The WTO is postponing its conference of government ministers set to open on Tuesday after Switzerland initiated new travel restrictions following the emergence of a worrying new variant of SARS-CoV-2 first detected in South Africa, officials said.
The conference at the WTO headquarters in Geneva was set to take up key issues like a long-awaited agreement on subsidies for fisheries, seen as a major way to prevent overfishing in the world’s seas, and an effort to waive patent and other intellectual property protections linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
Ambassadors from the WTO’s 164 member states on Friday agreed to delay the four-day conference after new travel restrictions meant that all participants would not be able to attend in person, and a virtual meeting was not deemed to be an option, the a Geneva-based trade official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Photo: EPA-EFE
British Permanent Representative to the WTO and UN in Geneva Simon Manley posted a photograph on Twitter showing WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on a dais during the meeting of ambassadors, and wrote that it depicted her announcing the postponement over the health situation and “the inability of all delegations to attend.”
The EU wrote on Twitter that the decision to postpone the meeting was “difficult, but wise … given the epidemiological situation.”
Swiss health authorities said that all direct flights from southern Africa were banned, and as of Friday evening, all people arriving from that region — as well as Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel, where the variant had also been detected — must present a negative COVID-19 test result and quarantine for 10 days.
Photo: Reuters
“This has not been an easy recommendation to make. But as Director-General, my priority is the health and safety of all MC12 participants — ministers, delegates and civil society. It is better to err on the side of caution,” Okonjo-Iweala said in a WTO statement.
This marks the second time the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a postponement of the conference.
The meeting was originally due to take place in June last year in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
South Africa’s delegation at the WTO has led the push for an easing of protections for patents and other intellectual property behind tools aimed to fight the pandemic, including vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics, in hopes of making them more available to the developing world.
Many European countries, including Switzerland and Britain, as well as the EU, have resisted the idea, saying that it could stifle innovation.
URGENT CALL: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency pleaded to gain access to the plant, saying ‘every principle of nuclear safety has been violated The UN’s nuclear chief on Tuesday warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control,” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said in an interview that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. “Every principle of nuclear safety has been
On a beach in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen, just a few kilometers from Taiwan’s Kinmen, life is carefree, despite some of the worst cross-strait tensions in decades. Ignoring warnings from Beijing, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday — the highest-ranking elected US official to visit the nation in 25 years — sparking a diplomatic firestorm. China yesterday launched some of its largest-ever military drills — exercises set to disrupt one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. However, on Xiamen’s palm-fringed beach, there was little concern. “A war? No, I don’t care,” a young IT worker surnamed
According to Forrest Gump, life is like a box of chocolates because “you never know what you’re going to get.” Now, an Indian remake of the movie has been hit by boycott calls over years-old comments by its Muslim star, Aamir Khan. It is the latest example of how Bollywood actors, particularly minority Muslims such as Khan, are feeling increased pressure under Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Modi. Laal Singh Chaddha, an Indian spin on the 1994 Hollywood hit with Tom Hanks, is expected to be one of India’s biggest films of the year. This is due in large part to its
ACROPORA REVIVAL: A marine science official said that the results of recent studies showed that the reef can still recover in periods that are free of intense disturbances Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef now have the highest levels of coral cover in decades, an Australian government report said yesterday. Portions of the UNESCO heritage site showed a marked increase in coral cover in the past year, reaching levels not seen in 36 years of monitoring, the Australian Institute of Marine Science said. Scientists surveying 87 sites said that northern and central parts of the reef had bounced back from damage more quickly than some had expected, thanks mainly to fast-growing Acropora — a branching coral that supports thousands of marine species. “These latest results demonstrate the reef can still recover
RSS