BRUSSELS: The European Union took on vaccine producer AstraZeneca in a Brussels court on Wednesday and accused the drugmaker of acting in bad faith by providing shots to other nations.
The drugmaker had promised them for urgent delivery to the EU’s 27 member countries.
The EU accused AstraZeneca of postponing deliveries so the Anglo-Swedish company could service Britain, among others.
AstraZeneca’s contract with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, foresaw an initial 300 million doses being distributed, with an option for another 100 million. The doses were expected to be delivered throughout 2021. But only 30 million were sent during the first quarter.
Deliveries have increased slightly since then but, according to the EU commission, the company is set to supply 70 million doses in the second quarter when it had promised 180 million. A lawyer for AstraZeneca said the company said Wednesday that “more or less 60 million doses” from the total order have been delivered so far.
EU lawyer Rafael Jafferali told the court that AstraZeneca expects to deliver the total number of contracted doses by the end of December, but he said that “with a six-month delay, it’s obviously a failure.”
Jafferali asked the court to fine the drugmaker 10 million euros ($12.2 million) per infraction and to force AstraZeneca to pay 10 euros per dose for each day of delay as compensation for breaching the EU contract.
The EU has insisted its gripes with the company are about deliveries only and has repeatedly said that it has no problems with the safety or quality of the vaccine itself. The shots have been approved by the European Medicines Agency, the EU’s drug regulator.
The EU’s main argument is that AstraZeneca should have used production sites located within the bloc and in the UK for EU supplies as part of a “best reasonable effort” clause in the contract. Jafferali said the European Commission agreed to pay 870 million euros for the shots and 50 million doses that should have been delivered to the EU went to third countries instead, “in violation” of the contract.
Charles-Edouard Lambert, another lawyer on the EU team, said AstraZeneca decided to reserve production at its Oxford site for Britain.
“This is utterly serious. AstraZeneca did not use all the means at its disposal. There is a double standard in the way it treats the UK and member states,” he said.
A lawyer representing AstraZeneca, Hakim Boularbah, said the company’s May 2020 agreement with the UK government and Oxford University, the vaccine’s co-developer, to supply 100 million doses of vaccine at cost clearly gave priority to Britain.
“It’s very shocking to be accused of fraud,” Boularbah said, calling it “a groundless accusation.”
The EU also accused AstraZeneca of misleading the European Commission by providing data on the delivery delays that lacked clarity.
While the bloc insists AstraZeneca has breached its contractual obligations, the company says it has fully complied with the agreement, arguing that vaccines are difficult to manufacture, with dozens of components produced in several different nations, and it made its best effort to deliver on time.
“Unfortunately, to this date, more or less 60 million doses from the order have been delivered,” Boularbah said, adding that AstraZeneca does everything it can to increase production and will deliver the 300 million of doses agreed to as soon as possible.
He played down the urgency claimed by the EU, saying 13 million AstraZeneca doses were stocked in EU member states. However, since the AstraZeneca vaccination takes two shots up to 12 weeks apart, member states can opt to reserve some of their supplies to make sure that recipients can get their second dose on time.
As part of an advanced purchase agreement with vaccine companies, the EU said it invested 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), including 336 million ($408 million), to finance the production of AstraZeneca’s vaccine at four factories.
The long-standing dispute drew media attention for weeks earlier this year amid a deadly surge of coronavirus infections in Europe, when delays in vaccine production and deliveries hampered the EU’s vaccination campaign.
Cheaper and easier to use than rival shots from Pfizer-BioNTech, the AstraZeneca vaccine developed with Oxford University was a pillar of the EU’s vaccine rollout. But the EU’s partnership with the firm quickly deteriorated amid accusations it favored its relationship with British authorities.
While the UK made quick progress in its vaccination campaign thanks to its AstraZeneca supplies, the EU faced embarrassing complaints and criticism for its slow start.
Concerns over the pace of the rollout across the EU grew after AstraZeneca said it couldn’t supply EU members with as many doses as originally anticipated because of production capacity limits.
The health situation has dramatically improved in Europe in recent weeks, with the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths on a sharp downward trend as vaccination has picked up. About 300 million doses of vaccine have been delivered in Europe — a region with around 450 million inhabitants, with about 245 million already administered.
About 46 percent of the EU population have had at least one dose.
Fanny Laune, another lawyer from the European Commission’s legal team, insisted the case needs to be treated urgently despite vaccination campaigns picking up across the bloc. She said other producers in the EU vaccine portfolio have experienced delays in deliveries and could still be hampered by production problems.
She added that several EU countries have based their vaccine strategy on the AstraZeneca shots and that five member states won’t be able to reach the targets set by the EU by the end of June if the drugmaker doesn’t provide the promised doses in time.
“If this legal action allows to save just one life, it justifies an urgent ruling,” Laune said.
In total, the European Commission has secured more than 2.5 billion of vaccine doses with various manufacturers, but is now shying away from placing more orders with AstraZeneca. It recently sealed another major order with Pfizer and BioNTech through 2023 for an additional 1.8 billion doses to be shared among EU members.
A judgment is to be delivered at a later date. In addition to the emergency action, the European Commission has launched a claim on the merits of the case for damages for which a hearing hasn’t yet been set by the court.
EU seeks big fine in court case over AstraZeneca deliveries
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EU seeks big fine in court case over AstraZeneca deliveries
- EU accused AstraZeneca of postponing deliveries so the Anglo-Swedish company could service Britain among others
- AstraZeneca’s contract with the European Commission foresaw an initial 300 million doses being distributed
Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction is overturned by New York’s top court
- The court found the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren’t part of the case
- MeToo advocates noted that Thursday’s ruling was based on legal technicalities and not an exoneration of Weinstein’s behavior
- The 72-year-old ex-movie mogul, however, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape
NEW YORK: New York’s highest court on Thursday threw out Harvey Weinstein ‘s 2020 rape conviction with a ruling that shocked and disappointed women who celebrated historic gains during the #MeToo era and left those who testified in the case bracing for a retrial against the ex-movie mogul.
The court found the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Weinstein, 72, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. But the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein.
#MeToo advocates noted that Thursday’s ruling was based on legal technicalities and not an exoneration of Weinstein’s behavior, saying the original trial irrevocably moved the cultural needle on attitudes about sexual assault.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it intends to retry Weinstein, and at least one of his accusers said through her lawyer that she would testify again.
The state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 23-year sentence in a 4-3 decision, saying “the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts” and permitted questions about Weinstein’s “bad behavior” if he had testified. It called this “highly prejudicial” and “an abuse of judicial discretion.”
In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.” She said the ruling came at “the expense and safety of women.”
In another dissent, Judge Anthony Cannataro wrote that the decision was “endangering decades of progress in this incredibly complex and nuanced area of law” regarding sex crimes after centuries of “deeply patriarchal and misogynistic legal tradition.”
The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major #MeToo setback in the last two years. The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court decision to throw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
Weinstein has been in a New York prison since his conviction for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006, and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013. He was acquitted on the most serious charges — two counts of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape.
He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in the Los Angeles case.
Weinstein’s lawyers expect Thursday’s ruling to have a major impact on the appeal of his Los Angeles rape conviction. Their arguments are due May 20.
Jennifer Bonjean, a Weinstein attorney, said the California prosecution also relied on evidence of uncharged conduct alleged against him.
“A jury was told in California that he was convicted in another state for rape,” Bonjean said. “Turns out he shouldn’t have been convicted and it wasn’t a fair conviction. … It interfered with his presumption of innocence in a significant way in California.”
Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala called the Court of Appeals ruling “a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York.”
Attorney Douglas H. Wigdor, who has represented eight Harvey Weinstein accusers including two witnesses at the New York criminal trial, called it “a major step back” and contrary to routine rulings by judges allowing evidence of uncharged acts to help jurors understand the intent or patterns of a defendant’s criminal behavior.
Debra Katz, a prominent civil rights and #MeToo attorney who represented several Weinstein accusers, said her clients are “feeling gutted” by the ruling, but she believes — and is telling them — that their testimony had changed the world.
“People continue to come forward, people continue to support other victims who’ve reported sexual assault and violence, and I truly believe there’s no going back from that,” Katz said. She predicted Weinstein will be convicted at a retrial and said accusers like her client Dawn Dunning feel great comfort knowing he will remain behind bars.
Dunning, a former actor who was a supporting witness at the New York trial, said in remarks to The Associated Press conveyed through Katz that she was “shocked” by the ruling and dealing with a range of emotions, including asking herself, “Was it all for naught?”
“It took two years of my life,” Dunning said. “I had to live through it every day. But would I do it again? Yes.”
She said that in confronting Weinstein, she faced her worst fear and realized he had no power over her.
Weinstein’s conviction in 2020 was heralded by activists and advocates as a milestone achievement, but dissected just as quickly by his lawyers and, later, the Court of Appeals when it heard arguments on the matter in February.
Allegations against Weinstein, the once powerful and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” ushered in the #MeToo movement.
Dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein, including stars such as Ashley Judd and Uma Thurman. His New York trial drew intense publicity, with protesters chanting “rapist” outside the courthouse.
“This is what it’s like to be a woman in America, living with male entitlement to our bodies,” Judd said Thursday.
Weinstein, incarcerated at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany, maintains his innocence. He contends any sexual activity was consensual.
His lawyers argued on appeal that the trial overseen by Judge James Burke was unfair because testimony was allowed from three women whose claims of unwanted sexual encounters with Weinstein were not part of the charges. Burke’s term expired at the end of 2022, and he is no longer a judge.
They also appealed the judge’s ruling that prosecutors could confront Weinstein over his long history of brutish behavior, including allegations of punching his movie producer brother at a business meeting, snapping at waiters, hiding a woman’s clothes and threatening to cut off a colleague’s genitals with gardening shears.
As a result, Weinstein, who wanted to testify, did not take the stand, Aidala said.
The appeals court labeled the allegations “appalling, shameful, repulsive conduct” but warned that “destroying a defendant’s character under the guise of prosecutorial need” did not justify some trial evidence and testimony.
In a majority opinion written by Judge Jenny Rivera, the Court of Appeals said defendants have a right to be held accountable “only for the crime charged and, thus, allegations of prior bad acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality.”
The Court of Appeals agreed last year to take Weinstein’s case after an intermediate appeals court upheld his conviction. Prior to their ruling, judges on the lower appellate court at oral arguments had raised doubts about Burke’s conduct. One observed that Burke let prosecutors pile on with “incredibly prejudicial testimony” from additional witnesses.
At a news conference, Aidala predicted that the lasting effect of the reversal would be that more defendants will testify at their trials, including Weinstein, who “will be able to tell his side of the story.”
He said that when he spoke to Weinstein on Thursday, his client told him: “I’ve been here for years in prison for something I didn’t do. You got to fix this.”
Wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests in US meets forceful response
- Students protesters tasered and teargassed in Atlanta and "swept away" in Austin, Texas
- More than 530 arrests have been made in the last week across major US universities in relation to protests over Gaza
NEW YORK: Fresh clashes between police and students opposed to Israel’s war in Gaza broke out on Thursday, raising questions about forceful methods being used to shut down protests that have intensified since mass arrests at Columbia University last week.
Over the past two days, law enforcement at the behest of college administrators have deployed Tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta’s Emory University, activists say, while officers clad in riot gear and mounted on horseback have swept away demonstrations at the University of Texas in Austin.
At Columbia, the epicenter of the US protest movement, university officials are locked in a stalemate with students over the removal of a tent encampment set up two weeks ago as a protest against the Israeli offensive.
The administration, which has already allowed an initial deadline for an agreement with students to lapse, has given protesters until Friday to strike a deal.
Other universities appear determined to prevent similar, long-running demonstrations to take root, opting to work with police to shut them down quickly and in some cases, with force.
Overall, more than 530 arrests have been made in the last week across major US universities in relation to protests over Gaza, according to a Reuters tally. University authorities have said the demonstrations are often unauthorized and called on police to clear them.
At Emory, police detained at least 15 people on its Atlanta campus, according to local media, after protesters began erecting a tent encampment in an attempt to emulate a symbol of vigilance employed by protesters at Columbia and elsewhere.
The local chapter of the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace said officers used tear gas and Tasers to dispense the demonstration and take some protesters into custody.
Video footage aired on FOX 5 Atlanta showed a melee breaking out between officers and some protesters, with officers using what appeared to be a stun gun to subdue a person and others wrestling other protesters to the ground and leading them away.
“Several dozen protesters trespassed into Emory University’s campus early Thursday morning and set up tents,” the school wrote in response to an emailed request for comment. It described the protesters as “activists attempting to disrupt our university,” but did not comment directly on the reports of violence.
Atlanta police did not immediately respond to inquiries about the number of protesters who were detained or about reports over the use of tear gas and stun guns.
Similar scenarios unfolded on the New Jersey campus of Princeton University where officers swarmed a newly-formed encampment, video footage on social media showed.
Boston police earlier forcibly removed a pro-Palestinian encampment set up by Emerson College, arresting more than 100 people, media accounts and police said. The latest clashes came a day after police in riot gear and on horseback descended on hundreds of student protesters at the University of Texas at Austin and arrested dozens of them.
But prosecutors on Thursday dropped charges against most of the 60 people taken into custody, mostly on misdemeanor charges of criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, and said they would proceed with only 14 of those cases.
In dropping the charges, the Travis County district attorney cited “deficiencies in the probable cause affidavits.”
‘Alarming reports’
Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union have condemned the arrest of protesters and urged authorities to respect their free speech rights.
But some Republicans in Congress have accused university administrators of allowing Jewish students to be harassed, putting increasing pressure on schools to tightly control any demonstrations and to block any semi-permanent encampment.
US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Thursday said his department was closely monitoring the protests, including what he called “very alarming reports of antisemitism.”
In response, activist groups have strongly denied that the protests are antisemitic. Their aim is to pressure universities from divesting from companies that contribute to the Israeli military actions in Gaza, they say.
Even so, protest leaders have acknowledged that hateful rhetoric has been directed at Jewish students, but insist that people who tried to infiltrate and malign their movement are responsible for any harassment.
Friday deadline at Columbia
At Columbia, officials have given protesters until 4 a.m. on Friday to reach an agreement with the university on dismantling dozens of tents set up on the New York City campus in a protest that started a week ago.
An initial deadline of midnight Tuesday came and went without an agreement, but administrators extended it for 48 hours, citing progress in the talks.
The university already tried to shut the protest down by force. On April 18, Columbia President Minouche Shafik took the unusual move of asking police to enter the campus, drawing the ire of many rights groups, students and faculty.
More than 100 people were arrested and the tents were removed from the main lawn. But within a few days, the encampment was back in place, and the university’s options appeared to narrow.
Protesters have vowed to keep the protests going until their universities agree to disclose and divest any financial holdings that might support the war in Gaza, and grant amnesty to students suspended from school during the demonstrations.
Student protesters have also demanded that the US government rein in Israeli strikes on civilians in Gaza, which have killed more than 34,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel is retaliating against an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and led to 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Macron blasts ‘ineffective’ UK Rwanda deportation law
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said Britain’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was “ineffective” and showed “cynicism” while praising the two countries’ cooperation on defense.
“I don’t believe in the model ... which would involve finding third countries on the African continent or elsewhere where we’d send people who arrive on our soil illegally, who don’t come from these countries,” Macron said.
“We’re creating a geopolitics of cynicism which betrays our values and will build new dependencies, and which will prove completely ineffective,” he added in a wide-ranging speech on the future of the European Union at Paris’ Sorbonne University.
British MPs on Tuesday passed a law providing for undocumented asylum seekers to be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and where they would stay if the claims succeed.
The law is a flagship policy for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government, which badly lags the opposition Labour Party in the polls, with an election expected within months.
Britain pays Paris to support policing of France’s northern coast, which aims to prevent migrants from setting off for perilous crossings in small boats.
Five people, including one child, were killed in an attempted crossing Tuesday, bringing the toll on the route so far this year to 15 — already higher than the 12 deaths in 2023.
But Macron had warm words for London when he praised the two NATO allies’ bilateral military cooperation, which endured through the contentious years of Britain’s departure from the EU.
“The British are deep natural allies (for France), and the treaties that bind us together ... lay a solid foundation,” he said.
“We have to follow them up and strengthen them because Brexit has not affected this relationship,” Macron added.
The president also said France should seek similar “partnerships” with fellow EU members.
US alarmed by signs of ‘imminent military offensive’ in Darfur
WASHINGTON: The US has warned of a looming rebel military offensive on the Sudanese city of El-Fasher. This humanitarian hub appears to be at the center of a newly opening front in the country’s civil war.
After a year of fighting between the armed forces of Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces, under Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, millions have been displaced in the northeastern African country.
Until recently, El-Fasher — the last Darfur state capital not under RSF control — had been relatively unaffected by the fighting, hosting a large number of refugees.
But since mid-April, bombardments and clashes have been reported in the city and surrounding villages. The US “calls on all armed forces in Sudan to immediately cease attacks in El-Fasher,” the State Department said.
“We are alarmed by indications of an imminent offensive by the Rapid Support Forces and its affiliated militias,” it said, adding that “an offensive against El-Fasher city would subject civilians to extreme danger.”
After several days of “arbitrary shelling and airstrikes” in the city and its outskirts, a pro-democracy lawyers’ committee reported last week that at least 25 civilians had been killed.
Clashes in the eastern and northern parts of the city have already resulted in 36,000 displaced people, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
As the war enters its second year, the UN and US have warned the breakdown of the fragile peace in El-Fasher would be catastrophic.
The city functions as the main humanitarian hub in the vast western region of Darfur, home to around a quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people and the site of harrowing violence during this and previous conflicts.
The State Department said it had seen “credible reports” that the RSF and affiliated militias had razed multiple villages west of the city, while it condemned “reported indiscriminate aerial bombardments” in the region by Sudan’s armed forces.
Death toll in migrant boat capsize off Djibouti rises to 24: UN agency
- 20 remain missing after the boat carrying at least 77 migrants, including children, capsized near the town of Obock
NAIROBI: The death toll from a migrant boat disaster off Djibouti this week has risen to 24, the UN’s migration agency said, highlighting a sharp increase in the number of people returning from Yemen to the Horn of Africa nation this year.
The capsize on Monday was the second fatal maritime accident in two weeks off Djibouti, which lies on the perilous so-called Eastern Migration Route from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
At least 24 people died, and 20 remain missing after the boat carrying at least 77 migrants, including children, capsized near the town of Obock, the International Organization for Migration said.
It said 33 survivors were being cared for at an IOM center in Obock and that local authorities are conducting search and rescue operations in the hope of finding more people alive.
Addis Ababa’s ambassador to Djibouti had said those on the boat were Ethiopian migrants.
Another vessel also carrying mainly Ethiopian migrants sank in the same area on April 8, with a death toll of at least 38.
“The occurrence of two such tragedies within two weeks highlights the dangers faced by children, women, and men migrating through irregular routes, underscoring the importance of establishing safe and legal pathways for migration,” IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, Tanja Pacifico, said.
The IOM said it had recorded a total of 1,350 deaths on the Eastern Route since 2014, not including this year.
In 2023 alone, it said it documented at least 698 deaths along the route, including 105 lost at sea.
The agency believed the people on both ill-fated vessels were attempting to return from Yemen to Djibouti.
Each year, tens of thousands of African migrants brave the Eastern Route across the Red Sea to reach Gulf nations, escape conflict or natural disaster, or seek better economic opportunities.
However, many are unsuccessful and “thousands are stranded in Yemen where they experience extremely harsh conditions,” the IOM said.
Since the start of 2024, the agency said 3,682 migrants have left Yemen for Djibouti, more than double the figure for the same period last year.
