Six In The Morning Wednesday 24 March 2021

 

Boris Johnson's latest gaffe could threaten Britain's vaccine rollout

By Luke McGee and James Frater, CNN

Updated 1428 GMT (2228 HKT) March 24, 2021

Boris Johnson, the UK's gaffe-prone Prime Minister, is making frantic attempts to row back on comments made in a private meeting with lawmakers from his own Conservative party on Tuesday night.

During the weekly "1922 Committee" meeting of Conservative backbenchers, Johnson made an unguarded comment in which he claimed that the UK's successful vaccine rollout was "because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends," multiple sources who were on the call have confirmed to CNN.

Realizing how controversial his comments could be if made public, Johnson then retracted them almost immediately, according to the sources, saying "actually I regret saying it ... forget I said that."

Seven-year-old girl killed in Myanmar after security forces open fire

Girl was shot in her home and is youngest victim so far in crackdown against opposition to military coup

A seven-year-old girl was killed in her home when security forces opened fire in Myanmar’s second city Mandalay, becoming the youngest victim so far in a crackdown against opposition to last month’s military coup.

The ruling junta accused pro-democracy protesters of arson and violence during the weeks of unrest, and said it would use the least force possible to quell the daily demonstrations.

Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said 164 protesters had been killed in total and he expressed sadness at the deaths. Activists say at least 261 people have been killed in the security forces’ crackdown.

Italian police find ‘millions’ of vaccines in factory raid amid fears AstraZeneca jabs being hidden

Police say the raids took place over the weekend

Hannah Roberts

In Italy

Italian police have raided a pharmaceuticals plant outside Rome, looking for AstraZeneca vaccines, as a tussle between the EU and UK over shortfalls in deliveries continues.

Carabinieri toldThe Independent that specialist food and pharmaceutical officers were involved in the search at the Catalent fill-and-finish plant in Anagni.

The raids took place over the weekend, said an Italian government official.

All-powerful pharmaceutical companies

Patents prevent vaccines for all

Although pharmaceutical companies poured public money into the development of Covid vaccines, they are selling them to the highest bidder. Sometimes, at best, they agree to reserve doses for their countries of origin. What if governments forced them to lift intellectual property rights, so that countries with the capacity to do so can produce the vaccine for the others?

by Frédéric Pierru, Frédérick Stambach & Julien Vernaudon

During the spring 2020 lockdown, we witnessed an outpouring of good intentions. In the generous, reformed society that would emerge as a result of the pandemic, vaccines would be ‘global public goods’. As recently as November, President Emmanuel Macron warned gravely: ‘We need to avoid at all costs a scenario of a two-speed world where only the richer can protect themselves against the virus and restart normal lives.’ (1)

Banksy superhero nurse painting sells for record price to fund NHS

Christie's London sold a painting portraying a healthcare worker as a superhero for €19.5 million on Tuesday, the most ever paid for a work by Banksy, who donated the work to a Southhampton hospital last May.

"Game Changer," a one-meter-square (three-foot-square) black-and-white painting of a child playing with a toy nurse as superhero by the artist Banksy sold at Christie's auction house in London for a record £16.7 million (€19.5 million / $23.2 million) on Tuesday, the most ever paid for a work by the anonymous artist.

The painting of a young boy hoisting a caped and masked nurse aloft — Batman and Spiderman relegated to the waste basket behind him — was donated to the University Hospital Southhampton by the artist last May, in appreciation for the service of frontline workers from the UK's National Health Service (NHS) in fighting the coronavirus.

‘We do not accept those children’: Yazidis forbid ISIL offspring

While Yazidi elders have welcomed women enslaved by ISIL back into the community, children born to ISIL fathers were not.

By 

Dana Taib Menmy

24 Mar 2021

 Earlier this month, nine Yazidi women were reunited for the first time in years with their 12 children – all born to members of the armed group ISIL (ISIS) who brutally persecuted the Yazidi community in northern Iraq and enslaved its women.

The reunification followed months of lobbying and negotiations between former US diplomat Peter Galbraith, the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, and Kurdish officials in Syria. They reached a deal allowing the children to leave the Al-Hol refugee camp in eastern Syria and cross the border into Iraq.

Despite the breakthrough, Yazidi elders have refused to let the children join the small religious community, which considers them outcasts who can never be allowed into society.