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      US agrees to buy 500m Pfizer vaccine doses to distribute to 100 countries

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      The US has reached an agreement with Pfizer to buy 500m doses of their coronavirus vaccine to distribute to nearly 100 countries around the world, as the centrepiece of Joe Biden’s initiative to help vaccinate the world against Covid-19, according to US reports.Under to the scheme, which Biden is expected to announce in the UK on Thursday, the US would pay for the vaccines at cost price. The first 200m doses would be distributed this year, and the remaining 300m in the first half of next year.According to reports, the vaccines will be donated through Covax, the global initiative to help developing countries face the pandemic, and would go to 92 lower-income countries and the African Union.The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal cited multiple unnamed sources familiar with the plan.The global vaccine initiative is part of Biden’s broader strategy of restoring America’s global influence and soft power, which he believed has been eroded by Donald Trump’s four years in office and the increasingly assertive foreign policies of China and Russia.Pfizer did not comment on the reports but its CEO, Albert Bourla, is expected to join the president for the announcement in the UK.Biden arrived in the UK on Wednesday evening and addressed US troops at the RAF Mildenhall airbase where Air Force One landed. He outlined his plans in general but did not give details of his planned vaccine diplomacy.The president intends to use the G7 summit in Cornwall, and the Nato and EU summits in Brussels over the next few days, to make a case for renewed democratic leadership in the world, as a bulwark against the encroachment of autocracies. A significant part of the discussions over the weekend will be about how to achieve a more equitable distribution of vaccines around the world.At a time when more than 40% of Americans and Britons are fully vaccinated, many of the world’s poorer countries have hardly begun to vaccinate their populations. Haiti has yet to administer a single vaccine, and is not due to receive its first shipment of 130,000 doses until next week.The G7 summit host, prime minister Boris Johnson, has called on G7 leaders to commit to vaccinating the entire world by the end of 2022.The US had already agreed on a contract to buy 300m Pfizer/BioNTech doses, so the global initiative will bring the country’s overall purchase to 800m.Before the new initiative, the Biden administration planned to share at least 80m  vaccine doses with the world by the end of the month, 19m of them going to Covax, the global scheme backed by the World Health Organization. An additional 6m shots would be channelled directly to India and other countries suffering severe outbreaks.Just over a month ago, the Biden administration announced its backing for a waiver on vaccine patents, with the aim of closing the vast “vaccine gap” between rich and poor countries – but the suggestion met resistance from European countries, who argued that patents were not the main bottleneck to production and distribution, and that waiving patents would discourage future pharmaceutical research and development.The White House coronavirus response coordinator, Jeffrey Zients, who is reported to have negotiated the deal with Pfizer over the past few weeks, has traveled to the UK with the president. In a statement on Wednesday, he said the president would use the “momentum” of the US inoculation campaign “to rally the world’s democracies around solving this crisis globally, with America leading the way to create the arsenal of vaccines that will be critical in our global fight against Covid-19”. More

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      AOC condemns Kamala Harris for telling Guatemalan migrants not to come to US

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      The progressive New York representative Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez has criticized Vice-President Kamala Harris, for saying undocumented migrants from Guatemala should not come to the US.On her first foreign trip as vice-president, Harris visited Guatemala on Monday. At a press conference with Guatemala’s president, Alejandro Giammattei, the former California senator spoke about investigating corruption and human trafficking in Central America, and described a future where Guatemalans could find “hope at home”.But she also had a clear message that undocumented Guatemalan migrants would not find solace at the US border under the Biden administration.“I want to be clear to folks in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border,” she said. “Do not come. Do not come.”Later on Monday, Oscasio-Cortez condemned Harris on Twitter, calling her comments “disappointing to see”.“First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival,” said the congresswoman, an influential voice on the Democratic left since her upset win in a 2018 primary and widely known as AOC.“Second, the US spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We can’t help set someone’s house on fire and then blame them for fleeing.”Several human rights groups also spoke out.Rachel Schmidtke, Latin America advocate at the non-profit Refugees International, said: “We continue to urge the Biden administration to build policies that recognize that many Guatemalans will need to seek protection until the longstanding drivers of forced displacement are addressed and realign its message to the Guatemalan people to reflect America’s commitment to the right to seek protection internationally.”The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, a non-profit that works with asylum seekers, tweeted: “Kamala Harris, seeking asylum is legal. Turning back asylum seekers is illegal, dangerous, & oftentimes sends them back to their deaths. Seeking asylum is a right under US and international law.”Despite Joe Biden moving to undo Trump-era restrictions at the border, including instituting changes to the asylum process, Harris’s speech underlined a continued stance of turning back undocumented migrants.Central America has long been affected by poverty and violence, amid entrenched cycles of political instability partly caused by criminal elites. Experts contend the US has often aided oppressive regimes. Despite the litany of dangers migrants often face when traveling north, the journey is often safer than remaining at home.“People are leaving because the corrupt governments (supported by the US) have tolerated and encouraged the growth of these criminal organizations,” said Jeff Faux, founder of the Economic Policy Institute, in an interview with USA Today.In April, according to CNN, more than 178,000 migrants arrived at the US-Mexico border, the highest one-month total in two decades. More

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      Global standing of US fails to regain ground lost by Covid response, poll shows

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      The United States’s reputation as the leading global power has suffered in France and Germany because of Washington’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans, according to a new poll of views in 11 countries.On the eve of President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe, the survey by the German Marshall Fund and the Bertelsmann Foundation said he had not won back the standing of the United States as it was before Covid-19 struck. China’s reputation had risen slightly.According to US research papers released on 26 March, the United States under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective strategy.“The first three months of the Biden administration have not affected French and German views of US influence in the world,” the study said.“These numbers are in line with the results of the 2020 survey, which had fallen by about 10 points from the pre-pandemic numbers, to the advantage of China.“That compares with the perception within the United States that US influence abroad has risen, the survey found.Biden embarks on his first European tour as president on Wednesday to attend G7, Nato and European Union summits. He faces the challenge of repairing transatlantic ties damaged by Trump, whose withdrawal from international agreements and sharp criticism of Nato undermined European faith in Washington.On his trip Biden, who defeated Trump in a November election and took office in January, will be putting to the test his “America is back” motto, with allies disillusioned during the Trump years looking for tangible, lasting action.Biden has spent most of his first four months in office focused on domestic issues and grappling with a deeply divided US Congress. The trip is his first outside the United States as president.Only 51% of Germans see the United States as a reliable partner, rising to 60% in France, 67% in Britain and 76% in Poland. Fewer than a quarter of Turks trust the United States. Most Americans regard the European Union as a reliable partner, the study said.A majority of respondents surveyed still think that the United States should be involved in the defence and security of Europe, except in Sweden, where views are divided, and Turkey.Conducted online between 29 March and 13 April, the survey sampled 1,000 adults in each of the 11 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. More

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      Jen Psaki likens Fox News reporters to Russian and Chinese propagandists

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      Joe Biden’s White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has likened reporters from Fox News and other rightwing outlets to “representatives of the Russian and Chinese media asking questions directed by their government … propaganda pushers” to be treated with extreme caution.Psaki was speaking to CNN’s Reliable Sources in an interview broadcast on Sunday. Her relations with the media have been smoother – and her briefings more frequent – than any predecessor in the Trump administration. But clashes with reporters including Peter Doocy of Fox News have made headlines.Last week, one such interaction involved questions about Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser. Republicans and rightwing reporters have seized on the publication of emails sent by Fauci at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.Asked by Doocy if Fauci should be “held accountable” for “saying one thing in email and then coming to this microphone and saying something else”, Psaki called Fauci “a renowned public servant” who has “overseen management of multiple global health crises”.“Attacks launched on him are certainly something we wouldn’t stand by,” she said, adding: “I am going to let Dr Fauci speak to his own defence about his emails from 17 months ago before this president even took office.”Doocy asked about US funding for Chinese research laboratories, a key part of Republican attacks on Fauci as the theory that Covid-19 escaped such a lab gains renewed attention.Psaki deflected the question.Doocy asked: “Can you imagine any circumstance where the president would ever fire him?”“No,” said Psaki, turning to another reporter, who she told: “Go ahead.”On CNN, Psaki said: “The things that get under my skin are when the premise of a question is based on inaccurate information, misleading information. That can be frustrating. I try not to show it too much, try not to let people see me sweat too much. But occasionally I have a moment of humanity.”Host Brian Stelter pointed out that most questions “based on falsehoods come from brands like Newsmax, which does sometimes get called on the briefing room. I know a lot of liberals don’t want Fox News to get called on. I think they should be, but … why do you call on Fox News and Newsmax?”Psaki said: “My point of view and more importantly, the president’s point of view, is that the story is not about me or a debate with news outlets. The story is about the plans of the administration and what we’re trying to project to the American people.“And when he pledged to govern for all Americans, that means talking to a range of outlets – liberal, conservative, people who have different areas of interest. So that’s exactly what I try to do every day.”Stelter asked why some viewers celebrate when the press secretary is seen to “shut down” a questioner such as Doocy.“I also have a responsibility not to allow the briefing room to become a forum for propaganda or a forum for pushing forward falsehoods or inaccurate information,” Psaki said.“My best preparation for that was actually serving as the state department spokesperson when there were representatives of the Russian and the Chinese media in the briefing room asking me questions that were directed by their government.“So we see that from time to time in the briefing room, not every single day at all, but I have a responsibility to the public to make sure they’re getting accurate information and the premises of questions that are propaganda-pushing are not giving them inaccurate information.”Psaki also defended the administration against criticism for holding only one presidential press conference – “That may be driven more by the media than it is by the American public” – and suggest some reporters’ “muscles have atrophied a little bit” when it comes to understanding the realities of governance.Fox News gleefully rounded up conservative criticism of the interview. Verdicts included “subservient, obsequious” and “bootlicking”.In his Reliable Sources email, Stelter said his goal had been “to talk big-picture … and to get personal, beyond the news-of-day questions that get asked at the briefings.” More

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      Children are ‘vulnerable host’ for Covid as cases recede, US expert warns

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      A US public health expert has warned that though cases of Covid-19 are at their lowest rates for months and much of the country is returning to normal life, young Americans are still “a vulnerable host” for the coronavirus.Dr Richina Bicette, associate medical director at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told CNN children were now accounting for nearly 25% of US cases.“As adults get vaccinated and become more protected and immune,” she said, “the virus is still in the community looking for a vulnerable host and pediatric patients fit that description.”Children aged 12 and above are eligible to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, one of three in US use. Federal authorities will this week debate extending vaccines to children aged 11 and under.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows that 52% of the US population over the age of 12 has had at least one vaccine dose and 42% is fully protected.The Biden administration wants 70% of US adults to have received at least one shot by 4 July. A range of incentives are being offered.Deaths in the US have slowed drastically, the toll a little under 590,000. But with virus variants causing problems as other countries reopen, experts have voiced concern over slowing rates of vaccination, particularly in Republican states.On Sunday the Republican governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union.Mississippi is 50th and last among states in vaccinations, with 30% of residents fully protected and 40.5% aged 12 and older having received at least one dose, according to the CDC. The states with the highest vaccination rates are Vermont (80.6% – with a Republican governor, Phil Scott), Hawaii (78.6%) and Massachusetts (76.8%).“I believe the vaccine works,” Reeves said. “I believe it’s safe. I believe it’s effective. I took my first dose in January, as did my wife, on TV live, and I have encouraged Mississippians to do the same.“But I also want to point out that President Biden’s goals for 4 July or otherwise are arbitrary to say the least.”Reeves said his focus was on providing “quality care” for people with Covid-19 – and trumpeted a steep decline in hospitalisations.“At our peak, we had 1,444 individuals in the hospital,” he said. “Today, we have 131. We’re down 90%. At our peak, we had 2,400 cases per day over a seven-day period. Over the last seven days, we have had barely 800 cases in total.“And so, for that entire year period, the goalpost was, let’s reduce the number of cases. And we have been successful at doing that. The question is, why?“We have had a million Mississippians that have gotten the vaccine, but we have also had 320,000 Mississippians that have tested positive for the virus. Many people believe that somewhere between four and five times more people have gotten the virus that have not tested [positive].“And so we have got probably a million or so Mississippians that have natural immunity. And because of that, there is very, very, very little virus in our state. But we’re still working to get the vaccine distributed, and hope we will continue to do so.”Asked if he was worried unvaccinated Mississippians could be “sitting ducks” to any surge involving a virus variant, Reeves avoided the question, complaining instead about political clashes with Biden officials.Host Jake Tapper changed tack, saying: “You seem to be arguing everybody should get vaccinated, and yet it’s not that big a deal that not everybody’s getting vaccinated. And those seem to be in conflict.”He then asked if Reeves would agree that Mississippians should go get vaccinated.“I would absolutely agree,” Reeves said. “I think that all Mississippians and all Americans should go get vaccinated, because I think it’s safe, I think it’s effective and I think it’s one way to continue to drive down the numbers.” More

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      Biden trumpets democracy abroad in Post op-ed – as threats spread at home

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      Joe Biden will use his visit to Europe this week to “rally the world’s democracies” in a reset of US foreign policy after four turbulent years under Donald Trump – all while threats to American democracy, stoked by Trump, proliferate at home.The president’s plan for the trip was set out in a column for the Washington Post on Saturday night, as Trump spoke to Republicans in North Carolina.Previewing meetings with “many of our closest democratic partners” and Vladimir Putin, Biden promised to “demonstrate the capacity of democracies to both meet the challenges and deter the threats of this new age”.Critics may point out that the president would do well to face up to attacks on democracy at home. He has put Vice-President Kamala Harris in charge of the matter but there are many fronts to the battle.In the states, Republicans have passed laws to restrict ballot access and to make it possible to overturn election results.On the stump, Trump continues to peddle his lie that Biden’s victory in November was the result of fraud. In Greenville on Saturday, the former president called his defeat “the crime of the century”.In Washington last month, Republicans in the Senate blocked a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, by supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” in his cause.In Biden’s own party, centrist senators stand in the way of voting rights protections.In his column for the Post, Biden tied another domestic priority – infrastructure spending, currently tied up in seemingly doomed negotiations with Republicans – to a chief foreign policy aim.“Just as it does at home,” he wrote, “honing the ability of democracies to compete and protecting our people against unforeseen threats requires us to invest in infrastructure. The world’s major democracies will be offering a high-standard alternative to China for upgrading physical, digital and health infrastructure that is more resilient and supports global development.”In North Carolina, Trump said China should pay the US and the world $10tn in reparations for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, while nations should cancel debt to Beijing.Biden touted domestic successes – progress against the coronavirus and the passage of his relief and stimulus package (without a single Republican vote) – and said: “The United States must lead the world from a position of strength.”He saluted the announcement on Saturday by G7 finance ministers of a global minimum corporate tax rate. Further distancing himself from Trump, who withdrew from the Paris climate deal, he said: “We have an opportunity to deliver ambitious progress that curbs the climate crisis and creates jobs by driving a global clean-energy transition.”In office, Trump attacked Nato. Biden saluted the “shared democratic values” of “the most successful alliance in world history. In Brussels, at the Nato summit, I will affirm the United States’ unwavering commitment to … ensuring our alliance is strong in the face of every challenge, including threats like cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure.”Amid proliferating such attacks, he said, it was important that “when I meet with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, it will be after high-level discussions with friends, partners and allies who see the world through the same lens as the United States”.Trump famously caused consternation among the US press corps in Helsinki in 2018, meeting Putin without aides and seeming cowed in his presence.Biden said the US and its allies were “standing united to address Russia’s challenges to European security … and there will be no doubt about the resolve of the United States to defend our democratic values, which we cannot separate from our interests.”Some have asked what Biden hopes to gain from meeting Putin – former Trump national security adviser John Bolton told the Guardian this week, “You meet when you have a strategy in place of how to deal with Russia and I don’t think he has one.”In the Post, Biden heralded his extension of the New Start nuclear arms treaty and responses to cyberattacks.“I will again underscore the commitment of the United States, Europe and like-minded democracies to stand up for human rights and dignity,” he wrote.“This is a defining question of our time: can democracies come together to deliver real results for our people in a rapidly changing world? Will the democratic alliances and institutions that shaped so much of the last century prove their capacity against modern-day threats and adversaries?“I believe the answer is yes. And this week in Europe, we have the chance to prove it.” More

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      Biden bans US investment in Chinese military and tech surveillance sectors

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      Joe Biden has signed an executive order that bans American entities from investing in dozens of Chinese companies with alleged ties to defense or surveillance technology sectors.In a move that his administration says will expand the scope of a legally flawed Trump-era order, the US treasury will enforce and update on a “rolling basis” the new ban list of about 59 companies.It also bars buying or selling publicly traded securities in target companies, and replaces an earlier list from the defense department, senior administration officials told reporters.The order prevents US investment from supporting the Chinese military-industrial complex, as well as military, intelligence, and security research and development programs, Biden said in the order.“In addition, I find that the use of Chinese surveillance technology outside [China] and the development or use of Chinese surveillance technology to facilitate repression or serious human rights abuse constitute unusual and extraordinary threats,” Biden said.A White House fact sheet on the order said the policy would take effect for those companies listed on 2 August.Major Chinese firms included on the previous defense department list were also placed on the updated list, including Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), China Mobile Communications Group, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Huawei Technologies and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC).SMIC is key to China’s national drive to boost its domestic chip sector.“We fully expect that in the months ahead … we’ll be adding additional companies to the new executive order’s restrictions,” one of the senior officials said.A second official told reporters that the inclusion of Chinese surveillance technology companies expanded the scope of the Trump administration’s initial order last year, which the White House argues was carelessly drafted, leaving it open to court challenges.The president has been reviewing a number of aspects of US policy toward China, and his administration had extended a deadline for implementation set by Donald Trump’s order while it crafted its new policy framework.The move is part of Biden’s broader series of steps to counter China, including reinforcing US alliances and pursuing large domestic investments to bolster American economic competitiveness, amid increasingly sour relations between the world’s two most powerful countries.Biden’s Indo-Pacific policy coordinator, Kurt Campbell, said last month that a period of engagement with China had come to an end and that the dominant paradigm in bilateral ties going forward would be one of competition.Senior officials said the treasury would give guidance later on what the scope of surveillance technology means, including whether companies are facilitating “repression or serious human rights abuses”.“We really want to make sure that any future prohibitions are on legally solid ground. So, our first listings really reflect that,” a second senior administration official said.Investors would have time to “unwind” investments, a third official said.The new list provided few surprises for investors looking to see if they need to unload even more Chinese stocks and bonds.But some previously identified companies, such as Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC), which is spearheading Chinese efforts to compete with Boeing and Airbus, as well as two companies that had challenged the ban in court, Gowin Semiconductor Corp and Luokung Technology Corp, were not included.In May, a judge signed an order removing the designation on Chinese mobile phone maker Xiaomi, which was among the more high-profile Chinese technology companies that the Trump administration targeted for alleged ties to China’s military. More