DUBAI: Moderna said on Friday it would supply an additional 20 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the Gavi vaccine alliance for distribution through the COVAX facility in the second quarter of 2022.
With the additional doses, a total of up to 136.5 million doses would be supplied to Gavi, Moderna said.
The COVAX initiative is co-led by Gavi, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
Moderna also said it would speed up supply of 20 million doses to COVAX to make 54 million doses available to the vaccine-sharing scheme by the end of 2021.
These doses were a part of Moderna’s previous agreement with Gavi and were originally scheduled to be delivered in the first quarter of 2022, the company said.
The Gavi vaccine alliance retains options that allow it to purchase up to 650 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine for delivery through 2022, Moderna said.
Moderna to supply 20 mln more COVID-19 vaccine doses to COVAX
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Moderna to supply 20 mln more COVID-19 vaccine doses to COVAX
- A total of up to 136.5 million doses would be supplied to Gavi, Moderna said
- Moderna also said it would speed up supply of 20 million doses to COVAX
PKK urges Turkiye to ease leader’s solitary confinement for any peace talks
Hiwa said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace,” but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees”
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has said Türkiye should ease prison conditions for its founder Abdullah Ocalan, declaring him the group’s “chief negotiator” for any future talks after a decision to disband.
The Kurdish group, blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies, announced on May 12 it had adopted a decision to disarm and disband after a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that cost more than 40,000 lives.
The group’s historic decision came after an appeal by Ocalan, made in a letter from Istanbul’s Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999.
Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the PKK’s political wing, told AFP on Monday that “we expect that the Turkish state makes amendments in the solitary confinement conditions” to allow Ocalan “free and secure work conditions so that he could lead the process.”
“Leader Apo is our chief negotiator” for any talks with Türkiye, Hiwa added in an interview, referring to Ocalan.
“Only Leader Apo can lead the practical implementation of the decision taken by the PKK.”
The disbanding mechanisms are unclear yet, but the Turkish government has said it would carefully monitor the process to ensure full implementation.
Hiwa said the PKK has shown “seriousness regarding peace,” but “till now the Turkish state has not given any guarantees and taken any measure for facilitating the process” and continued its “bombardments and artillery shellings” against the Kurdish group’s positions.
The PKK operates rear bases in Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdistan region, where Türkiye also maintains military bases and often carries out air and ground operations against the Kurdish militants.
Turkish media reports have suggested that militants who had committed no crime on Turkish soil could return without fear of prosecution, but that PKK leaders might be forced into exile or stay behind in Iraq.
Hiwa said the PKK objects to its members or leaders being forced to leave, saying that “real peace requires integration, not exile.”
Second man in court over arson attacks linked to UK PM Starmer
- Neither of the suspects has been charged under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act
- Police said the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own
LONDON: A second man to be charged over a series of arson attacks on houses and a car linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared in a London court on Tuesday.
Over five days earlier this month, police were called to fires at a house in north London owned by Starmer, another at a property nearby where he used to live, and to a blaze involving a car that also used to belong to the British leader.
Last week, Ukrainian Roman Lavrynovych, 21, was charged in connection with the fires, and on Tuesday Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, who was born in Ukraine, appeared in court accused of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life.
“The alleged offense arises from three fires set at locations linked to the prime minister in the last fortnight,” prosecutor Sarah Przybylska said. “At this stage the alleged offending is unexplained.”
Neither of the suspects has been charged under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act which aims to target hostile state activity.
Police said the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own. Days later, there was a blaze at a property where Starmer once resided and the following day there was an attack on a house in north London that he still owns.
Starmer, who has lived at his official 10 Downing Street residence in central London since becoming prime minister last July, has called the incidents “an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for.”
Wearing a light blue hoodie, Carpiuc, who was arrested on Saturday at London’s Luton Airport, spoke only to confirm his name and address while listening to the proceedings through a translator.
He was remanded in custody until a hearing on June 6 at London’s Old Bailey court when his co-accused Lavrynovych is also due to appear.
The prosecutor said a decision would be taken at this hearing as to whether the case would proceed under the terrorism protocol.
Carpiuc’s lawyer Jay Nutkins said his client had lived in Britain for nine years and had just completed a two-year degree at a university in Canterbury.
“He denies being at the scene of any of these fires,” Nutkins said.
Carpiuc funded himself through construction work, Nutkins said. On a casting website for models and actors, an entry under Carpiuc’s name said he was born in western Ukraine and was seeking work as a model.
On Monday, police arrested a third man in connection with the fires and he remains in police custody.
Russia accuses NATO of ‘aggressive actions’ in Baltic Sea after Estonia tries to seize tanker
- Zakharova said Moscow was closely monitoring events in the Baltic
MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday accused NATO of carrying out what it called aggressive actions in the Baltic Sea that impeded the freedom of shipping after Estonia tried and failed to seize a tanker.
Estonia said on Thursday last week that Moscow had briefly sent a fighter jet into NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea during an attempt to stop a Russian-bound oil tanker thought to be part of a “shadow fleet” defying Western sanctions on Moscow.
Asked about the matter at her weekly news briefing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow was closely monitoring events in the Baltic and would react to what she called illegal actions by NATO vessels if they caused risks.
A London court sentences an Egyptian man to 25 years for smuggling people from Africa to Italy
- Ahmed Ebid pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration
- Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group
LONDON: A London court on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian man to 25 years in prison for smuggling people from North Africa to Italy.
Ahmed Ebid, who arrived in the UK in October 2022 after crossing the English Channel in a small boat, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group and that his “primary motivation was to make money” from human trafficking.
Since his arrival in Britain and until June 2023, Ebid, 42, was implicated in at least seven separate boat crossings as part of a 12 million-pound ($16 million) operation that carried 3,781 people, including children, into Italian waters from North Africa.
Britain’s National Crime Agency cited some of those who had entered the UK illegally as saying that Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea anyone onboard caught with a mobile phone.
Ebid “preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats,” said Jacque Beer of the agency.
In one crossing, on Oct. 25, 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat, the agency said. The boat was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.
“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers,” said Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service.
“His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk,” Burton added about Ebid.
Families wait for word of Rohingya said to have been abandoned at sea by India
- “We are helping them as human beings and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said
- The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades
NEW DELHI: It has been more than a week since Akbar, a Rohingya refugee in India, has heard his niece’s voice, the longest they have not spoken to each other.
She is among more than 40 Rohingya alleged by the United Nations, family and lawyers to have been forced off an Indian navy ship this month near the shores of war-torn Myanmar with only a life jacket.
“I got her out of the lion’s mouth when we escaped Myanmar almost eight years ago. And now this has happened,” Akbar, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said of his niece, who is around 20 years old.
Myanmar’s Ba Htoo forces — opposition fighters battling the junta that took power in a 2021 coup — say the group landed on May 9 on a beach in Launglon Township near southern Dawei city, a region that regularly witnesses gunbattles and air strikes.
“We are helping them as human beings and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said.
The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, with many fleeing a 2017 military crackdown. More than a million escaped to Bangladesh, but others fled to India.
There are around 22,500 Rohingya in India registered with the United Nations refugee agency, according to the advocacy group Refugees International.
Two other Rohingya refugees told AFP their relatives were part of the group that was detained by Indian authorities.
Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, has called the repatriation an “unconscionable” act.
Andrews said he was “deeply concerned by what appears to be a blatant disregard for the lives and safety of those who require international protection.”
New Delhi has not commented on the reports.
Family members say the group was summoned by authorities in New Delhi on May 6, allegedly to collect biometric data.
They were moved to a detention center and then to an airport outside the Indian capital.
From there they were flown to India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, an archipelago that lies a few hundred kilometers southwest of Myanmar.
Two days after being detained, the refugees called family members back in Delhi saying they had been dropped off in the seas off Myanmar.
The Ba Htoo spokesman said one member of the group was a cancer patient, adding that the “rest of them just feel tired from the long trip.”
AFP could not independently verify the claims.
Dilwar Hussain, a New Delhi-based lawyer representing refugees from the community, said they were “concerned about the safety and well-being of these refugees.”
A petition filed in India’s Supreme Court by two refugees whose family members are among the 43 people allegedly deported said it was carried out illegally.
India is not a signatory to the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits returning individuals to countries where they face harm.
However, New Delhi rights lawyer Colin Gonsalves, who has challenged the group’s detention and deportation, said India’s “constitutional laws cover protection” of the personal liberty and right to life of non-citizens.
This case is not the first to be reported.
Indian media reported this month that more than 100 Rohingya were “pushed back” across the northeastern border into Bangladesh.
India’s Hindu nationalist government has often described undocumented immigrants as “Muslim infiltrators,” accusing them of posing a security threat.
Yap Lay Sheng, from the campaign group Fortify Rights, said the deportation of the Rohingya group was a “targeted attack against anyone perceived to be Muslim outsiders.”
Ramon, another relative of one of the deported group, said his brother told him he had been verbally abused.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Ramon said the group was “accused of being involved” in the April 22 attack targeting tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which gunmen killed 26 men. The attack sparked a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan.
“My brother asked me to leave India to avoid being in a situation like his,” said Ramon, who has been in India for more than a decade.
Their mother has been inconsolable since receiving news of her son’s deportation. Ramon struggles with sleepless nights over his brother’s safety.
“They should have deported all of us and thrown us into the sea,” he said. “We would have been at peace knowing we are together.”
