14-09-2020

MONDAY, SEPTEMBEr 14, 2020
7
Mideast countries differ on Bahrain-Israel
normalization agreement
Trials of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will resume
after being paused due to a reported side effect in a patient in the UK.
Photo : AP
Oxford and AstraZeneca resume
coronavirus vaccine trial
Countries in the Middle East have
mixed reactions to the move by
Israel and Bahrain to normalize
their ties, which came less than a
month after the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) and Israel reached
a similar U.S.-brokered
normalization deal, reports UNB.
A joint statement issued on
Friday by U.S. President Donald
Trump, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and
Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al
Khalifa hailed the Bahrain-Israel
agreement as "a historic
breakthrough." Bahrain, the
second Gulf Arab country to
normalize ties with Israel after the
UAE announced a similar deal on
Aug. 13, is scheduled to sign the
peace agreement with Israel on
Sept. 15 at a ceremony in
Washington, during which the
UAE-Israel deal will also be inked.
Senior Bahraini officials
welcomed on Saturday the
normalization with Israel as a
contributor to regional security and
stability. Meanwhile, the National
Assembly, the Bahraini parliament,
called in a statement for achieving a
"just and comprehensive peace
based on the two-state solution" to
end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
However, the Bahrain-Israel deal
has enraged the Palestinian
Authority, which strongly
condemned it, while blasting the
U.S. for pressuring Arab countries
into normalizing ties with Israel.
Shortly after the announcement
of the Bahrain-Israel deal, the
Palestinian leadership issued a
statement condemning the
Bahraini move as "a betrayal of
Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque and
the Palestinian cause."
Palestinian Minister of Foreign
Affairs Riyad al-Maliki said that he
would recall the Palestinian
ambassador to Bahrain for
consultations on how Palestine
would take "necessary steps" to
respond to Bahrain's move.
In separate statements, the
Islamic Hamas movement, which
controls the Gaza Strip, and the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad slammed
the Bahrain-Israel deal as "a clear
aggression against our people" and
"a blatant coup against all Arab,
national and Islamic constants of
Palestine."
"Washington exploits its political
and economic power to force the
Arab countries to normalize ties
with Israel," said Hanan Ashrawi, a
member of the Palestine Liberation
Organization's Executive
Committee, in a press statement
issued on Saturday.
"The U.S. government is using all
means of incitement, intimidation
and pressure" to achieve the goal,
she added.
Oxford University announced Saturday
it was resuming a trial for a coronavirus
vaccine it is developing with
pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, a
move that comes days after the study was
suspended following a reported sideeffect
in a U.K. patient, reports UNB.
In a statement, the university
confirmed the restart across all of its U.K.
clinical trial sites after regulators gave the
go-ahead following the pause on Sunday.
"The independent review process has
concluded and following the
recommendations of both the
independent safety review committee
and the U.K. regulator, the MHRA, the
trials will recommence in the U.K.," it
said.
The vaccine being developed by Oxford
and AstraZeneca is widely perceived to be
one of the strongest contenders among
the dozens of coronavirus vaccines in
various stages of testing around the
world.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock
welcomed the restart, saying in a tweet
that it was "good news for everyone" that
the trial is "back up and running."
The university said in large trials such
as this "it is expected that some
participants will become unwell and
every case must be carefully evaluated to
ensure careful assessment of safety."
It said globally some 18,000 people
have received its vaccine so far.
Almost 8 million Britons will be subjected to tighter lockdown restrictions next week after fresh measures
were imposed in the West Midlands and Scotland, local media reported Saturday.
Photo : AP
About 8 mln Britons face tighter lockdown rules
as UK reaches "critical time" in virus fight
Almost 8 million Britons will be
subjected to tighter lockdown
restrictions next week after fresh
measures were imposed in the West
Midlands and Scotland, local media
reported Saturday, reports UNB.
From Tuesday, households in
Birmingham, Sandwell and Solihull
will be banned from mixing after the
region reported a surge in coronavirus
cases, according to the Evening
Standard newspaper.
Further north, Lanarkshire joins
areas around Glasgow subject to
tougher controls, with the new rules in
force as of midnight on Friday.
Previously, nine new local authorities
were added to Public Health England's
Volunteers from some of the worst
affected countries - Britain, Brazil, South
Africa and the U.S. - are taking part in the
trial.
Brazil's health regulator Anvisa on
Saturday said it had approved the
resumption of tests of the "Oxford
vaccine" in the South American country
after receiving official information from
AstraZeneca.
Although Oxford would not disclose
information about the patient's illness
due to participant confidentiality, an
AstraZeneca spokesman said earlier this
week that a woman had developed severe
neurological symptoms that prompted
the pause. Specifically, the woman is said
to have developed symptoms consistent
with transverse myelitis, a rare
inflammation of the spinal cord.
The university insisted that it is
"committed to the safety of our
participants and the highest standards of
conduct in our studies and will continue
to monitor safety closely."
Pauses in drug trials are commonplace
and the temporary hold led to a sharp fall
in AstraZeneca's share price following the
announcement Tuesday.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca study had
been previously stopped in July for
several days after a participant developed
neurological symptoms that turned out to
be an undiagnosed case of multiple
sclerosis that researchers said was
watchlist, meaning they, too, could
soon see new restrictions imposed.
They are: Gateshead, Sunderland,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Hertsmere,
Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, Sheffield
and St Helens.
Some 5.8 million people in England
(one in 10) will be forced to follow
tougher rules than the rest of the
country, when the new measures take
effect in the West Midlands, according
to analysis by Sky News.
Designated areas in Bradford,
Kirklees, Calderdale, Blackburn with
Darwen, Pendle and Greater
Manchester where restrictions are
already in place remain as areas of
national intervention, the British
unrelated to the vaccine.
During the third and final stage of
testing, researchers look for any signs of
possible side effects that may have gone
undetected in earlier patient research.
Because of their large size, the studies are
considered the most important study
phase for picking up less common side
effects and establishing safety. The trials
also assess effectiveness by tracking who
gets sick and who doesn't between
patients getting the vaccine and those
receiving a dummy shot.
Dr. Charlotte Summers, a lecturer in
intensive care medicine at the University
of Cambridge, said the pause was a sign
that the Oxford team was putting safety
issues first, but that it led to "much
unhelpful speculation."
"To tackle the global COVID-19
pandemic, we need to develop vaccines
and therapies that people feel
comfortable using, therefore it is vital to
maintaining public trust that we stick to
the evidence and do not draw
conclusions before information is
available," she said.
Scientists and others around the world,
including experts at the World Health
Organization, have sought to keep a lid
on expectations of an imminent
breakthrough for coronavirus vaccines,
stressing that vaccine trials are rarely
straightforward.
Department of Health confirmed.
The British government imposes the
new restrictions at a time when
countries, such as Britain, China,
Russia and the United States, are
engaged in a race against time to
develop a vaccine for the new
coronavirus.
A study by Imperial College London
found that coronavirus cases in
England were doubling every seven to
eight days at the beginning of
September.
The findings of the Real-Time
Assessment of Community
Transmission study suggest the virus is
now spread more widely in the
community.
Countries in the Middle East have mixed reactions to the move by Israel and Bahrain to normalize
their ties, which came less than a month after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel reached a
similar U.S.-brokered normalization deal.
Photo : AP
Turkey's Erdogan
warns French
president over E.
Med dispute
Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday
warned French counterpart
Emmanuel Macron over the
latter's opposition to Turkey's
maritime activities in the
Eastern Mediterranean,
reports UNB.
"Don't mess with Turkey
and Turkish nation," Erdogan
was quoted by the official
Anadolu Agency as telling
Macron in a speech to a
symposium held in Istanbul.
"You cannot lecture us on
humanity," Erdogan said,
recalling the "massacres"
conducted by France in
Algeria and Rwanda that
killed a large number of
people.
The two NATO allies are at
odds over Turkey's dispute
with Greece on the
exploitation of energy
resources in the Eastern
Mediterranean, as France
opposes Turkey's drilling
activities in the region.
Turkey has been opposing
the drilling efforts of several
countries, including Greece,
without its involvement,
claiming that it has the same
rights in the waters.
New Zealand reports two new COVID-19 cases
New Zealand on Sunday reported
two new cases of COVID-19 with one
health worker testing positive, the
Ministry of Health said in a
statement, reports UNB.
Another was a returnee to New
Zealand in managed isolation while
the health worker worked in
Auckland's quarantine facility.
It is yet unknown whether the
health worker was infected from the
community or from within the
quarantine facility, said the ministry,
reports Xinhua.
The ministry said it was the first
time a staff member at the Jet Park
quarantine facility had tested positive
in five and a half months of
Greek PM presents policy
plan of economy, reforms,
defense spending
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis announced on Saturday a new
package of economic measures aimed to
alleviate society's strain from the
consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic,
reforms to keep Greece firmly on the growth
trajectory, as well as fresh defense
expenditure to further boost the country's
deterrent ability, reports UNB.
Outlining his government's economic
policy for the next 12 months, during a key
policy speech at the Thessaloniki Helexpo
Forum, in the city port of Thessaloniki in
northern Greece, he announced a series of
immediate tax cuts, benefits, reductions in
social security contributions and programs
to boost liquidity and investments in order to
ease burdens from employees, pensioners,
the unemployed and businesses.
For example, the state will provide
subsidies for six months for 100,000 new
positions, abolish a special property tax for
the inhabitants of the 26 smallest islands,
and extend until April 2021 the suspension
of tax and social insurance obligations to
professions hit by the pandemic.
In addition, the Greek government will
continue reforms to support employment
and growth by further reducing bureaucracy
operation. The facility was used to
manage people in quarantine after
they test positive for COVID-19.
Currently, three people were in
hospital with COVID-19, including
two in ICU, the ministry said.
The number of active cases in New
Zealand reached 97, including 39
imported cases in MIQ facilities and
58 community cases.
Meanwhile, the total number of
confirmed cases in New Zealand was
now 1,446, which was the number
the country reported to the World
Health Organization (WHO).
Laboratories across New Zealand
processed 7,211 tests, bringing the
total number of tests completed so
and improving the function of public sector
services, and by introducing new rules for
debt settlement to the state and banking
sector, Mitsotakis said.
"Nothing in the world is the same as
yesterday," he told a small audience
symbolically comprising 50 representatives
of all walks of life, during his address which
was broadcast on Greek national broadcaster
ERT.
"However, the crisis cannot become an
alibi for stalling the implementation of great
changes... Our program of actions has an
underlying motto: confidence faced with the
challenges ahead, confidence in defense, in
healthcare and in the economy," he said.
Regarding the battle against the pandemic,
Mitsotakis promised more ICUs beds and
hirings of thousands more doctors and
nurses. Amidst tensions in the Eastern
Mediterranean Sea lately over maritime
borders and the exploitation of energy
reserves, the Greek leader spoke extensively
also about the new 18 Rafale military
aircraft, four Navy helicopters, four frigates
and other armaments Greece is purchasing
as well as a plan of staff reinforcement with
15,000 men and women for five years in
order to strengthen its national defense.
far to 864,469.
New Zealand will remain at
COVID-19 Alert Level 2 until
Wednesday, with extra restrictions in
place for its largest city Auckland. A
decision will be made by the New
Zealand government on Monday on
the new Alert Level.
Coronavirus cases were first
reported in China in December last
year. The World Health Organization
declared the crisis a pandemic in
March.
The number of globally confirmed
cases stood at 28,660,123 on Sunday
morning as the death count soared to
919,081, according to Johns Hopkins
University.