Ethiopia using rape as a strategy in Tigray war - Amnesty

Vivienne Nunis - BBC News, Africa correspondent
Wed, August 11, 2021, 

Very few of the women who have been sexually assaulted have been able to get help

The Ethiopian military and its allies are responsible for widespread sexual violence against women in Tigray, using rape as a strategy of war, Amnesty International says.

The scale of violations during the nine-month conflict in the north of the country amounts to war crimes, the human rights group says.

One woman reported being gang-raped in front of her children.


Ethiopia's government says the report is based on "flawed methodology".

The foreign ministry accused Amnesty of waging "sensationalised attacks and smear campaigns" against Ethiopia, saying the country condemned sexual violence in all circumstances.

Amnesty said it had "overwhelming evidence" to show such violence had been rampant since the start of the conflict.

It began last November when the region's Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) party stormed a military base after falling out with the prime minister over his political reforms.

Warning: Some people may find details in this story upsetting.

The rights group interviewed 63 women and children from Tigray who said they had been raped by Ethiopian troops, their Eritrean allies, or by pro-government fighters from the neighbouring region of Amhara.

The author, Donatella Rovera, told the BBC that the testimonies had been among the worst she had ever heard.

"The level of sadistic and gratuitous brutality in addition to the rape was absolutely shocking," she said.

Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict in Tigray

A 39-year-old woman reported being seized by Eritrean soldiers as she was travelling with her two children. "Five of them raped me in front of my children," she told Amnesty.

"They used an iron rod, which is used to clean the gun, to burn me. They inserted pieces of metal in my womb... Then they left me on the street."

Some women Amnesty interviewed said they had been detained for weeks and repeatedly raped, often by several men.

Almost half of the women accused Eritrean soldiers of carrying out the violations, identified by their Tigrinya accents and uniforms.

The Eritrean authorities did not respond to Amnesty's requests for comment.

Amnesty is calling on the UN to send a team of experts to Tigray to further investigate the allegations that may amount to crimes against humanity.

The widespread nature of the assaults suggests military officials knew what was happening and that it was being tolerated at the highest level of government in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Amnesty said.

"The patterns of sexual violence emerging from survivors' accounts indicate that the violations have been part of a strategy to terrorise, degrade, and humiliate both the victims and their ethnic group," the report said.

Ms Rovera said the victims of the assaults have not had access to the support they need to recover and many are living in poverty in Sudanese refugee camps, or camps in Tigray.

On Tuesday, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called on civilians to join the army to fight in Tigray, he also accused Tigrayan forces, made of up the TPLF and its allies, of recruiting child soldiers, raping women and blocking aid.

Amnesty says none of the women it had interviewed accused Tigrayan forces of rape, but said that it would be monitoring the situation now the conflict had spread beyond Tigray's borders.

The TPLF, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by the government but says it is the legitimate regional government of Tigray, has accused the federal authorities of blocking aid.

New spider species named after Mitchell's 'Spiderman'


Hunter Dunteman, 

The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D.
Tue, August 10, 2021, 
Alireza Zamani
Arachnologist

Aug. 10—Brian Patrick used to believe that the only good spider is a dead spider, but as he grew up, he found value in the role spiders play in the world's ecosystem. Now he has his own species.

A new article in the ZooKeys scientific journal written by Iranian and Russian researchers outlines the identification of a new genus and multiple new species of spiders in Iran.

The researchers, Alireza Zamani, from Iran, and Yuri Marusik, from Russia, wrote in their article that the new discoveries raise the total of known spider species in Iran to 900, and known genera (the plural form of genus) to 322.

Among the discoveries include Mesiotelus patricki, which Zamani and Marusik named after Mitchell arachnologist and Dakota Wesleyan University biology professor Dr. Brian Patrick.

The Mesiotelus patricki was first collected for research in 1975 in the Golestan Province in northeastern Iran. It is a brown spider, approximately 5 millimeters in length. Researchers were able to identify the Mesiotelus patricki as a new species by examining its genitals and other physical features of the spider.

Patrick said it's not unusual for decades to pass between collection and description of a species, as collected samples are preserved and shelved until an expert examines them.

"It is really an honor to name a species after someone. I'm deeply flattered, but I just never thought that would happen," Patrick said. "There are so many more people out there that have put in so much more work that much more prolific scientists or deserve it more."

Patrick has known the researchers for nearly a decade through multiple congresses of the International Society of Arachnology, and has occasionally communicated with them to keep in touch. So, receiving a message from Zamani didn't seem unusual.

Zamani's message to Patrick told him to check out a ZooKeys journal article for a gift. When Patrick read the article, and saw the Mesiotelus patricki, he shed a tear, according to his tweet.

Oh, WOW, I am so deeply moved (I shed a tear!) that my friend and colleague @Persian_spiders named a new spider species after me! Mesiotelus patricki Zamani & Marusik, 2021 in @ZooKeys_Journal, and named to honor me and the @PodcastSpecies work that I have done. Thanks, Alireza! pic.twitter.com/nxYLLEnbOK

— L Brian Patrick (@LBrianPatrick) August 3, 2021

In addition to his love for spiders, Patrick publishes his own podcast called New Species.

The weekly podcast — which is temporarily released bi-weekly — focuses on the discoveries of new species across the globe, including interviews with authors of articles that describe new species. Listeners originate from over 60 different countries across six continents.

Zamani was a guest on Patrick's podcast back in May, discussing many different species that Zamani and Marusik had identified.

I am an avid podcast listener, and I've been waiting for a long time for a podcast on new species discoveries. I was very happy when Brian started his podcast, and I thought that his efforts in popularizing taxonomy should definitely be acknowledged," Zamani said in an email to the Mitchell Republic. "Therefore, we decided to name this species after him."

Marusik said the idea to name the species after Patrick was Zamani's, but he supported it. He added that other new species identified in the same journal article were named after other arachnologists and even actors who have played Spiderman in movies.

While it may seem rare to have a species named after you, Patrick said that dozens of new species are discovered and identified on a daily basis.

"There are parts of our planet that we've barely been able to explore," Patrick said. "There are species that people are finding in caves, species are being found in soil and all sorts of things."

In fact, Patrick has identified new species, himself.

A 2008 article in the Zootaxa journal written by Patrick and two other researchers identified the Myrmedonota aidani, a rove beetle that Patrick named after his son, Aidan. He also has plans to name other species after his daughter, Thea, and his wife, Traci.

Patrick said the rate at which new species are being identified is incredible, and can make one feel small — but, he warns that discoveries are not outpacing extinctions.

"There's a famous example of an airplane flying in the air. Airplanes are being held together by rivets or screws. If you lose one or two rivets, it's probably no problem," Patrick said. "But how many can you lose before the airplane crashes? Take that into the ecosystem. How many organisms can we lose before the ecosystem dies or crashes?"

Patrick continues to play his part in exploring the vast unknowns of the world's ecosystem by conducting research on the species — known and unknown — inhabiting the Fort Pierre National Grassland.

"Nobody looks in South Dakota. They all think our habitat looks the same from Canada to Northern Texas," Patrick said. "In a field where less than 10% of all species are estimated to be known or named, and that means 90% of things in the world are not named."

Patrick believes he may be the only trained arachnologist in the state, but often works with interns hoping to share his passion with others.

The New Species podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker and several other platforms.

See new Tweets

Tweet

L Brian Patrick

@LBrianPatrick

·

Aug 3

Oh, WOW, I am so deeply moved (I shed a tear!) that my friend and colleague

@Persian_spiders

named a new spider species after me! Mesiotelus patricki Zamani & Marusik, 2021 in

@ZooKeys_Journal

, and named to honor me and the

@PodcastSpecies

work that I have done. Thanks, Alireza!

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Sanctions on Iran block mosque from claiming religious tiles


Abolfazl Nahidian, of the Manassas Mosque in Manassas, Va., poses after after a press conference, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, in which he and other Muslim leaders asked the Biden administration to release a set of religious tiles that have been confiscated because the shipment was considered a violation of sanctions on Iran. (AP PhotoMatt Barakat)

MATTHEW BARAKAT
Tue, August 10, 2021, 

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia mosque is asking the Biden administration to release a set of religious tiles that were confiscated at Dulles International Airport after they were deemed to violate sanctions on Iran.

At a news conference Tuesday at the Manassas Mosque, Imam Abolfazl Nahidian said the custom-made tiles were shipped in June from the Iranian city of Qom, to be used in construction of a new mosque a few miles away.

He said the tiles were a gift and he paid no money for them, but a Customs and Border Protection officer at the airport blocked the mosque from claiming the tiles, citing the sanctions.

Nahidian said he has received other tile shipments throughout the years without incident, including one shipment that arrived eight months ago.

A letter from Customs and Border Protection informed the mosque that the tile must be shipped back to Iran or destroyed.

Destroying the tiles, which are adorned with Quranic verses, would be especially disturbing, Nahidian said.

“Destroying the tiles is the same as destroying verses of the Quran, or the whole Quran itself,” he said.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that whatever one's views are of the Iranian sanctions, it makes no sense to enforce the rules on a benign piece of religious art.

“They are not weapons of mass destruction,” Awad said. “We believe the government should have common sense.”

A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the tiles were placed on hold June 21 and that on June 30, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control determined that, under the sanctions imposed on Iran, the tiles could not be imported. The spokesperson said no final determination has been made on the tiles' disposition.

The Treasury Department declined comment Tuesday.

Speakers at Tuesday's news conference suggested that anti-Islam sentiment may be responsible for the confiscation.

“If this were a statue of the Virgin Mary, would we be here discussing this?” asked Rafi Uddin Ahmed, president of the Muslim Association of Virginia.

Nahidian has led the mosque for nearly three decades, and has occasionally drawn scrutiny from critics who say he is anti-Israel and was a supporter of the ayatollahs in the Iranian Revolution. He has blamed the Sept. 11 attack on Israel; in 1979, he and others chained themselves to the railings of the Statue of Liberty after climbing to the top and unfurling banners criticizing the shah of Iran, who was overthrown.

Nahidian said his history is irrelevant to whether the tiles should be imported.

China cranks up carbon-intensive projects as climate crisis grows, research shows

JUST LIKE BIG OIL DOES EVERYWHERE


FILE PHOTO: A coal-burning power plant can be seen behind a factory in the city of Baotou, in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

David Stanway
Fri, August 13, 2021

By David Stanway

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China announced scores of new carbon-intensive coal and steel projects in the first half of 2021, research showed on Friday just days after a key U.N. report urged immediate global action to curb use of fossil fuels and prevent runaway climate change.

The push comes as climate experts exhort governments around the world to take drastic action amid increasingly widespread extreme weather events, like deadly wildfires, drought and even central China's highest rainfall in 1,000 years https://www.reuters.com/world/china/zhengzhou-floods-serve-chinas-urban-planners-deadly-warning-2021-07-23 - events that experts say are directly linked to human impact on the environment via carbon emissions.


"The rest of the world is getting the message https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/what-they-said-about-code-red-un-climate-science-report-2021-08-09 that it's time to move away from coal, but coal interests in China are dragging their feet, and the central government is not reining them in," said Christine Shearer, coal programme director at Global Energy Monitor (GEM), the U.S. think-tank that jointly authored the report on China's first-half carbon projects with the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

During the first half, China, the world's biggest coal consumer and source of climate-warming greenhouse gases, announced plans to build 18 new coal-fired blast furnaces, more than in the whole of last year, according to the CREA-GEM research. Another 43 coal-fired power plant units were also proposed, the research showed.

China has promised to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2060, but faces growing calls to set more ambitious targets and act faster.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a nearly 4,000-page report this week that climate change had "affected every inhabited region across the globe" and was in danger of spiralling out of control.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the report as a "code red for humanity" that should "sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels".

However, according to the CREA-GEM study, China started construction on 15 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity in the first half. That's a slower pace than last year, but still amounts to one plant per week, and is enough to power roughly 4.5 million homes - more than in cities the size of London or New York.

"GLACIAL PACE OF CHANGE"

China's greenhouse gas emissions surged after COVID-19 lockdowns ended last year, and growth rates only started to slow in the second quarter this year, the CREA-GEM study said.

Lauri Myllivirta, CREA lead analyst，said though China was currently trying to curb property lending that stokes the construction of new homes, a key factor in recent emissions growth, the continuing investment in coal-based power and steel was "worrying".

"This is where a much faster shift is needed, and current glacial pace of change is not in line with the urgency of peaking global emissions," he said.

China has not yet commented on the IPCC report, and has previously said it would only start cutting coal consumption from 2026.

Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate envoy, said last week that existing targets already required "extremely arduous efforts", with the country's total emissions set to peak in 2030 at a lower per capita rate than the United States, Japan or Europe.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Additional reporting by Muyu Xu in Beijing; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

America just might need another COVID rescue

Ryan Cooper, National correspondent
Fri, August 13, 2021,

A 50 dollar bill. Illustrated | iStock

The coronavirus pandemic is back in the United States, but it is hitting seriously for the first time in many other countries — particularly countries in eastern Asia that are central to the global economy.

It means there is a decent chance that the United States economy is going to stall out or even nosedive in the coming weeks. Democrats should be ready with another rescue package to tide the American people over, in case that does happen.

Let's take stock of the U.S. first. As is now front-page news once again, the pandemic is burning across almost the whole country, and absolutely out of control across the South. In Florida and Louisiana, hospitalizations have surged past their worst point of the winter wave, and are nearly to the same point across much of the South. Mississippi's hospital system is reportedly on the verge of collapse.

All this will almost certainly put a dent in consumer spending. During the low point of the pandemic in June and July, spending on goods and services was returning to something like normal levels. People were flying, going to restaurants and hair salons, and resuming other in-person activities. Meanwhile, previous studies showed that during the pandemic surges last year, most people cut back their spending before state and local governments introduced any control measures — so even if Republican-controlled states do nothing policy-wise to stop the deluge of illness and death, a sizable portion of their populations likely still will.

It's likely then that consumer spending on in-person activities will fall back somewhat over the coming weeks. Though official government data will not be published until next month, there are some initial signs that this has already started — a recent survey conducted by a private analysis firm found that consumers are getting more anxious about entering stores, and Southwest Airlines reported Wednesday that ticket sales are slowing and customers are starting to cancel flights.

This slowdown can only be exacerbated by the tragic situation in eastern Asia. Up until a month or so ago, much of this region had evaded the pandemic almost entirely with careful control policies. Yet even the richer nations in the region have been relatively slow to vaccinate their populations. It's unclear why exactly, though certainly Europe and the United States hoarding so much vaccine did not help (particularly in the case of poorer countries without lots of spare cash), and the international vaccine distribution program is unsurprisingly a chaotic mess.

Now, the tardy vaccination campaigns and extreme contagiousness of the Delta variant seems to be seriously straining the test-trace-isolate systems in many countries with little previous exposure to the virus. Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Australia have been scrambling to clamp down on spread to give themselves time to deliver more inoculations. New pandemic control measures, including a full-scale lockdown in Australia, are being introduced in many places.

It's entirely understandable, particularly in countries that only recently got some vaccines. If Delta gets loose in places like Vietnam and Australia that are badly behind on shots, then there will be unimaginable carnage — but if they can hold tight for just another month or so, then almost everyone will be saved, and the controls can be relaxed without too much fear.

However, that means that new supply chain headaches and bottlenecks are inevitable. Australia supplies all kinds of key raw materials (including lithium and iron ore), Taiwan has the largest semiconductor factory in the world, Vietnam makes all kinds of electronics, and China of course is the workshop of the world. It will be hard to operate factories and ships in the face of severe pandemic controls — and sure enough, snarls are already cropping up on top of the numerous prior headaches that had not yet been sorted out.

Summing up: on the one hand, there will likely be some job loss or at least a slowdown in the momentum of new job creation over the next few months — and the U.S. is still far short of full employment. On the other, the global supply system is going to hit a bumpy patch.

Now, there is a lot more the government could be doing now to curb the pandemic. If I were king of America, I would reintroduce stringent pandemic controls in the regions that are worst-hit by the virus, and set up strict vaccination requirements to put this pandemic to bed once and for all.

But at the least the government can make sure that as many Americans as possible have enough money to get by. America's pandemic response was a dismal failure in terms of controlling the virus, but its economic rescue measures were some of the best policies this country has ever passed. I would recommend the same basic structure as happened earlier in the pandemic: extending super-unemployment for another six months (and this time making it mandatory for all states), another round of survival checks (call it $600), and another dollop of small business grants. Congress might as well fix the rental assistance program while they're at it.

Democrats control all three branches of government now, and they can make this happen. It may not be necessary, but they would be fools to not start preparing now just in case.

NEW THEORY LAB WORKER INFECTED BY BAT

WHO responds to claims Wuhan lab worker could be COVID patient zero

Ross McGuinness
Fri, August 13, 2021

Dr Peter Embarek led a team of investigators from the World Health Organization (WHO) to Wuhan, China, earlier this year. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has played down media reports of comments by its own chief investigator that a lab worker in Wuhan could be COVID-19’s patient zero.

Dr Peter Embarek, the epidemiologist who led the WHO’s four-week fact-finding mission in China earlier this year, said it was "one of the likely hypotheses” that the first person to be infected with coronavirus was a lab employee.

He said one theory is that the lab worker was infected while taking samples from bats.

In an interview from a documentary shared by Danish television station TV2 on Thursday, he said: “An employee that could have been infected in the field while taking samples belongs to one of the likely hypotheses.

“This is where the virus jumps directly from a bat to a human. In that case, it would then be a laboratory worker instead of a random villager or other person who has regular contact with bats.”

The comments appear to portray a significant U-turn by the WHO’s investigation team, who said back in February the lab leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.

But the WHO played down Dr Embarek’s quotes to Danish television.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Yahoo News UK reports of the conversation had been an “incorrect translation of an old interview”, saying it was recorded in March or April.

He told Yahoo News UK: “There are no new elements nor change of the position - all hypotheses are on the table.”

The documentary, The Virus Mystery, aired on TV2 on Thursday.

Dr Embarek told the programme the WHO found no direct evidence the COVID-19 outbreak in China was linked to bat research in Wuhan’s labs or at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

People in Wuhan, China, wearing face masks on Wednesday. (Getty)

Read more: Living with long COVID: 'It's really scary having an illness no one can cure'

China has continued to dismiss the lab leak theory, while most scientists agree it was not the likely cause of the coronavirus pandemic but it cannot be ruled out.

WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month it was “premature” to rule out a possible lab leak as the source of COVID-19.

He said: “I was a lab technician myself. I’m an immunologist and I have worked in the lab and lab accidents happen. It’s common.”

In the Danish TV2 documentary, Dr Embarek is pictured inspecting the stalls at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan and examining what he said might have been living quarters for people who handled live animals there.

“It would mean that the contact between the human beings and whatever may have been in the market - i.e. virus and maybe live animals would have been more intense,” he said, in quotes reported by the Associated Press.

 

The World Health Organization's Dr Peter Embarek during his team's fact-finding mission to Wuhan, China, in February. (Reuters)

“It goes without saying that the close contact would be doubled many times between humans and animals if you are among them around the clock.”

In the Danish documentary, Dr Embarek also expressed concerns about another lab, close to the market, run by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

“What is more concerning to me is the other lab,” Dr Embarek said. “The one that is next to the market.”

US president Joe Biden has commissioned a report into the possibility of the lab leak origin theory, which is expected to be published at the end of this month.

Former Conservative Party leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, co-chairman of the inter-parliamentary alliance on China, told the Daily Telegraph that the Chinese authorities and the WHO “need to come clean”.

ANOTHER BATTY THEORY

Covid may have begun with Chinese scientist collecting bat samples, says WHO investigator

Sarah Knapton
Thu, August 12, 2021, 

Field workers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology hunt for bats - Chinese Academy of Sciences

A Chinese scientist may have started the pandemic after being infected with coronavirus while collecting bat samples, the head of the World Health Organisation’s investigation has said.

In a documentary released this week by the Danish television channel TV2, Dr Peter Embarek said it was a “likely hypothesis” that a lab employee could have picked up the virus while working in the field.

Scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were known to be working on bat coronavirus at labs in the city, but China has been uncooperative in providing details of their research.


Dr Embarek said WHO investigators were forced to conclude that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” in their official report to avoid further arguments with the Chinese.

He said the team had come to an “impasse” with China, which would only allow a lab leak scenario to be included in the report if there were no recommendations to look further.

“My counterpart agreed we could mention (the lab leak scenario) in the report under the condition that we wouldn’t recommend specific studies of that hypothesis. We would just leave it there.”

Asked whether the Chinese would have agreed to the report without the scenario being labelled “extremely unlikely”, Dr Embarek said: “That would have probably demanded further discussion and arguments for and against I didn’t think it was worth it.”

However, Dr Embarek said it was possible that a lab employee may have been infected in the field.

“We consider that hypothesis a likely one,” he added.
Chinese pressure

Pressure is growing on China to release documentation of work at laboratories in Wuhan and allow a thorough investigation.

A report into the lab leak scenario, which was commissioned by Joe Biden, is expected to report at the end of August, and last month the WHO called for an in-depth audit, a request that the Chinese had rejected.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said the international community urgently needed to identify how the virus outbreak erupted.

“There’s no question now that this process needs to be undertaken by the WHO. They need to come clean, as China needs to come clean, about the origins of the virus,” he said.
‘Arrogant refusal to accept the origins of the virus’

Sir Iain said millions of people had lost their lives on account of the “terrible and arrogant refusal to accept that the origins of the virus” may be linked to the Wuhan lab.

Dr Embarek, pictured below, also told the documentary team that he was concerned about a second lab, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had moved premises to just a third of a mile from the Wuhan wet market where the outbreak first emerged.

Peter Ben Embarek - Hector Retamal/AFP

“There are other labs in Wuhan that are interesting, such as CDC, which also worked with bats,” he said.

“What is more concerning to me is the other lab that is next to the market, because they were also handling coronaviruses, without potentially having the same level of expertise or safety ...

“When we were being shown around I thought it all looked new. I asked how old the lab was and they said, ‘We moved on 2 December’.

“That’s when it all started. We know that when you move a lab it disturbs all the procedures. You have to move the virus collection and the samples. That’s why that period of time and that lab are interesting.”
Lab leak theory persists

Experts in Britain said it was “plausible” that a lab employee could have brought the virus back to Wuhan, which would also fit with genetic studies showing it had jumped from an animal.

Dr Jonathan Stoye, group leader of the Retrovirus-Host Interactions Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute, said: “It sounds entirely plausible to me

“My feeling when I read the original WHO report was there was no grounds for calling it extremely unlikely so it was always slightly strange.

“I have been saying for a while that this isn’t solved, the lab link is still there and we need to know more. The question is how we go about getting more.

“To my mind, there is no evidence of manipulation of the virus, but we know these investigators have been collecting bat samples, so they could have carried something back.”
Genetic studies support both a lab leak scenario and a wild infection

Ravi Gupta, professor of microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said that current genetic studies supported both a lab leak scenario and a wild infection

“The genetics are consistent with the lab leak/field work infection scenario described by the WHO mission lead, and also consistent with infection from the wild in general by a non-lab worker,” he said.

However, other researchers said the comments did little to move the investigation forward.

“There are many possible ways the virus was transmitted to humans,” said Prof David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow,

“Peter was just referring to something that was possible. As we’ve no evidence for this, or any link to a lab-leak, it remains just speculation.”