Dr.
Anthony Fauci told CNBC on Tuesday he expects U.S. drug regulators to
eventually grant full approval to Pfizer, Moderna and J&J’s Covid
vaccines.
“The data are about as good as it gets,” the White House chief medical advisor said.
All three Covid vaccines are currently being distributed under emergency use authorizations.
Dr.
Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, delivers remarks during a press briefing with Press
Secretary Jen Psaki at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 13,
2021.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
watch now
VIDEO05:05
Dr. Anthony Fauci on the need for Covid boosters, vaccination push
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci fully expects the coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson will receive full approval from U.S. drug regulators, he told CNBC on Tuesday.
“The
data are about as good as it gets. ... I would be astounded if these
vaccines, namely the mRNA and the J&J, didn’t get full approval,”
Fauci said on “Squawk Box.”
All
three Covid vaccines are currently authorized for distribution in the
U.S. on an emergency basis, but none of them have received full approval
from the Food and Drug Administration yet. Full approval would allow
the drugmakers to market the shots directly to consumers and give
employers more flexibility in mandating them.
CNBC Health & Science
Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:
Pfizer and Moderna’s two-dose vaccines use mRNA technology, while J&J’s single-shot vaccine uses an adenovirus.
More than 184 million people in the U.S., or 55.5% of the population, are at least partially inoculated against Covid, according to CDC data. Nearly 160 million people, or 48% of the population, are fully vaccinated.
The
pace of vaccinations in the U.S. has slowed since the spring, even as
concern about highly transmissible variants grows. Some people have
argued that full approval of the vaccines would convince Americans on
the fence to get the shots and give businesses more confidence to
implement vaccine mandates.
“Even though we are still under an
emergency use authorization, it’s a bit different than other emergency
use authorizations, which usually are granted with not nearly as much
positive data as we have for these products,” Fauci said.
“The
efficacy or the effectiveness in the real world is unquestioned, so
we’re going to get a full approval,” he added. “The question is, it’s
just going to take a little bit more time.”
Pfizer
has said it sees signs that immunity from its two-dose vaccine declines
over time and intends to pursue authorization for a booster shot. The
company also is developing a booster meant to combat the highly
contagious delta variant.
The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have publicly pushed back on Pfizer’s case for a third dose, releasing a joint statement last week that said people who are fully vaccinated do not need a supplemental shot right now.
“These
vaccines are highly, highly effective both in the clinical trial and in
the real-world effectiveness studies. Let me give you a cogent example:
99.5% of people who die of Covid are unvaccinated. Only 0.5% of those
who die are vaccinated,” said Fauci, the longtime head of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
He said the real question is how long protection lasts and at what level of protection.
“Does
it wane off and if so, how soon? And if you do do a boost, how high do
you get the response up? Those were all discussed but … there was
nothing that came even close to any decision,” he said.
watch now
VIDEO04:56
Fauci: Covid booster relates to durability, not vaccine effectiveness
WHO official criticizes Euro 2020 final at crowded Wembley Stadium:
‘Am I supposed to be enjoying watching transmission happening in front
of my eyes?’
A dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is administered in Haxby, England, near York.
This feature is powered by text-to-speech technology. Want to see it on more articles? Give your feedback below or email audiofeedback@marketwatch.com.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases and a top medical adviser to President Joe
Biden, did the round of Sunday talk shows on Sunday to say COVID-19
vaccine boosters are not needed in the U.S. right now as almost all new
cases are in unvaccinated people, but he didn’t rule out that booster
shots may be needed over time for certain individuals.
Fauci spoke as Israel’s health ministry said it would offer
boosters to individuals who are immunocompromised and have already had
two shots of the vaccine developed by Pfizer
PFE,
+0.65%
with German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
+4.70%.
Israel, an early vaccine success story in rapidly getting shots
into the arms of its citizens, is struggling with a fresh outbreak of
cases, driven by the delta variant, which is far more transmissible than
the original virus.
Fauci also sought to answer questions about
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest guidance for
returning to school in the fall, which includes face masks, social
distancing and improved ventilation.
“If you can’t implement
them, you should still do everything you can with testing, with
guidelines that would allow people, for example, in lunchrooms when you
gather, when you’re sick don’t come to school, do everything you can to
keep the in-person classes going,” he told the ABC program “This Week.”
Fauci also lamented the sight of conservatives cheering for
low vaccination rates, blaming “ideological rigidity” for hobbling the
fight against COVID-19.
Speaking Sunday on CNN, Fauci referenced a widely shared video of
“COVID contrarian” Alex Berenson speaking Saturday at the Conservative
Political Action Conference in Texas, where he drew cheers when
mentioning how the U.S. government has failed to meet its nationwide
vaccination goals.
“It’s horrifying. I mean, they are cheering about
someone saying it’s a good thing for people not to try and save their
lives,” he said. “I just don’t get it.
“I
think there’s no reason not to get vaccinated. Why are we having red
states and places in the South that are very highly ideological in one
way, not wanting to get vaccinations? Vaccinations have nothing to do
with politics,” he said.
The CDC’s vaccine tracker is
showing that 159 million Americans are fully vaccinated, equal to 48%
of the total population. That means they have had two shots of the
Pfizer or Moderna
MRNA,
+10.30%
vaccine, or one shot of Johnson & Johnson’s
JNJ,
-0.16%
one-dose regimen. The AstraZeneca
AZN,
-0.30%AZN,
-0.07%
vaccine has not been authorized for use in the U.S.
Among
adults 18 and older, 58.8% are fully vaccinated, while 67.6% have
received at least one dose, having narrowly missed Biden’s goal, set two months earlier, of having 70% of adults at least partially inoculated by July 4.
Vaccination
rates vary widely from state to state, however, with several states,
mostly in the South, reporting less than 40% of their populations
inoculated, including Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. CDC Director
Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted last week that 99% of COVID-19 related deaths in June were among people who were unvaccinated.
Source: Johns Hopkins University
New COVID cases are on the rise in the U.S., averaging 19,302 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker,
up 60% from the average two weeks ago. And while deaths are still
falling, hospitalizations are up 11% from two weeks ago, thanks to such
localized outbreaks in states with low vaccination rates.
Elsewhere,
the delta variant continues to create havoc in many Asian cities,
including Seoul, Hanoi, Bangkok and cities in Indonesia, the Guardian reported.
The
WHO-backed Covax program, which aims to get vaccine supply to
lower-income countries, will take delivery of more than 100 million
doses of the vaccines developed by Chinese companies Sinovac and
Sinopharm, said the paper.
In Taiwan, Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Taiwan’s Foxconn
2354,
-0.30%
as well as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., has negotiated
a deal to secure 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for Taiwan, which
has complained that Chinese interference is preventing it from accessing
supply, Reuters reported.
A
senior official at the World Health Organization fretted online about
the crowds gathered closely in Wembley Stadium for last night’s Euro
2020 soccer tournament final between England and Italy, as she watched
unmasked fans singing together and shouting for their teams.
Epidemiologist
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, described
“watching transmission happening in front of my eyes” as around 60,000
fans piled into the stadium.
The global tally for the
coronavirus-borne illness climbed to 186.9 million on Monday, while the
death toll climbed further above 4.03 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with a total of 33.85 million cases and in deaths with 607,178.
India
is closing in on the U.S. in cases at 30.87 million but is third in
deaths at 408,764, while Brazil is second in deaths at 533,488 and is
third in cases at 19 million.
Mexico has fourth highest death toll at 234,969 but is 15th in cases with 2.6 million.
In
Europe, Russia leads in deaths with 141,335 fatalities, while the U.K.
has had 128,691, making Russia the country with the fifth highest death
toll in the world and highest in Europe.
Washington (CNN)United
States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed the US'
commitment to defend the Philippines' armed forces from attack in the
South China Sea, under a 70-year-old mutual defense treaty.
Blinken
made the comments Sunday, in a statement marking the fifth anniversary
of a ruling by an independent arbitration tribunal rejecting China's
expansive territorial claims over the waterway, siding with the
Philippines.
Tensions
in the South China Sea, which is also contested by Brunei, Malaysia,
Taiwan and Vietnam have ratcheted up this year, with Manila accusing
Beijing of trying to intimidate its coast guard vessels, as well as
sending its so called "maritime militia" to crowd out Philippine fishing boats.
The US' top diplomat said the US could invoke the US-Philippine mutual defense pact in the event of any Chinese military action against Philippine assets in the region.
"We
also reaffirm that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public
vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke US mutual
defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual
Defense Treaty," Blinken said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Blinken
also called on the Chinese government to "abide by its obligations
under international law (and) cease its provocative behavior" in the
South China Sea.
The
2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague
dismissed China's claims to the South China Sea outright, while making
clear that China was infringing on Philippine sovereignty through activities such as island-building in Manila's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Beijing
has disavowed the tribunal ruling and continued to build up and
militarily reinforce its positions in the South China Sea. It claims the
US and other countries are increasing tensions in the region by sending
their warships there in violation of its sovereignty.
Washington
counters that its naval presence in the South China Sea supports
freedom of navigation under international maritime law.
Underscoring
the US stance, the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold performed a
freedom on navigation operation (FONOP) near the Paracel Islands in the
northwestern part of the South China Sea on Monday, the US Navy's 7th
Fleet said in a statement.
This
islands, referred to as the Xisha chain in China, are also claimed by
Vietnam and Taiwan, but China has controlled them since the 1970s.
US Navy spokesperson Lt. Mark Langford said Monday's operation challenged the claims by all three parties.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold steams through the South China Sea on Monday, July 12.
"This
freedom of navigation operation ... upheld the rights, freedoms, and
lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging
the unlawful restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan,
and Vietnam and also by challenging China's claim to strait baselines
enclosing the Paracel Islands," Langford said.
China said it put forces in place to "warn and drive away" the US destroyer, which it said violated its sovereignty.
"This
is another ironclad evidence of the US' aggressive navigational
hegemony and militarization of the South China Sea," PLA Air Force Col.
Tian Junli, spokesperson for the PLA's Southern Theater Command, said in
a statement after Monday's US FONOP.
"Facts show that the United States is an out-and-out 'South China Sea security risk maker,'" Tian said.
In
his statement Sunday, Blinken called on China to "take steps to
reassure the international community that it is committed to the
rules-based maritime order that respects the rights of all countries,
big and small."
"Nowhere
is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the
South China Sea. The People's Republic of China (PRC) continues to
coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening
freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway," the US
secretary of state said, referring to China by its official name.
He
called on China to "take steps to reassure the international community
that it is committed to the rules-based maritime order that respects the
rights of all countries, big and small."
Blinken
said the US stands behind the 2016 ruling against China, as reiterated
last year by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said at the time
that "Beijing's claims to offshore resources across most of the South
China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to
control them."
In
response to Pompeo's comments, the Chinese Embassy in Washington
accused the US of "distorting" international law and "exaggerating" the
situation in order to "sow discord.
Chaos in South Africa as rioters defy security forces
South African forces fail to contain looting and violence in which more than 70 people have been killed over several days.
South African National Defense Force (SANDF) members in Soweto. [Shiraaz Mohamed/Anadolu]
14 Jul 2021
Stores
and warehouses in South Africa were hit by looters on Tuesday for a
fifth day running despite President Cyril Ramaphosa deploying troops to
quell unrest that has killed at least 72 people.
Protests that followed the arrest of former leader Jacob Zuma last
week for failing to appear at a corruption inquiry have widened into
looting and an outpouring of general anger over the hardship and
inequality that persist 27 years after the end of apartheid.
Poverty has been exacerbated by severe social and economic restrictions aimed at blocking the spread of COVID-19.
Security officials said the government was working to halt the spread
of the violence and looting, which has spread from Zuma’s home in
KwaZulu-Natal province to the country’s biggest city Johannesburg and
surrounding Gauteng province, and to the Indian Ocean port city of
Durban.
The armed forces were sending 2,500 soldiers to help the overwhelmed
police. But these numbers are dwarfed by the deployment of more than
70,000 soldiers to enforce last year’s coronavirus lockdown, and only a
handful of them were seen at some shopping centres.
“The total number of people who have lost their lives since the
beginning of these protests … has risen to 72,” the police said in a
statement late on Tuesday.
Most of the deaths “relate to stampedes that occurred during incidents of looting of shops”, it said.
Others were linked to shootings and explosions of bank ATMs.
The number of arrests has risen to 1,234, although many thousands have been involved in the ransacking sprees.
Smoke rises from a Makro building set on fire overnight in Umhlanga, north of Durban. [Rajesh Jantilal/AFP]
Advertisement
People throw rocks as they confront police officers at the entrance of a partially looted mall in Vosloorus. [Marco Longari/AFP]
Members
of the military look at the damaged ATMs outside a bank in Soweto as
the country deploys the army to quell unrest linked to the jailing of
former President Jacob Zuma. [Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters]
A
suspected looter pleads with an armed private security officer as he is
detained inside a flooded mall in Vosloorus. [Marco Longari/AFP]
A
South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldier detains suspected
looters at the Jabulani mall in Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
[Emmanuel Croset/AFP]
Arrested looters lie on the ground after being arrested in Johannesburg. [Kim Ludbrook/EPA]
Advertisement
Residents block off streets as looters ransack Durban shops. [Courtesy of Kierran Allen via Reuters]
People queue to buy food at a supermarket, with most stores staying closed in Hillcrest, South Africa. [Rogan Ward/Reuters]
Soldiers and police stationed at a shopping centre in Soweto, Johannesburg. [Themba Hadebe/AP Photo]
(Natural News)
The vast majority of people who are getting injected for the Wuhan
coronavirus (Covid-19) will die within a few short years from heart
failure, warns Dr. Charles Hoffe, M.D., a medical practitioner in British Columbia, Canada.
In one of his latest updates, Dr. Hoffe explains that he is observing
in his patients who took an mRNA (messenger RNA) “vaccine” from either
Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna that their capillaries are now plugging up,
which he says will eventually lead to a serious cardiovascular event.
No fewer than 60 percent of people who take an mRNA injection will
suffer from these blood clots – and in the end, an overwhelming majority
will end up six feet under due to the damage caused.
“We now know that only 25 percent of the ‘vaccine’ injected into a
person’s arm actually stays in your arm,” Dr. Hoffe explains one his
blog.
“The other 75 percent is collected by your lymphatic system and
literally fed into your circulation so these little packages of
messenger RNA, and by the way in a single dose of Moderna ‘vaccine’
there are literally 40 trillion mRNA molecules.”
Dr. Hoffe says that while these packages were designed by Big Pharma
to be absorbed directly into people’s cells, the only place they can
actually be absorbed is around the blood vessels and into capillary
networks, which are the tiniest blood vessels where blood flow is slow
and where genes are released.
“Your body then gets to work reading and then manufacturing trillions and trillions of these spike proteins,” he says.
“Each gene can produce many, many spike proteins. The body then
recognizes these are foreign bodies so it makes antibodies against it so
you are then protected against COVID. That’s the idea.”
mRNA injections insert “spiky bits” into blood vessels, eventually causing heart failure
Though the claim has long been that these spike proteins act as a
deterrent to viral infection after being injected into a person’s body,
the reality is that they actually become part of the cell wall of a
person’s vascular endothelium.
“This means that these cells which line your blood vessels, which are
supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly now have these
little spikey bits sticking out,” explains Principia Scientific.
Dr. Hoffe says it is an inevitability that the injected will develop
blood clots because as the vaccine-inserted spike proteins embed
themselves within blood vessels and capillaries, blood platelets
circulate around trying to fix the problem by creating increasingly more
clots.
“So, when the platelet comes through the capillary it suddenly hits
all these COVID spikes and it becomes absolutely inevitable that blood
clots will form to block that vessel,” he writes.
“Therefore, these spike proteins can predictably cause blood clots.
They are in your blood vessels (if mRNA ‘vaccinated’) so it is
guaranteed.”
It turns out that these blood clots are different than the “rare”
ones spoken about on the media that show up on CT scans and MRIs. These
are microscopic and do not show up on tests, as they can only be
detected using a blood test known as D-dimer.
Dr. Hoffe has been performing D-dimer tests on his mRNA “vaccinated”
patients, which led him to discover that at least 62 percent of them
have these microscopic blood clots.
“The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the
body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot
[regenerate],” he says. “When those tissues are damaged by blood clots,
they are permanently damaged.”
To learn more about the dangers and ineffectiveness of Chinese Virus injections, be sure to check out ChemicalViolence.com.
Is Duterte squandering The Hague victory to appease Beijing?
Experts
say China’s gains in South China Sea ‘impossible’ to reverse while
urging the Philippines to boost military capability and alliances.
Chinese
President Xi Jinping greets his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte
during the latter's visit to Beijing in 2019 [File: Kenzaburo
Fukuhara/AFP]
In
the days leading up to the fifth anniversary on Monday of The Hague’s
2016 ruling that rejected China’s historical claim to most of the
disputed South China Sea, the Philippines’ often abrasive Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr sounded celebratory, hailing the occasion as “a milestone in the corpus of international law”.
“The Philippines is proud to have contributed to the international
rules-based order,” he said of Manila’s role in challenging Beijing
before the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
In a dig at China, Locsin said that the decision “dashed among others a nine-dash line; and any expectation that possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
Locsin then cited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s videotaped
message at the UN General Assembly, in which the Filipino leader said
the case was now “beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing
governments to dilute, diminish or abandon”.
But since taking office in 2016, Duterte has usually been less
assertive – failing to challenge China’s moves to expand its maritime
dominance in the region despite the landmark victory – and foreign
policy experts said his “defeatist rhetoric” has compromised the
country’s integrity and diminished its legal standing.
In May, Duterte said during a televised address that the ruling means “nothing” in the real world.
“Son of a b****. That’s just a piece of paper. I will just throw that away in the wastebasket,” the president said.
“Manila certainly missed a chance to echo a consistent unified
narrative on its claims … which Beijing saw as an opportunity to flex
its muscles and build the largest coast guard and maritime militia for
its strategic advantage,” said Chester Cabalza, president and founder of
Manila-based think-tank International Development and Security
Cooperation.
“Instead, Filipinos heard defeatist rhetoric from the
commander-in-chief as he kept mum on continuous Chinese incursions into
the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ),” he told Al Jazeera.
Collin Koh, research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and
Strategic Studies, said the Duterte administration “squandered the
opportunity” in emphasising the significance of the decision “whether it
ought to be doing it alone or in concert with like-minded external
parties” such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
the United States.
The ruling also affirmed the Philippines’ jurisdiction over its
exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles
(370km) from its coast. As such, China’s fishing activities and
construction of artificial islands within that area were deemed an
infringement of Philippine sovereign rights. The Philippines refers to
that particular area as the West Philippine Sea.
Moreover, the court ruled that of all disputed South China Sea
features – even those controlled by Beijing – none were considered
“habitable” and able to sustain economic activity in its original form,
and therefore were not entitled to an EEZ – thus clearly falling within
Philippine EEZ.
Protesters
descend on the Chinese consulate in Manila in 2019 to oppose the Asian
superpower’s growing sway in the Philippines, and as tensions rise over
Beijing’s presence in the disputed South China sea [File: Ted
Aljibe/AFP]
To commemorate the ruling this year, Philippine Senator Risa
Hontiveros has proposed that the country declare July 12 as the National
West Philippine Sea Victory Day.
In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, she said Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III – who died last month – should also be commended for his decision to take on China and secure a “landmark legal victory”.
“Even when the Philippines was going against the Goliath that is
China, he pursued the case merely on the principle that it was the right
thing to do.”
Protests are also expected on Monday outside China’s diplomatic mission in Manila.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian described the ruling
as “nothing more than a piece of waste paper” and that it is “illegal,
null, and void.”
Duterte’s gambit
Campaigning for the presidency in 2016, Duterte charmed voters with
his hardline stance on China. In one campaign swing, he promised to ride
a jet ski in the South China Sea and challenge the Chinese incursion in
Philippine waters. He said he always wanted to die a hero.
But as soon as he became president, Duterte started to backpedal on
his promises, saying the Philippines cannot afford to take on China
because a confrontation would only lead to bloodshed.
In a Talk to Al Jazeera interview in October 2016,
Duterte also said that his jet ski remark was a “hyperbole” and that he
did not even know how to swim. He later said it was all “a joke” to
show his “bravado”, and that only “stupid” people would believe it.
In a stunning admission in June 2019, Duterte said he had reached a
verbal agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2016 allowing
China to fish within the Philippines’s EEZ, despite a constitutional
mandate that the state must protect its marine wealth, including its
EEZ, and “reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino
citizens”.
In
recent months, Chinese vessels, believed to be manned by Chinese
maritime militia personnel, were seen in the South China Sea within the
Philippines’ EEZ [File: Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters]
“It was a mutual agreement,” Duterte explained. “Let’s give way to each other. You fish there, I fish here.”
In several public remarks, Duterte has emphasised that better
relations with China have brought economic dividends to the Philippines,
through direct investments, financial assistance and loans.
Salvador Panelo, who was Duterte’s spokesman at the time, defended
the deal saying that while it was “verbal” it was still “valid and
binding”.
But Panelo’s replacement, Harry Roque, said this April that there was
“no truth” to the deal and that it was “quite simply conjecture”.
“No such treaty or agreement exists between the Philippines and
China,” Roque said, explaining that even a fishing agreement “can only
be done through a treaty” and in “written form”.
The “swarming incident” has since been repeated several times,
prompting several diplomatic protests by Manila, which denounced
Beijing’s “blatant disregard” of its commitment “to promote peace and
stability in the region”.
In May, the presence of hundreds of Chinese vessels so exasperated
Locsin, the Philippines’ top diplomat, that he fired an expletive-laden
statement on social media.
“China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O… GET THE F*** OUT,” Locsin wrote on Twitter.
According to reports, Manila has filed more than 120 diplomatic
protests with China over incidents in the disputed waters since 2016.
In the past two and a half months, the
Philippines has increased its patrols across the South China Sea beyond
anything seen in recent years. AMTI tracks their activities and their
encounters with Chinese vessels in a new feature: https://t.co/MsEEx0IpLspic.twitter.com/tN91IqP2C7
In recent months, he has said that he wants to maintain friendly ties
with China, citing Manila’s “debt of gratitude” for Beijing’s help in
providing coronavirus vaccines. He has also banned his Cabinet from
speaking about the South China Sea, after key security and diplomatic
officials criticised China for the swarming.
But despite Duterte’s efforts to cosy up to Beijing, observers say
China has only been further “emboldened”, and the growing tension has
now left Manila with no choice but to step up its action to assert its
rightful place in the South China Sea.
Cabalza, the security analyst based in Manila, said that now is not
the time for the Duterte administration to be “flip-flopping on foreign
policy”, urging a “more strategic” approach that balances the country’s
economic and security interests.
“China’s art of war and deception should not be taken for granted.”
He urged the Philippines to “fast-track” its military modernisation
programme “to increase its presence in the aerial and maritime domains”
and halt the Chinese incursions.
“If Manila seriously considers balanced and fearless engagement with
Beijing, it needs to capacitate on strengthening a robust national
security infrastructure that deals with China’s grey zone strategy and
massive disinformation,” he said, adding that Manila should also
continue filing diplomatic protests every time an incursion happens.
South China Sea ‘fait accompli’
Koh, the foreign affairs analyst from Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School
of International Studies, also noted how the Philippines has lagged
over the years in “building up the stick” in terms of military capacity
to carry out “more vigorously” maritime patrols within its EEZ.
That could have been partly addressed by Manila if Duterte had not
gone out of his way to gradually undermine its decades-long alliance
with the US, Koh said. Since the beginning of his presidency, Duterte
has shown his disdain towards the US, even making the unsubstantiated
claim that he could be a target of the CIA.
“The open expression of desire to prioritise ties with Beijing – even
at the expense of the 2016 award, the lack of political will to
maintain persistent maritime presence and the alliance relationship with
the US would have had the combined effect of emboldening Beijing,” he
explained to Al Jazeera.
With the progress China made in fortifying its artificial islands in
the South China Sea, it will be “impossible to even envisage” that it
would “willingly relinquish those possessions” within the Philippines’
EEZ, Koh said.
“There’s no way to reverse the fait accompli short of evicting the
Chinese from those artificial outposts by use of force, which would mean
war.”
Without resorting to armed conflict, it is still possible for the
Philippines to assert its maritime sovereignty and rights by putting “a
principled and consistent stance” on the issue, Koh added.
He says the Philippines should pursue daily maritime law enforcement actions and patrols of its EEZ.
“The recent Philippine Coast Guard challenge and dispersal of Chinese
and other foreign fishing vessels in the Philippine EEZ, around Sabina
Shoal and Marie Louise Bank, is a good example,” Koh said.
“These actions may not compel China to reverse its acts in the South
China Sea, but at the very least may help deter Beijing from thinking of
more drastic actions to further undermine the status quo.”
In May, Chinese vessels also left Sabina Shoal, after the Philippines issued a radio challenge.
Hontiveros, an opposition senator and critic of Duterte’s South China
Sea policy said the radio challenges showed that “the Philippines can
assert our ownership of the West Philippine Sea without resorting to
war.”
As a middle power caught in the increasingly heated rivalry between
China and the US, the lesson for Manila is to pursue an independent
foreign policy, according to Cabalza, the foreign affairs expert who has
also studied at the National Defence University in Beijing.
“Manila should choose its own national interest. It takes courage to
depend on its own capability and build it with a vision to protect the
country’s own sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Bongino reacts to a Politico report on how the White House plans to curb misinformation about vaccines.
Dan Bongino, the host of "The Dan Bongino Show" reacted to a new Politico report that the Biden administration plans to monitor vaccine misinformation in text messages.
DAN
BONGINO: Again, it started with your social media. It evolved into
other things. It's now evolving frighteningly into your text messages
too. Oh my gosh, conspiracy theory. Folks, it's an article in Politico.
They're as far left is Lenin. It's not an article in Conservative Review
or Breitbart who happened to be reputable outlets, by the way. It's in a
left-leaning outlet. The White House, quote, is
deciding to hit back harder on misinformation and scare tactics after
Republican lawmakers and conservatives pledged to fight the
administration's stated plans to go door to door to increase vaccination
rates.
This is incredible. Tell me it's not. Tell me again
how you're on the right side of history. So much so that if somebody
puts out an alternate set of talking points, data points, and a set of
facts on this show, you have to pull them off social media and attack
their show. You're so comfortable with your ideas, you're completely
unwilling to defend them. Do liberals not grasp how totalitarian this
is?
Abnormal hot and cold temperatures account for more than 5 million
excess deaths a year across the world, according to a new study – the
largest of its kind to date on the link between global climate and
mortality rates.
The study looked at "non-optimal ambient temperatures", referring to
exposure to abnormal hot and cold temperatures above and below an
accepted range. These ranges and mortality rates were localized for each
of the 750 locations around the globe studied to estimate additional
deaths.
Mortality and temperature data was analyzed across the
years 2000 to 2019, with global temperatures shifting upwards by an
average of 0.26 degrees Celsius per decade across that time, and models
used to extrapolate the figures.
"This is the first study to get a
global overview of mortality due to non-optimal temperature conditions
between 2000 and 2019, the hottest period since the pre-Industrial era,"
says environmental epidemiologist Yuming Guo from Monash University in Australia.
"Importantly,
we used 43 countries' baseline data across five continents with
different climates, socioeconomic and demographic conditions, and
differing levels of infrastructure and public health services – so the
study had a large and varied sample size, unlike previous studies."
The
statistics from the study make for grim reading, with 9.43 percent of
global deaths attributed to cold and hot temperatures. A previous study using a less comprehensive dataset put that figure at 7.71 percent.
Right now, around 9 out of 10 of these excess deaths are due to
the cold, but that will change as the planet warms up – and we also
know global warming leads to spells of extreme cold as well as extreme heat.
Asia
and Africa carried the heaviest burden of cold-related deaths, with 2.4
million and 1.18 million deaths respectively every year, on average.
When
it comes to heat-related deaths, the highest figures came from Asia
with 224,000, and Europe with 178,700. Europe was the only continent
where deaths linked to both cold and heat were higher than the global
average.
Overall, climate-related mortality went down over the
study period, but the trends are worrying. Deaths linked to the cold
dropped 0.51 percent from 2000 to 2019, while deaths related to the heat
rose 0.21 percent.
"In the long-term climate change is expected to increase the mortality burden because hot-related mortality would be continuing to increase," says Guo.
To
put the statistics another way, we're talking about 74 excess deaths
for every 100,000 people across the world. With deaths related to
non-optimal temperatures currently one of the top 10 causes of mortality worldwide, this is already a major problem.
It's not just mortality rates that rising temperatures can affect. As the planet heats up
we're going to see certain areas become inhospitable or useless for
growing crops, while the animals we share Earth with are also under severe threat too.
On
the positive side, having more data and better estimates on the impacts
of climate change can only be helpful: by making significant changes
across everything from government policies to individual behaviors, we
might be able to get closer to whatever the best-case scenario looks
like.
"Because of the inevitability of climate change, it is
urgently important to provide a global view of the relevant mortality
burden and to push and develop intergovernmental strategies against the
health impacts of temperature events," the researchers write.
![South African National Defense Force (SANDF) members in Soweto. [Shiraaz Mohamed/Anadolu]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/20210713_2_49178109_66954689.jpg?resize=1170%2C780)
![Smoke rises from a Makro building set on fire overnight in Umhlanga, north of Durban. [Rajesh Jantilal/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/000_9EW9HR.jpg?fit=1170%2C780)
![People throw rocks as they confront police officers at the entrance of a partially looted mall in Vosloorus. [Marco Longari/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/000_9EW8RR.jpg?fit=1170%2C780)
![Members of the military look at the damaged ATMs outside a bank in Soweto as the country deploys the army to quell unrest linked to the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma. [Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-13T103300Z_1620475756_RC2LJO9GJ2SF_RTRMADP_3_SAFRICA-ZUMA.jpg?fit=1170%2C766)
![A suspected looter pleads with an armed private security officer as he is detained inside a flooded mall in Vosloorus. [Marco Longari/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/000_9EW8QT.jpg?fit=1170%2C780)
![A South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldier detains suspected looters at the Jabulani mall in Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg. [Emmanuel Croset/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/000_9EW9LZ.jpg?fit=1170%2C780)
![Arrested looters lie on the ground after being arrested in Johannesburg. [Kim Ludbrook/EPA]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/h_57042182.jpg?fit=1170%2C780)
![Residents block off streets as looters ransack Durban shops. [Courtesy of Kierran Allen via Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-13T163253Z_834486377_RC2SJO9ANH89_RTRMADP_3_SAFRICA-ZUMA-LOOTING-ROADBLOCK.jpg?fit=1170%2C657)
![People queue to buy food at a supermarket, with most stores staying closed in Hillcrest, South Africa. [Rogan Ward/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-13T144814Z_561431181_RC2OJO9VT6I8_RTRMADP_3_SAFRICA-ZUMA-FOOD.jpg?fit=1170%2C717)
![Soldiers and police stationed at a shopping centre in Soweto, Johannesburg. [Themba Hadebe/AP Photo]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AP21194677735293.jpg?fit=1170%2C735)
![Chinese President Xi Jinping greets his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte during the latter's visit to Beijing in 2019 [File: Kenzaburo Fukuhara/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/000_1FX0RI.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
Protesters
descend on the Chinese consulate in Manila in 2019 to oppose the Asian
superpower’s growing sway in the Philippines, and as tensions rise over
Beijing’s presence in the disputed South China sea [File: Ted
Aljibe/AFP]
In
recent months, Chinese vessels, believed to be manned by Chinese
maritime militia personnel, were seen in the South China Sea within the
Philippines’ EEZ [File: Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters]
