Month: January 2021

Britain will next week formally apply to join a trans-Pacific trading bloc of 11 countries, with negotiations set to start later this year, the government has said.Since leaving the European Union, Britain has made clear its desire to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which removes most tariffs between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.”One year after our departure for the EU we are forging new partnerships that will bring enormous economic benefits for the people of Britain,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.Trade minister Liz Truss told Times Radio: “On Monday I am putting in the letter of intent” and that she expected formal negotiations will start in the spring.Reuters reported on Thursday that Britain will not publish an assessment of the economic benefits of CPTPP membership before requesting to join it – contrary to earlier promises.Previous government economic analyses of Brexit have pointed to small boosts to economic output from additional trade deals.The government said joining CPTPP would remove tariffs on food and drink and cars, while helping to boost the technology and services sectors.”Applying to be the first new country to join the CPTPP demonstrates our ambition to do business on the best terms with our friends and partners all over the world and be an enthusiastic champion of global free trade,” Johnson said.  …

When she was growing up, Sophie Corroon struggled to get through a ballet class or soccer tryout without having an anxiety attack.The idea of going to sleepovers or being home alone left her feeling panicked. Corroon’s anxiety grew even more during high school in Salt Lake City in the U.S. state of Utah when the pressures of getting into college left her in tears at school or toiling for hours on assignments.Corroon, now 20, has struggled with her mental health since fourth grade, and she’s not alone. And now, the coronavirus pandemic has multiplied the pressures on kids — many have spent almost a year doing remote learning, isolated from their friends and classmates. The portion of children’s emergency-room visits related to mental health was 44% higher in 2020, compared with the year before.State lawmakers are increasingly seeking more support for kids. This year, legislation proposed in Utah and Arizona would add mental or behavioral health to the list of reasons students can be absent from class, similar to staying out with a physical illness. Similar laws have passed in the states of Oregon, Maine, Colorado and Virginia in the past two years.Offering mental health days can help children and parents communicate and prevent struggling students from falling behind in school or ending up in crisis, said Debbie Plotnick, vice president of the nonprofit advocacy group Mental Health America. Plotnick said mental health days can be even more effective when paired with mental health services in schools.“We know that this …

A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus visited a wet market Sunday in Wuhan, China. A cluster of cases were linked to the Huanan Seafood Market when the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019. Since then, the coronavirus has infected more than 102 million people worldwide and killed more than 2.2 million.The scientists have already visited at least one of the hospitals in Wuhan that treated some of the first patients.”Just back from visit at Jinyintan hospital, that specialized in infectious diseases and was designated for treatment of the first cases in Wuhan,” Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans said on Twitter. “Stories quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.”Just back from visit at Jinyintan hospital, that specialised in infectious diseases and was designated for treatment of the first cases in Wuhan. Stories quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.— Marion Koopmans (@MarionKoopmans) January 30, 2021One American member of the team, zoologist Peter Daszak with the EcoHealth Alliance, said on Twitter that it is important to speak to the doctors who first fought COVID-19, the diseased caused by the coronavirus.2nd day on-the-ground in Wuhan meeting w/ leaders & staff at the famous Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital that treated large numbers of severe COVID cases early in the outbreak. Important opportunity to talk directly w/ medics who were on the ground at that critical time fighting COVID!— Peter Daszak (@PeterDaszak) January 30, 2021The scientists want to know where …

Scientists with the World Health Organization’s team investigating the source of the coronavirus that has infected more than 102 million people worldwide and killed more than 2.2 million have visited one of the hospitals in Wuhan, China, that treated some of the first patients.Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans said on Twitter that the stories she’d heard at Jinyintan hospital were “quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.”Just back from visit at Jinyintan hospital, that specialised in infectious diseases and was designated for treatment of the first cases in Wuhan. Stories quite similar to what I have heard from our ICU doctors.— Marion Koopmans (@MarionKoopmans) A woman wearing a face mask walks past a closed souvenir shop near Berlin’s famed tourist magnet Checkpoint Charlie, Jan. 29, 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic.Travelers from several European and African nations — Brazil, Britain, Eswatini, Ireland, Lesotho, Portugal and South Africa — will not be allowed into Germany. However, German residents traveling from those countries will be granted entry, even if they test positive for the coronavirus virus.Fourteen University of Michigan students were in quarantine after being diagnosed with the British variant of the virus. One of the students was reported to have traveled to Britain over the winter break.Health officials in South Carolina said they had detected two cases of the South African COVID-19 variant, the first cases in the United States.The U.S. remained the country with the most cases at more than 26 million, followed by India with 10.7 million …

In the first large-scale, controlled data outside clinical trials, the two-dose Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is showing 92 percent effectiveness, according to Israeli health officials. It’s good news for Pfizer, which says the vaccine also appears to work against the British mutation of COVID-19. The Maccabi Health Fund studied 163,000 Israelis who had received two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. Only 31 of them caught COVID-19 after they were fully vaccinated. In an equivalent sample of unvaccinated Israelis, almost 6,500 developed the disease.The study shows the Pfizer vaccine had 92 percent effectiveness, which was close to the 95 percent Pfizer saw in clinical trials. Israeli infectious-disease experts said the study is good news and that the slight difference between the clinical trials and this current study is within the standard deviation.Israel has become a real-time laboratory for the Pfizer vaccine, which is being widely distributed in the country through the public health funds. Israel bought the vaccine early, paying double the market price, according to media reports, and agreed to share all of its data with Pfizer. All Israelis belong to one of four health funds and all medical records are digitized.So far, almost 3 million Israelis out of a total population of 9.3 million have received the first dose of the vaccine, and almost 1.5 million have received the second dose.FILE – A woman waits outside a container at a coronavirus testing center while Israel is under a lockdown as part of the coronavirus disease restrictions, in Jerusalem Jan. 29, …

Climate isn’t the only thing changing. What comes next in the nation’s struggle to combat global warming will probably transform how Americans drive, where they get their power and other bits of day-to-day life, both quietly and obviously, experts say. So far, the greening of America has been subtle, driven by market forces, technology and voluntary actions. The Biden administration is about to change that.In a flurry of executive actions in his first eight days in office, the president is trying to steer the U.S. economy from one that uses fossil fuels to one that no longer puts additional heat-trapping gases into the air by 2050.The United States is rejoining the international Paris climate accord and is also joining many other nations in setting an ambitious goal that once seemed unattainable: net-zero carbon emissions by midcentury. That means lots of changes designed to fight increasingly costly climate disasters such as wildfires, floods, droughts, storms and heat waves.Think of the journey to a carbon-less economy as a road trip from Washington to California that started about 15 years ago.”We’ve made it through Ohio and up to the Indiana border. But the road has been pretty smooth so far. It gets rougher ahead,” said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, climate and energy director at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center in Oakland, California.”The Biden administration is both stepping on the gas and working to upgrade our vehicle,” Hausfather said.What isn’t visible, and what isThe results of some of Biden’s new efforts may still not …

The European Union introduced tighter rules Friday on exports of COVID-19 vaccines that could hit shipments to nations like Great Britain, deepening a dispute with London over scarce supplies of potentially lifesaving shots.But amid an outcry in Northern Ireland and Britain, the European Commission made clear the new measure will not trigger controls on vaccines shipments produced in the 27-nation bloc to Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain bordering EU member Ireland.Under the post-Brexit deal, EU products should still be able to travel unhindered from the bloc to Northern Ireland.”In the process of finalization of this measure, the commission will ensure that the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol is unaffected,” the EU’s executive arm said in a statement late Friday.Amid a dispute with Anglo-Swedish drugmakerAstraZeneca, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and British leader Boris Johnson had an unexpected phone call, during which the British prime minister “expressed his grave concerns about the potential impact which the steps the EU has taken today on vaccine exports could have,” a statement from the British government read.The EU unveiled its plans to tighten rules on exports of coronavirus vaccines produced inside the bloc amid fears some of the doses it secured from AstraZeneca could be diverted elsewhere. The measure could be used to block shipments to many non-EU countries and ensure that any exporting company based in the EU will first have to submit their plans to national authorities.TheBritish and Northern Ireland governments immediately lashed out at the move, saying the bloc …

European Union regulators on Friday approved the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the third vaccine approved for use on the European continent. Amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) expert committee unanimously recommended the vaccine for adults, despite concerns of inadequate data proving its effectiveness for people over 55. Addressing reporters from agency headquarters in Amsterdam, EMA chief Emer Cooke told reporters the agency had approved the drug for conditional or emergency use because clinical studies found the vaccine to be about 60% effective at fighting the coronavirus — lower than the two previously approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which show efficacy in the 90% range. Many EU health officials had been anticipating approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine because it is less expensive and does not require deep-freeze storage like the Pfizer-BioNTech drug. Earlier Friday, German Health Minister Jens Spahn indicated the vaccine would be approved, but not recommended for patients older than 65, as the clinical studies lacked data regarding its efficacy for patients in that age range.   But Emer said EMA’s experts determined, based on the immune results seen in patients between the ages of 18 and 55 years, older adults are expected get the same protection from the vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine had already been approved for use in Britain and a number of other countries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still considering the drug company’s application for emergency use.  …

U.S. pharmaceutical and medical device maker Johnson & Johnson says after a global trial, the COVID-19 vaccine it has developed is 66% effective in preventing infection. The one-dose vaccine, which was developed by the company’s Belgian subsidiary Janssen, appears to be 85% effective in preventing serious illness, even against the South African variant. Of the 44,000 people who participated in the trail in the U.S., South Africa and Brazil, no one who was given the vaccine died, the company said. “The potential to significantly reduce the burden of severe disease, by providing an effective and well-tolerated vaccine with just one immunization, is a critical component of the global public health response,” Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson, said in a company press release. “A one-shot vaccine is considered by the World Health Organization to be the best option in pandemic settings, enhancing access, distribution and compliance,” said the statement. Health care workers line up before receiving the first dose of the Sinovac’s CoronaVac coronavirus vaccine in the Positivo event center at the Barigui Park in Curitiba, Brazil, Jan. 28, 2021.The U.S. has agreed to buy 100 million doses of the vaccine with a further option to buy 200 million more, according to the company. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the fourth vaccine approved to fight the pandemic. Variant detected in U.S. There are more than 101 million global COVID-19 infections, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Friday. The U.S. tops the list with more than 25 million …

Federal officials at a California military base last year who met with the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, the place where the coronavirus emerged, were not prepared for their mission, according to The Washington Post.   They did not wear masks and had “no virus prevention plan or infection-control training” when they met with the evacuees, the Post said, according to two federal reports the newspaper said it has obtained. The newspaper reported on its website late Thursday that the reports supported “a whistleblower’s account of the chaos as U.S. officials scrambled to greet nearly 200 evacuees” who eventually did not test positive for the coronavirus.The whistleblower’s complaint, however, resulted in “internal reviews by the Health and Human Services Department and an investigation overseen by the Office of Special Counsel,” the Post said. According to the newspaper’s account, the federal officials who first interacted with the Wuhan evacuees at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, were instructed to remove their protective gear when meeting with the evacuees to avoid “bad optics.” (bad appearances)The Health and Human Services general counsel’s office, headed by Robert Charrow, a Trump appointee, conducted a campaign against the whistleblower among members of Congress who received from HHS an account of what the agency said was the whistleblower’s conflicting information.  That HHS move was “reprehensible,” Special Counsel Henry Kerner said in a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday.  Kerner praised the whistleblower’s “tremendous courage in bringing these allegations forward.”  There are more than 101 million global COVID-19 …

Germany’s health minister said Friday he expects the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to be approved for emergency use later in the day but possibly only for restricted use. Speaking at a Berlin news briefing, German Health Minster Jens Spahn said Europe’s drug regulator, the Europe Medicines Agency (EMA) could approve the new vaccine with restrictions because data on its use on the elderly was “insufficient.” Spahn said it was important to point out the difference between insufficient data and “bad” data. Speaking at the same news conference, Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) President Klaus Cichutek, said there had been heated debate regarding the vaccine during the approval process this past week, but he believed the “essential groundwork” had been laid to approve the drug without an age restriction.   He said, “the basis for approval has to be, especially for vaccines, that the benefits far outweigh the risks,” and he believed the drug met that standard. The PEI is the research and regulatory agency within Germany’s health ministry. Also at the same news conference, Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases (RKI) President Lothar Wieler warned of potential dangers from new COVID-19 variant strains. He said characteristics of the variants aren’t fully known and it’s not known if they are more dangerous, and, in some cases, if people who already had COVID-19 or were vaccinated have immunity against them. …

Federal officials at a California military base last year who met with the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, the place where the coronavirus emerged, were not prepared for their mission, according to The Washington Post.They did not wear masks and had “no virus prevention plan or infection-control training” when they met with the evacuees, the Post said, according to two federal reports the newspaper said it has obtained.The newspaper reported on its website late Thursday that the reports supported “a whistleblower’s account of the chaos as U.S. officials scrambled to greet nearly 200 evacuees” who eventually did not test positive for the coronavirus.The whistleblower’s complaint, however, resulted in “internal reviews by the Health and Human Services Department and an investigation overseen by the Office of Special Counsel,” the Post said.According to the newspaper’s account, the federal officials who first interacted with the Wuhan evacuees at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, were instructed to remove their protective gear when meeting with the evacuees to avoid “bad optics.” ((bad appearances))The Health and Human Services general counsel’s office, headed by Robert Charrow, a Trump appointee, conducted a campaign against the whistleblower among members of Congress who received from HHS an account of what the agency said was the whistleblower’s conflicting information. That HHS move was “reprehensible,” Special Counsel Henry Kerner said in a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday. Kerner praised the whistleblower’s “tremendous courage in bringing these allegations forward.”There are more than 101 million global COVID-19 infections, …

President Joe Biden reversed several Trump administration health care policies Thursday, including one that restricted access to abortion both inside and outside the United States. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story on what Biden’s actions may mean for women’s reproductive rights around the world. Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov …

Novavax Inc. said Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears 89% effective based on early findings from a British study and that it also seems to work — though not as well — against new mutated versions of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa.The announcement comes amid worry about whether a variety of vaccines being rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect against worrisome new variants, and as the world desperately needs new types of shots to boost scarce supplies.The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still under way. But an interim analysis found 62 participants so far have been diagnosed with COVID-19 — only six of them in the group that received the vaccine, and the rest who received dummy shots.The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found over half of the trial participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very small, but Novavax said they suggest the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the older coronavirus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant. The findings are based on cases that occurred at least a week after the second dose.”Both those numbers are dramatic demonstrations of the ability of our vaccine to develop a very potent immune response,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a call with investors late Thursday.Scientists have been even more worried about a variant first discovered in …

Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary in Whittier, California, may be the biggest cemetery in North America, but the 1,400-acre park is struggling to cope with the number of bodies awaiting funeral services because of an increase in COVID-19 deaths.Despite the numerous facilities at Rose Hills, there is about a month’s delay before families can receive funeral services for their loved ones.Patrick Monroe, CEO and president of Rose Hills, told Reuters via Zoom that there had been a sharp increase for services since the Thanksgiving holiday in November, with demand nearly doubling.Rose Hills has brought in a large number of refrigeration units to deal with the additional bodies.The park has also set up tented areas to replace on-site chapels and is using new methods like livestreaming to bring services to families.”You can’t replace a hug,” Monroe said. “There’s an old saying that grief shared is grief diminished … you can’t really do that very well on Zoom.”Staff at Rose Hills are also finding it extremely stressful, Monroe said, as they witness grief from families.”Unfortunately for many families this is the first time they’re seeing their deceased in person because they weren’t able to visit at the hospital so it’s already making a very traumatic event even more sensitive,” Monroe said.”Funeral workers, cemetery workers, I think are heroes just like the health care folks,” he said. …

U.S. President Joe Biden signed two orders expanding health care on Thursday, saying they would “undo the damage” of policies favored by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. Biden restored U.S. funding for foreign nongovernmental groups that give information to women about abortions, and also opened a special three-month enrollment period for uninsured Americans who now want to buy health insurance, as well as for those who lost their coverage because of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, like past Republican presidents, had supported what critics have called the “global gag rule” on abortion information and had refused to reopen the government’s market for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.  Biden’s order also increased access to health care funding for impoverished Americans under a program called Medicaid. “There’s nothing new that we’re doing here,” Biden said, other than to restore programs as they were before Trump changed them. Biden contended that Trump made them “more inaccessible, more expensive and more difficult for people to qualify for.” Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can FILE – The HealthCare.gov website is seen on a computer screen in New York, Oct. 23, 2018.Typically, the program is only open for signups for six weeks a year. “As we continue to battle COVID-19, it is even more critical that Americans have meaningful access to affordable care,” the White House said in a statement ahead of the signing. The order directs federal agencies to reexamine policies that undermine the program’s protections for people who have preexisting conditions, including …

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged China and the United States on Thursday to “reset” relations, suggesting they cooperate on common interests such as fighting climate change. “It is clear that in human rights there is no scope for an agreement or a common vision,” Guterres acknowledged. “There is an area where I believe there is a growing convergence of interests and my appeal is for that area to be pursued by the two sides together with the whole of the international community — and that area is climate action.” FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping.Since the Trump administration announced in June 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, China has continued to move forward to reduce emissions. At the virtual U.N. General Assembly in September, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced 2060 as Beijing’s target for reaching carbon neutrality. FILE – John KerryThe new U.S. administration of President Joe Biden has made climate action one its top priorities. Biden has appointed former Secretary of State John Kerry as the first U.S. presidential envoy on climate and made him a member of his national security team. Responding to reporters’ questions at a hybrid in-person and virtual news conference, the U.N. chief said “there are reasons to hope” that Beijing and Washington will be “strongly involved” in the preparations of the Paris Agreement review conference that is scheduled to take place in Scotland in November. The White House says Washington is being patient as it seeks a “new approach” toward relations with China at …

Protesters took to the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw, late Wednesday and more demonstrations were scheduled for Thursday after the government implemented a court ruling that placed a near-total ban on abortions.The ruling, which was made October 22 but came into force Wednesday, permits abortions only in cases of rape and incest, and when the mother’s life or health is endangered. Doctors performing illegal abortions in Poland face jail.The implementation had been delayed by Poland’s conservative government after nationwide protests in October. But publishing the law late Wednesday triggered a new round of protests in Warsaw, with the promise of more, wider-spread protests Thursday, carried out in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings.The constitutional court is made up mostly of Law and Justice Party appointees who ruled on a motion brought by lawmakers from the party.Adam Bodnar, Poland’s commissioner of human rights, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Warsaw, July 16, 2019.Poland’s top human rights official, Ombudsman Adam Bodnar, published a statement condemning the ruling, saying the publication of the ruling meant the government was risking women’s lives and, in many cases, “condemning them to torture.”Bodnar said the Constitutional Tribunal and the government proceeded with publishing the ruling without consultations, social debate or parliamentary consideration. He said the government’s decision was not based on social will, but on “political, ideological or religious premises.”The ombudsman or, commissioner of human rights, is independent from the Polish government.Predominantly Catholic Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive laws on abortion. There are fewer than …

Thursday, January 28, marked the 35th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.  The craft exploded shortly after liftoff, killing all seven on board, including a schoolteacher who was NASA’s first citizen passenger.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has this story and more in the Week in Space.  …

General Motors Co said Thursday it was setting a goal to sell all its new cars, SUVS and light pickup trucks with zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a dramatic shift by the largest U.S. automaker away from gasoline and diesel engines. GM, which also said it plans to become carbon neutral by 2040, made its announcement just over a week after President Joe Biden took office pledging to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and dramatically boost the sales of electric vehicles. GM sold 2.55 million vehicles in the United States last year, only about 20,000 of which were EVs. It said in November it was investing $27 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles over the next five years, up from $20 billion planned before the coronavirus pandemic. GM, which was up as much as 7.4% on Thursday, was trading up 3% at midday eastern time. GM Chief Executive Mary Barra has aggressively pushed the automaker internally to embrace electric vehicles and shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles. She said in a statement the automaker had worked with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an environmental advocacy group, to “develop a shared vision of an all-electric future and an aspiration to eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035.” In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state plans to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks starting in 2035. Several states including Massachusetts say they plan to follow suit. “We’re taking actions so that we can eliminate tailpipe emissions …

A vaccine war has erupted between Britain and the European Union with Brussels demanding that tens of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses earmarked for Britain, and made by a British pharmaceutical company, be diverted to Europe to make up for a shortfall in promised deliveries.     The demand marks a sharp political turn in a dispute between the EU and drug company AstraZeneca, as well as underscoring the mounting risks of vaccine nationalism. It was triggered after the pharmaceutical giant announced it would have to cut vaccine doses scheduled for delivery to Europe before the end of March from 80 million to 31 million.     The reduction will add woes to an EU inoculation program that has gotten off to a sluggish and at times chaotic start, with only two doses being administered so far for every 100 Europeans, compared to seven in America and 11 in Britain.     Bureaucratic missteps and a shortage of vaccine doses have prompted frustration across the continent. Hungary is planning to break ranks with other EU countries to order supplies of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, which has not been authorized by EU medicine regulators.     Brussels’s health commissioner Stella Kyriakides midweek said that as AstraZeneca is blaming production challenges at factories in Europe for the shortfall on contracted doses, supplies manufactured by the drug company in Britain should be redirected to Europe. The British government’s order for doses predates the contract the EU signed with AstraZeneca by three months.   …

World Health Organization investigators exited a two-week quarantine Thursday in Wuhan, China, to begin their work in search of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.The international team boarded a bus after exiting their hotel in the afternoon.China, which for months rejected calls for an international probe, has pledged adequate access for the researchers. The team is expected to spend several weeks interviewing people from research institutes, hospitals and a market linked to many of the first cases.The WHO has said the purpose of the mission is not to assign blame for the pandemic but to figure out how it started in order to better prevent and combat future outbreaks of disease.“We are looking for the answers here that may save us in the future, not culprits and not people to blame,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies official, said earlier this month.The novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 and has since spread across the world, infecting more than 100 million people and killing about 2.1 million.More than 120 countries have called for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, with many governments accusing China of not doing enough to contain its spread.”It’s imperative that we get to the bottom of the early days of the pandemic in China, and we’ve been supportive of an international investigation that we feel should be robust and clear,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Wednesday.There continue to be concerns in many countries about access to and supplies of the vaccines …

As part of an ongoing project in Pakistan’s Sindh province, efforts are underway to integrate a uniquely nutritious and drought-resistant tree called Moringa, into the local diet to help alleviate malnutrition. Muhammad Saqib has details from Matiari in Sindh province in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. …

Australia is failing to keep up with the growing threat of extreme weather as global warming increases the risk in areas once thought to be safe, according to a new report.Australia is a land well used to nature’s extremes. It is the world’s driest inhabited continent, where droughts can last for years. The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 were the most intense on record. Heatwaves are by far its deadliest natural hazard.A new report by the Climate Council, an independent non-profit organization, says the cost of extreme weather in Australia has almost doubled since the 1970s.It is warning the financial consequences of fires, floods, droughts, storms and sea level rises linked to climate change could soar, potentially costing the country’s economy up to $76 billion every year by 2038.Robert Glasser, the former special representative for disaster risk reduction for the United Nations secretary-general, said Australia must make fundamental changes to planning new developments.“We will be building the equivalent of roads and homes in flood zones and areas of extreme fire danger, and when those hazards strike the damage will be severe,” he said. “The second reason — increasingly important — is climate change because we are now seeing that the places exposed to these hazards is shifting, the frequency and severity of the hazards are being amplified by climate change, and so you combine these two factors and we see the projections of increased impacts.”The year 2020 began in flames and ended with floods. It was Australia’s fourth-warmest year on …