Hundreds of thousands may be vaccinated by this winter, with broad scope outlined by authorities for ‘urgent use’
Image for representation purpose only. | Photo Credit: Reuters
China has since July 22 been administering its domestically-developed COVID-19 vaccines to a broad range of people whose number may soon be in the hundreds of thousands, including medical workers, the armed forces, and employees of companies who are working overseas on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, said a health official on August 22.
China has eight different vaccines which are going through clinical trials, and none have so far been approved for the market. Some of the vaccines have, however, been administered on an “urgent use” basis for the past month, Zheng Zhongwei, director of the Development Centre for Medical Science and Technology of the National Health Commission, which is leading the vaccine development programme, told State media.
Authorities have permitted administering vaccines to medical workers, border officers and those employed overseas, while the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also begun inoculating military personnel. Vaccines are being administered in two doses, with the second given one month after the first shot.
“The number of people being vaccinated on an urgent basis may reach hundreds of thousands across China, considering that personnel in wider sectors are being offered free injections,” Tao Lina, an immunology expert, was quoted as saying by the Communist Party-run newspaper, Global Times. “But it’s difficult to give an accurate figure since the Chinese military has begun mass vaccinations but has not released details.”
That number could rise further by this winter. Mr. Zheng said that ahead of a possible wave of cases this winter, the vaccines would be made available “to people working in food markets, transport systems and services industries.” Those who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 will not be among the early group.
Mr. Zheng said when the vaccine reaches the market, it would be priced slightly lower than the estimate given by one of the producers, Sinopharm, of around 1,000 Yuan, or ₹10,800 for two shots. Sinopharm has said a vaccine may be given the green light for marketing by the end of the year, which was “dependent on the progress of late-stage clinical trials overseas”. More than 20,000 people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had taken vaccines in Phase Three clinical trials, while Sinopharm has signed agreements with three other countries, Peru, Morocco and Argentina, for trials.
The Global Times quoted an employee of a state-run enterprise working on overseas projects as part of the BRI as saying “all staff in her company have been offered inactivated vaccine injections on a voluntary basis for free.” The employee took the vaccine on August 7 and said “at least 10% of the employees, mainly those in charge of projects overseas, have been vaccinated in groups since they were notified on July 30.”
The inoculation of workers going overseas has, however, raised questions with some of the countries receiving them, with Papua New Guinea barring the entry of Chinese workers on a mine project who had been inoculated on August 10 before travelling.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said children aged 12 and over should wear masks to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic under the same conditions as adults, while children between six and 11 should wear them on a risk-based approach.
Children aged 12 and over should particularly wear a mask when a one-metre distance from others cannot be guaranteed and there is widespread transmission in the area, the WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a document on the WHO website dated Aug. 21.
Whether children between six and 11 should wear masks depends on a number of factors, including the intensity of transmission in the area, the child’s ability to use the mask, access to masks and adequate adult supervision, the two organisations said.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo | Photo Credit: REUTERS
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Israel on Monday and the United Arab Emirates a day later to discuss the countries’ normalisation deal, two sources briefed on his itinerary said.
Also on Pompeo’s agenda will be the security challenges posed by Iran and China in the region, said the sources, who declined to be identified by name or nationality.
Israel and the UAE announced earlier this month that they would normalise diplomatic ties and forge a broad new relationship.
Under the accord, which U.S. President Donald Trump helped broker, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexation of areas of the occupied West Bank.
The deal also firms up opposition to regional power Iran, which the UAE, Israel and the United States view as the main threat in the conflict-riven Middle East.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is expected to travel to Israel and the UAE in early September, and may stop in other countries as well, an administration official said. Kushner will be accompanied by Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s Middle East envoy, the official said.
Kushner and Berkowitz will thank Israel and the UAE for completing the deal, the official said.
Istanbul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ordered another ancient Orthodox church that became a mosque and then a popular Istanbul museum to be turned back into a place of Muslim worship. The decision to transform the Kariye Museum into a mosque came just a month after a similarly controversial conversion for the UNESCO World Heritage-recognized Hagia Sophia.
A priest (left) and a woman visit the Chora or Kariye Museum, formally the Church of the Holy Savior, a medieval Byzantine Greek Orthodox church in the Fatih district in Istanbul. | AFP
Both changes reflect Erdogan’s efforts to galvanize his more conservative and nationalist supporters at a time when Turkey is suffering a new spell of inflation and economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus. But the moves have added to Turkey’s problems with prelates in both the Orthodox and Catholic worlds. The Greek foreign ministry called the decision “yet another provocation against religious persons everywhere” by the Turkish government.
‘Steeped in history’
The 1,000-year-old Kariye building’s history closely mirrors that of the Hagia Sophia-its bigger and more famous neighbor on the western bank of the Golden Horn estuary on the European side of Istanbul. The Holy Savior in Chora was a Byzantine church decorated with 14th-century frescoes of the Last Judgment that remain treasured in Christendom. It was originally converted into the Kariye Mosque half a century after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.
It became the Kariye Museum after World War II as Turkey pushed ahead with the creation of a more secular new republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. A group of American art historians then helped restore the original church’s mosaics and opened them up for public display in 1958. But Erdogan is placing an ever greater political emphasis on the battles that resulted in the defeat of Byzantium by the Ottomans.
Turkey’s top administrative court approved the museum’s conversion into a mosque in November. “It’s a place steeped in history which holds a lot of symbolism for a lot of different people,” said 48-year-old French tourist Frederic Sicard outside the building. “For me, (these conversions) are a little difficult to understand and to follow. But we would visit if it were a mosque. We might just have to arrange visits around prayer times.”
‘Shame for our country’
The sand-coloured structure visible today replaced a building created as a part of a monastery when Constantinople became the new capital of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. It features a minaret in one corner and small cascading domes similar to those of other grand mosques whose calls to prayer echo across the hills of Istanbul.
But inside it is filled with magnificent frescoes and mosaics that represent some of the finest examples of Byzantine art in the Christian world. Turkey’s tumultuous efforts to reconcile these two histories form the underpinnings of the country’s contemporary politics and social life. Opposition HDP party lawmaker Garo Paylan called the transformation “a shame for our country”. “One of the symbols of our country’s deep, multicultural identity and multi-religious history has been sacrificed,” he tweeted.
Ottoman Empire historian Zeynep Turkyilmaz called the conversion “destruction” because the building’s walls are lined with Christian art that would have to be either covered up or plastered over-as it was by the Ottomans. “It is impossible to hide the frescoes and mosaics because they decorate the entire building,” the historian told AFP. Yet some locals fully supported the change. “There are dozens, hundreds of churches, synagogues in Istanbul and only a few of them have been opened to prayer as mosques,” said Yucel Sahin as he strolled by the building after the morning rain. “There is a lot of tolerance in our culture.” | AFP
“We have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology,” he told a briefing in Geneva
The World Health Organization hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu and last less than two years, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday, if the world unites and succeeds in finding a vaccine.
The WHO has always been cautious about giving estimates on how quickly the pandemic can be dealt with while there is no proven vaccine.
Tedros said the 1918 Spanish flu “took two years to stop…And in our situation now with more technology, and of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading, it can move fast because we are more connected now,” he told a briefing in Geneva.
“But at the same time we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it. So we have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology. So we hope to finish this pandemic (in) less than two years.”
He urged “national unity” and “global solidarity”.
“That is really key with utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccine.”
More than 22.81 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally since it was first identified in China last year and 793,382 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Pakistan’s effort to repair relations with Saudi Arabia has been snubbed by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. The de facto ruler of the kingdom refused to meet with Islamabad’s Army Chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, who was in the Gulf state to mend ties between the two countries.
Bajwa, who started his visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday, returned home after being declined a meeting with bin Salman, known popularly as MBS. Instead, Bajwa had to settle for a meeting with the 34-year old’s younger brother, Deputy Defence Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Salman, and Maj Gen Fayyad Al Ruwaili, the kingdom’s chief of general staff.
It’s reported that Bajwa conveyed regret over comments made by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi which angered the Saudis. Qureshi insisted that the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), dominated largely by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states, must show leadership on the issue of Kashmir.
The comment was met with fury in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia terminated its loan and oil supply to Pakistan, prompting a diplomatic row between the two nations which traditionally have been allies.
During the meeting in Riyadh, Bajwa is said to have floated a proposal for a meeting of the OIC contact group on Kashmir on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting to be held under Turkey. It’s not clear though if the Saudis will agree to such a meeting in light of their recent hostility towards Ankara.
The Saudis have been wary of any initiative that would allow for the creation of a block made up of Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia and Iran. This sentiment is thought to have been conveyed to Bajwa who was told that cooperation between Pakistan and Turkey is unacceptable to Riyadh.
Sources in India have reported that if Pakistan refuses to accept Saudi Arabia’s demand the oil-rich Gulf nation may cancel its investment of $20 million in Gwadar Port. Such a move though is only likely to move Pakistan further towards Turkey.
In a move that is likely to widen the rift between Pakistan and the block of Gulf countries led by the UAE, Imran Khan said his country will not recognise Israel until the Palestine issue is resolved. He suggested that accepting the state of Israel is equivalent to giving up Pakistan’s stance on illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir which have been seized by India.
(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
“My conscience will never allow me to accept Israel, which is responsible for so many atrocities against the Palestinian people,” he says in an interview.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has categorically said that his government won’t recognise Israel until the Palestinian people have their own state.
“Our stance is obvious. It’s something which (Pakistan’s founder) Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah made clear in 1948 – that we can not accept Israel until Palestinians get their rights as per the two-state solution,” he said during a TV interview on Tuesday.
“If we accept normalisation of ties with Israel then we would have to give up the Kashmir cause.”
His comments come days after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said it is establishing diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, clearing the way for the Gulf country to accept the Jewish state.
Pakistan is among the few countries which say on its passport that its citizens can travel anywhere in the world except for Israel.
“My conscience will never allow me to accept Israel, which is responsible for so many atrocities against the Palestinian people,” Khan said.
UAE, which has historically been Islamabad’s key ally, is set to become the first Gulf country and the third Arab state after Egypt and Jordan to recognise Israel.
Since its independence from British India, successive Pakistani leaderships have fought the case of Kashmir, part of which is controlled by New Delhi.
In the same interview, Khan tried to counter reports about strain in Pakistan’s ties with Saudi Arabia, which some observers say hasn’t backed Islamabad wholeheartedly on the issue of Kashmir.
In recent days, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi warned Riyadh that Islamabad might be forced to look at alliances with other Muslim countries – in an apparent reference to Qatar and Turkey.
The minister also remarked to media that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation had been dragging its feet on the Kashmir issue and said Pakistan would be willing to convene a session outside the remit of the OIC to bring a spotlight on the issue.
“Saudi Arabia is our key ally. It has helped us in every difficult time,” Khan said.
He distanced himself from the comments of his foreign minister saying, “every country has its own foreign policy, they have their own policy and we have our own stance” on Kashmir.
Thirty-seven Kuwaiti lawmakers on Tuesday called on their government to reject a normalization deal between Israel and the UAE.
Thirty-seven Kuwaiti lawmakers on Tuesday called on their government to reject a normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In a statement, the members of parliament affirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people, “recalling the parliament’s stable and continuous position against normalization [with Israel] in all its forms”.
Crimes of the Zionist occupation cannot be removed: Kuwaiti MP’s
“The crimes of the Zionist occupation cannot be removed by normalization from the souls of our children,” the statement said.
The statement referred to the incursions of Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israeli attempts to Judaize the holy city.
The Kuwaiti government has maintained silence regarding the UAE-Israel normalization deal.
More than 30 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Kuwait issued a joint statement Sunday condemning an agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel to normalize relations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an “advanced democracy”, days after a deal between the two countries to normalize their relations.
According to Al-Qabas, a Kuwaiti newspaper, government sources affirm that “Kuwait maintains its position and will be the last country to normalize with Israel.” Beyond Kuwaiti officials, analysts and academics, few have addressed Kuwait’s position on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Adam Hoffman and Moran Zaga acknowledged in February that Kuwait is “the only Gulf state that opposes even discrete normalisation with Israel.”
In January 2019, Giorgio Cafiero wrote that “Kuwait has become the one GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] state that refuses to see warmer ties with Israel as prudent.” Even White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said to Reuters that Kuwait is “out there taking a very radical view on the conflict to date in favour of the Palestinians.”
Netanyahu was hosted by the UAE-run Sky News Arabia on Monday to tout the normalization agreement between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.
“The deal connects the UAE with Israel; both of them are advanced democracies and their societies are advanced,” Netanyahu was quoted by Haaretz as saying when asked about how the deal will serve regional peace.
The Israeli premier uploaded a video of the interview on his official Twitter account, before deleting it shortly afterwards.
The UAE is a hereditary monarchy where political freedoms are very limited.
The Gulf state is rated as “not free” by Freedom House, a US research group that studies democracy and political freedom throughout the world.
The UAE was given a score of 17 out 100 in terms of freedoms and 5 out of 40 in terms of political rights, a score less than Iran, China and Russia.
Abu Dhabi does not usually hold elections as all legislative, executive and judicial authorities are in the hands of the UAE’s Federal Supreme Council, a body consisting of the leaders of the seven emirates of the UAE.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced a deal between Israel and the UAE to normalize their relations.
Kuwaiti MP’s reject UAE-Israel deal
The UAE is the first Gulf state and third Arab nation to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel after Egypt and Jordan.
“We reject any kind of normalization with occupying Israel. Normalization is a dagger stuck in the Palestinian cause and in the back of Arab society,” the NGOs, including the Kuwait Lawyers Association, Kuwait Media Association and Kuwait Economic Association, said in a joint statement.
The statement said the “occupying Zionist” country continues its violations against Palestinian brothers and sisters, adding the Palestinian cause is the priority of Arabs.
The statement also emphasized that all kinds of rights of Palestinian people to resist the occupation are fully supported.
The deal to normalize UAE-Israeli ties was announced last Thursday by US President Donald Trump, leading to a delay in Israel’s controversial plans to annex large swathes of the occupied West Bank.
A joint statement by the US, UAE and Israel said the “breakthrough” would promote “peace in the Middle East region and is a testament to the bold diplomacy and vision of the three leaders,” referring to Trump, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Last week, Israel and the UAE announced establishing full diplomatic relations in a US-brokered deal that will see the Jewish state postpone plans for annexation of land it illegally occupies in the West Bank that is sought by the Palestinians for their future state.
Palestinian groups have denounced the normalization deal, saying it does nothing to serve the Palestinian cause and ignores the rights of Palestinians.
Refusal of Israel ties follows deal to normalize relations with United Arab Emirates, comes amid rumors of imminent diplomatic breakthrough with Bahrain
UAE-Israel deal is a “Zionist occupation”, must be rejected: Kuwait lawmakers
Kuwaiti officials rejected the possibility of normalizing ties with Israel on Sunday, telling a local newspaper that despite warming ties between the Gulf states and Jerusalem, it had no interest in changing its longstanding regional policies.
Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah said on Friday that the country will continue to uphold its firm stance against normalizing relations with Israel, according to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
Referring to a group picture that was taken at the Warsaw conference in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also present, Al-Jarallah said: “Anybody would be mistaken if they imagined that the group picture… signal[s] a change in Kuwait’s firm stand.”
He added that Kuwait would be the last to normalize relations with Israel, after a fair and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue is realized, with the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Al-Jarallah noted that Kuwait’s participation in the conference was a result of the country’s eagerness to discuss solutions on Palestinian affairs, as well as due to its close ties to the conference’s hosts.
“Kuwait took part in Warsaw peace and security conference under joint invitation from the United States and the Republic of Poland with which Kuwait has close relations and allied itself in some issues,” he said.
He added that Kuwait’s principle stance was highly appreciated by “the Palestinian brothers.”
The officials emphasized their country’s support for the Palestinians and asserted that any rapprochement would have to meet with their approval.
“The Kuwaiti position is consistent with its decades-old foreign policy approach in support of the Palestinian cause, as it is the premier Arab issue,” the officials said, according to a translation published by Reuters, adding that only “what the Palestinians accept” would be acceptable to Kuwait.
Kuwait’s rejection of closer ties to Jerusalem came three days after Israel and the UAE on Thursday announced an agreement to establish full diplomatic relations, marking the third such deal Israel has struck with an Arab state after Egypt and Jordan.
Israeli and UAE delegations will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security and the establishment of reciprocal embassies, according to the White House.
Media reports Thursday indicated Israel is in advanced talks with Bahrain about normalizing ties with the Gulf state, while Palestinian media cited an American official as saying that both Bahrain and Oman are expected to normalize ties with Israel in the near future.
On Saturday, Lebanese President Michel Aoun hinted at the possibility of peace talks with Israel.
Israel has fought two wars in Lebanon in recent decades, and Hezbollah, an Iranian-funded terror group sworn to the Jewish state’s destruction, is deeply embedded in the Lebanese government.
In recent years, the armed forces of Turkey, Israel and Iran have produced an array of loitering munitions, often dubbed “suicide” or “kamikaze” drones, that could very soon revolutionize the way wars are fought in that extremely volatile part of the world.
The proliferation of armed drones in the Middle East over the past decade is alarming. A significant number of Chinese-made drones have been imported by the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Jordan and been used in combat.
IAI Harop loitering munition on display at the[-] 2013 Paris Air Show JULIAN HERZOG VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
One field these three countries have made significant progress in is the building of loitering munitions, drones that could very soon fundamentally change the way wars are fought in the region.
The Turkish military plans to buy 500 Kargu-2 loitering munitions. The 15-pound ‘multicopters’ are designed so they can operate in ‘swarms’ of 20 and attack their target, evade or penetrate its defenses and detonate their three-pound warheads.
The drones carry three different types of warheads, each designed to afflict maximum damage on its specific target.
The tiny unmanned aircraft can operate autonomously, meaning they can search for and destroy targets using computer algorithms rather than completely relying on their operator’s guidance.
When the drones acquire their targets, they can increase their speed up to 90 miles per hour (mph) on their final attack run.
The CEO of Defense Technologies and Trade Inc. (STM), which builds the Kargu-2, claimed that the tiny drones even have facial recognition technology, meaning they can seek out and identify individual human targets and then assassinate them.
Such technology would be useful for Turkey, which has been assassinating senior members of its Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) adversary with targeted airstrikes over the past two years.
STM has stated that the drone “has been engineered specifically for anti-terror and asymmetric warfare scenarios.”
The use of the drones for swarm attacks could well give the Turkish military a new capability that one analyst described as “game-changing.”
Example of the Turkish-built Kargu-2 loitering[-] munition. STM
Israel has also developed a similar drone called the FireFly, designed for use in close quarters urban fighting.
The FireFly has a much smaller warhead compared to the Kargu-2, weighing a mere 400 grams. It will likely prove lethal against the opponents its designed to eliminate in support of its operators in combat, such as insurgents using sniper rifles or suppressing machine gun fire.
When the FireFly locates its target, it can reach a top speed of over 40 mph on its attack run.
The drones may soon be operated from infantry vehicles.
Israel already has similar loitering drones in operational use. The Uvision company makes the Hero-30 loitering munition, which is also designed to enable troops in combat environments to launch pinprick strikes against their opponents.
The Hero-30 can reach a top speed of over 100 mph and deliver a 3-kilogram warhead to its target. It is launched from a portable canister carried by infantry or special forces that produces no fire or smoke and, therefore, doesn’t potentially expose the position of the troops using it to their nearby opponents.
Larger Israeli loitering munitions are often designed for anti-radiation attacks, i.e., destroying enemy radars as part of suppression of air defense operations. IAI Harpy and the larger IAI Harop (also known as the Harpy 2) drones are designed primarily in order to fulfill these roles.
The Harop has a flying time of 6 hours and an impressive range of over 600 miles.
Iran also operates an array of loitering munitions and has supplied some to non-state actors in the region.
Iranian Ra’ad 85 drones reportedly have an operational range of around 80 miles and reportedly can reach a top speed of about 250 mph.
Unlike the tiny Kargu-2 or Hero-30 loitering munitions, the Ra’ad 85s are designed to strike larger targets with precision. Tehran showcased the drone’s capabilities during military drills in December 2016.
Three months earlier, the Iranian Navy unveiled another drone that officials claimed “can carry payloads of explosives for combat missions” and “collide with the target and destroy it, (whether) a vessel or an onshore command center.”
especially the most modern variant the Ababil-3. The older Ababil-2s are mostly used as target drones for training air defense personnel.
In September, loitering munitions and cruise missiles damaged Saudi oil facilities after managing to evade the kingdom’s air defenses. That attack aptly demonstrated the effectiveness of, and threat posed by, such weapons.
Tehran has also supplied such drones to non-state actors across the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, giving these groups an edge over their more heavily armed adversaries Saudi Arabia and Israel.
A wrecked Qasef-1 used by the Houthis on display. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PHOTO BY EJ HERSOM
The Houthis, for example, operate the Qasef-1 loitering munition that is based on the Ababil-2 and have used them to target Saudi MIM-104 Patriot air defense missile systems, which the kingdom relies upon to intercept ballistic missiles fired into the kingdom from its southern neighbor.
As a Conflict Armament Research report explained, the Houthi Qasef-1s crash “into the systems’ radar sets (specifically the circular main phased arrays) – directing the UAVs by programming their systems with open-source GPS coordinates of the Patriots’ positions.”
Knocking out the Patriot’s radars then enables the Houthis “to target Coalition assets with volleys of missile fire unhindered.”
On July 13, the Houthis also claimed they struck a large oil facility in southern Saudi Arabia. The announcement came shortly after the Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition claimed it shot down four missiles and six loitering munitions fired at the kingdom by the Houthis.
Those loitering munitions in question could well have been Qasef-1s.
All of this demonstrates that loitering munitions are growing ever more lethally sophisticated and could well change the cost and outcome of conflicts in the Middle East and beyond in the not-too-distant future.
