Myanmar Junta moves Aung San Suu Kyi to unknown location
Myanmars junta has moved the nations civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ex-president Win Myint from their residences in the capital to an “unknown location,” according to allies whove expressed serious concerns for their safety.
The two have been held by the country’s powerful military since it seized power in a coup on Feb. 1.
“We’ve heard from reliable sources that President Win Myint and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi have been moved to another unknown location,” the shadow government formed by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party and allies, also known as the National Unity Government, said in a statement Monday.
Suu Kyi, who once defended the military’s brutal crackdown on Rohingya minorities at the International Court of Justice, is facing six criminal charges including violating state secrets and incitement. Win Myint is also charged with incitement and breaching Covid-19 restrictions.
The head of the legal defense team for both leaders, Khin Maung Zaw, said Suu Kyi had told lawyers during a meeting before her court appearance on May 24 that she had been moved one night earlier to an unfamiliar location.
“After the court hearing, we lawyers have no contact with her at all,” he said. “She’s a much-loved leader of our state so we have been extremely concerned about her safety since Day 1, and such concerns are still there.”
Labeling the regime a “terrorist military council,” the National Unity Government reiterated its efforts to ensure accountability and justice and urged the junta to take responsibility for their actions after the coup and against ethnic nationalities.
Published : June 02, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Khine Lin Kyaw
China finds possible first human case of H10N3 bird flu strain
The Chinese government announced Tuesday that a man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, had become the first person known to have been infected with the H10N3 strain of bird flu.
In a statement, China’s National Health Commission emphasized that there was no evidence that the strain had the ability to spread among humans, adding that the risk of a significant outbreak was “very low.”
The patient, a 41-year-old man who lived in the city of Zhenjiang, was hospitalized on April 28 after having fever symptoms, the National Health Commission said. He was diagnosed with H10N3 a month later.
Though the man remains under medical supervision, his condition was described as stable and meeting the standards for discharge. It was not clear from the statement how he caught the virus.
The news of the H10N3 infection comes amid the devastation of the covid-19 pandemic, which also was first identified in China and is widely thought to have come to humans from bats through some form of zoonotic spread.
A different strain of bird flu, known as H7N9, led to the deaths of around 300 people during an outbreak between 2016 and 2017.
But varieties of avian influenza are common in China and, due to increased surveillance of them, relatively easy to find in humans. Unlike H7N9, there is no evidence that H10N3 can spread easily from human to human.
“The more we look for novel viruses as a cause of illness among patients the more we are likely to find them,” Gregory Gray, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Duke University, told the South China Morning Post.
Alexandra Phelan, a global health lawyer at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security, wrote on Twitter that people should be “alert but not alarmed” about the news, adding that spillover between species did not itself mean there was epidemic risk.
China’s National Health Commission also said that the H10N3 was low pathogenic among poultry, meaning it caused less severe illness among birds.
Chinese authorities had placed all the man’s close contacts under investigation but did not display symptoms.
Local residents were told to remain vigilant, wearing a mask and visiting a doctor if they suffered any influenza symptoms. They were also advised to try to close contact with birds, dead or alive.
U.K. Covid deaths fall to zero, fueling demands to end lockdown
The U.K. recorded no new Covid-19 deaths for the first time since the global pandemic began, bolstering calls from industry groups for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to lift restrictions as planned this month.
Zero deaths have been reported in the past day, according to the latest statistics published on the government’s coronavirus dashboard. That’s the first time since March 7 last year that nobody has died in the U.K. from the disease.
The milestone will reinforce business calls for the government to push ahead with plans for its fourth and final stage of unlocking the economy on June 21 — including an end to all social distancing guidelines — even as rising cases of the virus raise concerns that the country may be facing another wave.
Johnson and his team have warned they will need to wait for more data on the spread of the variant first identified in India before announcing by June 14 whether the easing of restrictions can go ahead as proposed.
U.K. Hospitality, which represents about 85,000 venues, said jobs will be lost if there’s a delay to the end of lockdown measures, while survey data from the Night Time Industries Association suggests the future of nine in 10 nightlife businesses is threatened after more than a year of enforced closures.
“It’s devastating for the industry,” NTIA Chief Executive Michael Kill said in an interview. “They feel like they’ve been forgotten. They’re at the very sharp end of a long-running roadmap which they’ve watched unfold, to almost feel like they’ve been duped out of their opportunity at the last minute.”
Johnson is facing the dilemma of whether to prioritize the economy and ease the rules to remove all social distancing restrictions and allow large events to be held, or to stay cautious and delay the final step out of lockdown amid a surge in cases.
Adding pressure on Johnson was the decision by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to postpone a planned June 7 relaxation of the rules across a swathe of the region including Edinburgh because of an increase in the number of cases of the variant first detected in India.
Prevalence of this Delta strain is what could prevent England’s plans for unlocking. It has spread across the U.K. and the number of daily Covid cases has ticked upwards in the past two weeks. That’s raised concern of whether a second summer will be lost to the pandemic. The U.K. is also hosting the Group of Seven and climate summits this year.
Johnson’s spokesman refused to be drawn on the government’s thinking, saying only that it needed more time to assess the data. Asked if the government would copy Scotland’s approach of having different restrictions in different places, Jamie Davies said the unlocking was a “national endeavor.” That signals the government won’t try to revive a system of regional tiers that failed to contain the pandemic last fall.
On May 17, indoor hospitality and entertainment sites, such as cinemas, theaters and museums re-opened — yet with legal restrictions on capacity. Those limits mean it’s been unprofitable for some businesses to return.
“A delay would push many businesses closer to the cliff-edge of failure, meaning more job losses,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive of U.K. Hospitality.
Businesses such as nightclubs are in an even more precarious position, because they’ve been shuttered throughout the crisis, unlike hospitality, which was able to reopen last summer. That makes the final stage of the government’s plan for reopening even more crucial for them.
“It would be devastating to snuff this glimmer of hope out,” said Craig Beaumont, head of external affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses. “The June cohort of businesses are those that have been closed throughout the crisis. They have no cash reserves and are excited to finally join other businesses.”
Britain’s biggest business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry, said in a statement that all companies are looking to the government for “clear guidance on Covid-status certification and social distancing once the economy fully unlocks.”
While the government has pledged to give an update on the roadmap a week before the planned reopening, Kill at the NTIA said that doesn’t give businesses enough time to test their operations. He said 95% of businesses had already committed funds to the reopening, including stocking up, preparing venues and getting workers back.
Kill described the damage unleashed on the night-time economy as a “triple whammy.”
“You’ve got the workforce that are concerned about whether they’ve got a stable job to return to; you’ve got landlords who are not convinced that our sector is something they want to rent or lease their properties to; and we’ve had challenges around investment,” he said. “That tide needs to change.”
Published : June 02, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Joe Mayes, Alex Morales
WHO clears second Chinese covid vaccine for wider global use
Chinas Sinovac Biotech received long-awaited World Health Organization authorization of its Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for a wider rollout of the controversial shot in countries scrambling for a supply of immunizations.
The WHO recommended its use for people aged 18 and older in a two-dose schedule with a spacing of two to four weeks between shots, according to a statement Tuesday.
The emergency use listing granted to Sinovac’s shot is the second given to a Chinese Covid vaccine, after state-owned Sinopharm Group Co. secured WHO’s nod for emergency use in early May. They will be additional inoculation options for Covax, a program backed by WHO and other global health groups dedicated to ensuring every country has access to vaccines — notably poorer nations that have been shut out as wealthier ones snap up most of the world’s existing supply.
Already cleared for emergency use by the WHO are vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.
The WHO’s green light bestows global legitimacy on a Chinese shot that has battled concerns about its efficacy after divergent data was reported from trial sites. It could provide assurance for developing countries that lack their own regulatory bodies and rely on the organization’s advice on which shots are safe to use. Sinovac has shipped 380 million doses to countries and region ranging from Hong Kong to Zimbabwe since late last year.
The shot, dubbed CoronaVac, has the lowest efficacy rate reported from clinical trials among the frontrunner wave of vaccines: it was found to be just 50.7% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid in a trial in Brazil, barely crossing the minimum threshold required by drug regulators around the world. But real world evidence is emerging that it’s far more effective on the ground: In a recent study of around 130,000 Indonesia health workers, it protected 94% against symptomatic infection, 96% against hospitalization, and 98% against death.
Infections are also on the rebound in some countries that have rolled out Sinovac locally like Chile, fueling doubt on its effectiveness, though hasty reopenings and the spread of virus variants also play a part in the renewed outbreaks.
The WHO nod also paves the way for countries to allow travelers who have received Sinovac shots, even if the vaccine isn’t approved for use locally. Ahead of a planned reopening to vaccinated tourists this summer, the European Union said that member countries can consider opening up to people who have shots approved by the WHO. The company has also started submitting data on a rolling basis to drug regulator the European Medicines Agency.
The Sinovac vaccine contains the inactive forms of the SARS-CoV-2 viruses, which are injected to stimulate an immune response against the pathogen. Two other similar shots have been developed by China’s Sinopharm, including the one already cleared by WHO. They have all been widely used in the mainland since mid-2020.
Hackers hit JBS, the worlds largest meat processor, in ransomware attack
JBS, the worlds biggest meat supplier, was forced to suspend operations at some of its processing plants after it was hit by a ransomware attack.
Company officials disclosed the attack to the White House and have called the breach an extortion attempt by a criminal group likely based in Russia.
It’s the latest in a rash of recent high-profile cyberattacks highlighting the vulnerability of corporations, government agencies and civil society groups, as suspected foreign hackers become more brazen in their demands. Three weeks ago, a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline disrupted the East Coast’s fuel infrastructure, setting off panic buying and temporary gasoline shortages across several states.
Experts say it’s too soon to determine how the JBS cyberattack will affect meat supply chains – a significant concern for an industry that has been battered by a wave of disruptions that predate the coronavirus pandemic.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the ransomware attack Monday and directed the administration to monitor the issue closely and to assess any impact on supply or prices, said a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.
JBS said in a news release that it detected the intrusion on its computer networks in North America and Australia on Sunday but that its backup servers were not affected. The company, which is working with an outside cybersecurity firm to restore its systems, said it is unaware of any evidence that the attackers compromised or misused data tied to its customers, suppliers or employees. JBS said work on a resolution “may delay certain transactions with customers or suppliers.”
JBS did not respond to requests for further comment.
Ransomware attacks have become big business for hackers, who find relatively unsophisticated ways into companies’ networks through phishing or other methods. Once inside, criminal hackers will commonly take control of key parts of an organization’s systems and demand a ransom to unlock them.
Last month, in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, Biden warned Moscow that it needed to take “decisive action” against ransomware networks operating out of Russia. “They have some responsibility to deal with this,” he said.
JBS said it notified the White House of the ransomware attack on Sunday and followed up with the administration the next day to say that the ransom demand came from a criminal group, likely tied to Russia, according to White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.
“The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” Jean-Pierre said.
Biden is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva later this month.
“We do not regard . . . this meeting with the Russian president as a reward,” Jean-Pierre said in response to a question about if the JBS hack would affect the meeting. “We regard it as a vital part of defending America’s interests. President Biden is meeting with Vladimir Putin because of our country’s differences, not in spite of them.”
The FBI is investigating the attack and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reached out to several major meat processors to alert them of the situation. Officials are assessing the cyberattack’s effect on the nation’s meat supply, she said, as the administration works to mitigate its impact.
Biden had already launched a “rapid strategic review” to address the increased threat of ransomware, to include building a global coalition to hold countries who harbor ransomware criminals accountable. It builds on an executive order Biden signed last month to reduce the risk of cyberattacks against the federal government, including ransomware – an effort the administration would like to see extend to the private sector.
Food production is one of the nation’s 16 critical infrastructure sectors as defined by the Department of Homeland Security.
“Food processing has been a target for ransomware actors,” said Allan Liska, senior intelligence analyst at the cyber firm Recorded Future. “We know of at least 40 that have been publicly reported over the last year, and the number is probably significantly higher than that.”
The cyberattack is the latest to target a crucial supply chain or large institution in the United States.
Hackers walked away from the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline with $4.4 million, according to chief executive Joseph Blount. Federal officials have linked the attack to a Russia-based black hat group called DarkSide that researchers say has extracted $46 million in ransom payments this year alone. Despite the controversial decision to pay off bad actors, which may incentivize them to pursue even more attacks, Blount described the payment as “the right thing to do for the country,” given the critical importance of his company’s infrastructure.
The need to better secure the nation’s supply chains prompted the Department of Homeland Security last month to issue security directives to regulate the pipeline industry for the first time.
The average payment handed over to end a ransomware attack – like the kind that brought down Colonial – more than doubled in 2020 to $312,000, compared with the year prior, according to the cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks.
Many of the known attackers that security experts have tied to cyberattacks operate from overseas, limiting the ability of law enforcement agencies to apprehend them. Hackers also regularly demand cryptocurrency as a means of payment for their extortion schemes, making them harder to trace.
“I would argue that the continued digitization of modern society creates boundless opportunities for cyber criminals,” said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, a network monitoring company. “For the corporate world, the efficiencies gained through putting services and workloads online are simply too attractive to eschew. But with this increased digitization comes dependency, and securing complex systems can be very difficult. It is likely going to get worse before it gets better.”
A breakdown in the food supply chain emerged as an early flash point during the initial spread of the coronavirus last year. As the outbreak tore through meatpacking factories, hundreds of workers fell ill, forcing slaughterhouses owned by Tyson, Smithfield Foods and JBS USA to shutter.
JBS sent a text alert to workers at their Greeley, Colo., plant – the company’s largest facility – Monday night informing them to not show up for their shifts on Tuesday morning, according to a union representative. Nearly 3,000 workers at the plant were affected by the closing.
Five of JBS’ largest beef plants in the United States have ceased processing, Bloomberg News reported, knocking out almost one-fifth of the country’s beef production capacity.
“It’s piling up bad news on top of bad news,” said Don Close, senior animal protein analyst for Rabobank.
Months of shutdowns and plant slowdowns due to the public health crisis created a backlog for suppliers. Amplifying the logjam, producers weren’t able to ship enough cattle. Combined with labor shortages in the meatpacking industry and surging export and domestic demand, prices for beef and pork are surging.
As of April, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization has recorded seven consecutive months of rising meat prices globally. Prices in April were 5.1% higher than a year ago. In the United States, prices continue to climb even after consumers saw the sharpest increases in meat, poultry, fish and egg prices in nearly 50 years at the onset of the pandemic.
The Olympics face a shortage of doctors in Japan due to pandemic
Japans medical establishment is becoming increasingly anxious about bringing together 78,000 people from 200 countries for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, even as the country struggles to keep coronavirus infections under control and speed up vaccinations.
Organizers had initially planned to have about 10,000 doctors, nurses and medical staff on standby for the games, scheduled to start in less than two months, but have had to cut that number down to about 7,000 because they’ll be needed to handle ongoing outbreaks.
Although Japan has seen one of the lowest infection rates among rich industrialized nations, it has been trying to bring under control a rise in infections since late last year. A third state of emergency was expanded and extended in Tokyo and other big cities, with limited results. Speculation over the possible cancellation of the games intensified last week after the U.S. warned Americans not to travel to Japan.
“We have strong reservations about hosting the Olympics at the expense of the lives and health of patients and nurses,” said Susumu Morita, secretary-general of the Japan Federation of Medical Worker’s Unions, which represents about 170,000 nurses and medical staff across the country.
Although foreign spectators were barred from the games in an effort to mitigate the risk of spreading infections, there hasn’t been a final decision yet on whether domestic fans will be banned or see their numbers cut. That lack of clarity is also making it difficult to gauge whether there will be enough medical staff to cope with any emergencies from July 23 to Aug. 8, when the games are scheduled to take place.
“It will be difficult to decide on the maximum spectator limit without monitoring the situation,” Seiko Hashimoto, president of the organizing committee, said at a briefing Friday.
All of this, in turn, has fueled mounting public opposition to the Olympics, which were delayed last year during the peak of the pandemic. Opinion polls consistently show a majority against holding the games. Japan’s business leaders, including SoftBank Group Corp.’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son, have called for the event to be canceled. Japan’s influential Asahi newspaper, an official sponsor of the Tokyo Olympics, urged Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in an editorial on May 26 to call off the world’s biggest sporting competition.
Asked almost daily on the safety of holding the tournament, Suga often repeats this mantra: “We are working to make sure that the games will be safe and secure by taking all possible measures to prevent infections among athletes and related parties.”
The final decision on whether to hold the games is up to the International Olympic Committee, which has pushed back on reports that they are considering a cancellation.
Read more: Paralympics Chief ‘Confident With Level of Protection’ in Tokyo
“There are countries which are still struggling to contain the pandemic and it’s extremely risky that people from such countries are entering Japan,” said Satoru Arai, director of the Tokyo Medical Association. “Hospital capacity will be compromised if we send staff to the Olympics.”
Even so, Arai said his association is sending about 40 doctors and nurses to the games. That’s about all the group can spare, he said, in order to deal with coronavirus patients and also assist in vaccination efforts. Daily new infections in Tokyo should be less than 100 at least a month before the games start in order to safely hold the Olympics, he said; the average daily count in May was about 740.
On average, the Tokyo Olympics will need as many as 230 doctors and 310 nurses on standby every day, Hashimoto said earlier this month. Only about 80% of that number has been secured so far, she added.
Japan will offer vaccines to its athletes from June 1, well ahead of the general population. Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, has estimated that about 80% of the people coming to Japan will have already been inoculated. The main remaining variables will be the state of infections in Japan in July and a final decision on spectators, which is due in June.
“You can’t stand idly by while tens of thousands of people will come to Tokyo from 200 countries,” Naoto Ueyama, chairman of 130-member Japan Doctors Union, said at a news briefing. “The two most important things are to accelerate vaccinations and not hold an event with large numbers of people.”
Adding to Covid-19 and the usual bevy of respiratory diseases that appear during large sporting events is Japan’s hot summer, according to Hiroshi Okudera, a doctor who was in charge of medical operations at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. Mask-wearing when temperatures are close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) with humidity levels above 90% could cause many to suffer from heat exhaustion or heatstroke.
“What we can do now is try our best to contain infections,” Okudera said, adding that there’s a chance that infection numbers will fall in the coming weeks. “The Olympics is a very powerful and influential event – we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of holding the games outright.”
Published : June 02, 2021
By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Ayai Tomisawa, Yuki Hagiwara
เมื่อกฎเกณฑ์ของธุรกิจกีฬาสร้างบาดแผลในใจ ไม่เพียงแต่นาโอมิ โอซากะ แต่ยังมีนักกีฬาอีกหลายคนต้องเจ็บปวด
เวียดนามอยากเป็นผู้ผลิตวัคซีนเอง แต่ขณะเดียวกันมีข่าวว่ารัฐบาลยังขอให้ซัมซุงหาวัคซีนให้พนักงานของตัวเองที่อยู่ในเวียดนามเอง
จีนยืนยันพบผู้ป่วยไข้หวัดนกสายพันธุ์ H10N3 เป็นคนแรกของโลก 
วารสารวิชาการชั้นนำของโลกเผยบทสัมภาษณ์ผู้ผลิตวัคซีนโควิดชนิด mRNA ตัวแรกในเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้จากประเทศไทย
