World
Two back-to-back blasts rock Indian Air Force station
Two back-to-back blasts rocked a high-security Indian Air Force station in the central government-controlled territory of Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday morning. Fortunately, no casualties were reported.
The explosions took place in the technical area of the Jammu Air Force Station five minutes apart. The first blast ripped off the roof of a building inside the airport, the Indian Air Force said.
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"Two low intensity explosions were reported early Sunday morning in the technical area of Jammu Air Force Station. One caused minor damage to the roof of a building while the other exploded in an open area," the Air Force tweeted.
"There was no damage to any equipment. Investigation is in progress along with civil agencies," it added.
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took stock of the situation and asked the Vice Chief of the Air Force to rush to the high security airport.
Read: India’s covid curve could raise the world’s
"Raksha Mantri Shri @rajnathsingh spoke to Vice Air Chief, Air Marshal HS Arora regarding today’s incident at Air Force Station in Jammu. Air Marshal Vikram Singh is reaching Jammu to take stock of the situation," the Defence Minister's Office tweeted.
Sources told UNB that the anti-terror National Investigation Agency has been roped in to assist in the probe as intelligence agencies have not ruled out a terror angle. "Preliminary probe suggests that drones were used to trigger the explosions," sources said.
Five years ago, another high-security Indian Air Force station in Pathankot town in the neighbouring state of Punjab was attacked by a heavily armed group. The Pathankot Air Force Station is under the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force.
Read: India cuts Middle East oil imports as it seeks to diversify energy sources
Five militants and seven Indian soldiers were killed during three days of fighting at the Pathankot station in January 2016. A Kashmir-based militant outfit had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, believed to been carried out to detail peace moves by arch-rivals India and Pakistan.
Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five
Rescue crews found another body in the rubble of a collapsed 12-story condominium tower near Miami on Saturday, raising the death toll to five as they raced to recover any survivors after fighting back fire and smoke deep inside the concrete and metal remains.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced the heightened toll at an evening news briefing, saying the identification of three bodies had dropped the number of unaccounted for down to 156. She said crews also discovered other unspecified human remains.
The Miami-Dade Police Department later Saturday said four of the five deceased had been identified, along with the apartments where they were at the moment of the collapse. One of the was the mother of a boy who was rescued the night the building toppled, another couple in their late 70s and early 80s and a 54-year-old man.
Officials said remains they find are being sent to the medical examiner, and they are also gathering DNA samples from family members to help identify them.
Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing
Separately, a video posted online showed an official briefing families of missing loved ones. When he said they had found remains among the rubble, people began sobbing.
Throughout the day, rescue workers scoured the mountain of debris with trained dogs and sonar, searching for any survivors. “Our top priority continues to be search and rescue and saving any lives that we can,” the mayor said.
But crews had to fight flames in the debris during the day. At one point Saturday, a fire hose blasted one of the lower floors on the north side of the tower as white smoke or steam streamed out. A bitter, sulfur-like smell hung in the air.
“The stench is very thick,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
A crane removed pieces of debris from the more than 30-foot pile in the city of Surfside, and scores of rescuers used big machines, small buckets, drones, microphones and their own hands to pick through the rubble.
For many with missing loved ones, the wait was agonizing. The atmosphere was tense inside a hotel ballroom where around 200 family members were briefed, two people present told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.
The two said families frustrated with the slow pace of recovery efforts had demanded permission to go to the scene and attempt a collective shout — an attempt as much to find survivors as a cathartic farewell to those who had died.
Read:Collapsed Florida building drew global visitors, residents
Among those awaiting word of loved ones was Rachel Spiegel, whose mother, 66-year-old Judy Spiegel, lived on the sixth floor. Speaking beside her siblings, she said Saturday that “we’re trying to hold it together.”
“I know my mom is a fighter. I know she loves us. I know she doesn’t want to give up. So, you know, it’s day three, so it’s hard,” Spiegel said.
President Joe Biden said via Twitter that he had spoken with DeSantis on Friday to offer assistance as needed.
“My heart is with the community of Surfside as they grieve their lost loved ones and wait anxiously as search and rescue efforts continue,” Biden tweeted.
Authorities announced they were beginning an audit of buildings nearing their 40-year review — like the fallen Champlain Towers South — to make sure they’re safe. The mayor asked other cities in the county to join the building review and said there will be state and federal funding to help.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have joined local and state authorities at the site, DeSantis said. He added a nearby “sister building” of the collapsed tower is also being looked at because it was built at the same time and with the same designer.
Late Saturday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said that a city official had led a cursory review of the nearby Champlain Towers North and Champlain Towers East buildings.
“They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary,” he said.
Read:Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response
He emphasized the priority now was on rescuing anyone still alive.
“What we’re doing now is we’re saving lives and we’re bringing people out of the rubble. What we’re going to do in the next phase, after we address support for the families, is we are going to do a very deep dive into why this building fell down,” Burkett said.
Burkett had said earlier he was working on a plan to temporarily relocate residents of the Champlain Towers North, which was constructed the same year and sits about 100 yards away from the collapsed building, and that FEMA has agreed to pay for lodging.
The mayor said he didn’t plan to order residents to evacuate, but if he lived there, “I’d be gone.”
Surfside city staffers had also been gathering details about Champlain Towers East, which was built in a different style and apparently was built at a different time.
The news came after word of a 2018 engineering report that showed the building had “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below its pool deck that needed extensive repairs, part of a series of documents released by the city of Surfside.
While officials said no cause for the collapse early Thursday has been determined, DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. Video showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first, followed by a section nearer to the beach.
The 2018 report was part of preliminary work by the engineering company conducting the building’s required inspections for a recertification due this year of the building’s structural integrity at 40 years. The condominium tower was built in 1981.
Read:Tornado sweeps through suburban Chicago, causing damage
A federal agency specializing in disaster losses and structure failures is sending a half dozen scientists and engineers to collect direct information for determining whether to pursue a more thorough study.
The first team members arrived Friday, said Jason Averill, an official at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. That agency also investigated the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and more recently, Hurricane Maria devastation in Puerto Rico, among other disasters.
Separately, the government of Israel said it was sending a team of engineering and rescue specialists to aid the search. Israeli media have reported that some 20 citizens of that country were believed among the missing.
Another 22 people unaccounted for were from Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, including relatives of Paraguayan first lady Silvana de Abdo Benítez.
UK health minister resigns after breaching coronavirus rules
U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has led the country’s response to the coronavirus, resigned Saturday, a day after apologizing for breaching social distancing rules with an aide with whom he was allegedly having an affair.
Hancock had been under growing pressure since the tabloid Sun newspaper published images showing him and senior aide Gina Coladangelo kissing in an office at the Department of Health. The Sun said the closed circuit television images were taken May 6 — 11 days before lockdown rules were eased to allow hugs and other physical contact with people outside one’s own household.
In a resignation letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Hancock said the government owed it “to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down.”
“And those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that’s why I’ve got to resign,” he wrote.
Johnson said he was sorry to receive Hancock’s resignation and that he “should leave office very proud of what you have achieved — not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before COVID-19 struck us.”
Johnson had earlier expressed confidence in Hancock despite widespread calls to fire him.
Also read: Raul Castro confirms he’s resigning, ending long era in Cuba
Jonathan Ashworth, health spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, said “it is right that Matt Hancock has resigned. But why didn’t Boris Johnson have the guts to sack him and why did he say the matter was closed?”
Some lawmakers from the governing Conservatives had also called on Hancock to quit because he wasn’t practicing what he has been preaching during the pandemic.
“The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis,” Hancock, who is married, said in his letter of resignation.
“I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologize to my family and loved ones for putting them through this,” he said. “I also need (to) be with my children at this time.”
Hancock, 42, is the latest in a string of British officials to be accused of breaching restrictions they imposed on the rest of the population to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The government is also facing questions about the circumstances in which Hancock hired Coladangelo, a university friend who was appointed to his department last year. She was initially employed as an unpaid adviser and this year became a non-executive director at the Department of Health, a role that pays about 15,000 pounds ($21,000) a year.
Also read: Italian premier resigns, setting off scramble for new allies
Johnson’s Conservative government has been branded a “chumocracy” by critics for hiring special advisers and contractors from outside the civil service without long-customary levels of scrutiny.
Hancock’s department has been accused of waiving procurement rules to award lucrative contracts for protective equipment and other medical essentials, often to personal contacts. Hancock has said he was driven by the need to secure essential supplies quickly at the height of the outbreak.
Hancock has faced weeks of pressure since the prime minister’s former top aide, Dominic Cummings, accused him of botching the government’s response to the pandemic. Cummings, now a bitter critic of the government he once served, told lawmakers last month that Hancock “should have been fired” for alleged lies and errors. He also published a WhatsApp message in which Johnson branded Hancock “totally (expletive) hopeless.”
Cummings himself was accused of breaking the rules and undermining the government’s “stay home” message when he drove 250 miles (400 kilometers) across England to his parents’ home during the spring 2020 lockdown. Johnson resisted pressure to fire him, but Cummings left his job in November amid a power struggle in the prime minister’s office.
Knife attack in German city leaves 3 dead, suspect arrested
A man armed with a long knife killed three people and injured five others, some seriously, in Germany’s southern city of Wuerzburg on Friday before being shot by police and arrested, authorities said.
Police identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Somali man living in Wuerzburg. His life was not in danger from his gunshot wound, they said.
Bavaria’s top security official Joachim Herrmann said the injured include a young boy, whose father was probably among the dead.
The suspect was in psychiatric treatment before the attack and had been known to police, Herrmann said. There was no immediate word on a possible motive.
Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and trying to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks.
A woman who said she had witnessed the incident told German RTL television that the police then stepped in.
Also read: Prosecutor: Chauvin ‘had to know’ Floyd’s life was in danger
“He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people,” Julia Runze said. “And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him.”
“The police then approached him and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly.”
Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick said officers were alerted around 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) to a knife attack on Barbarossa Square in the center of the city. Würzburg is a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt.
Also read: Columbus police officer fatally shoots girl swinging knife
Bavaria’s governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack. “We grieve with the victims and their families,” he wrote on Twitter.
“A big thank you and respect for the spirited intervention by many citizens, who confronted the suspected attacker in a determined way,” Soeder added. “And also to all first responders for their work at the scene.”
Also Read: Floyd verdict gives hope, if only fleeting, to Black America
Almost five years ago a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan wounded four people with an ax on a train near Wuerzburg. He then fled and attacked a woman passer-by before police shot him dead.
Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
President Joe Biden on Friday promised Afghanistan’s top leaders a “sustained” partnership even as he moves to accelerate winding down the United States’ longest war amid escalating Taliban violence.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chair of the High Council for National Reconciliation, met at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before their sit-down with Biden at the White House later in the afternoon. While Biden vowed that the U.S. was committed to assisting Afghanistan, he also insisted that it was time for the American military to step back.
“Afghans are going to have to decide their future,” Biden said in brief remarks at the start of his meeting with the Afghan leaders. Biden did not elaborate on what a ’’sustained” partnership might entail.
The leaders’ visit to Washington comes as the Biden administration has stepped up plans for withdrawal ahead of the president’s Sept. 11 deadline to end a nearly 20-year-old war that has come with a breathtaking human cost.
Ghani also paid a visit on his own Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with House Republican lawmakers. He met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday.
More than 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,000 wounded in the war since 2001, according to the Defense Department. It’s estimated that over 3,800 U.S. private security contractors have been killed. The suffering has been even greater for Afghanistan with estimates showing more than 66,000 Afghan troops killed and more than 2.7 million forced to flee their homes — mostly to Iran.
READ: Biden faces growing pressure from the left over voting bill
Roughly 650 U.S. troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.
Several hundred additional American forces will remain at the Kabul airport, potentially until September. They’ll assist Turkish troops providing security, a temporary move until a more formal Turkey-led security operation is in place, the officials said Thursday.
Overall, officials said the U.S. expects to have American and coalition military command, its leadership, and most troops out by July Fourth, or shortly after that, meeting an aspirational deadline that commanders developed months ago.
The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the withdrawal and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The departure of the bulk of the more than 4,000 troops that have been in the country in recent months is unfolding well before Biden’s Sept. 11 deadline. And it comes amid accelerating Taliban battlefield gains, fueling fears that the Afghan government and its military could collapse in a matter of months.
Ghani said at a news conference following the Oval Office meeting that the talks with Biden were productive. He pointed to an uptick in Afghans signing up for the military as a sign of hope. But he also acknowledged the difficulty that lies ahead, suggesting the moment was analogous to the difficulties the U.S. faced at the start of its civil war.
“There have been reverses, we acknowledge it — but the key now is stabilization,” he added.
Abdullah, who took part in the meeting with Biden, later emphasized the importance of continued U.S. support.
“We tend to forget that al-Qaida had reached a certain level of capacity in Afghanistan that was an actual danger and homeland security threat,” Abdullah told the AP in an interview. “If Afghanistan is abandoned completely, without support, without engagement, there’s a danger that Afghanistan can turn once again into a haven for terrorist groups.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking Friday in Paris, noted the increased violence and cited “a real danger” that if the Taliban tries to take the country by force, “we’ll see a renewal of a war or possibly worse.”
But, Blinken said, the Biden administration came to the conclusion that not removing U.S. troops, as the Trump administration had promised the Taliban in February 2020, would have been a bad choice. The administration believes the Taliban would have resumed attacks on U.S. forces, prompting an escalation of the war.
Blinken added that a continued U.S. presence “certainly would have helped significantly” the Kabul government. “But what is almost certain is that our military would have come to us and said, well, the situation has changed, we need more forces. And we would have repeated the cycle that we’ve been in for 20 years. And at some point, you have to say this has to stop.”
Still, Biden faces strong criticism from some Republicans for pulling out of Afghanistan, even though President Donald Trump made the 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. forces by May 2021.
McConnell on Thursday charged Biden has “chosen to abandon the fight and invite even greater terrorist threats” and urged the president to delay the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back on Friday that Biden inherited an untenable situation from Trump, marked by a relatively small coalition troop presence and an agreement brokered by the Trump administration and the Taliban to draw down all U.S. forces.
“That’s the hand we were dealt,” Psaki said. “The president made a decision which is consistent with his view that this was not a winnable war.”
Biden acknowledged the difficult situation Ghani and Abdullah face as they try to build back their country while staving off Taliban aggression.
“They’re doing important work trying to bring back unity among Afghan leaders across the board and Afghans are going to have to decide their future, what they, what they want,” Biden said. “What they want. It won’t be for lack of us.”
READ: Biden urges shots for young adults as variant concern grows
Ghani in his meeting with House Republican leadership faced questions about how his government would use the $3 billion in security assistance it is seeking from the United States and recent gains by the Taliban.
“We want to support them. We want them to be able to defend their country from the Taliban. But I’ll tell you it’s a fairly grim assessment,” said Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The question is: Can they push back the Taliban?”
Man jumps from moving plane at Los Angeles airport
A passenger was taken to the hospital Friday night after jumping out of a moving plane at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said.
United Express flight 5365, operated by SkyWest, was pulling away from a gate shortly after 7 p.m. when the man unsuccessfully tried to breach the cockpit, then managed to open the service door and jumped down the emergency slide onto the tarmac, according to the airport and SkyWest.
The man was taken into custody on the taxiway, treated for injuries that were not life-threatening and taken to the hospital, authorities said.
READ: Israeli warplanes stage more heavy strikes across Gaza City
The twin-engine Embraer 175, which was headed to Salt Lake City, returned to its gate, the airport said.
It was still there hours later.
Nobody else aboard the plane was injured.
The FBI was investigating.
It was the second disruption at LAX in two days.
READ: FAA grounds certain planes after engine failure over Denver
On Thursday, a driver plowed through a chain-link fence at a FedEx cargo facility and went onto the airfield, crossing runways as police chased the car. Police said the driver was detained and no injuries were reported. Two runways were briefly closed.
Trump targeting GOP impeachment voter at Ohio revenge rally
Former President Donald Trump will return to the rally stage this weekend, holding his first campaign-style event since leaving the White House as he makes good on his pledge to exact revenge on those who voted for his historic second impeachment.
Trump’s event at Ohio’s Lorain County Fairgrounds, not far from Cleveland, will be held Saturday to support Max Miller, a former White House aide who is challenging Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez for his congressional seat. Gonzalez was one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building.
Trump wants them to pay.
The rally, held five months after Trump left office under a cloud of violence, marks the beginning of a new, more public phase of his post-presidency. After spending much of his time behind closed doors building a political operation and fuming about the last election, Trump is planning a flurry of public appearances in the coming weeks. He’ll hold another rally in Florida over the July Fourth weekend unattached to a midterm candidate and will travel to the southern border next week to protest President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
The rally also comes as Trump is facing immediate legal jeopardy. Manhattan prosecutors informed his company Thursday that it could soon face criminal charges stemming from a wide-ranging investigation into the former president’s business dealings. The New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that charges could be filed against the Trump Organization as early as next week. Trump has denounced the investigations as nothing more than a “witch hunt” aimed as damaging him politically.
Although Trump remains a deeply polarizing figure, he is extremely popular with the Republican base, and candidates have flocked to his homes in Florida and New Jersey seeking his endorsement as he has tried to positioned himself as his party’s kingmaker.
Trump has said he is committed to helping Republicans regain control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. But his efforts to support — and recruit — candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans who have crossed him put him at odds with other Republican leaders who have been trying to unify the party after a brutal year in which they lost control of the White House and failed to gain control of either chamber of Congress.
READ: ‘Fire and Fury’ author writes new Trump book ‘Landslide’
So far, nine of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment have drawn primary challengers. And Trump has offered to support anyone who steps forward to challenge the remaining candidate, Rep. John Katko of New York, syracuse.com reported.
“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Trump boasted Friday morning as he called into the conservative Newsmax channel and explained his endorsement rationale.
“Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it,” he said. “But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being, if not all, are being primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”
Gonzalez, a former college and professional football player, has stood by his impeachment vote in the face of fierce criticism from his party’s conservative wing, including his censure by the Ohio Republican Party.
At the same time, Trump continues to obsess over his ongoing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he insists he won, even though top election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
On Monday, he told the conservative Real America’s Voice that he had never conceded the race or admitted defeat. And he publicly entertained the idea that he could somehow be reinstated into office, even though no legal or constitutional basis for doing so exists.
At the same time, he continues to tease the possibility that he will mount a comeback run for the White House in 2024. Aides say Trump, who was banned from Twitter and Facebook after Jan. 6, will make a decision after the midterms next fall.
Trump’s rallies have been an instrumental part of his political brand since he launched his 2016 campaign. The former reality star is energized by performing in front of his audiences and often test-drives new material and talking points to see how they resonate with the crowd. His political operation also uses the events to collect critical voter contact information from attendees and as fundraising tools.
READ: Seized House records show just how far Trump admin would go
And they have spawned a group of hardcore fans who traveled the country, attending dozens of rallies, often camping out overnight to snag prime spots. Some of those supporters began lining up outside the venue days early this week as they reunited for the event.
Chauvin gets 22 1/2 years in prison for George Floyd’s death
Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, whose dying gasps under Chauvin’s knee led to the biggest outcry against racial injustice in the U.S. in generations.
The punishment handed out Friday fell short of the 30 years that prosecutors had requested.
Read: Floyd verdict gives hope, if only fleeting, to Black America
With good behavior, Chauvin, 45, could be paroled after serving two-thirds of his sentence, or about 15 years.
Former police Officer Derek Chauvin broke his long courtroom silence Friday as he faced sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, offering condolences to Floyd’s family and saying he hopes more information coming out will give them “some peace of mind.”
Chauvin, who did not testify at his trial, removed his COVID-19 and turned toward the Floyd family, speaking only briefly because of what he called “some additional legal matters at hand” — an apparent reference to the federal civil rights trial he still faces.
Read: Biden to America after Floyd verdict: 'We can't stop here'
“But very briefly, though, I do want to give my condolences to the Floyd family. There’s going to be some other information in the future that would be of interest. And I hope things will give you some some peace of mind,” he said, without elaborating.
Hisattorney Eric Nelson called Floyd’s death “tragic,” and that Chauvin”s “brain is littered with what-ifs” from the day: “What if I just did not agree to go in that day? What if things had gone differently? What if I never responded to that call? What if what if what if?”
Floyd’s family members took the stand and expressed sorrow about his death. They asked for the maximum penalty.
“We don’t want to see no more slaps on the wrist. We’ve been through that already,” said a tearful Terrence Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers.
India’s covid curve could raise the world’s
As India recovers from a brutal second wave of the Covid pandemic, it faces a new challenge: Can it quickly vaccinate enough people to minimize the risk of a third?
Over the first three days of this week, India jabbed 21 million people—a significant acceleration. Stepping up vaccinations, combined with protection gained from a large number of Covid infections, could carry the country toward herd immunity by year’s end. But this week’s surge in vaccinations may not be sustainable, and the duration of protection provided by previous exposure to the virus remains uncertain.
Read: India's COVID-19 tally crosses 30 million
The high stakes for India are self-evident. Covid has battered the country’s economy, diminished its international standing, and raised serious questions about its government’s competence. Officially, about 392,000 Indians had died of Covid as of Wednesday. But many experts say that figure is a gross underestimate.
India’s battle against the disease also matters disproportionately to the global effort against Covid. The longer the virus continues to spread, the more variants can emerge, and a nation with one-sixth of the world’s population is a potentially huge incubator.
The highly contagious Delta variant sweeping the world was first detected in India. This mutation has already led to an uptick in cases in the U.K. and is set to become the dominant strain in the U.S. This week, White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said the Delta variant is the “greatest threat” to eliminating Covid in America. He expects the strain to be “quite dominant” in the U.S. within several weeks to a month. The longer India’s vaccination effort takes, the higher the odds of other variants emerging there, including some that may be immune to current vaccines.
“It’s safe to say that India is the most important challenge that we know of in the world today,” says Jerome Kim, director general of the International Vaccine Institute, in a phone interview. “So far we’ve been lucky, but a vaccine-resistant mutant could undermine $18 billion worth of U.S. government investment in vaccines.”
India’s troubles have also set back vaccination efforts in other poor countries. As the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, India had been poised to supply the World Health Organization with hundreds of millions of doses earmarked for the developing world. But since March India has diverted vaccine supplies to its domestic market. After coming under attack for an ill-judged vaccine-diplomacy effort that critics say gave priority to global grandstanding over citizens’ health, New Delhi will be loath to resume exports until India’s own population is inoculated.
It’s easy to be skeptical about India’s prospects. The best India has done before this month was 84 million Covid vaccinations in April, on average 2.8 million shots a day. As of Wednesday, only 3.7% of India’s 1.4 billion people were fully vaccinated. About 17.5% had received one dose of vaccine.
Read: Why India is shattering global infection records
In a phone interview, Gagandeep Kang, a virologist at the Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu, points out that historically the bulk of Indian vaccination efforts have been aimed at children or pregnant women. Reaching all adults poses a new challenge. She also worries about “huge resistance” to vaccination in rural areas rife with ill-founded rumors about the dangers the shots present. Dr. Kang estimates that India does not yet have sufficient vaccine production to consistently vaccinate even four million people a day. She doesn’t expect the country to start administering eight million to 10 million doses a day before the end of the year.
It’s unlikely that international help can cover the gap. Dr. Kim expects global supplies to remain constrained for at least the next three to six months. Should people need booster shots or fresh vaccinations for variants, global demand could reach 30 billion doses over the next two years. To put this in perspective, so far about 2.79 billion doses have been administered across the world.
Nor does New Delhi’s response to the pandemic so far inspire confidence. In an email interview, T. Jacob John, an Indian virologist, says the Indian government’s response to the pandemic has been marked by a mix of “denial, [a longing for] God’s help, wishful thinking and pseudoscience.”
Unlike better-prepared nations, India failed to order sufficient vaccines in advance or boost manufacturing capacity with grants. Its haphazard pacing seems to favor appearances over reality: India made all adults eligible for vaccines almost seven weeks before Britain, despite having vaccinated a much smaller proportion of the population. A hastily approved domestic vaccine appeared to privilege vaccine nationalism over scientific rigor.
Nonetheless, there’s reason for cautious optimism. The scale of the pandemic in India—an estimated 637 million cases, according to the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation compared with the official estimate of 30 million—means that the country may already be relatively close to herd immunity.
Indian private companies have decades of experience producing vaccines. Dr. Kim believes that top Indian companies, including Pune-based Serum Institute of India and Hyderabad-based Biological E and Bharat Biotech, have the capacity to ramp up production of high-quality vaccines. A clutch of new shots will likely become available before the end of the year. The U.S. vaccine Novavax has been licensed to Serum Institute; Biological E will manufacture Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine.
There’s no question that India flubbed its management of the second wave. But with a little luck and a lot of effort, it may still dodge a repetition of this spring’s devastation.
This article was first published in WSJ
Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing
Officials say there are still 159 people unaccounted for after the partial collapse of a beachside building in Florida.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava noted Friday that rescue officials were still searching for survivors from the condo building collapse in Surfside, saying that a search and rescue mission was ongoing.
Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said rescue operations continued throughout the night. He said that 130 firefighters are working at the site.
Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said they are working with the medical examiner’s office to identify the four victims.
The Champlain Towers South drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast, some for a night, some to live. A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America.
They were among the nearly 100 people who remained missing Friday morning, a day after the 12-story building collapsed into rubble early Thursday. Much of the Champlain’s beach side sheared off for unknown reasons, pancaking into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30 feet (10 meters) high.
Three bodies were pulled from the rubble overnight, bringing the death toll to four, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said on “Good Morning America” Friday. Officials feared that number could skyrocket. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
“These are very difficult times, and things are going to get more difficult as we move forward,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said.
Fire Rescue personnel and others worked through the night in hopes of finding survivors.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo of Miami Beach told the Miami Herald he watched as tactical teams of six worked early Friday to sift through the debris. He said he saw one body taken in a yellow body bag and another that was marked. They were taken to a homicide unit tent that was set up along the beach.
Many people remained at the reunification center set up near the collapse site early Friday morning, awaiting results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
Officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined.
Video of the collapse showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
About half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse.
Television video early Friday showed crews still fighting flareups of fires on the rubble piles. Intermittent rain over South Florida is also hampering the search.
Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb north of Miami Beach. A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor. Televisions. Computers. Chairs.
Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez, and their 6-year-old daughter, Sofia, had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez.
Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nuñez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from a COVID-19 resurgence in Argentina and its strict lockdowns. They had worked hard to adopt Sofia, Fernandez said.
“Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” Fernandez said. “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.”
They weren’t the only South Americans missing. Foreign ministries and consulates of four countries said 22 nationals were missing in the collapse: nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay.
The Paraguayans included Sophia López Moreira — the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo and sister-in-law of President Mario Abdo Benítez — and her family.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing.
Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miami-area elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam. They lived on the third floor.
“Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,’” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe.
“They were also such happy, joyful people. He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother,” Smukler said. “Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity. It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”