Why Cuba’s extraordinary Covid vaccine success could provide the best hope for low-income countries

PUBLISHED THU, JAN 13 2022
Sam Meredith@SMEREDITH19

KEY POINTS

Cuba’s prestigious biotech sector has developed five different Covid vaccines to date, including Abdala, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus — all of which Cuba has said provide upwards of 90% protection against symptomatic Covid when administered in three-dose schemes.

The country of roughly 11 million remains the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to have produced a homegrown shot for Covid.

The WHO’s potential approval of Cuba’s nationally produced Covid vaccines would carry “enormous significance” for low-income nations, John Kirk, professor emeritus at the Latin America program of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, told CNBC via telephone.


Workers transport a shipment of the Cuban Soberana Plus vaccine against the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, to be donated by the Cuban government to Syria, at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, on January 7, 2022.
YAMIL LAGE | AFP | Getty Images

Cuba has vaccinated a greater percentage of its population against Covid-19 than almost all the world’s largest and richest nations. In fact, only the oil-rich United Arab Emirates boasts a stronger vaccination record.

The tiny Communist-run Caribbean island has achieved this milestone by producing its own Covid vaccine, even as it struggles to keep supermarket shelves stocked amid a decades-old U.S. trade embargo.

“It is an incredible feat,” Helen Yaffe, a Cuba expert and lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, told CNBC via telephone.

“Those of us who have studied biotech aren’t surprised in that sense, because it has not just come out of the blue. It is the product of a conscious government policy of state investment in the sector, in both public health and in medical science.”

To date, around 86% of the Cuban population has been fully vaccinated against Covid with three doses, and another 7% have been partly inoculated against the disease, according to official statistics compiled by Our World in Data.

These figures include children from the age of two, who began receiving the vaccine several months ago. The country’s health authorities are rolling out booster shots to the entire population this month in a bid to limit the spread of the highly transmissible omicron Covid variant.

I think it is clear that many countries and populations in the global south see the Cuban vaccine as their best hope for getting vaccinated by 2025.

Helen Yaffe

LECTURER IN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW,

The country of roughly 11 million remains the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to have produced a homegrown shot for Covid.

“Just the sheer audacity of this tiny little country to produce its own vaccines and vaccinating 90% of its population is an extraordinary thing,” John Kirk, professor emeritus at the Latin America program of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, told CNBC via telephone.

Cuba’s prestigious biotech sector has developed five different Covid vaccines, including Abdala, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus — all of which Cuba says provide upwards of 90% protection against symptomatic Covid when three doses are administered.

Cuba’s vaccine clinical trial data has yet to undergo international scientific peer review, although the country has engaged in two virtual exchanges of information with the World Health Organization to initiate the Emergency Use Listing process for its vaccines.

Unlike U.S. pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna, which use mRNA technology, all of Cuba’s vaccines are subunit protein vaccines — like the Novavax vaccine. Crucially for low-income countries, they are cheap to produce, can be manufactured at scale and do not require deep freezing.

It has prompted international health officials to tout the shots as a potential source of hope for the “global south,” particularly as low vaccination rates persist. For instance, while around 70% of people in the European Union have been fully vaccinated, less than 10% of the African population have been fully vaccinated.

A man wears a face mask as he walks down a street amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Havana, Cuba, Oct. 2, 2021.
Joaquin Hernandez | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

For this to hope to be realized, however, the WHO would likely have to approve Cuba’s vaccines. The WHO’s vetting process involves assessing the production facilities where the vaccines are developed, a point which Cuba’s health officials say has slowed progress.

Vicente Verez, head of Cuba’s Finlay Vaccine Institute, told Reuters last month that the U.N. health agency was assessing Cuba’s manufacturing facilities to a “first-world standard,” citing the costly process in upgrading theirs to that level.

Verez has said previously that the necessary documents and data would be submitted to the WHO in the first quarter of 2022. Approval from the WHO would be an important step to making the shots available throughout the world.

‘Enormous significance’

When asked what it would mean for low-income countries should the WHO approve Cuba’s Covid vaccines, Yaffe said: “I think it is clear that many countries and populations in the global south see the Cuban vaccine as their best hope for getting vaccinated by 2025.”

“And actually, it affects all of us because what we are seeing with the omicron variant is that what happens when vast populations have almost no coverage is that you have mutations and new variants developing and then they come back to haunt the advanced capitalist countries which have been hoarding vaccines,” she added.

Students, who are accompanied by their mother, are being vaccinated with a dose of the Soberana 2 vaccine against the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, developed in Cuba, at the Bolivar educational center in Caracas, Venezuela on December 13, 2021.
Pedro Rances Mattey | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Kirk agreed that the WHO’s potential approval of Cuba’s nationally produced Covid vaccines would carry “enormous significance” for developing countries.

“One thing that is important to bear in mind is that the vaccines don’t require the ultra-low temperatures which Pfizer and Moderna need so there are places, in Africa in particular, where you don’t have the ability to store these global north vaccines,” Kirk said.

He also pointed out that Cuba, unlike other countries or pharmaceutical companies, had offered to engage in the transfer of technology to share its vaccine production expertise with low-income countries.

“The objective of Cuba is not to make a fast buck, unlike the multinational drug corporations, but rather to keep the planet healthy. So, yes making an honest profit but not an exorbitant profit as some of the multinationals would make,” Kirk said.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned last month that a “tsunami” of Covid cases driven by the omicron variant was “so huge and so quick” that it had overwhelmed health systems worldwide.

Tedros repeated his call for greater vaccine distribution to help low-income countries vaccinate their populations, with more than 100 countries on track to miss the U.N. health agency’s target for 70% of the world to be fully vaccinated by July.

The WHO said last year that the world was likely to have enough Covid vaccine doses in 2022 to fully inoculate the entire global adult population — providing high-income countries did not hoard vaccines to use in booster programs.

Alongside pharmaceutical industry trade associations, a number of Western countries — such as Canada, the U.K. and Japan — are among those actively blocking a patent-waiver proposal designed to boost the global production of Covid vaccines.

The urgency of waiving certain intellectual property rights amid the pandemic has repeatedly been underscored by the WHO, health experts, civil society groups, trade unions, former world leaders, international medical charities, Nobel laureates and human rights organizations.

An absence of vaccine hesitancy

The seven-day average of daily Covid cases in Cuba climbed to 2,063 as of Jan. 11, reflecting an almost 10-fold increase since the end of December as the omicron variant spreads.

It comes as the number of omicron Covid cases surges across countries and territories in the Americas region. The Pan American Health Organization, the WHO’s regional Americas office, has warned a rise in cases may lead to an uptick in hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks.

PAHO has called on countries to accelerate vaccination coverage to reduce Covid transmission and has repeated its recommendation of public health measures such as tight-fitting masks — a mandatory requirement in Cuba.

Yaffe has long been confident in Cuba’s ability to boast one of the world’s strongest vaccination records. Speaking to CNBC in February last year — before the country had even developed a homegrown vaccine — she said she could “guarantee” that Cuba would be able to administer its domestically produced Covid vaccine extremely quickly.

“It wasn’t conjecture,” Yaffe said. “It was based on understanding their public health care system and the structure of it. So, the fact that they have what they call family doctor and nurse clinics in every neighborhood.”

Many of these clinics are based in rural and hard-to-reach areas and it means health authorities can quickly deliver vaccines to the island’s population.

“The other aspect is they don’t have a movement of vaccine hesitancy, which is something that we are seeing in many countries,” Yaffe said.

Student loans worsen racial inequalities in America




By: Newsy Staff
 Jan 12, 2022

Special Education teacher Tameka Jackson has been renting a house on the south side of Chicago for over 10 years.

"I want a home, but according to all of this, will I ever be able to afford a home," Jackson said.

She dreams of buying her first home and moving her family to a safer neighborhood.

"I have a 16-year-old that I worry about because it is gang violence over here, they are recruiting," Jackson said.

But she is trapped because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars she owes in student loans.

"I'm not able to sustain and live comfortably," Jackson said.

Growing up poor, Jackson charted a new course by doing what no one in her family had ever done, pursuing higher education. It was something she was only able to afford by taking on many student loans.

"School was the only thing that kind of saved my life," she said. "I had no money. My mom was strung out on drugs."

Today, she says her loans add up to more than $500,000.

The 40-year-old mother says multiple family tragedies and her modest salary as a public school teacher made it all but impossible to reach financial stability.

Her financial situation illustrates a troubling fact about student loans in America: they worsen racial inequalities.

"Student loan debt is contributing to racial wealth gap, largely because Black people have been discriminated against and the wealth divide is enormous," said Andre Perry, a senior fellow at Brookings.

The average white family has nearly eight times the wealth of the average Black family. As a result, Black students are more likely to take out student loans and borrow more.

That wraps them up financially for longer periods of time.

"The reason why many more, as a percentage, Black and brown people, particularly Black people, have to take out student loans is because we were denied wealth building opportunities for most of the history of the United States," Perry said.

For a disproportionate number of Black Americans, paying back the debts often turn out to be a life-long struggle.

Twenty years after starting college, the average Black borrower still owes 95% of their student debt.

Brandeis University researchers say that compares to only 6% for the average white student.

As for Jackson, she urges lawmakers to cancel as much student debt as possible to free people like her from stifling financial burden.

This story was originally reported on Newsy.com.

SERIOUSLY?

US women charged after attacking man with glitter

Jose Martinez Jan 13 2022

GETTY/JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP

Two Florida women have been charged with attacking a man with glitter (file photo).

Two women were arrested after attacking a man with several containers of glitter during a dispute at his Clearwater, Florida apartment, WFLA reports.

Kaitlin O’Donovan, 27, and Sarah Franks, 29, arrived at the unidentified man’s residence shortly before 3am Monday (Florida time) where an argument ensued as he stood on his fenced balcony. O’Donovan and Franks struck the man’s head and torso with glitter.

Franks then climbed over the balcony fence as the victim went into his apartment, and followed him inside. She threw more containers of glitter before opening the front door for O’Donovan, who tossed even more glitter at him.

The two women left the apartment before local police arrived, but were eventually found at Franks’ home by tracing the vehicle they used to flee the scene. Authorities noticed that there was glitter inside the car, which police said was still warm.

Franks and O’Donovan have been charged with felony burglary with assault or battery. Franks was also given a misdemeanour criminal mischief charge because, according to police, she kicked a window while leaving the apartment until it broke.

It’s unclear if the man suffered any injuries from the glitter attack. The Charlotte Eye Ear Nose & Throat Associates warns that even the tiniest piece can be detrimental if it gets in a person’s eye, potentially scratching their cornea, causing light sensitivity, bloodshot eyes, and more. If left untreated, the eye can worsen into a corneal ulcer.

Police disperse Bedouin protesters in southern Israel

Thu., January 13, 2022



APTOPIX Bedouin protesters clash with Israeli forces following a protest against an afforestation project by the Jewish National Fund in the southern Israeli village of Sa'we al-Atrash in the Negev Desert, southern Israel, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police on Thursday fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of Bedouin Arabs protesting a tree-planting campaign they say is aimed at pushing them off disputed land.

It was the third consecutive day of demonstrations by Bedouin residents of southern Israel's Negev desert against a forestry project they say is aimed at seizing land near unrecognized villages.

Video footage from the scene shows hundreds of people blocking the desert highway. Police then intervene with tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to clear the road. They said 13 people were arrested in what they described as a violent disturbance. Police released video clips showing people throwing rocks at cars. They said three people were hospitalized with minor injuries.

Thursday's demonstration came a day after the government announced a compromise to suspend the tree-planting campaign, which is being conducted by a quasi-governmental organization. The forestry project caused a crisis within the fragile ruling coalition, which includes a small Islamist party with significant support among Bedouins in southern Israel.

The Bedouin view the forestry project as part of a larger attempt by authorities to confiscate grazing lands and force them into planned communities, a perceived assault on their traditional lifestyle. Israel says they need to move into planned towns so it can provide public services.

The latest flare-up in the dispute, which goes back decades, risks dividing Israel’s government, the first to include an Arab party.

The Bedouin are one of Israel's poorest communities and are part of Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up some 20% of the country’s population. They have citizenship, including the right to vote, but face discrimination. Arab citizens of Israel have close family ties to the Palestinians and often identify with their cause.

Israeli police and Bedouin clash in tree-planting protests

Israeli security forces clash with Bedouins during protest against forestation at the Negev desert village of Sawe Al-Atrash on Thursday. (Reuters) BEDOUIN RIDERS

AFP
January 13, 2022

Protesters have held demonstrations in recent days over the environmental scheme in southern Israel's arid desert region

Bedouin, who are part of Israel's 20 percent Arab minority, have long opposed tree-planting initiatives in the Negev

NEGEV, Israel: Israeli police and Bedouin protesters clashed Thursday in the latest unrest over a tree-planting project in the Negev desert, a day after authorities appealed for compromise, AFP journalists said.

Protesters have held a series of demonstrations in recent days over the environmental scheme in southern Israel’s arid desert region, posing a thorny challenge for the fragile coalition government.

Bedouin, who are part of Israel’s 20 percent Arab minority, have long opposed tree-planting initiatives in the Negev, blasting them as a de facto government land grab in areas they call home.

“Police dispersed the demonstrators who blocked a road in the Negev and threw stones at the police,” the security forces said in a statement.

Thirteen people were arrested in the events, the statement added.

An AFP photographer was lightly injured during the clashes.

The latest unrest in the decades-long dispute has attracted fresh attention given the make-up of Israel’s coalition government, led by right-wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Bennett’s government counts on the backing from the leader of the Islamist Raam party, Mansour Abbas, whose core political support comes from Bedouin in the Negev.

Nearly half of Israel’s 300,000 Bedouin live in unrecognized villages in the Negev.

Abbas told Israel’s Channel 12 news on Tuesday that his party will not vote with the coalition unless the tree planting is halted and formal negotiations with Bedouin leaders are launched to seek a compromise.

On Wednesday, Social Affairs Minister Meir Cohen said that a “compromise” had been reached that would allow for “accelerated negotiations” to take place.

But clashes have continued.

The right-wing Regavim environmental group called on Bennett’s government “to take a firm position against the Raam Party’s threats” and to ensure tree-planting projects continue.

Hundreds of Bedouins clash with police over controversial Negev tree planting

Demonstrators block highway; officers respond with tear gas, stun grenades; 3 hospitalized, 13 arrested during 3rd day of protests

By EMANUEL FABIAN and TOI STAFF

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against a forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against a forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against a forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against an forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against a forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

Hundreds of Bedouin protesters clashed with police on Thursday afternoon for the third day in a row over a controversial forestation project in the Negev Desert, despite reports indicating the government was seeking a compromise.

The demonstrators blocked the Route 31 highway near the southern village of Sawe al-Atrash, and some hurled stones at officers, according to police.

Video posted online showed officers using stun grenades and tear gas to disperse the demonstration.




At least 12 demonstrators were reportedly hurt during the clash, of whom three were hospitalized at Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center.

Police said 13 people were arrested at Thursday’s protest.

Police said that due to the demonstration, the highway remained closed from Shoket Junction to Tel Arad Junction. “We will allow freedom of protest as long as it is done according to the law, and we will act with zero tolerance against disturbance,” the police statement read.

The demonstrations came following a Jewish National Fund planting in the region, seen by the Bedouin communities as part of a government effort to expel them from their unrecognized hamlets.

Police said Thursday morning that 21 rioters were arrested during the night in Tel Sheva, Segev Shalom and Rahat. On the previous night, 18 people were arrested.

Citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter, the Kan public broadcaster reported Wednesday that an “unprecedented” plan was to be advanced by the government that would include recognition of 10 to 12 Bedouin villages that are currently illegal.

The report said that planned planting in the most contentious areas — where the Bedouin al-Atrash clan lives — won’t resume next week to give the negotiations a chance to progress, though it will resume elsewhere.

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against a forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

The planting and the ensuing violent clashes with police threatened to topple Israel’s nascent, motley coalition, with the Islamist Ra’am party vowing to boycott plenum votes as long as Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael-Jewish National Fund’s (KKL-JNF) work continued in the Negev, where they enjoy the largest bloc of support.

In response to the announcement from Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas, Yamina MK Nir Orbach announced Wednesday that he too would not attend plenum votes so long as Ra’am refused to do so. And Meretz MK Yair Golan threatened to do the same too, after Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin of the New Hope party vowed that the tree-planting would continue.

Explainer: Why tree planting in the Negev sparked protests, riots and a coalition crisis

With a narrow 61-seat majority in the Knesset, the absences threatened to prevent the coalition from passing any legislation so long as the crisis continues.

Indeed, with the coalition lacking numbers, opposition lawmakers began submitting legislation for preliminary approval before the plenum on Wednesday evening. To avoid the embarrassment, coalition MKs left the plenum and several pieces of legislation advanced overwhelmingly, including a bill from Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi that would require police officers to wear body cameras when securing protests. The opposition’s bills are still unlikely to pass subsequent readings, but the events concluded a humiliating day for the coalition.

Bedouin protesters and Israeli forces clash during a protest in the southern Israeli village of Sawe al-Atrash in the Negev Desert against a forestation project by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), on January 13, 2022. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

KKL-JNF chairman Avraham Duvdevani told Kan on Wednesday that his organization was just a government contractor and wasn’t setting policy.

“We have been planting trees in the Negev for 15 years in the same format as right now,” Duvdevani said. “There was nothing different from what we have been doing all these years. We have no idea what’s different now. The instructions to halt plantings have been sporadic, and we resumed full work after a few days.

“We will continue planting in the entire Negev. This is part of the Zionist vision.”

Negev Bedouin have a contentious relationship with the state. For decades, the government has sought to move them into recognized, planned cities, but many still live in a constellation of illegal hamlets that sprawl across Israel’s southern desert.

Bedouins accuse KKL-JNF of seeking to displace them, but the organization says it is merely fulfilling a request by other government bodies on public land. KKL-JNF works across Israel on nature and conservation projects, but some charge the organization has a political agenda.

Israel extends detention of ill Palestinian teen: father


Muamar Nakhleh, father of Amal Nakhleh, a 17-year-old Palestinian with a rare neuromuscular disorder, held without charge for nearly a year in what Israel refers to as “administrative detention,” shows his photo at his office in Ramallah. (AP)

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https://arab.news/c62yc

AFP
January 13, 202220:23

Amal Nakhleh, 17, is one of the few minors held under what is known as administrative detention

His father told AFP after the latest hearing: "The occupation tribunal renewed my son's administrative detention for the fourth time despite his illness"

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israel has extended for four more months the detention without charge or trial of a chronically-ill Palestinian teenager already held for a year, his father told AFP on Thursday.

Amal Nakhleh, 17, is one of the few minors held under what is known as administrative detention. The controversial practice allows for suspects to be detained without charge for renewable six-month terms while investigations continue.

His father, Moammar Nakhleh, told AFP after the latest hearing: “The occupation tribunal renewed my son’s administrative detention for the fourth time despite his illness.”

Nakhleh, a journalist, added that his son will remain in detention until May 18, under the new order.

The Shin Bet domestic security agency declined to comment to AFP on the reasons for Amal Nakhleh’s detention. It has previously been quoted as saying he was “suspected of having taken part in terrorist activity.”

Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank first arrested him in November 2020.

A football fan, he was out with friends after recovering from cancer surgery, his family said. The teen has myasthenia, a rare neuromuscular disease.

Accused of throwing stones at soldiers, Nakhleh was held for 40 days but then set free by an Israeli judge.

In January last year, he was re-arrested and placed in administrative detention, which has now been renewed again.

Administrative detention has been criticized by the Palestinians, human rights groups and foreign governments, who charge that Israel abuses it.

Israel’s foreign ministry has defended the practice, saying that “due to the complex and volatile security situation in the West Bank, detention orders are issued against those who plan terrorist attacks, or those who orchestrate, facilitate or otherwise actively assist in the commission of such acts.”

The foreign ministry says it is “an effective and lawful security measure.”

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA has taken up the teen’s case with Israeli authorities, demanding his immediate release for medical reasons and because he is a minor.
More than 450 Palestinians have been held in excess of 12 months under administrative detention, which prominent Israeli newspaper Haaretz has called an “undemocratic, corrupt practice.”

Elderly Palestinian American Man Found Dead After Being Detained In Israeli Raid

The State Department says it supports an investigation into the death of 80-year-old Omar Asaad, who was arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

By Sanjana Karanth
01/12/2022

The U.S. Department of State has voiced its support for an investigation into the Wednesday death of an elderly Palestinian American man who his family and local officials said was detained by Israeli soldiers during a raid on an occupied West Bank village.

Omar Abdulmajeed Asaad, 80, was a U.S. citizen whose body was found in Jiljilya early Wednesday morning, the State Department confirmed. He was found with a plastic zip tie still around one wrist, according to Reuters.

“We can confirm the death of the U.S. citizen Omar Assad in a city near Ramallah. We have been in touch with Mr. Assad’s family to express our condolences about this tragedy. We are providing, as you would expect, all appropriate consular assistance to the family at this time,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

“We’ve also been in touch with the government of Israel to seek clarification about this incident. And, as you may have seen, the Israeli Defense Forces have indicated there is an ongoing investigation into the matter,” Price continued. “We support a thorough investigation into the circumstances of this incident. Of course, out of respect for the family during this time, we have little more that we’re able to offer.”

The Israeli Defense Force told Reuters that soldiers carried out an overnight raid in Jiljilya and that a Palestinian was “apprehended after resisting a check.” The IDF claimed the man was alive when soldiers released him, despite other detainees claiming they witnessed otherwise. Israeli army spokesperson Amnon Shefler said the incident would be investigated “in a thorough and professional manner.”

Fouad Qattoum, the head of Jiljilya’s village council, told news outlets that Asaad was driving home after visiting relatives when Israeli soldiers stopped his car, handcuffed him, blindfolded him and led him to a building under construction, as documented by security cameras. Another village resident said he saw Israeli soldiers walking Asaad away at around 3 a.m. Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Asaad had heart problems – which he has previously undergone surgery for – and “couldn’t withstand the conditions he was found in … sitting in the cold on a raw floor with his hands tied, no wonder he died,” Qattoum told The New Arab. “It is an ugly crime.”

The 80-year-old’s body was found over an hour later by a local farmer, 52-year-old Murawaeh Arouri, who told The New Arab that he was detained by Israeli forces at the same place. Arouri told the publication that he was driving back to his village with his co-worker when the IDF forced them out of the car and took them to an “abandoned house,” where he saw soldiers standing around a body. He said the soldiers looked at the body and then “got up and left without saying anything.”

“Asaad was covered with his own jacket. I saw his foot first and told my co-worker, who thought I was hallucinating out of fear,” Arouri said. “We pulled the jacket away and I instantly recognized him. He had his hands behind his back and the plastic wire that Israeli soldiers use to handcuff detainees was cut beside him. We tried to shake him, but he didn’t respond, so we called the local doctor.”

Dr. Islam Abu Zaher, who said he tried to resuscitate Asaad but found no pulse, told Reuters that the cause of death was not immediately clear without an autopsy but that it’s possible the elderly man “suffered a heart attack or some form of panic,” given his history of heart operations. Palestine Medical Complex Chief Ahmad Bitawi told Al Jazeera that doctors are currently conducting scans of Asaad’s body and that his case has been transferred to forensic medicine and public prosecution.

“Abu Hani was martyred, affected by the deployment of the occupation soldiers at dawn today,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said in a Facebook statement on Wednesday, referring to Asaad by the name he’s called in his village.

Qattoum told local media that the village demands “an international investigation committee and for accountability for the criminals,” according to Al Jazeera.

Asaad’s brother told Reuters that the 80-year-old was a former Milwaukee resident and American citizen who lived in the U.S. for decades before returning to the occupied West Bank 10 years ago.

On Wednesday, a reporter asked Price of the U.S. State Department if Asaad’s death is “the kind of thing you’ll look at” given Israel’s escalating push to get into the U.S. visa waiver program.

“There are stringent criteria that’s associated with admission into the visa waiver program,” Price answered. “It’s a decision that the secretary of homeland security in consultation with the secretary of state makes. So, I would point to the criteria associated with that.”

Israeli forces confront a Palestinian family whose home they say is "unlicensed" in Hebron, West Bank, on Jan. 12, 2021.
MAMOUN WAZWAZ/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Overnight military raids by Israeli soldiers are almost a daily practice in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians are exposed to live fire, arrests, assaults and killings. Last year, the Israeli army conducted more than 3,400 search-and-arrest operations, according to the United Nations. Israeli forces injured almost 350 Palestinians — including 109 children — during protests following those operations.

“There are Israeli reports that they are headed towards evicting more Palestinians or evicting Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah and from Silwan, despite your repeated calls on the Israelis not to do so,” a reporter asked Price on Tuesday. “What can you do to sort of persuade them not to actually go on and go ahead with this action?”

Price replied that the U.S. has been “very clear that it is critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions.” The reporter then emphasized that the displacement is not being carried out by Palestinians, but rather by Israelis.

“In this case, we have been clear that steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution includes – would include the eviction of families from homes in East Jerusalem in which these families have lived for generations, in some cases,” Price said. “We’ve been very clear about that.”

 Analysis;

Threats of Israeli chemical weapons arsenals, meaningful Western silence

January 12, 2022 - 9:21 AM News Code : 1218069 Source : Al Waght NewsLink: 

Since its establishment, the Israeli regime has been struggling to acquire arms and equipment granting it military capability and deterrence in the face of regional countries and the Palestinians and enabling it to pursue its expansionist goals in the region.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Since its establishment, the Israeli regime has been struggling to acquire arms and equipment granting it military capability and deterrence in the face of regional countries and the Palestinians and enabling it to pursue its expansionist goals in the region. 

Tel Aviv defines its military doctrine based on pre-emptive strikes using any type of weapons including biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Despite building nuclear warheads and various chemical weapons, it declined to sign Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement seeking prevention of stockpiling nuclear weapons. It has so far escaped punishment and international diplomatic limitations despite use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and internationally-banned arms in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. 

Israeli chemical weapons use records 

The Office of Technology Assessment of the US Congress has described the Israeli regime as having chemical arms capabilities and an undeclared biological weapons program, adding that Tel Aviv used chemical weapons in various wars against civilians. 

In February 2001, Israel used toxic gases against the people in Gaza Strip, causing many women and children to suffer suffocation, muscle cramps, and convulsions. Also, in March 2001, Tel Aviv gassed Al-Bireh village in Gaza. 

In its aggression against Lebanon and Gaza, Israel military used banned weapons, including four unknown types of weapons, against the Lebanese people, including cluster bombs, phosphorous bombs, unknown bombs emitting unknown fumes with a foul odor, and bullets that turn into 300 fragments after the explosion and can cover an area of 200×400 meters. 

Additionally, the injuries inflicted on Palestinians during Gaza bombing in 2014 war also demonstrate the fact that the Israeli regime used depleted uranium and chemical weapons in the Palestinian enclave. Norwegian doctors told Al-Alam news network that uranium traces have been discovered in the bombed areas of Gaza. 

Also, during the 11-day Israeli war on Gaza in May 2021, the Israeli army targeted Gaza with missiles containing chemical and toxic substances. Gaza-based medical centers asserted that a number of Palestinians died after breathing the toxic material fired by Israeli forces. There were clear signs on their bodies showing they died of gas, the centers continued. 

Syria, a showcase of Western contradictory behavior regarding chemical disarmament 

When the Syrian government was accused of using chemical weapons in 2013 against militants, Western countries, led by the US, threatened Damascus with military action should it does hand over its chemical weapons, claiming that the Syrian government had crossed the red lines. In the midst of the Syrian crisis, this became a pretext for increasing political and military pressure on the country, and as a result of these pressures, the government of President Bashar al-Assad agreed to accept the protocol banning the spread of chemical weapons, and as a result, all of its chemical weapons were destroyed. 

There was no evidence the government used chemicals against foreign-backed insurgents and the NPT spokesman at the International Court of Justice said the Israeli and American-provided evidence do not correspond to the standards required by the UN on use of WMDs. Exactly at the time Syrian chemical weapons were destroyed, Moscow and Damascus reported that foreign-backed terrorist fighters acquired chemical weapons with the likeliest provider being the Israeli government as it already supplied them with arms. 

Despite proofs that the Israeli regime used WMDs several times, it has never come under pressures to destroy its weapons or sign the NPT.

Dual standards regarding use of banned weapons 

The American journalist Seymour Hersh in his book The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy writes that the beginning of Israel's chemical and biological weapons program dates back to the 1960s, and in addition, in the Tel Aviv equipped some countries, such as Taiwan, with chemical weapons and transferred chemical weapons technology to others. Also, according to US intelligence assessments, the Israeli regime had tested chemical weapons in Negev desert. These measures have not met with a reaction from Western powers, especially the US, Britain or France in show of double standards in dealing with WMDs use. 

Former British member of parliament Sarah Wollaston, who voted against authorization for British government motion to join war on Syria in 2013, said in an interview with The Guardian "I've been looking at cluster weapons this week, and I think it would send an incredibly mixed message for the US to be dropping bombs on Syria because they say they're using a hideous weapon, when they're selling another hideous weapon – a third of whose victims are children – to Saudi Arabia. I think that people in the region look at that and say: where's the consistency from the world's moral policemen on innocent victims of weapons like this?.... "Look at white phosphorus. There's been very clearly documented examples where it's been used as a weapon, fired directly at people, and there's no doubt it's a chemical weapon used in those circumstances. It's a chemical which oxidizes on contact with air and just keeps burning. It inflicts hideous burns because it just keeps on burning until it runs out of oxygen, so right down to the bone. It's a really horrible weapon, and yet we don't call that a chemical weapon, because it's been used by US troops and it's been used by Israel. Again it's that kind of double standard that creates resentment about what's important."  

At a UN Security Council meeting focusing on West Asia region and chemical weapons on January 6, Iran's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Zahra Ershadi said: "It is a matter of grave concern that, as a result of the United States' failure to comply, as the only member of the Convention still possessing chemical weapons, with its commitments on the deadline for the destruction of chemical weapons, this goal has not yet been achieved…. Another obstacle in this regard is the non-universality of the convention. To achieve this lofty goal, the Israeli regime must be forced to accede to this convention without any further prerequisites or delays."

To Help Central Asia, Engage with Muslim Civil Society

Kazakhstan’s violence emphasizes the relevance of often overlooked communities.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022/ BY: James Rupert

PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis and Commentary

Kazakhstan’s violent upheaval this month underscores that governments and international organizations need to more effectively help Central Asia’s 76 million people build responsive, effective governance across their five nations. Mass protests or communal violence also have struck Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in recent years. As the United States, allied governments and international institutions seek ways to promote nonviolent transitions toward more stable, democratic rule, new research suggests that they explore for partners in an often-ignored sector—Central Asia’s active and disparate Muslim civil society.

Tajik men pray in the central mosque of Dushanbe in 2011. Central Asia’s governments mix tolerance and suppression of Islamic activities and groups, so many Muslim civil society organizations maintain a low profile. (James Hill/The New York Times)

Organizations working to build democracy and peace abroad increasingly recognize an imperative to work with local civil society in nations facing violent conflict. In any country, what we call “civil society”—a landscape of community organizations, social movements and other groups independent of governments and business—offers well-rooted, effective partners for nonviolent work to heal divides between governments and the governed. Still, habit and human nature lead us to seek our partnerships primarily among those parts of civil society that look most familiar. For many, this means secular groups that seem to reflect Western or international norms.

Yet Central Asia’s civil societies, as across the Muslim world, are rooted significantly in Islamic religious identities that tend to discourage Western and international organizations from constructively engaging them, says Sebastien Peyrouse, co-author of a new study of Muslim civil society across four of the five Central Asian nations. In Islamic countries of the Middle East, international organizations have partly overcome this barrier through years of exploration to find and engage strong partners within Muslim civil society. But not yet in Central Asia, Peyrouse stressed in an interview.

“The current upheaval in Kazakhstan reflects a broad crisis of government legitimacy that puts at risk the stability of an entire region,” Peyrouse said. “An important way for the international community to do better in helping build the effectiveness and legitimacy of Central Asia’s states is to reach out more broadly than we have so far to understand and work with Muslim civil society.”

After 30 Years, Eroded Hopes

The collapse of the Soviet Union exactly 30 years ago was driven by popular demands for change expressed via a nascent civil society in Soviet Europe. Those pressures and civil society groups were mainly nonexistent in Soviet Central Asia. Since then, the five ex-Soviet Central Asian states have been ruled largely through Soviet-style bureaucracies controlled by authoritarian rulers and their cronies. A generation of systemic corruption, organized crime, rising inequalities between rich and poor, and widening poverty has corroded people’s early hopes for better lives following Soviet rule.

Across the region, “people spoke optimistically of their future in the early years after their independence,” said Peyrouse. But increasingly over the past decade, “when you travel and talk to people, especially outside the capital cities, you hear them say that their governments are corrupt and not interested in meeting the population’s needs.”

These frustrations have led to a rise in ethnic nationalisms and violent conflict, USIP Central Asia specialist Gavin Helf has noted. Kazakhstan’s current turmoil is only the latest in a long series of violent upheavals that have killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands across the region in the past decade.

While authoritarian regimes have dominated Central Asia for a generation, they have had to legitimize themselves as defenders of national identities that are rooted partly in Islamic faith and tradition. This bedrock political reality has preserved varied degrees of political and cultural space for Muslim institutions—mosques, charitable foundations, neighborhood groups and others. At the same time, Central Asian governments monitor and constrict the activities of such religious-based groups out of deep fears of any manifestations of politicized Islam that could challenge the governments’ claims to power and legitimacy.

These disparate Muslim civil society organizations tend to be well rooted in their communities and thus to hold significant margins of popular legitimacy and potential influence, according to a new research report by Peyrouse and Emil Nasritdinov, an anthropology professor at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan.

Too Diverse to Label

The research project, funded by USIP, interviewed dozens of participants in Muslim civil society organizations across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The research, still underway, provides a preliminary assessment that can help governments and donor organizations consider ways to build more effective partnerships for peacebuilding, development or pro-democracy efforts in Central Asia.

A first basic conclusion of the research report is that—contrary to a common view of Muslim civil society as “a homogeneous group of organizations focused mainly on religion,” Central Asia’s Muslim civil society groups are too diverse even to be easily labeled. They vary in their “objectives, working methods, attitudes toward and relations with government, opinions about the international community, and views on national and foreign policy” the study says. Notably, the groups reached in the research “expressed a generally positive view of the United States and an openness to working with U.S. structures, even if at the same time they criticized specific U.S. policies and actions.” Many of the participants interviewed said their groups could help their communities prevent radicalization of residents by Islamic extremist groups, “particularly by promoting moderate messages, strengthening education” and addressing local grievances.

While some Muslim civil society organizations “may be connected to some dangerous Islamist groups, if we want to have a role in development in Central Asia, we need to … go beyond the assumption that all [Muslim groups] are connected to Islamism or to political agendas,” said Peyrouse. “Getting to know them is how we learn which ones could be dangerous and which not.”

The Muslim civil society representatives “tended to focus more than [their secular counterparts] … on contributing to local development and social welfare rather than on holding governments accountable or promoting global issues such as democratization and human rights,” the report found. While some of the Muslim groups’ representatives expressed support for changes such as gender equality, “more appeared to reflect a rising tide of conservativism in Central Asian societies,” it said.

Possible Partners for Peacebuilding

The study identifies six broad types of organizations and urges further investigation to determine where international efforts might work with them:

• Muftiates, or national religious hierarchies, are formally independent of, but generally cooperative with, the government. Some conduct philanthropic work. The muftiate in Kyrgyzstan buttressed the government’s response to COVID by offering religious schools as care centers with more than 1,400 beds.
• Mosques of varied stripes serve not only as prayer venues, but as community discussion spaces and religious schools for young children. They are local—and in many places, primary—distributors of charity to the needy.
• Mahallas (urban religious jurisdictions that traditionally include religious functions) play disparate roles. In Uzbekistan they perform government-sanctioned neighborhood administrative functions. Elsewhere, they may independently finance mosques or organize social events.
• Jamaats (meaning simply “groups” or “associations”) are of disparate types, including Islamic movements, some of which preach and proselytize in communities, and some of which are funded from abroad.
• Islamic charitable foundations may be local or affiliated with international networks, and may distribute necessities to the poor, fund educational programs or finance the building of mosques, among other activities.
• Islamic nongovernmental organizations “may be the most diverse” type of Muslim civil society groups “run[ning] the gamut from official to semiofficial to underground,” and from local to national or international. Their operations range “from a few individuals working from their homes to offices with dozens of people.”

The study recommended that the United States, its allies, and development and assistance organizations should examine the diversity of Muslim civil society organizations and their roles, and should engage with them on issues “such as local economic and social development, fighting domestic violence, community stabilization, and countering violent extremism.” Also, international actors should more actively press Central Asia’s governments to open more space for activities by civil society, including its Muslim-oriented sectors.

In 1992, the Soviet Union’s collapse suddenly created 15 nations, from the Baltic Sea to Asia, as potential partners for American engagement. In Central Asia, the United States offered immediate recognition only to Kazakhstan, which had inherited Soviet nuclear weapons, and to Kyrgyzstan, which was seen as committed to liberal reforms. Its hesitation in engaging fully risked weakening its influence in a region where Iran, China and Russia are formidable competitors for influence. Thirty years later, Central Asia is, if anything, more fragile. So, the hesitation of that first diplomacy should this time be reversed to deepen America’s engagement with the broadest possible range of responsible and effective Central Asian partners.

Analysis - Kazakhstan Crisis: Internal dispute or Western-plotted Color Revolution?

January 11, 2022 - 8:10 AM News Code : 1217700 Source : Al Waght NewsLink: 

Situation is yet to be calm in Kazakhstan where unrest and clashes between the government forces and protestors, some of them armed, gripped the country since last week.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Situation is yet to be calm in Kazakhstan where unrest and clashes between the government forces and protestors, some of them armed, gripped the country since last week. 

Kazakhstan officials say more than 4,000 people have been detained in recent days. Protests in Kazakhstan were sparked by rising fuel prices, but as unrest spread, protesters raised other demands, including political freedoms.

Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has ordered suppression of the protests and told security forces that they can fire on protesters without warning. 

With the country calm and secure for years, the unfolding riots raise various speculations about the main reasons behind the fast-moving developments. 

An internal dispute? 

When the protests in Kazakhstan began last Wednesday, these developments were unexpected for many. Although the protests were rooted in discontentment about fuel price hike, since the beginning, some said they are a result of internal strife in Kazakhstan, adding the protests were exploited, if not planned, by incumbent President Tokayev and aimed at reducing pressure and influence of the former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The speculations went broader especially after rumors of Nazarbayev fleeing the country were circulated. On Saturday, Nazarbayev's spokesman rejected the news, saying that the founder of modern Kazakhstan was in the capital. His Twitter post said that the ex-president is in the country, held some consultation meetings, and kept in touch with Tokayev. He also, the spokesman continued, "talked to leaders of friendly countries and called on the people to unite around support for the current president to weather the current conditions." 

There has been denial of rumors of Nazarbayev's departure, but there is no doubt that Tokayev made the most of the current protests to reduce Nazarbayev's power. Although Nazarbayev has not been president since 2019, he has retained his influence and power in the former Soviet republic. It seems that Tokayev is seeking to distance Nazarbayev from power and that appears why he was dismissed from the presidency of the powerful National Security Council amid the demonstrations. 

Nazarbayev ruled the country for about three decades with an iron fist and attracted hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment for energy and mining sectors. With extreme guile, he established balanced relationship with strong neighbors Russia and China. But he was intolerant of opposition and accused by West and rights organizations of human rights abuses and violation of democratic freedoms. A large part of the country's economy is estimated to be at his family's hands and after his dismissal from the National Security Council as his powerhouse things are unclear how would develop for him. 

However, the continuing protests in Kazakhstan show that the issue goes far beyond the internal power dispute, although it provided an appropriate opportunity to settle political scores. On Saturday, National Security Committee declared arrest of Karim Masimov who was also sacked from his post during the protests as the committee's chief. Masimov it an ally of Nazarbayev and served as prime minister from 2007-2012 and from 2014-2016. His removal and arrest is seen as part of a purge campaign pushed by the current president. 

Impasse of color revolution in Kazakhstan 

The protests in Kazakhstan have provoked widespread international reactions, with Russia reacting so seriously that it has deployed troops under a peacekeeping mission within the framework of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led regional security bloc. About 2,500 troops with heavy equipment from several Central Asian countries are currently stationed in Kazakhstan under the command of Russian peacekeeping mission. Moscow said the deployment came at the behest of the Kazakh president. At the same time as Russian troops are being sent to Kazakhstan, a BBC correspondent reported that the central square of Almaty has become a "battlefield" and the sound of machine gun fire can be heard overnight in Kazakhstan's largest city. 

Russia is very worried that instability and insecurity in Kazakhstan will be extended to Russia, and therefore will not accept unrest in Kazakhstan under any circumstances. 

On the other hand, the deployment of Russian-led peacekeeping forces in Kazakhstan has been met with a US reaction, with a White House spokesman questioning the legality of the dispatch. So far, the US response to Kazakhstan's developments has been conservative, but at the same time many have said that Kazakhstan's unrest is rooted in the West's plotting against Russia. In other words, the US-led West is trying to divert Russia's focus from tensions in Ukraine to the situation in Kazakhstan by orchestrating protests. Some experts suggest that Kazakhstan protests bear hallmarks a color revolution, a series of Western-arranged government changes in neighbors of Russia since the 2000s. 

But leaders of regional states, including Armenia, Turkey, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan, in a reaction united with Kremlin's assured Kazakhstan president of support, signaling that they stand by Moscow in these developments. 

With regional countries demonstrating alignment of stance with Russia in preservation of Kazakhstan government, Western-eyed color revolution does not seem to have a chance of success in the big and important Central Asian country.