Study Confirms New U.K. Coronavirus Variant Is Substantially More Transmissible

Victoria Forster Contributor
Healthcare FORBES
Cancer research scientist and childhood cancer survivor.


A new variant of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus recently discovered in the U.K. is significantly more transmissible, according to new research published yesterday.

The work led by scientists at Imperial College London has been published as a pre-print, meaning it has not yet been reviewed by external experts to assess the validity of the methods and findings.

The research combined genetic sequencing data and epidemiological findings to conclude that the SARS-CoV2 B.1.1.7 variant was likely to increase the R number of between 0.4 and 0.7 compared to other variants. This means that a person with Covid-19 caused by the B.1.1.7 variant is likely to pass it on to more people than if they have another variant of the virus.

“These analyses, which have informed UK government planning in recent weeks, show that the new variant of concern, B.1.1.7, has substantially higher transmissibility than previous SARS-CoV-2 viruses circulating in the U.K.,” said Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the scientists from Imperial College London involved in the study. “This will make control more difficult and further accentuates the urgency of rolling out vaccination as quickly as possible,” Ferguson added.

ABOUT 
Victoria Forster 

I am a postdoctoral research scientist focusing on childhood cancers and new, targeted cancer therapies. As a survivor of childhood leukemia myself, I am a determined advocate for research into better, less-toxic cancer treatments and how to reduce the long-term side effects of current drugs. I am an award-winning science communicator and have written for The Times, The Guardian and various cancer-focused outlets. I am also a 2017 TED Fellow, having done my TED talk on cancer survivorship and I regularly do public talks on topics ranging from ‘Why haven’t we cured cancer yet?’ to ‘Cannabis and cancer; hype or hope?’. I am passionate about using social media to communicate science and frequently share pictures and stories from my own laboratory work in real-time on my Twitter account @vickyyyf, alongside commentary about important research breakthroughs. You can find out more about me and how to get in contact via my website drvickyforster.com. All of my articles reflect my personal views and not those of my employer.

 

IMPERIALISM BY ANY OTHER NAME

NATO Depicts Western Sahara as Part of Morocco on New Map
© AFP 2020 / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen

AFRICA
17:32 GMT 02.01.2021Get short URL
by Tim Korso

The territory of Western Sahara is currently disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Neither of the sides enjoys broad support for their claims, but Morocco recently secured the backing of the US – the biggest contributor to NATO.

A map recently published by NATO in relation to its project the Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP) unexpectedly showed Morocco's border as extending into the territory of Western Sahara in accordance with Rabat's territorial claims. The land, disputed by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and its governing nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, was shown as a part of the North African state in an article published on NATO's website on 14 December.

© PHOTO : NATO
A screengrab of an article devoted to the Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP) from the NATO's website

While the alliance has not made any official statements in regards to its stance on the Western Sahara territorial dispute, the article in question was released shortly after one of NATO's key members, the US, recognised Morocco's claims. Washington did so in exchange for Rabat establishing diplomatic ties with Israel, thus becoming the sixth Arab state to do so.

Previous maps on the NATO website showing north-western Africa depicted Morocco within the UN-recognised borders, with Western Sahara separated from it by a line, stressing its undetermined international status, even though Morocco de-facto exercises control over 80% of the land. An interactive map on the official NATO webpage also draws a dashed line separating Western Sahara and Morocco’s UN-recognised borders.

© PHOTO : BENJAMIN NETANYAHU/TWITTER
Map Delineating Morocco from Western Sahara Seen in Netanyahu Clip Reportedly Triggers Fury in Rabat

The territorial dispute over Western Sahara has existed ever since Spain decolonised the land, with Morocco and the Polisario Front subsequently engaging in a dispute over it. The Polisario Front proclaimed the creation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with a government in exile located in Algeria. SADR controls a sliver of territory in Western Sahara's east and a small patch of land giving it access to the Atlantic Ocean. Several dozen states have officially recognised the claims of either Rabat or Sahrawi. The remaining countries, as well as the UN, urge the sides to the conflict to work out a peaceful and mutual solution to the dispute, and refuse to take sides in it.

Ivan Krastev: Coronavirus pandemic marks the 'real beginning of the 21st century'

The Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev believes that the idea of a new normal induced by the COVID-19 pandemic is not going to go away anytime soon.




DW: Mr. Krastev, it has been almost a full year since COVID-19 started changing the world. From your perspective, how did it change Europe?

Ivan Krastev: There was a certain way of life that you either liked or disliked, but which you took for granted. Suddenly, we realized how fragile it all was. For example, we took it for granted that we could travel anywhere we want. Then suddenly all this disappeared overnight.

It is fashionable to compare COVID-19 to a war. But recently, when I was flying back to Sofia via Vienna, I realized that, paradoxically, the pandemic is just the opposite of a war. During a war, the most crowded places are railway stations and airports because people are on the move all the time, traveling in different directions, because they're trying to escape something. And, during the pandemic, these places are the loneliest places in the world.

So the world being frozen was one of the ways in which things changed. And I believe that this idea of normality having been taken from us is going to stay with us.

Transit centers have become lonely places because of pandemic travel restrictions

On the one hand, everything is frozen, but, on the other, people all over world are now connected virtually or digitally ...

I totally agree. Eastern Europeans of my generation talk a lot about freedom and what it means. Sometimes, this feeling is very physical. For somebody of my generation, just crossing borders was one of the most physical kinds of freedom that you could experience. And then suddenly we had to rethink all this.

The moment people were locked down in their homes, we understood more clearly than ever before that we are living in a common world, because suddenly we were discussing the same issue everywhere in every single language.

And, secondly, this interconnectedness became virtual, which suddenly meant that I was equally close to a friend living on the other side of the street and to a friend on the other side of the world, because basically, when you cannot leave your home, both of them are equally distant.

What's more, we suddenly started getting interested in things that we would not normally be interested in. So closing people up in their apartments actually opened up the world for many of them, because they now understood how interconnected we are.



In the pandemic, "suddenly, we realized how fragile it all was," Krastev says

There is the third effect on Europe, too: I took part in a big survey conducted by European Council on Foreign Relations before the adoption of the recovery plan. Back then people said that they were disappointed by the initial reaction of the EU. Spaniards and Italians were particularly bitter, but the major conclusions that people drew from this crisis was that we need more European consolidation.

One of the reasons for the paradox — people wanted more Europe even when they believed Europe didn't perform at the start of the crisis — is that Europeans were suddenly seeing the world with different eyes.

Six months ago, you wrote a book about the pandemic's impact on life in the European Union. What has changed since then?

When it comes to the push for European integration, this was a radical breakthrough. However, there was also a great loss — and I find this the very interesting psychological part of the crisis. We had the first lockdown. Then came the summer and we had the expectation that the worst was probably over. Nevertheless, the scientists went on warning us that it's not over.


Watch video 04:20 Social effects of coronavirus

Then came the second lockdown and it became clear — at least from what I see in Austria and Bulgaria — that people were not willing to follow some of the governments' decisions. Basically, people were exhausted and some believed that the government was overreacting. Now, at least when it comes to vaccines and vaccinations, I find the level of mistrust we see in society is really starting to be self-defeating.

So you see more mistrust around Europe. Do you think this has anything to do with the conspiracy theories that are floating around?

Yes. Absolutely. We're hearing a lot of them. And you know, where I live, you can really see all kinds of conspiracy theories and all kinds of mistrust in the scientific community and the government. When the crisis started, I not only hoped, but also expected, that trust in the experts would increase a lot because, after all, when it comes to individuals' health, when it comes to relatives and friends, people are much more ready to trust doctors and experts than, say, on matters of foreign policy.

In places like Germany, the majority is basically following the advice. But in other countries — not only Eastern European countries: Look at France — you can see that the level of mistrust in any type of opinion from an expert is such that some people are willing to believe the wildest conspiracy theories.

VIDEO YouTube youth fight fake news in France

Is this threatening democracy in the European Union?

It is because trust is very important in a democracy. Where I come from, trusting governments all the time is not a good thing. Mistrusting the government is very important. But mistrust in the government should be based on a certain type of argument and a certain type of a rationale that empowers people.

What bothers me most about the level of mistrust that has been growing during this crisis is that people really start to mistrust the government and try to play on fears without basically being ready to suggest anything. For example,the opposition to the vaccine. This is a mistrust that paralyzes any kind of collective action.

It is interesting that nationalists and populists are not profiting from the current situation. A few months ago, many thought that politicians like Donald Trump and Viktor Orban might even grow stronger as a result of the crisis. But, in fact, the opposite has happened. Why?

This is certainly true. I would argue that populism is not rooted in fear, it is rooted in anxiety. This is a very diffuse kind of fear and people respond by looking for somebody to represent their anxiety. But then comes a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic, and they look for politicians who can take responsibility and solve problems.

And, in this respect, the populists didn't offer anything. Certainly, many of these strongman leaders who try to pretend they're in control don't like this crisis because to a certain extent, crises like these need leaders who have the capacity to cooperate with society.

So what can democracies do to persuade people?

Liberal democracies should show that the collective interest is the priority. People have the right to dissent. But they should be ready to bear the consequences of doing so. For example, I don't see anything abnormal in, for example, airlines deciding that they want to be sure that the people boarding their planes have been vaccinated, because this is protecting others.

Does the strength of democracy constitute a risk in these circumstances?

There is a real risk. And this risk comes in what I hope will be the last stage of this crisis, namely how to organize vaccination. We have here a classical clash, which is typical for any liberal democracy, between individual rights and public interest. For example, I, as an individual, have the right to say I don't want to be vaccinated. This is my personal decision for reasons that could be very different from other people's. Or I can decide I have the right to choose the vaccines that I want to use.

At the same time, in order for society to go back to normality, you need the critical number of vaccinated people. And this is something that, in my view, is critically important today.

Thousands of Germans protested pandemic measures in Berlin

So how we are going to regulate the clash between individual rights and returning to normality — bearing in mind that, every month the crisis is prolonged, it comes with a very high economic cost: The pressure to do something about the economy will grow.

Europe cannot allow itself to be the last to recover from this crisis, and socio-economic differences are going to be of critical importance.

What challenges will the EU project face in 2021? And how can we confront them?

I believe it is extremely important for Europe as a whole to get out of the crisis in 2021 and to return to a certain level of normality. This basically means rebuilding the economy, opening the borders and moving into a post-pandemic situation.

I also believe that the way the European Union positions itself in the world in 2021 is going to be critical. In this respect, relations with the United States and China are going to be of ultimate importance.

The pandemic marks the real beginning of the 21st century.

Ivan Krastev is a political scientist and the chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria.

Opinion: The pre-Trump world won′t come back | Opinion | DW | 07.11.2020

LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Pope recalls his youth playing football, dubs Maradona "poet"

Issued on: 02/01/2021 -

Pope Francis has told of his 'joy' and the 'miracles' of sport 

Vincenzo PINTO POOL/AFP/File

Rome (AFP)

With a ball made from rags and surging adrenaline, the young Jorge Bergoglio and his friends pulled off "miracles" playing football in the street, Pope Francis recalled on Saturday.

Now 84, the Argentine pope remembered "the joy, the happiness on everyone's faces," after the 1946 victory of his Buenos Aires team, San Lorenzo, in a 31-page interview about sport published Saturday in Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The first pope from Latin America called Diego Maradona a "poet" on the field, as he weighed in on the joys of sport.

Expounding on themes of hard work, sacrifice and camaraderie, Francis shared memories of the makeshift footballs that sufficed to exhilarate him and his boyhood friends.

"Leather cost too much and we were poor, rubber wasn't used so much yet, but for us all we needed was a ball of rags to amuse ourselves and to create miracles, almost, playing in the little square near home," Francis said.

Acknowledging he was "not among the best" of the footballers, Bergoglio played goalkeeper, which he characterised as a good school for learning how to respond to "dangers that could arrive from anywhere".

The pontiff -- described by the paper as "a pope of the people in the most noble sense of the term" -- touched on the need for teamwork and working towards a shared goal.

"Either you play together, or you risk crashing. That's how small groups, capable of staying united, succeed in taking down bigger teams incapable of working together," he said.

The interview, which took place in early December at the Vatican, also saw the pope condemn doping in sport and stress the need to nurture talent through hard work.

"It's not only a cheat, a shortcut that revokes dignity, but it's also wanting to steal from God that spark which, through his mysterious ways, he gave to some in a special and greater form," he said.

Francis called the Olympics "one of the highest forms of human ecumenism", involving "sharing effort for a better world".

- Fragile poet -

He recalled meeting Argentine footballer Maradona, who died in November, during a "match for peace" in Rome in 2014.

"On the field he was a poet, a great champion who brought joy to millions of people, in Argentina as well as Naples. He was also a very fragile man," Francis said.

The pontiff said that after learning of Maradona's death, he prayed for him and sent a rosary to his family with some words of comfort.

The pope, who has made inclusion of marginalised people one of the central themes of his papacy, shared his amazement and emotion at the accomplishments of the athletes who compete in the Paralympic Games, while expressing disappointment at "rich champions" turned "sluggish, almost bureaucrats of their sport."

Sport, he said, was marked by the efforts of so many of those who, "with sweat on their brows" beat those born with "talent in their pockets"

"The poor thirst for redemption: give them a book,* a pair of shoes, a ball and they show themselves capable of unimaginable achievements."

© 2021 AFP

Five women killed in Yemen wedding attack

SAUDI WAR ON CIVILIANS

Issued on: 02/01/2021 - 

Yemen has been torn apart by years of civil war; here a fighter loyal to the government battles with Huthi rebel forces in a November 2020 photograph - AFP


Hodeida (Yemen) (AFP)

Five women were killed when a projectile exploded at a New Year's Day wedding party in Yemen's Red Sea city of Hodeida, the latest atrocity in the war-torn nation.

The government and Huthi rebels blamed each other for the Friday night attack near Hodeida's airport, a frontline between their forces on the edge of the key Huthi-held port.

It came just two days after at least 26 people were killed in blasts that rocked the airport of the southern city of Aden as government ministers got off a plane.


In Hodeida, "the explosion struck at the entrance to a complex of several wedding halls", a witness told AFP, as a party was being held for a newly-married rebel supporter.

Local officials said five women were killed, and children were among seven others wounded, when what appeared to be an artillery shell hit the wedding venue.

General Sadek Douid, the government representative in a UN-sponsored joint commission overseeing a truce, condemned it as "an odious crime committed by the Huthis against civilians".

Hodeida's Huthi-appointed governor, Mohammed Ayache, said on Al-Masirah television, which is run by the Shiite Muslim rebels, that "the forces of aggression never hesitate to blame others for their crimes".

Saudi-backed government forces launched an offensive in June 2018 to retake Hodeida, the main entry point for humanitarian aid to the Arab world's poorest country.

- Humanitarian catastrophe -

A ceasefire has been partially observed since December of that year.

On December 4, however, at least eight people were killed in bomb attacks on an industrial complex in Hodeida, a few days after the bombardment of residential areas that killed five children and three women.

Huthi military camps were targeted in air raids by the Saudi-led coalition backing the government, in retaliation for an attack on a Saudi oil tanker that was blamed on the rebels.

In the face of the highly volatile situation, Yemen's new power-sharing government vowed Thursday to restore stability, a day after the deadly blasts on the airport tarmac in Aden, the south's main city.

All cabinet members were reported to be unharmed, in what some ministers charged was an attack by the Huthi rebels, who have controlled the capital Sanaa since 2014 September and are based in northern Yemen.

Foreign Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak told AFP that the new government was up to tackling the challenges facing Yemen.

"The government is determined to fulfil its duty and work to restore stability," he said. "This terrorist attack will not deter it."

The new government includes supporters of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, as well as other parties.

While all in the new government oppose the Huthi rebels, they are deeply divided, and secessionists and forces loyal to the central government have sporadically clashed in and around Aden.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed and millions displaced in Yemen's grinding six-year war, which has triggered what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

© 2021 AFP

TRUMP'S KILLER KULT

US court clears the way for the only woman 

on death row to be executed

THE HORROR OF HER CRIME IS MATCHED 

ONLY BY THE HORRROR OF HER SENTENCE  

#ENDTHEDEATHPENALTY

Issued on: 02/01/2021 - 

This undated file image shows Lisa Montgomery, the only female prisoner waiting on America's death row. AP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The ruling, handed down Friday by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, concluded that a lower court judge erred when he vacated Lisa Montgomery’s execution date in an order last week.

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss had ruled the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled Montgomery’s execution and he vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons scheduling her death for Jan. 12.

Montgomery had been scheduled to be put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, in December, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the time to file a clemency petition.

Moss concluded that the under his order the Bureau of Prisons could not even reschedule Montgomer’s execution until at least Jan. 1. But the appeals panel disagreed

First in five executions in Trump’s final days goes ahead despite outcry

Meaghan VerGow, an attorney for Montgomery, said her legal team would ask for the full appeals court to review the case and said Montgomery should not be executed on Jan. 12.

Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004. She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then cut the baby girl from the womb with a kitchen knife, authorities said. Montgomery took the child with her and attempted to pass the girl off as her own, prosecutors said.

Montgomery’s lawyers have argued that their client suffers from serious mental illnesses. opposes the death penalty and his spokesman, TJ Ducklo, has said he would work to end its use. But Biden has not said whether he will halt federal executions after he takes office Jan. 20.

(AP)

PROJECT DEMOCRACY A FAIL
Fifth Afghan journalist killed in two months in series of 'targeted' attacks

Issued on: 02/01/2021 - 

Since the beginning of November 2020, five Afghan journalists have been killed in their country, including Malala Maiwand, who was buried here by her relatives on 10 December 2020 in Kabul. AP - STR

Text by: NEWS WIRES

An Afghan journalist and human rights activist was shot and killed on Friday by unidentified gunmen in western Afghanistan, the fifth journalist to be killed in the war-ravaged country in the past two months, a provincial spokesman said.

Bismillah Adil Aimaq was on the road near Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor, returning home to the city after visiting his family in a village nearby, when gunmen opened fire at the vehicle.

According to the provincial governor's spokesman, Arif Abir, others in the car, including Aimaq's brother, were unharmed. Aimaq worked as the head of the local Radio Sada-e-Ghor station and was also a human rights activist in the province.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid insisted the insurgents were in no way connected with the shooting.

Aimaq was the fifth journalist slain in attacks in the past two months. Last week, Rahmatullah Nekzad, who headed the journalists’ union in eastern Ghazni province, was killed in an attack by armed men outside his home. Nekzad was well known in the area and had contributed to The Associated Press since 2007. He had previously worked for the Al Jazeera satellite TV channel.

Afghanistan's intelligence department claimed two perpetrators in that attack were subsequently arrested and aired video recordings of the two, with their purported confessions to the slaying and to being Taliban. However, the Taliban denied involvement in the killing, calling it a cowardly act. Large swaths of Ghazni province are under Taliban control.

The Islamic State group, blamed for a series of attacks on a range of targets in Afghanistan in recent months, claimed it had killed another Afghan journalist earlier in December. Two assailants opened fire and killed TV anchorwoman Malala Maiwand as she left her house in eastern Nangarhar province. Her driver was also killed.

In November, two journalists were killed in separate bombings.

Relentless attacks on journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the relentless attacks on journalists in Afghanistan. The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has called the country one of the world’s deadliest for journalists.

Earlier this week, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the targeted killings of Afghan journalists have negatively impacted reporting in the country and led to self-censorship in the media community. The statement said a number of female journalists have left their jobs in the provinces due to ongoing threats.

The statement further says that the majority of journalists are not able to go out in some provinces openly and government has neglected when they reported the threats they were facing.

Targeted killing and violence have increased across Afghanistan even as the Taliban and Kabul government continue to hold peace negotiations that began in September. The talks, after some recent procedural progress, have been suspended until early January and there is speculation the resumption could be further delayed.

(AP)

Amid shortages, scientists weigh benefits of a single Covid-19 doses versus two

Health officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess”

THEY ARE TORIES AFTER ALL 

Issued on: 02/01/2021 - 

Syringes to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine are seen at a nursing home in Burgbernheim, Germany December 28, 2020. 

© REUTERS - Hannibal Hanschke

Text by:FRANCE 24


Some scientists have called for governments to give out single Covid-19 doses after preliminary research suggested they appear to provide a degree of protection, despite manufacturers recommending two doses. But other scientists warn that one inoculation is not enough to confer durable immunity.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyses of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines found that a single dose of either appears to provide some protection against the coronavirus.

The efficacy of one Moderna vaccine dose was around 80 to 90 percent, researchers found in stage 3 trials ahead of its approval by the US regulator in January.

Scientists found that the Pfizer-BioNTech jab is 70 percent effective with one dose compared to 95 percent effective with two.

After approving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, British regulators said it was around 70 percent effective in the 12 weeks after the first dose.

With supplies of the vaccines limited across the globe, such findings are raising a key question for governments and medical professionals: Does it makes more sense to vaccinate fewer people with both doses for maximum protection or is it better to spread out vaccinations, inoculating more widely but less completely?

Some have suggested that governments should aim to give as many people as possible a single dose, instead of using half the vaccines currently available on second doses.

Moderna was “was not shy about showing that a single dose was so effective, and they do the math right”, Chris Gill, an infectious disease specialist at Boston University, told WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate.

Consequently, governments should give out as many single doses as possible as soon as possible, Gill argued: “We could save a lot of lives. We can give two doses to people now, but in the interim a bunch of people who could have gotten the vaccine are going to die. Is this not an example of where, yet again, the perfect is the enemy of the good?”

In the UK, where a new, more contagious coronavirus strain is accelerating transmission, former prime minister Tony Blair wrote an opinion piece in The Independent on December 22 arguing that the British government should use “all the available doses in January as first doses, that is, not keeping back half for second doses” in the expectation that “even the first dose will provide substantial immunity”.

But others caution that more research needs to be done, and that until then it makes more sense to administer the vaccines in two separate doses as designed.

“If the second vaccine dose were superfluous, and we knew [it] didn’t extend the duration of protection, the principle would be to protect as many people and save as many lives as possible,” Barry Bloom, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, told WBUR.

Pfizer scientists warned in a statement on Thursday not to be overly confident that one dose would offer enough protection in the long term.

There is “no data” showing that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days, they wrote.

Administering a second dose is important because it increases the chances of getting life back to normal by giving people lasting immunity, suggested Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, head of the department of immunity and infectious diseases at Henri-Mondor de Créteil Hospital near Paris. “The purpose of a second dose is to make immunity last, and as things stand there’s no evidence saying that a single dose would confer the same level of protection,” he told French daily Le Monde.

The French government will still give out two doses as recommended, Health Minister Olivier Véran told France Info on Saturday. France will follow the manufacturers’ guidelines in administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which France’s national regulator approved on December 24. Inoculations started three days later.

‘No data’ to back UK mix-and-match jabs

Across the Channel, the British government changed its vaccine guidelines on December 30 to allow the second dose of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs to be administered up to 12 weeks after the first, instead of three weeks as originally planned.

The UK government also said in guidelines published on December 31 that, in rare instances, people could be given a mix and match of two Covid-19 vaccines – despite a lack of evidence about the extent of immunity offered by mixing doses.

Both vaccines are meant to be administered as two shots, given several weeks apart, but they were not designed to be mixed.

Yet British health authorities said that if the “same vaccine is not available, or if the first product received is unknown, it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product to complete the schedule”.

Mary Ramsay, head of immunisations at Public Health England, said this would only happen on extremely rare occasions, and that the government was not recommending the mixing of vaccines.

“Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all,” she told Reuters.

Some cautioned that the new UK guidelines might have been born out of desperation.

“There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University, told The New York Times.

Health officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess”, Moore said.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

Pakistan's Arabian Sea islands risk environmental disaster

Pakistan's federal government is planning to build modern cities on the Bundal and Dingi islands, which could ease pressure on Karachi, the country's financial hub. Experts say it would be an ecological catastrophe.

The government wants to turn the Bundal Island into a mammoth real-estate project

The government's decision to establish the Pakistan Islands Development Authority and bring the Bundal and Dingi islands off the Karachi coast under federal authority shocked Majeed Motani, a 70-year-old fisherman.

"Our forefathers came to these islands centuries ago. Now, the government is trying to occupy them. It is a threat not only to our livelihoods but also to the island mangroves," Motani told DW.

Experts say the mangroves along the uninhabited islands are crucial to the environmental protection of Karachi, Pakistan's most-populous city and financial hub.

Bundal Island in the Arabian Sea is part of the Indus Delta region, which is protected under the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. It is already facing multiple threats – increasing air and water pollution, rising sea level, exploitation of resources, hunting, and habitat loss.

Moreover, Prime Minister Imran Khan said in September he wanted to turn these islands into mammoth real-estate projects, with a proposed investment of $50 billion (€41 billion) that would also help create 150,000 jobs. The proposed project aims to ease the urbanization pressure on Karachi, a city of more than 20 million people.

Watch video  01:33 Pakistanis planting trees to tackle climate change

DW has seen a Maritime Affairs Ministry tender notice, which seeks proposals from national and international firms for the urban development project.

Environmentalists and leaders of the provincial Sindh government are opposed to the Bundal Island "New Dubai" housing project.

"The federal government issued an unconstitutional ordinance. The Sindh government will resist it for the sake of our environment and our people," Murtaza Wahab, a spokesperson for the provincial government, told DW.

Ali Haider Zaidi, the federal minister for maritime affairs, and Malik Amin Aslam, the federal minister for climate change, did not respond to DW's request for a comment.
Diminishing mangroves

Environmentalists say that coastal mangroves help minimize the risk of natural disasters, including urban flooding, and work as natural barriers to avoid tsunamis. For decades, Pakistani authorities have neglected these small islands off the coast of Karachi.

"I have been filming the biodiversity on these islands for many years. A short boat ride from the mainland will take you to once-pristine mangrove forests, which are now in a terrible shape. Tree stumps dot the shores, with mud crabs clinging to the remnants of the once mighty mangrove," Mahera Omar, a Karachi-based filmmaker who covers environmental stories, told DW.

"At this rate of habitat loss, several of Karachi's marine species are at risk of extinction," she added.

The fishing community on the island is worried about its livelihood

Arif Belgaumi, an architect and town planner, slammed the government's island housing plan, saying a construction of the scale that is being proposed for the Bundal Island Project will destroy the mangroves there.

"It will also cause a tremendous environmental damage to the seabed. Also, the housing project will involve construction of roads, shorelines, bridges and other concrete infrastructure. It will pollute the area and damage the island's natural environment," he told DW.

Livelihood at stake

The fishing community is worried that the development of these islands could threaten their livelihood.

"The development of these islands will displace at least 2.5 million fishermen and their families," Mohammad Ali Shah, the founder of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), told DW.

"We have been protesting against the proposal since the government came up with it. We will not allow anyone to exploit our resources. We will go to court if the government starts illegal construction on these islands," Shah added.

Osama Malik, an Islamabad-based legal expert, urges the Pakistani government to fulfill its duties under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the ILO Convention 107 on Indigenous and Tribal Populations. "The conventions require Pakistan to respect the economic and cultural rights of the indigenous fisherfolk, who for centuries have earned their living around these two islands," Malik told DW.

Filmmaker Omar says the government needs to reconsider its island development plans as "new cities should not be an ecological nightmare for locals."

Watch video 02:32 Dams threaten Pakistan's unique Indus River dolphin

JUST A MAN DOING THE RIGHT THING

Julian Assange: Saint or sinner?

The court of public opinion remains undecided on Julian Assange. But the fate of the WikiLeaks founder is currently in the hands of a London judge who will decide whether to extradite him to the US.

Julian Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006

Julian Assange is regarded by many as a hero who uncovered war crimes and corruption and is the father of modern investigative journalism, having dealt with huge amounts of leaked data. But others see him as a traitor, an enemy of the state, an accomplice to Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps the man responsible for Donald Trump's 2016 election as president of the United States — or all of the above.

Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg (r)

His disgruntled former employee Daniel Domscheit-Berg once characterized Assange as "brilliant, paranoid, and obsessed with power" and accused him of turning WikiLeaks into an "ego trip" that he had "tied too closely to himself and his belligerent personality."

German magazine Der Spiegel quotes Assange as saying "When you are much smarter than the people around you, you develop an enormous ego — and you get the feeling that any problem can be solved if you put your mind to it."

Assange's alleged paranoia, in turn, has proven justified. Since 2010 he has been on a "Manhunting Timeline" list of US intelligence agencies, the online publication Intercept reported, citing secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden. These mention extensive intelligence operations whose goal is to investigate, stop, or at least damage WikiLeaks.

Watch video 02:06 Assange in London court for US extradition hearing

Rape accusation

Just when Assange was at the pinnacle of his fame, his reputation was massively damaged for the first time. It was the summer of 2010 and the release of the "Collateral Murder" video had made WikiLeaks a household name around the world. With the "Afghan War Diaries," Assange became a recognized figure in journalism.

Then, on August 21, 2010, the Swedish tabloid Expressen reported that Assange was the subject of rape allegations. This became the basis of an investigation that would go on for years — although no official charges were ever brought against him.

The accusation came from two women who walked into a Stockholm police station. Assange, who has a reputation for promiscuity, had sex with both of them during a visit to Stockholm in August 2010. One woman said he tampered with a condom during sex, while the other accused him of having sex with her while she was asleep.

Assange said he was not concerned about any proceedings in Sweden, but believed the Swedish allegations were designed to discredit him and were a pretext for his extradition from Sweden to the United States.

Günter Wallraff, a renowned German investigative journalist, told DW that there had been a "character assassination" against Julian Assange.

"He has been accused of the worst thing you can accuse someone of in an enlightened society: rape," he said. The accusations against Assange were contrived to make the man who had uncovered so much a persona non grata, Wallraff believes, citing research by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer.

German author Günter Wallraff has been campaigning to organize support for Julian Assange

Melzer, a Swiss professor of international law, speaks fluent Swedish. As such, he has been able to inspect a wealth of original documents. In an interview with the Swiss publication Republik, Melzer raised accusations against the Swedish authorities in early 2020 for the first time, arguing that evidence had been manipulated for political reasons.

Watch video 02:02 Hearing on Assange extradition to US begins in Britain

Spokesman for Putin?

Criticism of supposed links to Moscow first emerged in 2012. Julian Assange continued his journalistic work, initially under house arrest and then as a political refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy in London because of the Swedish extradition request that was later filed.

He produced a political talk show called "The World Tomorrow" with his own company, Quick Roll Productions. The client was Russia's state-owned foreign broadcaster Russia Today. The first interview guest was Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon, via video link. It was the first international interview with the controversial Hezbollah leader in six years.

But was it a scoop? In Germany, there was a barrage of criticism. The main criticism leveled at Assange was that he was too uncritical of Nasrallah.

He was also criticized by the New York Times and the Guardian, whose former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding called him a "useful idiot" of the Russian propaganda machine. The BBC, in turn, focused on the mediation offers Nasrallah had made for the Syrian Civil War.

In 2012 Julian Assange sought political refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy in London

Assange produced 12 episodes of his talk show with such diverse interlocutors as current Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky.

Trump's election aid?

In the middle of the 2016 US presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails from Democrats, including their presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. These not only damaged Clinton's election campaign against Donald Trump, but also Julian Assange's reputation, according to investigative reporter Wallraff.

In this case, public interest in the information was relevant, showing some of the irregular influence of the Democratic party leadership in favor of Hillary Clinton to the detriment of Bernie Sanders in the primaries.

Watch video 28:35 WikiLeaks - Public Enemy Julian Assange

Wallraff says accusations of Assange's closeness to Russia are undermined by WikiLeaks publications on Putin or human rights violations in Russia.

Andy Müller-Maguhn, former spokesman for the Chaos Computer Club, said he visited Assange almost every month during his time in the embassy in his capacity as chairman of the Wau-Holland Foundation, which campaigns for freedom of information. Regarding Assange's stance on the US election campaign and specifically Hillary Clinton, Müller-Maguhn reports "extremely critical disputes about which comments are still in the spirit of journalism and freedom of information and when it starts to relate to personal disputes."

But Müller-Maguhn also told DW he can understand Assange's position. "Hillary Clinton has said publicly several times that he should be killed with a drone," he said. "She was secretary of state when he published the embassy dispatches in 2010, the Afghan and Iraqi war diaries. Whether this woman became president was a question of life and death for him. You can't blame him for what he did."

Clinton denied she ever made the comment about wanting to kill Assange with a drone, and media fact-checkers have described the alleged remark as a rumor.

This article has been translated from German.

DW/AFP