The domination of global medicine by major pharmaceutical companies needs to be confronted to provide fairer access to vaccines , said Mustaqeem De Gama, South Africa’s delegate at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on intellectual property rights. 

“While Rome is burning, we are fiddling around,” said De Gama. “The first effective vaccines were ready four or five months ago. Do you think it would have made a difference if we had the capacity to manufacture? I certainly think so.” De Gama said more structural change was needed to enable countries to make their own vaccines instead of relying on terms set by donors or profit-driven companies. “The infrastructure right now is providing a minimum and leaving the rest to the private sector,” said De Gama. “I don’t think governments should be outsourcing their responsibility for public health to private companies who are responsible to shareholders only.”

Backed by dozens of developing countries, the proposal, introduced by South Africa and India, argued that by-passing intellectual property rights would allow more of the world’s population to be quickly vaccinated by boosting production.

Supplies are low after rich countries bought more vaccines than they needed to, leading to predictions that many low-income countries may not be able to reach mass immunisation until 2024.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Thursday called for urgent delivery of vaccines to lower-income countries in order to avoid further mutations of the coronavirus, such as the 501Y.V2 variant that has spread throughout southern Africa.

Roz Scourse, a policy adviser for MSF Access, said the EU had been “hypocritical” in its recent outrage over undelivered AstraZeneca vaccines while blocking the proposed patent waiver, alongside other countries that host big pharmaceutical companies, including the UK.

“This is really showing the EU and other rich countries what happens when you hand over all the rights and control of the manufacture and distribution of Covid vaccines in the time of a pandemic to huge multinational corporations,” said Scourse.

South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over access to Covid vaccines (msn.com)

 “Everybody’s worst fear about capital punishment is that innocent people will be wrongfully convicted and executed,” Robert Dunham, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) executive director, said. “But the more we learn about what actually happens in these cases, the worse the problem gets.”

The DPIC added 11 cases to its “Innocence List” that tracks American death row exonerations on Thursday, bringing the total to 185 and raising concerns over the likelihood more innocents – especially people of colour – will be condemned.

DPIC has found wrongful death penalty convictions in “virtually every part of the country, with exonerations documented in 29 states and 118 different counties”, the report found. By their estimate, one in every 8.3 people sentenced to death in the United States since capital punishment resumed in 1970 were exonerated.

The cases reveal trends of “misconduct and racial bias”, the DPIC said. About 70 percent involved misconduct from police, prosecutors or other government officials. Roughly 80 percent “involved some combination of misconduct or perjury/false accusation and more than half involved both”.

Black exonerees saw misconduct in their cases at a much higher rate, 78.8 percent, than white exonerees at 58.2 percent. “Black exonerees spent an average of 4.3 more years waiting for exoneration than white exonerees”, the report said.

A major concern involving cases that involve capital punishment is false evidence, including false confessions – which occur at rates as high as 25 to 30 percent in exonerations won by DNA evidence. Forensic practices, such as hair analysis, bitemark analysis and bloodshot patterns, played an outsized role in wrongful convictions. DNA evidence has played a profound role in exonerations, the DPIC report said. DNA uncovered mistakes in official misconduct, false confessions, mistaken witness identification and more in capital punishment cases at much higher rates than cases where no DNA was present.

Despite concerns over capital punishment, the federal government conducted 13 executions between 2020 and the end of former President Donald Trump’s administration in January 2021, including the first killing of a female inmate since 1953. The executions were uniformly challenged based on faulty evidence or the mental acuity of the condemned, though none won reprieves.

‘We can be sure innocents died’, US death row exonerations show | Crime News | Al Jazeera

 The media constantly moves on, forgetting crises when they are no longer news worthy. 

A record 12.4 million Syrians – nearly 60 percent of the population – are now food insecure, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). 

In just over one year, an additional 4.5 million Syrians have become food insecure.  the number of people who are severely food insecure – meaning they cannot survive without food assistance – has doubled in just one year to stand at 1.3 million people. Unless urgent action is taken, an additional 1.8 million people are at risk of falling into severe food insecurity.

“The situation has never been worse. After ten years of conflict, Syrian families have exhausted their savings as they face a spiralling economic crisis,” said WFP Representative and Country Director in Syria Sean O’Brien. It is alarming that a simple meal is beyond the reach of families across Syria, and this new data shows humanitarian assistance is the difference between putting a meal on the table and going to bed hungry. Lifesaving support has never been so crucial,” said O’Brien.

An economic crisis, job losses as a result of COVID-19 and soaring food prices have added to the plight of Syrians who have been displaced and worn down by a decade of conflict. Each month WFP provides lifesaving food assistance to almost 5 million of Syria’s most vulnerable people. For many, this is the only food they eat each month.

Basic foods to feed a family for a month – bread, rice, lentils and oil and sugar- now cost at least 120,000 Syrian Pounds which far exceeds the average salaries. Over the last year food prices across Syria have soared, and the price of basic items has increased by 236 percent, just as the value of the Syrian Pound has plummeted. On average, the price of oil has increased from 1000 Syrian pounds in Jan 2020, to 5000 Syrian pounds in Jan 2021. Parents now report making desperate decisions to survive, eating less food so they can feed their children, going into debt, and selling assets and livestock to generate an income. In addition, close to 50% of the Syrian population report having lost one or more sources of income because of the economic downturn and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Twelve million Syrians now in the grip of hunger, worn down by conflict and soaring food prices – Syrian Arab Republic | ReliefWeb

 Towering Injustice

Forty four months since Grenfell burned, and still

Too many tenants in too many towers

Sleep one eye open through the early hours

For when the shrill fire alarm isn’t a drill.

The wall beyond the curtain’s not secure,

Cheaply dressed, just for appearance sake,

But allows the damp or the flame to take

And negates even the means to insure.

Capital builders will promote facades

To try and disguise what’s shoddy behind,

Sure the poor should be too grateful to mind:

Where profit fails, frustrated need pervades.

People remain disgruntled, yet resigned,

Until, that is, the working class abraids.

D. A.

 Towering Injustice

Forty four months since Grenfell burned, and still

Too many tenants in too many towers

Sleep one eye open through the early hours

For when the shrill fire alarm isn’t a drill.

The wall beyond the curtain’s not secure,

Cheaply dressed, just for appearance sake,

But allows the damp or the flame to take

And negates even the means to insure.

Capital builders will promote facades

To try and disguise what’s shoddy behind,

Sure the poor should be too grateful to mind:

Where profit fails, frustrated need pervades.

People remain disgruntled, yet resigned,

Until, that is, the working class abraids.

D. A.

Migrants are needed to stop population decline in Scotland, a new report has found.

New Zealand’s birthrate dropped to its lowest ever level in 2020, well below the population replacement rate of 2.1. The country’s declining birthrate is in line with trends seen in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and the US, among others.

The country’s total fertility rate dropped to 1.61 births per woman of child-bearing age (15–49 years), the latest fall in a decade-old trend.

Most babies registered in 2020 were conceived before New Zealand moved to Covid-19 lockdown on 25 March last year, said Hamish Slack at Statistics NZ.

“Fertility rates in New Zealand were relatively stable between 1980 and 2012, but have generally decreased since then,” said Slack. “Since 2013, the number of women of reproductive age has increased by 11% and the number of births has decreased by 2%.”

In 2020, there were 57,753 live births registered in New Zealand, down 2,064 (3%) from the previous year.

Demographer Prof Paul Spoonley from Massey University forecasts for the next 20 years indicated many families would have either one child or be childless.

He said “The results of the demographic transition which we’re going through now is something we’ve never encountered before,” he said. “We’ve never had a society in which one in four people is aged over 65, for example. It is unprecedented.”

New Zealand birthrate sinks to its lowest ever | New Zealand | The Guardian

New Zealand’s birthrate dropped to its lowest ever level in 2020, well below the population replacement rate of 2.1. The country’s declining birthrate is in line with trends seen in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and the US, among others.

The country’s total fertility rate dropped to 1.61 births per woman of child-bearing age (15–49 years), the latest fall in a decade-old trend.

Most babies registered in 2020 were conceived before New Zealand moved to Covid-19 lockdown on 25 March last year, said Hamish Slack at Statistics NZ.

“Fertility rates in New Zealand were relatively stable between 1980 and 2012, but have generally decreased since then,” said Slack. “Since 2013, the number of women of reproductive age has increased by 11% and the number of births has decreased by 2%.”

In 2020, there were 57,753 live births registered in New Zealand, down 2,064 (3%) from the previous year.

Demographer Prof Paul Spoonley from Massey University forecasts for the next 20 years indicated many families would have either one child or be childless.

He said “The results of the demographic transition which we’re going through now is something we’ve never encountered before,” he said. “We’ve never had a society in which one in four people is aged over 65, for example. It is unprecedented.”

New Zealand birthrate sinks to its lowest ever | New Zealand | The Guardian

 The Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs has proposed that the 1,761 recipients of the Victoria Cross and George Cross be immortalised with a statue in their place of birth. 

The Common Sense Group’s campaign has been warmly greeted by both the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, who said he “looked forward to discussing these ideas further”

Sir John Hayes, the chair of the Common Sense Group,  “Tragically, too many who have given and achieved so much have been all but forgotten. In many places, locals may be unaware that they tread in the footsteps of heroes. Which is why the Common Sense Group has launched a campaign to honour every recipient of the VC and GC through the erection of a statue, immortalising them in their place of birth. Where this is not practically possible, these heroes could be recognised by a plaque or have a public building, park or road named or renamed after them.”

More war hero statues ‘wholly retrograde’ move, says UK women’s group | Heritage | The Guardian

 In Colombia, Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which was set up as part of the peace process after the left-wing Farc rebels signed the 2016 peace deal with the government. The JEP is a transitional court system which was put in place for a period of 10 years to try all participants in the conflict, be they rebels or state members. Those who admit to their crimes up front will avoid jail time, but will be required to contribute in other ways to reconciliation – such as participating in programmes to remove landmines, build key infrastructure or construct monuments.