24-09-2021

frIDAY, SEPTEMbEr 24, 2021
7
Three hours after being freed from a giant migrant camp under an international bridge, Mackenson
Veillard stood outside a gas station and took stock of his sudden good fortune as he and his pregnant
wife waited for a Greyhound bus to take them to a cousin in San Antonio.
Photo : AP
Many migrants staying in US
even as expulsion flights rise
DEL RIO : Three hours after being
freed from a giant migrant camp under
an international bridge, Mackenson
Veillard stood outside a gas station and
took stock of his sudden good fortune
as he and his pregnant wife waited for a
Greyhound bus to take them to a cousin
in San Antonio. The couple camped
with thousands for a week under the
bridge in Del Rio, Texas, sleeping on
concrete and getting by on bread and
bottled water.
"I felt so stressed," Veillard, 25, said
this week. "But now, I feel better. It's
like I'm starting a new life."
Many Haitian migrants in Del Rio are
being released in the United States,
according to two U.S. officials,
undercutting the Biden
administration's public statements that
the thousands in the camp faced
immediate expulsion to Haiti.
Haitians have been freed on a "very,
very large scale" in recent days, one
official said Tuesday. The official, who
was not authorized to discuss the
matter and thus spoke on condition of
anonymity, put the figure in the
thousands. Many have been released
with notices to appear at an
immigration office within 60 days, an
outcome that requires less processing
time from Border Patrol agents than
Vaccine inequity
comes into stark
focus during
UN gathering
UNITED NATION : The
inequity of COVID-19 vaccine
distribution will come into
sharper focus Thursday as
many of the African countries
whose populations have little
to no access to the life-saving
shots step to the podium to
speak at the U.N.'s annual
meeting of world leaders.
Already, the struggle to
contain the coronavirus
pandemic has featured
prominently in leaders'
speeches - many of them
delivered remotely exactly
because of the virus. Country
after country acknowledged
the wide disparity in accessing
the vaccine, painting a picture
so bleak that a solution has at
times seemed impossibly out
of reach.
"Some countries have
vaccinated their populations,
and are on the path to
recovery. For others, the lack
of vaccines and weak health
systems pose a serious
problem," Norway's Prime
Minister, Erna Solberg, said
in a prerecorded speech
Wednesday. "In Africa, fewer
than 1 in 20 people are fully
vaccinated. In Europe, one in
two are fully vaccinated. This
inequity is clearly unfair."
Countries slated to give
their signature annual
speeches on Thursday include
South Africa, Botswana,
Angola, Burkina Faso and
Libya.
Also among them will be
Zimbabwe, where the
economic ravages of the
pandemic have forced some
families to abandon the longheld
tradition of taking care of
their older people. And
Uganda, where a surge in
virus cases have made scarce
hospital beds even more
expensive, leading to
concerns over alleged
exploitation of patients by
private hospitals.
ordering an appearance in immigration
court and points to the speed at which
authorities are moving.
The releases come despite a massive
effort to expel Haitians on flights under
pandemic-related authority that denies
migrants a chance to seek asylum. A
third U.S. official not authorized to
discuss operations said there were
seven daily flights to Haiti planned
starting Wednesday.
Ten flights arrived in Haiti from
Sunday to Tuesday in planes designed
for 135 passengers, according to
Haitian officials, who didn't provide a
complete count but said six of those
flights carried 713 migrants combined.
The camp held more than 14,000
people over the weekend, according to
some estimates. Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott, during a visit Tuesday to Del
Rio, said the county's top official told
him the most recent tally was about
8,600 migrants. U.S. authorities have
declined to say how many have been
released in the U.S. in recent days.
The Homeland Security Department
has been busing Haitians from Del Rio,
a town of 35,000 people, to El Paso,
Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley
along the Texas border, and this week
added flights to Tucson, Arizona, the
official said. They are processed by the
UN: 16 million Yemenis are
'marching towards starvation.'
UNITED NATIONS : The head of the U.N.
food agency is warning that 16 million people
in Yemen "are marching towards starvation"
and says food rations for millions in the wartorn
nation will be cut in October unless new
funding arrives, reports UNB.
David Beasley said Wednesday at a highlevel
meeting on Yemen's humanitarian
crisis that the United States, Germany,
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and
other donors stepped up when the World
Food Program was running out of money
earlier this year and "because of that we
averted famine and catastrophe."
WFP is running out of money again and
without new funding reductions will be
made in rations for 3.2 million people in
October and for 5 million by December, he
said. At a virtual pledging conference cohosted
by Sweden and Switzerland on March
1, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
appealed for $3.85 billion for Yemen this
year. But donors pledged less than half the
amount -- $1.7 billion, which the U.N. chief
called "disappointing." In the last six
months, the total has grown to just over half
Border Patrol at those locations.
Criteria for deciding who is flown to
Haiti and who is released in the U.S. are
a mystery, but two officials said single
adults were a priority. If previous
handling of asylum-seekers is any
guide, the administration is more likely
to release those deemed vulnerable,
including pregnant women, families
with young children and those with
medical issues. The Biden
administration
exempts
unaccompanied children from
expulsion flights on humanitarian
grounds. The system is a "black box,"
said Wade McMullen, an attorney with
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, who
was in Del Rio. "Right now, we have no
official access to understand what
processes are underway, what
protections are being provided for the
migrants."
On Wednesday, more than 300
migrants had been dropped off in
Border Patrol vans by early afternoon
at a welcome center staffed by the Val
Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition.
They waited for buses to Houston, a
springboard to final destinations in the
U.S. Many were required to wear ankle
monitors, used to ensure they obey
instructions to report to immigration
authorities.
the amount required.
The high-level meeting Wednesday on the
sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's
annual meeting raised about $600 million,
according to the European Union, which cohosted
the session with Sweden and
Switzerland. That still leaves at least $1
billion unfunded.
In major pledges, U.S. Secretary of State
Antony Blinken announced an additional
$290 million in humanitarian assistance for
Yemen and the European Union said it was
allocating an additional 119 million euros
(about $139 million) in humanitarian and
development aid.
The Yemen director for the Oxfam charity,
Muhsin Siddiquey, commended the donors
who made pledges and expressed hope the
funds will be quickly made available to aid
organizations.
"However, once again a few international
donors have generously put their hands in
their pockets while the rest of the world looks
on as Yemen descends further into hunger,
poverty and an even bleaker future," he said.
Yemen has been convulsed by civil war
The head of the U.N. food agency is warning that 16 million people in
Yemen "are marching towards starvation" and says food rations for millions
in the war-torn nation will be cut in October unless new funding
arrives.
Photo : AP
Libya, UN refugee
agency discuss
illegal migration,
border control
TRIPOLI : Vice President of
the Presidency Council of
Libya, Musa al-Koni, met
with Jean-Paul Cavalieri,
chief of mission in Libya of
the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) here on
Wednesday to discuss illegal
migration, border control,
among others.
"The Vice President of the
Presidency Council
confirmed that illegal
migration is mainly a
humanitarian issue. He
stressed the importance of
uniting international efforts
to come up with successful
solutions to it," said a
statement issued by the
Presidency Council.
Al-Koni also stressed the
importance of addressing
illegal migration in libya's
southern border rather than
at sea where illegal migrants
cross towards Europe,
according to the statement.
Cavalieri said that there are
problems facing the
evacuation of migrants from
Libya to other countries,
including failures to organize
flights.
Cavalieri also stressed the
need to cooperate with the
Presidency Council to address
illegal migration.
Washington Post questions
whether Biden is normalizing
Trump's foreign policy
BEIJING : The Washington
Post has questioned whether
President Joe Biden's foreign
policy is a faithful
continuation of Donald
Trump's and a repudiation of
Barack Obama's.
In an opinion piece in the
paper, columnist Fareed
Zakaria raised the question
after "almost eight months of
watching policies, rhetoric
and crises." "...Many foreign
observers have been
surprised - even shocked - to
discover that," wrote Zakaria,
reports UNB. "A senior
European diplomat noted
that, in dealings with
Washington on everything
from vaccines to travel
restrictions, the Biden policies
were 'America First' in logic,
whatever the rhetoric," the
article said. A Canadian
politician said that if followed,
Biden's "Buy America" plans
are actually more
protectionist than Trump's.
Despite having criticized
Trump's tariffs repeatedly,
Biden has kept nearly all of
them, wrote Zakaria.
Another striking example of
Biden's surprisingly
Trumpian foreign policy is the
Iran deal. Since he took office.
NEW YORK : An influential panel of
advisers to the Centers for the Disease
Control and Prevention grappled
Wednesday with the question of which
Americans should get COVID-19
booster shots, with some members
wondering if the decision should be put
off for a month in hopes of more
evidence. The doubts and uncertainties
suggested yet again that the matter of
whether to dispense extra doses to
shore up Americans' protection against
the coronavirus is more complicated
scientifically than the Biden
administration may have realized when
it outlined plans a month ago for an
across-the-board rollout of boosters.
The rollout was supposed to have
begun this week.
Much of the discussion at the
meeting of the CDC's Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices
focused on the possibility of a scaledback
booster program targeted to older
people or perhaps health care workers.
But even then, some of the experts said
that the data on whether boosters are
actually needed, precisely who should
get them and when was not clear-cut.
"What would be the downside" of
simply waiting a month in hopes of
more information? asked Dr. Sarah
Long of Drexel University.
The two-day meeting had been
Tensions grow as US, allies
deepen Indo-Pacific involvement
BANGKOK : With increasingly strong talk in
support of Taiwan, a new deal to supply
Australia with nuclear submarines, and the
launch of a European strategy for greater
engagement in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. and
its allies are becoming growingly assertive in
their approach toward a rising China.
China has bristled at the moves, and the
growing tensions between Beijing and
Washington prompted U.N. Secretary-
General Antonio Guterres on the weekend to
implore President Joe Biden and Chinese
leader Xi Jinping to repair their "completely
dysfunctional" relationship, warning they
risk dividing the world.
As the U.N. General Assembly opened
Tuesday, both leaders chose calming
language, with Biden insisting "we are not
seeking a new Cold War or a world divided
into rigid blocs," and Xi telling the forum
that "China has never, and will never invade
or bully others or seek hegemony."
But the underlying issues have not
changed, with China building up its military
outposts as it presses its maritime claims
With increasingly strong talk in support of Taiwan, a new deal to supply
Australia with nuclear submarines, and the launch of a European strategy for
greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. and its allies are becoming
growingly assertive in their approach toward a rising China. Photo : AP
'Grow up': UK's Johnson says
world must face climate change
UNITED NATION : British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson told world leaders at the
United Nations on Wednesday night that
humanity has to "grow up" and tackle
climate change, saying humans must stop
trashing the planet like a teenager on a
bender, reports UNB.
Johnson is due to host a major United
Nations climate summit in Glasgow,
Scotland in six weeks' time. He is using a trip
to the U.N. General Assembly in New York to
press governments for tougher emissionscutting
targets and more money to help poor
countries clean up their economies.
In a speech to the General Assembly on
Wednesday, he said it's now or never if the
world is to meet its goal of limiting the global
temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial
levels. "If we keep on the current track then
the temperatures will go up by 2.7 degrees or
more by the end of the century. And never
CDC panel grapples with who
needs a COVID-19 booster shot
scheduled to resume on Thursday, but
it was not immediately clear whether
that would happen.
The meeting came days after a
different advisory group - this one
serving the Food and Drug
Administration - overwhelmingly
rejected a sweeping White House plan
to dispense third shots to nearly
everyone. Instead, that panel endorsed
booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine only
for senior citizens and those at high risk
from the virus.
While the COVID-19 vaccines
continue to offer strong protection
against severe illness, hospitalization
and death, immunity against milder
infection seems to be dropping months
after vaccination.
"I want to highlight that in September
of 2021 in the United States, deaths
from COVID-19 are largely vaccinepreventable
with the primary series of
any of the three vaccines available,"
said CDC advisory panel member Dr.
Matthew Daley, a researcher at Kaiser
Permanente Colorado.
And the public must understand that
no matter how good a COVID-19
vaccine is, when it comes to milder
infections, "it is unlikely that we will
prevent everything," said Dr. Helen
Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt University.
Several panelists said another
over critical sea lanes, and the U.S. and its
allies growing louder in their support of
Taiwan, which China claims as part of its
territory, and deepening military
cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
On Friday, Biden hosts the leaders of
Japan, India and Australia for an in-person
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue for broad
talks including the COVID-19 pandemic and
climate change, but also how to keep the
Indo-Pacific, a vast region spanning from
India to Australia, "free and open," according
to the White House.
It comes a week after the dramatic
announcement that Australia would be
dropping a contract for conventional French
submarines in favor of an Anglo-American
offer for nuclear-powered vessels, a
bombshell that overshadowed the unveiling
of the European Union's strategy to boost
political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific.
"One thing is certain, that everyone is
pivoting toward the Indo-Pacific," said
Garima Mohan, an Asia program fellow with
the German Marshall Fund think tank.
mind what that will do to the ice floes,"
Johnson said. "We will see desertification,
drought, crop failure, andmass movements
of humanity on a scale not seen before. Not
because of some unforeseen natural event or
disaster, but because of us, because of what
we are doing now." In his speech, Johnson
compared humanity to an impetuous 16-
year-old - "just old enough to get ourselves
into serious trouble." "We have come to that
fateful age when we know roughly how to
drive and we know how to unlock the drinks
cabinet and to engage in all sorts of activity
that is not only potentially embarrassing but
also terminal," he said.
"We believe that someone else will clear up
the mess we make, because that is what
someone else has always done," he added.
"We trash our habitats again and again with
the inductive reasoning that we have got
away with it so far.
concern is the public confusion that
could result if they recommend a
booster only for certain recipients of the
Pfizer vaccine. That could leave people
vaccinated with Moderna or Johnson
and Johnson shots wondering what to
do. The meeting was devoted to Pfizer
booster shots only. Moderna's
application to dispense third doses is
not as far along in the process. And a
major U.S. study on whether mixingand-matching
booster doses is safe and
effective isn't finished.
Many experts are torn about the need
for boosters because they see the
COVID-19 vaccines working as
expected, even amid the spread of the
highly contagious delta variant. It is
normal for virus-blocking antibodies to
be highest right after vaccination and
then wane over the following months.
"We don't care if antibodies wane.
You care what is the minimum" needed
for protection, Long said.
Yet no one knows the antibody level
threshold below which someone's risk
for infection suddenly jumps. Even
then, the body has backup defenses.
Antibody production and even those
backup defenses don't form as robustly
in older people. But it's impossible to
pinpoint the age at which that becomes
a problem, CDC microbiologist Natalie
Thornburg told the committee.