POLITICAL HOSPITALIZATION: Psychiatric hospitals allow Beijing a way to remove its political opponents, ‘with no hope of seeing a lawyer or going to trial,’ the report said
China’s use of psychiatric hospitals to imprison political advocates without due process remains routine, a rights group has said, accusing doctors and the healthcare system of colluding with authorities in punishing dissidents. Beijing authorities for decades used the country’s system of psychiatric hospitals, known as ankang (安康), to punish political prisoners. A report released on Tuesday by Madrid-based non-governmental organization Safeguard Defenders said the practice continues, despite reforms in the early 2010s that required medical assent and increased judicial oversight over China’s psychiatric care system. The majority of the data in the report come from interviews with victims and their families posted online by Chinese non-governmental organization Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, an organization founded by advocate and citizen journalist Liu Feiyue (劉飛躍). The data analyze the cases of 99 Chinese people forced into psychiatric hospitalization for political reasons between 2015 and last year. “In 2022, the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] is still routinely locking up political targets in psychiatric hospitals despite implementing legal changes to stop this barbaric practice more than a decade ago,” the group said. “The CCP is able to remove petitioners and activists entirely out of the justice system, with no hope of seeing a lawyer or going to trial, while ‘diagnosing’ them with mental illness so that they are socially isolated even after release,” it added. “Doctors and hospitals collude with the CCP to subject victims to medically unnecessary involuntary hospitalizations and forced medication.” Most of the victims were petitioners, “people who often struggle on the lowest rungs of the social ladder in China and are thus powerless and easy targets,” it said. “Such numbers indicate that sending political prisoners to psychiatric wards is widespread and routine in China,” it added. Detainees were often subject to physical and mental abuse, the report said, citing claims by prisoners that they had been subject to beatings,
When she understood Russian troops were advancing in the region of Zaporizhzhia, Natalya Chergik helped to fill a truck with paintings, antique firearms and 17th-century ceramics. “We drove 1,000km in five days. The trip was awful, planes were flying over us and we did not even know if they were Ukrainian or not,” she said. “The hardest part for us was to convince people at checkpoints not to search the artwork and to let the truck through as quickly as possible,” she said. Chergik is a curator at Khortytsia, a museum-island of about 30km2 on the Dnipro River that was a base for Ukrainian Cossacks in the 16th century. It was the home of the first Zaporizhzhian sich — a type of Cossack state ruled by direct democracy that remained in place until 1775 when Russian empress Catherine the Great destroyed it. This is a “sacred place for the history of Ukraine,” said Maksym Ostapenko, the 51-year-old head of the Khortytsia reserve, an important Ukrainian cultural center that houses, among others, dozens of historical artifacts found during archeological excavations over the years. Ostapenko and most of his colleagues joined the Ukrainian army in the early days of the invasion. That does not mean they abandoned their museum. “To tell you the truth, we outlined an evacuation plan in 2014, after Crimea was annexed” by Russia, Ostapenko said. Curators drew up a list of “the most precious artwork, of about 100 pieces that would need to be evacuated first, in the event of danger,” he said. “Cultural heritage cannot be rebuilt. We have to take precautions,” he added. As early as Feb. 23, two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech that raised fears of an invasion, the museum’s team started to take down the artwork. When Moscow launched the invasion the following day, evacuation began under Russian shelling. The Russian
Iran on Tuesday said it submitted a “written response” to what has been described as a final road map to restore its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) offered no details on the substance of its response, but suggested that Tehran still would not take the EU-mediated proposal, despite warnings there would be no more negotiations. “The differences are on three issues, in which the United States has expressed its verbal flexibility in two cases, but it should be included in the text,” the IRNA report said. “The third issue is related to guaranteeing the continuation of [the deal], which depends on the realism of the United States.” Tehran under Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has repeatedly tried to blame Washington for the delay in reaching an accord. Monday was reported to have been a deadline for Iran’s response. EU spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Nabila Massrali said that the EU received Iran’s response on Monday night. “We are studying it and are consulting with the other JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] participants and the US on the way ahead,” she said, using an acronym for the formal name for the nuclear deal. The EU has been the go-between in the indirect talks as Iran refused to negotiate directly with the US since then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the country from the accord in 2018. US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the US had also received Iran’s comments through the EU and was “in the process of studying them.” “We are, at the same time, engaged in consultations with the EU and our European allies on the way ahead,” he said. Price reiterated that the US agrees with the EU’s “fundamental point” that “what could be negotiated over the course of these past
The head of Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region has sent a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un calling for cooperation amid signs North Korea is considering sending laborers for restoration projects in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. North Korea last month became one of the few nations in the world to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, another Russian-backed separatist region in eastern Ukraine, prompting Kyiv to cut off diplomatic ties with Pyongyang. There are indications North Korea is reviewing plans to send workers for restoration projects in those regions, which could help its economy, but run against UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program. In his comments sent on Monday, Donetsk People’s Republic head Denis Pushilin said he hoped that his Moscow-backed government and North Korea could achieve “equally beneficial bilateral cooperation agreeing with the interests” of their people, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said yesterday. The Donetsk Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said its ambassador to Russia, Olga Makeeva, met with North Korean ambassador to Russia Sin Hong-chol in Moscow on July 29 to discuss economic cooperation. Sin said there would be “great potential” for bilateral cooperation in trade and the “field of labor migration” following North Korea’s easing of COVID-19 pandemic border controls, the ministry said. North Korea is reportedly having similar discussions with Luhansk. In 2017, Russia backed sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in response to a North Korean long-range missile test that required member states to repatriate all North Korean workers from their territories within 24 months. US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price last month said that Russian suggestions that North Korean workers could be employed for restoration projects in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine would be “an affront to the sovereignty of Ukraine.” Price was referring to comments by Russian
OCTOBER VOTE: Bolsonaro warned that his opponent’s return would usher in ‘communism’ and ‘gender ideology,’ while Lula vowed to ‘take our country back’
Brazilain President Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former leader, on Tuesday traded insults as they launched their campaigns for Brazil’s October elections. The two front-runners, who have in reality been campaigning for months, made it official on opening day with events that also showcased their opposing styles. Bolsonaro, 67, launched his campaign with a rally in Juiz de Fora, a small southeastern city where an attacker stabbed and nearly killed him during his 2018 campaign. “This is where I was reborn... This is where the Creator saved my life so I could give my best for our nation as president,” Bolsonaro told cheering supporters packed into the street where he was stabbed by a man later deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. Hitting on the themes of Christianity and family values, Bolsonaro acknowledged Brazil’s “serious problems.” However, the former army captain called himself the best candidate to lead the country, warning that his opponent’s return would be a “step backwards” and usher in “communism” and “gender ideology.” The president drew his loudest cheers when he handed the microphone to first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who led the crowd in prayer and took her own digs at Lula. “Our enemy just wants to steal, deceive and destroy,” she said, to chants of “Lula, thief, you belong in jail.” Draped in the Brazilian flag, 50-year-old teacher Jaqueline Lopes said she was voting for Bolsonaro to “continue the clean up that started four years ago.” “I want the left to be eradicated from this country,” said Lopes, who made the three-hour drive from Rio de Janeiro to attend the rally. Meanwhile, Lula launched his campaign with a visit to a Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the industrial heartland of Sao Paulo State where the 76-year-old launched his political career as a union leader in the 1970s. “I’m returning so
DECREE MAINTAINED: The Salvadoran ministers of justice and defense sought and received an extension until next month of emergency powers first enacted in March
El Salvador has arrested about 50,000 suspected gang members since Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele launched a “war” in March on criminal groups terrorizing the country, the head of the country’s police force announced on Tuesday. “We can inform the Salvadoran people that we have already reached 50,000 recorded detentions during the period of the emergency regime,” said Mauricio Arriaza, director of the National Civil Police. Arriaza, as well as Salvadoran Minister of Justice Gustavo Villatoro and Minister of Defense Rene Merino at parliament requested an extension of the emergency powers, which have done away with the need for arrest warrants. They were first enacted in March and have been prolonged by the legislature on a month-by-month basis ever since. The 84-seat unicameral assembly agreed to grant the government’s newest request to maintain the decree, with 66 members voting in favor of an extension through the middle of next month. The small Central American country has also increased sentences for gang membership five-fold, to up to 45 years. To house part of the detainees, Bukele ordered the construction of a gigantic prison for 40,000 gang members in a rural area of the city of Tecoluca, in the center of the country, which should be ready before the end of the year. “The results of the emergency regime have been overwhelming, we have had a strong impact on these terrorist structures,” Villatoro said in his report on the gang crackdowns. Almost 69 percent of the detainees are accused of belonging to the Mara Salvatrucha gang — also known as MS-13 — followed by the Surenos faction of the Barrio 18 gang (17.7 percent) and the Revolucionarios faction of the same group (12.7 percent). Rights groups have denounced the arbitrary arrest of many people, including minors, with no gang links. In different operations, the police and the army have seized more than US$1
Eduardo Espinal runs his own barber shop from a small zinc-roofed building in Honduras, opening the doors at 8am for a 12-hour workday. He is 12 years old. When it is quiet, he plays hide-and-seek or soccer with his friends. He has not been to school since last year. Although it is illegal in Honduras for children under 14 to work, Eduardo is one of tens of thousands who do so in the poverty and crime-plagued Central American country. Last year, more than one in 10 Honduran children aged five to 18 were working, said Horacio Lovo of the INE national statistics institute. Half a million of the country’s 2.3 million children neither worked nor went to school. “I really like the barbershop and to study too,” Eduardo told reporters outside his “Eduar Barber Shop,” which he opened last month on the outskirts of Comayagua in central Honduras. He charges between US$2 and US$3 per cut, depending on the style. On his best day to date, he earned US$45 — a small fortune in a country where one-third of the population of nearly 10 million people live on less than US$1 a day. Eduardo’s father, Wilfredo Espinal, 50, makes a meager living collecting river sand to sell to builders. His mother, Merlin Carranza, does not work. The boy said that he wanted to help his family, so he started working as an apprentice last year, aged just 11, at the barbershop where he and his father had their hair cut. His father bought him a set of shears, with which he practiced at home. A month ago, Eduardo told his father: “Daddy, I can cut, I want you to buy me a [barber’s] chair,” Wilfredo Espinal told reporters. The father obliged, taking out a loan to purchase the chair as well as the scissors, razor and other equipment, and helped the boy set
NASA’s gigantic Space Launch System moon rocket, topped with an uncrewed astronaut capsule, on Tuesday began an hours-long crawl to its launchpad ahead of the behemoth’s debut test flight this month. The 98m-tall rocket is scheduled to embark on its first mission to space — without any humans — on Aug. 29. It would be a crucial, long-delayed demonstration trip to the moon for NASA’s Artemis program, the US’ multibillion-dollar effort to return humans to the lunar surface as practice for future missions to Mars. The Space Launch System, whose development during the past decade has been led by Boeing Co, emerged from its assembly building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at about 10pm on Tuesday and began a 6km trek to its launchpad. Moving less than 1.6kph, the rollout was to take about 11 hours. Sitting atop the rocket is NASA’s Orion astronaut capsule, built by Lockheed Martin Corp. It is designed to separate from the rocket in space, ferry humans toward the moon and rendezvous with a separate spacecraft that would take astronauts to the lunar surface. For the Aug. 29 mission, called Artemis I, the Orion capsule would launch atop the Space Launch System without any humans and orbit the moon before returning to Earth for an ocean splashdown 42 days later. If bad launch weather or a minor technical issue triggers a delay on Aug. 29, NASA has backup launch dates on Sept. 2 and 5.
The US Air Force on Tuesday said that it had successfully tested a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) after twice postponing the launch to avoid stoking tensions over Taiwan and Ukraine. The Air Force Global Strike Command launched the unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California just after midnight local time. The missile carried a test re-entry vehicle, which in a strategic conflict could be armed with a nuclear warhead. The re-entry vehicle traveled about 6,760km to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. “This test launch is part of routine and periodic activities intended to demonstrate that the United States’ nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable and effective,” the Air Force said in a statement. “Such tests have occurred more than 300 times before, and this test is not the result of current world events.” The test was originally scheduled in March, but was put off to avoid adding to tensions over Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. It was postponed a second time this month as military tensions soared over China’s test launches of missiles and live-fire exercises in reaction to a visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “As China engages in destabilizing military exercises around Taiwan, the United States is demonstrating instead the behavior of a responsible nuclear power,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said at the time, explaining the postponement.
MEXICO Crime reporter killed A crime reporter has been found dead in Sonora State, authorities said on Tuesday. The body of Juan Arjon Lopez, an independent journalist who ran a news page on Facebook, was discovered in San Luis Rio Colorado near the US border. The 62-year-old was identified from his fingerprints, a source at the Sonora attorney general’s office told reporters, hours after state prosecutor Indira Contreras told reporters that a body with tattoos matching those of Arjon had been found. He had been reported missing on Tuesday last week. An autopsy found that the cause of death was blunt trauma, the attorney general’s office said in a statement, adding that it was not ruling out any line of investigation. Arjon had alternated between working as a reporter and at a local restaurant, media rights group Reporters Without Borders said. His final news reports on his Facebook page — “What are you afraid of” — were about a drug seizure and the recovery of several stolen goods. UNITED STATES Border wall topples An effort by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 300m gap in the border wall with Mexico near Yuma had a brief setback when two stacked containers toppled over. Claudia Ramos, a correspondent for the digital platform of Univision Noticias in Arizona, posted on Twitter a photograph she took on Monday of the containers on their side. She said they fell on the Arizona side of the border. Ramos said that contractors in the area told her that they believed the containers might have been toppled by strong winds. However, C.J. Karamargin, a Ducey spokesman, said he doubted that hypothesis, adding that even though the containers are empty, they still weigh a lot. “It’s unlikely this was a weather event,” said Karamargin, suggesting that someone opposed to
TROUBLED HISTORY: Every presidential poll outcome has been contested since 2002, and this year could be the same, with seven IEBC commissioners disowning the results
Kenyans were yesterday braced for a potential period of uncertainty after Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto was proclaimed winner of the hard-fought presidential election, but his opponents cried foul. All eyes were on defeated rival Raila Odinga, who failed at his fifth stab at the presidency, but has yet to make any public comments about the outcome of the election on Tuesday last week. After an anxious days-long wait for results, the 55-year-old Ruto was declared president-elect on Monday with a narrow victory over Odinga, the veteran opposition leader who had stood with the backing of the ruling party following a stunning shift in political allegiances. The aftermath of the largely peaceful vote would be closely watched as a test of democratic maturity in the East African powerhouse, where previous elections have been marred by claims of rigging and bloodshed. “Ruto it is,” the front page headline in People Daily read, while the Standard declared “Ruto the 5th,” as he will become Kenya’s fifth president since independence from Britain in 1963. The results announcement did little to calm nerves, with the election commission that supervised the vote itself split over the outcome and demonstrators in Odinga’s strongholds hurling stones and setting fire to tires. On the campaign trail, Odinga and Ruto had pledged to deal with any disputes in court rather than on the streets. “I will work with all leaders in Kenya so that we can fashion a country that leaves nobody behind,” Ruto said in his victory speech, pledging to run a “transparent, democratic, open government” for all Kenyans. “There is no room for vengeance,” said Ruto, who had run as the effective challenger after falling out with his boss, outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. “I am acutely aware that our country is at a stage where we need all hands on deck to move it forward,”
NUCLEAR INSPECTION: While the UN said it could support an IAEA visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a Russian official said it would be too dangerous
Ukraine on Monday called for new sanctions on Russia and highlighted the risks and consequences of a catastrophe at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant, where fresh shelling nearby has reignited a blame game between both sides. Ukrainian and Russian-installed officials have traded accusations over who is responsible for attacks close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Russian soldiers that if they attack the site in the now Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar, or use it as a base to shoot from, then they would become a “special target.” “If through Russia’s actions a catastrophe occurs the consequences could hit those who for the moment are silent,” he said in a late Monday-night address, calling for new sanctions on Russia’s nuclear sector. “If now the world does not show strength and decisiveness to defend one nuclear power station, it will mean that the world has lost,” he said. The world nuclear watchdog has warned of a disaster if the fighting does not stop. Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-installed official in Enerhodar, said on Monday about 25 heavy artillery strikes from US-made M777 howitzers that hit near the nuclear plant and residential areas during a two-hour period. Russia’s Interfax news agency, quoting the press service of Enerhodar’s Russian-appointed administration, said Ukrainian forces had opened fire, with blasts near the power plant. The head of the administration of the Nikopol district, which lies across the river from Enerhodar and remains under Ukrainian control, it was Russian forces that had shelled the city to try to make it appear that Ukraine was attacking it. “The Russians think they can force the world to comply with their conditions by shelling the Zaporizhzhia NPP [nuclear power plant],” Ukrainian Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak wrote on Twitter. Russian forces continued to shell towns and cities — Velika Kostryumka in the south and
Egyptians on Monday voiced outrage over reports that firefighters and paramedics took more than an hour to respond to a blaze that tore through a Coptic Christian church and killed 41 people. Grief has spread over Sunday’s fire among Copts, the Middle East’s largest Christian community, which makes up at least 10 million of Muslim-majority Egypt’s population of 103 million. Many other Egyptians have also voiced outrage over the disaster in the scorched Abu Sifin church, located in the greater Cairo neighborhood of Imbaba west of the Nile. As debate flared on social media, one Twitter user wrote that the reportedly slow response time “is not just negligence, it’s complicity.” “My cousin’s children died,” Moha El Harra said in a widely shared online livestream after Sunday’s blaze, which was blamed on an electrical fault. “I’m from the area. I know that the ambulance could have been there in three minutes. It took them an hour and a half.” “All we want is justice — for the local ambulance authority, the fire services, civil defense. All of them need to be held to account,” she said. Acting Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar on Sunday said that “paramedics were informed of the fire at 8:57am” and the first ambulance “arrived at the site at exactly 8:59am.” Many challenged this, with eyewitnesses saying it took “an hour and a half” for emergency services to arrive. “No, the ambulance did not arrive within two minutes,” one local resident, Mina Masry, said. “If the ambulance had come on time, they could have rescued people,” he said, adding that many lives were lost to smoke inhalation, not burns. A statement from the public prosecutor’s office confirmed that asphyxiation caused all of the 41 deaths as the corpses bore “no other visible injuries.” Another witness, Sayed Tawfik, said that as the inferno raged, some panicked
Water might have been brought to Earth by asteroids from the outer edges of the solar system, scientists said after analyzing rare samples collected on a six-year Japanese space mission. In a quest to shed light on the origins of life and the formation of the universe, researchers are scrutinizing material brought back to earth in 2020 from the asteroid Ryugu. The 5.4 grams of rocks and dust were gathered by a Japanese space probe, called Hayabusa-2, that landed on the celestial body and fired an “impactor” into its surface. Studies on the material are beginning to be published, and in June, one group of researchers said they had found organic material which showed that some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, might have been formed in space. In a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists said the Ryugu samples could give clues to the mystery of how oceans appeared on Earth billions of years ago. “Volatile and organic-rich C-type asteroids may have been one of the main sources of Earth’s water,” said the study by scientists from Japan and other countries, published on Monday. “The delivery of volatiles [that is, organics and water] to the Earth is still a subject of notable debate,” it said. The organic materials found “in Ryugu particles, identified in this study, probably represent one important source of volatiles.” The scientists hypothesized that such material probably has an “outer solar system origin,” but said it was “unlikely to be the only source of volatiles delivered to the early Earth.” Hayabusa-2 was launched in 2014 on its mission to Ryugu, about 300 million kilometers away, and returned to Earth’s orbit two years ago to drop off a capsule containing the sample. In the Nature Astronomy study, the researchers again hailed the findings made possible by the mission. “Ryugu particles are
Just two possible COVID-19 cases have sparked chaotic scenes in Shanghai, with crowds of people seen running out of a building and an Ikea store to try and escape a lockdown under China’s strict COVID-19 rules. The country’s “zero COVID-19” strategy involves snap lockdowns and quarantines, sometimes over just a handful of cases, and the measures have sparked anxiety and anger in some cities. Videos widely shared on social media and verified by Agence France-Presse showed a small group of personnel, wearing personal protective equipment, trying to keep the main doors of a Shanghai building closed on Friday after a worker there was identified as a close contact of a COVID-19 case. A large crowd is then seen bursting past the outnumbered staff, running away from the building as onlookers film the scene on their mobile phones. Some people were seen dragging what appeared to be a metal barricade several meters as they fled the mall. Close contacts could face days of quarantine and monitoring under China’s health rules. Similar scenes unfolded at an Ikea store in Shanghai’s Xuhui District on Saturday, when health authorities tried to lock down customers on site over an “abnormal” test result. Video clips shared online showed a large group of people trying to leave. In one scene, screams are heard as personnel try to keep doors closed. The crowd eventually pushes its way through the door and people are seen running past to try and get out. The 25 million residents of Shanghai — China’s biggest city — have grappled with harsh COVID-19 rules since earlier this year, when it was sealed off for two months to contain an outbreak. The measures battered business activity and some residents reported trouble accessing food and non-COVID-19 medical care. They also sparked protests by frustrated residents against the authorities. Anger has spilled over in the southern island of Hainan,
A Chinese research vessel yesterday docked at Sri Lanka’s Chinese-run southern port Hambantota despite concerns from India and the US about its alleged spying activities. The Yuan Wang 5 entered the deep-sea port after securing permission to enter Sri Lankan waters on the condition it would not engage in any research, port officials said. It was originally due to arrive last week, but Colombo asked Beijing to defer the visit following objections by India, which shares Western concerns about Chinese activities in the region. On Saturday, after intense negotiations, Colombo announced a U-turn, saying permission had been granted for the ship to dock at Hambantota and remain for six days for refueling and taking in other supplies. Shipping analytics Web sites described Yuan Wang 5 as a research and survey vessel, but according to Indian media it is a dual-use spy ship. There was no customary military band to welcome the vessel, but a small group of traditional Kandyan dancers and drummers performed on a red carpet. Also dockside were five lawmakers, but there were no senior politicians or other dignitaries in attendance. “Long live China and Sri Lanka friendship,” read a red-and-white banner on an upper deck of the vessel, which had at least four satellite dish antennas pointed skywards. Men in white shirts and black trousers stood on deck waving Chinese and Sri Lankan flags as the vessel was pushed alongside the main jetty. The Hambantota port has been run by China since 2017, when it took it on a 99-year lease for US$1.12 billion, less than the US$1.4 billion Sri Lanka paid a Chinese firm to build it. New Delhi is suspicious of Beijing’s increasing presence in the Indian Ocean and influence in Sri Lanka, seeing both as firmly within its sphere of influence. India and the US have raised security concerns over the ship’s visit to Sri
NOT PERFECT: The booster would cover the original COVID-19 virus and the Omicron BA.1 subvariant, but would likely only offer partial protection against other subvariants
British drug regulators have become the first in the world to authorize an updated version of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine that includes protection against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, which the government said would be offered to people aged 50 and older starting in the fall. In a statement on Monday, the British Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency said it had approved Moderna’s combination “bivalent” vaccine, which would be used as an adult booster shot. Each dose of the booster shot would target both the original COVID-19 virus that was first detected in 2020 and the Omicron BA.1 subvariant that was first picked up in November. British regulators said the side effects were similar to those seen for Moderna’s original booster shot and were typically “mild and self-resolving.” “What this [combination] vaccine gives us is a sharpened tool in our armory to help protect us against this disease as the virus continues to evolve,” said June Raine, chief executive of the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay said the new shot would be part of the country’s booster program roll-out from next month, based on advice from the government’s vaccine experts. “This safe and effective vaccine will broaden immunity and potentially improve protections against some variants as we learn to live with this virus,” Barclay said. Such an approach, combining protection against several strains of the same disease is used with flu shots, which are adjusted each year depending on the variants that are circulating and can protect against four influenza strains. Moderna chief executive officer Stephane Bancel said in a statement that it was the first regulatory authorization for a vaccine aiming to fight the Omicron variant, predicting the booster would have an “important role” to play in protecting people
‘TOP SECRET: The justice department said that the affidavit contains highly classified materials and is likely to ‘compromise future investigative steps
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday said it opposes unsealing the affidavit that prosecutors used to obtain a federal judge’s approval to search former US president Donald Trump’s Florida home, where they seized classified documents. “If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a road map to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” prosecutors wrote in their filing. Trump’s Republican allies have in the past few days ramped up their calls for US Attorney General Merrick Garland to unseal the document, which would reveal the evidence that prosecutors showed to demonstrate they had probable cause to believe crimes were committed at Trump’s home — the standard they had to meet to secure the search warrant. On Friday, at the department’s request, a federal court in south Florida unsealed the search warrant and several accompanying legal documents that showed that FBI agents carted away 11 sets of classified records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Some of the records seized were labeled as “top secret” — the highest level of classification reserved for the most closely held US national security information. Such documents are typically kept in special government facilities, because disclosure could damage national security. The department on Monday cited this as another reason to keep the affidavit sealed, saying the probe involves “highly classified materials.” The agency said it would not oppose the release of other sealed documents tied to the raid, such as cover sheets and the government’s motion to seal. The warrant released on Friday showed that the department is investigating contraventions of three laws, including a provision in the Espionage Act that prohibits the possession of national defense information and another statute that makes it a crime to knowingly destroy, conceal or falsify records with the
US Representative Liz Cheney’s dogged pursuit of former US president Donald Trump over last year’s riot at the US Capitol has cemented her status as the sole Republican to gamble her career as she breaks ranks with her party in the fight for US democracy. It is looking like a near-certain losing bet for the 56-year-old congresswoman — for now, at least — as she is set to relinquish her seat representing Wyoming in the US House of Representatives to a Trump-endorsed conspiracy theorist. A daughter of former US vice president Dick Cheney — and once seen as the tax-cutting, gun-loving, God-fearing, small-government apotheosis of US conservatism — Liz Cheney has become a pariah in her own party. Her refusal to accept Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election put her on a collision course with modern Republicans, who booted her out of the leadership and have disowned her at home in the “Cowboy State.” Cheney was one of just 10 Republicans in the House to vote to impeach the former president for inciting the insurrection on Jan. 6 last year. Yet Washington-watchers are speculating that her widely expected defeat to Harriet Hageman in yesterday’s Wyoming Republican primary will mark a beginning rather than an end. Cheney has not ruled out the possibility of a tilt at the presidency in 2024, either by taking on Trump in the race for the Republican nomination or by running as an independent. “I haven’t made a decision about that yet. I’m obviously very focused on my re-election. I’m very focused on the Jan. 6 committee. I’m very focused on my obligations to do the job that I have now,” she said during an interview with ABC News. In her closing argument for the primary campaign, she sounded like someone looking beyond Wyoming to a bigger stage. “The lie that 2020
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