Covid-19 digital passport: Is SA ready for a Dompas?

A VACCINE passport is a certification of either vaccination status or immunity following a natural infection that confirms you no longer pose a risk to others. File photo.

WHEN South Africa finally goes full steam with the vaccination process, the next big thing will be whether to implement a vaccine passport.

A vaccine passport is a certification of either vaccination status or immunity following a natural infection that confirms you no longer pose a risk to others.

It will enable us to go to an airport, a stadium or restaurant or open an app or flash a card, and be admitted to a place or experience that would have been denied to us during the pandemic.

This is happening in Israel. A “Green Pass” is available to anyone who has been fully vaccinated or has recovered from Covid-19. They have to show it to access facilities such as hotels, gyms or theatres. It is available as a paper certificate or in an app, which links users to their health ministry data.

The app is opening opportunities for international travel. Israel has struck deals with Greece and Cyprus, so Israeli citizens with passes can travel to those two countries. Experts have however expressed privacy concerns over the smartphone app. Estonia, one of the world's most advanced digital societies, is planning to start issuing digital certificates (also referred to as vaccine passports) in the form of a QR code, showing proof of vaccination by the end of April. Individuals will be able to download their unique code to prove they have been vaccinated and show how many doses they have received. They can either print it off or store it on a smartphone.

South Africa is far from implementing such a passport. Given a growing debate about the adoption of such passports across the globe, it might be wise for South Africa to start thinking about whether such passports should be used for Covid-19 and also what it would mean to implement such a digital certificate or passport.

If the decision is to use them, considerations should include where the data will be held, how the frameworks will be built to protect it, and the form of technology app or paper to be used. This should receive serious attention, focusing on whether Covid19 passport will endanger privacy, exacerbate inequity or even create a two-tiered society.

There’s a need to start thinking about this now. Vaccine passports are attracting Big Tech to create solutions. IBM’s Excelsior Pass is an app that draws on the state’s registry to verify vaccination status for people who want to attend events for which the state has set capacity limitations.

The AU and Africa CDC are developing a My Covid Pass to allow safe border crossing across the continent. The app is developed in partnership with Econet, a telecommunications group with operations and investments in Africa, Europe, South America, and the East Asia Pacific, offering products and services in the core areas of mobile and fixed telephony services, broadband, satellite, optical fibre networks, and mobile payment. The technology company is owned and founded by one of Africa's billionaires, Strive Masiyiwa.

Another involved tech organisation is PanaBIOS which is built by African technologists and AI thinkers to provide bio-surveillance and bio-screening technology, data, and insights to enable the creation of Public Health Corridors within the broader AU Open Corridors Initiative.

In the US, Microsoft is involved in the Vaccination Credential Initiative.

We’ve seen how tech companies can be vulnerable to data breaches and thereby violate the privacy of ordinary people.

Assuming there will be vaccine passports, there’s a need for vigilance. There’s no better time to start preparing for such digital certificates by ensuring that when they are implemented there’s societal consensus and that there is no violation of privacy principles in the long run.

As the technology world and health converge there’s a need to ensure that the custodians of health data have the best interest of society at heart as opposed to profit.

Covid-19 is shifting the health sector to use technology.

Users of such health technologies should have peace of mind that when they use such technologies, they will not regret using them in the future.

It is the responsibility of regulators to ensure that when health technologies are implemented there will be no harm to society in whatever form.

Faki's coincidental presence in Chad complicates already chaotic situation

African union commission Chairman Mousa Faki Mahamat just happened to be in Chad when a president who just won a questionable re-election to rule for another term after 31 years in power happened to lead an army on a battlefield to fight rebels.

Faki left Addis Ababa to N’Djamena under the pretext of catching a charter flight to Tripoli to engage stakeholders in the upcoming Libyan elections. This despite the fact that air traffic between Addis Ababa provides more flight options than between N’Djamena and Tripoli.

The Chadian military has announced that Deby’s son Mahamat Deby will succeed his father for 18 months before another election is held, but interestingly, DNT can report that the AU “is involved” in negotiations to prevent that from happening.

Asked if she thinks Faki is happy with hhis current position as AU Commission Chairman, and would not be interested in the leadership in Chad, DNT’s source opined that in his second term at the AU Commission, there is a clear end of the road, but in Chad, Faki can lead for much longer given the country’s history of leadership.

Faki was the leader of one of the factions that opposed Deby’s rule before he became the top diplomat of the continent.

Meanwhile the rebels are reported to be gaining ground and have vowed to remove Deby’s son from power. They appear stronger because they enjoy the support of the Russians.

Many global stocks lower after Wall St. decline

BEIJING (AP) — Major global stock markets were mostly lower Tuesday after Wall Street retreated from record highs.

London and Frankfurt opened lower, while Shanghai and Tokyo also declined. Hong Kong and Seoul advanced.

Wall Street futures gained a day after the benchmark S&P 500 index lost 0.5% on declines for tech, bank and energy stocks.

Investor optimism has been boosted by higher corporate profits, U.S. hiring and consumer confidence. Still, traders are uneasy about a rise in inflation and interest rates and renewed coronavirus infections that prompted some governments to reimpose anti-disease controls.

“Wall Street could be in for a few choppy trading weeks as more of the same strong earnings beats becomes the theme,” said Edward Moya of Oanda in a report.

In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London declined 0.3% to 6,982.77 and the DAX in Frankfurt lost 0.2% to 15,335.68. The CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.6% to 6,256.90.

On Wall Street, futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up less than 0.1%.

On Monday, the Dow lost 0.4%. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow hit highs on Friday.

Capital One lost 0.9% and Valero Energy slid 2.3%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite slid 1%. Chipmaker Intel fell 1.7%.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.1% to 3,472.94 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo tumbled 2% to 29,100.38. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.1% to 29,135.73.

The Kospi in Seoul rose 0.7% to 3,220.70 while the S&P-ASX 200 in Sydney sank 0.7% to 7,017.80.

India’s Sensex was up less than 0.1% at 47,978.05. New Zealand, Singapore and Jakarta declined while Bangkok advanced.

This week, 81 of the 500 members of the S&P 500 index are due to report earnings, as are 10 of the 30 members of the Dow, including Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications and Intel.

On average, analysts expect quarterly profits across the S&P 500 to be up 24% from a year earlier, according to FactSet.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude rose 82 cents to $64.25 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 90 cents to $67.95 per barrel in London.

The dollar advanced to 108.40 yen from Monday’s 108.11 yen. The euro gained to $1.2070 from $1.2039.

………………………………………………………………

Rwanda report blames France for ‘enabling’ the 1994 genocide

PARIS (AP) — The French government bears “significant” responsibility for “enabling a foreseeable genocide,” a report commissioned by the Rwandan government concludes about France’s role before and during the horror in which an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered in 1994.

The report, which The Associated Press has read, comes amid efforts by Rwanda to document the role of French authorities before, during, and after the genocide, part of the steps taken by France’s President Emmanuel Macron to improve relations with the central African country.

The 600-page report says that France “did nothing to stop” the massacres, in April and May 1994, and in the years after the genocide tried to cover up its role and even offered protection to some perpetrators.

It was made on Monday after its formal presentation to Rwanda’s Cabinet.

It concludes that in years leading up to the genocide, former French President Francois Mitterrand and his administration had knowledge of preparations for the massacres — yet kept supporting the government of then-Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana despite the “warning signs.”

“The French government was neither blind nor unconscious about the foreseeable genocide,” the authors stress.

The Rwandan report comes less than a month after a French report, commissioned by Macron, concluded that French authorities had been “blind” to the preparations for genocide and then reacted too slowly to appreciate the extent of the killings and to respond to them. It concluded that France had “heavy and overwhelming responsibilities” by not responding to the drift that led to the slaughter that killed mainly ethnic Tutsis and the moderate Hutus who tried to protect them. Groups of extremist Hutus carried out the killings.

The two reports, with their extensive even if different details, could mark a turning point in relations between the two countries.

Rwanda, a small but strategic country of 13 million people, is “ready” for a “new relationship” with France, Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vincent Biruta told AP.

“Maybe the most important thing in this process is that those two commissions have analyzed the historical facts, have analyzed the archives which were made available to them and have come to a common understanding of that past,” he said. “From there we can build this strong relationship.”

A top official in Macron’s office on Monday welcomed the report as a “decisive step” which showed “the willingness expressed by Rwandan authorities to write a shared history and, above all, to look to a common future.”

He also noted “unprecedented political trust” reached between Paris and Kigali as Rwandan officials have shown signs that they agree with the “irreversible rapprochement approach” taken by France.

Macron is considering traveling to Rwanda in the coming months, said the official, who spoke anonymously in accordance with the French presidency’s policies.

The Rwandan report, commissioned in 2017 from the Washington law firm of Levy Firestone Muse, is based on a wide range of documentary sources from governments, non-governmental organizations and academics including diplomatic cables, documentaries, videos, and news articles. The authors also said they interviewed more than 250 witnesses.

In the years before the genocide, “French officials armed, advised, trained, equipped, and protected the Rwandan government, heedless of the Habyarimana regime’s commitment to the dehumanization and, ultimately, the destruction and death of Tutsi in Rwanda,” the report charges.

French authorities at the time pursued “France’s own interests, in particular the reinforcement and expansion of France’s power and influence in Africa.”

In April and May 1994, at the height of the genocide, French officials “did nothing to stop” the massacres, says the report.

Operation Turquoise, a French-led military intervention backed by the U.N. which started on June 22, “came too late to save many Tutsi,” the report says.

Authors say they found “no evidence that French officials or personnel participated directly in the killing of Tutsi during that period.”

This finding echoes the conclusion of the French report that cleared France of complicity in the massacres, saying that “nothing in the archives” demonstrates a “willingness to join a genocidal operation.”

The Rwandan report also addressed the attitude of French authorities after the genocide.

Over the past 27 years, “the French government has covered up its role, distorted the truth, and protected” those who committed the genocide, it says.

The report suggests that French authorities made “little efforts” to send to trial those who committed the genocide. Three Rwandan nationals have been convicted of genocide so far in France.

It also strongly criticizes the French government for not making public documents about the genocide. The government of Rwanda notably submitted three requests for documents in 2019, 2020 and this year that the French government “ignored,” according to the report.

Under French law, documents regarding military and foreign policies can remain classified for decades.

But things may be changing, the Rwandan report says, mentioning “hopeful signs.”

On April 7, the day of commemoration of the genocide, Macron announced the decision to declassify and make accessible to the public the archives from 1990 to 1994 that belong to the French president and prime minister’s offices.

“Recent disclosures of documents in connection with the (French) report … may signal a move toward transparency,” authors of the Rwandan report said.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda praised the report commissioned by Macron as “a good thing,” welcoming efforts in Paris to “move forward with a good understanding of what happened.”

Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan long wanted for his alleged role in supplying machetes to the killers, was arrested outside Paris last May.

And in July an appeals court in Paris upheld a decision to end a years-long investigation into the plane crash that killed Habyarimana and set off the genocide. That probe aggravated Rwanda’s government because it targeted several people close to Kagame for their alleged role, charges they denied.

Last week, a Rwandan priest was arrested in France for his alleged role in the genocide, which he denied.

Macron’s office said the French government is committed to provide the “necessary means” to allow the “intensification” of legal proceedings against alleged perpetrators of the genocide. Activists estimate more than 100 of them are believed to live on French territory.

………………………………………………………………

Chadian president Idriss Deby dies of battlefield injuries after 31 years in power

 

Chad’s President Idriss Deby died of injuries sustained on the frontlines during a visit to the Sahel country’s north, where soldiers are battling rebels, an army spokesman said on Tuesday.

Deby, 68, “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.

DNT Correspondent reports that the army said a military council led by the late president’s 37-year-old son Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, a four-star general, would replace him.

It is not yet known if the injuries that caused Deby’s death were sustained from friendly fire, but one observer DNT spoke with said he cannot rule that out. Deby came to power in a rebellion in 1990, won a sixth term, as per provisional results released on Monday. Deby took 79.3 percent of the vote in the April 11 presidential election, the results showed.

………………………………………………………………

Johnson scraps Delhi trip; UK puts India on virus ‘red list’

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called off a trip to New Delhi amid surging coronavirus cases in India, as the U.K. imposed a travel ban on most visitors from the vast Asian nation.

The British and Indian governments said Monday that “in the light of the current coronavirus situation,” Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week as planned. They said Johnson and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would speak later this month and planned to meet in person later this year.

The long-planned trip would have been Johnson’s first foreign visit since the start of the coronavirus pandemic more than a year ago. It was originally scheduled for January but was postponed when infections soared in Britain.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock told lawmakers in the House of Commons that India would be added to a “red list” of countries with high coronavirus rates. Starting Friday, people who have been in India within the previous 10 days won’t be allowed into the U.K. The exceptions are U.K. citizens and returning residents of Britain and Ireland, who face 10 days of mandatory hotel quarantine on arrival.

Millions of people in Britain have roots or relatives in India, and Hancock said that “between our two countries we have ties of friendship and family.”

“I understand the impact of this decision, but I hope the House will concur that we must act,” he said.

Hancock said the U.K. has recorded 103 cases of a new virus variant that was first identified in India. Scientists are investigating whether it spreads more rapidly or is more resistant to existing vaccines than the original strain.

India reported 273,810 new infections on Monday, its highest daily rise since the start of the pandemic. It has now reported more than 15 million infections, second only to the United States.

The Indian Health Ministry also reported 1,619 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing the toll over 178,769. India has the fourth-highest number of deaths after the U.S., Brazil and Mexico but has a much larger population.

New Delhi, where Johnson and Modi had been due to meet, was placed under a weeklong lockdown Monday as the explosive surge in cases pushed the Indian capital’s health system to its limit. The soaring cases and deaths come just months after India thought it had seen the worst of the pandemic.

Johnson said it was “only sensible” to postpone the trip, given “the shape of the pandemic there.” He said he hoped Modi would be able to come to Britain for the Group of 7 summit in June, to which India has been invited as a guest.

The strain identified in India, known as B.1.617, is currently designated a “variant under investigation” by British health authorities, rather than a “variant of concern,” such as those first identified in southeast England, Brazil and South Africa.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said “my assumption from everything I’ve seen is that it will become a variant of concern.”

………………………………………………………………

COVID vaccine shortfall: The Abu Dhabi art dealer peddling jabs

An Abu Dhabi art gallery owner’s offer to procure COVID-19 vaccines for the Czech government highlights middlemen looking to cut side deals amid a global shortfall of jabs.

From a small office in an Abu Dhabi skyscraper, Ukrainian national Natalya Muzaleva and her Hungarian husband Istvan Perger run an art gallery, a real estate agency and an oilfield services company.

They have also pursued another venture: selling COVID-19 vaccines into Europe.

Muzaleva wrote a proposal to the Czech ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, reviewed by Reuters and dated February 24, offering to procure and sell at least one million doses to the Czech Republic of Covishield, the shot from Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca.

She said the vaccines would be supplied by an unnamed partner from AstraZeneca’s “UK and India plant” and delivery would follow within 45 days of payment being received.

While the Czech government did not take up the offer, it came to light on March 3 when Prime Minister Andrej Babis, singling Muzaleva out by name, told a news conference he would not support the “black market”.

Reached at her mobile number, Muzaleva said there had been “no deal” but declined to discuss the matter further. She did not respond to subsequent written questions. Reuters news agency could not establish whether Muzaleva was in a position to access the vaccines.

After the Czech government made the unsolicited offer public, AstraZeneca said that there should be no private-sector supply deals for the sale or distribution of the vaccine in Europe.

The drugmaker did not respond to requests for further comment for this story on Muzaleva’s proposal.

The Abu Dhabi media office also did not respond when asked whether authorities were aware of Muzaleva’s offer or whether they had investigated it.

Muzaleva’s email, details of which have not previously been reported, provides another window into how private individuals have tried to make money by offering shots to countries amid a global shortfall of vaccinations and as COVID-19 cases surge.

In neighbouring Germany, the government said it had received several offers of COVID-19 vaccines from intermediaries. Its response has been to tip off the manufacturer, the European Commission and, in some cases, international law enforcement.

“This pandemic is creating a gold rush atmosphere in which people try to do all kinds of deals,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference in Berlin on April 9 regarding efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our government buys exclusively from manufacturers,” he said, responding to a question on whether the government had received unofficial vaccine proposals and how it handled them.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), a European Union agency, said that a dozen European countries had reported offers by intermediaries to sell large quantities of vaccines, with the apparent aim of securing down payments before disappearing with the money.

Such intermediaries had been inactive or trading in very different types of goods until recently, OLAF said in response to Reuters questions. It declined to discuss specific cases.

Intermediaries are often located in third countries outside the EU “to make their identification more difficult and hard to investigate”, OLAF added.

In total, OLAF has observed scams or fake offers for around one billion vaccine doses, at a total asking price of almost 14 billion euros ($17bn). It knew of no cases where a government had paid for such a scam.

First come, first served

Muzaleva’s email was written in stilted English with poor punctuation.

“We will be privileged to source you the entire quantum of doses you require,” Muzaleva wrote to Czech Ambassador Jiri Slavik.

“I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience, it must be stressed that vaccines are allocated on a first come first serve basis and the demand is understandably large.”

The Czech embassy referred Reuters to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague.

“The embassy considered the offer to be credible also because it [the embassy] had received positive references [about the offer] from the leadership of the Hungarian embassy,” a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

Reuters could not independently confirm this. The Hungarian embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Hungarian government did not respond to requests for comment.

Muzaleva made the offer in her capacity as chief financial officer of a company that is registered in Abu Dhabi and called Enhanced Recovery Company Middle East LLC (ERC).

ERC’s business licence covers oil and gas services, general trading, trade-in tea, para-pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, according to an entry in the corporate registry that does not list its owners.

Para-pharmaceuticals are alternative medicines.

Muzaleva sought 100 percent payment from the Czech authorities in advance secured against a guarantee from the Commercial Bank of Dubai or First Abu Dhabi Bank, or a downpayment of 25 percent and the rest on delivery to ERC. Neither bank responded to requests for comment.

The Abu Dhabi PO Box address given by Muzaleva for ERC matches that of an art gallery she runs which shows mainly Ukrainian art, and a real estate agency. The agency is run by her husband, Perger, according to two current staff members and one former one contacted by Reuters.

Perger is copied on the email sent by Muzaleva and is named as the recipient in a draft letter of intent that she sent asking the Czech authorities to sign to secure the Covishield shots. Perger did not respond to written questions or a request to comment passed through company staff.

The Czech Republic has had a tough pandemic – its cumulative death toll from COVID-19 is the highest of any country in the world, measured as a share of the population, according to Our World in Data.

Thus far, the Czech Republic has administered 2.47 million doses of various vaccines as of Sunday.

The Health Ministry’s figures show it has administered first doses to 15 percent of the population, while 8 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Speaking about why the Czech government refused the offer, Babis told the March 3 news conference that the government had pledged to only buy AstraZeneca’s vaccine directly.

“We will not support some black market and I cannot imagine the state would pay up front to some company where this person called Natalya is signing,” Babis said, referring to the vaccine offer from Abu Dhabi.

The offer was exorbitant, he added.

“If the offer was for $22 for AstraZeneca and we can buy it for about $2.50, then I really cannot take it seriously.”

SOURCE: REUTERS

………………………………………………………………

Apple to let Parler back on App Store ahead of anti-trust hearing

Apple – which faces an anti-trust hearing on Capitol Hill this week – said on Monday that it will reinstate Parler to the App Store after a nearly four-month absence.

Apple Inc. will let the social-media app Parler back on the App Store after an almost four-month absence, the iPhone maker told U.S. government officials ahead of a congressional antitrust hearing later this week.

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant made the disclosure in a letter to Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, and Representative Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado. The social media app was removed from the App Store in January after it was one of the online networks used to incite violence at the Capitol in Washington. At the time, Apple said it pulled the app for violating content guidelines and said it would consider reinstating the service if Parler made changes to better moderate content.

Apple told the government officials in the letter that it found posts on Parler that “encouraged violence, denigrated various ethnic groups, races and religions, glorified Nazism, and called for violence.” Since the initial rejection, as well as rejections of other updates, Apple has “engaged in substantial conversations with Parler in an effort to bring the Parler app into compliance with the Guidelines and reinstate it in the App Store,” the company said in the letter.

Since Parler has proposed content moderation changes, Apple said it informed the company on April 14 that it will approve a forthcoming update. The letter didn’t specify the changes but noted that it requires apps to filter “objectionable material,” provide a way for users to report offensive content, offer the ability to block “abusive users,” and list contact information so users can reach the developer.

In Monday’s letter, written by Senior Director of Government Affairs for the Americas Timothy Powderly, Apple said it originally decided to remove Parler independently and that it did not coordinate with Google or Amazon.com Inc. Google also removed Parler from its app store, while Amazon barred Parler from running on its cloud service.

Apple’s decision to reinstate Parler comes ahead of a Wednesday hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights that is sponsored by Senator Lee and Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota. Kyle Andeer, Apple’s chief compliance officer, will speak at the hearing, the company said earlier this month.

“Apple’s power over the cost, distribution, and availability of mobile applications on the Apple devices used by millions of consumers raises serious competition issues that are of interest to the subcommittee, consumers, and app developers,” the Senators wrote to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook ahead of the hearing. “A full and fair examination of these issues before the subcommittee requires Apple’s participation.”

(Updates with additional context from the letter in the fourth paragraph.)

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

………………………………………………………………