A blunt US letter aims to revive the Afghan peace process, but jolts women on a special day

“They believe that because women want justice and accountability, they will be an impediment to the peace process and that’s why their voices are being excluded these days.”

Issued on: 09/03/2021

Women attend an event to celebrate International Women's Day

 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on March 8, 2021. © Noorullah Shirzada, AFP

Text by: Leela JACINTO

A leaked letter from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ashraf Ghani instructing the Afghan president to comply with new initiatives to restart the peace process to enable a US troop pullout caught Afghan women’s rights activists by surprise on International Women’s Day and underscored the disconnect between Washington’s words and deeds.

International Women’s Day has been a major event on the official Afghan calendar since the 2001 US invasion toppled the Taliban. Over the past two decades, schoolgirls, teachers, activists, female politicians and professionals have attended numerous events across the country on March 8, marking women’s rights achievements and highlighting the many challenges still confronting Afghan women.

This year, the pandemic forced the annual Women’s Day commemorations online, but Afghan leaders as well as ambassadors of donor countries tweeted greetings, posted statements and bestowed awards in virtual ceremonies.

On official Taliban platforms though, March 8 passed without a mention.

Over the past seven years, the Taliban has engaged in a peace process in Doha, Qatar, which has seen them negotiating in luxury hotels with US and Afghan government delegations that include female negotiators, employing technology and media-savvy strategies that earned them a “Taliban 2.0” moniker, distancing the Islamist movement from its brutal reign in the 1990s.

But on Monday, March 8, while the world marked International Women’s Day, the Taliban decided to commemorate a 2002 engagement with US forces in a remote valley near the Afghan-Pakistan border that neither side won. A statement posted on Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid’s Twitter account had all the old flourishes of “jihadi heroism” but no mention of women, whether they were present or had any opinions about the “historic” battle.

Almost two decades later, Afghan women’s rights activists say their voices are once again being drowned out, this time not by the clamour of war, but in a rush to hammer out a peace that can enable a US troop pullout without adequate security and human rights guarantees for civilians on the ground.

‘We will never compromise our dignity’

Afghanistan, with its “forever war”, is the most vexing foreign policy dossier that US President Joe Biden inherited from his predecessor. Shortly after Biden’s inauguration, the White House announced a review of a February 2020 US-Taliban agreement, which was welcomed by top Afghan officials.

While all parties agree on the need to end one of the modern world’s longest-running conflicts, the timetable of the Trump era agreement, that will see a pullout of US troops in Afghanistan by May 1, is widely viewed as hasty and destabilising.

But barely two months before the May 1 deadline, Afghans this week have been jolted by a letter from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, which was leaked by the Afghan Tolo TV station on Sunday.

Blinken’s bluntly worded letter instructed the Afghan leader to display “the urgent leadership that President Biden and I ask of you in the coming weeks” while making it “clear” that the US is “considering the full withdrawal of our forces by May 1st”.

While US State Department officials have refused to comment on the veracity of the letter, Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of Afghanistan peace council, confirmed to reporters in Kabul that a similar letter was sent to him. The US has asserted that “all options remain on the table” for its 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and stressed that no decisions have been made about its military commitment after May 1.

The letter sparked a flurry of denunciations by top Afghan officials that overshadowed International Women’s Day commemorations and underscored the threats to the country’s democratic and civil society gains over the past two decades.

“They have the right to decide on their 2,500 troops. We also have the right to decide on the fate of our 35 million people," Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh told an event in Kabul. "We will never compromise our dignity. Our dependency on the outside world does not mean we obey illegitimate demands," he added.

The letter refers to new “roadmap for peace” proposals, which were also leaked by Tolo TV, and informed Afghan leaders that Washington will ask the UN to convene a meeting of envoys from Russia, China, India, Iran and the US to “discuss a unified approach to supporting peace in Afghanistan”.

Turkey will also be asked to host of meeting of senior Taliban and Afghan government representatives, noted Blinken.

“These are the first indications of this administration’s policy review on Afghanistan,” explained Michael Kugelman from the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center in an interview with FRANCE 24. “It seems this administration is going to make a very ambitious effort to create better conditions on the ground, a more fortuitous environment for a troop pullout, and the US wants progress on the peace process.”

Something old, something new

But the devil lies in the details of the latest bid to jump-start the moribund peace process, and that has raised alarm bells in Afghanistan.

On the one hand, the new initiative seeks greater participation of regional players – including Russia and Iran – while using Turkey as a mediating power between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But on the other hand, it reimposes terms on the two Afghan parties engaged in negotiations that both sides have emphatically rejected in the past.

The proposal calls for an immediate ceasefire, which the Taliban have repeatedly rejected. It also provides details on the establishment of a transitional government of non-elected representatives that Ghani has opposed. The Afghan president insists that “fair, free and inclusive elections” is the only way to form an Afghan government.

“The letter suggests that the Taliban somewhat miraculously agree to something they have vowed not to, and there’s very little stated on how to move things forward to get to a very ambitious end,” said Kugelman.

The reappearance of the old peace process stumbling blocks has dismayed several Afghans.

“Everyone was expecting the policies of this administration to be different from that of the Trump administration because of the flawed [February 2020] agreement between the US and the Taliban. It was done based on the interests of the US to withdraw the troops and not necessarily on bringing peace in Afghanistan," explained Belquis Ahmadi of the Washington, D.C.-based United States Institute of Peace.

"It gave a lot more recognition to the Taliban at the expense of the inclusion of the Afghan government and the vast majority of the Afghan population, including women, who have paid a hefty price in the ongoing war,” said Ahmadi, who is also a board member of Women for Afghan Women, an NGO that runs domestic violence shelters and other programmes across Afghanistan.

The Arg presidential palace’s intransigent inhabitants

The US sidelining of a democratically elected Afghan government in the peace process has enraged many Afghans, including critics of the Ghani administration who argue that for all its flaws, the country’s fledgling democratic structures are the most cherished legacy of the US-led intervention.

The US and the Taliban are the only signatories to the February 2020 agreement, which does not include the Afghan government, an entity that the Taliban views as a “puppet administration” – an opinion the US, by its actions, appears to support, according to Afghans worried about their country’s future.

Last year, the Ghani administration complied with a controversial prisoner release stipulated in the February 2020 agreement, which called on the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for the Taliban’s release of 1,000 Afghan soldiers. France was one of the countries that raised an objection to “the release of individuals sentenced for committing crimes against French nationals, particularly soldiers and humanitarian workers”.

The Biden administration’s race to end “the forever war”, coupled with its pointed directives, sets the stage for another round of acrimonious misgivings between Kabul and Washington, believes Kugelman.

“This, to me, is a signal that US-Afghan relations could find itself on a collision course very soon. This is the first time the new US administration has endorsed the idea of a transitional government, something President Ghani has said he would not agree to ‘as long as I am alive,’” said Kugelman referring to a comment that was widely reported in the Afghan press earlier this year.

The collapse of trust between Washington and successive occupants of Kabul’s Arg presidential palace has been another fallout of the Afghan conflict. Ghani’s predecessor, Hamid Karzai – Afghanistan’s only leader to hand over power in a peaceful transition – ended his term in acrimony as media reports quoted senior US officials questioning the Afghan leader’s mental stability and quipping that the man in the Arg was “off his meds”.

Ghani – an economist and former World Bank official – was initially viewed as a welcome break from Karzai, with US officials hailing his experience in Western academic and multilateral institutions. But the honeymoon period soon ended, with US media reports levelling familiar criticisms of yet another isolated, intransigent Afghan leader surrounded by loyalists.

“Washington has trouble getting along with Afghan presidents,” Kugelman conceded. “It’s the unfortunate story-line of the US role in Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan’s dead courageous women award winners

Another recurring narrative has been the US mismatch between words and deeds on the issue of Afghan women’s rights. In 2001, when the US launched its Afghanistan military operation, then US first lady, Laura Bush, declared the war on terrorism was a “fight for the rights and dignity of women” in Afghanistan.

Two decades later, the fight's sights have tightened, with the US accepting Taliban pledges to cut ties with al Qaeda under the terms of the February 2020 agreement while effectively trusting the Islamist movement to handle threats from the Islamic State (IS) group and other jihadists operating on the terrain.

The discourse of commitment to women’s rights however continues.

In Afghanistan, International Women’s Day this year was overshadowed by Blinken’s letter, with national air waves and social media chatter dominated by politicians denouncing the perceived concessions to the Taliban.

Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., a new US first lady commemorated courageous women on Monday, awarding 21 women with the International Women of Courage Awards.

US First Lady Jill Biden awarded “fearless” women from 15 countries – including Belarus, China, Iran and Myanmar – in a virtual ceremony hosted by the State Department. But Afghanistan’s award winners were all dead. The 2021 International Women of Courage Awards were given posthumously to seven Afghan women who were assassinated in 2020 while serving their communities.

Assassinations and attacks targeting prominent women in politics, education, law enforcement and civil society tripled last year and could increase as the spring fighting season begins. While the IS group has claimed some attacks, most are unclaimed, with the government and the Taliban often blaming each other.

According to Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, 65 women were killed and 95 wounded in targeted attacks in 2020. The attacks have increased suspicions of a Taliban campaign to hollow out Afghan civil society, particularly of women, before the group gains effective control of the country following a US troop pullout.

“The Taliban deny responsibility, but at the same time they reject calls for a ceasefire. If they were really not involved, the least they could do is declare a ceasefire so people – and women – can see who’s responsible,” said Ahmadi. “Their refusal to negotiate a ceasefire tells a different story.”

Not the right time for justice and accountability

In a 2019 statement released before a Doha meeting between Taliban and Afghan government representatives, the group committed to women’s rights “within the Islamic framework of Islamic values”. But the statement also denounced "so-called women's rights activists" who were encouraging women to break Afghan customs.

Despite their Taliban 2.0 media-friendly strategy, the group has declined to provide details of their vision of Islamic – or Sharia – law, a vague set of jurisprudence subject to different interpretations by various schools of Islam.

“I personally feel Sharia, or Islam, is being used as a tool to advance their political ambitions,” said Ahmadi. “I don’t think even the Taliban themselves know how to answer this because they have been asked publicly and behind closed doors, but they have failed to elaborate.”

Thousands of miles away from Doha’s luxury hotels, the situation on the ground for women in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan is deteriorating, with local commanders changing unwritten rules that affect women and girls at whim.

Taliban commanders in the northeastern Takhar province, for instance, banned girls from going to school beyond Grade 7 last week, according to Ahmadi. “I don’t know where these decisions on age and grades come from. My interpretation of Sharia is that women have no limits to an education,” she said.

Afghan women’s rights issues that once dominated international headlines now slip past news agendas, said Ahmadi amid fears that the accelerated peace process pace in the coming weeks could push these topics further off the radar.

Speaking to FRANCE 24 shortly after a virtual meeting with 32 female activists from across Afghanistan, Ahmadi said the women reported feeling abandoned by the world, and particularly by the foreign press.

“The general view is that women are opposed to peace, so they are not being heard,” explained Ahmadi. “They believe that because women want justice and accountability, they will be an impediment to the peace process and that’s why their voices are being excluded these days.”

One killed in University student protests in Johannesburg

In tonight's edition: At least one person has died and two students have been injured in clashes between South African university students and police over tuition fees at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Ivory Coast's Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko, who was seen as a possible successor to President Alassane Ouattara, has died in Freiburg in south-westGermany, two days after his 56th birthday. And South Africa's first black, female helicopter pilot runs a foundation training women in aerospace and aviation.

Desert country Jordan aims for green with

10-million tree campaign

Issued on: 09/03/2021

Credits: Jordanians take part in the planting of eucalyptus and carob saplings near the forest of Kufranjah north of Amman, on February 11, 2021. – On a bare hill in Jordan's verdant Ajloun region, dozens of people plant saplings as part of a reforestation effort that aims to reach 10 million trees in 10 years. (Photo by Khalil MAZRAAWI / AFP

Kufranjah (Jordanie) (AFP)

On a bare hill in Jordan's verdant Ajloun region, dozens of people plant saplings as part of a reforestation effort that aims to reach 10 million trees in 10 years.

"The trees in our region are beautiful," says 11-year-old Mohammed al-Ananza, helping his father Mustafa plant a carob sapling.

"It's a real shame that we have lost so many to fires... We should work together to protect them," he says as they work near the Kufranjah forest north of the capital Amman.

Forests make up only one percent of the desert kingdom's territory, according to the agriculture ministry, though Jordan also has an estimated 23 million orchard trees, half of them olives.

Forest fires strike almost every year in the Middle Eastern country due to high summer temperatures, in a trend scientists expect to intensify with climate change.

The blazes are often started by picnickers' barbeques or carelessly discarded cigarettes.

There were 499 fires in wood and forest areas last year alone, according to the agriculture ministry.

"We must make up for what has been lost in the fires," said Belal Qtishat, head of the nature protection department at the environment ministry.

"It's the only way to fight desertification and climate change and to protect biodiversity."

Eucalyptus and carob saplings are planted near the forest of Kufranjah, north of Jordan's capital Amman, part of a reforestation effort that aims to reach 10 million trees in 10 years Khalil MAZRAAWI AFP Photo

- Region-specific -

Mahmoud al-Ananza watched on as his grandson and son got to work on the hill in Kufranjah.

The family has volunteered but agriculture and environment ministry employees were also among the 150 people in charge of planting 30,000 trees in the area.

"I was born here and I can tell you that if you plant cypress trees, eucalypts, olives, carob or oak, they will grow on their own," the man in his 70s said, wearing a traditional red-and-while keffiyeh scarf.

The programme focuses on species that, after the initial phase of taking root, can survive without a lot of additional water.

Mohamed Daoudia, agriculture minister at the time of the project's launch last month, said fires were the biggest problem for Jordan's wooded areas.

"Illegal tree felling only represents one percent of the damage to forests," he told AFP.

In October, 50 hectares (over 120 acres) of olive and forest trees burnt in the Ajloun region, while a year earlier in Jerash province, 80 hectares went up in flames.

Qtishat, of the environment ministry, said the reforestation project aimed to rehabilitate only "the regions fit for doing so".

"We don't plan to cover the whole kingdom with trees because each part of the country has its own special features," he said.

- Benefits for bees -

The aim of the first stage is to create forests in Karak and Tafila provinces south of the capital, planting in each area 30,000 commonly found trees like eucalyptus, jujube and carob.

The campaign began in Kufranjah, which Qtishat described as "Jordan's lungs".

The kingdom also plans to work on fire prevention by setting up monitoring posts and patrols, providing its civil defence with specialised vehicles and carrying out forest surveillance using drones.

Former minister Daoudia described the reforestation programme as both "ambitious and realistic".

He said results would be seen in the next four to five years, and that the greening campaign would also benefit bees and honey production.

Jordan produces an average of 250 tonnes of honey a year.

"Our nurseries produce 2.5 million forest trees a year and 500,000 fruit trees. So in theory, we could plant 10 million trees in four years," Daoudia said.

"But we decided on 10 years in order to do the job well."

In Bangladesh, Covid-19 vaccination drive launched in one of world's largest brothels

 Daulatdia, a vast warren of alleyways and shacks the size of a small village, is the largest brothel in Bangladesh and possibly the world. Here, close to 2,000 women live and work, servicing around 3,000 clients every day. Now, the brothel's sex workers are among the first in Bangladesh to be offered a vaccine against Covid-19 and community leaders have launched a campaign to try to convince as many women as possible to get the jab.

AMELIORATING CAPITALI$M

ESG CHANNEL

The SEC Has Created a Climate and ESG Enforcement Task Force

MAX CHEN MARCH 10, 2021

The Securities and Exchange Commission will be proactively taking steps to identify environmental, social, and governance-related misconduct. The agency is creating a Climate and ESG Task Force in its Division of Enforcement.

According to the SEC, the task force will be led by Kelly L. Gibson, the Acting Deputy Director of Enforcement, who will oversee a Division-wide effort, with 22 members drawn from the SEC’s headquarters, regional offices, and Enforcement specialized units.

“Climate risks and sustainability are critical issues for the investing public and our capital markets,” Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee said in a note. “The task force announced today will play an important role in enhancing and coordinating the efforts of the Division of Enforcement, the Office of the Whistleblower, and other parts of the agency to bolster the efforts of the Commission as a whole on these vital matters.”

In response to the increased investor focus on climate and ESG-related disclosures and investments, the Climate and ESG Task Force will be taking steps to identify ESG-related misconduct to protect investors and identify potential violations.

The task force’s initial focus will be on identifying material gaps or misstatements in issuers’ disclosure of climate risks under existing rules. The task force will also analyze disclosure and compliance issues relating to investment advisors’ and funds’ ESG strategies, according to the SEC.

“Proactively addressing emerging disclosure gaps that threaten investors and the market has always been core to the SEC’s mission,” Acting Deputy Director of Enforcement Kelly L. Gibson, who will lead the task force, said in a note. “This task force brings together a broad array of experience and expertise, which will allow us to better police the market, pursue misconduct, and protect investors.”

The announcement of the Task Force is another signal of the SEC’s future intention to provide further scrutiny on topics relating to ESG and climate change, as President Joe Biden pushes for a shift in the national agenda. For now, SEC disclosure obligations remain within line of current regulations and do not introduce new line-item disclosure requirements. However, the SEC has showed signs that it will focus more on climate-specific attention than it has historically, especially under the previous administration

By Jane Street

ESG-conscious investing continues to drive headlines, and the data shows that market activity in ESG-related ETFs is increasing. Like most ETFs early in their life-cycle, trading volume for ESG ETFs currently skews “dark” with a high percentage of volume resulting in creations. As they mature, we would expect on-exchange volume to pick up particularly for the products that continue to attract assets.

Source: Bloomberg, as of 02/28/2021. ETFs include those categorized as either ESG, socially responsible, environmentally friendly, clean energy, or climate change.

ESG OTC and Primary Market Activity Similar to ETFs of Comparable Size and Maturity

When compared to overall ETF volumes, a significantly higher portion of ESG ETF trading occurs OTC. This is likely due to the category of ESG and sustainable ETFs being less established. Slightly more than half of today’s ESG ETFs were launched after 2017 and their median fund size is currently just $111 million. Activity in ESG ETFs mirrors what we see in other new or comparatively low AUM ETFs, where medium-to-large orders that are smaller than the creation unit size can be difficult to work in the market. This is because market makers may only carry a limited number of shares until two-sided flows become more regular. In contrast, market makers can work with issuer capital market desks as well as the end institution to meet demand efficiently OTC.

Source: Bloomberg, FINRA, as of 12/31/2020. Chart displays percent of 2020 notional volume executed on-and-off-exchange for the respective groupings of US listed ETFs.

Across the entire US ETF industry, approximately 20% of ETF volume results in primary market activity. Conversely, in our ~3-year sample about 51% of ESG ETF volume resulted in primary market activity. This higher-than-average rate may be a result of ESG ETFs flow’s tendency to be “one-sided.” When natural two-way volume (as displayed) is limited, larger trades are almost always going to result in a creation. This makes sense given most of these strategies started the period with minimal assets and have seen investor demand that can only be met through ETF creations. We’d expect this proportion to decrease overtime as funds gain scale and initial investors’ positions mature leading to more natural buying and selling between ETF investors.

Source: Bloomberg, as of 02/28/2021

ESG ETFs Tend to Share Characteristics with Other Buy-and-Hold ETFs

While some ETFs tend to show higher on-screen volumes due in part to institutional investors using them for tactical allocation decisions, other ETFs tend to be utilized for more strategic allocations. Given the assumed long-term nature of ESG investors it is not surprising that ESG ETFs tend to exhibit lower share turnover. In the charts below we highlight examples of ETFs that provide exposure to the same general market segment.

We selected high ADV ETFs (SPY US and EEM US), a lower expense ratio alternative from the same issuer (SPLG US and IEMG), and the largest ESG ETF in the respective category (ESGU and ESGE US). We see the ESG and lower expense ratio ETFs exhibit consistently lower share turnover despite both funds experiencing meaningful asset growth over the past few years. This is likely due to investors in these funds having a longer-term time horizon which allows them to place less emphasis on ADV since they are less likely to trade in and out of the product frequently.

Source: Bloomberg, as of 02/28/2021

To meet the growing investor demand for ESG products, many Issuers have released ESG equivalents of traditional exposures. For example, SPDR’s EFIV US, which launched in 2020, is an ESG equivalent of SPY US. Given the limited trading history of many ESG ETFs, below we look at the short-term correlations of traditional and ESG-equivalent equity indices. From a market maker’s perspective we are often able to trade ESG products in a similar manner to their non-ESG equivalents because managing market risk can be analogous. A market maker’s natural trading in the other non-ESG ETFs can be used to offset risk. Additionally, the high short-term correlation between ESG and traditional indexes allows market makers to use traditional hedging instruments such as futures and options on major indexes to manage any short-term market risk. It is worth noting that ESG-specific derivatives are also becoming increasingly common. Increased volumes in ESG ETFs and ESG derivatives should result in a positive feedback loop that allows liquidity to continue to build over time.

Source: Bloomberg, as of 02/28/2021


New and Notable from the Desk

Recent data from Rosenblatt Securities shows that closing auction market share for US-listed securities dropped to 4.1% in February, the lowest since August 2015. Closing auction market share reached a high of 11.6% in December 2019 before Covid-19-related volatility and the subsequent surge in retail investor participation bolstered volumes in the continuous session.


Source: Rosenblatt Securities, as of 02/28/2021
ETF Trading Highlights

On/Off-Exchange Trading Volume



Source: FINRA and Bloomberg data for the two weeks ending January 29, 2021. Data on exchange-traded managed funds (ETMFs) are not captured. The Bloomberg data do not include some NAV trades.

Net Market Flow by Asset Class ($M, 10 Days vs 20 Days)


Source: Bloomberg as of February 26, 2021. Data on exchange-traded managed funds (ETMFs) are not captured. The data do not include some NAV trades.


Source: Bloomberg for the 10 days ending February 26, 2021. Data on exchange-traded managed funds (ETMFs) are not captured.

© 2021 Jane Street Group, LLC. All rights reserved. Issued in the United States by Jane Street Execution Services, LLC (JSES), a U.S. registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA (https://clicktime.symantec.com/3Hy6KLqmyE4orNu6XS9UReT7Vc?u=www.finra.org) and SIPC (https://clicktime.symantec.com/3GpT9fYRhCEYKsRxbhYmP3y7Vc?u=www.SIPC.com), in Europe by Jane Street Financial Limited (JSF), an investment firm authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and Jane Street Netherlands B.V. (JSN), an investment firm authorized and regulated by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiële Markten), and in Hong Kong by Jane Street Hong Kong Limited, a licensed company under the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (CE No. BAL548). This material is provided for informational purposes only and is not for distribution to retail clients or where prohibited by applicable law or regulation. This material does not constitute an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security or other financial instrument. This material has been prepared by sales and trading personnel in connection with the marketing activities of JSES, JSF, JSN and JSHK and is not intended to be a research report. This material does not contain sufficient information upon which to base an investment decision. None of the information provided herein constitutes accounting, tax, or legal advice. For recipients based in Europe, please read JSF’s Data Privacy Policy and JSN’s Data Privacy Policy.

UK

Cross-party MPs say there is ‘no clear evidence’ £22 BILLION Test and Trace scheme contributed to reducing coronavirus infection levels citing third lockdown

• Cross-party group of MPs decried the 'unimaginable' costs of Test and Trace
• They said It has not proven its worth as there is little evidence of effectiveness
• The MPs said ministers had justified the vast expenditure on preventing a second national lockdown, but noted England is currently living under its third
• They also urged the scheme led by Tory peer Dido Harding to 'wean itself off' reliance consultants and temporary staff, with some receiving £6,624 per day

By CHRIS JEWERS FOR MAILONLINE and WIRES

PUBLISHED: 19, March 2021 

There is 'no clear evidence' Britain's £22 billion Test and Trace scheme contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels, a cross-party group of MPs have said.

On Wednesday, the British parliament's Public Accounts Committee decried the 'unimaginable' costs of the programme, saying the system has not yet proven its worth as there is little evidence of its overall effectiveness.

Meg Hillier, Labour party lawmaker and the chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) behind a critical report, urged the Government to justify the 'staggering investment of taxpayers' money'.

The MPs said ministers had justified the vast expenditure on preventing a second national lockdown, but noted England is currently living under its third in questioning the programme's effectiveness.

They also urged the scheme led by Tory peer Dido Harding to 'wean itself off' reliance on thousands of 'expensive' consultants and temporary staff, with some receiving £6,624 per day. 

There is 'no clear evidence' Britain's £22 billion Test and Trace scheme contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels, a cross-party group of MPs have said. Pictured: Dido Harding, chair of the National Institute for Health Protection and head of the NHS Test and Trace system and Health Secretary Matt Hancock leave 10 Downing Street

'Despite the unimaginable resources thrown at this project Test and Trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic,' Hillier said.

'The promise on which this huge expense was justified - avoiding another lockdown - has been broken, twice.'

Prime Minister Boris Johnson last year promised a world beating test and trace system as part of the route out of the pandemic, though attention has now shifted to the rollout of vaccines.hares

He has laid out plans for a cautious but irreversible route out of the third national lockdown which began on January 5, based on an aim to give everyone a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of July, as well as more regular testing.

Last year scientific advisers said Test and Trace was not significantly reducing the spread of the coronavirus. England then entered a second lockdown in the autumn.

Asked about the current impact of the system, Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance on Tuesday said the testing system was now good, and while the test and trace programme worked less well when infection levels were high, the system would take on renewed importance in the coming months.

Meg Hillier (pictured right speaking in the House of Commons) Labour party lawmaker and the chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) behind a critical report, urged the Government to justify the 'staggering investment of taxpayers' money' on Test and Trace

The PAC said the programme does publish a significant amount of weekly data, including some that shows full compliance with the self-isolation rules relied upon by the scheme can be low.

But it criticised the data for failing to show the speed of the process from 'cough to contact' and therefore not allowing the public to judge the 'overall effectiveness of the programme'.

The MPs also criticised the scheme for struggling to consistently match supply and demand for the service, and therefore 'resulting in either sub-standard performance or surplus capacity'.

And they said it remained 'overly reliant' on contractors and temporary staff after having to initially act quickly to scale up the service rapidly.

The report said the scheme admitted in February that it still employs around 2,500 consultants, at an estimated daily rate of around £1,100, with the best paid consultancy staff on £6,624.

'It is concerning that the DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) is still paying such amounts - which it considers to be 'very competitive rates' to so many consultants,' the report said.

Baroness Dido Harding says most of funding is spent on testing

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson last year promised a world beating test and trace system as part of the route out of the pandemic, though attention has now shifted to the rollout of vaccines. Pictured: Johnson during a media briefing in Downing Street on Monday, March 8

general view of the entrance to the lateral flow testing centre February 22, 2021. The MPs said ministers had justified the vast expenditure on preventing a second national lockdown, but noted England is currently living under its third in questioning the programme's effectiveness

After England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty warned of another 'surge' in the virus later in the year, the PAC called for ministers to set out how the scheme will 'cost-effectively maintain a degree of readiness'.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Budget last week included an additional £15 billion for Test and Trace, taking the total bill to more than £37 billion over two years.

Labour's shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Rachel Reeves said the report shows the significantly outsourced system has 'failed the British people and led our country into restrictive lockdown after lockdown'.

'It underlines the epic amounts of waste and incompetence, an overreliance on management consultants, taxpayers' cash splashed on crony contracts, all while ministers insist our NHS heroes deserve nothing more than a clap and a pay cut,' she said.

Trades Union Congress general secretary Frances O'Grady said the Government's refusal to increase statutory sick pay had 'massively undermined Test and Trace'.

Pictured: Graphs showing the number of coronavirus infections per day in the UK (top) and number of coronavirus-ralted deaths in the UK (bottom)

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Dame Donna Kinnair said nurses 'will be furious to hear of the millions of pounds being spent on private sector consultants'.

The Government said a further 231 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus as of Tuesday. There were a further 5,766 lab-confirmed cases in the UK.

Data up to March 8 shows that of the 23,773,959 jabs given in the UK so far, 22,592,528 were first doses - a rise of 215,273 on the previous day. 

Climate change drives malaria transmission in Africa, study shows

New research has confirmed the link between climate change and malaria prevalence. File Photo by Kitsadakron_Photography/Shutterstock

March 10 (UPI) -- The brief global warming slowdown measured at the end of last century hastened a decline in malaria transmission across the Ethiopian highlands, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The findings could help settle the ongoing debate over the influence of climate change on malaria transmission.

Scientists have previously hypothesized that cooler temperatures across the highlands of East Africa have helped limit the abundance of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, yielding only periodic and seasonal disease outbreaks.

"We see that malaria epidemiology in these areas is strongly under climate control at all scales -- months, years and even decades -- which settles once and for all the debate on whether climate change is affecting or not the dynamics of malaria in Africa," first author Xavier Rodó, bead of the climate and health program at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a news release.

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The slowdown in global warming, observed between 1998 and 2005, offered scientists a chance to test this hypothesis.

Scientists analyzed changes in the number of malaria infections -- caused by both P. falciparum and P. vivax parasites -- recorded in the Ethiopian region of Oromia between 1968 and 2005. Oromia is a densely populate region of the Ethiopian Highlands located between 1,600 and 2,500 meters above sea level.

Using sophisticated statistical models, researchers teased out the relationship between malaria incidence and both regional climate conditions, local temperatures and precipitation, and global climate patterns, such as El Niño and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on the Pacific Ocean.

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The analysis showed infection rates are strongly correlated with local temperature changes.

The data confirmed malaria cases begin declining shortly after the warming slowdown measured at the end of last century, before authorities redoubled malaria control measures.

The warming slowdown and decline in malaria cases across Oromia coincided with El Niño and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, highlighting the links between global and regional climate trends -- and their effects on disease vectors.

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"The coupling between disease dynamics and climate conditions is so strong that it is evident at multiple temporal scales, from seasonality to multi-annual cycles to decadal trends," said co-author Mercedes Pascual, researcher at the University of Chicago.

"Malaria incidence not only tracked changes in temperature, which we had demonstrated before, but also in the decrease at the turn of the century, the focus of this work," said Pascual.

Researchers suggest public health officials and policy makers must account for the influence of climate change when preparing for outbreaks and planning disease mitigation efforts.

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Previous studies have shown that the effects of climate on mosquito-borne diseases are unlikely to be uniform.

In different parts of the world, arming trends are expected to benefit certain mosquito species while inhibiting others. But while nuance is expected, researchers predict that warming, on the whole, will accelerate the transmission rates of a number of debilitating diseases, including yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya and dengue feve

WOMAN Brazilian adventurer traverses lava lake for Guinness record

March 8 (UPI) -- A Brazilian adventurer broke a Guinness World Record by using a rope to traverse a distance of 329 feet, 11.76 inches over the volcanic lava lake Erta Ale in Ethiopia.

Karina Oliani, a medical doctor and adventurer whose previous accomplishments include becoming the first Brazilian woman to climb the mountain K2, was suspended in a protective suit over the lava lake in Afar and climbed across the rope while the lava boiled below at a temperature of 2,168 degrees.

"Since I was a very little kid, I was always fascinated by nature and big challenges. And I thought, what could be a bigger challenge than traversing the largest lava lake on Earth?" Oliani said.

Oliani was awarded the Guinness World Record for the world's longest tyrolean traverse over a lava lake. The record was announced Monday to coincide with International Women's Day.

"I hope that all the things I have accomplished in my life today can empower girls and women from all over the world to go after their dreams. I hope by watching me they go: 'if this girl was able to do that, I can also do whatever I put my mind to!' If they want to be president, climb a mountain, Traverse a volcano, or something else that has never been done before -- they can and should do it," Oliani said. Women's Day.

"I hope that all the things I have accomplished in my life today can empower girls and women from all over the world to go after their dreams. I hope by watching me they go: 'if this girl was able to do that, I can also do whatever I put my mind to!' If they want to be president, climb a mountain, Traverse a volcano, or something else that has never been done before -- they can and should do it," Oliani said.