crises stemming from the deadly coronavirus, Yellen wrote in her letter. “Our cooperation has never mattered more. This is a moment made for action and for multilateralism.”

She endorsed strengthening support for developing nations, saying that “without further international action to support low-income countries, we risk a dangerous and permanent divergence in the global economy.” The IMF and World Bank “must continue to play a role in financing the global health response,” she said.

Boosting the IMF’s firepower proved a political battle in Washington in the past, and some have declared their opposition this time around as well. Yellen’s predecessor, Steven Mnuchin, opposed the move, saying that because reserves are allocated to all 190 members of the IMF in proportion to their quota, some 70% would go to the G-20, with just 3% for the poorest developing nations.

In her letter, Yellen continued to urge allies to take “significant” fiscal policy actions, echoing her calls that the U.S. Congress “go big” with domestic relief and recovery efforts.

She also called on the G-20 to help distribute Covid-19 vaccines more broadly through efforts such as the Covax initiative, saying that “a rapid and truly global vaccination program is the strongest stimulus we can provide to the global economy.”

With Italy the host for this year’s G-20, this week’s talks will debut the new Mario Draghi administration.

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AstraZeneca CEO defends EU vaccine delivery in parliamentary grilling

InternationalFeb 26. 2021

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Suzi Ring, Tim Loh

AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot sought to deflect blame for a shortfall in covid-19 vaccine deliveries to Europe this year, while reassuring lawmakers that his company is working to meet targets for the second quarter.

Speaking remotely to a European Parliament hearing, Soriot said his company would deliver 40 million doses to the European Union in the first quarter, with the volume set to rise in the coming months. Soriot said employees are working around the clock to increase the amount of vaccines extracted in production, but that perfecting the process takes time and isn’t without setbacks.

“Whether you manufacture cars, planes or indeed vaccines, you often have issues with manufacturing,” Soriot said. “Typically in our industry we have years to refine the process. Here we didn’t have that time, we didn’t have that luxury, we had six months. The alternative would have been to be ready later. Those are the challenges we are facing.”

AstraZeneca will look at tapping its global supply chain to make up for some of the shortfall, including production in the U.S., Soriot said. He was repeatedly asked on the panel about doses made in the U.K. traversing over to the European Union and vice versa, as lawmakers sought reassurance that citizens in the bloc are getting the agreed supplies.

The EU has come under fire for its slow vaccine roll-out, compounded by delivery delays from some of the key drugmakers, with countries like the U.K., Israel and the U.S. pushing ahead.

In January, the bloc engaged in a bitter, public spat with Astra after the company said it wouldn’t be able to deliver the doses promised in the first quarter because of production issues. The event led the EU to introduce tighter controls on the export of vaccines from the region to ensure other countries weren’t being given preferential treatment.

Relations between Astra and the EU threatened to deteriorate again this week over a cut to second-quarter delivery, but the company said it is working to increase productivity in its European supply chain to ensure that the 180 million doses promised would be delivered.

Things got personal at one point in the hearing, when Finnish MEP Silvia Modig accused Soriot of being “like a piece of soap, impossible to get hold of.”

Despite the slow start, the EU looks to be catching up with the U.K. and U.S. and should be able to vaccinate 75% of its adult population by the end of August, about two months earlier than previously forecast, according to London-based research firm Airfinity Ltd. The bloc’s supply outlook has brightened in recent weeks on new deals with Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. to secure hundreds of millions of additional doses.

One hurdle the EU must counter still is public take-up. Reluctance to be vaccinated, particularly with the shot from Astra and partner the University of Oxford, has led to doses going unused. Questions around its efficacy and restrictions on its use among the elderly in many EU countries have created confusion. U.S. trial results from Astra, expected in the coming weeks, should provide more clarity. Soriot reiterated at the hearing that his vaccine dramatically cuts the rate of hospitalization.

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen told lawmakers this month she expects 300 million vaccine doses to be delivered to the bloc next quarter — a significant increase on the estimated 18 million doses delivered in January, 33 million in February and 55 million in March.

The European Parliament hearing follows a similar session in Washington earlier this week, where pharma executives assured lawmakers that vaccine supply bottlenecks should soon ease. CEOs from Moderna, CureVac and Novavax were also at the EU hearing Thursday.

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WHO rejects report suggesting Covid virus originated in Thailand

InternationalFeb 25. 2021

By The Nation

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed a report that a WHO team member suggested Thailand could be the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The WHO was referring to a report on Monday by Denmark’s Politiken newspaper, which quoted Danish epidemiologist Thea Kolsen Fischer as saying Southeast Asia could be the origin of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, not Wuhan in China. The report named Chatuchak market in Bangkok as the possible origin of the pandemic.

Prof Fischer, who was on the WHO Covid-19 fact-finding mission to China last month, said she was misquoted by the paper and had only spoken of horseshoe bats as the possible source of SARS viruses.

“One expert member of this [China fact-finding] group was recently misquoted as suggesting that the origin of the virus was Thailand,” the WHO said in a statement on Wednesday. “There is no current evidence to suggest this. The article with the misquote has since been corrected.”

The WHO statement added that its team recently concluded its mission to China and is working on its report. However, the report would “not provide a conclusion on the virus origins, as much more work remains to be done to reach such a conclusion”.

The UN world health agency said past experience showed that the search for the origin of the virus may take months or even longer.

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https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30403053

Facebook bans Myanmar’s military, citing threat of new violence after Feb. 1 coup

InternationalFeb 25. 2021

By The Washington Post · Craig Timberg, Shibani Mahtani

Facebook banned accounts for the military of Myanmar and its related media entities on Wednesday night, citing its “history of exceptionally severe human rights abuses” and potential to use social media to pursue new rounds of violence following a coup this month.

The move, which also affects Facebook subsidiary Instagram, extends a series of actions in recent years to sharply limit the ability of the nation’s military, called the Tatmadaw, to use the platforms in any way, including through paid advertising.

Military personnel had used Facebook extensively to push propaganda against the Rohingya minority group amid a genocidal campaign beginning in 2017, prompting many to blame the company for enabling mass murder – a point underscored by a scathing U.N. report in 2018 that concluded Facebook played a key role in fomenting violence.

Since taking power in a coup on Feb. 1 that deposed the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the military has imposed controls on the Internet and sporadically banned social media platforms including, briefly, Facebook while also using the site to publicize its own pronouncements and decrees.

Facebook is the de facto Internet in Myanmar, used almost universally for communication and access to everyday services, and has emerged as a major platform for organizing resistance to the military coup.

The ban announced Wednesday affects the Air Force, the Navy, the Ministry of Defense and other government agencies and spokespeople, Facebook said.

“We’re continuing to treat the situation in Myanmar as an emergency and we remain focused on the safety of our community, and the people of Myanmar more broadly,” Rafael Frankel, Facebook’s director of policy for emerging countries in the Asian Pacific region, said in a post Wednesday night. “Events since the February 1 coup, including deadly violence, have precipitated a need for this ban. We believe the risks of allowing the Tatmadaw on Facebook and Instagram are too great.”

Ahead of the announcement, pages of the Myanmar Navy and other military-linked accounts could not be accessed.

Facebook in 2018 removed the accounts of the commander in chief of the Myanmar military, Min Aung Hlaing, and other military top brass after coming under pressure including from the United Nations for doing too little to stop the proliferation of hate speech on its platform particularly against the Rohingya Muslim minority. The Myanmar military in 2017 launched a “scorched earth” campaign against the Rohingya minority, driving more than 1 million out of their homes to neighboring Bangladesh amid accusations of indiscriminate killings, rape and torture.

Human rights activists say Facebook’s inaction allowed the military to whip up hate against the minority and lay the groundwork for the bloodshed, which was generally accepted, and even praised, by many in Myanmar.

Since the military coup, the military has subjected major cities to a communications blackout between the hours of 1 a.m. and 9 a.m. in an effort to depress the effectiveness of protests such as the nationwide general strike this past Monday. Activists have switched to international SIM cards with data roaming functionality, an expensive workaround, and see Facebook and other platforms like Twitter and Instagram as crucial to their organizing efforts.

Facebook had been removing other pages linked to the military in a piecemeal manner since the coup, including state media pages like the Tatmadaw True News Information Team Page, and MRTV and MRTV Live Pages, saying they violate the platform’s policies. These pages have broadcast military decrees and warnings, crucial for journalists, citizens and others to understand how the army might respond to an upcoming protest or strike.

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https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30403029

First vaccine doses distributed by Covax land in Ghana

InternationalFeb 25. 2021

By The Washington Post · Danielle Paquette, Emily Rauhala

ABUJA, Nigeria – Ghana became the first country to receive a shipment of coronavirus vaccines from a global effort to equitably distribute doses after a plane landed Wednesday with 600,000 AstraZeneca shots.

The rollout is an early step toward getting doses to low- and middle-income countries cut out of the global vaccine race. But the timing and the relatively modest supply – enough for 1% of Ghana’s population – reflect major challenges in the immunization effort.

More than 190 countries signed up to participate in Covax, a multilateral effort to develop and distribute coronavirus vaccines, but the initiative has struggled to secure enough because wealthy countries snapped up a disproportionate share of early supply.

President Joe Biden last week pledged $4 billion to the effort, reversing the Trump administration’s decision to opt out. Yet the United States and other wealthy countries have so far resisted calls to give doses, rather than funding, to countries in greatest need.

“So far, 210 million doses of vaccine have been administered globally – but half of those are in just two countries,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday in Geneva. “More than 200 countries are yet to administer a single dose.”

Covax aims to distribute 2.3 billion doses by the end of 2021 – a significant amount but still well short of demand.

Ghana, a country of 31 million people, was selected as the first recipient after sending a rollout plan to Covax showing that its health-care teams and cold chain equipment were ready to support a quick distribution. The Ivory Coast and other countries in the region are expected to soon receive similar shipments soon.

The doses touching down in the capital, Accra, came from the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.

Boxes of vaccines left Mumbai on Tuesday for Dubai, where a logistics crew picked up hundreds of thousands of syringes, before hurtling toward Africa’s west coast.

“In the days ahead, front-line workers will begin to receive vaccines, and the next phase in the fight against this disease can begin – the ramping up of the largest immunization campaign in history,” Henrietta Fore, the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, said in a statement.

The organizations running Covax – the World Health Organization, the Coalition Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance – have tried to secure funding, particularly after the Trump administration spurned the effort, in part because of its feud with the WHO.

The effect of the Biden administration’s support probably will be felt over the mid- to long-term but probably will not help with the urgent and immediate task of getting doses to front-line workers in low- and middle-income countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron last week suggested that the United States, Europe and other wealthy buyers should give 4% to 5% of their current vaccine supplies to developing nations in an immediate show of goodwill and commitment.

But the United States has steered clear of making any commitment, focusing instead on vaccination efforts at home.

The African Union is pushing to inoculate 60% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people over the next three years, but soaring global demand – coupled with the weaker buying power of poorer nations – have delayed this objective.

The body said it has obtained 670 million doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines for 54 countries. Several countries are negotiating vaccine packages with China and Russia. Most still rely on the Covax support.

Health officials warn that uneven access to vaccines will prolong the pandemic, spawning variants that are harder to tame.

The variant identified in South Africa, which is far more transmissible, has been detected in Ghana and several other nations, fueling devastating second waves across the continent.

“There is so much stress now with the second strain of this disease,” said Rebecca Kumah, a nurse who treats covid-19 patients in Accra. “The fight is still on. As health-care workers in the line of duty, the vaccines are a great relief.”

By Wednesday, Ghana had recorded more than 80,700 coronavirus cases and 580 deaths.

Ghana plans to first protect the vulnerable: health-care personnel, the elderly and those with medical conditions that increase their risk of serious illness. The first shots will be administered early next week.

More than 300,000 community health workers have received vaccine distribution training in the coronavirus era, health officials said.

The goal is to eventually vaccinate 20 million people, Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, Ghana’s program manager for immunization, told reporters this month. It is unclear how long that effort could take.

“There is hope in sight,” said Juliette Tuakli, a public health physician and pediatrician in Accra. “People have underestimated the enormous mental health toll covid has taken on everyone. We never thought we’d be dealing with this a year-plus later.”

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https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30403028

Merkel warns of third virus wave as Germany weighs ending lockdown

InternationalFeb 25. 2021A protective face mask sign in Romerberg Square in Frankfurt, on Jan. 29. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Alex Kraus.

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Arne Delfs

Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Germany is in the midst of a third wave of coronavirus infections and should proceed carefully with reopening schools and businesses, putting a damper on discussions to loosen lockdown curbs.

The note of caution comes as Germany struggles on numerous fronts to control the pandemic. Infection rates haven’t come down for days, while the pace of vaccinations remains sluggish. A delayed test strategy represents the latest foul-up.

Health Minister Jens Spahn promised to make quick tests widely available from March 1 to facilitate a gradual return to normality as immunizations ramp up. After Merkel shot down Spahn’s plan in a cabinet meeting on Monday, she will now discuss it with state leaders on March 3.

“We’re in principle ready to go, but many have asked how we can better integrate it into opening strategies, so we’re discussing that now,” Spahn said in an interview with ZDF television. The cabinet member was scheduled to face lawmaker questions over the bungled plan later on Wednesday.

Political strains have increasingly bogged down Germany’s pandemic fight, as election-year campaigning muddies discussions. Multiple plans to reopen Europe’s largest economy are in the works, while Merkel — who will leave office after the September elections — argues for a gradual approach.

Ending restrictions on personal contact must be accompanied by more testing and vaccinations, Merkel told lawmakers from her conservative bloc during a video conference on Tuesday, according to a participant on the call. The chancellor warned that the aggressive British variant is already spreading in Germany, threatening the success of the country’s containment efforts to date.

Helge Braun, Merkel’s chief of staff and a trained medical doctor, told lawmakers that virus mutations could rapidly lead to a rise in new infections. He said the contagion rate could potentially soar as high as 800 infections per 100,000 people over seven days.

After falling steadily since Christmas, Germany’s incidence rate has been stuck at about 60 for more than a week, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute. Merkel has set a rate of 50 as the minimum for lifting certain restrictions, with further curbs possibly eased when the level falls below 35.

With Germans growing increasingly weary of the lockdown and a nationwide exit plan not in place, state officials have put forth their own proposals.

In Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein, Daniel Guenther — the premier from Merkel’s Christian Democrats — called for a four-stage program of reopening shops and restaurants in regions with an incidence rate below 50, while the Social Democrats’ Malu Dreyer — who leads Rhineland Palatinate and faces an election on March 14 — has a separate plan based on the number of new infections, tests and vaccinations.

Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder — a possible chancellor candidate for Merkel’s conservative bloc — has warned of the danger from virus mutations and called for the continuation of the chancellor’s strict lockdown policy.

Alexander Dobrindt, caucus leader for the Bavarian conservative party, proposed a digital certificate to allow vaccinated citizens to circulate freely, while calling for a return to normalcy even before its vaccination program is complete.

Aside from the growing array of state plans, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier is working on his own strategy aimed at providing a perspective for businesses. On Tuesday, Chief of Staff Braun met with state officials to try to find a consensus ahead of the crunch meeting on March 3.

In the meantime, there is some positive news. Spahn announced that the first coronavirus self-tests will be approved on Wednesday, with more set to follow next week.