World
Bangladeshi man stabbed to death in Malaysia
A Bangladeshi man died while two others were injured after being stabbed with a screwdriver in a brawl with fellow countrymen at a workers' dormitory in Mahkota Industrial Park, Banting last Friday.
Kuala Langat district police chief Superimendant Azizan Tukiman said the victim identified as Babu, 44, died at the scene after he was stabbed in the chest believed to have hit his heart, while his two friends sustained injuries in their stomach, in an incident at about 9 pm.
'The fight involved five Bangladeshi men. The two suspects Red the scene after stabbing the victims: he said in a statement today.
He said a police investigation found that the deceased and the suspects were among 30 foreign workers of a paper mill who tested positive for COVID-19 and were undergoing quarantine at a location not far from the dormitory.
Azizan said the investigation also found that the brawl had started after the suspects had removed the victim's belonging from the dormitory without his consent
'Following the brawl, the suspect who had lost control took a screwdriver and stabbed the victin before stabbing his friends using the same weapon,' he said.
Azizan said both suspects, aged 42 and 4t who were hiding at the Taman Mans Jaya junction, were arrested at 3.30 am yesterday.
'Both of them admitted to having a fight with the victim and nabbed him with a screwdriver; he said.
SpaceX capsule departs station with 4 astronauts, heads home
A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts departed the International Space Station late Saturday, aiming for a rare nighttime splashdown to end the company’s second crew flight.
It would be the first U.S. splashdown in darkness since Apollo 8′s crew returned from the moon in 1968.
NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, headed home in the same Dragon capsule that delivered them to the space station last November. The ride back was expected to take just 6 1/2 hours.
Read Also: China launches main part of its 1st permanent space station
“Thanks for your hospitality,” Hopkins radioed as the capsule undocked 260 miles (420 kilometers) above Mali.
SpaceX targeted a splashdown around 3 a.m. Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida. Despite the early hour, the Coast Guard deployed extra patrols — and spotlights — to keep any night-owl sightseers away. The capsule of the first SpaceX crew was surrounded by pleasure boaters last summer, posing a safety risk.
Hopkins, the spacecraft commander, rocketed into orbit with his crew on Nov. 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Their replacements arrived a week ago aboard their own Dragon capsule — the same one that launched SpaceX’s first crew last spring.
The four should have been back by now, but high offshore wind kept them at the space station a few extra days. SpaceX and NASA determined the best weather would be before dawn.
The delays allowed Glover to celebrate his 45th birthday in space Friday.
Read Also: Biggest space station crowd in decade after SpaceX arrival
“Gratitude, wonder, connection. I’m full of and motivated by these feelings on my birthday, as my first mission to space comes to an end,” Glover tweeted.
Saturday night’s undocking left seven astronauts at the space station: three Americans, two Russians, one Japanese and one French.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Indian court urges government action as hospitals cry help
With Indian hospitals struggling to secure a steady supply of oxygen, and more COVID-19 patients dying amid the shortages, a court in New Delhi said it would start punishing government officials for failing to deliver the life-saving items.
On Sunday, India recorded a slight drop in new infections with 392,488 from a high of 401,993 in the previous 24 hours. It also reported 3,689 additional deaths, bringing the total to 215,542. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
Read also: India reports over 390,000 new COVID-19 cases, tally over 19.5 million
The government has been using the railroad, the air force and the navy to rush oxygen tankers to worst-hit areas where overwhelmed hospitals are unable to cope with an unprecedented surge in patients gasping for air.
Twelve COVID-19 patients, including a doctor, on high-flow oxygen, died Saturday at a hospital in New Delhi after it ran out of the supply for 80 minutes, said S.C.L. Gupta, director of Batra Hospital.
The Times of India newspaper reported another 16 deaths in two hospitals in southern Andhra Pradesh state, and six in a Gurgaon hospital on the outskirts of New Delhi because of the oxygen shortage.
With the government unable to maintain a steady supply of oxygen, several hospital authorities sought a court intervention in the Indian capital where a lockdown has been extended by a week to contain the wave of infections.
Read Also: India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
“Water has gone above the head. Enough is Enough,” said New Delhi High Court, adding it would start punishing government officials if supplies of oxygen allocated to hospitals were not delivered.
“We can’t have people dying,” said Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Patil.
The court said it would start contempt proceedings.
New Delhi recorded 412 deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest since the pandemic started.
The army opened its hospitals to civilians in a desperate bid to control the massive humanitarian crisis. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government also gave emergency financial powers to the army set up new quarantine facilities and hospitals and buy equipment.
The military also called up 600 doctors who had retired in the past few years. The navy deployed 200 nursing assistants in civilian hospitals, a government statement said.
On Saturday, India said all adults 18 and over could get shots. Since January, nearly 10% of Indians have received one dose, but only around 1.5% have received both, although the country is one of the world’s biggest producers of vaccines.
Read Also: India's COVID-19 tally crosses 19 mln with over 400000 daily cases
India has so far given more than 156 million vaccine doses. Some states have already said they don’t have enough for everyone, and even the ongoing effort to inoculate people above 45 is sputtering.
The United States, Britain, Germany and several other nations are rushing therapeutics, rapid virus tests and oxygen to India, along with some materials needed for India to boost its domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines.
India reports over 390,000 new COVID-19 cases, tally over 19.5 million
India's COVID-19 tally reached 19,557,457 on Sunday, with a single day spike of 392,488 cases, said the federal health ministry.
As many as 3,689 deaths were recorded since Saturday morning, taking the total death toll to 215,542.
Read Also: India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
There are a total of 3,349,644 active cases in the country, with an increase of 80,934 through Saturday, while 15,992,271 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.
The COVID-19 figures continue to peak in the country, but the federal government has ruled out imposing a complete lockdown. The capital Delhi has been put under a second successive week-long lockdown till May 3.
Read Also: India's COVID-19 tally crosses 19 mln with over 400000 daily cases
Delhi, one of the most COVID-19 affected places in the country, witnessed over 25,219 new cases and 412 deaths through Saturday. As many as 16,559 people have died in the national capital due to COVID-19, confirmed Delhi's health department.
Meanwhile, a total 290,142,339 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in India till Saturday, out of which 1,804,954 tests were conducted on Saturday alone, according to the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research on Sunday.
The third phase of vaccination for people aged above 18 in India began on Saturday. So far over 156 million vaccination doses have been administered in India since the country kicked off its nationwide inoculation drive in January.
Read Also: First batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine delivered to India
Two types of vaccines are being administered to the people in India, including the Covishield vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India and the Covaxin vaccine made by Bharat Biotech International Limited.
India received the first batch of the Russian-made Sputnik-V vaccine on Saturday.
2 killed in shooting at Wisconsin casino; gunman slain
GREEN BAY, Wis. 2 May (AP/UNB) — Patrons fled a Wisconsin casino after gunshots broke out Saturday evening, with one witness saying at least two people were shot.
The attack happened around 7:30 p.m. at the Oneida Casino, operated by the Oneida Nation on the western side of Green Bay. Tribe spokeswoman Bobbi Webster said “individuals” had been shot, but she didn’t have information on how many or their conditions.
Attorney General Josh Kaul tweeted shortly before 10 p.m. that the scene “is contained. There is no longer a threat to the community.” He gave no other details and an agency spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a message.
Green Bay police and the Brown County Sheriff’s Office told The Associated Press they had no details on the casino incident.
Jawad Yatim, a witness, said at least two people were shot.
“I know for sure two, because it happened right next to us, literally right next to us,” Yatim said. “But he was shooting pretty aggressively in the building, so I wouldn’t doubt him hitting other people.”
Yatim said the shooting began in a casino restaurant.
“We got the hell out of there, thank God we’re OK, but obviously we wish the best for everybody who’s been shot,” he said.
Webster said the casino is connected to a large hotel and conference center, the Radisson, also owned by the Oneida Nation.
Gambler Max Westphal said he was standing outside after being evacuated for what he thought was a minor issue.
“All of a sudden we hear a massive flurry of gunshots — 20 to 30 gunshots for sure,” Westphal told WBAY-TV. “We took off running towards the highway ... There had to have been 50 cop cars that came by on the highway. It was honestly insane.”
Gov. Tony Evers issued a statement late Saturday saying he was “devastated” to hear about the shooting, but gave no details.
“While we are waiting for more information, we hope and pray those who were injured will recover and are grateful for the first responders who quickly responded to the situation.”
The Oneida tribe’s reservation lies on the west side of the Green Bay area.
Associated Press writer Doug Glass contributed from Minneapolis; Mayuko Ono contributed from London.
The Latest: 10% of Washington town positive for COVID-19
About 10% of the population of Republic, a small city in north-central Washington, has tested positive for COVID-19 in an outbreak traced to large indoor events last month at the local Fraternal Order of Eagles hall.
Ferry County Memorial Hospital officials have confirmed more than 100 cases, with one reported death, since the April 9-11 events, including a membership drive that featured dinner, live music and a 1980s-themed karaoke night.
Some patients have had to be transferred to Wenatchee and Yakima because of a lack of capacity. Less than one-quarter of the county’s residents have received a vaccine, according to the health district, but officials said the outbreak has increased interest in it.
Read also: India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— India wants to vaccinate all adults; sets record 400,000 daily virus cases
— Olympic torch relay detour; diving test event opens in Tokyo
— Las Vegas hitting jackpot with return of pandemic-weary visitors
— ‘London to Delhi’ stationary biking raises cash for India’s virus crisis
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
CARTHAGE, Mo. — A gathering that traditionally has drawn tens of thousands of Vietnamese Catholics from across the U.S. to southwest Missouri has been canceled for a second straight year because of the pandemic.
The Joplin Globe reports that the city of Carthage and the Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer in Carthage have decided that the risk of COVID-19 transmission is still too great to hold the Marian Days celebration. Before 2020, the event had taken place in the city every year since 1978, reuniting families and friends separated after the fall of Saigon.
The Rev. John Paul Tai Tran, provincial minister of the congregation, said the decision not to hold the celebration during the first week of August was again difficult.
“Our people come from all over and there are a lot of states in the U.S. where the cases of infection are still booming,” he said.
Carthage police Chief Greg Dagnan said the leaders of the congregation met with city officials Tuesday about the event but had pretty much decided beforehand that it would still be too dangerous.
NEW DELHI — India has opened vaccinations to all adults in hopes of taming a monstrous spike in COVID-19 infections.
The world’s largest maker of vaccines is still short of critical supplies — the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages. Those factors delayed the rollout in several states.
Only a fraction of India’s population likely can afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot. That means states and the federal government will be in charge of immunizing 900 million Indian adults.
India set another global record Saturday with 401,993 daily cases, taking its tally to more than 19.1 million. There were 3,523 confirmed deaths in the past 24 hours, raising the overall death toll to 211,853, according to the Health Ministry.
BEIJING — Chinese tourists are expected to make a total of 18.3 million railway passenger trips on the first day of China’s international labor day holiday.
That’s according to an estimate by China’s state railway group. The start to the five-day holiday on Saturday included tourists rushing to travel domestically now that the coronavirus has been brought under control in China.
May Day is offering the first long break for Chinese tourists since the start of the year. A domestic outbreak of the coronavirus before the Lunar New Year holidays in February cancelled travel plans for many after the government advised people to refrain from traveling.
Border closures and travel restrictions mean tourists are traveling domestically.
China in recent weeks reported almost no cases of locally transmitted infections. Vaccinations in China, where over 240 million doses of the vaccine have been administered, have boosted confidence about travel.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis led a special prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday evening to invoke the end of the pandemic.
Francis, wearing white robes, sat in a chair and fingered the beads of a rosary, while about 200 people, including young children, sat spaced apart according to coronavirus safety protocols and recited the prayers aloud.
The pope prayed that “this hard trial end and that a horizon of hope and peace return.”
Every day, for the rest of the month, various Catholic sanctuaries in the world dedicated to the Virgin Mary will take turns holding a similar rosary service. The initiative ends on May 31, when Francis will lead the rosary recitation in the Vatican Gardens.
TOKYO — The Tokyo Olympics torch relay will take another detour this weekend when it enters the southern island of Okinawa.
A leg of the relay on Okinawa’s resort island of Miyakojima has been canceled with coronavirus cases surging in Japan. Other legs on Okinawa will take place. A 17-day state of emergency went into effect on April 25 in some areas in Japan.
Organizers on Saturday say six people helping with traffic control on April 27 in the southern prefecture of Kagoshima had tested positive. Two were identified as men in their 20s and 30s. This brings the total number of positive tests on the relay to eight, according to organizers.
The relay is made up of a convoy of about a dozen vehicles with sponsors names festooned on them: Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Nippon Life Insurance. The torch bearer follows, each running for a few minutes, before giving the flame to the next runner who awaits holding another torch.
Meanwhile in Tokyo, a six-day diving event, opened with 225 athletes from 46 countries but no fans. The Olympics are scheduled to open on July 23.
PHOENIX -- Arizona reported 1,047 confirmed daily cases on Saturday, the largest single-day increase in three weeks amid slowing in deaths.
The cases and 14 additional deaths reported by the state increased Arizona’s totals to 863,571 confirmed cases and 17,388 confirmed deaths.
The COVID-19-related hospitalizations in recent days hovered above 600, with 635 on Friday. The range was 500 to 600 during most of April, according to the state. The numbers remain well below the pandemic peak of 5,082 on Jan. 11.
Arizona’s seven-day rolling average of daily cases rose in the past two weeks from 624 on April 15 to 736 on Thursday. The state’s rolling average of daily deaths dropped from 16 to 12 during the same period, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Read Also: More perilous phase ahead for Biden after his 1st 100 days
LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas has increased its casino capacity and more pandemic-weary tourists are arriving at the entertainment city.
Casino capacity on the Strip increased to 80% and person-to-person distancing drops to 3 feet on Saturday. The boom began in mid-March when casino occupancy went from 35% to 50% under state health guidelines.
Among the first arrivals were people ages 60 and older who were recently vaccinated with time and disposable income. Analysts said pent-up demand, available hotel rooms and $1,400 pandemic recovery checks from the federal government have contributed to the rush.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority tallied more than 2.2 million visitors in March. The figure was down 40% from March 2019. Casinos closed from mid-March to early June last year, helping to drive the Nevada jobless rate in April above 30% -- the highest in any state. The current state rate is 8.1%.
Gov. Steve Sisolak has set a June 1 target for lifting nearly all coronavirus mitigation restrictions statewide. Mask mandates will remain in place indefinitely.
There have been 315,000 reported cases and 5,464 confirmed deaths in Nevada. The majority were reported in the Las Vegas area, where most people in the state live.
WASHINGTON — Mississippi has the lowest vaccination rate in the U.S., with less than 31% of its population receiving at least one anti-coronavirus shot.
Alabama, Louisiana, Idaho and Wyoming are the next four, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Those states vote reliably Republican in presidential races. So Republican leaders are stepping up efforts to persuade their supporters to get the shot, at times combating misinformation.
The five states with the highest vaccination rates backed Democrat Joe Biden in November. New Hampshire leads the nation with 60% of its population receiving at least one dose, followed by Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Maine
PARIS — Workers and union leaders have dusted off bullhorns and flags that had stayed furled during coronavirus lockdowns for boisterous May Day marches.
In countries that mark May 1 as International Labor Day, workers clamored Saturday for more labor protections and financial support in the midst of the pandemic that has impacted workplaces and economies.
In Turkey and the Philippines, police cracked down on May Day protests, enforcing virus lockdowns.
For labor leaders, the annual celebration of workers’ rights was a test of their ability to mobilize people in the face of the pandemic’s profound disruptions.
NAIROBI — Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta loosened infection-control measures Saturday after the number of coronavirus cases in the country dropped from an early spring surge.
Kenyatta announced in his May Day speech that a nightly curfew will move to 10 p.m., following a 72% reduction in new cases. On March 26, 2020, the president ordered the year-long curfew to start at 8 p.m. and prohibited travel in and out of five areas, including Nairobi. That ban also has been lifted.
Kenyatta says the government is allowing church services to resume at one-third capacity and restaurants can serve food on their premises instead of only takeout orders.
Sports events will resume under regulations issued by the Ministry of Health, he says.
WARSAW — Thousands lined for hours Saturday to get immunized with the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine in hopes of engaging in activities and travel.
Polish authorities decided to use the long national holiday weekend to make shots more widely available.
Temporary vaccination sites were set up in Poland’s 16 main cities to speed up the immunization of the nation of some 38 million, where the rate of coronavirus infections and deaths was recently among Europe’s highest. Each site is equipped and staffed to vaccine 90 people per hour.
People waiting in line in Warsaw say they believed the vaccine will return some degree of normalcy to their lives. Lukasz Durajski, a doctor at the Warsaw location, says the massive public response was “very good news.”
GENEVA — The World Health Organization has given the go-ahead for emergency use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The mRNA vaccine from the U.S. manufacturer joins vaccines from AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson in receiving the WHO’s emergency use listing. Similar approvals for China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines are expected in the coming days and weeks, WHO has said.
The greenlight for Moderna’s vaccine, announced late Friday, took many months because of delays WHO faced in getting data from the manufacturer.
Many countries without their own advanced medical regulatory and assessment offices rely on the WHO listing to decide whether to use vaccines. U.N. children’s agency UNICEF also uses the listing to deploy vaccines in an emergency like the pandemic.
The announcement isn’t likely to have an immediate impact on supplies of Moderna’s vaccine for the developing world. The company struck supply agreements with many rich countries, which have already received millions of doses.
In a statement Friday, CEO Stephane Bancel said Moderna was “actively participating in discussions with multilateral organizations, such as COVAX, to help protect populations around the world.”
He’s referring to a U.N.-backed program to ship COVID-19 vaccines to many low- and middle-income countries.
NEW DELHI — A fire in a COVID-19 hospital ward in western India killed 18 patients early Saturday, as the country grappling with the worst outbreak yet steps up a vaccination drive for all its adults even though some states say don’t have enough jabs.
India on Saturday set yet another daily global record with 401,993 new cases, taking its tally to more than 19.1 million. Another 3,523 people died in the past 24 hours, raising the overall deaths to 211,853, according to the Health Ministry. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The fire broke out in a COVID-19 ward on the ground floor and was extinguished within an hour, police said. The cause is being investigated.
Thirty-one other patients at the Welfare Hospital in Bharuch, a town in Gujarat state, were rescued by hospital workers and firefighters and their condition was stable, said police officer B.M Parmar. Eighteen others died in the blaze and smoke before rescuers could reach them, Parmar said.
Read Also: First batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine delivered to India
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s COVID-19 death toll is nearing 18,000 as the country’s continues to suffer through its third infection wave of the pandemic.
The military-backed federal body charged with controlling the spread of the coronavirus reported 146 more daily deaths. The number reported Saturday brings Pakistan’s overall death toll in the pandemic to 17,957.
Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar has warned citizens that the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients is rapidly increasing and the next few weeks are very critical for impoverished Pakistan.
He urged people to strictly adhere to social distancing rules to help the government’s efforts to limit infections.
Pakistan has deployed troops in high-risk cities to stop people from violating social distancing rules and to close business at early evenings. Offices are also working with reduced staffs and for shorter hours.
India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
In hopes of taming a monstrous spike in COVID-19 infections, India opened vaccinations to all adults Saturday, launching a huge inoculation effort that was sure to tax the limits of the federal government, the country’s vaccine factories and the patience of its 1.4 billion people.
The world’s largest maker of vaccines was still short of critical supplies — the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages that delayed the rollout in several states. And even in places where the shots were in stock, the country’s wide economic disparities made access to the vaccine inconsistent.
The country’s ambitious effort was also partly overshadowed Saturday by a fire in a COVID-19 ward in western India that killed 18 patients, and the death of 12 COVID-19 patients at a hospital in New Delhi after the facility ran out of oxygen for 80 minutes.
Read Also: First batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine delivered to India
Only a fraction of India’s population will be able to afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot, experts said, meaning that states will be saddled with immunizing the 600 million Indian adults younger than 45, while the federal government gives shots to 300 million health care and front-line workers and people older than 45.
So far, government vaccines have been free, and private hospitals have been permitted to sell shots at a price capped at 250 rupees, or around $3. That practice will now change: Prices for state governments and private hospitals will be determined by vaccine companies. Some states might not be able to provide vaccines for free since they are paying twice as much as the federal government for the same shot, and prices at private hospitals could rise.
Since state governments and private players compete for shots in the same marketplace, and states pay less for the doses, vaccine makers can reap more profit by selling to the private sector, said Chandrakant Lahariya, a health policy expert. That cost can then be passed on to people receiving the shots, increasing inequity.
“There is no logic that two different governments should be paying two prices,” he said.
Concerns that pricing issues could deepen inequities are only the most recent hitch in India’s sluggish immunization efforts. Less than 2% of the population has been fully immunized against COVID-19 and around 10% has received a single dose. Immunization rates have also fallen. The average number of shots per day dipped from over 3.6 million in early April to less than 2.5 million right now.
In the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, the health minister promised free vaccines for those ages 18 to 44, but he also acknowledged that the shortage of doses meant immunization would not start as planned on Saturday. States say the paucity of shots is one reason why immunizations have declined.
In a positive development, the country on Saturday received its first batch of Sputnik V vaccines, which it is importing from Russia. Moscow has signed a deal with an Indian pharmaceutical company to distribute 125 million doses.
India thought the worst was over when cases ebbed in September. But mass gatherings such as political rallies and religious events were allowed to continue, and relaxed attitudes on the risks fueled a major humanitarian crisis, according to health experts. New variants of the coronavirus have partly led the surge.
Read Also: India's Serum to produce Covid jabs overseas: Report
The country’s shortage of shots has global implications because, in addition to its own inoculation efforts, India has promised to ship vaccines abroad as part of a United Nations vaccine-sharing program that is dependent on its supply.
Indian vaccine makers produce an estimated 70 million doses each month of the two approved shots — the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India and another one made by Bharat Biotech.
The federal government is buying half of those vaccines to give to states. The remaining half can then be bought by states and private hospitals to be given to anyone over 18, but at prices set by the companies.
The federal government is buying shots at 150 rupees each, or $2. The Serum Institute will sell the shots to states at 300 rupees each, or $4, and to private players at 600 rupees each, or $8. Bharat Biotech said it will charge states 400 rupees, or less than $5.50 for a shot, and private players 1,200 rupees, or more than $16.
By comparison, the European Union paid $2.15 per dose for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The company says that price is discounted because the EU contributed to the vaccine’s development.
The strain is mounting on the Serum Institute, which in addition to being India’s main supplier is also a critical supplier of the U.N.-backed initiative known as COVAX, which more than 90 countries are depending on. The institute paused exports in March.
“The urgent demand for vaccines in India is bad for the rest of the world,” said Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge University.
Some experts warned that conducting a massive inoculation effort now could worsen the surge in a country that is second only to the United States in its number of infections — more than 19.1 million.
“There’s ample evidence that having people wait in a long, crowded, disorderly queue could itself be a source of infection,” said Dr. Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer specializing in infectious diseases at Britain’s University of Exeter. He urged India to first stop the circulation of the virus by imposing “a long, sustained, strictly enforced lockdown.”
Pankhania cautioned that immunization efforts alone would not help immediately stem the current spike of COVID-19, since shots “only start to bear fruit in about three months’ time.” Vaccination would help prevent future waves of infection, he said.
Given the urgent need for vaccines, some experts said rationing available doses is critical.
“Vaccines need to be delivered to the areas with the most intense transmission,” Gupta said, explaining that vaccines should be used as “emergency control measures” in specific regions of India rather than offering doses to all adults across the subcontinent.
Read Also: India's COVID-19 tally crosses 19 mln with over 400000 daily cases
Pankhania said the widely seen images of Indian virus patients gasping for air and smoke billowing from makeshift funeral pyres should spur rich countries to share their vaccines more freely. He criticized the approach taken by many Western countries that are attempting to vaccinate all citizens, including younger people at low risk, before sharing any doses.
“It is better globally to immunize all the (vulnerable) people that need to be protected rather than to immunize entire populations in only some countries,” Pankhania said.
Cheng reported from London. Associated Press writers Daria Litvinova in Moscow and Krutika Pathi in New Delhi contributed to this report.
More perilous phase ahead for Biden after his 1st 100 days
Joe Biden’s presidency is entering a new and more perilous phase where he is almost certain to face stiffer Republican opposition and also have difficulty keeping Democrats united as he pushes for $4 trillion in additional spending on programs that have echoes of the New Deal and the Great Society.
Past the 100-day mark, with positive approval ratings and a far-reaching, nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill to show for it, Biden is now facing far more uncertain terrain. The president is racing against the calendar, governing with the most slender of majorities on Capitol Hill while knowing that historically the party that holds the White House loses seats in midterm elections, which would cost Democrats control of Congress after the 2022 vote.
His next 100 days will feature his first foreign trip but will be dominated by his push to pass his expansive plans on infrastructure and children, families and education, which would expand the social safety net for children, increase taxes on the wealthy and fund projects that his critics say are infrastructure in name only.
Read Also: Formal start of final phase of afghan pullout by US, NATO
Overall, his approach is less about stimulating the economy than stabilizing it over the long term with middle-class jobs, and proving that a democracy, even a bitterly divided one, remains capable of doing big things.
“In another era when our democracy was tested, Franklin Roosevelt reminded us: In America, we do our part,” Biden said in his address to Congress on Wednesday night. “That’s all I’m asking. That we all do our part. And if we do, then we will meet the central challenge of the age by proving that democracy is durable and strong.”
Biden has made personal overtures to Republicans in Congress, but the efforts were aimed at least as much at Republican voters, who have been far more supportive of his plans. A nod to bipartisanship is also important to reassure moderate Democrats such as Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia that the president is at least trying to win over Republicans, even if in the end he might push ahead without them.
His task may be easier given the hopeful signs of a strong economic recovery, with an annualized growth rate of 6.4% during the first three months of the year. With the relief bill passed, Biden’s economic team is now able to focus on structural issues such as income inequality, systemic racism and shortfalls in public investment.
“These were ideas that were germinating pre-pandemic,” said Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “It feels like these are things that we’ve known we needed to do.”
Several aides are now focused on distributing billions of dollars from the relief package for housing assistance, school upgrades and state and local government aid.
The administration also wants to measure the results of the spending to show Congress that its relief programs are succeeding.
One example: The expanded child tax credit is of critical importance because Biden has proposed extending the one-year increase through 2025 as part of his families plan.
“We know that implementing the enhanced child tax credit right is critical not just to cutting child poverty this year but to showing it can be done well so that it builds support for extending it on and on,” said Gene Sperling, named by Biden to oversee the relief programs.
With such expensive and wide-ranging programs, Biden has not shied away from comparisons between his own ambitious legislative agenda and those championed by a pair of his Democratic predecessors, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. When the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill was passed in March, Biden gathered with Harris and a few senior staff members in the Roosevelt Room to watch the vote.
Read Also: Harris, Pelosi make history seated behind Biden at speech
Biden recalled that it was in that room where, as vice president, he and President Barack Obama watched the final passage of the Affordable Care Act some 11 years earlier. But he remembered that room being packed with people, something impossible to do during the pandemic.
“If we didn’t have COVID, we’d probably all be raising a glass together but instead this is what we are doing,” Biden said, according to two White House officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about private moments.
The meaning was clear: Even in a moment of triumph, the pandemic was ever-present. But now, with virus cases falling and vaccinations spreading, Biden must guide the nation toward reopening from COVID-19 lockdowns.
He took a cautious step Tuesday by highlighting changing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on outdoor mask-wearing. More fundamental steps are ahead as Biden tries to guide the country toward resuming normal activities, fully reopening offices and schools and safely fulfilling pent-up demand for travel, dining and entertainment.
To this point, the public has largely gone along. Gallup polling shows Biden’s average approval rating over his first three months in office is 56%, higher than Donald Trump’s at 41% but slightly lower than Obama’s at 63%.
But Biden fares less well on some specific issues such as immigration and the border. West Wing officials were caught off guard by the rise in the number of migrants, many of them children, streaming across the U.S.-Mexico border, creating a humanitarian upheaval and handing Republicans a political cudgel.
“The border and immigration has been a huge challenge, and it will continue to be in the next 100 days and beyond,” said David Axelrod, who was a senior advisor to Obama. “The president’s desire to confront issues like gun violence and voting rights may continue to outstrip the capacity a bare Senate majority allows, which may anger his progressive base.”
Biden has counseled patience to some of the left, stressing the importance of sequencing legislation, prioritizing the infrastructure plan before turning to thornier issues such as immigration, voting rights, guns and policing. The president blitzed through executive actions on those issues but will likely need cooperation with Congress for any meaningful action.
That won’t be easy. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, derided Biden’s agenda as a “multitrillion-dollar shopping list that was neither designed nor intended to earn bipartisan buy-in, a blueprint for giving Washington even more money and even more power to micromanage American families.”
There has been some bipartisan momentum on policing after the guilty verdict in the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, who died under the knee of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer. But gridlock threatens other issues, with rising chatter from Democrats on Capitol Hill that a change to the filibuster may be needed.
“Things will begin to percolate on parallel tracks,” said White House senior adviser Steve Ricchetti. “There is a lot of work on immigration and police reform and criminal justice reform being done in the committees and in the White House. We’re engaged in serious, healthy dialogue. And then we’ll see what’s ready to go and when.”
But Biden will also have to turn his focus to international affairs.
The defining relationship will be with China, which Biden invokes as an economic rival that can only be defeated if democracy is repaired at home. He has so far largely continued Trump’s tough approach and maintained most tariffs.
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He has ordered urgent help to India, a nation reeling from COVID-19. In a jam on Iran sanctions, the president will be forced to choose which Trump-era sanctions to lift in a bid to coax Tehran back into compliance with the multinational nuclear deal.
In June, he is scheduled to make his first trip overseas as commander in chief, heading to Britain for an economic summit and then to Brussels to pledge support to NATO, the military alliance built as a bulwark to Moscow’s aggression.
And, while not finalized, negotiations are being held to add a third stop: a summit, elsewhere in Europe, with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Formal start of final phase of Afghan pullout by US, NATO
The final phase of ending America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan after 20 years formally began Saturday, with the withdrawal of the last U.S. and NATO troops by the end of summer.
President Joe Biden had set May 1 as the official start of the withdrawal of the remaining forces — about 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops and about 7,000 NATO soldiers.
Even before Saturday, the herculean task of packing up had begun.
The military has been taking inventory, deciding what is shipped back to the U.S., what is handed to the Afghan security forces and what is sold as junk in Afghanistan’s markets. In recent weeks, the military has been flying out equipment on massive C-17 cargo planes.
The U.S. is estimated to have spent more than $2 trillion in Afghanistan in the past two decades, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, which documents the hidden costs of the U.S. military engagement.
Defense department officials and diplomats told The Associated Press the withdrawal has involved closing smaller bases over the last year. They said that since Biden announced the end-of-summer withdrawal date in mid-April, only roughly 60 military personnel had left the country.
The U.S. and its NATO allies went into Afghanistan together on Oct. 7, 2001 to hunt the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks who lived under the protection of the country’s Taliban rulers. Two months later, the Taliban had been defeated and al-Qaida fighters and their leader, Osama bin Laden, were on the run.
In his withdrawal announcement last month, Biden said the initial mission was accomplished a decade ago when U.S. Navy SEALS killed bin Laden in his hideout in neighboring Pakistan. Since then, al-Qaida has been degraded, while the terrorist threat has “metastasized” into a global phenomenon that is not contained by keeping thousands of troops in one country, he said.
Until now the U.S. and NATO have received no promises from the Taliban that they won’t attack troops during the pullout. In a response to AP questions, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said the Taliban leadership was still mulling over its strategy.
U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett tweeted late Saturday that there was some ineffective firing in the area of southern Kandahar air base, one of the U.S. military’s largest bases.
“Kandahar Airfield received ineffective indirect fire this afternoon; no injury to personnel or damage to equipment,” he tweeted, without attaching blame.
However, he also posted a video clip of Gen. Austin Miller, head of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, speaking to an Afghan journalist in which he said “a return to violence would be one senseless and tragic,” but that coalition troops “have the military means to respond forcefully to any type of attacks.”
The insurgent group continues to accuse Washington of breaching the deal it signed with Biden’s predecessor more than a year ago. In that agreement, the U.S. said it would have all troops out by May 1.
In a statement Saturday, Taliban military spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the passing of the May 1 deadline for a complete withdrawal “opened the way for (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) mujahidin to take every counteraction it deems appropriate against the occupying forces.”
However, he said fighters on the battlefield will wait for a decision from the leadership before launching any attacks and that decision will be based on “the sovereignty, values and higher interests of the country.”
Violence has spiked in Afghanistan since the February 2020 deal was signed. Peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government, which were part of the agreement, quickly bogged down. On Friday, a truck bomb in eastern Logar province killed 21 people, many of them police and students.
Afghans have paid the highest price since 2001, with 47,245 civilians killed, according to the Costs of War project. Millions more have been displaced inside Afghanistan or have fled to Pakistan, Iran and Europe.
Afghanistan’s security forces are expected to come under increasing pressure from the Taliban after the withdrawal if no peace agreement is reached in the interim, according to Afghan watchers.
Since the start of the war they have taken heavy losses, with estimates ranging from 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan troops killed. The Afghan military has been battered by corruption. The U.S. and NATO pay $4 billion a year to sustain the force.
Some 300,000 Afghan troops are on the books, although the actual number is believed to be lower. Commanders have been found to inflate the numbers to collect paychecks of so-called “ghost soldiers,” according to the U.S. watchdog monitoring Washington’s spending in Afghanistan.
Still, the Afghan defense ministry and presidential palace in separate statements have said that Afghanistan’s security forces are in good shape to defend against Taliban advances.
Last year was the only year U.S. and NATO troops did not suffer a loss. The Defense Department says 2,442 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,666 wounded since 2001. It is estimated that over 3,800 U.S. private security contractors have been killed. The Pentagon does not track their deaths.
The conflict also has killed 1,144 personnel from NATO countries.
The Taliban, meanwhile, are at their strongest since being ousted in 2001. While mapping their gains and territorial holds is difficult, they are believed to hold sway or outright control over nearly half of Afghanistan.
“We are telling the departing Americans ... you fought a meaningless war and paid a cost for that and we also offered huge sacrifices for our liberation,” Shaheen told the AP on Friday.
Striking a more conciliatory tone, he added: “If you ... open a new chapter of helping Afghans in reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country, the Afghans will appreciate that.”
In announcing the departure, Biden said waiting for ideal conditions to leave would consign America to an indefinite stay.
In the Afghan capital and throughout the country, there is a growing fear that chaos will follow the departure of the last foreign troops. After billions of dollars and decades of war, many Afghans wonder at whether it was worth it.
Progress noted at diplomats’ talks on Iran nuclear deal
High-ranking diplomats from China, Germany, France, Russia and Britain made progress at talks Saturday focused on bringing the United States back into their landmark nuclear deal with Iran, but said they need more work and time to bring about a future agreement.
After the meeting, Russia’s top representative, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted that members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, “noted today the indisputable progress made at the Vienna talks on restoration of the nuclear deal.”
“The Joint Commission will reconvene at the end of the next week,” Ulyanov wrote. “In the meantime, experts will continue to draft elements of future agreement.”
The U.S. did not have a representative at the table when the diplomats met in Vienna because former President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the country out of the deal in 2018. Trump also restored and augmented sanctions to try to force Iran into renegotiating the pact with more concessions.
U.S. President Joe Biden wants to rejoin the deal, however, and a U.S. delegation in Vienna was taking part in indirect talks with Iran, with diplomats from the other world powers acting as go-betweens.
The Biden administration is considering a rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions in a bid to get Iran to come back into compliance with the nuclear agreement, according to information from current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
Ahead of the main talks, Ulyanov said JCPOA members met on the side with officials from the U.S. delegation but that the Iranian delegation was not ready to meet with U.S. diplomats.
The nuclear deal promised Iran economic incentives in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. The reimposition of U.S. sanctions has left the Islamic Republic’s economy reeling. Tehran has responded by steadily increasing its violations of the restrictions of the deal, such as increasing the purity of uranium it enriches and its stockpiles, in a thus-far unsuccessful effort to pressure the other countries to provide relief from the sanctions.
The ultimate goal of the deal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something it insists it doesn’t want to do. Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, but nowhere near the amount it had before the nuclear deal was signed.
The Vienna talks began in early April and have included several rounds of high-level discussions. Expert groups also have been working on how to resolve the issues around the American sanctions and Iranian compliance, as well as the “possible sequencing” of the U.S. return.
Outside the talks in Vienna, other challenges remain.
An attack suspected to have been carried out by Israel recently struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear site, causing an unknown amount of damage. Tehran retaliated by beginning to enrich a small amount of uranium up to 60% purity, its highest level ever.