US to Pull El Salvador Funds, Has 'Deep Concerns' Over Recent Dismissals

By Reuters
May 21, 2021 

FILE - El Salvador President Nayib Bukele speaks at a news conference, May 26, 2020.

SAN SALVADOR - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is pulling aid from El Salvador's national police and a public information institute and will instead redirect the funding to civil society groups, the agency's head said in a statement Friday.

The statement cited concerns over votes earlier this month by legislative allies of President Nayib Bukele to oust the attorney general and top judges.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power expressed "deep concerns" with the dismissals as well as "larger concerns about transparency and accountability" in the Central American country.

The earmarked funds will now go to "promoting transparency, combating corruption and monitoring human rights" in concert with local civil society groups, the statement said, without specifying the amount of money in question.

In an apparent response to Power, Bukele heaped scorn on the civil society groups that were poised to benefit from the shift in U.S. funding in a post on Twitter minutes after the announcement.

"It's good they receive foreign financing, because they will not receive a cent from the Salvadoran people," Bukele wrote.

USAID, the international development arm of the U.S. government, provides funding to a wide variety of programs in mostly poor countries across the globe.

"Respect for an independent judiciary

It is the latest salvo in an intensifying spat between the two countries. On Tuesday, the U.S. government released a list of allegedly corrupt Central American politicians, including a couple with close ties to Bukele. That prompted the Salvadoran leader to praise China, in an apparent swipe at Washington.

Bukele, 39, who is popular at home, has argued that the high-profile dismissals were justified and legal.

Bukele's party accused the five ousted judges of impeding the government's health strategy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the attorney general of lacking independence.

The abrupt votes to remove them were criticized as a dangerous power grab by the tiny opposition to Bukele in El Salvador, as well as the U.S. government and international rights groups like Amnesty International.

Bukele's critics also accuse him of misusing the national police and the public information institute for political ends.

El Salvador, which has an economy closely tied to the United States by trade and a large migrant population, is negotiating a more than $1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where Washington wields significant influence.

The IMF earlier this week cited progress in the ongoing talks

South Korea Seeks Tax Cuts, Incentives for US Investment
By Reuters
May 21, 2021 


FILE - Samsung Electronics' microchips are displayed at its store in Seoul, South Korea, April 30, 2019.

SEOUL - South Korea requested from the United States incentives such as tax deductions and infrastructure construction to ease the U.S. investment of Korean firms, including leading chipmaker Samsung Electronics, its presidential office said Friday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in Washington for a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, told a gathering of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, her South Korean counterpart and CEOs of Qualcomm, Samsung and other companies that both countries can benefit by strengthening supply chain cooperation.

Biden has advocated for support for the U.S. chip industry amid a global chip shortage that has hit automakers and other industries.

He met with executives from major companies including Samsung in April and previously announced plans to invest $50 billion in semiconductor manufacturing and research.

Samsung plans to invest $17 billion for a new plant for chip contract manufacturing in the United States, South Korea's presidential Blue House added in a statement, confirming plans previously reported.

In February, documents filed with Texas state officials showed that Samsung is considering Austin, Texas, as one of the sites for a new $17 billion chip plant that the South Korean firm said could create 1,800 jobs.

There has been no new public documentation filed on the potential Texas chip plant application since March, the website for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts showed Friday.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and the Korean industry ministry agreed Friday that for continuous chip industry cooperation, policy measures such as incentive support, joint research and development, cooperation on setting standards, and manpower training and exchange are needed, the Blue House said.

Meanwhile, DuPont announced plans to establish an R&D center in South Korea to develop original chip technologies such as photoresist for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, the Blue House said.

VAMPIRES WHO SUCK OUR COMMON WEALTH 

Wealthy Americans Hold Back $600 Billion in Taxes Annually, Treasury Says

By Rob Garver
May 23, 2021 

FILE - This May 4, 2021 file photo shows the Treasury Building in Washington.


WASHINGTON - The Biden administration says wealthy Americans withhold more than $600 billion in unpaid taxes from the Treasury every year, and it has proposed a detailed plan to bulk up the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement arm in an effort to increase tax compliance among high net worth individuals.

Total unpaid taxes “will rise to about $7 trillion over the course of the next decade if left unaddressed — roughly equal to 15% of taxes owed,” a report issued by the Treasury Department on Thursday said. “These unpaid taxes come at a cost to American households and compliant taxpayers as policymakers choose rising deficits, lower spending on necessary priorities, or further tax increases to compensate for the lost revenue.”
  

FILE - The headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington is seen in this file photo, April 13, 2014.

Improving the IRS’s ability to track down tax cheats will generate approximately $700 billion in additional revenue over 10 years, and far more in the years after that, the administration says.

Tax cheating is an international reality of life. The administration's estimate that the U.S. loses about 15% of the tax revenue it is owed to non-compliance places it at a level similar to the 16% across the European Union, according to research conducted at the University of London. The study found that across the EU, a little more than $1 trillion in taxes went uncollected in 2015.

Experts said the Treasury Department’s estimate of the taxes that go uncollected is reasonable, and that its belief that it can increase tax compliance through increased enforcement is plausible. However, they cautioned, it won’t be like flipping a switch.

Won’t happen overnight

“It's going to take time,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “As they increase the staff, they're going to do this gradually over a period of many years. The people who have worked at the IRS, who know that place really well, say it takes five years to train an auditor — particularly when you're looking at the kind of very sophisticated tax avoidance that the IRS seems to want to look at. So yeah, I think that they can raise this kind of money, but I think nobody should expect them to be able to do it overnight.”

Others were less sure.

“I would say, on the face of it, I think it seems ambitious,” said Alex Muresianu, a federal policy analyst with the Tax Foundation in Washington. “I think that on the margin, doing better investigations at the IRS and doing a better job of enforcing laws we have is a good way to raise revenue. But I'm not sure that this large of an increase in budget will be used as effectively as they're hoping it will.”

Funding for American Families Plan

While reforming the country’s tax compliance regime might be considered a goal all to itself, the Biden administration released the plan in the context of its push for the American Families Plan, a legislative proposal that would invest in affordable child care, free education, increased availability of family and medical leave, and child tax credits.

However, Gleckman said, the money the Treasury collects won’t be nearly enough — or come soon enough — to fund the $1.8 trillion plan.

“If people in Congress think that closing the tax gap is going to pay for [it], they're dreaming,” he said. “It's a good thing to do. It’s good for maintaining the credibility of the tax code, and it will generate a significant amount of money. But it ain't gonna pay for a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. They want to do that, they're gonna have to raise somebody's taxes.”

There are four main elements to the administration’s plan, the most significant of which is the addition of $80 billion in funding to the IRS budget over the next decade. The agency’s budget has been slashed by 20% during the past decade, leading to a loss of experienced staff and a reduction in the number of lower-level IRS agents working their way up through the agency’s ranks.

The proposal also sets aside funding to overhaul the agency’s data management. The current system at the IRS is the oldest in the federal government, with elements dating to the 1960s, written in an obsolete programming language.

Additionally, the agency will crack down on unregulated tax preparers, increasing penalties for aiding and abetting tax evasion.

Collecting bank account data

The fourth element of the administration’s plan, which is generating some concern, is a proposal to require banks and other financial institutions to greatly increase the amount of information they provide to the IRS.

In addition to reporting interest payments above a certain threshold, the administration is planning to ask banks and financial services firms to "report gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts but carve out exceptions for accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold.”

A coalition of banking trade groups expressed opposition to the plan earlier this month, writing in a joint letter that it would “impose cost and complexity that are not justified by the potential, and highly uncertain, benefits” and could expose customer data to abuse.

“We support efforts to increase compliance so that all taxpayers meet their responsibilities, but putting financial institutions in the position of reporting more information on their account holders — especially when the benefits are far from certain — is not the answer,” the groups wrote.

Gleckman, of the Tax Policy Center, raised the additional concern that the IRS might not have the ability to effectively make use of the data.

“They're asking for so much information, deposit and withdrawal information for every single bank account,” he said. “The IRS is already struggling with its ability to manage the data that it has. This will give them billions more pieces of data.

US Issues ‘Do Not Travel’ Warning for Japan Ahead of Tokyo Olympics 

#notokyololympics

By VOA News
May 25, 2021 

People wearing masks to help protect against the spread of the coronavirus walk in front of a screen showing the news on U.S. warning against visits to Japan, May 25, 2021, in Tokyo.

With less than two months remaining before the opening ceremony, the Tokyo Olympics received another jolt Monday when the U.S. government issued a warning for its citizens not to travel to Japan due to rising rates of new COVID-19 cases.

The State Department issued its highest travel advisory warning, Level 4, citing Japan’s slow vaccination rate and the country’s own restrictions on travelers from the United States.

A separate warning issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said “even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants and should avoid all travel to Japan.”

Security personnel stand guard near the Olympic rings monument during a rally by anti-Olympics protesters outside the Japanese Olympic Committee headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, May 18, 2021.

The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8 after a one-year postponement as the novel coronavirus pandemic began spreading across the globe. But the Japanese capital and other parts of Japan are under a state of emergency to quell a surge of new infections that has overwhelmed hospitals across the country, prompting growing public sentiment against staging the event.

The opposition was boosted by an open letter earlier this month from the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association, which represents about 6,000 primary care doctors and hospitals, urging Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to convince the International Olympic Committee to cancel the games.

The current outbreak has already prompted Japanese authorities to ban foreign audiences from attending the Olympics. But Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters Tuesday the warning does not prohibit essential travel to Japan, and that authorities there do not detect any change in Washington’s support for Japan to go through with staging the Olympics.

Japan has recorded just 722,668 total COVID-19 infections and 12,351 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, but has only inoculated just under five percent of its population.
 

FILE - People protest the Tokyo 2020 Olympics amid the coronavirus outbreak, around Olympic Stadium (National Stadium) as an Olympic test event for athletics is held inside the venue in Tokyo, Japan, May 9, 2021, in this photo taken by Kyodo.

Hong Kong warning

In Hong Kong, a high-ranking official is warning that the city may soon have to discard millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses because not enough people are getting inoculated before the doses expire.

Thomas Tsang, a former controller of Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection and a member of the government’s vaccine task force, told public broadcaster RTHK Tuesday there is only a “three-month window” to use the first batch of the two-dose Pfizer vaccine, a situation complicated by current plans to close the community vaccination centers after September.

Hong Kong bought rough doses of Pfizer and China’s Sinovac vaccine to cover its entire 7.5 million citizens, but only 2.1 million have taken the shots since the city’s vaccination program began in late February.

FILE - Members of the Hong Kong Fire Services Department receive a dose of the Sinovac Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine at a community vaccination center in Hong Kong, China, Feb. 23, 2021. (Paul Yeung/Pool via Reuters)

Tsang said it was "just not right" that Hong Kong was sitting on an unused pile of doses while the rest of the world "is scrambling for vaccines” and warned that the city would not be buying anymore doses.

Observers have blamed the situation on a number of factors, including vaccine hesitancy, online disinformation, a lack of urgency in a city that has largely avoided a major outbreak of the virus, and rising distrust of authorities in Hong Kong and China.

Major Japanese Newspaper Calls for Cancellation of Tokyo Olympics

#notokyololympics

By VOA News
May 26, 2021 

President of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Seiko Hashimoto delivers opening remarks during a Tokyo 2020 executive board meeting in Tokyo, May 26, 2021.

A major Japanese newspaper has called for the Tokyo Olympic Games to be cancelled due to the worsening COVID-19 crisis in the country.

An editorial printed in Wednesday’s edition of The Asahi Shimbun called on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to calmly assess the current circumstances and cancel the Olympics.

The editorial criticized the leaders of the International Olympic Committee for being “self-righteous,” especially vice-president John Coates, who said last week the Tokyo Olympics would be held even if a state of emergency were in force. The newspaper said Coates’s comments were out of step with the Japanese public.

  

IOC and Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizers hold joint news conference in Tokyo, May 21, 2021.

Public sentiment against staging the Olympics has been growing amid a surge of new infections that has overwhelmed hospitals across the country. Tokyo and other regions in Japan are under a state of emergency that expires on May 31, but will likely be extended through June.

The Asahi Shimbun, whose liberal-leaning editorial stance places it opposite those of Prime Minister Suga’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is the first major Japanese newspaper to call for the event’s cancelation, despite being one of its major sponsors. The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association, which represents about 6,000 primary care doctors and hospitals, has also called on Suga to convince the International Olympic Committee to cancel the games.

The Shimbun’s editorial comes just two days after the U.S. government issued a warning for its citizens not to travel to Japan because of the new surge of COVID-19 cases.

The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8 after a one-year postponement as the novel coronavirus pandemic began spreading across the globe.

In Australia, the southern state of Victoria is dealing with a new outbreak of COVID-19 cases. Acting state Premier James Merlino told reporters Wednesday health authorities have identified six new coronavirus infections in Melbourne, bringing the total number of infections in the capital city to 15.
  

In this May 10, 2021, file photo, a Fire and Rescue worker receives a Pfizer vaccine at the newly opened COVID-19 vaccination center in Sydney, Australia.

The new cases are linked to an overseas traveler who became infected during his mandatory hotel quarantine phase. Merlino says all the cases are related, which he described as “a good thing,” but said officials are “very concerned by the number and by the kind of exposure sites.” He has imposed new mandatory mask wearing in restaurants, hotels and other indoor venues until June 4, and warned that the next 24 hours “are going to be particularly critical.”

As of Wednesday, there are 167.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world, including 3.4 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Center. The United States leads both categories with 33.1 million total COVID-19 cases and 590,941 fatalities, with India in second place with just over 27.1 million coronavirus cases and 311,388 deaths.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday the world gained a total of 4.1 million new COVID-19 cases over a one-week period that ended May 23, a decrease of 14 percent, while recording 84,000 new fatalities during that same period, representing a 2 percent decrease.

#notokyololympics

IOC's call for 'sacrifice' angers Japanese public ahead of Tokyo Olympics



Japan has not canceled the Tokyo Olympics despite popular opposition to holding the Summer Games in 2021. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

May 24 (UPI) -- The International Olympic Committee is drawing rebuke in Japan after senior officials said the Tokyo Olympics should go ahead as planned despite the ongoing surge in COVID-19.

Japanese commenters on social media platforms say that IOC President Thomas Bach and Vice President John Coates are disregarding Japanese public opinion and forcing the Summer Games to be held despite opposition, The Guardian reported Monday.

On Twitter, one commenter said, "Thomas Bach and John Coates are neck and neck in the race for the most hated pariah here. I predict a dead heat," the report said.

The reaction comes after Bach said Saturday that sacrifices are needed to make the Olympics happen, despite the ongoing global pandemic.

RELATED Japan may not be able to cancel Olympics, even if it wants to

"The athletes definitely can make their Olympic dreams come true," Bach told representatives of the International Hockey Federation. "We have to make some sacrifices to make this possible."

Bach also praised the "resilience" of the Japanese people, the report said. His use of the word "sacrifice" is angering people on Twitter.

"Why do people in Japan have to make a sacrifice for Olympics during a worldwide pandemic? It is definitely not acceptable," the user said.

RELATED IOC chief to send medical staff to Tokyo Olympics

According to Softbank Group chief executive Masayoshi Son, 80% of Japanese want the Olympics postponed again or canceled.

Canceling the Olympics could mean Olympic insurers could stand to lose $2 to $3 billion, according to estimates from investment bank Jeffries earlier this year.

Any decision to cancel may largely be up to the IOC. According to Alexandre Miguel Mestre, the committee "owns" the Olympics and the powerful organization alone can terminate a Games contract, the BBC reported.

Japan may have even fewer incentives to call for a cancelation. Professor Jack Anderson at the University of Melbourne told the BBC that if Japan were to unilaterally cancel, the risks and losses would fall with the local organizing committee.

A Japan-IOC joint agreement to cancel would trigger insurance claims. Anderson said it would be the "biggest insurance payout event of its kind."

Insurance still would not cover indirect costs associated with investments across the economy, however, the report said

Edibles driving pot-related calls to U.S. poison control hotlines

BODY STONE CAN BE OVERWHELMING

By Dennis Thompson, 

HealthDay News
MAY 26, 2021 

Newfangled marijuana products -- edibles, concentrates, vapes -- are driving an overall increase in pot-related calls to U.S. poison control centers, a new study shows.

There were more than 11,100 calls related to marijuana use in 2019, up from about 8,200 in 2017, researchers said.

More and more of those calls are related to manufactured products that contain distilled amounts of THC, CBD and other chemicals found in cannabis.

"We saw this generalized increase in calls nationally," said lead researcher Julia Dilley, an epidemiologist with the Oregon Public Health Division in Portland.
RELATED Study: Some cannabis products may not deliver CBD, THC listed on labels



"But when we dug into it, that increase is being driven by these manufactured products," Dilley continued. "Flower cannabis exposure calls are actually declining."

Pot plant exposures made up the bulk of calls to centers in 2017, with 7,146 pertaining to marijuana plants and just 1,094 related to manufactured products.

But by 2019, calls related to manufactured products totaled 5,503 while pot plant exposure prompted 5,606 calls.
RELATED Study dispels 'lazy stoner' myth: Pot users don't exercise any less



The findings were published this week in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Manufactured products tend to contain large amounts of THC, the chemical in pot plants that causes intoxication, and these numbers show that they pose a greater risk for causing a bad reaction.

More than 81% of calls related to manufactured products came from people using those products on their own, not in combination with alcohol or some other substance, Dilley noted.
RELATED Demand for legal pot driving growth of industry's swelling carbon footprint



"It only took the cannabis product exposure to be serious enough that there was some sort of help needed," Dilley said.
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Poisoning hazards rise

On the other hand, only 38% of pot plant use calls came from using marijuana alone. "They were more often using it with alcohol or some other substance in the mix," Dilley said.

Edibles make up the greatest share of poison control calls related to manufactured products, accounting for just over half of the exposures.

And "edible product exposures are more likely to be [involving] children than other types of products, so that's certainly a concern," Dilley said.

Over three years of poison control center calls, there were 2,505 cases involving manufactured products and kids younger than 10, versus 1,490 reported plant-based exposures in that age group, researchers said.

However, Dilley emphasized that more than 60% of the time, these exposures caused minor medical problems. Most of the time, people call in because they just aren't feeling right.

"Some people might be experiencing something that scares them," Dilley said. "Maybe they're feeling dizzy and they don't know if that's OK or not, and so they call but they don't really need medical treatment."

The poison control call rate was higher in states where recreational use of marijuana has been legalized, researchers found.

For example, the rate of manufactured product calls was 2.5 per 100,000 people in 2019 in legalization states, versus 1.3 per 100,000 in states where recreational pot is still outlawed.

"This tells us that states that have legalized marijuana are not doing enough to protect children from its harms," said Linda Richter, vice president of prevention research and analysis for the Partnership to End Addiction.
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"Edibles can too easily be mistaken for popular types of candy and other sweets and are often designed and packaged in a way that explicitly appeals to young people [e.g., gummy bears, mini chocolate bars with names and branding that mimic popular brands]," Richter continued.

"Vaped marijuana is odorless and extremely discreet and, therefore, carries all the same risks to children that we saw emerge from the recent nicotine vaping epidemic," she said.Child-resistant packaging cuts risk

State regulators could play a strong role in protecting children from inadvertent exposures to marijuana, Dilley said.

"We can design packages that are tough for kids to get into," Dilley noted. "I know Washington state requires that each serving of an edible is separately wrapped, so if a child finds an edible product they have to open each individual dose separately. That makes it a little tougher for kids to get into it and be accidentally exposed."

NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano pointed out another reason why call rates might be higher in states with legal recreational use -- folks in those places might feel more comfortable calling a poison control center, because they face no potential criminal charges.

But he agreed that there is a role for state regulators to play in these new recreational markets.

"These products ought to be uniquely and distinctly labeled in a manner that makes it readily clear that they contain cannabis and sold in child-resistant packaging, so as to better discourage inadvertent consumption," Armentano said.

Increased public education about the differences between manufactured products and marijuana plant use also would help, he added.
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"With non-traditional cannabis-infused products becoming more prevalent in the retail market, parallel efforts ought to be made to increase public awareness with respect to the dramatic differences in herbal versus orally consumed products," Armentano said. "At a minimum, potential consumers should be informed that cannabis-infused oral products possess delayed onset, greater variability, and prolonged duration of effect compared to inhaled marijuana.

"The imposition of sensible regulations on the cannabis industry, coupled with better public safety information and greater consumer responsibility and accountability, are the best strategies to address cannabis-specific health concerns due to the inadvertent ingestion or over-ingestion of these products," Armentano concluded.

Parents should also be encouraged not to leave pot products lying casually around, in easy access of children, Richter said.

"As is true of any addictive substance, if these products are in the home, adults should be sure to safeguard children from them by ensuring that they remain out of sight and out of reach of young people," Richter said.

"If adults do use them in the presence of children, they should be very careful to explain that they are dangerous for children to touch or ingest and should refrain from conveying in any way that the products are harmless or fun or needed to relax and enjoy oneself," she said.More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about marijuana.




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Medical, faith leaders call for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines


People wait to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses at one of the largest vaccination sites at Radhaswami Satsang, in New Delhi, India, on May 4, 2021. World health and faith leaders on Monday urged nations to ensure equitable access to vaccines. Photo by Abhishek/UPI | License Photo

May 24 (UPI) -- Global faith leaders and leading medical professionals on Monday called on governments the world over to ensure equitable distribution and access to COVID-19 vaccines, calling it a "humanitarian imperative."

In a letter published Monday and signed by the likes of World Health Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the faith and health leaders said the world was at "a turning point" with countries and organizations facing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address global inequality and reverse the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There is a choice," they said. "The world of the next 10 years can be one of greater justice, abundance and dignity. Or it can be one of conflict, insecurity and poverty."

The letter was also signed by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar; Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross; Bishop Ivan M. Abrahams, general secretary of the World Methodist Council; Filippo Grandi, U.N. high commissioner for refugees; Henrietta H. Fore, executive director of UNICEF; and Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Crosse and Red Crescent Societies as well as other Jewish, Christian and Islamic leaders.

The letter's signatories said no country has been unscathed by the pandemic, which has exposed and exacerbated inequalities both between and within countries.

"We have a choice: vaccine nationalism or human solidarity," they said.

The leaders are calling for equitable access to vaccines between countries by providing doses, sharing knowledge and expertise and fully funding the WHO-led Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, which is working to provide equitable access to coronavirus-fighting tools, including vaccines and diagnostics.

They are also calling for equitable access within countries to ensure all have access to vaccines and to support countries financially, politically and technically to ensure a global COVD-19 health strategy.

"We are committed, in our different institutions, to offering all the help we can to support actions by communities and authorities," they said.

The leaders, however, also said the world needs to ensure urgent access to vaccines for all, not just COVID-19 vaccines but vaccines for diseases that continue to infect with serious outcomes.

They said they support a so-called health for all policy, in which "each person's life is valued and every person's right to healthcare is upheld."

"People not only need vaccinations -- they need access to healthcare workers who are skilled and equipped to deliver adequate medical support," they said.

The call is the latest from WHO leaders who have been warning against vaccine nationalism for months.

In late March, Tedros chastised rich nations for rapidly seeking to inoculate their entire populations at the cost of lives in poorer nations that had yet to receive their first doses.

He said then that vaccine disparity was "becoming more grotesque every day."

In the letter Monday, the leaders said it was "time for decisive leadership."

"In doing so, they will bring hope not only for the poorest in the world, but for us all," they said.

The COVAX vaccine program, which is one of four pillars that make up the ACT initiative, has as of Friday shipped more than 69 million vaccine doses to 125 participating nations, according to its website.

Explosive weapons in conflict mostly harm civilians, study shows



A birthday greeting hangs on the wall of an apartment building hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Petah Tikva. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

May 25 (UPI) -- Explosive weapons in populated areas have killed and injured civilians more than 90% of the time over the past 10 years, according to a study released Tuesday by a London-based organization calling for an end to their use.

The group Action on Armed Violence said in its Explosive Violence Monitoring Project that almost 240,000 civilians were killed or injured by such weapons between 2011 and 2020.

"When explosive weapons were used in populated areas, 91% of those killed and injured were civilians. This compares to 25% in other areas," the group said.

The group defines explosive weapons as including a variety of munitions, such as air-dropped bombs, mortars, improvised explosive devices and artillery shells.

RELATED Voices: Gaza's enhanced rocket technology challenges Israel's defenses

AOAV Executive Director Iain Overton pointed to the ongoing conflict in Israel, for example, where many Palestinians have been killed and injured in populated locations, like buildings and settlements.

The group also noted the conflict in Gaza, which has been under a cease-fire for less than a week after 11 days of Israeli bombardment.

"When explosive weapons are used in towns and cities, civilians will be harmed," Overton told The Guardian. "[It is] as true as it is today in Gaza as it was a decade ago in Iraq and beyond."

The group said it's documented close to 360,000 deaths and injuries overall by explosive weapons in 30,000 incidents in the past decade. It said civilians made up 73% of those deaths, or about 262,000.

"Since the monitor began, AOAV has recorded the appalling suffering caused across the globe by both manufactured and improvised weapons," the 55-page report states.

"We call on states and other users to commit politically to stop using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas."

SKY PIRACY
U.N.: Belarus' 'abduction' of journalist escalates crackdown on civil society

A spokesman for the U.N. Human Rights Commission accused Belarus on Tuesday of abducting journalist Roman Protasevich over the weekend. Photo by EPA-EFE

May 25 (UPI) -- A United Nations Human Rights Commissioner official warned Tuesday that the Lukashenko regime's hijacking of a commercial airliner with intent to "abduct" a journalist on board represents a "new phase" in its crackdown on civil society.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. commissioner, lambasted the government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a press briefing concerning the arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich over the weekend.

"This arbitrary arrest is a sign of an extremely worrying escalation in the crackdown on dissenting voices, not just of journalists but also of Belarusian human rights defenders and other civil society actors, including those living abroad," he said.

Protasevich, an exiled journalist critical of Lukashenko, was on a Ryanair flight en route from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, on Sunday when the plane landed under the escort of a Belarusian fighter jet in Minsk where he and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapaga, were arrested.

"The manner, through threat of military force, in which Protasevich was abducted from the jurisdiction of another state and brought within that of Belarus was tantamount to an extraordinary rendition," Colville said. "Such abuse of state power against a journalist for exercising functions that are protected under international law is receiving, and deserves, the strongest condemnation."

Belarus has said the downing of the plane was prompted by a bomb threat and Protasevich was arrested on charges of organizing mass riots and whose name was included in a national terrorist watch list.

On Monday, a video apparently shot by authorities shows Protasevich with marks on his face confessing to having led large-scale anti-government protests last year following August's widely discredited election that saw Lukashenko elected to a sixth term.

U.S. President Joe Biden had raised suspicions Protasevich made the confession under duress on Sunday, worries that Colville shares.

"We fear for Roman Protasevich's safety and wish to seek assurances that he is treated humanely and is not subjected to ill treatment or torture. His appearance on state TV last night was not reassuring, given that apparent bruising to his face, and the strong likelihood that his appearance was not voluntary and his 'confession' to serious crimes was forced."

Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya also raised concerns Tuesday from Vilnius, where she remains in exile, that the 26-year-old journalist has been tortured.

"He said that he is being treated lawfully but he is clearly beaten and under pressure," she said, Voice of America reported. "There is no doubt that he may be tortured."

According to Minsk-based Visana Human Rights Center, Protasevich's legal representatives have not been granted permission to speak with their client despite visiting the pre-trial detention center and other security facilities.

The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations rejected Colville's comments in a strongly worded statement later Tuesday, calling him "a mid-level employee" without authorization to speak on issues of sovereign states.

The mission said Protasevich is a suspect in several criminal cases and was arrested in connection to an international search warrant, stating his arrest was made "on fully legitimate grounds."

"Mr. Colville's qualifications of Belarus' actions in relation to the detention of Mr. Protasevich, a citizen of Belarus, as 'unlawful,' 'arbitrary' and 'abuse' clearly show that the above official went beyond both his powers and the office's mandate," it said. "In so doing, he disregarded both the principle of impartiality that all U.N. international officials must consistently uphold and the doctrine of the presumption of innocence."

The office accused Western nations who have described the incident as state-sponsored hijacking did so without evidence.

"The Belarusian authorities, in accordance with their international obligations, invited these and other organizations, as well as the relevant competent authorities of the United States and the European Union to take part in the investigation," it said.

The comments were made a day after the EU swiftly decided to impose sanctions against the country and for EU aircraft to stay clear of Belarusian airspace as well as banning Minsk planes for landing at their airports. The United States also said it is considering punitive measures.

Both the bloc and the United States, among other western countries, have imposed sanctions and restrictions against the Lukashenko regime over Belarus' August election they deemed to be neither free nor fair and due its security forces escalating crackdown on subsequent protests that forced opposition leaders into exile.

The Viasna Human Rights Center has as of Wednesday tallied 421 political prisoners in the country, most of whom were arrested following the August election.

Following the EU's decision Monday, airlines and countries have said they will be staying clear of Belarus.

Ryanair said none of its flights will fly over Belarus in accordance with the EU guidance. Singapore Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways are also avoiding the country.

Finnair announced it will also be discounting use of Belarus' airspace "until further notice."



Meanwhile, the governments of Britain, Lithuanian and others have said their aircraft will avoid Belarus' airspace.

Belavia, Belarus' airliner, announced that due to bans instituted by various countries against it landing at their airports, it was cancelling flights to and from Lithuania, Britain, France and the Ukraine.

In the United States, Biden has come under pressure to do more than issue statements concerning the arrest with U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., calling on him in a letter to direct the Federal Aviation Administration to prohibit U.S. aircraft from Belarus' air space.

Following the arrest, Biden issued a statement stating he has directed his administration to develop options in conjunction with EU and other partners to "hold accountable those responsible."

During a press conference Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that "he's asked his team to put together some options for him."

Meanwhile, Belarus on Tuesday has decided to close its embassy in Canada as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned Protasevich's arrest and said the Lukashenko regime's behavior is "outrageous, illegal and completely unacceptable."

"This was a clear attack on democracy and on the freedom of the press," he said during a press conference. "We condemn it and call for his immediate release."

Canada, which has previously sanctioned Belarus since August, is considering further options, he said.

It is unclear if the embassy's closure was in response to Trudeau's comments.

The embassy said it will suspend its services starting Sept. 1.