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Obama, Bush and Clinton release video praising peaceful transfers of power, as Trump skips inauguration

InternationalJan 22. 2021

By The Washington Post · Tim Elfrink

Standing in the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery alongside his two predecessors in the White House, former president Barack Obama noted that inaugurations are central to American democracy.

“Inaugurations signal a tradition of a peaceful transfer of power that is over two centuries old,” Obama said in a joint video released late Wednesday with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Although former president Donald Trump’s name was never uttered in the nearly three-minute clip, it served as an unsubtle rebuke to the latest member of the ex-presidents club, who has spent months torpedoing the norms surrounding the peaceful transfer of power.

Obama recalled that one of his “fondest memories” of his inauguration was Bush and former first lady Laura Bush welcoming him and former first lady Michelle Obama to the White House – a courtesy that Trump and former first lady Melania Trump didn’t afford the Bidens on Wednesday.

“It was a reminder that we can have fierce disagreements and yet recognize each other’s common humanity, and that as Americans we have more in common than what separates us,” Obama said.

Trump became the first commander in chief in more than 150 years to skip his successor’s inauguration, which was heavily guarded by the military after a mob provoked by Trump stormed the Capitol earlier this month in an attempted insurrection.

In his farewell speech on Wednesday morning, Trump never mentioned Biden’s name, although he did wish the “new administration great luck and great success.” Biden said he still hasn’t spoken to Trump, but told reporters that his predecessor did leave him a “very generous” letter, following one tradition after ignoring many others.

In the video, the former presidents presented a starkly different vision of bipartisan cooperation – one that echoed Biden’s calls for unity in his inaugural address. Bush, the sole Republican standing between the two Democrats, noted that their mere presence together sends a vivid message.

“The fact that the three of us are here talking about a peaceful transfer of power speaks to the institutional integrity of our country,” he said.

Clinton suggestedBiden’s win opened opportunities for America to change for the better.

“This is an unusual thing. We are both trying to come back to normalcy, deal with totally abnormal challenges, and do what we do best, which is try to make a more perfect union,” he said. “It’s an exciting time.”

All three ex-presidents urged Americans to find ways to talk in a moment when the nation is politically fractured.

“We’ve got to not just listen to folks we agree with, but listen to folks we don’t,” Obama said.

Bush added that “if Americans would love their neighbors like they would like to be loved themselves, a lot of the division in our society would end.”

These three former presidents, Obama stressed, stood ready to help Biden however they could.

“You’ve got all of us here rooting for your success,” he said. “We will be available in any ways that we can as citizens to help you guide our country forward.”

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Biden signs order Thursday requiring masks on planes, buses, trains and at airports

InternationalJan 22. 2021Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don masks during an August event in Wilmington, Del. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Toni L. Sandys

By The Washington Post · Michael Laris

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden signed an order Thursday mandating mask usage in airports and on many planes, trains, ships and intercity buses, the White House said.

The moves are part of a new strategy released Thursday to confront the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 406,000 people in the United States.

Airline workers have described the dangerous results of passengers refusing to follow mask requirements issued by airlines. Safety reports filed with the federal government show flight attendants being repeatedly taunted and verbally abused by passengers, including some who called the virus a “political hoax.”

Biden’s action comes on the heels of earlier order Wednesday – the first he issued as president – requiring masks on federal property. Together, the orders come as close to a national mask mandate as his federal powers allow, because only states and municipalities can require residents to wear masks at a local level.

The Trump administration rejected calls from Congress, unions representing transportation workers and public health experts within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to require masks.

Biden’s move marks a clear break from Trump’s handling of masks, although some specifics, including how it might be enforced, remain unclear pending the release of the order. It will require masks “on certain public modes of transportation and at ports of entry to the United States,” according to a White House strategy document released Thursday.

Biden had said before his inauguration he would require masks for “interstate travel on planes, trains and buses,” and CDC officials previously indicated that interstate travel is where their existing authority lies. The precise role of the Department of Transportation was immediately clear.

Biden’s pick for transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, appeared Thursday before the Senate Commerce Committee for a hearing on his nomination. In prepared remarks, he pointed to the need to face the broad dangers stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

“Safety is the foundation of the department’s mission, and it takes on new meaning amid this pandemic,” according to his remarks. “We must ensure all of our transportation systems – from aviation to public transit, to our railways, roads, ports, waterways, and pipelines – are managed safely during this critical period, as we work to defeat the virus.”

The White House said Thursday the pending order “directs applicable agencies to take immediate action to require mask-wearing on many airplanes, trains,” maritime vessels and intercity buses.

The strategy also seeks more aggressive action by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, including considering emergency standards on mask-wearing and other matters. “Biden is taking steps to cover workers not typically covered by OSHA . . . by directing agencies like the Department of Transportation to keep workers safe,” according to the strategy document.

Biden’s pending order, “Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel,” also will instruct agencies “to develop options for expanding public health measures for domestic travel and cross-border land and sea travel and calls for incentives to support and encourage compliance with CDC guidelines on public transportation.”

The CDC previously outlined the reasoning behind its “strong recommendation” to wear masks during travel.

“Traveling on public conveyances increases a person’s risk of getting and spreading COVID-19 by bringing people in close contact with others, often for prolonged periods,” the CDC said.

“People should wear masks when traveling into, within, or out of the United States on conveyances,” the agency said in the earlier guidance. “Local transmission can grow quickly into interstate and international transmission when infected people travel on public conveyances without wearing a mask and with others who are not wearing masks.”

Experts in psychology and decision-making said resistance to mask usage, including on planes, has been driven by politization at the highest levels of the U.S. government and beyond, and is also fueled by the inconsistent messaging and the insidious nature of a virus that can be spread so easily by those who don’t even know they are infected. Experts said one shortcoming has been a lack of careful testing of public health messages to make sure they are convincing.

Biden White House officials said their strategy will include “world-class public education campaigns” on mask-wearing, testing and vaccinations, which will be coordinated on the federal, state and local levels and include the private sector.

“They will be anchored by science and fact-based public health guidance. The Administration will work to counter misinformation and disinformation by ensuring that Americans are obtaining science-based information,” the according to the strategy.

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Biden will work with WHO on coronavirus, support global vaccine effort, Fauci says

InternationalJan 22. 2021

By The Washington Post · Paul Schemm, Emily Rauhala

Going forward, the United States will work with – not against – the World Health Organization. That was the message delivered Thursday by President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser.

In remarks to the U.N. health agency’s executive board, Anthony S. Fauci confirmed that the United States will halt its withdrawal from the WHO and work cooperatively to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

That will mean opting into Covax, a multilateral plan to distribute coronavirus vaccines that has drawn support from more than 170 nations but was spurned by President Donald Trump during his feud with the WHO.

Fauci’s remarks, delivered on Biden’s first full day in office, signaled the new administration’s desire to restore the United States’ relationship with an organization it helped found and shape after months of WHO-bashing and threats.

“The United States stands ready to work in partnership and solidarity to support the international covid-19 response, mitigate its impact on the world, strengthen our institutions, advance epidemic preparedness for the future, and improve the health and well-being of all people throughout the world,” Fauci said.

Mending ties with the WHO is part of a broader push to restore U.S. leadership in global public health and reengage with traditional allies after four years of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.

The Biden administration’s national covid-19 strategy, for instance, promises that the country will “rebuild health security alliances, elevate U.S. efforts to support the Global Health Security Agenda, and revitalize U.S. leadership.”

Fauci’s address represented a striking reversal of tone.

“I join my fellow representatives in thanking the World Health Organization for its role in leading the global response to this pandemic,” he said. “Under trying circumstances, this organization has rallied the scientific and research community to accelerate vaccines, therapies and diagnostics.”

The agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, thanked Fauci for his remarks and for recommitting to the covid-19 fight, calling it “a good day for the WHO and a good day for global health.”

“We have a lot of work to do, and lessons to learn, to end the pandemic and meet the long list of global health challenges we face – the world will be better able to meet them with you,” Tedros said.

The last year has been anything but easy for the WHO, which has been at the heart of a complex global health crisis as well as an acrimonious political conflict.

Trump was highly critical of the organization and its director general, accusing them of mishandling the initial outbreak and being too subservient to China.

In July, after months of threats, Trump issued a letter announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO after a year. In September, the Trump administration announced it would not participate in Covax because of its link to the WHO.

Some elements of Trump’s critique have resonated beyond the White House. The WHO’s actions in the early days of the pandemic have also been criticized by an independent panel, for instance, and reform measures are under discussion.

But few supported the Trump administration’s undermining of the agency mid-pandemic, and Biden promised as a presidential candidate to reverse course. Hours after taking office, the new president signed directives to reengage with the WHO.

Questions about China are likely to remain front and center in the days ahead. Fauci on Thursday expressed support for WHO-led efforts to determine the origins of the pandemic with a mission sent to China, amid fears that Beijing will obstruct the agency’s efforts.

“The international investigation must be robust and clear,” he said, “And we look forward to evaluating it.”

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India is giving away millions of vaccine doses as a tool of diplomacy

InternationalJan 22. 2021

By The Washington Post · Joanna Slater

NEW DELHI – India only started vaccinating its own population against the coronavirus a few days ago, but it is already using its manufacturing heft to generate goodwill with its neighbors.

India’s government has made the calculation that it has enough vaccines to share. The result is a form of vaccine diplomacy that appears to be unlike any other in the world.

Since Wednesday, the Indian government has sent free vaccines to Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives – more than 3.2 million doses in total. Donations to Mauritius, Myanmar and Seychelles are set to follow. Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are next on the list.

The shipments reflect one of India’s unique strengths: It is home to a robust vaccine industry, including Serum Institute of India, one of the world’s largest vaccine makers.

Early in the pandemic, Serum Institute formed a partnership to produce the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. By this year, the company had already stockpiled 80 million doses. Some of that production will be delivered this month to the Covax initiative backed by the World Health Organization to distribute vaccines to poorer countries.

On Thursday, a fire broke out at a building under construction at Serum Institute’s headquarters in which five people died, reported New Delhi Television. The company said the blaze would not impact its production of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

In the race to combat the pandemic, several countries are using vaccine production as a route to enhance their global influence. But the Indian government seems to be the first to deliver multiple gifts to neighboring countries.

China has made a concerted push to sell its vaccines to countries around the globe for months but only recently announced donations to Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines. It is not clear if the free vaccines have been shipped.

On Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign minister had a call with his Chinese counterpart and announced that China would donate 500,000 vaccine doses by Jan. 31.

India’s diplomatic initiative has its own hashtag – #VaccineMaitri, or vaccine friendship – and received a high-profile plug from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India is “deeply honoured to be a long-trusted partner in meeting the healthcare needs of the global community,” he wrote on Twitter.

The push comes at a time when the virus is in retreat in India. The country is a distant second to the United States in terms of coronavirus cases, with about 10.6 million in total. Daily cases have dropped significantly since last fall.

India launched its nationwide vaccination drive, one of the world’s largest, on Jan. 16. The country is aiming to vaccinate 300 million people by the summer, starting with 10 million health-care personnel. Regulators fast-tracked the approval of two vaccines – the AstraZeneca vaccine and, more controversially, a vaccine called Covaxin developed in India that does not yet have efficacy data.

So far India is providing the AstraZeneca vaccine to its neighbors. Some analysts questioned whether the donations would have a lasting impact on existing sources of tension, such as a boundary dispute with Nepal.

“You have neighbors who resent India’s overweening ways as it is,” said Manoj Joshi, a foreign-policy analyst and senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “I don’t think they’re going to be so terribly grateful that they forget all that.”

Conspicuously absent from the list of countries receiving free vaccines is Pakistan, India’s rival and neighbor to the west. The relationship between the two countries hit a recent nadir in 2019 when they engaged in their first aerial dogfight in nearly 50 years following a terrorist attack in Kashmir.

Pakistan recently approved the AstraZeneca vaccine. It has not approached India about a potential shipment, said two Indian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” one of the officials said.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry referred queries to the health ministry, which did not respond.

India is monitoring the supply of vaccines on a weekly basis to make sure it can meet both domestic needs and demands from other countries, one of Indian officials said. Commercial exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine – including to Brazil and Morocco – will begin within days.

Countries that received the free vaccines this week expressed their thanks. On Wednesday, an Indian military transport plane landed at the only international airport in Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation wedged between India and China. It carried 150,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, enough to vaccinate more than one-tenth of the total population targeted for immunization.

Lotay Tshering, Bhutan’s prime minister, said in a statement that the Bhutanese people were “immensely grateful” for the vaccines. “It is of unimaginable value when precious commodities are shared even before meeting your own needs.”

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China fires parting sanctions at Trump officials; seeks ‘better angels’ in Biden team

InternationalJan 22. 2021

By The Washington Post · Gerry Shih

TAIPEI, Taiwan – China on Thursday fired a parting shot at the Trump administration by announcing unprecedented sanctions against outgoing Cabinet officials and advisers, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, as it extended a rhetorical olive branch to newly installed President Joe Biden.

But whether – or how – Biden would respond and seek to repair relations between the world’s two leading powers remains a key unknown in Beijing, where commentators and state media greeted the new U.S. presidency with tepid optimism and some concern.

Referring to Biden’s inauguration as a “new day” for America, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, called on the Democratic administration to turn a page from the “particularly difficult” past four years and renounce the all-fronts pressure campaign that defined Trump’s China policy.

“The Trump government, particularly Pompeo, buried too many mines that need to be removed, burned too many bridges that need to be rebuilt,” Hua said in lengthy remarks on Thursday as she appealed for a reset. “With joint hard work from both sides, the better angels of U.S.-China relations can defeat evil forces.”

But China’s first act of the Biden era, announcing sanctions against Republicans while Biden’s inauguration ceremony was in full swing at the U.S. Capitol, immediately fell flat. Minutes after Biden became president, the Foreign Ministry announced sanctions against Pompeo, former national security aides Robert O’Brien and Matthew Pottinger and 25 other Americans and their families who would be prohibited from traveling to China – including Hong Kong and Macao – or conducting business with the country.

The Biden White House criticized the sanctions and called for American unity to compete against China.

“Imposing these sanctions on Inauguration Day is seemingly an attempt to play to partisan divides,” Emily Horne, Biden’s National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement Wednesday. “Americans of both parties should criticize this unproductive and cynical move. President Biden looks forward to working with leaders in both parties to position America to out-compete China.”

The tough response follows high-level appointments and statements in recent days that have raised concerns in Beijing about whether the Biden team would in fact reverse course on China policy, as some have hoped.

At his Senate confirmation hearing this week, Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, said he agreed with Pompeo’s assessment that Chinese government abuses in the Xinjiang region amounted to “genocide” and added that he believed China poses the greatest threat of any foreign nation to the United States. Avril Haines, Biden’s director of national intelligence, said she supported a “more aggressive stance” toward Beijing compared with the period under President Barack Obama.

The Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper noted after the inauguration that Biden did not mention China in his speech, nor did he offer signals about whether and how he would seek a thaw with Beijing. In a commentary, the paper expressed concerns about Blinken’s remarks in his confirmation hearing and pointed out that the Biden team invited Taiwan’s envoy to Washington to attend a presidential inauguration for the first time. China claims Taiwan as its territory and objects strenuously to diplomatic interactions between Washington and Taipei.

“American society’s favorable views toward China have indeed declined in the past four years,” the commentary noted as it asked Biden to not succumb to growing anti-China popular sentiment.

Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization and an adviser to China’s State Council, said “structural challenges” between Beijing and Washington will continue, and Chinese officials were still reeling from Pompeo’s pressure campaign.

“The contradictions will continue to exist, and they will not disappear, but the Biden administration will not be as crazy and irrationally play cards like Trump,” he said. Wang added that it would take time for the distrust to melt away. “If the Biden administration sends more goodwill, then China would also respond more actively.”

Before departing office this month, Pompeo announced a range of measures against China, including the Xinjiang genocide designation and sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials involved in Hong Kong’s national security crackdown. He also lifted State Department restrictions that prevented meetings between U.S. and Taiwanese diplomats.

In its parting shot, China said Thursday its sanctions would also target Peter Navarro, the economic adviser who advocated for Trump’s trade war, as well as three former senior officials who expressed support for Taiwan over the past eight months: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; Keith Krach, an undersecretary of state; and the ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft. Azar and Krach flew to Taiwan on official visits; Craft was scheduled to visit but her flight turned around in midair and she conducted meetings by videoconference instead.

Former president Donald Trump and his family members were not named in the ministry’s statement, but it did name former national security adviser John Bolton, who left the White House amid acrimony in 2019, and former White House strategist Stephen Bannon, who was pardoned by Trump this week after being charged with defrauding political donors. The Chinese government declined to disclose most of the 28 names.

Chinese banks are not as central to the global financial system as U.S. banks, so the effects of the Chinese sanctions are probably not as far-reaching as those levied by Washington against Chinese or Beijing-backed officials over Hong Kong and Xinjiang. But Beijing’s announcement could impose real costs on former officials who return to the business world, and they present travel hurdles if any returned to government service.

Bull Piano, an online column associated with the official Xinhua News Agency, said the sanctions were meant to send a signal to future U.S. politicians who might have business dealings in China.

“Don’t think about playing the China card while in power if you want to eat Chinese food after you step down,” the columnist wrote. “If you mess around, there will be payback.”

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Rare twin suicide bombings rock Baghdad market, killing dozens

InternationalJan 22. 2021

By The Washington Post · Louisa Loveluck, Mustafa Salim

BAGHDAD – Rare twin suicide bombings struck a market Thursday in central Baghdad, killing at least 32 people and injuring 110 more, according to Iraq’s Health Ministry.

The blasts came midmorning as people were shopping for secondhand clothes at a market in Tayaran Square. Video footage showed the second explosion ripping through the air as sirens blared and casualties were raced away in motorized rickshaws. Other images from the scene showed bodies strewn on the ground amid upturned tables and piles of unsold jackets.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Although security forces continue to fight ragtag bands of Islamic State militants in Iraq’s peripheral regions, major security incidents in the capital are rare. Thursday’s attack was the deadliest to strike the capital in years. The last mass-casualty attack, striking the same square, took place in January 2018 and killed 27 people.

Khalid al-Mahna, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the suicide bomber detonated his explosives after attracting a crowd by feigning sickness in the middle of the market.

When shoppers came to help those injured by the first blast, he said, someone else detonated a second bomb.

Thursday’s attack shattered a sense of relative security in the capital, raising questions about the Iraqi security forces’ preparedness in the face of a militant threat that has been diminished but by no means erased. Army units and special forces continue to arrest alleged Islamic State members at their homes in urban centers and say that sleeper cells remain prepared to mount strikes.

In a statement, an Iraqi military spokesman, Yahya Rasool, said the bombers detonated their explosives as they were pursued by security forces. Rasool said his unit had received information suggesting that an attack was coming. No uniformed security forces appeared to be visible in the surveillance video footage that showed the first blast.

Although a security breach in the heart of Baghdad is rare, experts cautioned that Thursday’s attack underscored the challenge of ending militant violence without far-reaching changes to how the country is governed.

“This is not to say that this is the beginning of extreme conflict in Iraq, or violence, but it is a reminder that there is yet to be a sustainable solution to govern the socio-economy and politics of Iraq,” said Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program. “As long as there’s that incoherence, I think we expect, sadly, for these attacks to continue and increase in time because we’re just looking back as to what happened before under a similar context.”

The attack occurred at a time when life for ordinary Iraqis is becoming harder. The coronavirus pandemic has tanked global energy prices, plunging Iraq’s oil-dependent economy into crisis and forcing a devaluation of the currency. Unemployment has increased. The price of basic goods is rising, too.

While street cleaners swept blood from scene, families combed the site for relatives last seen there. Ahmed Qassim, 32, showed street vendors a photograph of his 20-year-old cousin, Abdullah, who was last seen peddling T-shirts. They said he had been taken away in an ambulance.

An elderly man with gray hair and spectacles wandered confused and distraught along a street leading to the marketplace. “Where is my son?” he shouted. “He’s just a kid who sells sunglasses and wants to live. Where is he?”

As he walked, young men were sifting through piles of clothes for body parts. For a moment, a teenager crouched to lay out candles for the dead. “We’re still looking for bodies, man,” a friend chided him. The teenager was stone-faced. “We got used to death,” he replied, as he lit the wicks one by one.

Compounding Iraq’s multiple crises, the country has also emerged again as a stage for geopolitical tensions, with Iran-backed Shiite militias launching rockets at U.S. diplomatic and military-linked targets and U.S. forces responding with airstrikes.

Three Americans and one Briton have been killed in those attacks. But for the most part, the dead and injured have been Iraqis caught in the crossfire.

After the Islamic State’s battlefield defeat here in 2017, the United States is reducing its troop presence to 2,500, with most of those performing advisory functions as the Iraqi military takes the lead in what remains of the fight.

“ISIS will be trying to make this part of a campaign to disrupt daily life and show it is still relevant and able to carry out extreme violence despite its territorial defeat,” said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq-based fellow at the Century Foundation.

“Attacks hark back to painful memories when attacks on civilians were common. The government needs to restore confidence quickly and show it will not allow ISIS bombings to become a regular occurrence again.”

As the winter sun set Thursday, the funerals began. In a narrow alleyway by Tayaran Square, shock and anger were palpable. Young men held coffins aloft. Among the dead was a 32-year-old named Maher al-Swerawi, who died in the first explosion. His friend Hani Sabri ran out to reach his body, friends said. Sabri, who was 30, was killed in the second blast.

As the crowd moved along, one voice rang out above the din. It was Sabri’s mother.

“Hani, I told you not to go. Why did you go there?” she cried, her voice breaking.

“Why did you go?”

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EU leaders consider travel bans, faster vaccine rollout to contain coronavirus variants

InternationalJan 22. 2021

Ursula von der Leyen

By The Washington Post · Michael Birnbaum

European leaders, struggling with a slow vaccination effort and fearful that highly contagious coronavirus variants could rapidly overwhelm their medical systems, moved Thursday to begin reimposing border restrictions and to speed the distribution of vaccines – even those not yet been approved for use.

“We are increasingly concerned about different variants of the virus,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters after a virtual summit of European Union leaders, saying that though the bloc intends to keep borders open for trade, it may restrict nonessential travel.

The leaders held back from endorsing a specific plan for borders. But Germany – which as the richest and most populous EU member often drives its discussions – proposed strict, temporary bans on travel to the EU from countries where mutated forms of the coronavirus are already prevalent, including Britain. The proposal would restrict EU citizens from returning to their home countries if they are currently in an affected country, and would therefore be more stringent than previous border measures.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that sharp action was necessary in the face of more transmissible strain first identified in Britain.

“I can’t stress this strongly enough: We need to slow down the spread of this mutant virus, we mustn’t wait until this virus flares up here and is reflected in explosive new numbers,” she told reporters before the EU discussion. “We’d have a stronger wave of the virus, probably stronger than anything we’ve seen so far.”

The leaders also agreed to begin distributing doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine across Europe, so rollout can start as soon as that vaccine is approved, possibly around mid-February. Though Britain is already administering AstraZeneca inoculations, European and U.S. regulators have questioned whether there is enough data to show they are effective among older people.

Until now, the EU has focused on a rapid but by-the-book medical authorization process to build public confidence in the safety of the vaccines. But some countries are pushing the bloc’s medical regulator to move faster.

“We are working with other EU countries for the fastest possible, unbureaucratic approval of @AstraZeneca and other vaccines,” wrote Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, on Twitter, during the leaders’ summit.

The European Commission earlier this week set a goal that 70% of EU residents would be vaccinated by the summer – an ambitious effort that, despite efforts to remain united, may ultimately highlight disparities among member countries.

The pace of vaccinations already has varied sharply among countries, even though they all got access to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines simultaneously. Denmark has administered 3.2 doses for every 100 residents. The Netherlands has only given out 0.6 doses for the same number.

The 70% goal struck some public health experts as overly aspirational.

In France, “we would need to vaccinate at least twice as fast as now,” said Odile Launay, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Paris and a member of the committee advising French authorities on vaccine strategy. “And the other question: will 70 percent of the population want to get vaccinated?”

Hours before Thursday’s meeting, Hungary announced it was breaking with the other 26 members of the EU to authorize both the AstraZeneca and Russian-made Sputnik vaccines within its borders. The country’s national regulator said that it would maintain careful testing of the Sputnik vaccine, but that because the AstraZeneca inoculation was already approved in Britain, no further tests for that one were necessary.

The EU approves vaccines as a bloc, but individual countries can offer emergency authorizations. The Hungarian move may create pressure on other countries to follow suit, although many EU leaders have said that a unified strategy will be the most effective, because it will build the most confidence across the union of 450 million people.

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Twitter locks out Chinese Embassy in U.S. over post on Uighurs

InternationalJan 22. 2021

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Kurt Wagner, Peter Martin

Twitter has locked the official account for the Chinese Embassy to the U.S. after a post that defended the Beijing government’s policies in the western region of Xinjiang, where critics say China is engaged in the forced sterilization of minority Uighur women.

The tweet, which said Uighur women were no longer “baby-making machines,” was originally shared on Jan. 7, but wasn’t removed by Twitter until more than 24 hours later. It has been replaced by a label saying, “This tweet is no longer available.” Even though Twitter hides tweets that violate its rules, it still requires the account owner to manually delete the post in order to regain access to the account.

The account is still locked, a Twitter spokesman confirmed, meaning the Chinese Embassy has not deleted the tweet. The Chinese Embassy account, @ChineseEmbinUS, has not posted since Jan. 8, having published at least a dozen more tweets after the one breaking Twitter’s rules.

“We have taken action on this Tweet for violating our policy against dehumanization,” a Twitter spokesman said in a statement. Twitter prohibits the “dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, caste, age, disability, serious disease, national origin, race, or ethnicity.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Thursday said authorities were “puzzled” about why Twitter restricted the account, calling it the embassy’s responsibility to correct “fake reports and information related to Xinjiang.”

“We hope Twitter can adhere to objective and fair principles and not display double standards on this issue,” she said at a briefing in Beijing.

The move is the latest in a series of escalating steps Twitter has taken in recent weeks to enforce its policies. The suspension of the Chinese Embassy account came shortly after Twitter permanently banned Donald Trump’s account for repeated rules violations, and potentially complicates Beijing’s efforts to reset relations with the U.S. under President Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, then-acting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that China’s actions against Uighur minorities amounted to “genocide,” a label that his successor Antony Blinken agreed with during his confirmation hearings this week. China has maintained that it is fighting separatism and extremism in the region, where the United Nations has estimated up to 1 million Uighurs may be held in camps.

The decision to suspend the Chinese Embassy account also adds to an already complicated relationship between U.S. tech companies and China. Large social platforms like Twitter, Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google and YouTube are all banned in China, which has some of the world’s strictest controls on the internet. Trump, meanwhile, had previously demanded that Chinese startup ByteDance Ltd. spin off its successful video service TikTok in the U.S.

China’s embassy in Washington joined Twitter in 2019 in the midst of heated trade talks between the countries, as more Chinese officials started using the platform to aggressively defend Beijing across the world in what has become known as “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy. Chinese officials and state-run media have used Twitter to accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy, particularly after a deadly riot at the Capitol earlier this month.

After the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka’s account was suspended last year, it argued its “freedom of speech” must be honored, even though Twitter posts are blocked in the mainland.

Last month, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an apology after Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted a fake photo depicting one of his nation’s troops holding a bloody knife to an Afghan child’s throat. Chinese social media platform WeChat subsequently deleted a post by Morrison after he made a direct appeal to the Chinese community promoting Australia as a “free, democratic, liberal country.”

In recent months China has moved to rein its own big tech companies, proposing antitrust policies in November that would give the Communist Party sweeping powers over some of the country’s most biggest corporations.

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Biden order seeks stronger workplace safety rules, signaling a more worker-friendly approach

InternationalJan 22. 2021

Jimena Peterson waves a sign during a protest outside the offices of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in downtown Denver in September. The protest was staged by the union representing employees at a Colorado meatpacking plant where six workers died of covid-19 and hundreds more were infected this past spring. (David Zalubowski/ AP)

By The Washington Post · Eli Rosenberg

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday to direct federal regulators to issue stronger safety guidance for workplaces operating in the midst of the pandemic.

The executive order on “Protecting Worker Health and Safety” seeks to reorient worker safety guidelines and enforcement at the Labor Department’s workplace safety division – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

It directs OSHA to update covid safety recommendations for businesses within the next two weeks, review its enforcement efforts, which have been sharply criticized during the pandemic, and study whether an emergency temporary standard, which businesses would have to comply with under the threat of penalties, is necessary. The agency must issued the emergency standard by mid-March, if so.

Such a standard could mandate mask-wearing and other requirements, including social distancing, hand-washing breaks and communication with workers during outbreaks.

The order marks an abrupt shift from the Trump administration’s more business and industry friendly approach, and signals a new emphasis on the plight of workers, including a focus on issues of race and equity, in the Biden administration.

“Ensuring the health and safety of workers is a national priority and a moral imperative,” Biden wrote in the order. “Healthcare workers and other essential workers, many of whom are people of color and immigrants, have put their lives on the line during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic….The Federal Government must take swift action to reduce the risk that workers may contract COVID-19 in the workplace.”

Worker advocates hailed the executive order, saying it was the first step in reorienting OSHA toward more stringent safety protections.

“It will precipitate a 180,” said Debbie Berkowitz, an OSHA official during the Obama years who has been pushing for the agency to more actively monitor workplaces for coronavirus-related safety issues during the pandemic.

Under President Donald Trump, OSHA’s relatively lax enforcement of workplace safety guidance during the pandemic was a constant source of frustration for unions and worker advocates, as workplaces proved to be a significant source of outbreaks.

The agency declined to issue an enforceable standard for workplaces, and instead issued guidance weakened by phrases including “if feasible” and “when possible.” OSHA was slow to issue penalties for violations under its existing statutes – and when it did, some of those penalties amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist.

JBS, a multibillion-dollar meatpacking company, was given a $15,600 fine in September after 290 workers tested positive for the virus and six died at a plant in Colorado, for example. Smithfield, another large meat processing company, was given a $13,500 fine after 1,294 workers at a plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., tested positive for the coronavirus and four died.

Biden’s executive order also calls for OSHA to train its enforcement apparatus on outbreaks like those – calling for a “national program to focus OSHA enforcement efforts related to COVID-19 on violations that put the largest number of workers at serious risk or are contrary to anti-retaliation principles.” It also directs the Department of Labor to conduct a multilingual outreach program about the efforts, to better publicize them, seeking to address another long-standing complaint about the Trump administration’s response.

Labor law experts had expected the Biden administration to move forward with an emergency temporary standard for workplaces during the pandemic as part of its work combating the public health crisis, while using the executive branch to give workers more power.

During his campaign, Biden called for worker protections ranging from a $15 minimum wage, more leeway to organize and collectively bargain, and the classification of gig workers as employees.

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

Jobless claims remained at historic highs last week, as Biden inherits the worst job market of any modern president

InternationalJan 22. 2021

A “now hiring” sign hangs on the front wall of a Harbor Freight Tools store in Manchester, N.H., in December. (Charles Krupa/ AP)

By The Washington Post · Eli Rosenberg

Another 900,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, President Donald Trump’s last in office, a snapshot of the significant labor market challenges facing President Joe Biden.

An additional 423,000 people in 47 states filed new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program created to help gig and self-employed workers.

Altogether, nearly 16 million people were claiming benefits as of Jan. 2, the last week available for that measurement. That number is expected to increase in the coming weeks as people who were dropped from the unemployment rolls after their benefits expired file new claims to take advantage of the extension passed by Congress at the last minute in December.

The number of new unemployment claims filed each week has remained above the pre-pandemic record of 695,000 since coronavirus cases starting rising in March. Jobless claims have also risen in recent weeks.

Economists have cautioned about reading too deeply into the weekly fluctuations of the statistic, noting that issues with data processing and duplicate claims have at times inflated the numbers.

Still, the benchmark paints a dire portrait. Weekly jobless claims are now near what they were at the beginning of September. It’s the 44th straight week that initial claims remain higher than the worst week of the Great Recession.

Biden inherits one of the worst job markets of any modern president, with the country’s unemployment rate at 6.7 percent and nearly 10 million fewer people with jobs than at the beginning of last year, as the pandemic has wreaked havoc on industries like tourism, hospitality and food service.

Biden is calling for a $1.9 trillion stimulus measure that would extend unemployment payments and benefits beyond March, give out $1,400 checks and provide hundreds of millions of dollars to small businesses as well as state and local governments that are struggling.