Taliban arrest Afghan professor after social media criticism

A prominent Afghan university professor who openly criticised the Taliban's hardline regime has been arrested in Kabul, a spokesman for the government said.

© JACK GUEZ

 Kabul University law professor Faizullah Jalal (pictured with

 his wife Massouda during a trip to Paris in 2004) has long had 

a reputation as a critic of Afghanistan's leaders

Professor Faizullah Jalal has made several appearances on television talk shows since the previous US-backed government was ousted in August, blaming the Taliban for the worsening financial crisis and criticising them for ruling by force.

Since returning to power, the Taliban have cracked down on dissent, forcefully dispersing women's rights protests and briefly detaining several Afghan journalists.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that Jalal had been detained Saturday over statements he made on social media in which he was "trying to instigate people against the system and was playing with the dignity of the people".

"He has been arrested so that others don't make similar senseless comments in the name of being a professor or scholar that harm the dignity of others," he added.

Mujahid shared screenshots of tweets he claimed had been posted by Jalal, which said the Taliban intelligence chief was a stooge of Pakistan, and that the new government considers Afghans as "donkeys".

In one television appearance, Jalal called Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem -- who was also participating -- a "calf", a grave insult in Afghanistan.

Clips of his passionate criticism went viral on social media, sparking concern he risked Taliban retribution.

Jalal's wife Massouda, who once stood as Afghanistan's first woman candidate for the presidency, posted on Facebook that her husband had been arrested by Taliban forces and detained in an unknown location.

"Dr. Jalal has fought and spoken out for justice and the national interest in all his activities pertaining to human rights," she said.

A long-time professor of law and political science at Kabul University, Jalal has long had a reputation as a critic of Afghanistan's leaders.

On Twitter, rights group Amnesty International condemned the arrest of the lecturer "for exercising his freedom of expression and criticising the Taliban", calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

The Taliban have formed an all-male cabinet made up entirely of members of the group, and almost exclusively of ethnic Pashtuns.

They have further restricted women's rights to work and study, triggering widespread international condemnation.

bur/ecl/jd/fox/mtp

Archive Amassed By Nazis Sheds Light On Masonic History

By Stanislaw WASZAK
01/09/22

Curators combing through a vast historic archive of Freemasonry in Europe amassed by the Nazis in their wartime anti-Masonic purge say they believe there are still secrets to be unearthed.

Poland has a vast archive of items that shed light on the history of Freemasonry in Europe Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

From insight into women's Masonic lodges to the musical scores used in closed ceremonies, the trove -- housed in an old university library in western Poland -- has already shed light on a little known history.

But more work remains to be done to fully examine all the 80,000 items that date from the 17th century to the pre-World War II period.

'It is one of the biggest Masonic archives in Europe,' says curator Iuliana Grazynska Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

"It is one of the biggest Masonic archives in Europe," said curator Iuliana Grazynska, who has just started working on dozens of boxes of papers within it that have not yet been properly categorised.

"It still holds mysteries," she told AFP, of the collection which curators began going through decades ago and is held at the UAM library in the city of Poznan.

The collection was amassed by the Nazis during their wartime anti-Masonic purge Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

Initially tolerated by the Nazis, Freemasons became the subject of regime conspiracy theories in the 1930s, seen as liberal intellectuals whose secretive circles could become centres of opposition.

Lodges were broken up and their members imprisoned and killed both in Germany and elsewhere as Nazi troops advanced during WWII.

Fine prints, copies of speeches and membership lists of Masonic lodges in Germany and beyond feature among the collection's 80,000 items 

Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

The collection was put together under the orders of top Nazi henchman and SS chief Heinrich Himmler and is composed of many smaller archives from European Masonic lodges that were seized by the Nazis.

It is seen by researchers as a precious repository of the history of the day-to-day activities of lodges across Europe, ranging from the menus for celebrations to educational texts.

The first edition of the earliest Masonic constitution written in 1723, six years after the first lodge was created in England, is one of the gems of the collection 

Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

The collection was put together under the orders of SS chief Heinrich Himmler and some documents still bear Nazi stamps 

Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

Fine prints, copies of speeches and membership lists of Masonic lodges in Germany and beyond feature in the archive. Some documents still bear Nazi stamps.

"The Nazis hated the Freemasons," Andrzej Karpowicz, who managed the collection for three decades, told AFP.

Nazi ideology, he said, was inherently "anti-Masonic" because of its anti-intellectual, anti-elite tendencies.

The library puts some select items on show, including the first edition of the earliest Masonic constitution written in 1723, six years after the first lodge was created in England.

"It's one of our proudest possessions," Grazynska said.

The oldest documents in the collection are prints from the 17th century relating to the Rosicrucians -- an esoteric spiritual movement seen as a precursor to the Freemasons whose symbol was a crucifix with a rose at its centre.

During the war as Allied bombing intensified, the collection was moved from Germany for safekeeping and broken up into three parts -- two were taken to what is now Poland and one to the Czech Republic.

The section left in the town of Slawa Slaska in Poland was seized by Polish authorities in 1945, while the others were taken by the Red Army.

In 1959, the Polish Masonic collection was formally established as an archive and curators began studying it -- at that time, Freemasonry was banned in the country under Communism.

The collection is open to researchers and other visitors, who have included representatives of German Masonic lodges wanting to recover their pre-war history.

It is "a mine of information in which you can dig at will," said Karpowicz.
Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.

Concern grows for Palestinian teen held by Israel

Palestinian teenager Amal Nakhleh's first name means "hope" in Arabic, but his parents are in despair because he is chronically ill and one of the few minors held without charge by Israel. 

© ABBAS MOMANI

Moammar Nakhleh, the father of 17 year-old Palestinian prisoner Amal, shows a photograph of his son on his telephone, in Jalazun refugee camp, near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, on January 8, 2022

"Since his arrest last year I have only seen him twice, including last week when he told me he wanted to go on hunger strike," journalist Moammar Nakhleh said of his 17-year-old son.

"This scares me because he is already very weak," from myasthenia, a rare neuromuscular disease, and underwent surgery in 2020 to have a tumour removed from his rib cage, Nakhleh said.

Israeli authorities accuse Amal of throwing stones at soldiers and have held him for a year in administrative detention. The practice allows for suspects to be detained without charge for renewable six-month terms while investigations are ongoing.

© ABBAS MOMANI 

Moammar Nakhleh is the father of 17-year-old Palestinian prisoner Amal. Israeli authorities accuse Amal of throwing stones at soldiers and have held him for a year under administrative detention

Amal faces a new hearing Monday, and his father is worried that his detention could be renewed.

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

Israel defends 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"

.

© MOHAMMED ABED 

Palestinian artists paint a mural, in Gaza City on January 5, 2022, of Hisham Abu Hawash, a Palestinian prisoner who ended his hunger strike after Israel committed to his eventual release

"The use of administrative detentions, which allow for the deprivation of a person's liberty for a limited time only, is an effective and lawful security measure against such continuous terrorist attacks," Israel argues in a foreign ministry statement.

Leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz joined the fray days ago with an editorial entitled "Enough with administrative detentions".

"It's time for Israel to learn to forgo this undemocratic, corrupt practice of unlimited administrative detention, without evidence or charges that can be refuted," Haaretz said.

- 'Where is the evidence' -

The editorial highlighted the case of Hisham Abu Hawash, one of more than 450 Palestinians held for more than a year in administrative detention by Israel.

Six teenagers are among these prisoners, according to the Israeli human rights group Hamoked.

Tuesday's editorial came as Abu Hawash, a 40-year-old member of the Islamic Jihad movement, ended a 141-day hunger strike after Israel agreed to his eventual release.

The deal proposed to Abu Hawash, a father of five, stipulates that his detention will not be extended beyond February 26, in return for his ending his fast.

"If the state had evidence against Abu Hawash, it should have charged him. If not, it had to release him immediately," Haaretz said.

According to the paper, military prosecutors "had no unclassified evidence on which to draft an indictment to present to a military court" in the Abu Hawash case.

But for the Shin Bet domestic security agency, "'confidential material' is enough for a military commander to sign an order for six months of administrative detention, and an additional one six months later, repeat ad infinitum".

So why was Amal arrested?

The Shin Bet declined to comment when asked by AFP but the agency has previously been quoted as saying that he was "suspected of having taken part in terrorist activity".

- 'Bracing for the worst' -

Amal's predicament dates back to November 2020 when he was arrested by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank.

A football fan, he was out with friends after recovering from his cancer surgery, his family said.

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

"At the hearing, a representative of the security forces said they had a 'file' against him and would seek administrative detention," Amal's father recalled.

"The judge asked them to provide him with the incriminating file," which they failed to, prompting the judge to free Amal.

But in January last year, he was re-arrested and placed in administrative detention, which has since been twice renewed.

The UN refugee agency UNRWA has taken up Amal's case with the Israeli authorities.

"We are demanding his immediate release from administrative detention for two reasons: his medical condition which is incredibly serious... and he is a minor," UNRWA's West Bank chief, Gwyn Lewis, told AFP.

"We have written several times and followed up but there has never been any information on why he was arrested."

Moammar Nakhleh fears that Amal's detention will be renewed again on Monday.

"I am scared that if his detention is renewed, I will not see him for a long time," he said at the family home in Al-Jalazun refugee camp.

"I'm bracing for the worst."

gl/dms/hkb/kir/fz

Shaky ground: Texas Railroad Commission takes much-needed stand on oilfield earthquakes

A FRACKQUAKE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Jason Jennaro
Fri, January 7, 2022

A map of seismic activity in the Permian Basin is pictured.

On the cloudy afternoon of Dec. 15, I was in Houston speaking to a colleague on the phone in Midland when a 3.6 magnitude quake shook the oil-rich town. She nearly fell out of her chair, quickly ending the conversation by saying, “I need to check on my children.” It was one of 15,000 earthquakes to hit West Texas’ Permian Basin in the last five years.

More: 'The time is now': New Mexico taking action on oil and gas-induced earthquakes

The Permian Basin has been a prolific economic engine for the State of Texas and is a vital energy resource for the United States. The basin is the center of the U.S. shale revolution, employs half of all U.S. drilling rigs, produces almost 5 million barrels of oil per day and boasts the largest oil-shale reserve base on the planet. Its resource is deep and geographically vast, with one of the thickest hydrocarbon structures in the world spanning 300 miles from Big Lake, Texas to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

But the Permian Basin has a problem: a 15 million barrel per day problem.

Approximately three barrels of brackish water are produced for every barrel of oil, and this wastewater needs to go somewhere. Much of this water is disposed of into thousands of deep injection wells known as saltwater disposals. Many of these injection wells were drilled on or close to ancient but historically inactive fault lines. Scientists have warned for years that deep water injection can pressurize these faults and induce quakes. With 5,200 West Texas quakes in 2021, double what was observed in 2020, this is no longer a theoretical discussion. Earthquakes are now impacting West Texas cities spanning from Pecos to Big Spring on a weekly basis. The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), the principal regulatory body for Texas oil and gas, has responded in a pragmatic and data-driven way by severely limiting wastewater disposal in parts of six counties, impacting how millions of barrels of oil are produced daily.

More: Risk of earthquakes caused by oil and gas operations in New Mexico rising

The RRC is a storied Texas institution established in 1891 to first regulate railroads and then the nascent oil industry. For 130 years the RRC has had the central role in safeguarding the state’s place as the unofficial capitol of American energy, and in protecting its environment and its communities.

Earthquake data employed by the RRC is gathered by the TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program. In 2015 the Texas legislature under Gov. Abbott passed a law that established TexNet to scientifically determine the causes of increased seismic activity via continual seismic data collection and analysis. The rapid rise in West Texas earthquakes has prompted data-driven regulatory action from the RRC to mitigate induced seismicity while still facilitating the development of the state’s most important energy asset.

More: New Mexico investigates earthquakes induced by oil and gas as Texas cracks down on injection

Over the last two years the RRC regulated and encouraged the development of multi-customer produced water recycling and storage facilities. These facilities repurpose produced water for use in the completion process and thus reduce dependence on deep well injection into basement formations where fault lines exist. The RRC also developed stringent commercial recycling permitting standards know as Division 6-H11 (Div. 6-H11). These rules are essential because they protect west Texas’ aquifers, waterways and ecosystems from produced water contamination. Produced water typically contains oil, residual chemicals from the fracking process and suspended solids, and when stored improperly it can create toxic hydrogen sulfide gas. Commercially permitted recycling facilities operating under Div. 6-H11 are held accountable by stringent reporting, bonding, engineering, monitoring and other standardized RRC regulations.

Over the final months of 2021 the RRC responded more forcefully with first-of-kind Seismic Response Actions that severely limit deep well produced wastewater injection into seismically active areas, particularly around the population centers of Midland-Odessa. These actions encouraged wastewater to be recycled safely or at a minimum redirected away from population centers and seismic clusters.

To understand these actions, it’s important to understand how Permian Basin operators have managed billons of barrels of fresh and wastewater over the last decade, and how it has evolved.

More: 4.3 magnitude Texas earthquake felt in Carlsbad Wednesday

In the early 2010s operators used freshwater from local aquifers to frack single well developments. Upon completion, the wastewater byproduct was trucked to local disposal wells for injection. In the early days of shale there were very few earthquakes so induced seismicity was understandably not a consideration. By the late 2010s, multi-well development techniques materially improved efficiency but they also increased the demand for freshwater for fracking and deep well injectors for the disposal of wastewater.

While additional water infrastructure was built to handle increased industry demands, the water reservoirs supporting the Permian Basin started to signal distress: freshwater aquifers began to decline and injection formations started tremoring. The RRC was quick to act. Today’s water supply chain relies less on freshwater aquifers and more on consuming recycled produced water. Produced water now moves almost exclusively via pipeline, not by truck, to recycling facilities or to disposals further away from population centers or concentrated areas of seismicity.

More: Data ties series of West Texas earthquakes to oil and gas wastewater

Make no mistake about it, deep well saltwater disposals are here to stay. With over 2,000 active disposals in Texas, they are an essential tool in managing produced wastewater. However, with data-driven regulation and thoughtful oversight, the RRC has encouraged operators to be better stewards of the Permian Basin by either recycling the produced water when it is possible or moving it to disposals outside of population centers or seismic clusters when it is not.

Thank you, Chairman Wayne Christian, Commissioner Christi Craddick and Commissioner Jim Wright for your thoughtful stewardship of the Permian Basin, its citizens and its resources.

Jason Jennaro is CEO of Breakwater Energy Partners. Breakwater has constructed the largest commercially permitted produced water recycling facilities in the state of Texas. He has master’s degrees from Harvard University and Georgetown University. Mr. Jennaro serves on the Board of Directors of Make-a-Wish Gulf Coast and lives in Houston, Texas with his wife and two boys.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Shaky ground: Texas Railroad Commission takes much-needed stand on oilfield earthquakes

3 reasons everyone's quitting their job, according to Biden's labor secretary

Juliana Kaplan
Fri, January 7, 2022

Rachel Flores

In November, 4.5 million workers quit their jobs, including 1 million in leisure and hospitality.

It further cemented 2021 as the year of quitting, with eight months of nearly record quits.

The labor head said workers may be seeking better jobs or dealing with virus and childcare concerns.

The past year cemented a new American pastime: quitting your job.

For eight months, workers left at nearly record highs. In November, the most recent month that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released data for, a record 4.5 million workers said, "I quit." That's 3% of the whole workforce.

One big clue as to why so many Americans are leaving their jobs comes from who, exactly, is quitting. A record-breaking 1 million leisure and hospitality left their jobs in November, with low-wage sectors disproportionately leading departures. With hiring still robust, that suggests that the pay of many low-wage employers won't cut it anymore.

At the same time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest data release showed that the economy added just 199,000 jobs in December — a far cry from the 450,000 payrolls economists predicted.

Following the release of the jobs data, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh told Insider that there were many reasons people were quitting — and homed in on three reasons that might explain the number of quits and low payrolls.

1. People want better work

"I think a lot of people are looking to better themselves," Walsh said. "They're quitting the job that they're in, and they're going to be looking for better-paying jobs and more opportunities."

In December, the jobs site Indeed released a survey of 1,000 workers who had left at least two jobs since March 2020. Of those respondents, 92% said: "The pandemic made them feel life is too short to stay in a job they weren't passionate about."

When it comes to the November quitters, Nick Bunker, the economic-research director at Indeed, previously told Insider that "lots of workers in those lower-wage industries seem to be leaving jobs for greener pastures, where they can get higher wages."

Walsh added "that's why it's important for us to make investments in workforce development" and job training.

2. They're worried about COVID-19

"A lot of people obviously are concerned about the virus as well," Walsh said. Fears for personal health and of contracting the virus have continually been cited as one major driver of pandemic labor shortages. That's especially salient right now, as the US has had a surge in cases amid the rise of the Omicron variant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 705,264 new COVID-19 cases on January 5, which came after a huge spike beginning in mid-December.

That could also point to why workers were leaving the primarily in-person leisure and hospitality industry. In November, even pre-Omicron, the country was regularly logging tens of thousands of cases.

3. Childcare remains hard

"Childcare is a major issue in this country," Walsh said, adding: "It's not being supported in a lot of ways right now."

He said 100,000 people had left the childcare sector since February 2020. Insider previously reported that likely aggravated childcare deserts, areas where the number of children outnumber licensed care slots by at least three to one. Several childcare workers previously told Insider that while they loved their jobs, they were considering leaving over low pay and hard working conditions.

In November, the US lost daycare workers for the second month in a row, shedding 2,100 jobs in that sector.

"We have to do more to support childcare," Walsh said. For example, the stalled Build Back Better Act would lower childcare costs, increase its accessibility, and aim to institute universal pre-K. But that legislation is on the back burner.

Canada is Chinese citizens' least favorite country, according to state media survey


Carl Samson
Fri, January 7, 2022

Canada, once a hot travel destination among Chinese people, has become China’s least favorite country, according to a recent survey from state-run Global Times.

The poll, conducted by the Global Times Research Center with market survey firm DATA100, gathered 2,148 responses across 16 Chinese cities from Dec. 10-15, 2021.

The survey showed Canada at the bottom of the ranking, with only 0.4% of respondents saying they like the North American country.

Singapore, on the other hand, received a positive response from 14% of participants, emerging at the top of the list, alongside China itself. The two most popular countries were followed by Germany, France, the U.S., Russia and Maldives.

Singapore was also the country Chinese people said they would like to visit the most (17.1%), followed by Maldives and France. Previous data gathered since 2018 reportedly showed that the island city-state did not even crack the top six up until now.

Japan, which ranked No. 1 in 2019 and 2020, fell to sixth place in 2021.

The poll results reflect ongoing tensions between Ottawa and Beijing. On Dec. 25, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Western countries to stand united against China, claiming that the East Asian state has been “playing” them against each other.

“We’ve been competing, and China has been from time to time very cleverly playing us off each other in an open market competitive way,” Trudeau told Global News. “We need to do a better job of working together and standing strong so that China can’t, you know, play the angles and divide us one against the other.”

Canadians also seem to feel similarly about the Chinese. A survey by Research Co. and Glacier Media found that 68% of Canadians have an unfavorable opinion of China.

Canada and China’s relationship began to sour in 2018 with the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant. In an apparent retaliation, the “Two Michaels” – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – were detained in China on national security charges.

In September 2021, Meng reached a deal with U.S. prosecutors, and Kovrig and Spavor were subsequently released.

In early December, Canada also joined the U.S. and other Western allies in declaring a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. The stance was taken in protest of China’s alleged human rights abuses, most notably in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

“We are extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government,” Trudeau told reporters, according to Politico. “I don't think the decision by Canada or by many other countries to choose to not send diplomatic representation to the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics is going to come as a surprise to China. We have been very clear over the past many years of our deep concerns around human rights violations.”

Shortly after, the Chinese Embassy in Canada responded to the move, calling it a purely political show, according to the Global Times.

Featured Image via Justin Trudeau (left) and CGTN (right)

US companies plan to ‘do more, not less’ business in China: Ian Bremmer

Akiko Fujita

·Anchor/Reporter

Sat, January 8, 2022, 

A broad crackdown on private enterprise, regulatory tightening, and uneasy U.S.-China relations have done little to discourage American companies from doing business in the world’s second largest economy.

In fact, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer says executives plan to double down on their investments.

“I talked to CEOs of Western companies literally every day, and I will tell you that on balance, the majority of them are planning on doing more business in China over the next 10 years, not less,” Bremmer told Yahoo Finance Live. “The reason for that is simple. It's because China is on track, still to be the world's largest economy by 2030. And corporations ultimately want to be where their markets are going to be.”

The sheer size of the Chinese market has long made it the most valuable asset for U.S. multinationals operating in the country. The International Monetary Fund estimates China will become the world’s largest economy in the early 2030s.

But those growth prospects for American companies have increasingly been clouded by geopolitical risks and a shifting domestic environment. As China's President Xi Jinping looks to secure a third five-year term, and cement his legacy, he has reshaped the priorities of the economy under the aim of “common prosperity,” going after some of China’s biggest companies including Alibaba and Tencent.

That has coincided with slowing growth in the economy. China’s GDP expanded at 4.9% in the third quarter, dragged down in part by supply chain constraints, global energy crunch, COVID-19 uncertainty, and a debt-ridden property mark.

“China today is more economically unequal than the United States. And China is ostensibly a socialist economy. that shouldn't be happening and Xi Jinping is trying very hard to address that,” Bremmer said. “If that means breaking some eggs, in terms of local Chinese corporations and what they are and aren't allowed, the kind of wealth they can amass the kind of business practices that they can have for technology companies and consumer internet for video game companies... they're going to take action. Clearly this is creating more concern about Chinese growth and the sustainability of that growth.”

"China today is more economically unequal than the United States," Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer.

U.S. policy against China have only added to the jitters for executives. Last month, President Biden signed a law banning imports from the Xinjiang region, where Western countries have accused the Chinese of carrying out genocide against Uyghur Muslim minorities. Intel (INTC) and Walmart’s (WMT) Sam’s Club faced backlash domestically, after Chinese users took to social media platforms calling out the companies for complying with the new import ban. A Walmart representative later denied those allegations, saying customers simply couldn’t find the products "because of a misunderstanding" of the app’s search function.

In a recent survey by the U.S. China Business Council (USBC), 45% of U.S. companies said they have felt pressure to make statements about political issues, with the pressure coming from both the U.S. and Chinese governments, as well as consumers. One-third of those who responded said that nationalism has increasingly played a role in consumer decisions, with heightened U.S.-China tensions.

China investment in the U.S. is down significantly, while U.S. investment in China continues at a slower pace as the result of an "unpredictable business environment," according to Doug Barry, USBC senior director for communications and publications.

Yet, even with those headwinds, Barry said his members report plans to increase investments in China, because ‘they don’t want to miss out, if growth in markets slows.’

Bremmer said the White House policy is predicated on that understanding.

“The reality of U.S. foreign policy towards China is to avoid crisis precisely because our economies are enormously interdependent,” Bremmer said. “That's not going to end anytime soon.”

Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @AkikoFujita

ARMED STRUGGLE IS NOT TERRORISM
Colombia's leftist ELN rebels claim responsibility for bombing

 A destroyed truck of the Police Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) is seen after an explosion in Cali

Sat, January 8, 2022, 2:41 PM·2 min read

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's leftist rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) on Saturday claimed responsibility for an attack in the country's third-largest city, Cali, that injured more than a dozen police officers.

ELN operatives carried out the bombing, which was directed against members of ESMAD, the Colombian national police's feared anti-riot unit, late on Friday, while they were traveling in a vehicle.

"At 9:55 pm on Jan. 7, our units carried out an operation against ESMAD ... in the city of Cali," the ELN said in a statement published on a website belonging to its so-called urban front, adding that its members withdrew uninjured.

The ELN and national police both confirmed that 13 officers were injured in the attack, with police officials saying that some were seriously hurt. No deaths were reported.

The attack drew condemnation from the government and police, with President Ivan Duque decrying it as an attempt by the rebels to influence presidential elections later this year.

"Colombia does not and will not bend to terrorism and our government will never reward terrorists," Duque said in a message on Twitter.

Colombia is offering a reward of 1 billion pesos for information regarding El Rolo, the leader of the ELN's urban front, and 350 million pesos for information concerning those who planned and executed the attack, said General Jorge Vargas, the country's top police official. Together, the two rewards amount to around $334,000.

LIBERATION THEOLOGY IN PRACTICE
The ELN is estimated to have some 2,350 combatants and has fought the government since its 1964 founding by extremist Roman Catholic priests.

Peace talks between the ELN and Colombia's government were put on ice after a rebel bombing killed 22 police cadets in 2019.

The government accuses Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro of harboring ELN rebels and dissident members of the demobilized FARC guerrillas who reject a 2016 peace deal, something the government in Caracas has repeatedly denied.

(Reporting by Oliver Griffin and Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Paul Simao)

PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT

From Texas to India, a patent-free Covid vaccine looks to bridge equity gaps


Evan Bush
Fri, January 7, 2022

Millions of doses of a new, cheap coronavirus vaccine will soon be available in India, and they will arrive with one distinction neither Moderna nor Pfizer can claim: They’re patent-free.

The new CORBEVAX inoculation, which was developed in Texas with decades-old technology and little support from the U.S. government, received emergency use authorization last week from India’s drug regulation agency.

The researchers behind the vaccine stand with little to gain financially.

“We don’t own any intellectual property,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a researcher who helped lead the vaccine’s development.

Efforts to immunize the world are falling far short of some expectations, and human rights campaigners are pressuring pharmaceutical companies to transfer new vaccine technology to speed global access to shots.

And while doubts linger about CORBEVAX’s effectiveness against the omicron variant and a lack of public data, its development, outside the path of typical pharmaceutical development and stripped of the same financial incentives for inventors, represents a model for others and could bolster their arguments, vaccine equity advocates said.

About 59 percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to Our World in Data, which tracks government reports globally. But fewer than 9 percent of residents in low-income countries have received a dose.

Calling it the “World’s Coronavirus Vaccine” in a news release, Hotez and colleagues say CORBEVAX — which is cheap and stable and could be relatively easy to scale — will be key to addressing global equity gaps.

When Covid-19 began spreading around the world, Hotez and Maria Elena Bottazzi, researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine and leaders of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine, got to work — with a head start.

About a decade ago, the pair developed vaccine candidates for coronaviruses like SARS and MERS until funding ran out. Their other work had centered on neglected diseases associated with poverty, like hookworm infections.

“That’s all we know how to do is make durable, low-cost vaccines for global health,” Hotez said.

As new mRNA vaccine technology raced ahead, the pair continued to pursue decades-old technology to create a recombinant protein vaccine. Their method, which uses yeast to create a key component of the coronavirus, is similar to what has been used to create hepatitis B vaccines since the 1980s.

“Nobody was paying attention to these conventional technologies,” Bottazzi said.

Hotez and Bottazzi attracted little government funding, even as the government’s vaccine development effort, Operation Warp Speed, showered pharmaceutical companies with cash. But they kept at it.

“A lot of the vaccine producers in low- and middle-income countries realized they were going to be on the outside,” Bottazzi said. “We provided an attractive alternative.”

To this day, countries like India remain without access to the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have largely been purchased and distributed by wealthy countries. Boosters, and even fourth doses, are being administered in rich countries before access to first and second doses are available worldwide.

“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in December.

Hotez and Bottazzi hope CORBEVAX can fill the gap in India and other countries.

Biological E, the company that licensed CORBEVAX in India and ran clinical trials there, said it will soon be able to produce 100 million doses each month, the company said in a statement. The Indian government has ordered 300 million doses already.

CORBEVAX has some advantages. Research and development for the vaccine in Texas cost no more than $7 million, most of which was provided by philanthropists, Hotez and Bottazzi said.

The vaccine is relatively cheap to produce and easy to store, and it can be created anywhere hepatitis B vaccines are manufactured.

Because the technology is nearly a half-century old, many countries are familiar with it and have perfected use of its technology, said Jeremy Kamil, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at LSU Health Shreveport, who wasn’t involved in developing CORBEVAX.

“There’s nothing prohibitively pricey about all of this,” Kamil said, adding that protein subunit vaccines are generally stable and will be much easier to store than mRNA vaccines.

Clinical trials conducted by Biological E found that the vaccine was safe and effective, the company said in a statement. The company said the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective against the original strain of Covid-19 and more than 80 percent effective against the delta variant.

Data from a clinical trial with more than 3,000 participants have yet to be published, which leaves experts wary.

“Until they are showing the data, there’s going to be questions about what it really means,” Kamil said.

Hotez said Biological E was working to get the data published.

Achal Prabhala, a public health activist and researcher based in Bangalore, India, called Biological E a “blue-chip” vaccine manufacturer but objected to what he called “science by press release” and said there needs to be public data on how effective CORBEVAX is against the omicron variant.

Kamil had concerns about how the vaccine would hold up against the omicron variant, which has reduced the effectiveness of many vaccines, particularly those that rely on technology other than mRNA.

CORBEVAX is designed to introduce people’s immune systems to the coronaviruses’ receptor-binding domain — part of the spike protein targeted by many vaccines.

“It’s the most rapidly changing part of the spike. Omicron basically remodeled the entire thing,” Kamil said. “I would guess that might not be very effective against omicron.”

Kamil said that it should be relatively easy to update the vaccine formula to better protect against the variant, if necessary, but that it would take time.

Although questions remain about the CORBEVAX’s effectiveness in a shifted landscape in which the omicron variant is dominant, experts said its development should be a model for immunizing the world population and reducing vaccine inequity.

“For its practical utility, I wish it had come out months earlier,” Prabhala said, saying it would have been helpful before the omicron variant emerged. But “its symbolic utility is priceless.”

Prabhala, who has collaborated with Human Rights Watch, argues that expanding the manufacturing of mRNA vaccines would be the best way to drive up access to effective vaccines around the world. Human Rights Watch and other organizations are pressuring Moderna and Pfizer to more readily share vaccine formulas and manufacturing technology with countries in need of shots. (Moderna and Pfizer have shared some technology and argued that localizing vaccine production could take resources away from expanding manufacturing capacity within their supply chains).

Prabhala said about 120 facilities around the world, including some in poorer countries, could produce mRNA vaccines if the pharmaceutical companies transferred their technology.

Hotez and Bottazzi’s approach is an ethic to point toward, Prabhala said.

The longer it takes to vaccinate the world, the more chances the coronavirus will have to mutate as it infects new hosts.

“We know variants emerge more rapidly in unvaccinated populations,” Kamil said. “If we don’t address vaccine equity, we are always going to be playing catch-up with the latest variant.”

Cyprus reportedly discovers a Covid variant that combines omicron and delta

PUBLISHED SAT, JAN 8 2022
Jessica Bursztynsky@JBURSZ

KEY POINTS

A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the delta and omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.

Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, called the strain “deltacron.”

It’s still too early to tell whether there are more cases of the strain or what impacts it could have.


Staff at CSL are working in the lab on November 08, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia, where they will begin manufacturing AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine.
Darrian Traynor | Getty Images

A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the delta and omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, called the strain “deltacron,” because of its omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes, Bloomberg said.

So far, Kostrikis and his team have found 25 cases of the virus, according to the report. It’s still too early to tell whether there are more cases of the strain or what impacts it could have.

“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” against the two dominant strains, delta and omicron, Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. He believes omicron will also overtake deltacron, he added.

The researchers sent their findings this week to GISAID, an international database that tracks viruses, according to Bloomberg.

The deltacron variant comes as omicron continues its rapid spread across the globe, causing a surge in Covid-19 cases. The U.S. is reporting a seven-day average of more than 600,000 new cases daily, according to a CNBC analysis Friday of data from Johns Hopkins University. That’s a 72% increase from the previous week and a pandemic record.