China’s Guangzhou city, a port city of more than 13 million people, on Saturday ordered more restrictions due to a rise in COVID-19 cases that began in late May.Of the 24 new cases of COVID-19 reported in China on Saturday, 11 were transmitted in Guangzhou province, where the city is located.Authorities had imposed restrictions earlier in the week but sought additional limits on business and social activities. Authorities closed about a dozen subway stops, and the city’s Nansha district ordered restaurants to stop dine-in services and public venues, such as gyms, to temporarily close.Officials in the districts of Nansha, Huadu and Conghua ordered all residents and any individuals who have traveled through their regions to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Reuters reported.Also, Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for emergency use for young people between the ages of 3 and 17, the company’s chairman, Yin Weidong, said on state television Friday. China’s current vaccination program is restricted to those 18 and older.As Afghanistan attempts to beat back a surge in COVID-19 cases, it has received the news that the 3 million doses of vaccines it was expecting from the World Health Organization in April will not arrive until August, according to the Associated Press.Afghan health ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastagir Nazari told AP that he has approached several embassies for help but has not received any vaccines. “We are in the middle of a crisis,” he said.On Saturday, India’s health ministry reported 120,529 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours period, the lowest daily count of new infections in 58 days. More than 3,000 deaths were also recorded.Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Friday approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds.The decision follows similar approvals by U.S. and European Union regulators.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday more than 172 million global COVID infections. The U.S. has the most cases with 33.3 million, followed by India with 28.7 million and Brazil with nearly 17 million.
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Month: June 2021
Chinese state media report that scientists are developing an inhalable, fine-mist COVID-19 vaccine. The Chinese Food and Drug Administration has approved the vaccine for expanded clinical trials and is applying for emergency use of the vaccine.Also in China, Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for emergency use for young people between the ages of 3 and 17, the company’s chairman, Yin Weidong, said on state television Friday. China’s current vaccination program is restricted to those 18 and older.As Afghanistan attempts to beat back a surge in COVID cases, it has received the news that the 3 million doses of vaccines it was expecting from the World Health Organization in April will not arrive until August, according to the Associated Press.Afghan health ministry spokesperson Ghulam Dastigir Nazari told AP that he has approached several embassies for help but has not received any vaccines. “We are in the middle of a crisis,” he said.On Saturday, India’s health ministry reported 120,529 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hours period, the lowest daily count of new infections in 58 days. More than 3,000 deaths were also recorded.Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Friday approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds.The decision follows similar approvals by U.S. and European Union regulators.British Health Secretary Matt Hancock welcomed the news Friday and said he will wait for clinical advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization regarding how the vaccine should be administered. He said Britain should have enough supply of the vaccine to inoculate the nation’s adolescents.Meanwhile, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky on Friday urged parents of adolescents in the United States to get their children vaccinated as soon as possible, following the release of a CDC report showing a spike in hospitalizations among 12- to 17-year-olds between January and April.The study indicated one-third of those hospitalizations were intensive care patients and 5% of those patients had to be put on ventilators. Walensky said the figures saddened her and show that even young patients can get seriously ill from the virus that causes COVID-19.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday more than 172 million global COVID infections. The U.S. has the most cases with 33.3 million, followed by India with 28.7 million and Brazil with nearly 17 million.
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Do you know how much data your car is collecting? VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are among those eager to dig into the automobile data gold mines.
Camera: Veronica Balderas Iglesias Producer: Veronica Balderas Iglesias
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Nigeria’s government said Friday it was suspending Twitter indefinitely in Africa’s most populous nation, a day after the company deleted a controversial tweet President Muhammadu Buhari made about a secessionist movement.It was not immediately clear when the suspension would go into effect as users could still access Twitter late Friday, and many said they would simply use VPNs to maintain access to the platform.Others mocked the government for using the platform to announce the action.”You’re using Twitter to suspend Twitter? Are you not mad?” one user tweeted in response.Information Minister Lai Mohammed said Friday that government officials took the step because the platform was being used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”Mohammed criticized Twitter for deleting the post. “The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious,” he said, adding that Twitter had in the past ignored “inciting” tweets against the Nigerian government.Twitter deleted Buhari’s post on Wednesday, calling it abusive, after the president threatened suspected separatist militants in the southeast.More than 1 million people died during the 1967-70 civil war that erupted when secessionists sought to create an independent Biafra for the ethnic Igbo people. Buhari, an ethnic Fulani, was on the opposing side in the war against the Igbos.In recent months, pro-Biafra separatists have been accused of attacking police and government buildings, and Buhari vowed to retaliate and “treat them in the language they understand.”
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Regulators on Friday said a new version of a popular diabetes medicine could be sold as a weight-loss drug in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy, a higher-dose version of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug semaglutide, for long-term weight management. In company-funded studies, participants taking Wegovy had average weight loss of 15%, about 34 pounds (15.3 kilograms). Participants lost weight steadily for 16 months before plateauing. In a comparison group getting dummy shots, the average weight loss was about 2.5%, or just under 6 pounds. “With existing drugs, you’re going to get maybe 5% to 10% weight reduction, sometimes not even that,” said Dr. Harold Bays, medical director of the Louisville Metabolic and Atherosclerosis Research Center. Bays, who is also the Obesity Medicine Association’s chief science officer, helped run studies of the drug. In the U.S., more than 100 million adults — about 1 in 3 — are obese. Dropping even 5% of one’s weight can bring health benefits, such as improved energy, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels, but that amount often doesn’t satisfy patients who are focused on weight loss, Bays said. Bays said Wegovy appears far safer than earlier obesity drugs that “have gone down in flames” over safety problems. Wegovy’s most common side effects were gastrointestinal problems, including nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. Those usually subsided, but led about 5% of study participants to stop taking it. The drug carries a potential risk for a type of thyroid tumor, so it shouldn’t be taken by people with a personal or family history of certain thyroid and endocrine tumors. Wegovy also has a risk of depression and pancreas inflammation. Wegovy (pronounced wee-GOH’-vee) is a synthesized version of a gut hormone that curbs appetite. Patients inject it weekly under their skin. Like other weight-loss drugs, it’s to be used along with exercise, a healthy diet and other steps like keeping a food diary. The Danish company hasn’t disclosed Wegovy’s price but said it will be similar to the price of Saxenda, an 11-year-old weight loss drug injected daily that now typically costs more than $1,300 per month without insurance. Dr. Archana Sudhu, head of the diabetes program at Houston Methodist Hospital, said Wegovy’s usefulness “all depends on what the price will be.” She noted patients’ health insurance plans sometime don’t cover weight-loss treatments, putting expensive drugs out of reach. Sudhu, who has no connection to Novo Nordisk, plans to switch patients who are obese and have Type 2 diabetes to Wegovy. It makes patients feel full sooner and increases release of insulin from the pancreas to control blood sugar, she said. Patients would then be more likely to get motivated to exercise and eat healthier, she added. Wegovy builds on a trend in which makers of relatively new diabetes drugs test them to treat other conditions common in diabetics. For example, popular diabetes drugs Jardiance and Novo Nordisk’s Victoza now have approvals for reducing risk of heart attack, stroke and death in heart patients. Phylander Pannell, 49, of Largo, Maryland, joined a patient study after cycles of losing and then regaining weight. She said she received Wegovy, worked out several times a week and lost 65 pounds over 16 months. “It helped curb my appetite and it helped me feel full faster,” said Pannell. “It got me on the right path.” Shortly after she finished the study and stopped receiving Wegovy, she regained about half the weight. She’s since lost much of that, started exercise classes and bought home exercise equipment. She’s considering going back on Wegovy after it’s approved. Novo Nordisk also is developing a pill version.
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The United Nations is marking World Environment Day with the launch of a decade dedicated to restoring the Earth’s ecosystem, which is rapidly approaching “the point of no return,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday.“Science tells us these next 10 years are our final chance to avert a climate catastrophe, turn back the deadly tide of pollution and end species loss,” Guterres said in a video address, a day ahead of the international day intended to raise environmental awareness and protection.”So, let today be the start of a new decade – one in which we finally make peace with nature and secure a better future for all,” he said.Guterres said the world faces a “triple environmental emergency”: biodiversity loss, climate disruption and increasing pollution.“The degradation of the natural world is already undermining the well-being of 3.2 billion people – or 40% of humanity,” he warned.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 27 MB1080p | 59 MBOriginal | 57 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioEarth’s ecosystem is rapidly approaching “the point of no return,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says June 4, 2021, a day ahead of World Environment Day.The U.N. secretary-general blamed human behavior, including deforestation, the polluting of rivers and oceans, and unsustainable agriculture practices for contributing to the planet’s poor health.“Luckily, the Earth is resilient,” he said.To reverse the damage, he said, societies need to start replanting forests, cleaning up rivers and seas, and greening cities.“Accomplishing these things will not only safeguard the planet’s resources,” Guterres said. “It will create millions of new jobs by 2030, generate returns of over $7 trillion every year and help eliminate poverty and hunger.”He acknowledged that the job ahead would be “monumental” and called on governments, the private sector, civil society and ordinary citizens to do their share in this “global call to action.”Without action, he said, environmental degradation will undermine progress in development and threaten the health and safety of future generations.In a new report, the U.N. Environment Program says the global population is using about 1.6 times what nature can sustainably provide, which means conservation is not adequate to prevent ecosystem degradation.The report says if action is taken now, humans will benefit from cleaner air and water, as well as better health, and contribute to the slowing of climate change.
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Facebook said Friday it would suspend Donald Trump’s accounts for at least two years, retaining a ban on the former U.S. president that it imposed after determining he incited the deadly January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. “At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded,” Facebook Vice President Nick Clegg wrote in a blog post Friday. The social media giant’s independent oversight board upheld its block on Trump, which was enacted after the riot because the company said his posts were inciting violence. On January 6, Trump implored thousands of supporters who had come to Washington for a “Save America March” to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat, just before the riot aimed at preventing the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Five people died, including a federal police officer. The ban expires on January 7, 2023, two years after Facebook first blocked the former president. The timing of Facebook’s decision will reduce Trump’s ability to influence midterm congressional elections in November 2022, but his account could be restored well before voters go to polls in 2024 should Trump decide to seek the presidency again that year. In response to Facebook’s decision, Trump said in a statement it is “an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing and ultimately, we will win.” FILE – The founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the 56th Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 15, 2020.In a separate statement he added, “Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!” Zuckerberg is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Facebook. At the White House briefing Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki said the ban was the company’s decision. “Our view continues to be, though, that every platform, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, any other platform that is disseminating information to millions of Americans, has a responsibility to crack down on disinformation, to crack down on false information whether it’s about the election or even about the vaccine, as we are trying to keep the American public safe.”
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More than 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been disbursed in 212 countries. However, the World Health Organization said the distribution has been far from equal. It notes 75% of doses have gone to just 10 countries, with three countries — China, the United States and India — accounting for 60% of all doses.Senior adviser to the WHO director general, Bruce Aylward, says one-half-percent of doses have gone to the lower income and lowest income countries, that account for about 10% of world population.Bruce Aylward, International team lead for the WHO-China joint mission on COVID-19 coronavirus attends a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 25, 2020.‘So, we are increasingly seeing a two-track recovery and rollout of the vaccines with that high coverage deep into the high-risk populations and younger populations even in high income and producing countries,” Aylward said. “While in the lower income countries, we are still struggling to get sufficient product just to be able to vaccinate the health care workers, older populations.”Aylward said immunizing health care workers and older people is key to getting out of the global health, societal and economic crisis. To achieve that, he says, rich countries must donate a quarter-of-a-billion doses to low-income countries through the end of September. He adds, at least 100 million must be donated through June and July.“That is what we need to get the system going. Now we had a great start yesterday [Thursday] with the U.S. announcing it is going to contribute up to 80 million doses and it gave the first 25 million doses that it would be donating, 75% of that through COVAX yesterday,” Aylward said. “That is an important start. We need many other countries to be joining and important for the U.S., right, crucially, is they said these doses are going to come in June.”COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing facility, aims to provide two billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to low-and-middle-income countries by the end of 2021.A report by the International Monetary Fund on May 31 says by vaccinating 60% of the global population against COVID-19 by the middle of 2022, the world would reap an economic benefit of more than $9 trillion over the coming three to five years.
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A Russian tennis player suspected of match-fixing last year has been arrested during this year’s French Open, her lawyer told The Associated Press on Friday.
The player, 765th-ranked Yana Sizikova of Russia, denied the allegations, according to her lawyer, Frederic Belot. He told The Associated Press that Sizikova wants to file a complaint for defamation.
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to the AP that a “women’s international player” was in custody, but it did not identify her. She was arrested Thursday night on charges of “sports bribery and organized fraud for acts likely to have been committed in September 2020,” the prosecutor’s office said.
An investigation was opened last October by a French police unit specializing in betting fraud and match-fixing. It has previously worked with Belgian authorities investigating suspect matches at the lower levels of professional tennis.
The French tennis federation said it could not provide further information because the investigation is ongoing.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency, which investigates match-fixing in the sport, declined to comment on the details of the case but said in a message to the AP that “there has been ongoing liaison between the ITIA and law enforcement in France.”
Speaking to the AP in a phone interview, her lawyer said Sizikova was “extremely shocked.”
“She was placed in custody like a criminal. She says she is innocent and did not want me to assist her during her questioning because she considers herself like a victim,” Belot said.
Belot said he only started representing Sizikova Friday after he was approached by the player’s parents. He said Sizikova had contacted the ITIA when the case was opened last year to deny any wrongdoing.
The prosecutor’s office said the probe centered on suspicions about one match at Roland Garros last year. It did not specify the match. German newspaper Die Welt and French sports daily L’Equipe said at the time there were suspicious betting patterns in the first round of a women’s doubles match on Sept. 30.
On that day, Sizikova and partner Madison Brengle of the United States played on Court No. 10 against Romanian players Andreea Mitu and Patricia Maria Tig. Sizikova was broken to love serving in the fifth game of the second set, during which she double-faulted twice.
Le Parisien reported Friday that tens of thousands of dollars (euros) were bet with several operators in different countries on the Romanian players winning that game.
The newspaper said the 26-year-old Sizikova, who is ranked 101st in doubles, was arrested Thursday after losing in the first round of the doubles tournament at Roland Garros. The newspaper said authorities searched Sizikova’s hotel room.
Last year’s French Open, delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic, was played in late September and early October.
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The U.S. space agency NASA said cargo on the latest supply ship headed for the International Space Station (ISS) includes newly hatched squid to be used in experiments examining the effects of space flight on microorganisms.NASA said the SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft that blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday – along with the squid, is carrying more than 3,300 kilograms of science experiments, new solar arrays, and other cargo.The hatchlings are bobtail squid and they are part of a project called Understanding of Microgravity on Animal-Microbe Interactions (UMAMI), which examines the effects of spaceflight on the molecular and chemical interactions between beneficial microbes and their animal hosts. Gravity’s role in shaping those interactions is not well understood and microgravity provides the opportunity to improve that understanding. At a NASA news briefing earlier this week, University of Florida microbiologist Jamie Foster told reporters all people and animals have beneficial microbes that help our bodies perform basic functions, like in the digestive or immune systems, and are essential to human health. She said astronauts working in space frequently find their immune systems can become compromised or dysregulated – a potentially dangerous situation when you can’t go to a doctor immediately or you can’t get help. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 30 MB1080p | 55 MBOriginal | 415 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioSpace NewsFoster says squid have similar immune systems to humans, but they are simpler organisms and therefore, are easier to study. She said the study could provide valuable insight into how extended spaceflight impacts astronauts’ bodies, and how to address it.The Dragon supply ship is expected to rendezvous with the ISS early Saturday, eastern U.S. time.
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U.S. intelligence officials found no evidence that unidentified aerial phenomena observed by Navy aviators in recent years were alien spacecraft, but the sightings remain unexplained in a highly anticipated government report, The New York Times said Thursday.
The report also found the vast majority of incidents documented over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology, the Times said, citing senior administration officials briefed on the report headed to Congress this month.
Many of the 120-plus sightings reviewed in the classified intelligence study from a Pentagon task force were reported by U.S. Navy personnel, while some involved foreign militaries, according to the Times.
The newspaper said U.S. intelligence officials believe experimental technology of a rival power could account for at least some of the aerial phenomena in question.
One unnamed senior U.S. official briefed on the report told the Times there was concern among American intelligence and military officials that China or Russia could be experimenting with hypersonic technology.
An unclassified version of the report expected to be submitted to Congress by June 25 will present few other conclusions, the newspaper said.
Public fascination with unidentified flying objects has been stoked in recent weeks by the forthcoming report, with UFO enthusiasts anticipating revelations about unexplained sightings many believe the government has sought to discredit or cover up for decades.
But senior U.S. officials cited in the Times article said the report’s ambiguity meant the government was unable to definitively rule out theories that the unidentified phenomena might have been extraterrestrial in nature.
The government’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force was created following a spate of observations by military pilots of unknown aerial objects exhibiting exotic speeds and maneuverability that seemingly defied the limits of known technology and laws of physics.
Led by the Navy, the task force was established last year to “improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAP incursions into our training ranges and designated airspace,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough told Reuters.
She said such incidents are of concern because of safety and national security implications.
Responding to Reuters’ questions about the task force report, Gough said in an email earlier Thursday: “We do not publicly discuss the details of the UAP observations, the task force or examinations.”
The term “unidentified flying objects,” or UFOs, long associated with the idea of alien spacecraft, has been largely supplanted in official government parlance by UAP, short for unidentified aerial phenomena, since December 2017.
It was then that the Pentagon first went on record, in a New York Times article, acknowledging documented UAP encounters by its warplanes and ships and efforts to catalog them, marking a turnaround from decades of publicly treating the subject as taboo.
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Paramount Pictures on Thursday temporarily shut down production on the British set of Tom Cruise’s seventh “Mission: Impossible” film after someone tested positive for coronavirus.
“We have temporarily halted production on ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ until June 14th, due to positive coronavirus test results during routine testing,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement. “We are following all safety protocols and will continue to monitor the situation.”
The company provided no further details.Two women wear a face mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as they take a selfie with actor Tom Cruise in the background during a break from shooting Mission Impossible 7, along Rome’s Fori Imperiali avenue, Oct. 13, 2020.In December, Cruise launched an expletive-laden rant at colleagues on the “Mission: Impossible” set, after he reportedly spotted two crew members violating social distancing rules. In audio released by the Sun tabloid, Cruise can be heard warning that anyone caught not following the rules to stay at least 2 meters (more than 6.5 feet) away from others will be fired.
The film, which paused production for months early last year along with the rest of the film industry when the coronavirus pandemic took hold, is scheduled to be released in 2022.
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Ray Cordeiro considers himself the luckiest radio DJ in the world.
In a storied career spanning over 70 years in Hong Kong, Cordeiro has interviewed superstars including the Beatles and Elton John, and even received an MBE — an order of the British empire for outstanding achievement or service to the community — from Queen Elizabeth.
Cordeiro, who holds the Guinness world record for the world’s longest-working DJ, retired last month at the age of 96.
“I’ve been talking all my life about music and all, and I’d never thought that I would retire. I never thought that I was getting older,” he said.
Cordeiro was born in 1924 in Hong Kong and is of Portuguese descent. His musical tastes as a child were influenced by his brother who was 10 years older and collected records from groups like the Mills Brothers and the Andrews Sisters.
Back then records were breakable, Cordeiro said.
“When he’s not home and I played his records, I had to be very, very careful, because if I broke it he would get awfully angry,” Cordeiro said. “I grew up with his music.”
In his youth, Cordeiro worked as a warden at a local prison and a clerk at an HSBC bank. His love for music eventually led him to pursue a career in radio, where he joined public broadcaster Radio Hong Kong, now known as Radio Television Hong Kong.
It was during a three-month study course in London with the BBC in 1964 that Cordeiro landed the interview that kickstarted his career — with the Beatles, the biggest band in the world at the time.
He had some free time after the end of the course before he had to return to Hong Kong and didn’t want to “sit around for two weeks doing nothing.”
“So, I said, why don’t I grab the chance of finding some peeps, some pop groups or singers that I can interview and bring back (tapes) to Hong Kong,” he said.
During those two weeks, Cordeiro traveled to venues where groups were performing and interviewed them afterward.
The Beatles had become wildly popular and Cordeiro wanted to interview them the most. Armed with a notebook and a pen, he went to the offices of the band’s record label, EMI, to ask for an interview with the group.
By a stroke of luck, he was told to return the next day for an interview, with EMI loaning him a tape recorder for it. He bought a magazine with a picture of the Beatles on the cover and took it with him to the interview and got all the members to autograph it.
“Altogether I have some 26 signatures of all the Beatles, and it’s probably worth a fortune,” he said.
The interview was short because he didn’t have a lot of tape in the tape recorder, but Cordeiro managed to spend time with each member of the Beatles. He said John Lennon recounted the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg, Germany, where they lived in relative poverty and played in clubs.
He later interviewed the Beatles again when they visited Hong Kong. The interviews shot him to fame, and he quickly became Hong Kong’s top DJ, armed with interviews he had conducted in London with the popular music groups at the time.
“I had a career before that, because I was interviewing local pop stars, but when you compare them to the Beatles it is something quite different,” he said.
As the city’s most recognizable DJ, he also got to know other stars such as Elton John and Tony Bennett.
Known for his deep, calm voice, flat cap and easy listening repertoire, Cordeiro garnered a loyal following of listeners who would tune in to his weekday radio show “All the Way with Ray,” which ran from 1970 until last month.
“I fulfilled my work as a DJ, did what I had to do and the audience followed me, grew up with me, and they’re all over the world now,” he said. “They’re all over and they still listened to me on the internet.”
Asked if he were to do it all over again if he would pick being a DJ as a career, Cordeiro doesn’t hesitate.
“I don’t think I have to actually think about it, the answer is yes,” he said.
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“The threat of a third wave” of COVID-19 in Africa is “real and rising,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization regional director for Africa, told a virtual news conference Thursday.“While many countries outside Africa have now vaccinated their high-priority groups and are able to even consider vaccinating their children, African countries are unable to even follow up with second doses for high-risk groups,” Moeti said. She urged “countries that have reached a significant vaccination coverage to release doses and keep the most vulnerable Africans out of critical care.”The New York Times reported that migrants in Italy are not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, even though the government has said that everyone has a right to the vaccine, regardless of their legal status.The Times account said a social security number is required to book an appointment for the shot, but only three of Italy’s 20 regions recognize the temporary numbers “given to hundreds of thousands of migrants.”Dr. Marco Mazzetti, the president of the Italian Society of Migration Medicine, told the newspaper that many of the migrants are domestic workers.“If we don’t control the virus circulation among these people who come inside our homes to help us, we don’t control the virus circulation in the country,” Mazzetti said.India’s health ministry said Friday that it had recorded 132,364 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24-hour period and 2,713 deaths. India has reported 28.5 million COVID-19 cases, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Only the U.S. has more infections, at more than 33 million.COVAX financial boostIn other pandemic news, the WHO program to secure and distribute billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world’s poorest countries has received a major financial boost.The COVAX initiative received nearly $2.4 billion in pledges Wednesday during a virtual summit hosted by Japan, which made the largest pledge, $800 million. The program also received significant financial pledges from Canada, France, Spain and Sweden.COVAX has raised $9.6 billion since its creation.Several nations also pledged to donate millions of doses from their domestic stockpiles to COVAX, with Japan again leading the way with a promise to donate 30 million doses.COVAX is an alliance that includes the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, an organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries. The program has so far distributed 77 million vaccine doses to 127 countries, far below its initial pledge of up to 2 billion doses this year.U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reminded the summit that the Biden administration has pledged a total of $4 billion to COVAX for 2021-22, but she made no new pledges of additional financial or vaccine donations. President Joe Biden has pledged to donate 80 million doses from the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine stockpile.
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Tokyo is donating more than 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines to Taiwan, Japan’s foreign minister announced Friday, as Taipei struggles to secure jabs, accusing China of interference.The move is likely to stir controversy with Beijing, which views democratic and self-ruled Taiwan as its own territory and works to keep the island diplomatically isolated.”We have received requests from various countries and areas for the provision of vaccines,” Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters in Tokyo.”At this point, we have finished the arrangement for the request from Taiwan. And we will deliver free of charge 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines that have been produced in Japan,” he added.He said the vaccine would be handled through the territory’s embassy equivalent and would arrive in Taiwan shortly.In a statement, Taiwan’s foreign ministry welcomed the move, pointedly emphasizing that the neighbors “share the universal values of freedom and democracy.”It comes as Taiwan battles a sudden surge of cases after having one of the world’s best pandemic responses.Infections have jumped in recent weeks to nearly 10,000 with 166 deaths after a cluster initially detected among airline pilots spread.Taiwan wants to roll out mass inoculations in the next few months by setting up thousands of community vaccination stations to administer 1 million shots weekly, but it is struggling to secure enough doses.It has pre-order deals for around 30 million shots but has so far received just 726,600 AstraZeneca doses and 150,000 Moderna shots for its population of 23.5 million.Taiwan is receiving doses through the Covax program and is included in plans outlined by Washington this week to distribute 80 million doses globally.But President Tsai Ing-wen has explicitly accused China of having “interfered” with efforts to secure Pfizer doses.Japan has secured AstraZeneca doses sufficient for its 60 million people, but is not administering the formula despite approving it, as concerns linger about rare blood clots.Instead, it is prioritizing administration of the Pfizer and Moderna formulas and has secured enough of both to potentially jettison its AstraZeneca stock.
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Turkey has had the highest number of COVID infections in Europe and has been in and out of lockdown for more than a year. Among those hardest hit have been the country’s musicians, who have received little or no government support. Dorian Jones reports from Turkey’s entertainment capital, Istanbul.Video editor: Marcus Harton
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Facebook plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that exempted politicians from certain moderation rules on its site, according to several news reports.The company’s rationale for that policy held that the speech of political leaders is inherently newsworthy and in the public interest even if it is offensive, bullying or otherwise controversial. The social media giant is currently mulling over what to do with the account of former President Donald Trump, which it “indefinitely” suspended Jan. 6, leaving it in Facebook limbo with its owners unable to post.The change in policy was first reported by the tech site The Verge and later confirmed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.Facebook has had a general “newsworthiness exemption” since 2016. But it garnered attention in 2019 when Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs and communications, announced that speech from politicians will be treated as “newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.”The newsworthiness exemption, he explained in a blog post at the time, meant that if “someone makes a statement or shares a post which breaks our community standards we will still allow it on our platform if we believe the public interest in seeing it outweighs the risk of harm.”This hasn’t given politicians unlimited license, however. When Facebook suspended Trump in January, it cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as the reason. The company says it has never used the newsworthiness exemption for any of Trump’s posts.Facebook declined to comment.
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The White House has announced it will deliver the bulk of its first 25 million donated doses of COVID-19 vaccine through COVAX, the United Nations-backed program delivering vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. That’s according to a White House announcement on Thursday. It’s part of a down payment on a pledge to donate 80 million doses by the end of June. The Biden administration has been under pressure to share its vaccine supply. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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