World
Baby formula industry must end 'misleading' online marketing: WHO
The $55 billion baby formula industry must end exploitative online marketing targeting parents, particularly mothers, the UN health agency said in a new report published Friday.
The study found companies are paying social media platforms and influencers to gain direct access to pregnant women and mothers at some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives, through personalised content that is often not recognisable as advertising.
Methods used include apps, virtual support groups or "baby clubs," promotions and competitions, as well as advice forums or services.
This pervasive marketing is increasing purchases of breast-milk substitutes, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, dissuading mothers from breastfeeding exclusively, as recommended by the agency.
The promotion of commercial milk formulas should have been terminated decades ago, said Dr Francesco Branca, director of the WHO's nutrition and food safety department.
Read: WHO recommends Pfizer's Covid pill Paxlovid
"The fact that formula milk companies are now employing even more powerful and insidious marketing techniques to drive up their sales is inexcusable and must be stopped," he added.
The report "Scope and impact of digital marketing strategies for promoting breast-milk substitutes," is the second in a series and follows an initial study, published in February, on how the marketing of formula milk influences people's decisions on infant feeding.
It summarises findings of new research that sampled and analysed four million social media posts about infant feeding published between January and June 2021 using a commercial social listening platform.
The posts reached nearly 2.5 billion people and generated more than 12 million likes, shares, or comments.
Formula milk companies post content on their social media accounts around 90 times per day, reaching 229 million users – three times the number of people reached by informational posts about breastfeeding from non-commercial accounts – according to the study.
The authors compiled evidence from social listening research on public online communications and individual country reports of research that monitors breast-milk substitute promotions.
They drew on a recent international study of mothers' and health professionals' experiences with formula milk marketing.
Read: WHO says global COVID cases, deaths declined again last week
Studies revealed how misleading marketing reinforces myths about breastfeeding and breast milk and undermines women's confidence in their ability to breastfeed successfully.
The proliferation of global digital marketing of formula milk blatantly breaches a landmark international code on the marketing of breast-milk substitutes, adopted 40 years ago, the WHO said.
The agreement is designed to protect the general public and mothers from aggressive marketing practices by the baby food industry that negatively impact breastfeeding practices.
The WHO said the fact that these forms of digital marketing can evade the scrutiny of national monitoring and health authorities, shows new approaches to code-implementing regulation and enforcement are required.
Despite clear evidence that exclusive and continued breastfeeding are key determinants of improved lifelong health for children, women, and communities, far too few children are breastfed as recommended.
The proportion could fall further if current formula milk marketing strategies continue, the WHO said.
Dane, 25, killed while fighting in Ukraine
A 25-year-old Dane was allegedly killed in Mykolajiv on April 26 while fighting with the International Legion Ukraine, a unit for foreigners who want to join the fight against Russia, according to Danish broadcaster TV2. The man's name was not given.
In a statement to Danish media, the Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen said it could not confirm the report and was in contact with Ukrainian authorities.
“It may therefore take time before the details are clarified” because the war creates “extremely difficult conditions,” the statement read.
Also read: UN head condemns attacks on civilians during Ukraine visit
The Jyllands-Posten daily, one of Denmark’s largest newspapers, said up to 100 Danes have traveled to Ukraine to fight Russia, citing Ukraine’s Embassy in Denmark.
Also read: Explosions rock Kyiv again as Russians rain fire on Ukraine
Landslide kills 12 women at illegal gold mine in Indonesia
Rescuers retrieved a dozen bodies of women buried under tons of mud from a landslide that crashed onto an unauthorized gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, police said Friday.
About 14 women were looking for gold grains Thursday in a pit roughly 2 meters (6.5 feet) deep at a small and unauthorized traditional gold mine in a remote village of North Sumatra’s Mandailing Natal district when a landslide plunged down surrounding hills and buried them, said local police chief Marlon Rajagukguk.
A two-hour search and rescue operation managed to rescue two injured women and pulled the bodies of 12 other women from the rubble, Rajagukguk said.
Also read: 2 workers killed in Rangamati landslide
He said authorities have closed illegal gold pits in the area, which was a main source of gold to be panned traditionally by villagers before Thursday’s landslide happened.
Informal mining operations are commonplace in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to thousands who labor in conditions with a high risk of serious injury or death.
Landslides, flooding and collapses of tunnels are just some of the hazards facing miners. Much of gold ore processing involves highly toxic mercury and cyanide and workers frequently use little or no protection.
Also read: Jade mine landslide kills 12 in Myanmar's northernmost state
The country’s last major mining-related accident occurred in February 2019 when a makeshift wooden structure in an illegal gold mine in North Sulawesi province collapsed due to shifting soil and the large number of mining holes. More than 40 people died, buried in the mine pit.
UN head condemns attacks on civilians during Ukraine visit
The head of the United Nations said Ukraine has become “an epicenter of unbearable heartache and pain" — a description underscored a short time later by the first Russian strike on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential high-rise and another building and wounded 10 people, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine's emergency services.
The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned the attacks on civilians.
Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital. The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses.
Ukrainian authorities also reported intense Russian fire in the Donbas — the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin says is its main objective — and near Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside the Donbas that is seen as key to the offensive.
Also read: Explosions rock Kyiv again as Russians rain fire on Ukraine
In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing overnight killed and wounded more people. And authorities warned that a lack of safe drinking water inside the city could lead to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
In Zaporizhzhia, a crucial way station for tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, an 11-year-old boy was among at least three people wounded in a rocket attack that authorities said was the first to hit a residential area in the southern city since the war began. Shards of glass cut the boy’s leg to the bone.
Vadym Vodostoyev, the boy’s father, said: “It just takes one second and you’re left with nothing.”
The fresh attacks came as Guterres surveyed the destruction in small towns outside the capital that saw some of the worst horrors of the first onslaught of the war. He condemned the atrocities committed in towns like Bucha, where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russia withdrew in early April in the face of unexpectedly stiff resistance.
“Wherever there is a war, the highest price is paid by civilians,” the U.N. chief lamented.
In the attack on Kyiv, explosions shook the city and flames poured out of the windows of the residential high-rise and another building. The capital has been relatively unscathed in recent weeks since Moscow refocused its efforts on the Donbas.
The explosions in northwestern Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district came as residents have been increasingly returning to the city. Cafes and other businesses have reopened, and a growing numbers of people have been out and about, enjoying the spring weather.
It was not immediately clear how far away the attack was from Guterres.
Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Several journalists have been killed in the war, now in its third month.
Also, both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
Western officials say the Kremlin's apparent goal is to take the Donbas by encircling and crushing Ukrainian forces from the north, south and east.
Also read: Allies must ‘double down’ and send Ukraine tanks, jets: UK
But so far, Russia's troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains, taking several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against staunch Ukrainian resistance.
Russian military units were mauled in the abortive bid to storm Kyiv and had to regroup and refit. Some analysts say the delay in launching a full-fledged offensive may reflect a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to wait until his forces are ready for a decisive battle, instead of rushing in and risking another failure that could shake his rule amid worsening economic conditions at home because of Western sanctions.
Many observers suspect Putin wants to be able to claim a big victory in the east by Victory Day, on May 9, one of the proudest holidays on the Russian calendar, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
As Russia presses its offensive, civilians again bear the brunt.
“It’s not just scary. It’s when your stomach contracts from pain,” said Kharkiv resident Tatiana Pirogova. “When they shoot during the day, it’s still OK, but when the evening comes, I can’t describe how scary it is.”
Ukraine's military said that Russian troops were subjecting several places in the Donbas to “intense fire” and that over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian forces had repelled six attacks in the region.
Four civilians were killed in heavy shelling of residential areas in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, according to the regional governor.
Columns of smoke could be seen rising at different points across the Donetsk region of the Donbas, and artillery and sirens were heard on and off.
Many of the Russian troops who were in Mariupol have been leaving and moving to the northwest, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, didn't have exact numbers but said a “significant number” of the roughly one dozen battalion tactical groups that were in the city were moving out.
Russian forces are making slow, incremental progress in the Donbas — gaining only several kilometers on any given day, the official said. As of Thursday, Russia had launched about 1,900 missiles into Ukraine – the vast majority fired from outside Ukraine’s borders. Most are strikes on Mariupol and the Donbas.
In Mariupol, video posted online by Ukraine's Azov Regiment inside the steel plant showed people combing through the rubble to remove the dead and help the wounded. The regiment said the Russians hit an improvised underground hospital and its surgery room, killing an unspecified number of people. The video couldn’t be independently verified.
An estimated 100,000 people remained trapped in Mariupol.
“Deadly epidemics may break out in the city due to the lack of centralized water supply and sewers,” the city council said on the messaging app Telegram. It reported bodies decaying under the rubble and a “catastrophic” shortage of drinking water and food.
Ukraine has urged its allies to send even more military equipment to fend off the Russians. U.S. President Joe Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine.
Astroworld movie set for release despite lawyers’ concerns
The experiences of panicked concertgoers who couldn’t breathe and had no clear path to escape a massive crowd surge at last year’s deadly Astroworld music festival in Houston are featured in a documentary set for release Friday.
But lawyers for Live Nation, which is being sued for its role as the festival’s promoter, say they’re concerned that publicity from the documentary, “Concert Crush: The Travis Scott Festival Tragedy,” could “taint the jury pool.” A gag order has been issued in the case, but Live Nation’s lawyers say an attorney who filed lawsuits related to the tragedy also co-produced the documentary.
Charlie Minn, the film’s director, said he believes he has made a balanced and fair film that tries to show the public what happened.
“My job is to make the most truthful, honest, sincere documentary from the victim’s point of view ... We need to know about these stories to prevent it from happening again,” Minn told The Associated Press.
Around 500 lawsuits have been filed following the Nov. 5 concert headlined by Scott, a popular rapper. Ten people died and hundreds of others were injured during the massive crowd surge. Scott is also being sued.
The documentary, opening in 11 Texas cities including Austin, Dallas and Houston, includes interviews with several people who survived the crowd surge. The film also features cellphone video shot by concertgoers in which people can be heard repeatedly screaming for help.
“It’s hard to explain to friends and family what we saw and what we actually went through and I think (the documentary) will give a lot of people the opportunity, if you weren’t there, to understand,” said Frank Alvarez, who attended the concert but does not appear in the film.
Also read: 8 dead, several injured at Astroworld Festival in Houston
The film highlights what concertgoers experienced and what led to the tragedy, said Minn, who has also made documentaries about the deadly 2018 shooting at a suburban Houston high school and violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The film suggests Scott could have done more to prevent the conditions that led to the casualties, but Minn said it isn’t a “hit piece toward Travis Scott.” He said it also questions whether others, including Live Nation and Houston police, could have done more to improve safety or respond more quickly to the danger. Minn said Scott, Live Nation and Houston police declined to be interviewed for the documentary. Houston police are investigating the disaster.
In a report released this month, a task force created by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott uncovered problems with permits for such events and called for “clearly outlined triggers” for stopping such a show.
Attorneys for Live Nation expressed their concerns in a letter this month to state District Judge Kristen Hawkins, who is handling all pretrial matters in the lawsuits.
Also read: 9-year-old Dallas boy dies after Astroworld festival crush
“The involvement of plaintiffs’ lawyers in the film, and the publicity the filmmakers and producers are trying to generate for it raise significant issues about efforts to taint the jury pool,” Neal Manne and Kevin Yankowsky, two of Live Nation’s attorneys, wrote in the letter.
But the attorneys have not asked Hawkins to take any specific action regarding the documentary.
Manne and Yankowsky did not respond to emails seeking comment. Live Nation has said it’s “heartbroken” by what happened but has denied responsibility.
Scott’s attorneys said in an email Thursday that they don’t know if he has seen the documentary, and referred to the concerns raised by Live Nation when asked if they had any issues with it.
“Mr. Scott remains focused on his philanthropic work in his hometown of Houston and in lower-income communities of color across the country, both of which are longstanding efforts,” his attorneys said.
Cassandra Burke Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said she would be shocked if the judge would take any action regarding the documentary because of First Amendment concerns, even with the gag order.
“I think the public interest here in exploring what happened and avoiding similar tragedies in the future, that’s a really big interest. That is likely to outweigh the interests of the particular outcome of the particular lawsuit,” Robertson said.
Brent Coon, an attorney representing about 1,500 concertgoers who was interviewed in the documentary, said he doesn’t think the film would impact the ability to choose an impartial jury if the case goes to trial, which could be years away.
“I don’t think any lawyer in this case could fan the flames much to change ... what the public’s perception of all this is going to be,” Coon said.
Robertson, who is not involved in the litigation, said the fact that one of the film’s co-producers, Rick Ramos, is representing concertgoers who have filed lawsuits could raise some ethical concerns. It was unclear how Ramos was benefitting financially from his involvement in the documentary.
Ramos declined to comment Thursday.
“I personally would not co-sponsor something like that during pending civil litigation. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just something I wouldn’t do,” Coon said.
Minn said the questions asked about Ramos’ participation are valid but he never hid his involvement.
“People have to watch the film and judge it for what that is,” Minn said.
Explosions rock Kyiv again as Russians rain fire on Ukraine
Russia pounded targets from practically one end of Ukraine to the other Thursday, including Kyiv, bombarding the city while the head of the United Nations was visiting in the boldest attack on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago.
Nearly a dozen people were wounded in the attack on Kyiv, including one who lost a leg and others who were trapped in the rubble when two buildings were hit, rescue officials said.
The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who said Ukraine has become “an epicenter of unbearable heartache and pain.” A spokesperson said Guterres and his team were safe.
Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital. The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses.
Ukrainian authorities also reported intense Russian fire in the Donbas — the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin says is its main objective — and near Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside the Donbas that is seen as key to the offensive.
In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing overnight killed and wounded more people. And authorities warned that a lack of safe drinking water inside the city could lead to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
In Zaporizhzhia, a crucial way station for tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, an 11-year-old boy was among at least three people wounded in a rocket attack that authorities said was the first to hit a residential area in the southern city since the war began. Shards of glass cut the boy’s leg to the bone.
Also read: Allies must ‘double down’ and send Ukraine tanks, jets: UK
Vadym Vodostoyev, the boy’s father, said: “It just takes one second and you’re left with nothing.”
The fresh attacks came as Guterres surveyed the destruction in small towns outside the capital that saw some of the worst horrors of the first onslaught of the war. He condemned the atrocities committed in towns like Bucha, where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russia withdrew in early April in the face of unexpectedly stiff resistance.
“Wherever there is a war, the highest price is paid by civilians,” the U.N. chief lamented.
Separately, Ukraine’s prosecutor accused 10 Russian soldiers of being “involved in the torture of peaceful people” in Bucha. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova did not say her office had filed criminal charges, and she appealed to the public for help in gathering evidence. Russia denies it targets civilians.
During his nightly video address, Zelenskyy renewed his pledge to hold Russian soldiers accountable for crimes they commit and said about the 10 identified earlier Thursday: “Some of them may not, after all, live until a trial and fair punishment. But only for one reason: This Russian brigade has been transferred to the Kharkiv region. There they’ll receive retribution from our military.”
In the attack on Kyiv, explosions shook the city and flames poured out of windows in at least two buildings — including a residential one — in the capital, which has been relatively unscathed in recent weeks. Ukrainian emergency services said 10 people were wounded in the attack, which sent plumes of smoke billowing over the city.
The explosions in northwestern Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky district came as residents have been increasingly returning to the city. Cafes and other businesses have reopened, and a growing numbers of people have been out and about, enjoying the spring weather.
It was not immediately clear how far away the attack was from Guterres.
Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Several journalists have been killed in the war, now in its third month.
Also, both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced tight restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.
Western officials say the Kremlin’s apparent goal is to take the Donbas by encircling and crushing Ukrainian forces from the north, south and east.
But so far, Russia’s troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains, taking several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against staunch Ukrainian resistance.
Russian military units were mauled in the abortive bid to storm Kyiv and had to regroup and refit. Some analysts say the delay in launching a full-fledged offensive may reflect a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to wait until his forces are ready for a decisive battle, instead of rushing in and risking another failure that could shake his rule amid worsening economic conditions at home because of Western sanctions.
Many observers suspect Putin wants to be able to claim a big victory in the east by Victory Day, on May 9, one of the proudest holidays on the Russian calendar, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
As Russia presses its offensive, civilians again bear the brunt.
Also read: A chilling Russian cyber aim in Ukraine: Digital dossiers
“It’s not just scary. It’s when your stomach contracts from pain,” said Kharkiv resident Tatiana Pirogova. “When they shoot during the day, it’s still OK, but when the evening comes, I can’t describe how scary it is.”
Ukraine’s military said that Russian troops were subjecting several places in the Donbas to “intense fire” and that over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian forces had repelled six attacks in the region.
Four civilians were killed in heavy shelling of residential areas in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, according to the regional governor.
Columns of smoke could be seen rising at different points across the Donetsk region of the Donbas, and artillery and sirens were heard on and off.
Many of the Russian troops who were in Mariupol have been leaving and moving to the northwest, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, didn’t have exact numbers but said a “significant number” of the roughly one dozen battalion tactical groups that were in the city were moving out.
Russian forces are making slow, incremental progress in the Donbas — gaining only several kilometers on any given day, the official said. As of Thursday, Russia had launched about 1,900 missiles into Ukraine – the vast majority fired from outside Ukraine’s borders. Most are strikes on Mariupol and the Donbas.
In Mariupol, video posted online by Ukraine’s Azov Regiment inside the steel plant showed people combing through the rubble to remove the dead and help the wounded. The regiment said the Russians hit an improvised underground hospital and its surgery room, killing an unspecified number of people. The video couldn’t be independently verified.
An estimated 100,000 people remained trapped in Mariupol.
“Deadly epidemics may break out in the city due to the lack of centralized water supply and sewers,” the city council said on the messaging app Telegram. It reported bodies decaying under the rubble and a “catastrophic” shortage of drinking water and food.
Ukraine has urged its allies to send even more military equipment to fend off the Russians. U.S. President Joe Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine.
Moderna seeks to be 1st with COVID shots for littlest kids
Moderna is seeking to be the first to offer COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest American children, as it asked the Food and Drug Administration Thursday to clear low-dose shots for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
Frustrated families are waiting impatiently for a chance to protect the nation’s littlest kids as all around them people shed masks and other public health precautions -- even though highly contagious coronavirus mutants continue to spread. Already about three-quarters of children of all ages show signs they’ve been infected at some point during the pandemic.
Moderna submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration that it hopes will prove two low-dose shots can protect children younger than 6 -- although the effectiveness wasn’t nearly as high in kids tested during the omicron surge as earlier in the pandemic.
“There is an important unmet medical need here with these youngest kids,” Dr. Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, told The Associated Press. Two kid-size shots “will safely protect them. I think it is likely that over time they will need additional doses. But we’re working on that.”
Latin American nations ease restrictions as COVID cases dropModerna said two kid doses were about 40% to 50% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19, not a home run but for many parents, any protection would be better than none.
That effectiveness is “less than optimal. We were hoping for better efficacy but this is a first step,” said Dr. Nimmi Rajagopal of Cook County Health in Chicago. She’s anxiously awaiting vaccinations for her youngest patients and her own 3-year-old son who’s ready to enter preschool.
Read: New tests to decide Shanghai reopening as Beijing stocks up
“It gives me such peace of mind to know that hopefully by fall I’ll get him in school and he’ll be fully vaccinated,” she said.
Now, only children ages 5 or older can be vaccinated in the U.S., using rival Pfizer’s vaccine, leaving 18 million younger tots unprotected.
Moderna’s vaccine isn’t the only one in the race. Pfizer is soon expected to announce if three of its even smaller-dose shots work for the littlest kids, months after the disappointing discovery that two doses weren’t quite strong enough.
Whether it’s one company’s shots or both, FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said the agency will “move quickly without sacrificing our standards” in deciding if tot-sized doses are safe and effective.
While questions are swirling about what’s taking so long, Marks pointedly told lawmakers earlier this week that the FDA can’t evaluate a product until a manufacturer completes its application. In a statement Thursday, the FDA said it will schedule a meeting to publicly debate Moderna’s evidence with its independent scientific advisers but that the company still must submit some additional data. Moderna expects to do so next week.
“It’s critically important that we have the proper evaluation so that parents will have trust in any vaccines that we authorize,” Marks told a Senate committee.
If FDA clears vaccinations for the littlest, next the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have to recommend who needs them -- all tots or just those at higher risk from COVID-19.
“It’s very important to get the youngest children vaccinated” but “moving quickly doesn’t mean moving sloppily,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and public health expert at Boston College. FDA must “see if it’s safe. They need to see if it’s effective. And they need to do so swiftly. But they won’t cut corners.”
Many parents are desperate for whichever vaccine gets to the scientific finish line first.
“We’ve been kind of left behind as everybody else moves on,” said Meagan Dunphy-Daly, a Duke University marine biologist whose 6-year-old daughter is vaccinated -- but whose 3-year-old and 18-month-old sons are part of Pfizer’s trial.
The family continues to mask and take other precautions until it’s clear if the boys got real vaccine or dummy shots. If it turns out they weren’t protected in the Pfizer study and Moderna’s shots are cleared first, Dunphy-Daly said she’d seek them for her sons.
Read: UN secretary-general arrives in Ukraine
“I will feel such a sense of relief when I know my boys are vaccinated and that the risk of them getting a serious infection is so low,” she said.
The FDA will face some complex questions.
In a study of 6,700 kids ages 6 months through 5 years, two Moderna shots — each a quarter of the regular dose — triggered high levels of virus-fighting antibodies, the same amount proven to protect young adults, Burton said. There were no serious side effects, and the shots triggered fewer high fevers than other routine vaccinations.
But depending on how researchers measured, the vaccine proved at best about 51% effective at preventing COVID-19 cases in babies and toddlers and about 37% effective in the 2- to 5-year-olds. Burton blamed the omicron variant’s ability to partially evade vaccine immunity, noting that unboosted adults showed similarly less effectiveness against milder omicron infections. While no children became severely ill during the study, he said high antibody levels are a proxy for protection against more serious illness — and the company will test a child booster dose.
“That’s not totally out of the realm of what we would have expected,” said Dr. Bill Muller of Northwestern University, who helped with Moderna’s child studies. “Down the road I would anticipate it’s going to be a three-shot series.”
Another issue: So far in the U.S., Moderna’s vaccine is restricted to adults. Other countries have expanded the shot to kids as young as 6. But while Moderna has filed FDA applications for older kids, too, the FDA hasn’t ruled on them. Months ago the agency cited concern about a rare side effect, heart inflammation, in teen boys, a concern that hasn’t been reported in much younger children.
It’s not clear if FDA will consider Moderna’s vaccine for children of all ages now or focus first on the littlest. But Muller already has had lots of parents ask why shots were being tested in tots before older kids were vaccinated — and says pediatricians and pharmacists must be ready with answers.
Burton said safety data from millions of older children given Moderna vaccinations abroad should help reassure parents.
While COVID-19 generally isn’t as dangerous in youngsters as adults, some do become severely ill or even die. About 475 children younger than 5 have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic’s start, according to the CDC, and child hospitalizations soared at omicron’s peak.
Yet it’s not clear how many parents intend to vaccinate the youngest kids. Less than a third of children ages 5 to 11 have had two vaccinations, and 58% of those ages 12 to 17.
Biden wants $33B more to help Ukraine battle Russia
President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion, a signal that the U.S. is prepared to mount a robust, long-term campaign to bolster Kyiv and weaken Moscow as the bloody war enters its third month with no sign of abating.
Biden’s latest proposal — which the White House said was expected to support Ukraine’s needs for five months — has more than $20 billion in military assistance for Kyiv and for shoring up defenses in nearby countries. There is also $8.5 billion in economic aid to help keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government functioning and $3 billion for food and humanitarian programs around the world.
The assistance package, which heads to Congress for consideration, would be more than twice as large as the initial $13.6 billion in defense and economic aid for Ukraine and Western allies enacted last month that is now almost exhausted. It was meant to signify that the U.S. is not tiring of helping to stave off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to expand his nation’s control of its neighbor, and perhaps beyond.
“The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly,” Biden said. “It’s critical this funding gets approved and as quickly as possible.”
The request comes with the fighting, now in its ninth week, sharpening in eastern and southern parts of the country and international tensions growing as Russia cuts off gas supplies to two NATO allies, Poland and Bulgaria.
Biden promised that the U.S. would work to support its allies’ energy needs, saying, “We will not let Russia intimidate or blackmail their way out of the sanctions.”
Read: Russia cuts off gas to 2 NATO nations in bid to divide West
Biden said the new package “begins the transition to longer-term security assistance” for Ukraine.
There is wide, bipartisan support in Congress for giving Ukraine all the help it needs to fight the Russians, and its eventual approval of assistance seems certain. But Biden and congressional Democrats also want lawmakers to approve billions more to battle the pandemic, and that along with a Republican push to entangle the measure with an extension of some Trump-era immigration restrictions leaves the proposal’s pathway to enactment unclear.
Biden asked lawmakers to include an additional $22.5 billion for vaccines, treatments, testing and aid to other countries in continuing efforts to contain COVID-19, saying “we’re running out of supply for therapeutics.”
But that figure, which Biden also requested last month, seems aspirational. In a compromise with Republicans, Senate Democrats have already agreed to pare that figure to $10 billion, and reviving the higher amount would be at best an uphill fight.
Biden said he had no preference whether lawmakers combined the virus funding with the Ukraine package or split them up. “They can do it separately or together,” Biden said, “but we need them both.”
That suggested a willingness by Biden to speed passage of the Ukraine money by sidestepping the complications of tying it to the political fights over COVID-19 spending and immigration.
Biden was also asking Congress on Thursday for new powers to seize and repurpose the assets of Russian oligarchs, saying the U.S. was seizing luxury yachts and homes of “bad guys.”
He wants lawmakers to make it a criminal offense for a person to “knowingly or intentionally possess proceeds directly obtained from corrupt dealings with the Russian government,” double the statute of limitations for foreign money laundering offenses to 10 years, and expand the definition of “racketeering” under U.S. law to include efforts to evade sanctions.
Biden also asked Congress to allow the federal government use the proceeds from selling the seized assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs to help the people of Ukraine.
In a virtual address to International Monetary Fund and World Bank leaders last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the proceeds of sanctioned property and Central Bank reserves to be used to compensate Ukraine for its losses.
He said that frozen Russian assets “have to be used to rebuild Ukraine after the war as well as to pay for the losses caused to other nations.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at the time that congressional action would be needed to authorize such actions.
Read: UN secretary-general arrives in Ukraine
The war has already caused more than $60 billion in damage to buildings and infrastructure, World Bank President David Malpass said last week. And the IMF in its latest world economic outlook forecast that Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 35% this year and next.
In recent weeks, the U.S. and global allies have sanctioned dozens of oligarchs and their family members, along with hundreds of Russian officials involved in or deemed to be supporting its invasion of Ukraine. The White House says the new tools will toughen the impact of the sanctions on Russia’s economy and its ruling class by making sanctions more difficult to evade.
The huge amount that Biden is seeking in the supplemental is more than half of the entire proposed $60.4 billion budget for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development for the next budget year, although it’s only a small fraction of the 2023 Pentagon spending plan.
According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the U.S. has spent about $2.2 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001. It estimates that the costs of interest by 2050 would grow to $6.5 trillion.
As a comparison, the U.S. spent $23.2 billion – including Defense, State and Homeland Security department money – in the 2001 budget year alone to cover the aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Of the money Biden is requesting now for military purposes, there would be $6 billion to arm Ukraine directly, $5.4 billion to replace U.S. supplies sent to the area, $4.5 billion for other security assistance for Ukraine and U.S. allies and $2.6 billion for the continued deployment of U.S. forces to the region, according to documents describing the request.
The proposed spending also has $1.2 billion to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing to the U.S. with cash assistance, English language instruction and help to school districts with Ukrainian students. There is also $500 million for American farmers to produce more wheat, soybeans and other crops for which Ukraine, a major global food supplier, has suffered decreased production.
Allies must ‘double down’ and send Ukraine tanks, jets: UK
Britain’s top diplomat called Wednesday for Western allies to send tanks, warplanes and other heavy weapons to Ukraine, saying fears of escalating the war were misplaced and “inaction would be the greatest provocation.”
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said “this is a time for courage, not caution” among nations helping Ukraine fight Russia’s invasion.
“Heavy weapons, tanks, airplanes — digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this,” Truss said during an annual foreign policy speech at Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of London.
Also read:A chilling Russian cyber aim in Ukraine: Digital dossiers
NATO nations have supplied Ukraine with military weapons and gear, including missiles and armored vehicles. But they have been reluctant to send fighter planes — despite pleas from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — for fear of escalation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already accused NATO of effectively waging a proxy war against Russia.
Western officials deny that, saying the conflict is between Russia and Ukraine due to Russia’s illegal invasion of its neighbor.
Britain has sent 450 million pounds ($565 million) in military aid to Ukraine, including thousands of missiles. But Despite Truss’s call for jets, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said there were “no plans” for the U.K. to send planes. He did not rule out Britain sending planes to another country, such as Poland, that would then give its own jets to Ukraine, but said there were “no specific plans” to do so.
Truss said Russia’s attack on Ukraine must be a wake-up call for international institutions that failed to prevent the invasion.
“The architecture that was designed to guarantee peace and prosperity has failed Ukraine,” Truss said. “The economic and security structures developed after the Second World War and then the Cold War have been bent out of shape so far that they have enabled rather than contained aggression.”
Truss called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “desperate rogue operator” who was ripping up the global order and outfoxing international institutions.
Also read:European leaders blast cutoff of Russian gas as ‘blackmail’
“Russia is able to block any effective action in the U.N. Security Council,” where it has a veto as a permanent member, she said, adding that the Group of 20 club of wealthy and emerging nations “cannot function as an effective economic body while Russia remains at the table.”
In response, Truss called for a new focus on “military strength, economic security and deeper global alliances” among “free nations.”
After years of declining military spending in many countries, including Britain, she said NATO’s goal that countries spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense should be “a floor, not a ceiling.”
Truss also called for tougher economic sanctions on Russia, saying the West must cut off Russian oil and gas imports “once and for all.” That would be an easier thing to do for Britain than for many other European nations.
“If Putin succeeds, there will be untold further misery across Europe and terrible consequences across the globe,” she said. “We would never feel safe again. So we must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine.”
Modi to visit Europe amid Ukraine crisis
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will depart for a three-nation European tour of Germany, Denmark and France next week amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
Modi will first travel to Germany on May 2, where he is slated to hold bilateral talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. From Germany, he will go to Denmark and will have a brief stopover in Paris on his way back home on May 4, according to the Foreign Ministry.
"In Berlin, the Prime Minister will hold bilateral talks with Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor of Germany, and the two leaders will co-chair the sixth edition of the India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations (IGC)," the Ministry said in a statement.
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Modi's visit will be an opportunity to enhance and intensify cooperation in a broad range of areas and for the two governments to exchange views on regional and global matters of mutual interest, according to the Ministry.
"During his visit, the Prime Minister and German Chancellor Scholz would also jointly address a business event. The Prime Minister will address and interact with the Indian community in Germany," it said.
From Germany, Modi will head to Copenhagen. Apart from holding bilateral talks with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the Indian PM will participate in the second India-Nordic summit being hosted by Denmark, the Ministry said.
At the India-Nordic summit, Modi will also hold talks with Premier Katrín Jakobsdóttir of Iceland, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway, Premier Magdalena Andersson of Sweden and PM Sanna Marin of Finland.
Also read:Biden urges Modi not to step up Indian use of Russian oil
"The summit will focus on subjects like post-pandemic economic recovery, climate change, innovation and technology, renewable energy, the evolving global security scenario and India-Nordic cooperation in the Arctic," the Ministry said.
On his return journey on May 4, the Ministry said, Modi will make a stopover in Paris and meet French President Emmanuel Macron, who was recently re-elected for a second five-year term, according to the Ministry.
"India and France are celebrating 75 years of their diplomatic relations this year and the meeting between the two leaders will set a more ambitious agenda of the strategic partnership," the statement said.