Facebook’s quasi-independent oversight board has ruled the social media company must restore four of five posts that it had taken down.The cases involved Facebook’s policy regarding adult nudity, hate speech and “dangerous individuals.”The oversight board ordered images of female nipples displayed by a Brazilian user on Instagram to raise awareness about breast cancer to be restored. The post had been removed for violating Facebook’s policy on adult nudity.In another post about Muslims by a user in Myanmar, which included photos of a dead Syrian toddler, the board said the post was offensive but was not hate speech.The board also ordered the restoration of a post with a quote falsely attributed to Nazi propaganda and Third Reich minister Joseph Goebbels because the intent was to make a political statement about former President Donald Trump.Finally, the board said a post in French about COVID-19 that had been taken down for misinformation should be restored because it did not cause imminent harm.The board agreed that Facebook was correct to remove a post that used a racial slur to describe Azerbaijanis.The decisions are final.The board will next decide whether Facebook was correct to remove Trump’s page for what the company said was his role in encouraging the violent rampage of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters on January 6.The public can begin making comments on this case Friday.Facebook regularly removes content it says violates its terms of service. So far, about 150,000 cases have been brought to the oversight board.
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Month: January 2021
Poles Take to Streets in Protest as Near-total Abortion Ban Takes Effect
Protesters took to the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw, late Wednesday and more demonstrations were scheduled for Thursday after the government implemented a court ruling that placed a near-total ban on abortions.The ruling, which was made October 22 but came into force Wednesday, permits abortions only in cases of rape and incest, and when the mother’s life or health is endangered. Doctors performing illegal abortions in Poland face jail.The implementation had been delayed by Poland’s conservative government after nationwide protests in October. But publishing the law late Wednesday triggered a new round of protests in Warsaw, with the promise of more, wider-spread protests Thursday, carried out in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings.The constitutional court is made up mostly of Law and Justice Party appointees who ruled on a motion brought by lawmakers from the party.Adam Bodnar, Poland’s commissioner of human rights, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Warsaw, July 16, 2019.Poland’s top human rights official, Ombudsman Adam Bodnar, published a statement condemning the ruling, saying the publication of the ruling meant the government was risking women’s lives and, in many cases, “condemning them to torture.”Bodnar said the Constitutional Tribunal and the government proceeded with publishing the ruling without consultations, social debate or parliamentary consideration. He said the government’s decision was not based on social will, but on “political, ideological or religious premises.”The ombudsman or, commissioner of human rights, is independent from the Polish government.Predominantly Catholic Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive laws on abortion. There are fewer than 2,000 legal abortions every year and women’s groups estimate that an additional 200,000 women abort either illegally or abroad.
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US Marks 35 Years Since Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster
Thursday, January 28, marked the 35th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. The craft exploded shortly after liftoff, killing all seven on board, including a schoolteacher who was NASA’s first citizen passenger. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has this story and more in the Week in Space.
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Indigenous Tree in Pakistan Touted to Improve Health Among Malnourished
As part of an ongoing project in Pakistan’s Sindh province, efforts are underway to integrate a uniquely nutritious and drought-resistant tree called Moringa, into the local diet to help alleviate malnutrition. Muhammad Saqib has details from Matiari in Sindh province in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Biden to Sign Executive Order Allowing Health Care Sign-Ups
U.S. President Joe Biden is set to sign orders related to health care Thursday, including a special enrollment period for a health insurance marketplace that could help those who have lost coverage during the coronavirus pandemic. Employer-related coverage is the most common way Americans get health insurance, and with the pandemic putting more people out of work, the number of uninsured has grown. Biden’s order will allow for a three-month special enrollment period for the insurance markets created under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare,” the program created in 2010 when Biden served as vice president. Typically, the program is only open for signups for six weeks a year. “As we continue to battle COVID-19, it is even more critical that Americans have meaningful access to affordable care,” the White House said in a statement ahead of the signing. FILE – FILE – A woman is vaccinated inside her vehicle at a mass COVID-19 vaccination site outside The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., Jan. 26, 2021.The order will also direct federal agencies to reexamine policies that undermine the program’s protections for people who have preexisting conditions, including effects from COVID-19. More than 429,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States. In this image from video, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks during a briefing on the Biden administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jan. 27, 2021, in Washington. (White House via AP)Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters Wednesday her agency’s forecasts indicated the death toll will be between 479,000 and 514,000 by February 20, 2021. Walensky spoke at the first of what the Biden administration has said will be briefings held three times a week to discuss its coronavirus response efforts. White House COVID-19 czar Jeff Zients said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is working to make more health professionals available to administer vaccinations. Zients said the government would authorize retired doctors and nurses to administer vaccines and that professionals licensed in one state would be able to administer doses in other states. Zients also said Congress must approve Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill to maintain momentum on vaccinations and more testing capacity. He said the administration is working to meet Biden’s goal of delivering at least 100 million vaccine doses in 100 days.
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Climate Change Could Cost Australia Billions, Report Says
Australia is failing to keep up with the growing threat of extreme weather as global warming increases the risk in areas once thought to be safe, according to a new report.Australia is a land well used to nature’s extremes. It is the world’s driest inhabited continent, where droughts can last for years. The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 were the most intense on record. Heatwaves are by far its deadliest natural hazard.A new report by the Climate Council, an independent non-profit organization, says the cost of extreme weather in Australia has almost doubled since the 1970s.It is warning the financial consequences of fires, floods, droughts, storms and sea level rises linked to climate change could soar, potentially costing the country’s economy up to $76 billion every year by 2038.Robert Glasser, the former special representative for disaster risk reduction for the United Nations secretary-general, said Australia must make fundamental changes to planning new developments.“We will be building the equivalent of roads and homes in flood zones and areas of extreme fire danger, and when those hazards strike the damage will be severe,” he said. “The second reason — increasingly important — is climate change because we are now seeing that the places exposed to these hazards is shifting, the frequency and severity of the hazards are being amplified by climate change, and so you combine these two factors and we see the projections of increased impacts.”The year 2020 began in flames and ended with floods. It was Australia’s fourth-warmest year on record, while 2019 was the hottest and driest ever documented.While per capita levels of greenhouse gases are among the highest in the world, the center right government insists its environmental policies are responsible. Coal generates about 70% of Australia’s electricity, but conservationists believe this sunny, windy and innovative nation should be a green energy powerhouse.The Climate Council report states that without stronger action it becomes impossible for Australia “to act consistently” with the goals of the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change.In October, an official inquiry into the Black Summer bushfires warned Australia would, in the future, face “compounding disasters” — where bushfires, floods and storms struck at the same time, or one after another.
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WHO Team Investigating Coronavirus Origin Begins Work
World Health Organization investigators exited a two-week quarantine Thursday in Wuhan, China, to begin their work in search of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.The international team boarded a bus after exiting their hotel in the afternoon.China, which for months rejected calls for an international probe, has pledged adequate access for the researchers. The team is expected to spend several weeks interviewing people from research institutes, hospitals and a market linked to many of the first cases.The WHO has said the purpose of the mission is not to assign blame for the pandemic but to figure out how it started in order to better prevent and combat future outbreaks of disease.“We are looking for the answers here that may save us in the future, not culprits and not people to blame,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies official, said earlier this month.The novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 and has since spread across the world, infecting more than 100 million people and killing about 2.1 million.More than 120 countries have called for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, with many governments accusing China of not doing enough to contain its spread.”It’s imperative that we get to the bottom of the early days of the pandemic in China, and we’ve been supportive of an international investigation that we feel should be robust and clear,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Wednesday.There continue to be concerns in many countries about access to and supplies of the vaccines that have been developed to protect people from COVID-19.Japan’s top government spokesperson said Thursday that AstraZeneca will make more than 90 million doses of its vaccine in Japan.”We believe it is very important to be able to produce the vaccines domestically,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters.Like many countries already carrying out vaccination campaigns, Japan plans to prioritize front-line medical workers when it begins administering the shots in late February.Japan has arranged to buy 120 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. The vaccine requires a two-shot regiment for each person.The European Union and AstraZeneca have clashed this week after the company said it would have to cut planned deliveries to the EU due to production delays.EU officials are demanding the doses be delivered on time and have threatened to put export controls on vaccines made in EU territory.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that EU President Ursula von der Leyen assured him any EU actions would not affect shipments to Canada.Another source of widespread concern is a number of variants of the virus that have been discovered.Colombia says it will ban flights from Brazil starting Friday because of a variant circulating there.Colombian President Ivan Duque said the measure would be in place for 30 days. Anyone who recently arrived in Colombia from Brazil is also being required to quarantine for two weeks.
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Report: Guinea Worm Disease Cases Drop Despite COVID-19 Restrictions
Human Guinea worm cases in six African countries dropped to 27 in 2020, about 50% less than what was recorded the year before, despite COVID-19 challenges, the Carter Center announced Tuesday.Animal cases fell by 20% over the same period.“The numbers we are seeing are very encouraging,” said Jason Carter, chair of the center’s board of trustees.In Chad, cases dropped to 36 from the 48 recorded in 2019 — the most significant decline for a single nation.The central African country’s significant decline in cases was attributed to “recommitted country and community efforts, innovation, and aggressive, science-based interventions,” said Dr. Kashef Ijaz, Carter Center vice president of health programs.Although these figures are only provisional, Ijaz said the dramatic reductions may be an early indication that a corner is being turned in the most Guinea worm-endemic country.”Ethiopia recorded 11 cases, while South Sudan, Angola, Mali and Cameroon recorded one case each.The reduction in cases comes on the back of an overwhelmed public health system worldwide due to the coronavirus.“In contrast, the Guinea Worm Eradication Program is not dependent on the delivery of pharmaceuticals because there is no vaccine or medicine to treat the disease,” said the Carter Center press release, which also credited a community-centered approach to dealing with the disease.“I have been so impressed with the way entire communities in every country where we work to embrace the responsibility for safeguarding their own health,” said Adam Weiss, director of the center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program.“People who live in the villages are the heart of the program,” he added. “Foreigners like me are a very small part of the operation.”Out of the program’s 1,026 employees, 1,000 are Chadian. The program also enjoys the services of nearly the same number of volunteers in the villages.These volunteers and community staff members, along with creating awareness through education, also monitor for “infections, filtering drinking water, and protecting water sources from contamination.”Foreign staff in Guinea worm-endemic areas research, coordinate and train local staff.Guinea worm disease is an ancient disease that disables victims. It is “usually contracted when people consume water contaminated with tiny crustaceans (called copepods) that carry Guinea worm larvae,” the statement said.In animals, dogs are the most affected, with more than 1,500 recorded cases in Chad, Ethiopia, and Mali, followed by domestic and wild cats, as well as baboons, according to the 2020 figures.The Atlanta-based Carter Center, founded in 1982 by former President Jimmy Carter, focuses on neglected tropical diseases for human and animal infections.
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Facebook Says it Will Permanently Stop Recommending Political Groups to Users
Facebook Inc’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday the company would no longer recommend civic and political groups to users of the platform.The social media company said in October that it was temporarily halting recommendations of political groups for U.S. users in the run-up to the presidential election. On Wednesday, Facebook said it would be making this permanent and would expand the policy globally.On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Ed Markey wrote to Zuckerberg asking for an explanation of reports, including by news site The Markup, that Facebook had failed to stop recommending political groups on its platform after this move.He called Facebook’s groups “breeding groups for hate” and noted they had been venues of planning for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.Speaking on a conference call Wednesday with analysts about Facebook’s earnings, Zuckerberg said that the company was “continuing to fine-tune how this works.”Facebook groups are communities that form around shared interests. Public groups can be seen, searched and joined by anyone on Facebook.Several watchdog and advocacy groups have pushed for Facebook to limit algorithmic group recommendations. They have argued that some Facebook groups have been used as spaces to spread misinformation and organize extremist activity.Zuckerberg also said that Facebook was considering steps to reduce the amount of political content in users’ news feeds.
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Oscar and Emmy-Winning Actress Cloris Leachman Dies at 94
Cloris Leachman, an Oscar winner for her portrayal of a lonely housewife in “The Last Picture Show” and a comedic delight as the fearsome Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and neighbor Phyllis on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” has died. She was 94. Leachman died in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, publicist Monique Moss said Wednesday. Her daughter was at her side, Moss said. FILE – Cloris Leachman poses with her Emmy award for outstanding single performance by an actress in “A Brand New Life” at the Emmy Awards presentation in Los Angeles, May 21, 1975.A character actor of extraordinary range, Leachman defied typecasting. In her early television career, she appeared as the mother of Timmy on the “Lassie” series. She played a frontier prostitute in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a crime spree family member in “Crazy Mama,” and Blücher in Mel Brooks’s “Young Frankenstein,” in which the very mention of her name made horses whinny. In 1989, she toured in “Grandma Moses,” a play in which she aged from 45 to 101. For three years in the 1990s, she appeared in major cities as the captain’s wife in the revival of “Show Boat.” In the 1993 movie version of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” she assumed the Irene Ryan role as Granny Clampett. She also had an occasional role as Ida on “Malcolm in the Middle,” winning Emmys in 2002 and 2006 for that show. And in 2008, she joined the ranks of contestants in “Dancing with the Stars,” not lasting long in the competition but pleasing the crowds by wearing sparkly dance costumes, sitting in judges’ laps and cussing during the live television broadcast. FILE – Gavin MacLeod, from left, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Betty White and Ed Asner, of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, reunite in Los Angeles, March 21, 1992.Although she started out as Miss Chicago in the Miss America Pageant, Leachman willingly accepted unglamorous screen roles. “Basically, I don’t care how I look, ugly or beautiful,” she told an interviewer in 1973. “I don’t think that’s what beauty is. On a single day, any of us is ugly or beautiful. I’m heartbroken I can’t be the witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ But I’d also like to be the good witch. Phyllis combines them both. “I’m kind of like that in life. I’m magic, and I believe in magic. There’s supposed to be a point in life when you aren’t supposed to stay believing that. I haven’t reached it yet.”
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Facebook’s Profits Surge as Pandemic Fuels Use
Facebook’s profits surged in the final three months of last year as people enduring the holidays in a pandemic turned to the leading social network for work and pleasure, the company said Wednesday.Facebook reported a profit of $ 11.2 billion on revenue of $ 28 billion, increases of 53% and 33% when compared with the same period the prior year.“We had a strong end to the year as people and businesses continued to use our services during these challenging times,” Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said.Facebook said its core social network had 2.8 billion users at the end of December, while 3.3 billion people used at least one of its “family” of apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
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Auschwitz Survivors Mark Anniversary Online Amid Pandemic
Tova Friedman hid among corpses at Auschwitz amid the chaos of the extermination camp’s final days.
Just 6 years old at the time, the Poland-born Friedman was instructed by her mother to lie absolutely still in a bed at a camp hospital, next to the body of a young woman who had just died.
As German forces preparing to flee the scene of their genocide went from bed to bed shooting anyone still alive, Friedman barely breathed under a blanket and went unnoticed.
Days later, on Jan. 27, 1945, she was among the thousands of prisoners who survived to greet the Soviet troops who liberated the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Now 82, Friedman had hoped to mark Wednesday’s anniversary by taking her eight grandchildren to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site, which is under the custodianship of the Polish state. The coronavirus pandemic prevented the trip.
So instead, Friedman will be alone at home in Highland Park, New Jersey, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet a message of warning from her about the rise of hatred will be part of a virtual observance organized by the World Jewish Congress.
Across Europe, the victims were remembered and honored in various ways.
In Austria and Slovakia, hundreds of survivors were offered their first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus in a gesture both symbolic and truly lifesaving given the threat of the virus to older adults. In Israel, some 900 Holocaust survivors died from COVID-19 out of the 5,300 who were infected last year, the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported said Tuesday.
Pope Francis warned from the Vatican that distorted ideologies can “end up destroying a people and humanity.” Meanwhile, Luxembourg signed a deal agreeing to pay reparations and to restitute dormant bank accounts, insurance policies and looted art to Holocaust survivors.
Institutions around the world, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum in Poland, Yad Vashem in Israel and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. have online events planned. The presidents of Israel, Germany and Poland were among those planning to deliver remarks of remembrance and warning.
The online nature of this year’s commemorations is a sharp contrast to how Friedman spent the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation last year, when she gathered under a huge tent with other survivors and dozens of European leaders at the site of the former camp. It was one of the last large international gatherings before the pandemic forced the cancellation of most large gatherings.
Many Holocaust survivors in the United States, Israel and elsewhere find themselves in a state of previously unimaginable isolation due to the pandemic. Friedman lost her husband last March and said she feels acutely alone now.
But survivors like her also have found new connections over Zoom: World Jewish Congress leader Ronald Lauder has organized video meetings for survivors and their children and grandchildren during the pandemic.
More than 1.1 million people were murdered by the German Nazis and their henchmen at Auschwitz, the most notorious site in a network of camps and ghettos aimed at the destruction of Europe’s Jews. The vast majority of those killed at Auschwitz were Jews, but others, including Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war, were also killed in large numbers.
In all, about 6 million European Jews and millions of other people were killed by the Germans and their collaborators. In 2005, the United Nations designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an acknowledgement of Auschwitz’s iconic status.
Israel, which today counts 197,000 Holocaust survivors, officially marks its Holocaust remembrance day in the spring. But events will also be held Wednesday by survivors’ organizations and remembrance groups across the country, many of them held virtually or without members of the public in attendance.
While commemorations have moved online for the first time, one constant is the drive of survivors to tell their stories as words of caution.
Rose Schindler, a 91-year-old survivor of Auschwitz who was originally from Czechoslovakia but now lives in San Diego, California, has been speaking to school groups about her experience for 50 years. Her story, and that of her late husband, Max, also a survivor, is also told in a book, “Two Who Survived: Keeping Hope Alive While Surviving the Holocaust.”
After Schindler was transported to Auschwitz in 1944, she was selected more than once for immediate death in the gas chambers. She survived by escaping each time and joining work details.
The horrors she experienced of Auschwitz — the mass murder of her parents and four of her seven siblings, the hunger, being shaven, lice infestations — are difficult to convey, but she keeps speaking to groups, over past months only by Zoom.
“We have to tell our stories so it doesn’t happen again,” Schindler told The Associated Press on Monday in a Zoom call from her home. “It is unbelievable what we went through, and the whole world was silent as this was going on.”
Friedman says she believes it is her role to “sound the alarm” about rising anti-Semitism and other hatred in the world, otherwise “another tragedy may happen.”
That hatred, she said, was on clear view when a mob inspired by former President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Some insurrectionists wore clothes with anti-Semitic messages like “Camp Auschwitz” and “”6MWE,” which stands for “6 million wasn’t enough.”
“It was utterly shocking and I couldn’t believe it. And I don’t know what part of America feels like that. I hope it’s a very small and isolated group and not a pervasive feeling,” Friedman said Monday.
Still, the mob violence could not shake her belief in the essential goodness of America and most Americans.
“It’s a country of freedom. It’s a country that took me in,” Friedman said.
In her recorded message that will be broadcast Wednesday, Friedman said she compares the virus of hatred in the world to COVID-19. She said the world today is witnessing “a virus of anti-Semitism, of racism, and if you don’t stop the virus, it’s going to kill humanity.”
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Presidential Pet Tradition Returns to White House
With Joe Biden as president, pets are back in the White House after a break in the longtime tradition during his predecessor’s time in office. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Dmitrii VershininMasha Morton contributed.
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Abortion Restrictions Set to Take Effect in Poland
A Polish law limiting abortion to cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s health or life is at risk was expected to go into effect Wednesday following an October court decision deeming abortions due to fetal defects illegal. The court’s decision set off protests across the mostly Roman Catholic country. More protests were expected as the law goes into effect. “See you in front of the Constitutional Tribunal today at 6:30 p.m.,” the Women’s Strike protest group, which organized many of the October protests, said on Facebook, according to Bloomberg News. FILE – Police secure the road as demonstrators try to block traffic during a pro-choice protest in the center of Warsaw, Nov. 28, 2020.Opponents of the ruling allege the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) Party, which took power in 2015, influenced the court. The party denies the charge. “No law-abiding government should respect this ruling,” Borys Budka, leader of Poland’s largest opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform, told reporters, according to Reuters. Polish President Andrzej Duda said he supports the decision. “I have said it many times, and I have never concealed it, that abortion for so-called eugenic reasons should not be allowed in Poland. I believed and believe that every child has a right to life,” he said in an interview last October with Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Legal abortions have reportedly been declining in Poland, as some doctors are refusing to perform the procedure based on religious grounds, Reuters reported.
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NASA Astronauts Conduct Space Walk Outside Space Station
Two NASA astronauts conducted a spacewalk Wednesday outside the International Space Station (ISS) to complete an antenna assembly and communications terminal.
Flight Engineers Astronaut Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover are conducting the space walks, which will complete upgrades to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Columbus Module, among other tasks.
A posting to the ISS Twitter account explains the antenna rigging for the “Bartolomeo” science payloads platform outside the Columbus module and the communications links will allow high-bandwidth communication with European ground stations, as well as further research in Earth observation, robotics, material science and astrophysics.
The spacewalk was scheduled to last about six hours.
Wednesday’s spacewalk is the first in Glover’s career and the third for Hopkins. The two are scheduled to conduct another spacewalk next week. They arrived at the ISS in November aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft.
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Moscow Relaxes COVID-19 Restrictions
Authorities in Moscow have lifted some coronavirus restrictions, including the overnight closure of bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, citing the improving health situation.
Starting on Wednesday, businesses no longer are required to have at least 30 percent of employees working remotely, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on his blog, saying the “situation with the spread of the coronavirus infection continues to improve” in the city.
“In these conditions it is our duty to create conditions for the fastest possible economic recovery,” Sobyanin said.
A ban on mass rallies and the requirement for people to wear masks in shops and on public transport remain in place.
He said measures requiring distance learning for university students would be reviewed on February 6.
Russia, which has the world’s fourth-highest number of COVID-19 cases, has opted against reimposing a strict lockdown as a wave of the epidemic swept across Europe in the autumn.
Sobyanin said that over the past week, the city of more than 12 million people was registering an average of 2,000-3,000 new infections a day — a steep decline from the some 7,000 infections reported at the peak of the autumn wave.
He added that half of the beds in coronavirus hospitals were now free for the first time since June.
On January 27, Russian health authorities reported 17,741 new coronavirus cases, including 1,837 in Moscow, taking the total tally to nearly 3,775,000 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The official nationwide death toll stood at 71,076, but the figure is believed to be much higher because of underreporting by authorities.
Russia launched an inoculation campaign earlier this month, making its locally developed Sputnik V vaccine available to all citizens.
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World Surpasses 100 Million Coronavirus Cases
As countries deal with coronavirus vaccine access, supply and distribution difficulties, the world surpassed 100 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 with more than 2.1 million deaths. It took about 11 months for worldwide infections to reach 50 million, and three more months to hit 100 million. Five nations have suffered more than 100,000 deaths, including Britain, which crossed that threshold on Tuesday. Public health officials have urged people to take steps such as wearing masks, keeping distance from others, and avoiding large gatherings in order to stop the spread of the virus. Governments have turned to various levels of lockdowns amid spikes in infections. Peru announced late Tuesday a lockdown of its capital and nine other regions as hospitals struggled to deal with a big increase in cases. FILE – A medical worker takes notes near a patient at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Emergencias de Villa El Salvador hospital, during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Lima, Peru, Dec. 22, 2020.President Francisco Sagasti said non-essential shops would close, regional travel would be suspended, and a ban on incoming flights from Brazil and Europe would be extended until at least February 14. Sagasti said the first batch of vaccine doses made by Sinopharm would arrive in Peru “in the coming days,” with inoculations set to begin in February. South Korea is also trying to control its latest outbreak. A health official said 297 cases had been traced to six churches and schools run by a Christian organization, which has been ordered to test everyone at 32 of its 40 sites in the country. In Australia, health officials reported progress with the country’s tenth consecutive day without any new local COVID-19 infections. In response, authorities are set to ease restrictions regarding mask wearing and the number of people allowed to gather for parties, weddings and at places of worship beginning Friday. FILE – People line up to enter a grocery store before an impending lockdown due to an outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Brisbane, Australia, Jan. 8, 2021.”They both go hand in hand, you can’t have an open economy unless you make sure you get the health settings right,” New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said, while urging people to get tested for COVID-19 even for the “mildest of symptoms.” After a race by numerous companies to develop effective COVID-19 vaccines, about 56 countries have begun vaccinating their populations. But with many large countries placing huge orders, the World Health Organization and others have warned of the dangers of “vaccine nationalism” with people in other countries left out. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday wealthy countries should not hold onto excess stockpiles of COVID-19 vaccines, and that the world needs to work together to fight the pandemic. Ramaphosa told a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum that those who have hoarded vaccines need to release them “so that other countries can have them.”
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South Africa’s President Accuses Rich Nations of Hoarding Vaccines
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is calling on wealthy countries to, in his words, stop hoarding coronavirus vaccines so that poorer countries can have access to them. Ramaphosa spoke at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum Tuesday, as VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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On the Brink of Extinction, the Northern White Rhino Now Has a Chance at Survival
The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction. Poachers decimated the population, but now science has a chance to bring it back. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.Camera: Reuters Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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With Biden at Helm, Pets Return to White House
With Joe Biden as president, pets are back in the White House after a break in the longtime tradition during his predecessor’s time in office. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Dmitrii VershininMasha Morton contributed.
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WHO Chief Presses Case Against COVID-19 ‘Vaccine Nationalism’
The World Health Organization director-general on Tuesday continued to press his case against what he calls “vaccine nationalism,” saying poor countries have had to “watch and wait,” while wealthy nations forge ahead with vaccination programs.In his closing remarks to the 10-day WHO executive board meeting in Geneva, agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “With every day that passes, the divide grows larger between the world’s haves and have-nots.”He said the world faces a “catastrophic moral failure” if it does not work for vaccine equity. He cited recent studies showing how such policies hurt the global economy by leaving some nations behind.“Vaccine nationalism could cost the global economy up to $9.2 trillion and almost half of that — $4.5 trillion — would be incurred in the wealthiest economies,” Tedros said.The WHO-organized vaccine cooperative programs designed to provide vaccines and COVID-19 treatments to poor nations are facing shortfalls in vaccines and funding. Meanwhile, Tedros said, wealthy nations in some cases have ordered millions of surplus doses.At the very least, he said, the world needs to work together to ensure that the vaccinations are underway for health workers and older people in all countries within the first 100 days of this year.“We have 74 days left. Time is short, and the stakes could not be higher. Every moment counts,” he said.
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Internet Outages, Slowdowns Reported from Boston to Washington
People from Boston to the Washington area were reporting internet outages or slow service Tuesday. According to Downdetector.com, which tracks outages, users reported problems with Verizon, Google, Zoom, YouTube, Slack and Amazon Web Services. Many of those services have become staples for millions of Americans working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Students attending school virtually also depend on the services. Verizon reported that a fiber cable in the city of New York borough of Brooklyn had been severed, but it was unclear if that was causing all the problems. Downdetector also showed that Comcast users were reporting outages or slowdown. Comcast is a rival internet service provider. Amazon Web Services, which provides cloud services to many companies, also reported connectivity issues, according to The Washington Post.
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