25-12-2020

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2020
7
Hard-hit Mexico gets first
coronavirus vaccines
MEXICO CITY : Mexico on Wednesday
became the first Latin American country
to receive coronavirus vaccines for mass
immunization against a disease that has
had a devastating impact across much of
the region, repots BSS.
The government plans to start
inoculations on Thursday after the first
3,000 doses produced by US
pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its
German partner BioNTech arrived by
courier plane from Belgium.
The vaccines were whisked to a
military installation in the south of
Mexico City, guarded by a security
escort to prevent them from falling into
the hands of the country's powerful
criminal gangs. "Today is the beginning
of the end of this pandemic," Foreign
Minister Marcelo Ebrard told reporters
at the airport.
Mexico has registered nearly 120,000
Covid-19 deaths and around 1.34
million infections, according to the
authorities, who acknowledge that the
actual toll is probably much higher.
Mexico City and surrounding areas
last week announced a new suspension
of all non-essential activities, warning
that hospitals were in danger of being
overwhelmed by a spike in the number
of cases. The first vaccines will be
destined for frontline medical
personnel, and administered in the
capital and the northern state of
Coahuila due to the logistics related to
the frigid temperatures required.
The foreign ministry said that 1.4
million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine would arrive by January 31, out
of the 34.4 million that the US company
has agreed to deliver.
Mexico has the world's fourth highest
Covid-19 fatality toll after the United
States, Brazil and India. Brazil, which
has reported more than 185,000 deaths,
is still negotiating the purchase of 350
million doses of coronavirus vaccines
for 2021.
Mexico's government has promised to
make vaccinations available free of
charge across the country of almost 129
million people - a massive logistical
challenge for the authorities.
"We must not let ourselves be carried
away or fall into the naive belief that the
fight against the virus is over," said
Health Minister Jorge Alcocer.
"We have prepared the largest
vaccination plan in the history of our
population," he added.
The country also has preliminary
purchase agreements with China's
CanSino Biologics for 35 million doses
and with Britain's AstraZeneca for 77.4
million doses. Together with Argentina,
Mexico also has an agreement with
AstraZeneca to produce its vaccine to
supply to Latin American nations.
a healthcare worker from the World Health Organization prepares
vaccines to give to front line aid workers, in Mbandaka,
Congo. The vaccine alliance GAVI has announced on Thursday,
Dec. 5, 2019 it would invest $178 million to create a global stockpile
of about 500,000 Ebola vaccines, in a move health officials
say could help prevent future outbreaks from spiraling out of control.
GAVI is a public-private partnership that includes the World
Health Organization, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and the World Bank, among others. Photo :AP
Trump pardons former
campaign chairman Paul
Manafort
WASHINGTON : President Donald
Trump on Wednesday pardoned former
campaign chairman Paul Manafort and
Charles Kushner, the father of his son-inlaw,
in the latest wave of clemency to
benefit longtime associates and
supporters, repots UNB.
The actions, in Trump's final weeks at
the White House, bring to nearly 50 the
number of people whom the president in
the last two days has granted clemency.
Pardons are common in the final stretch
of a president's tenure, but Trump has
proven himself determined to use his
clemency power not only to reward his
allies but to support the causes of
convicts championed by his friends. The
pardons of Manafort and Roger Stone,
who months earlier had his sentence
commuted by Trump, underscore the
president's desire to chip away at the
results of special counsel Robert
Mueller's investigation and to come to
the aid of associates he feels were
wrongly pursued. He has now pardoned
four people convicted in that
investigation, including former national
security adviser Michael Flynn and
campaign adviser George Papadopoulos,
who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Manafort, who led Trump's campaign
during a pivotal 2016 period before being
ousted over his ties to Ukraine, had been
sentenced to more than seven years in
prison for financial crimes related to his
work in Ukraine. He was among the first
people charged as part of Mueller's
investigation into ties between the Trump
campaign and Russia. He was released to
home confinement last May because of
coronavirus concerns in the federal prison
system.
Though the charges against Manafort
did not concern the central thrust of
Mueller's mandate - whether the Trump
campaign and Russia colluded to tip the
election - he was nonetheless a pivotal
figure in the investigation. His close
relationship to a man U.S. officials have
linked to Russian intelligence, and with
whom he shared internal campaign polling
data, attracted particular scrutiny during
the investigation, though Mueller never
charged any Trump associate with
conspiring with Russia.
Manafort, in a tweet, thanked Trump
and lavished praise on the outgoing
president, declaring that history would
show he had accomplished more than any
of his predecessors.
Trump did not pardon Manafort's
deputy, Rick Gates, who was sentenced last
year to 45 days in prison but extensively
cooperated with prosecutors, or former
Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who
pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes
related to his efforts to buy the silence of
women who said they had sexual
relationships with Trump. Both were also
convicted in the Mueller probe.
Kushner is the father of Trump's son-inlaw,
Jared Kushner, and a wealthy real
estate executive who pleaded guilty years
ago to tax evasion and making illegal
campaign donations. Trump and the elder
Kushner knew each other from real estate
circles and their children were married in
2009.
COVID-19: India registers
24,712 fresh cases
NEW DELHI : India's COVID-19 caseload
rose to 1,01,23,778 with 24,712 new
infections being reported in a day, while the
recoveries have surged to 96.93 lakh,
according to the Union Health Ministry data
updated on Thursday, repots BSS.
The death toll increased to 1,46,756 with
312 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am
showed.
The number of people who have
recuperated from the disease surged to
96,93,173 pushing the national recovery rate
to 95.75 per cent, while the COVID-19 case
fatality rate stands at 1.45 per cent.
The COVID-19 active caseload remained
below 3 lakh for the third consecutive day.
There are 2,83,849 active coronavirus
infections in the country which comprises
2.80 per cent of the total caseload, the data
stated.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-
lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August
23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on
September 16. It went past 60 lakh on
September 28, 70 lakh on October 11,
crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on
November 20 and surpassed the one-crore
mark on December 19.
It is also part of the international
COVAX mechanism aimed at ensuring
equitable access for all countries, which
allows it to buy 51.6 million additional
vaccines.
Colombian
reporter dies
of gunshot
wounds
BOGOTA : A Colombian
journalist who had
covered organized crime
died Wednesday two days
after suffering multiple
gunshot wounds in Cali, in
the southwest of the
country, his newspaper
said, repots BSS.
"Felipe Guevara, our
crime reporter, died this
Wednesday afternoon
after being injured in an
attack on Monday
evening," said the
newspaper Q'hubo on its
Twitter account.
Guevara, 27 had
reported death threats to
the police since 2017,
Cali's mayor Jorge Ivan
Ospina said at a press
conference, where he
offered a reward of up to
$15,000 for any
information on the killers.
Although police had
initially denied the attack
against Guevara was
linked to his work as a
reporter
and
photographer, Ospina said
the authorities were
studying "all possible
hypotheses" as to the
motives for the killing.
According to the Press
Freedom Foundation
(FLIP), Guevara had had
to leave the neighborhood
where he was fatally
injured in 2017, following
threats "after he had
written about a criminal
gang operating in this
area."
He had reported new
threats "in 2018 and
August of this year," FLIP
added in a statement.
"It is worrying that the
national police initially
rule out the fact that the
attack on Guevara could
be linked to his work as a
journalist," said the
foundation.
Juliette de Rivero,
representative in
Colombia of the UN High
Commissioner for Human
Rights, denounced the
crime and called "for a
rapid and effective
investigation to punish
those responsible".
Russia sets
records for virus
cases, deaths
MOSCOW : Russia on
Thursday registered record
numbers for daily infections
and deaths from the
coronavirus, as the country
avoids reimposing a
nationwide lockdown,
repots BSS.
Health officials reported
29,935 new infections,
bringing the country's
caseload to 2,963,688 - the
fourth-highest in the world.
They also registered 635
deaths, increasing total
fatalities to 53,096 since the
beginning of the pandemic.
Russia's death rate is
much lower than that of
other badly hit countries,
raising concerns that
authorities could be
downplaying the scale of the
outbreak.
Data published by the
country's statistics service
earlier this month indicated
excess deaths of nearly
165,000 year-on-year
between March and
October, suggesting virus
deaths could be much
higher.
Officials on Wednesday
also registered a record
number of new infections in
the capital Moscow, the
epicentre of Russia's
outbreak.
The records came after
officials said that Russia
does not need to reintroduce
a nationwide lockdown like
the one at the start of the
pandemic in the spring.
During his annual end-ofyear
press conference last
week, President Vladimir
Putin rejected the idea of
imposing the kind of
lockdown many European
countries have introduced
going into the Christmas
holidays.
A driver walks next to lorries parked on the M20 motorway towards Eurotunnel and the
Port of Dover, as EU countries impose a travel ban from the UK following the coronavirus
disease outbreak, in Folkestone, Britain December 21, 2020. Photo: Reuters
EU transport boss criticises
France on UK truck delays
BRUSSELS : The EU transport commissioner
warned Thursday that 10,000 European
truckers were struggling to return from Britain
and criticised France for imposing coronavirus
restrictions on them, repots BSS.
Several countries around Europe and the
world imposed bans on travel from the UK
this week after the discovery of a new strain
of the virus. "We issued a communication
appealing for proportional, nondiscriminatory
measures and the lift of any
restrictions for transport workers," Adina
Valean said.
"I deplore that France went against our
recommendations," she tweeted.
But France's minister for European Affairs,
Clement Beaune, denied this, responding
angrily in a tweet replying to a British
journalist.
"We have exactly followed the EU
recommendation (opening with tests) and
are now more open than other European
countries, having worked jointly with the UK
authorities on this protocol."
France's decision to restrict traffic has had
the most impact, with trains and ferries
across the Channel halted for 48-hours huge
freight traffic jams built up in southeast
England. "Around 10,000 truck drivers are
seeking to get back in the EU. Other
thousands are already in the Dover area in
their vehicles," Valean, the European
commissioner for transport, said.
"We worked hard these days to unblock a
crisis between two European countries,
France and the UK," she said. "I am pleased
that, at this moment, we have trucks slowly
crossing the Channel."
On Tuesday, the European Commission
advised member states should drop the
blanket ban, and France agreed to allow in
drivers if they had negative Covid-19 tests.
But Brussels had suggested exempting
transport workers from this restriction.
"And I want to thank the UK authorities
that they started testing the drivers at a
capacity of 300 tests per hour," Valean said.
And she compared the situation to the
breakdown in coordination between
European capitals in March that hampered
early efforts to contain the virus "when the
supply chains were interrupted."
Niger set for historic transition
in presidential vote
NIAMEY: Niger hopes to make history
on Sunday when elections set it on
course for its first-ever peaceful
transition of power despite a raging
Islamist insurgency and economic
woes, repots BSS.
The world's poorest country by a key
UN benchmark, the Sahel nation has
never had two elected leaders hand
over power since independence from
France 60 years ago - the last coup was
only a decade ago.
The man who has been in charge
since then, President Mahamadou
Issoufou, has gained high marks for
announcing that he will hand the baton
to his elected successor.
Two other nations in West Africa,
Guinea and Ivory Coast, have been
rocked by violence this year after their
heads of state pushed through changes
to the constitution.
They declared their counter on
presidential limits had been reset to
zero, enabling them to bid for a third
spell in office - a move that triggered
bloody protests.
"My most burning desire is to hand
over power in 2021 to a democraticallyelected
successor," Issoufou has said.
"This will be my finest achievement -
it will be a first in the history of our
country." French President Emmanuel
Macron has heaped praise on Issoufou,
describing him as an "example for
democracy" while his foreign minister,
Jean-Yves Le Drian, declared "the
quality of the (December 27) elections
will be a benchmark for all of Africa."
Others have sounded a more
sceptical tone, pointing to the
dominant role played by the army,
which in 2010 forced out a highly
popular president, Mamadou Tandja,
who had his eyes on a third term.
Issoufou "isn't bidding for a third
term because he doesn't want it, but
because he doesn't have the choice,"
said Bounty Diallo, a former soldier
and professor at the University of
Niamey.
Another flaw in the rosy picture is the
absence of a prominent opposition
candidate.
Former prime minister Hama
Amadou, 70, was last month barred
from contesting the vote on the
grounds that in 2017 he was handed a
12-month term for alleged baby
trafficking - a charge he says was bogus.
In March, he was given a presidential
pardon as he was seeing out his
sentence. Mohamed Bazoum, 60, a
former interior and foreign minister
who is Issoufou's designated successor,
is the front-runner on Sunday, after a
campaign dominated by the issue of
security.
Niger is being hammered by jihadists
from neighbouring Mali and from
Nigeria, the cradle of the decade-old
insurgency launched by Boko Haram,
and by armed gangs.
Last year more than 250 people died
and there were more than 250
kidnappings, according to UN figures.
Jihadist attacks have displaced
hundreds of thousands of people and
have come closer and closer to the
capital Niamey.
In August, six French tourists and
their two Nigerien guides were
slaughtered in the Koure National
Park, just 60 kilometres (37 miles)
from the city.
On December 12, 34 people were
massacred in a Boko Haram attack in
the southeastern region of Diffa on the
eve of repeatedly delayed municipal
and regional elections.
"Our country is huge and surrounded
by areas of insecurity," Bazoum told
the French radio station RFI last
month.
"This calls for more means, especially
more troops… but without causing us
to sacrifice what is necessary, which is
the education and wellbeing of our
people."
Muhammed Bello, a rescued student, is carried by his father as his relatives celebrate after he
retuned home in Kankara, Nigeria, December 19, 2020.
Photo: REUTERS