Dylan Stableford Senior Writer,Yahoo News•April 15, 2020
WHO regrets U.S. hold on funding but says focus is on stopping coronavirus
The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday defended its mission in fighting the coronavirus after President Trump halted U.S. funding to the global health agency.
“The enjoyment of the highest standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said at a press briefing in Geneva, reciting the 75-year-old organization’s mission statement. “That creed remains our vision today.”
His comments came a day after Trump announced that he planned to withhold funding to the WHO for what he claimed were missteps in handling the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 2 million people worldwide and killed at least 129,000, including more than 26,000 in the United States.
“With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible,” Trump said at a Rose Garden briefing late Tuesday afternoon. “The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.”
Trump has expressed annoyance that the WHO gets much more money from the U.S. — $893 million over the past two years, roughly 10 percent of the organization’s budget — than from China, while it was allegedly complicit in China’s early attempts to hide the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump himself, however, initially praised China for its “transparency” about the disease, before more recently blaming the nation for allowing the pandemic to spread.
U.S. funding to the WHO is appropriated by Congress. Presidents can put holds on funds, and Trump suggested that his administration would indeed withhold some portion of the money while investigating the organization. But the president provided few specifics of that investigation, saying only that WHO funding would be withheld — before eventually being released — for up to three months.
“The United States of America has been a longstanding and generous friend to WHO, and we hope it will continue to be so,” Tedros said. “We regret the decision by the president of the United States to order a hold in funding to the World Health Organization.”
Tedros was named WHO director-general in 2017 after serving as Ethiopia’s health minister.
President Trump and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
(Alex Brandon/AP, Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
He said the WHO would work with partners to “fill any financial gaps we face, and to ensure our work continues uninterrupted.” And he called for unity in the face of the pandemic.
“COVID-19 does not discriminate between rich nations and poor, large nations and small,” Tedros continued. “It does not discriminate between nationalities, ethnicities or ideologies. Neither do we.”
“This is a time for all of us to be united,” he added. “When we are divided, the virus exposes the cracks between us.”
Trump’s decision to halt funding to the WHO was widely condemned by lawmakers, global health officials and philanthropists, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has made international health his signature philanthropy.
“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted. “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”
“Withholding funds for WHO in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century makes as much sense as cutting off ammunition to an ally as the enemy closes in,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. “WHO could have been more forceful with China and declared a global health emergency sooner, but it is performing an essential function and needs our strong support.”
Tedros said the WHO will conduct a thorough review of its response to the pandemic “in due course.”
“No doubt areas of improvement will be identified and there will be lessons for all of us,” the director-general said. “But for now, our focus, my focus, is on saving lives.”
Alexander Nazaryan contributed reporting to this story.
Nancy Pelosi Pledges To Challenge Trump's 'Illegal' WHO Funding Freeze
Igor Bobic,HuffPost•April 15, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold funding to the World Health Organization is “illegal” and will be “swiftly challenged” by Democrats.
Trump announced Tuesday he intended to at least temporarily halt U.S. funding to the United Nations public health agency over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The president claimed the WHO promoted China’s “disinformation” about the severity of the outbreak, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
“The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable,” Trump said.
The U.S. is the biggest overall donor to the Geneva-based global world health agency, contributing more than $400 million in 2019 ― about 15% of its budget ― according to Reuters. The money goes to public health programs throughout the world, from war-torn countries like Yemen to those dedicated to fighting Ebola.
Pelosi slammed Trump’s decision on Wednesday. She and other House Democratic leaders maintain Trump does not have unilateral authority to freeze congressionally appropriated funding to the WHO over a policy disagreement. They’re pointing to a similar decision from a federal watchdog that found that the Trump administration broke the law when it withheld assistance to Ukraine, which led to the president’s impeachment.
Trump’s targeting of the WHO, Pelosi charged, is an effort by him to shift blame for the rise of the deadly epidemic in the U.S., which has cost more than 25,000 lives so far.
“Sadly, as he has since Day One, the president is ignoring global health experts, disregarding science and undermining the heroes fighting on the frontline, at great risk to the lives and livelihoods of Americans and people around the world,” the speaker said in a statement. “This is another case, as I have said, of the President’s ineffective response, that ‘a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others.’”
Beijing has been accused of understating the coronavirus epidemic by censoring and vastly undercounting its official death toll. The nation’s public figures alarmed the CIA in early February, which at that time warned the White House about understated infection numbers from China.
Republicans are demanding information from the WHO about its communications with Chinese officials, and they’re pushing to grill its leaders at a future congressional hearing.
Some Democrats acknowledge that the WHO could have handled the coronavirus outbreak better, but they maintain now is not the time to cripple the only agency in charge of public health on a global scale.
“It needs to be reformed. There are problems. It was too soft on China here,” Ron Klain, who oversaw the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak, said Wednesday in a Twitter conversation with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “But let’s be clear, the mess we have in America right now is not because of the WHO, it’s because of what Trump did with the information he was getting.
Rep. Tim Ryan: Halting WHO funding 'one of the most irresponsible decisions in the history of the presidency'
Jessica Smith Reporter,Yahoo Finance•April 15, 2020
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) slammed President Trump for halting funding for the World Health Organization — calling the decision the “height of irresponsibility” in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
“This is one of the most irresponsible decisions in the history of the presidency — in the middle of a global pandemic to defund the World Health Organization,” Ryan said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
On Tuesday, Trump announced he was cutting off U.S. funding for the WHO pending a review of the organization’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called the move “dangerous and illegal” — while noting it would be “swiftly challenged.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the White House said the WHO’s response “has been filled with one misstep and cover-up after another” and the organization has “longstanding structural issues that must be addressed before the organization can be trusted again.”
‘Negligent to the nth degree’
Ryan and other Democratic lawmakers have suggested Trump is trying to deflect blame from his administration.
“He put us in this position and then he wants to blame the World Health Organization, blame Andrew Cuomo,” said Ryan. “I played a lot of sports growing up. No coach worth their salt would ever try to blame somebody else. You get better, you improve, you take responsibility as a leader and that's your job — and he is negligent to the nth degree.”
Ryan, a former 2020 presidential candidate, told Yahoo Finance the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic will hurt the president at the polls in November.
“In the conversations I'm having here in Ohio, everyone is seeing the president for what he is. He's not taking any responsibility. He's encouraging fights between governors, bidding up products that are essential,” said Ryan. “I don't know if you'll be able to find a healthcare worker that will vote for President Trump.”
The president has also come under fire for reportedly ordering his name to be printed on the stimulus checks being sent to Americans — which some worry could slow down the process of getting checks out to people in need.
“Are you freaking kidding me? Really? This is happening in America. A president's more worried about his political standing — his ego getting stroked — as opposed to getting this money,” said Ryan. “I just think that the average person where I grew up, where we come from in Ohio, is just appalled by something so obnoxious as trying to get your name on the check for your own political gain.”
The Treasury Department denies the decision will cause any delays.
Economic anxiety
Lawmakers are trying to come to a deal before the Paycheck Protection Program runs out of money this week. Republicans want to solely focus on boosting money to the small-business loan program, while Democratic lawmakers want to include help for hospitals, state and local governments and rapid testing.
“We just are not getting the presidential leadership that we need on some of these issues. That's the reality of the situation. So we're all trying to figure this out without, you know, the top dog helping us make this happen,” said Ryan.
Ryan argues individual Americans need more help than the $1,200 payment included in the CARES Act. On Tuesday, Ryan and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced a bill that would give most Americans $2,000 a month until the economy recovers.
“I just believe that these direct cash payments to people who are really suffering on the ground out here — it's going to be very, very helpful. There's a lot of anxiety in the country today that's obviously around the coronavirus, but for most people it's around the economic anxiety,” said Ryan.
Jessica Smith is a reporter for Yahoo Finance based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @JessicaASmith8
Global backlash after Trump orders funding freeze on WHO
Nina LARSON and AFP bureaus AFP•April 15, 2020
A full-scale return to normality still appears a long way off in countries including Italy (AFP Photo/Miguel MEDINA)
Geneva (AFP) - Criticism was heaped on US President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he ordered a freeze on funding for the World Health Organization, with friends and foes of the United States calling for global solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus and its economic devastation.
The pandemic is entering a new and uncertain phase as governments debate how to reboot commerce without triggering new infection waves of a virus that has killed more than 125,000 people.
In hard-hit Europe, a patchwork of countries are easing lockdown measures, with Denmark the first on the continent to send some children back to school and Germany announcing it would allow most shops to open with "plans to maintain hygiene".
Yet in poorer and more densely populated parts of the world, many governments are still struggling to enforce restrictions on movement that are piling misery on the needy and spreading hunger.
On the horizon looms the worst economic downturn in a century, which the International Monetary Fund has said could see $9 trillion wiped from the global economy.
Offering a lifeline for the world's poorest countries, the G20 -- a group of the world's leading economies -- said it would temporarily suspend debt repayments from the most impoverished nations.
The reprieve will free up more than $20 billion for those countries to focus on the pandemic and will last at least a year, according to Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan.
But the global economic outlook remains gloomy, with Europe's powerhouse Germany already in recession and US industrial output declining by 6.3 percent -- its biggest fall in seven decades.
More than a third of French workers are on temporary unemployment, the government said Wednesday, as the virus toll topped 17,000 while hospital numbers went down for the first time.
- Trump's blame-game -\
As the world tries to chart a way out of the crisis, Trump ramped up his blame-game with the WHO, the UN's health agency.
Accusing the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus", Trump ordered a freeze on payments -- the US was its top individual donor last year giving $400 million.
The outbreak could have been contained "with very little death" if the WHO had accurately assessed the situation when the disease broke out late last year in China, Trump alleged.
Allies and enemies of the US fired back at the American leader, who played down the dangers of the virus until it arrived in full force in the US, where it has now chalked up its highest death tolls.
"No doubt, areas for improvement will be identified and there will be lessons for all of us to learn," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that he would work to cover any funding gaps.
UN chief Antonio Guterres also condemned Trump's move while billionaire Bill Gates, a major WHO contributor, tweeted that cutting funding was "as dangerous as it sounds".
European allies were similarly disapproving and Washington's rivals also took aim -- Russia condemning the "selfish approach" of the US, and China and Iran blasting the move as dangerous.
- Normality a long way off -
With tentative hope the death tolls and infection rates could be plateauing in some European hotspots, a handful of countries are experimenting with phasing out restrictions.
Germany said most shops would be allowed to reopen but measures such as bans on large events would remain in place and schools would stay closed until at least May 4.
While children started returning to nurseries and primary schools in parts of Denmark, Lithuania said it would allow smaller shops to reopen from Thursday.
A travel ban around the Helsinki region was also scrapped, though Finland's Prime Minister urged residents to continue avoiding unnecessary movement, saying "now is not the right time to go to the summer cottage".
In Brussels, the EU unveiled a proposed roadmap for loosening controls across the bloc with the help of smartphone tracking apps that could detect local flare-ups of the virus.
Other countries are also tweaking confinement rules, with Iran set to let some small businesses reopen and India allowing millions of rural people to return to work -- officials saying it was too painful to shut the farming sector.
Yet a full-scale return to normality still appears a long way off.
Harvard scientists have warned that repeated periods of social distancing could be needed as far ahead as 2022 to avoid overwhelming hospitals.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has allowed work to restart in some factories and building sites, nevertheless warned that "nothing will be the same until a vaccine is found".
- 'Police come with a whip' -
Food banks are swarming with newcomers even the world's wealthier capitals.
But fears over hunger and possible social unrest are especially acute in parts of Africa and Latin America.
In Cape Town, clashes erupted Tuesday as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at residents protesting access to food aid.
A similar crisis is taking hold in Ecuador, where hunger trumps fear of the virus for residents in rundown areas of the badly affected city of Guayaquil.
"The police come with a whip to send people running, but how do you say to a poor person 'Stay home' if you don't have enough to eat?" said Carlos Valencia, a 35-year-old teacher.
The city's mayor has warned that overstretched medical facilities have left many to die before they could be tested -- a reality that could be hiding the true extent of the carnage in many poorer places.
However, in parts of the world that saw early outbreaks, there were some hopeful examples of life carrying on.
Wearing compulsory face masks and gloves, South Koreans went to the polls on Wednesday and delivered a strong show of support for President Moon Jae-in, commending his handling of the epidemic.
Once home to the world's second-largest outbreak, South Korea has largely brought the virus under control through widespread testing, contact-tracing and social distancing.
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