South Africa is mourning the sudden death of Jackson Mthembu, a cabinet minister and presidential adviser who was the public face of South Africa’s fight against COVID-19.President Cyril Ramaphosa offered condolences in a statement Thursday, saying he was shocked and saddened that 62-year-old Mthembu had died from COVID-related complications.He is the first of six South African cabinet members infected with COVID-19 to succumb to the disease.Mthembu revealed last week that he tested positive for the virus during a checkup for abdominal pain.His death comes as South Africa battles a second wave of COVID-19 propelled by a virus variant believed to be more easily spread.So far, South Africa has confirmed more than 1.3 million infections and 39,501 deaths, according to John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden spent his first full day in office Thursday signing a number of executive orders addressing the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has affected more people in the United States than anyplace else in the world. The U.S. has 24.6 million of the world’s more than 97 million infections.One of Biden’s orders would increase production of a syringe that pharmacists have discovered allows them to extract an extra dose of the vaccine from vials.The establishment of the Pandemic Testing Board is the result of another executive order. The aim of the new board is to increase COVID testing. Many Americans are still scrambling to secure testing appointments.Another of Biden’s executive orders mandates the wearing of masks on intercity buses and trains, as well as in airports and on airplanes. Mask-wearing has been identified as a simple, but effective means of slowing the spread of the virus.In other news on Biden’s first full day in office, the country’s leading infectious disease expert said the United States will participate in the global initiative to provide COVID-19 vaccines to poor countries.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Biden’s chief medical adviser, told the executive board of the World Health Organization Thursday during a videoconference that the United States will join the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, an international alliance led by WHO that seeks to provide COVID vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 12 MB540p | 15 MB720p | 28 MB1080p | 60 MBOriginal | 74 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioFauci also said the U.S. would fulfill its financial obligations to the United Nations health agency and maintain its previous staffing commitments. His remarks came one day after Biden issued an order on his first day in office pledging to restore Washington’s ties with WHO. Former President Donald Trump announced in May that he was withdrawing the United States from the WHO, accusing the agency of helping China cover up the extent of the coronavirus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.“This is a good day for WHO and a good day for global health,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in response to Fauci’s announcement.In a related story, Reuters news agency says the COVAX initiative announced Thursday that it is aiming to deliver 1.8 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to poor countries in 2021, and hopes to fulfill supply deals for wealthier ones in the second half of the year.The world is racing against time to produce and deliver billions of doses of new coronavirus vaccines to blunt the pandemic, which has killed over 2 million people out of a total of over 97 million confirmed COVID-19 infections, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Vaccination efforts have run into numerous difficulties, however, including logistical hurdles, bureaucratic failures and a basic shortage of vaccines, which has led to residents across the U.S. having had their vaccine appointments canceled.In Peru, a group of doctors launched a hunger strike this week to protest the government’s lack of preparation for a second wave of COVID-19 cases.Dr. Teodoro Quiñones, the secretary-general of Peru’s physician’s union who is taking part in the strike, and at least a half-dozen striking doctors are staging the strike in a makeshift tent outside the headquarters of the health ministry in the capital, Lima.Quiñones said the government has not fulfilled its commitments to improve conditions in the country’s public hospital system, leaving doctors without adequate supplies of oxygen, medicines and ventilators. He told The New York Times the state-run EsSalud network dismissed COVID-19 specialists after the first wave receded and failed to hire them back when more and more new cases began filling up hospital intensive care units.The South American country has more than a million confirmed coronavirus infections, including over 39,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
…

President Joe Biden immediately began to reverse the Trump administration’s policies on climate change with one of 17 executive orders signed Wednesday after his inauguration.That’s in addition to the move to rejoin the Paris agreement to limit climate-changing greenhouse gases. After four years of federal disinterest in the issue, the order calls on all federal agencies “to immediately commence work to confront the climate crisis.”  Among its dictates is the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that perhaps more than any other has become a symbol of the rise and fall and rise of climate policy over the past three administrations.  FILE – President Joe Biden pauses as he signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 20, 2021.Keystone XL aims to connect tar sand pits in Canada’s Alberta province with crude oil refineries in the southern United States. This sludgy oil takes more energy to extract and refine than standard crude oil, so its total impact on the climate is therefore even greater than that of standard fossil fuels.  Environmental groups strongly opposed the pipeline. They persuaded then-President Barack Obama to kill the project in 2015. Energy dominance In a preview of his “energy dominance” agenda, then-President Donald Trump revived Keystone XL with an executive order signed just days after taking office in 2017.  Trump consistently favored domestic fossil fuel production over environmental regulations. He loosened rules on leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane from oil and natural gas development. He shrank the land area protected in national monuments to allow for more energy extraction. He weakened efficiency standards for appliances and vehicles, saying that the standards made these items more expensive.  FILE – Demonstrators gather to protest then-President Donald Trump’s plan to expand offshore drilling for oil and gas, in Albany, N.Y., Feb. 15, 2018.Biden’s executive order starts the process of reversing those policies. It instructs agency chiefs to consider “suspending, revising or rescinding” Trump’s rules.  In all, the FILE – A depot used to store pipes for TransCanada Corp.’s planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in Gascoyne, North Dakota, Nov. 14, 2014.The Sierra Club, a major environmental group, called Biden’s order a “huge and hard-fought victory.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, representing a large swath of U.S. businesses, called it “a politically motivated decision” that “will harm consumers and put thousands of Americans in the building trades out of work.” Not all of Biden’s actions drew the ire of the business community, however. In a separate statement, the U.S. Chamber said it “welcomes President Biden’s action to rejoin the Paris climate agreement.” Business groups have not supported all of Trump’s rollbacks, so they may not object to tightening them again.  Major oil companies opposed weakening rules on methane leaks. Automakers split over Trump’s vehicle efficiency rules.  Also, many of Trump’s rules are being challenged in court. Biden’s order says his attorney general does not have to defend them.  Heating up In signing the order, Biden acknowledged that these executive actions are “all starting points” and much more will need to be done.  And soon. The year FILE – Green lights are projected onto the facade of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, France, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his decision that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement at a news conference, June 1, 2017.The United States is not on track to meet its Paris pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Experts say even the world’s commitments under the Paris agreement are not enough to ward off potentially catastrophic levels of global warming.  Biden proposed an aggressive agenda to tackle climate change, but executive orders alone will not be enough. He will need Congress to pass legislation.  With a narrow Democratic majority in the House and an evenly split Senate, the task will not be easy. Republicans from fossil fuel-producing states have signaled their opposition. Biden’s policies “from Day One hurt American workers and our economy,” West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito said in a statement.  His executive order “comes at the expense of low-income and rural families that rely upon industries opposed by liberal environmental groups,” she said. “My constituents and I have not forgotten the harm brought by this approach under the Obama administration.”
…

A NASA-Boeing partnership took its next steps toward deep-space exploration. Two commercial space flight companies reached new heights, and China says “foreign scientists” can inspect lunar samples it recently collected.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.Produced by: Arash ArabasadiCamera: NASA/AP/Reuters/Virgin Orbit/Blue Origin 
…

Pakistan said Thursday it will receive half-a-million free doses of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine by January 31.    Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi made the announcement at a news conference, saying his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, shared the “good news” in a phone call between the two officials.   
 
“He told me, ‘Send your aircraft and immediately airlift this drug.’ So, this is a welcome news for us. And we will, God willing, succeed in saving many lives,” Qureshi said.   
 
He stressed that the Chinese vaccine is being gifted to Islamabad as a “goodwill gesture” from Beijing “in view of the all-weather strategic relationship” between the two countries.   
 
Pakistan’s drug regulator approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use on Monday. China approved the drug earlier this month, which is also in use in several countries, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.  
 
The Pakistani regulator last week also authorized the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine developed with Oxford University.  
 FILE – Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi speaks during an interview with Reuters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 1, 2020.Qureshi said that Wang also promised to make another 1.1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine available for Pakistan by the end of February to meet the country’s additional urgent requirements.  
 
The foreign minister noted that China’s technical and medical expertise had played an “instrumental role” in Islamabad’s fight against the pandemic.   
 
Pakistan is also conducting a Phase 3 trial of another Chinese anti-coronavirus vaccine from Cansino Biologics, Inc.   
 
Dr. Faisal Sultan, special health assistant to the prime minister, said Wednesday at a news conference that the trial was near completion and that 17,500 people participated in it.    
 
He noted that the Cansino vaccine’s “interim analysis” was currently underway, and the initial results will hopefully be available by early February.   
 
“We are entitled to receive 20 million doses, provided the results are positive and the vaccine proves to be effective,” Sultan said.   FILE – Students wear protective masks as they have their temperature checked before entering classrooms as secondary schools reopen amid the second wave of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Jan. 18, 2021.Pakistan, a country of about 220 million people, has documented at least 527,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections, with more than 11,000 deaths since the outbreak was detected late last February.   
 
Sultan said the government plans to vaccinate at least 70% of its adult population to achieve herd immunity. He explained that the existing national Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) is being strengthened to distribute and inject the coronavirus vaccine.  The Pakistani government has said it will provide the COVID-19 vaccine to the public free of cost. The first batch of the doses, however, will be given to frontline health care workers in the first quarter of 2021. FILE – A health worker gives a polio vaccine to a child at a school in Lahore, Pakistan, Feb. 17, 2020. 
The program is handling several vaccines, including polio. Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the polio virus remains endemic. 
…

Fire erupted Thursday in a building under construction in India that is owned by the world’s largest vaccine maker, but the company said it would not affect production of a COVID-19 vaccine.The fire broke out at a Serum Institute of India (SII) building in the western city of Pune.Fire official Prashant Ranpise said the cause of the fire was not immediately clear, but it was contained to a facility under construction to boost production of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.SII CEO Adar Poonawalla sought to reassure the global community the fire did not affect the company’s production of the vaccine, labeled COVISHIELD in India, which many low- and middle-income countries are depending on to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.“I would like to reassure all governments & the public that there would be no loss of COVISHIELD production due to multiple production buildings that I had kept in reserve to deal with such contingencies,” Poonawalla tweeted.Ranpise said three people were rescued from the fire and no one was injured.  SII has been contracted to produce a billion does of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.Poonawalla told the Associated Press in December that his family-owned company hopes to increase production capacity from 1.5 billion doses to 2.5 billion doses annually by the end of this year. He said the new facility is part of the plan.Wealthy countries already have bought 75% of the 12 billion coronavirus vaccine doses expected to be produced this year. Consequently, SII is likely to produce most of the vaccines that will be used by developing countries. 
…

Chile is getting a new weapon to help in its fight against the spread of the coronavirus.Health regulators approved the emergency use of the CoronaVac vaccine made by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd.Heriberto Garcia, director of Chile’s Public Health Institute, said very encouraging data from late-stage trials and the Health Institute’s independent investigations suggested CoronaVac was a “safe and effective vaccine to fight the pandemic.”Chile paid $3.5 million to host a clinical trial of the Sinovac vaccine and has ordered 60 million doses of the vaccine, according to Reuters.Garcia said Sinovac will arrive in Chile at the end of the month. Chile has already inoculated more than 29,000 people with the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which arrived in the country late last month.Leaders of Chile’s Public Health Institute are also weighing approval of AstraZeneca’s vaccine for emergency use and have already signed a deal to purchase 14.4 million doses.So far, Chile has confirmed more than 677,000 COVID infections and 17,573 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
…

Zimbabwe is mourning the death of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Sibusiso Moyo.The government said the country’s top diplomat died Wednesday after contracting COVID-19.Moyo gained international notoriety as an army general, becoming the spokesperson of the 2017 coup that ousted longtime President Robert Mugabe, who was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa.Moyo is the third cabinet minister to succumb to COVID-19 in the past six months.Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs Ellen Gwaradzimba died last week, and Agriculture Minister Perrance Shiri died of the disease in July.The 61-year-old Moyo was reportedly getting weekly treatment for a kidney ailment at the time of his death.COVID-19 infections and deaths are on the rise in Zimbabwe, with more than 16,000 new infections and 505 deaths in the past month, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
…

This week the head of the World Health Organization warns the world is on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” over the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. This comes after some countries are already well underway with their vaccination campaigns, while others do not know when they will get their first shots. More from VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo.
…

A massive Antarctic iceberg that last month threatened a penguin-populated island off the southern tip of South America has since lost much of its mass and broken into pieces, scientists say. The main ice mass, called A68a, and its “child bergs” are still on the move, swirling in waters near South Georgia Island, said scientist Ted Scambos at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Scambos and other scientists have been tracking the iceberg — one of the largest-ever recorded — since it broke off from Antarctic’s Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017 and drifted north through a region known as “iceberg alley.” In the last month, the main berg shed about a third of its size, or more than 1,400 square kilometers (541 square miles), in smaller pieces and ice melt. On Tuesday, the main iceberg covered about 2,450 square kilometers (946 square miles). The edges of A68a have “curled up like a dinner plate,” causing pieces to break off from its sides as it moves through warmer currents, Scambos said. The iceberg could block penguins from foraging grounds if it lodges off the island’s coast, or it could grind over the seabed and significantly damage marine life. FILE – Penguins stand in South Georgia Island, in this undated photo obtained by Reuters Dec. 11, 2020. The A68a iceberg could interfere with the birds if it lodges off the island’s coast. (Alek Komarnitsky/via Reuters)That may already have happened, Scambos said, when the ice moved over some of the southern shelf in December. Scientists have yet to check on the impact up close. The baby bergs are also still a threat. “There’s city-block-sized bergs that are drifting around,” Scambos said. Scientists are tracking six of these smaller chunks, four of which are near the island. Pieces began breaking off from A68a as it was approaching the island’s western shelf in December. Strong currents caused the berg to pivot nearly 180 degrees. Satellite images suggest an underwater shelf may have clipped the berg, causing the first big break. More big bits then broke off, including a protruding piece that scientists had called the iceberg’s “finger.” The bergs “keep wandering” around the island, Scambos said. “They might grind to a halt for a short while … days, maybe weeks.” But then, they should melt and thin away, he said. “The bergs are in water that’s too warm for them.”  
 
…

Israel has sped ahead of any other country in its vaccine rollout, with more than 2 million people out of a total of 9.3 million already having received the first vaccination. In exchange for access to so many doses so early, Israel agreed to share data with Pfizer, a move some in Israel says raises privacy concerns.As much of the world scrambles to acquire enough vaccines for their respective populations, Israel already has secured enough doses for its entire population of 9.3 million people. According to media reports, Israel has paid well above the going rate for the Pfizer vaccines, hoping to be able to open the Israeli economy sooner.Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein says that as part of the deal, Israel also has offered to share epidemiological data with Pfizer.  “What we promised them, and we do keep the promises you can see, that if we get the vaccine, we’ll be very efficient,” said Edelstein. “We’ll vaccinate big numbers of the Israeli population, a huge proportion of the Israeli population very soon. And Pfizer will be able to see how it influences the level of disease in Israel, the possibility to open the economy, different aspects of social life, whether there are any effects of the vaccination.”COVID Cases Rise in Israel Despite Successful Vaccine RolloutCountry to begin another tight lockdownPreliminary data from the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have received two shots of the vaccine show 98% efficacy and no risk of transmission of the virus. That’s good news for Pfizer. Edelstein says the information that will be shared will be aggregate data, not individual data.“We made it quite clear to Pfizer that we at any stage are not going to share any personal data, no private information about anyone vaccinated,” said Edelstein. “But let’s just say for the sake of the example, we will know how many people with heart diseases had been vaccinated and whether there were any effects, any unfortunate cases, and so on and so forth.”While the Health Ministry released parts of its agreement with Pfizer, other parts remained secret. Privacy Israel, an advocacy group, said it was concerned about the handling and security of private information. Other analysts said that sharing the information, even anonymously, could put people’s privacy at risk.Nadav Davidovitch, the head of the school of public health at Ben Gurion University, says he understands these concerns but believes Pfizer will be careful with the data it receives.“The current vaccination campaign raises several ethical issues. Many people are preoccupied with the question of privacy, and I think this is something important,” said Davidovitch. “And I know for sure that Israel is not going to give identified clinical data to Pfizer. On the other hand, it’s extremely important to have the experience of Israel be submitted both to the World Health Organization and Pfizer in an unidentified way, so we can learn the lessons from Israel.”Israel has socialized medicine, with all Israelis being members of one of four HMOs. All medical records are digitized, making it easy for the HMOs to track the effect of the vaccines. Most Israelis say despite privacy concerns, they are happy to be among the first in the world to be vaccinated. 
…

Indigenous people in Brazil’s rainforest are getting their long awaited first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus, which has infected thousands in their community and killed hundreds of others. The Brazilian military flew medical workers and 1,000 doses of the CoronaVac Chinese vaccine into the Amazon rainforest on Tuesday and began vaccinating the indigenous people, who celebrated the arrival of the vaccine. Isabel Ticuna, one of the people in her village to get inoculated said, “the vaccination is so important for all of our indigenous community, for all the villagers. It was this that we were waiting for.” The coronavirus pandemic has taken a tremendous toll on Brazil’s indigenous people because a large part of the population does not have immediate access to a medical facility. The coronavirus has killed 926 indigenous people in Brazil and infected more than 46,000, according to a tribal umbrella organization called Articulation of Indigenous People of Brazil.  So far, Brazil has confirmed more than 8,500,000 cases and 210,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University COVID Resource Center. 
…

Kenya is under siege again by swarms of maturing desert locusts that threaten to ruin farmers’ crops and pastures. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement the locusts are swarming across seven counties, nearly double the number of counties impacted a week ago. The latest locust invasion in Kenya comes as the FAO warns the 28 anti-locust aircraft assembled by East African countries to wipe out the pest is in jeopardy of being grounded because of a lack of funding. The FAO told its humanitarian partners Tuesday that some $38.8 million in additional funding will be needed to keep the planes in the air through June over East Africa and Yemen. At least one farmer in northern Kenya is taking matters into his own hands to get rid of swarms by banging a stick against a can, hoping the noise will cause the pests to move on and spare his crops. 
…

South Africa is reporting both good and bad news in the battle against the coronavirus, seeing a decline in confirmed cases along with the spread of a new, more infectious strain of the virus.  First, the good news from South Africa’s health minister, Dr. Zweli Mkhize. The nation is still experiencing its second wave of the virus, but in the past week, Mkhize said, South Africa saw a 23% decline in confirmed cases.   “It has been encouraging to know that, despite the mutations, we are still able to protect ourselves with the armor that we have established,” he said in a statement released Tuesday. “This week has seen some promising signs of decline in transmission – yesterday we noted a 23% decrease in new cases nationally compared to 7 days prior. This could be attributable to many factors, including enhanced physical distancing facilitated by lockdown regulations. We must thank South Africans for adhering to the regulations, difficult and frustrating as it may be.” And now for the more concerning news. The head of the nation’s coronavirus task force, epidemiologist Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, says the recently detected, more infectious variant of the virus, known as 501.V2, is spreading quickly in South Africa.Healthcare workers tend to a patient at a temporary ward set up during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, January 19, 2021.“Its affinity and its ability to bind to the human cell is now stronger,” he said in a briefing late Monday. “And that’s what enables it to become a more efficient virus in the way it transmits …. So this drastic change that we’re seeing is being driven by a virus that certainly, biologically looks like it can attach to human cells more efficiently.”  But, he adds, scientists haven’t concluded that this variant is more severe. In fact, he said, current data suggests it is not.  And he quickly allayed fears that the 1.5 million vaccine doses expected to land in South Africa by February won’t work on this new strain.    “I will not even attempt to speculate on that matter,” he said. “I’ll wait for the data. And certainly, we have no empirical evidence yet on whether vaccines are effective against this variant. Those studies are still under way.”  And, in a rare departure from science, Dr. Karim took a moment to talk politics, urging against calling this mutation the “South Africa variant.” When researchers first spotted this new variant, they were careful not to call it that in scientific papers. He explained why this matters.   “There are variants across the world,” he said. “And even if they were found in one country, we don’t even know if that’s where they originated from, and they will rapidly spread to many countries. The B.1.1.7 is now in almost 50 countries. The  501.V2 is already available in more than 10 countries. Just like how we objected when the U.S. president called SARS-Cov-2 ‘the China virus,’ we should not call this variant by its country, we should call it by its name.”  So what does all this new science mean for the average South African? Not much, doctors said. Their basic guidance remains the same: prevent transmission by staying home if you can, distance from others, wash your hands and always wear a mask in public.   
…

Hundreds of members of Serbia’s military lined up on Tuesday in their camouflage uniforms at an exhibition hall in Belgrade where nurses injected them with a Chinese-made vaccine against COVID-19.
Last week Serbia received one million doses of Chinese Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first European country to start a mass inoculation program with it.
Serbia is vaccinating essential workers such as police officers, teachers and soldiers after last month starting to treat the elderly in care homes and medical workers with its supplies of vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech , and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
Belgrade maintains close ties with Beijing and Chinese companies have invested billions of euros in Serbia, mainly in infrastructure and energy projects.
Defense minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said over 700 members of the military, including himself had been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine.
“I have been inocculated with the Chinese vaccine which we completely trust … I’ve said I will get the same vaccine as our troops,” Stefanovic told reporters.
More than 20,000 Serbians have been vaccinated so far since the mass inoculation began in late December.
Over the weekend, President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia expects to get another 250,000 doses of the Sputnik vaccine and 20,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines in the coming days.
In the Western Balkan region, inoculation has started only in Serbia and Albania, while Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia have not yet received supplies of any vaccine.
China approved the shot developed by Sinopharm’s BIBP in late December, its first COVID-19 vaccine for general public use. No detailed efficacy data has been released, but BIBP has said the vaccine is 79.34% effective based on interim data.
In Serbia, which has a population of about 7 million, 3,771 people have died from COVID-19 and 347,111 fell ill with it.
…