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Gunmen Kill 5 Polio Vaccinators in Afghanistan

Officials in conflict-torn Afghanistan said Tuesday gunmen had shot dead at least five polio vaccinators and injured several others in separate attacks in eastern Nangarhar province.  
 Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where the crippling polio disease remains endemic. 
 
Authorities said the early morning violence in parts of Jalalabad, the provincial capital, and nearby Khogyani district came on the second day of a four-day national campaign administering polio drops to children under five years of age.  
 
Jan Mohammad, head of the provincial immunization department, told VOA they had suspended the vaccination campaign following the deadly attack. No one immediately took responsibility for what appeared to be a coordinated shooting spree.   
 
In March, three female anti-polio workers were gunned down in Jalalabad during this year’s first polio immunization drive. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack. The terror group’s regional affiliate, known as IS Khorasan Province, has bases in Nangarhar and adjoining Afghan provinces.  
 
The United Nations condemned Tuesday’s attack, saying depriving children from an assurance of a healthy life “is inhuman.” 
 
Ramiz Alakbarov, U.N. secretary-general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan, demanded the “senseless violence must stop” and authorities bring to justice those responsible for it.  
 
“I am appalled by the brutality of these killings,” Alakbarov wrote on Twitter. The United Nations strongly condemns all attacks on health workers anywhere. Delivery of health care is impartial attack against health workers and those who defends them is an attack on children, whose very lives they are trying to protect. @UNAMAnews@UNICEFAfg@WHOAfghanistan— Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov (@RamizAlakbarov) June 15, 2021Afghanistan reported 56 new cases of polio last year. But officials say only one wild polio virus case has been detected in the country since October 2020, and transmissions to polio-free Afghan areas have also been contained.  
 
Wahid Majrooh, the acting Afghan health minister, said on Monday the current immunization drive intends to administer polio drops to nearly 10 million children across the country’s 34 provinces.  
 
He lamented, however, that relentless fighting and restrictions on door-to-door vaccinations in areas held by Taliban insurgents continue to deprive around three million children of the polio vaccine.  
 
Majrooh again urged warring parties to help ensure trouble-free access for his teams so they can vaccinate all Afghan children against polio.  
 
“We cannot end polio unless we are able to vaccinate children everywhere,” he said. 

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Economy & business/Silicon Valley & Technology
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India’s Government in Standoff with Twitter Over Online Speech

The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in a battle with U.S. tech firms over a new set of online speech rules that it has enacted for the nation of nearly 1.4 billion.  The rules require companies to restrict a range of topics on their services, comply with government takedown orders and identify the original source of information shared. If the companies fail to comply, tech firm employees can be held criminally liable.  The escalation of tensions between Modi’s government and tech firms, activists say, could result in the curtailment of Indians’ online speech.  “Absent a change in direction, the future of free speech in the world’s largest democracy is increasingly imperiled,” said Samir Jain, director of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a digital rights advocacy group. “Users will have less freedom of expression and less access to news and entertainment that is unapproved by the government. The rules will thereby undermine Indian democracy,” Jain told VOA. At the center of the battle is Twitter, which asked for a three-month extension to comply with the new IT rules that went into effect May 25.  On May 24, New Delhi police attempted to deliver a notice to Twitter’s office, which was closed at the time, and then released a video of officers entering the building and searching the offices on local TV channels. #WATCH | Team of Delhi Police Special cell carrying out searches in the offices of Twitter India (in Delhi & Gurugram)Visuals from Lado Sarai. pic.twitter.com/eXipqnEBgt— ANI (@ANI) May 24, 2021In a tweet days later, Twitter said it was “concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.”Right now, we are concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.— Twitter Public Policy (@Policy) May 27, 2021“We, alongside many in civil society in India and around the world, have concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police in response to enforcement of our global terms of service, as well as with core elements of the new IT rules,” the company said.  Earlier this month, the government sent a letter to Twitter saying it was giving the company “one final notice” adding that if Twitter fails to comply, there will be “unintended consequences,” according to NPR, which obtained the letter.  “It is beyond belief that Twitter Inc. has doggedly refused to create mechanisms that will enable the people of India to resolve their issues on the platform in a timely and transparent manner and through fair processes by India based clearly identified resources,” the letter said. The Indian government is pushing back on criticism that its new rules restrict online speech.  “Protecting free speech in India is not the prerogative of only a private, for-profit, foreign entity like Twitter, but it is the commitment of the world’s largest democracy and its robust institutions,” India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said in a statement. Some who are critical of the government’s new IT rules are also skeptical of the tech industry’s response.  It is “not an existential crisis as everyone will have us believe,” said Mishi Choudhary, a technology lawyer and founder of India’s Software Freedom Law Center. Choudhary said users will be forced to stay on the sidelines, rather than taking an active role in discussions about their basic rights.  “Some of the companies are still playing the game of ‘we are a sales office’ or ‘our servers are in California,’ frustrating anyone who comes to their legitimate defense as well,” Choudhary said.  India has a long tradition of free speech, and its tech savvy market is attractive for U.S. tech firms looking to expand. Although the Indian constitution protects certain rights to freedom of speech, it has restrictions. Expressions are banned that threaten “the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.”Even before the recent tensions between tech firms and the government, India was among the top nations in the world seeking to restrict online speech. From Jan. 1, 2020, to June 1, 2020, India was one of the top five countries asking Twitter to remove content. For example, after violent protests on Jan. 26th involving farmers unhappy with new agricultural laws, the Modi government demanded Twitter block 500 accounts, including those of journalists, activists and opposition leaders. Twitter did so, and then eventually reversed course only to receive a noncompliance notice, according to a company statement. Several Indian journalists faced charges of sedition over their reporting and online posts following the protest by farmers. Among them is the executive editor of the Caravan magazine, Vinod K. Jose and although his Twitter handle is currently active, it was withheld in India this year.The official handle of @thecaravanindia is withheld in India: pic.twitter.com/2t4FV5IgM0— Vinod K. Jose (@vinodjose) February 1, 2021The government is also particularly sensitive about criticism of its handling of the coronavirus, asking that social media firms remove mention of the B.1617 variant as the “Indian variant.”  In May, the government ordered social media firms to remove any mention of the Indian variant. The variant first reported in India is now called Delta, according to the World Health Organization. Earlier this month, Twitter complied with a request from the government to block the Twitter account of Punjabi-born Jaswinder Singh Bains, alias JazzyB, a rapper. While Twitter informed him that he had been blocked for reportedly violating India’s Information Technology Act, he said he believes he was blocked for supporting the farmers in their protests, according to media reports. Jason Pielemeier, director of policy and strategy at the Global Network Initiative, an alliance of tech companies supporting freedom of expression online, wrote to the MeitY, Pielemeier calling attention to many issues with the new rules.  “Each of these concerns on its own can negatively impact freedom of expression and privacy in India,” he wrote. “Together, they create significant risk of undermining digital rights and trust in India’s regulatory approach to the digital ecosystem.” Twitter isn’t the only tech firm affected by new laws. WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging app owned by Facebook, filed a lawsuit in May against the Indian government arguing that the new rules allow for “mass surveillance.” According to the lawsuit, the new rules are illegal and “severely undermine” the right to privacy of its users.At issue for WhatsApp is that under the new rules, encryption would have to be removed, and according to The Guardian, messages would have to be in a “traceable” database. 

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Arts & Entertainment/Economy & business
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Pretrial Hearings Begin in Soccer Legend Maradona’s Death

An Argentine prosecutor began hearing evidence on Monday involving seven people accused of contributing to the death of soccer player Diego Maradona. Maradona, the revered former Boca Juniors and Napoli star who was addicted to alcohol and drugs for many years, died Nov. 25, 2020, from heart failure at age 60 after undergoing brain surgery earlier that month.   A medical board formally appointed to investigate Maradona’s death concluded that several members of the star’s medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner” and that he was not properly monitored before he died. Monday’s pretrial hearing had been delayed by an increase in coronavirus infections in Argentina. It began with questions to the nurse who, according to his own witness statement, was the last person to see Maradona alive. Questions will be put in the coming days to Maradona’s doctor, psychologist, neurosurgeon and personal physician, among others.   When the medical board’s report was presented to prosecutors in May, it accused the defendants of carrying out a plan with a “criminal purpose” and as part of a deficient care system around Maradona that contributed to his death.   If found guilty, all seven could face between eight and 25 years in prison. 

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Science & Health
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Novavax Reports Vaccine 90% Effective; Supply Questions Remain

Another highly effective vaccine is poised to join the fight against COVID-19.  But its impact may be blunted by supply issues. The manufacturer expected to produce the bulk of the doses is in India, where the government has banned vaccine exports.  FILE – A car drives past the sign for vaccine developer Novavax at the company’s headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Nov. 30, 2020.”Many of our first doses will go to … low- and middle-income countries, and that was the goal to begin with,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck told The Associated Press. The vaccine does not have the special cold storage requirements of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. That means low- and middle-income countries “can use the cold chain that they have already set up for routine childhood vaccines,” said William Moss, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University International Vaccine Access Center. “They don’t need to make modifications to handle the cold chain requirements” of the Pfizer and Moderna shots. Doses in limbo Novavax also has a deal with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to manufacture an additional 750 million doses of the vaccine.  SII is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and the main supplier of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to COVAX. But the Indian government has barred the company from exporting those doses as the country suffers through a devastating wave of COVID-19 infections.  People register their names to receive a coronavirus vaccine at a free camp in Kolkata, India, June 14, 2021.”Considering the situation in India, there are still a lot of questions about timing and volume (of Novavax vaccine) that would actually be available to the rest of the world,” said Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser to the Doctors Without Borders Access Campaign. “It’s really just a testament to how poorly we as a global community have diversified production sites,” she added. “Whatever candidate produces successful vaccines, that technology (and) that know-how needs to be made available to whoever can produce it.” The company does have manufacturing capacity in other countries, Moss noted, and as regulators authorize the vaccine, there need to be “efforts to scale up manufacturing at those other sites outside of India so that we can get that vaccine to the populations that need them.” “It just shows the trouble with perhaps putting a lot of eggs in one basket,” he added. “For the next few months, we’re really short on vaccine globally,” said former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Tom Frieden, who currently heads the global health nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives.  “Redistributing (vaccine doses), as the U.S. and others are doing, will be somewhat helpful, but not for many months,” he said. Over the weekend, the G-7 group of industrialized nations pledged 870 million vaccine doses to COVAX.  Questions about variants The results from the Novavax vaccine trial are impressive, but “what we still don’t have enough information on is how it will do against variants,” Frieden said.  Novavax reported that the vaccine was 93.2% effective against variants in the clinical trial, but it did not specify which variants.  The alpha variant, first identified in Britain and known to scientists as B.1.1.7, is the dominant viral strain in the United States. But in an earlier, smaller trial in South Africa, the vaccine was 51% effective against the dominant variant there, now known as beta.  
 

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