Malawi burns 20,000 expired AstraZeneca doses despite pleas

 Blantyre, Malawi (AP) — Malawi has burned nearly 20,000 doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines, defying calls not to do so from the World Health Organization and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Malawi’s Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda presided over the incineration Wednesday at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, the capital.

“We are destroying (these vaccines) because as government policy no expired health commodities are to be used,” she said. “Historically under the expanded immunization program of Malawi no expired vaccine has ever been used.”

She said the burning of the vaccines will prevent those with a negative perception of inoculations from using the excuse of expired vaccines from getting the shots.

“We are destroying publicly in order to stay accountable to Malawians. The vaccines that expired are not being used during the vaccination campaign,” she said. “On behalf of the government, I assure all Malawians that no one will be given an expired COVID vaccine.”

The burned vaccines were the remainder of 102,000 doses that arrived in Malawi on March 26 with just 18 days until they expired on April 13. All other doses of the shipment, donated by the African Union, were successfully administered, she said.

The health minister thanked WHO, the African Union and India for donating the vaccines.

“This has made it possible for Malawi to embark on the COVID vaccination campaign currently underway,” she said, without mentioning the WHO’s pleas not to burn the vaccines.

The calls not to destroy the vaccines came too late for Malawi, a small southern African country of about 20 million people, ministry of health spokesman Joshua Malango told The Associated Press.

“We had stopped observation of proper storage mechanisms and the vaccines would have still been damaged in one way or the other,” he said.

The destruction of the vaccines was witnessed by several top officials “in order to enhance transparency,” health secretary Charles Mwansambo said.

Malawi will still have adequate stocks of COVID-19 vaccines in both public and private health facilities, he said. The government has not said where it will get more vaccines.

Malawi’s got its first consignment of 360,000 AstraZeneca doses in early March from the U.N.-backed COVAX initiative which is providing vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. The country received another batch of 50,000 AstraZeneca doses from the Indian government. With the AU donation, Malawi had a total of 512,000 AstraZeneca doses.

So far 212,615 doses have been given in Malawi. The country has 34,216 confirmed cases, including 1,153 deaths, according to the Africa CDC.

Currently, the country is seeing a decrease in the disease, with the 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in Malawi dropping from 0.07 new cases per 100,000 people on May 4 to 0.04 new cases per 100,000 people on May 18. Official deaths from COVID-19 are also declining, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University.

Malawi, like many other African countries, has relied on the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been distributed by COVAX and the African Union. But now supplies of the vaccine have become more scarce because India, the main supplier of vaccines to COVAX, has stopped exports until it has adequately vaccinated large numbers of its population of 1.4 billion people.

The Serum Institute of India says it hopes to start delivering coronavirus vaccines to COVAX and to other countries by the end of the year. The delay will significantly set back global efforts to immunize people against COVID-19. India’s Serum Institute is the world’s biggest vaccine-maker. The company said in March that it was postponing all exports of coronavirus vaccines to deal with the explosive surge of cases on the subcontinent. At the time, the World Health Organization said it expected COVID-19 vaccine deliveries from India to resume by June and the interruption would affect about 90 million doses.

___

………………………………………………………………

Pro-Palestinian protesters boo Biden during Michigan visit

 Advocates and legislators have called on US president to take a harder line against Israel amid deadly escalation in Gaza.

United States President Joe Biden’s visit to an electric vehicle plant in Michigan has been met with boos as hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied to condemn his administration’s stance on Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Biden was also criticised on Tuesday for joking about running over a reporter who seemingly wanted to ask about the violence during a trip to the Ford Motor Company facility in Dearborn, a city at the heart of Michigan’s large Arab-American community.

As Biden pulled up in front of journalists while test driving a Ford electric truck, a reporter asked if she could make a question about Israel.

“No, you can’t,” said Biden. “Not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it. I’m only teasing.”

He continued: “Okay, here we go ready?” he said before speeding away in the truck.

At a rally in Lapeer Park, more than 1,000 people gathered a few killometres away from Biden’s event and booed at mentions of the Democratic president’s name.

“Joe Biden is going to hear from us today, one way or another,” lawyer Amer Zahr told the crowd, who chanted, “free, free Palestine”.

“He is funding the murder of our families,” Zahr said. “It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s that simple. This is not very complicated.”

Protesters also gathered at the Dearborn Police station and at the American Moslem Society mosque in Dearborn and marched through residential neighourhoods.

The Biden administration has come under increasing pressure to take a harder line against Israel during the ongoing bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, which has destroyed infrastructure and hundreds of Palestinian homes and what critics say amounts to collective punishment.

To date, 219 Palestinians, including 63 children, have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since the escalation began on May 10.

Twelve people in Israel, including two children, have been killed by rockets fired by armed groups from Gaza, which came after days of protests of the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem and resulting crackdowns and raids at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

On Monday, after days of public, largely unequivocal support for Israel, and silence on a ceasefire, Biden “expressed his support for a ceasefire” during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nevertheless, the administration has three times blocked a United Nations Security Council Joint Statement calling for a ceasefire, with the US saying it is working towards a resolution through its own diplomatic channels and a US envoy who has been sent to Israel.

In a speech during his visit to the plant, Biden made only passing mention of the conflict, addressing Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first woman of Palestinian descent to be elected to US Congress, as she sat in the audience.

Biden said he would pray that her grandmother and other relatives were well in the occupied West Bank.

“I promise you I’m going to do everything to see that they are,” Biden said.

Tlaib is part of a small group of progressive legislators within Biden’s party to vocally condemn US support of Israel, with several accusing Israel of abuses and “apartheid” – allegations rarely made by US legislators against the close ally – in recent days.

The US provides about $2.8bn in aid annually to Israel as well as millions of dollars in arms sales.

During his trip, Biden met Tlaib and fellow Michigan Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell.

Tlaib told Biden that “Palestinian human rights are not a bargaining chip and must be protected, not negotiated,” according to an account provided by an ally of the congresswoman to Reuters news agency.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

………………………………………………………………

US writer, feminist Gloria Steinem wins major Spanish prize

 MADRID (AP) — A Spanish foundation on Wednesday awarded one of the country’s most prestigious awards to U.S. writer and activist Gloria Steinem.

The jury that decides the Princess of Asturias Awards announced that Steinem has won its annual prize for communication and humanities.

It praised 87-year-old Steinem’s long career in journalism, her bestselling books and her dedication to feminism since the 1960s, ensuring her place as “one of the most significant and iconic figures of the women’s rights movement” in the United States.

The citation singled out her contribution to the legalization of abortion, pay equality and equal rights, as well as her fight against the death penalty, female genital mutilation and child abuse.

The 50,000-euro award ($61,000) is one of eight prizes, including in the arts, social sciences and sports, handed out annually by a foundation named for Spanish Crown Princess Leonor.

………………………………………………………………

UK counterterror mental health project raises ethical concerns

A six-year-old is among thousands suspected of ‘extremism’ to have been assessed in hubs set up by counterterrorism police, medical charity says.

London, United Kingdom – Thousands of people in the United Kingdom suspected of “extremism” – including a six-year-old – have had mental health assessments, often in the presence of police, as part of a scheme that blurs the line between “security and care”, a medical charity has claimed.

Medact released its findings on Wednesday and called for the “secretive” programme set up by counterterrorism police, in which mental health professionals work alongside police officers, to be scrapped due to ethical concerns.

The so-called Vulnerability Support Hubs were launched in southern, central and northern England as part of a pilot programme in 2016 and have since become an established part of the UK’s counterterrorism framework.

Almost 4,000 people were assessed between 2016 and 2020, Medact said.

Many arrived at the hubs having been referred as part of the government’s controversial counterterrorism strategy, Prevent.

Medact warned the assessment hubs project had effectively deployed “medicine as a security device” and has disproportionately targeted minority communities, particularly Muslims, since it began.

Medact, which made a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests regarding the scheme, said “counterterrorism policing’s often spurious and highly racialised pre-crime security concerns” had routinely influenced the medical treatment received by patients.

The charity said that assessments being conducted with police present could “potentially [cause] clinicians to vary their normal medical practice”.

It added that people had been detained under the Mental Health Act in cases where officers appeared to have pressured healthcare professionals, and reported instances where patients’ privacy rights were eroded, as police had greater access to their healthcare information.

“Improving mental health outcomes for patients is not the priority,” Medact said.

“Rather, the hubs’ main purpose emerges implicitly as helping police to mitigate the perceived risk posed by the individuals referred. These people, it bears repeating, often do not have mental health conditions and have not committed a crime, but have been referred on the basis of suspicion alone.”

‘Ethically dubious’

Medact said many who had been assessed were young adults and children, the youngest of whom was six.

Its findings also revealed that Muslims were at least 23 times more likely to be referred to a hub for “Islamism” than a white British person was for “far-right extremism”.

“This report shows that within Vulnerability Support Hubs, doctors may be working beyond their competence in helping to assess patients as a terrorism risk, which conflicts with guidance in good medical practice,” said Shazad Amin, a consultant psychiatrist and the deputy chair of MEND, a group which seeks to tackle Islamophobia.

In some case studies Medact reviewed, medical professionals were encouraged to monitor more closely the medication regimes of patients who had converted to Islam or were deemed to be “acting in an odd manner”.

“[The] monitoring of patients referred for ‘Islamic ideology’ risks pathologising normative Muslim practices,” said Amin. “The disproportionate rates of Muslim children being referred is also concerning – we need clarity on the reasons for this to ensure that judgements based on Islamophobia are not being made.”

Medact said healthcare staff often worked beyond their remits, such as by collaborating with police to engage in “‘deradicalisation’ work of dubious scientific validity”.

Hil Aked, a co-author of the report and Medact’s research manager, said: “This project claims to be about care, but it’s actually about helping police circumvent confidentiality, while co-opting health workers into activities beyond their remit, including surveillance and criminalisation.”

Aked said the project had combined “mental health stigma with Islamophobia” and accused counterterrorism police of attempting to keep it “secret because it’s so ethically dubious”.

“But they’re now rolling it out nationwide despite a complete lack of independent evaluation,” they said, before urging the UK health community to “call for an end to the scheme.”

Amanda C de C Williams, professor of Clinical Health Psychology at University College London, said: “The Vulnerability Support Hubs, as with the Prevent programme overall, appear to act on collective beliefs among police and security services, informed by stereotypes and suspicion, all of which disregard the mental health needs of the individuals gathered up in the net.

“It is a travesty of health practice that NHS staff are helping in these processes, the likely result of which is harm to the individuals referred, and widespread suspicion of mental health services by targeted communities.”

Police defend programme

When the project began, police said it was aimed at trying to learn more about a possible link between “mental health conditions and vulnerability to radicalisation”.

It was also planned to divert potential “terrorism” suspects away from crime.

The pilot was jointly funded by counterterrorism police, the NHS and the Home Office.

Nik Adams, the national coordinator for Prevent, refused Medact’s claims that the hubs are “secretive”, as he described instead a “partnership between policing and health specialists”.

The programme helps officers with “identifying and understanding the complex individual needs that are driving harmful behaviour and vulnerability to radicalisation”, Adams told Al Jazeera.

“This helps us … stop those who are vulnerable from criminalising themselves, or suffering serious harm.

“When an individual’s needs do not appear relevant to a terrorism-related risk, they are simply referred to other mental health or support services with appropriate recommendations for their care.”

He added that the staff involved respect ethical and clinical standards.

A UK government spokesperson did not directly address Al Jazeera’s questions concerning the hubs, but said the NHS had an “an important role to play in preventing vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism”.

“Healthcare practitioners recognise Prevent as part of their safeguarding duties,” the spokesperson said.

“A key part of Prevent is to enable front-line staff to recognise and safeguard individuals at risk from all types of radicalisation, referring them to pathways for appropriate support.

“Mental health conditions may contribute to a person’s wider vulnerabilities, though the relationship between mental health and radicalisation is complex.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

………………………………………………………………

Driver fined for destroying fence wall at President Akufo-Addo’s residence

A 46-year-old driver who destroyed the fence wall of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s house at Nima has been fined GHS960, or in default, serve an eight-week jail term.

Antaru Issaka is also said to have destroyed a telephone pole close to the President’s residence.

Issaka, charged with careless and inconsiderate driving, causing damage, driving without a licence, use of a motor vehicle with an expired licence policy and use of a motor vehicle with an expired roadworthy certificate, pleaded guilty.

The court presided over by Ms. Ama Adomako Kwakye, convicted Issaka on his plea and sentenced him accordingly.

Prosecuting, Sergeant Apeweh Achana said on May 15, 2021, at about 3:30 pm, Issaka, a mechanic, was driving a Mercedes-Benz ML 320 with registration number GS 5885 Z from Nima roundabout, heading towards Nima Junction through the El-Waleed Bin Talaa road.

Sergeant Achana said on reaching a section of the road near the residence of President Akufo Addo, Issaka alleged that the vehicle’s brake “failed” and to avoid hitting the vehicles in front of him, he veered off the road and rammed into the fence wall of the President’s residence, causing damage to the wall and a telephone pole.

The prosecution said during investigations, the accused was found to be an unlicensed driver.

Again, the prosecution said the vehicle’s insurance policy had also expired, and it had no roadworthy certificate.

……………………………………………………

Putin, Xi initiate projects in show of warming ties

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin joined Wednesday in a videoconference to initiate a series of nuclear energy projects, an event intended to display warming ties between two nations that have paired-up as the chief geopolitical rivals to the United States.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed Xi and Putin greeting each other via video link and announcing the start of construction of Russia-designed reactors at China’s Tianwan and Xudapu nuclear power plants.

“Russian and Chinese professionals are setting in motion a truly signature, flagship joint project,” Putin said during the ceremony, describing the technology as “powerful state-of-the-art Russian-made nuclear reactors compliant with all the safety regulations and the highest of ecological standards.”

The projects are due to be completed by 2026 and 2028, thus “making a great contribution …. to maintaining (China’s) energy security,” Putin said.

China has being seeking to reduce its overwhelming reliance on coal for electricity, but the political aspects of the event were at least as important as the economic implications.

Putin and Xi have developed increasingly close ties, based in part on their shared identities as autocratic leaders who repress all political opposition and demand total loyalty from those who have benefited economically from their rule.

At the same time, Moscow and Beijing have closely aligned their foreign policies, particularly when it comes to opposing U.S. calls for political liberalization and humanitarian interventions. Both have been highly critical of American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and are the leading voices in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that seeks to restrain U.S. influence in Central Asia.

China is also a key market for Russian oil and gas, and has in the past made major purchases of Russian warplanes and other military technology. Russia is a major customer for Chinese machinery and consumer goods, although its sanctions-hit economy has limited its purchases.

………………………………………………………………