Washington — USA: The World Health Organization warned that vaccines were no magic bullet for the coronavirus crisis, as Russia started vaccinating its high-risk workers Saturday and other countries geared up for similar programs.
The WHO warned about what it said was an erroneous belief that the Covid-19 crisis is over with jabs on the horizon, nearly a year after the start of the pandemic that has killed 1.5 million people worldwide.
“Vaccines do not equal zero Covid,” said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan, adding that not everyone will be able to receive it early next year.
“Vaccination will add a major, major, powerful tool to the tool kit that we have. But by themselves, they will not do the job.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also cautioned against the “growing perception that the pandemic is over” with the virus still spreading fast, putting enormous pressure on hospitals and health care workers.
Health officials in Moscow said they had opened 70 coronavirus vaccine centers in the Russian capital that would initially offer jabs for health, education and social workers.
The WHO caution came as the United States clocked a record number of Covid-19 cases for a second day in a row Friday, with the country preparing for what US President-elect Joe Biden has called a “dark winter.”
America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended “universal face mask use” indoors and Biden said he would scale down his January inauguration ceremony to mitigate the virus risk.
It comes as countries prepare for the approval and rollout of several vaccines that have proven effective in trials.
The WHO says 51 candidate vaccines are currently being tested on humans, with 13 reaching final-stage mass testing.
Britain on Wednesday became the first Western country to approve an inoculation, from a Pfizer-BioNTech, for general use, piling pressure on other countries to swiftly follow suit.
The United States is expected to give a green light later this month.
Belgium, France and Spain have said jabs will begin in January for the most vulnerable.
With the imminent arrival of vaccines that need storage at ultra-low temperatures, US companies are preparing for a massive logistical effort to aid their distribution.
Firms specializing in insulating containers are on a war footing after Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine needs to be stored at -94 degrees Fahrenheit (-70 Celsius).
Meat processing giant Smithfield said it was ready to put the cold rooms at its abattoirs at the disposal of vaccine rollout operations.
And US logistics giant UPS is producing 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of dry ice an hour in its depots and has developed portable freezers capable of storing the vaccines at temperatures down to -112 Fahrenheit.
Standing in the way of success are growing signs of vaccine skepticism, with misinformation and mistrust coloring public acceptance of inoculation.
In Russia, Levada polling agency recently found that only 36 percent of respondents were prepared to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Several high-profile figures have pledged to receive the vaccine in public in an effort to build confidence, including Biden, Tedros and former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The United States recorded 225,000 new infections on Friday — the second daily record in a row for the world’s worst-hit nation.
Biden said the surging number of cases meant he would scale back his inauguration ceremony set for January.
“We’re going to follow the science and the recommendations of the experts,” Biden told reporters.
More than 65 million people have contracted Covid-19 globally with the death toll from the disease topping 1.5 million since it first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
British medical chiefs said the arrival of a vaccine should see deaths reduce “significantly” by early next year but warned social mixing over Christmas could cause another spike before then.
“By spring the effects of vaccination will begin to be felt in reducing Covid admissions, attendances and deaths significantly but there are many weeks before we get to that stage,” they said.
Italy is seeing a dramatic resurgence of infections after it largely tamped down an earlier outbreak by enforcing a strict lockdown, while Latin America and the Caribbean region has seen an 18 percent spike in cases in a week.
Other countries are als0 unveiling holiday restrictions, with Switzerland banning Christmas carolling in the streets and Madrid canceling most New Year events in the city center.
WHO warns virus crisis not over as vaccine rollout starts
https://arab.news/wz94u
WHO warns virus crisis not over as vaccine rollout starts
- The WHO warned about what it said was an erroneous belief that the Covid-19 crisis is over with jabs on the horizon
- The WHO caution came as the United States clocked a record number of Covid-19 cases for a second day in a row Friday
8 EU members say conditions in Syria should be reassessed to allow voluntary refugee returns
In a joint declaration, officials from Austria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta and Poland said they agree on a re-assessment that would lead to “more effective ways of handling” Syrian refugees trying to reach European Union countries.
The eight countries, which held talks during a summit meeting in the Cypriot capital, said the situation in Syria has “considerably evolved,” even though complete political stability hasn’t been achieved.
Cyprus has in recent months seen an upsurge of Syrian refugees reaching the island nation primarily from Lebanon aboard rickety boats.
Earlier this month, the EU announced a 1 billion euro ($1.06 billion) aid package for Lebanon aimed at boosting border controls to halt the flow of asylum seekers and migrants to Cyprus and Italy.
The eight countries said the EU should further boost support for Lebanon to “mitigate the risk of even greater flows from Lebanon to the EU.”
“Decisions as to who has the right to cross a member state’s borders, should be taken by the government of the relevant member state and not by criminal networks engaged in migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings,” the joint declaration said.
A Cypriot official said that any re-evaluation of conditions within Syria would not necessarily mean that Syrian refugees would be deported back to their country. Instead, Syrian refugees hailing from areas re-designated as safe would lose any allowances, benefits and the right to work, creating a disincentive to others to come to Cyprus.
The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t allowed to speak publicly about details of the proposal.
The countries said that while they “fully embrace” the need to support Syrian refugees in line with international law, they hoped their talks could open a wider debate within the 27-member bloc on the process of granting the migrants international protection.
In Lebanon, where anti-refugee sentiment has been surging recently, more than 300 Syrian refugees returned to Syria in a convoy earlier this week.
Lebanese officials have long urged the international community to either resettle the refugees in other countries or help them return to Syria.
Belgium’s Ghent university severs ties with three Israeli institutions
- Ties being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, and the Volcani Center, which carries out agricultural research
- The three Israeli institutions did not immediately comment
BRUSSELS: Belgium’s University of Ghent (UGent) is severing ties with three Israeli educational or research institutions which it says no longer align with UGent’s human rights policy, its rector said.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Ghent have been protesting against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and have been occupying parts of the university since early this month.
The university’s rector, Rik Van de Walle, said in a statement that ties were being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, and the Volcani Center, which carries out agricultural research.
“We currently assess these three partners as (very) problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test, in contrast to the positive evaluation we gave these partners at the start of our collaboration,” Van de Walle said.
Partnerships with MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Center “were no longer desirable” due to their affiliation with Israeli ministries, an investigation by the University of Ghent found, and collaboration with the Holon Institute “was problematic” because it provided material support to the army for actions in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the university said the move would affect four projects.
The three Israeli institutions did not immediately comment.
The protesters told Belgian broadcaster VRT they welcomed the decision but regarded it as only a first step. They said they would continue their occupation of parts of the university “until UGent breaks its ties with all Israeli institutions.”
The actions mirror those of students in the United States and elsewhere in Europe, calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from what they regard as the oppression of Palestinians.
Muslim professionals quit ‘hostile’ France in silent brain drain
PARIS: After being knocked back at some 50 interviews for consulting jobs in France despite his ample qualifications, Muslim business school graduate Adam packed his bags and moved to a new life in Dubai.
“I feel much better here than in France,” the 32-year-old of North African descent told AFP.
“We’re all equal. You can have a boss who’s Indian, Arab or a French person,” he said.
“My religion is more accepted.”
Highly-qualified French citizens from Muslim backgrounds, often the children of immigrants, are leaving France in a quiet brain drain, seeking a new start abroad in cities like London, New York, Montreal or Dubai, according to a new study.
The authors of “France, you love it but you leave it”, published last month, said it was difficult to estimate exactly how many.
But they found that 71 percent of more than 1,000 people who responded to their survey circulated online had left in part because of racism and discrimination.
Adam, who asked that his surname not be used, told AFP his new job in the United Arab Emirates has given him fresh perspective.
In France “you need to work twice as hard when you come from certain minorities”, he said.
He said he was “extremely grateful” for his French education and missed his friends, family and the rich cultural life of the country where he grew up.
But he said he was glad to have quit its “Islamophobia” and “systemic racism” that meant he was stopped by police for no reason.
France has long been a country of immigration, including from its former colonies in North and West Africa.
But today the descendants of Muslim immigrants who came to France seeking a better future say they have been living in an increasingly hostile environment, especially after the attacks in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people.
They say France’s particular form of secularism, which bans all religious symbols in public schools including headscarves and long robes, seems to disproportionately focus on the attire of Muslim women.
Another French Muslim, a 33-year-old tech employee of Moroccan descent, told AFP he and his pregnant wife were planning to emigrate to “a more peaceful society” in southeast Asia.
He said he would miss France’s “sublime” cuisine and the queues outside the bakeries.
But “we’re suffocating in France”, said the business school graduate with a five-figure monthly salary.
He described wanting to leave “this ambient gloom”, in which television news channels seem to target all Muslims as scapegoats.
The tech employee, who moved to Paris after growing up in its lower-income suburbs, said he has been living in the same block of flats for two years.
“But still they ask me what I’m doing inside my building,” he said.
“It’s so humiliating.”
“This constant humiliation is even more frustrating as I contribute very honestly to this society as someone with a high income who pays a lot of taxes,” he added.
A 1978 French law bans collecting data on a person’s race, ethnicity or religion, which makes it difficult to have broad statistics on discrimination.
But a young person “perceived as black or Arab” is 20 times more likely to face an identity check than the rest of the population, France’s rights ombudsman found in 2017.
The Observatory for Inequalities says that racism is on the decline in France, with 60 percent of French people declaring they are “not at all racist”.
But still, it adds, a job candidate with a French name has a 50 percent better chance of being called by an employer than one with a North African one.
A third professional, a 30-year-old Franco-Algerian with two masters degrees from top schools, told AFP he was leaving in June for a job in Dubai because France had become “complicated”.
The investment banker, the son of an Algerian cleaner who grew up within Paris, said he enjoyed his job, but he was starting to feel he had hit a “glass ceiling”
He also said he had felt French politics shift to the right in recent years.
“The atmosphere in France has really deteriorated,” he said, alluding to some pundits equating all people of his background to extremists or troublemakers from housing estates.
“Muslims are clearly second-class citizens,” he said.
Adam, the consultant, said more privileged French Muslims emigrating was just the “tiny visible part of the iceberg”.
“When we see France today, we’re broken,” he said.
North Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles, Seoul says
- South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff did not immediately provide details of the projectile or its trajectory
- North Korea has launched a range of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as tactical rockets in recent months
SEOUL: North Korea fired a number of short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Friday, South Korea’s military said, a day after the US and South Korea conducted joint drills with stealth fighter jets simulating air combat.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff condemned the launch as a provocation. It said the projectiles were fired from the east coast town of Wonsan and flew about 300 km (186 miles) before landing in the sea.
Citing a government official, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK also reported that a short-range missile appeared to have been launched and had already fallen.
North Korea has launched ballistic and cruise missiles as well as tactical rockets in recent months, describing them as part of a program to upgrade its defensive capabilities.
South Korea’s military did not specify the latest type of weapon, but the North’s state media has reported that its military has been testing multiple launch rocket systems that are being upgraded.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un viewed the testing of 600 mm “super-large” multiple rocket launchers and 240 mm multiple launch rockets in recent weeks and also visited production facilities, state media reported.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have increased since the North last year scrapped a 2018 pact aimed at de-escalating tensions near the military border drawn up under a truce ending the 1950-53 Korean War and then labelled the South “enemy No. 1.”
Earlier on Friday, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader, Kim Yo Jong, said its tactical weapons were intended solely as a deterrent against South Korean military aggression, while again denying that Pyongyang was exporting the weapons.
US and South Korean officials have accused the North of shipping weapons to Russia to help Moscow replenish stocks for use in its war against Ukraine. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the accusation.
Friday’s missile launches come at the same time as a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Chinese northeastern city of Harbin.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping criticized Washington and its allies on Thursday for what the leaders called “intimidation in the military sphere” against North Korea at a meeting in Beijing.
South Korea’s air force has said US and South Korean stealth fighters conducted “intense” joint exercises on Thursday in the central region to test and enhance offensive and defensive maneuverability.
French police ‘neutralized’ armed person who tried to set fire to synagogue in Rouen — Darmanin
- The incident occurred early on Friday morning
PARIS: French police in Rouen shot dead an armed man who set fire to the city’s synagogue, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and local officials said on Friday.
The incident occurred in central Rouen, 130 kilometers northwest of Paris, early on Friday morning, Darmanin said in a post on social network X.
The attacker’s identity and motive were still unclear. He was carrying a knife and iron bar, according to local authorities.
France hosts the Olympic Summer Games in two months and recently raised its alert status to the highest level against a complex geopolitical backdrop in the Middle East and Europe’s eastern flank.
Elie Korchia, the president of France’s Consistoire Central Jewish worshippers body, said police had “avoided another anti-Semitic tragedy.”
Regional broadcaster France 3 said fire fighters were on the site. The fire had been brought under control, a Rouen city hall official said.
Rouen’s mayor said the Normandy town was ‘battered and shocked’.
The city in 2016 was rocked by an attack later claimed by the Islamic State, when a priest was killed with a knife during service in town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, in the southern part of Rouen’s urban agglomeration.
