WASHINGTON: The conservative-leaning US Supreme Court refused on Friday to block a Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks, but left the door open for abortion providers to challenge the law in lower courts.

Anti-abortion groups welcomed the ruling, which did not address the constitutionality of the Texas law, while abortion rights advocates expressed concern.

“Today’s decision is not okay,“ said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates the Texas abortion clinics that filed suit against the law. “It is unjust, cruel, and inhumane.”

President Joe Biden said he was “very concerned” that the Supreme Court allowed the Texas law to stand and reiterated his commitment to abortion rights.

“I will always stand with women to protect and defend their long-recognized, constitutional right,“ the president said in a statement.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called it a “huge win” while Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, welcomed the fact that the Texas law will remain in force for now.

“We celebrate that the Texas Heartbeat Act will remain in effect, saving the lives of unborn children and protecting mothers while litigation continues in lower courts,“ Dannenfelser said in a statement.

The Texas ruling comes 10 days after the conservative majority on the court indicated in another case that they may be inclined to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that held that access to abortion is a constitutional right.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on December 1 about a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks, and the court’s conservative wing -- which includes three justices nominated by Donald Trump -- appeared ready to uphold the law and perhaps even go further and overturn Roe.

The court is to render a decision in the Mississippi case by June.

‘Chilling effect’

The Texas law bans abortion after six weeks, when a heartbeat can be detected but before many women even know they are pregnant, and is the most restrictive law passed in the United States since abortion was made a constitutional right nearly five decades ago.

Without ruling on the merits of the Texas law, eight of the nine justices on the court agreed that lawsuits filed by abortion providers against the law may proceed in federal court. Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, sided with the three liberal justices in expressing concerns about the Texas law and the way it has been framed to avoid judicial review.

“Given the ongoing chilling effect of the state law, the District Court should resolve this litigation and enter appropriate relief without delay,“ Roberts wrote.

“The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake.”

Laws restricting abortion have been passed in multiple Republican-led states but struck down by the courts for violating Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, typically around 22 to 24 weeks.

Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB8) differs from other efforts in that it attempts to insulate the state by giving members of the public the right to sue doctors who perform abortions -- or anyone who helps facilitate them -- once a heartbeat in the womb is detected.

They can be rewarded with $10,000 for initiating civil suits that land in court, prompting criticism that the state is encouraging people to take the law into their own hands.

Many clinics in Texas -- fearful of potentially ruinous lawsuits -- have closed their doors, and the number of abortions in the state fell to 2,100 in September from 4,300 a year earlier, according to a University of Texas study.

‘Madness’

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in an opinion joined by the other two liberal justices, said the court should have stepped in and blocked the Texas law.

“The Court should have put an end to this madness months ago, before SB8 first went into effect,“ Sotomayor wrote. “It failed to do so then, and it fails again today.”

“The law has threatened abortion care providers with the prospect of essentially unlimited suits for damages, brought anywhere in Texas by private bounty hunters,“ she said.

Public opinion polls have found most Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

But a segment of the population, particularly on the religious right, has never accepted the Roe v. Wade ruling and campaigned to have it overturned. — AFP

LIVERPOOL: The world’s wealthiest democracies will on Saturday seek to present a united front against Russian aggression toward Ukraine when Britain hosts a meeting of foreign ministers in the northern English city of Liverpool.

The G7 meeting, attended in person by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts from France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Canada, comes amid international concern Russia could invade Ukraine. Russia denies planning any attack.

“What we have to do is deter Russia from taking that course of action,“ British foreign minister Liz Truss told reporters ahead of the talks.

“What the G7 meeting this weekend .. is about, is about a show of unity between like-minded major economies, that we are going to absolutely be strong in our stance against aggression, against aggression with respect to Ukraine.”

Ukraine is at the centre of a crisis in East-West relations as it accuses Russia of massing tens of thousands of troops in preparation for a possible large-scale military offensive.

Russia accuses Ukraine and the United States of destabilising behaviour, and has said it needs security guarantees for its own protection.

Age of introspection

Britain, as current chair of the G7, is calling for its members to be more strident in their defence of what it calls “the free world”.

Earlier this week Truss said the “age of introspection” for the West was over and it needed to wake up to the dangers of rival ideologies. She has highlighted the economic risks of Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and the wider security threat posed by Chinese technology as examples.

The G7 meeting is also expected to result in a joint call for Iran to moderate its nuclear programme and grasp the opportunity of ongoing talks in Vienna to revive a multilateral agreement on its nuclear development.

Germany, which takes over the rotating G7 leadership from Britain next year, is expected to set out its programme for 2022 at the meeting. Ministers from the European Union, Australia, South Korea and India will take part in some sessions as guests of the G7, along with representatives from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). — Reuters

BRASILIA: Brazil’s health ministry said its website was hit on Friday by a hacker attack that took several systems down, including one with information about the national immunization program and another used to issue digital vaccination certificates.

The government put off for a week implementing new health requirements for travelers arriving in Brazil due to the attack.

“The health ministry reports that in the early hours of Friday it suffered an incident that temporarily compromised some of its systems ... which are currently unavailable,“ it said in a statement.

Police said they were investigating the attack.

The alleged hackers, calling themselves Lapsus$ Group” posted a message on the website saying that internal data had been copied and deleted. “Contact us if you want the data back,“ it said, in an apparent ransomware attack.

The message, which included e-mail and Telegram contact info, had been removed by Friday afternoon, but the web page was still down, while user data in the ConectSUS app that provides Brazilians with vaccination certificates had disappeared.

The ministry said it was working to restore its systems. At a news conference, Deputy Health Minister Rodrigo Cruz said access to the vaccination data had still not been recovered by Friday evening. Cruz said it was too early to say whether the data had been lost.

Under measures decided on Tuesday after President Jair Bolsonaro opposed the use of a vaccine passport, unvaccinated travelers arriving in Brazil will have to quarantine for five days and be tested for Covid-19.

The requirement was due to start on Saturday, but the government said that will be postponed for a week as vaccination data was not accessible online following the attack.

Covid-19 tracing forms for arriving airline passengers were still available on health regulator Anvisa’s website, which was not targeted. — Reuters

GENEVA: Omicron does not appear to cause more severe disease than previous Covid variants, and is “highly unlikely” to fully dodge vaccine protections, a top WHO official told AFP Tuesday.

Speaking to AFP, the World Health Organization's second-in-command, said that while a lot remained to be learned about the new, heavily mutated variant of Covid-19, preliminary data indicated it did not make people sicker than Delta and other strains.

“The preliminary data doesn’t indicate that this is more severe. In fact, if anything, the direction is towards less severity,“ WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said in an interview, insisting though that more research was needed.

“It’s very early days, we have to be very careful how we interpret that signal.”

At the same time, he said there was no sign that Omicron could fully sidestep protections provided by existing Covid vaccines.

“We have highly effective vaccines that have proved effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalisation,“ the 56-year-old epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon said.

“There’s no reason to expect that it wouldn’t be so” for Omicron, he said, pointing to early data from South Africa where the variant was first detected that “suggest the vaccine at least is holding up in protection terms”.

Ryan acknowledged it was possible that the existing vaccines might prove less effective against Omicron, which counts more than 30 mutations on the spike protein that dots the surface of the coronavirus and allows it to invade cells.

But he said it was “highly unlikely” it would be able to evade vaccine protections altogether.

“We have to confirm if there’s any lapse in that protection, but I would expect to see some protection there.

“The preliminary data from South Africa wouldn’t indicate that we will have a catastrophic loss of efficacy. In fact, the opposite at the moment.”

In the fight against all Covid variants, he said, “the best weapon we have right now is to get vaccinated.”

Two weeks after first being identified, Omicron has been found in dozens of countries around the world.

Early data from South Africa indicates that the new variant is likely more transmissible than previous variants, Ryan said, adding that this was not a surprise.

“When any new variant emerges, it will tend to be more transmissible, because it’s got to compete with previous variants,“ he said.

The fast-talking Irishman said one could expect Omicron to gradually replace Delta as the dominant strain.

But he pointed out that Omicron had so far been seen spreading especially quickly in South Africa, where Delta had waned, and may just be “exploiting a gap in the transmission of Delta”.

There are also indications that Omicron is better at infecting people who have been vaccinated or already had Covid.

“There is some evidence to suggest that reinfection with Omicron is more common than it was with previous waves or previous variants,“ Ryan said.

But “we’re particularly interested in seeing not whether you can be reinfected with Omicron, but whether any new infection is more or less severe.”

He said that, as the current Covid vaccines aim to prevent severe disease but do not necessarily protect against simply contracting the virus, reinfections with mild or no symptoms were of lesser concern.

In any case, Ryan said, despite its mutations, the new variant was still Covid, and should be fought with the same measures, including vaccines, masks and physical distancing.

“The virus hasn’t changed its nature. It may have changed in terms of its efficiency, but it hasn’t changed the game entirely,“ he said.

“The rules of the game are still the same.” - AFP

CASES of COVID-19 are on the rise across Canada’s most populous province of Ontario due to the Delta variant, while Omicron “will hit us hard and fast” next year, an expert panel said on Tuesday.

Ontario reported 928 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, up from 887 cases reported on Monday.

The province has so far found 21 cases of the Omicron variant, which was first detected last month in southern Africa and has since spread around the globe. Canada has had at least 36 cases of the new variant so far.

“COVID will almost certainly rise through January, even before Omicron hits us in full force,“ a provincial advisory body said.

“We can’t predict Omicron precisely, but it will almost certainly hit us hard and fast.”

In a briefing on Tuesday, the province’s top medical official called the panel’s projections “disconcerting.”

“I am concerned about the coming months and its potential impact on our healthcare system,“ chief medical officer Kieran Moore said.

The experts at the advisory body said vaccine effectiveness was very high, but too many Ontarians were unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated and could end up in hospital.

The cases and number of people in intensive care units are likely to continue to rise through January, putting more pressure on already-burdened hospitals, the panel said.

Canada last month authorized the use of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for 5 to 11 year-olds, the age group which has been seeing the highest incidences of COVID-19 in the country.

Ontario, which accounts for almost 40% of Canada’s population of 39 million people, has suspended its plan to lift restrictions on the number of people who can congregate in restaurants, bars and other such “high-risk settings”. - Reuters

BRASILIA: President Jair Bolsonaro(pix) on Tuesday criticized Brazil's health regulator Anvisa for proposing a vaccination requirement for travelers arriving in the country to help prevent the spread of new coronavirus variants.

“Anvisa wants to close the country’s airspace now. Not again, damn it,“ Bolsonaro said at a business event in Brasilia.

Anvisa last month proposed adopting a 'vaccination passport' for entry into Brazil, but the government has not yet decided on the matter, which Bolsonaro has repeatedly attacked.

Vaccine skepticism from Bolsonaro, who says he has not gotten a Covid-19 shot, has done little to dampen Brazilians' eagerness to get immunized, with more than 85% of adults now fully vaccinated. However his discretion over federal policy may settle the debate on requiring vaccines for travelers.

The government had scheduled a meeting on Monday to debate the issue. It was canceled after the Supreme Court gave 48 hours for the executive branch to explain why the vaccination passport has not yet been adopted.

Last week, at the suggestion of Anvisa, the government suspended flights from six countries in southern Africa, where the new, fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus was identified.

Bolsonaro repeated his criticism of Covid-19 vaccines on Tuesday, saying vaccinated people can still be infected, spread the coronavirus and die from Covid-19. He also minimized the new variant, saying there are “thousands of viruses” and the pandemic was ending.

While much is still not known about Omicron, unvaccinated people account for the vast majority of severe Covid-19 cases and deaths.

More than 600,000 Brazilians have died of Covid-19, the highest death toll outside of the United States, as critics have blasted Bolsonaro for playing down the severity of the virus, fighting lockdowns and slowing the acquisition of vaccines. -Reuters

LOS ANGELES: Rohingya refugees sued Facebook on Monday for $150 billion over claims the social network is failing to stem hate speech on its platform, exacerbating violence against the vulnerable minority.

The complaint, lodged in a California court, says the algorithms that power the US-based company promote disinformation and extremist thought that translates to real-world violence.

“Facebook is like a robot programmed with a singular mission: to grow,“ the court document states.

“The undeniable reality is that Facebook's growth, fueled by hate, division, and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of devastated Rohingya lives in its wake.”

The mainly Muslim group faces widespread discrimination in Myanmar, where they are despised as interlopers despite having lived in the country for generations.

A military-backed campaign that the United Nations said amounted to genocide saw hundreds of thousands of Rohingya driven across the border into Bangladesh in 2017, where they have since lived in sprawling refugee camps.

Many others remain in Myanmar, where they are not permitted citizenship and are subject to communal violence, as well as official discrimination by the ruling military junta.

The legal complaint argues that Facebook's algorithms drive susceptible users to join ever-more extreme groups, a situation that is “open to exploitation by autocratic politicians and regimes.”

Rights groups have long charged that Facebook does not do enough to prevent the spread of disinformation and misinformation online.

Critics say even when alerted to hate speech on its platform, the company fails to act.

They charge that the social media giant allows falsehoods to proliferate, affecting the lives of minorities and skewing elections in democracies such as the United States, where unfounded charges of fraud circulate and intensify among like-minded friends.

This year, a huge leak by a company insider sparked articles arguing Facebook, whose parent company is now called Meta, knew its sites could harm some of their billions of users -- but executives chose growth over safety.

Whistleblower Frances Haugen told the US Congress in October that Facebook is “fanning ethnic violence” in some countries.

Under US law, Facebook is largely protected from liability over content posted by its users.

The Rohingya lawsuit, anticipating this defense, argues that where applicable, the law of Myanmar -- which has no such protections -- should prevail in the case.

Facebook, which did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit, has been under pressure in the United States and Europe to clamp down on false information, particularly over elections and the coronavirus.

The company has forged partnerships with several media companies, including AFP, intended to verify online posts and remove those that are untrue.

WINDHOEK: Namibia's President Hage Geingob announced Monday that the first cases of the Omicron Covid-19 variant had been detected in the country, which was forced to dispose of 150,000 expired vaccine doses.

Geingob called on citizens to get booster jabs after 18 Omicron cases were identified in the country, which neighbours South Africa where the variant was first discovered last month.

Only 12.1 percent of Namibia's 2.4 million people are fully vaccinated so far, with the low uptake largely blamed on hesitancy.

“It is highly regrettable that we are forced to destroy in excess of 150,000 vaccines, which have reached expiry date because those who are eligible are refusing to be vaccinated,“ Geingob told a news conference in the capital Windhoek.

It was not immediately clear which vaccine formulas would be trashed.

A health ministry official said last month that 52,261 AstraZeneca shots were due to expire on November 30, while 215,996 Pfizer jabs will reach their use-by date in January and February next year.

The president said that “instead of throwing away vaccines, citizens who wish to go for booster jabs are encouraged to do so.”

He threatened to impose stricter measures ahead of the festive season “if the cases continue to rise and the citizens don’t change their behaviour, it will be the only sensible thing to do”.-AFP

WASHINGTON: The United States will impose “severe economic harm” on Russia and boost its military presence in Eastern Europe should Moscow invade Ukraine, the White House warned Monday, laying out the high stakes on the eve of talks between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin.

The US president will also quickly inform his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky of the details of his discussion with Putin, taking place by videoconference Tuesday, as tens of thousands of Russian troops were positioned near the Ukraine border, a senior US official told reporters.

The official said the White House does not know if Putin has made a decision to launch his military forces against Ukraine -- and stopped short of threatening direct use of American military force should he do so.

But Biden will make clear that there “will be genuine and meaningful and enduring costs to choosing to go forward should (Russia) choose to go forward with a military escalation,“ the official said, on grounds of anonymity.

The United States and European allies are prepared to take “substantial economic countermeasures ... that would impose significant and severe economic harm on the Russian economy” if Russia attacks, the official said.

In addition, Biden will make clear that if Putin “moved in, there would be an increasing request from eastern flank allies and a positive response from the United States for additional forces and capabilities and exercises,“ they said.

Ukraine has estimated that Russia has around 100,000 troops near its border.

Moscow denies any bellicose intentions and accuses the West of provocation, particularly with military exercises in the Black Sea, which it sees as part of its sphere of influence.

And Putin wants a promise from the West that Ukraine would not become a part of NATO, the transatlantic alliance created to confront the former Soviet Union.

A key question hanging over Tuesday's virtual summit is whether Putin might actually start a cross-border offensive, or is using the troops to pressure Biden for guarantees ex-Soviet Ukraine will never become a NATO launchpad.

The US official said that Biden will be speaking Monday with key European allies to coordinate their stances, and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would also talk to Zelensky beforehand.

Underscoring the close coordination between Washington and Kiev, Biden will brief Zelensky after the call, the official said.

Asked if the United States was prepared to send troops into Ukraine if Russia attacks, the official said they are “not seeking to end up in a circumstance in which the focus of our countermeasures is the direct use of American military force.”

Such talk, the official added, “would be precipitous conflict saber-rattling, and we’d prefer to keep those communications with the Russians private.”

The Kremlin said earlier Monday that Moscow is not expecting “breakthroughs” from the call.

“Although our bilateral relations are still in a very sad state, there is still a revival; dialogue is beginning in some areas,“ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The US official said Biden and Putin have other issues to discuss, including “strategic stability,“ or lowering the nuclear threat between the two; cyberattacks which Washington accuses Moscow of fomenting; and cooperation on reducing Iran’s nuclear threat.-AFP

HOUSTON: NASA announced Monday its 10 latest trainee astronauts, who include a firefighter turned Harvard professor, a former member of the national cycle team, and a pilot who led the first-ever all-woman F-22 formation in combat.

The 2021 class was whittled down from a field of more than 12,000 applicants and will now report for duty in January at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where they will undergo two years of training.

“We’re going back to the Moon, and we’re continuing on to Mars -- and so today we welcome 10 new explorers,“ NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at an event to welcome the recruits.

“Alone, each candidate has ‘the right stuff,‘ but together they represent the creed of our country: E pluribus unum - out of many, one,“ he added.

The 10 candidates, who range in age from 32 to 45, will learn how to operate and maintain the International Space Station, train for spacewalks, develop robotics skills, safely operate a T-38 training jet, and learn Russian to communicate with their counterparts.

After they graduate, they could be assigned to missions aboard the ISS or deeper into space, including NASA's planned return to the Moon later this decade under the Artemis mission, which will include the first woman and person of color to set foot on lunar soil.

The field was open to US citizens who hold a master's degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) field -- the first time such a requirement was added -- and passed an online test. The master's degree requirement could also be met by a medical degree or completion of a test pilot program.

- Childhood dreams -

“I first became interested in becoming an astronaut at a very, very early age,“ said Jessica Wittner, 38, a lieutenant commander in the US Navy who is a test pilot and aerospace engineer.

“I was that little girl in school who would play with rockets in the park by the house and loved science class.”

Others include fighter pilot Nichole Ayers who has more than 200 combat hours and is one of a few women currently flying the F-22 jet. In 2019 Ayers led the first all-woman formation of the aircraft in combat.

Christopher Williams, 38, is an assistant professor of medical physics at Harvard University.

“I was splitting my time between helping to research better ways we can target radiation therapy for cancer, and then actually working as part of a multidisciplinary team to treat patients,“ said Williams, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics from MIT and has served as a volunteer emergency medical technician and firefighter.

Anil Menon, 45, is a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force who was previously SpaceX's first flight surgeon before an earlier stint at NASA.

A physician born to parents from India and Ukraine, he was a first responder during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, 2015 earthquake in Nepal, and the 2011 Reno Air Show accident.

Christina Birch, 35, holds degrees in mathematics and biochemistry and molecular biophysics, as well as a doctorate in biological engineering from MIT.

She left a career in academia to race as a track cyclist on the US team, qualifying for the Olympics and winning World Cup medals in the team pursuit and Madison race.

NASA's last class graduated in 2017. Two of its members, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, are currently serving aboard the ISS.-AFP

FIJI: Fiji has reported its first case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, but the Pacific nation said it appeared to have been contained at the border and not reached the community.

Fiji's health department said in an update late Monday that Omicron was detected in two Fijian nationals who arrived from Nigeria via Hong Kong on November 25.

It said the pair were both fully vaccinated and had been in a border quarantine facility since their arrival because Nigeria was considered a high-risk “red zone” country.

“The indications are that we have averted community transmission at this time,“ Fiji health secretary James Fong said in a statement.

Two weeks after first being identified in South Africa, Omicron has now been found in about 40 countries around the world.

Fiji managed to eliminate Covid-19 for 12 months before a devastating second wave of the Delta variant earlier this year caused almost 700 deaths in the nation of one million.

But infections have dropped as the vaccination rate climbs over 90 percent, with 10 new cases and no deaths reported on Monday.

Fiji this week allowed the return of international tourists from selected “travel partner” countries, including some where Omicron is present.

Fong said finding the variant in border quarantine was “not unexpected, given how quickly it has spread worldwide”.-AFP

WASHINGTON: The United States Monday announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a calibrated rebuke of China's human rights record that stops short of preventing US athletes from competing.

The decision comes after Washington spent months wrangling with what position to take on the Games, hosted in February next year by a country it accuses of perpetrating “genocide” against Uyghur Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

There was no immediate reaction from Beijing, but the Chinese foreign ministry had earlier threatened “resolute countermeasures” to any such boycott.

The decision was broadly welcomed by rights groups and politicians in the US, where President Joe Biden has been under pressure to speak out against Chinese rights abuses.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the administration would send no diplomatic or official representation to the Games given China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

Sending official representation would signal that the Games were “business as usual,“ Psaki said.

“And we simply can’t do that.”

“The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home,“ she added.

The International Olympic Committee said the sending or not of officials was a “purely political decision for each government, which the IOC in its political neutrality fully respects.”

The announcement “also makes it clear that the Olympic Games and the participation of the athletes are beyond politics and we welcome this,“ an IOC spokesperson said.

US-China relations hit a low point under Biden's predecessor Donald Trump, with a massive trade war and incendiary debate over how the Covid-19 virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Biden has sought to re-engage with Beijing, while at the same time focusing on strengthening traditional US alliances to counter China's ever-growing economic clout and military presence across the Indo-Pacific region.

The Olympics boycott is part of a complex diplomatic balancing act.

Biden's administration has left Trump-era trade tariffs on China in place and continues to order naval patrols through sensitive international sea lanes that China is accused of trying to bring under its control.

However, with Biden also emphasizing the need for dialogue, critics on the right say he is being too soft.

This makes the looming Olympic Games a political flashpoint.

Members of Team USA, their coaches, trainers and other staff will still receive consular and diplomatic security assistance, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

When asked about calls for private businesses to end any Winter Games sponsorships, he stressed that the decision was up to them.

“It is not in this country -- unlike other countries -- the role of the government to dictate the practices that the private sector should adopt,“ Price said.

Campaigners say that at least one million Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in camps in Xinjiang, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilizing women and imposing forced labour.

Bob Menendez, the chair of the powerful US Senate foreign relations committee, welcomed the diplomatic boycott as “a powerful rebuke” of the “genocide in Xinjiang.”

He and top House foreign affairs Democrat Gregory Meeks called for other countries to follow the US lead.

Meeks warned the international community should not be helping China “whitewash its atrocities against Uyghurs and other minorities.”

But Republican Senator Tom Cotton called it a “half measure, when bold leadership was required.”

“The United States should fully boycott the Genocide Games in Beijing,“ he said in a statement.

The last full boycott of the Olympics by the US was in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter withdrew in protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

Human Rights Watch called the Biden administration’s decision “crucial” but urged more accountability “for those responsible for these crimes and justice for the survivors.”

Earlier Monday Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned the Games were “not a stage for political posturing and manipulation” -- in response to reports a boycott could be imminent.

“If the US is bent on having its own way, China will take resolute countermeasures,“ he vowed.

Coming just six months after the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Summer Games, the Winter Olympics will be held from February 4 to 20 in a “closed loop” bubble because of Covid-19 restrictions.

“To be honest, Chinese are relieved to hear the news, because the fewer US officials come, the fewer viruses will be brought in,“ tweeted the Chinese state-owned tabloid newspaper, Global Times.-AFP

PARIS: Covid treatments using plasma taken from the blood of recovered coronavirus patients should not be given to people with mild or moderate illness, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

Convalescent plasma showed some early promise when given intravenously to people sick with Covid-19.

But in advice published in the British Medical Journal, the WHO now says that “current evidence shows that it does not improve survival nor reduce the need for mechanical ventilation, and it is costly and time-consuming to administer”.

It made a “strong recommendation” against the use of blood plasma in people who do not have serious Covid-19 symptoms and said that even for patients with severe and critical illness, the treatment should only be given as part of a clinical trial.

Convalescent plasma is the liquid part of blood from a recovered Covid patient that contains antibodies produced by the body after being infected.

It was one of the array of potential treatments investigated early in the pandemic, but has shown limited benefit in clinical trials.

The WHO said its latest recommendations were based on evidence from 16 trials involving 16,236 patients with non-severe, severe, and critical Covid-19 infection.-AFP

WASHINGTON: Human rights advocate Malala Yousafzai(pix), who survived an attack by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012, argued Monday for stronger US support of Afghan girls and women during a visit to Washington.

“Afghanistan right now is the only country where girls do not have access to secondary education. They are prohibited from learning,“ the 24-year-old, who works with female Afghan activists, noted in remarks standing alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“This is the message of Afghan girls right now: we want to see a world where all girls can have access to safe and quality education,“ she added, while presenting a letter addressed to President Joe Biden from a 15-year-old Afghan girl named Sotodah.

Sotodah wrote in her letter that “the longer schools and universities remain closed to girls, the more it will shade hope for [their] future,“ according to Yousafzai.

“Girls’ education is a powerful tool for bringing peace and security,“ added Yousafzai, reading the letter, “If girls don’t learn, Afghanistan will suffer, too.”

Secondary schools in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regained power this summer, have reopened for boys only, and only men are permitted to teach.

“We hope that the United States, together with the UN, will take immediate actions to ensure that girls are allowed to go back to their schools as soon as possible,“ Yousafzai noted before a private meeting with the secretary.

Blinken, whose country this summer hastily withdrew its troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, saluted Yousafzai as “an inspiration to girls and women around the world,“ and someone who “by her work, by her efforts, is making a real difference.-AFP

SUMBERWULUH: The eruption of Semeru volcano has killed at least 14 people and injured dozens on Java island, Indonesia's disaster agency said on Sunday, as rescue teams searched for victims under layers of ash, sometimes digging with their bare hands.

Semeru, the tallest mountain on Java, threw up towers of ash and hot clouds on Saturday that blanketed nearby villages in East Java province and sent people fleeing in panic.

The eruption destroyed buildings and severed a strategic bridge connecting two areas in the nearby district of Lumajang with the city of Malang, authorities said.

A BNPB official said in a news conference late on Sunday that 14 people had been killed, nine of whom have been identified, and 56 people suffered injuries, most of them burns.

Around 1,300 people have been evacuated, while nine people remain unaccounted for, BNPB said.

Taufiq Ismail Marzuqi, a resident in the district of Lumajang who had volunteered to help, told Reuters that rescue efforts were “very dire” because of the severed bridge and volunteers lacking experience.

In a video he recorded, police and military officials tried to excavate bodies with their bare hands.

Rescuers in the village of Curah Kobokan, also in Lumajang, found the body of a mother still holding her dead baby, the state news agency Antara reported.

A Reuters witness in the Sumberwuluh area said homes and vehicles were almost completely submerged by thick, grey ash, fallen trees blocked roads and a cow which villagers had been unable to rescue lay by the roadside, the witness said.

Hosniya, a 31-year-old local resident who was evacuated with her family, told Reuters that the eruption was very sudden.

“At first, I thought it was a bomb explosive...suddenly it was all dark, like it was going to destroy the earth,“ she said.

Hosniya and her family fled, unable to take anything with them other than their official papers.

Heavy rain is expected for the next three days, which could complicate evacuation efforts, a meteorological agency official said late on Sunday. Rock debris and hot volcanic sediment were already limiting movement, local rescuers said.

BNPB will rebuild the wrecked homes, and heavy equipment, including excavators and bulldozers, is being deployed, its chief said.

The agency also said that 10 people trapped in sand mines by the eruption had been evacuated to safety.

Semeru, which according to volcano experts has been in an eruptive phase since 2014 https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=263300, had started emitting hot clouds and lava flows recently, prompting the authorities to issue warnings for people not to go near it from Wednesday.

Indonesia's transportation ministry said on Sunday the eruption had not caused any disruption to flights, though pilots have been alerted to watch out for the ashfall.

Semeru, more than 3,600 metres (12,000 feet) high, is one of Indonesia's nearly 130 active volcanoes.

Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

While many Indonesian volcanoes show high levels of continued activity, eruptions can be years apart. In 2010, an eruption of the Merapi volcano on Java island killed over 350 people and displaced 400,000.-Reuters

PARIS: International Tennis Federation president David Haggerty said Sunday that his organisation will not boycott China over the Peng Shuai(pix) affair as “we don’t want to punish a billion people”.

The WTA, which controls the women’s game, last week suspended all tournaments in China amid what its chairman called “serious doubts” about the safety of Chinese player Peng, who accused a top Communist Party leader of sexual assault.

WTA chair and CEO Steve Simon said the move -- which could cost the WTA hundreds of millions of dollars -- had the “full support” of the tour’s board of directors.

However, the ATP, which governs men's tennis, has refused to follow the WTA's example.

Now the ITF, the overall ruling body of tennis, has also rejected such a move.

“As the governing body of tennis, we stand in support of all women’s rights,“ Haggerty told the BBC.

“The allegations (of Peng) need to be looked into, and we will continue to work behind the scenes and directly to bring this to resolution.

“But you have to remember that the ITF is the governing body of the sport worldwide, and one of the things that we are responsible for is grassroots development.

“We don’t want to punish a billion people, so we will continue to run our junior events in the country and our senior events that are there for the time being.”

Peng, a 35-year-old Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion, has alleged that former Chinese vice-premier Zhang Gaoli, now in his 70s, forced her into sex during a years-long on-and-off relationship.

The WTA's stance has been widely supported by some of the sport's biggest names.

Men’s world number one and 20-time Grand Slam title winner Novak Djokovic called the suspension of tournaments “very bold and very courageous”.

Billie Jean King, a 12-time Grand Slam singles winner and leading voice for women’s rights, tweeted that the WTA was “on the right side of history.”-AFP

WASHINGTON: Early indications of the severity of the Omicron Covid-19 variant are “a bit encouraging,“ top US pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci said Sunday, while cautioning more information was still needed.

“Omicron has a transmission advantage” in South Africa, where the variant was first reported, Fauci said in a CNN interview, noting the country had a low level of cases before it saw “almost a vertical spike upwards, which is almost exclusively Omicron.”

“Though it’s too early to really make any definitive statements about it, thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it,“ he said.

“Thus far, the signals are a bit encouraging.”

Medical experts have in recent days underscored that the South African population skews young and that more severe cases could emerge in the coming weeks.

Lab tests are underway to determine whether Omicron -- a heavily mutated strain of the virus -- is more transmissible than other strains, resistant to immunity from vaccination and infection or more severe, with results expected within weeks.

“I think that there’s a real risk that we’re going to see a decrease in effectiveness of the vaccines,“ Stephen Hoge, president of vaccine producer Moderna, told ABC.

“What I don’t know is how substantial that is,“ he added. “Is it going to be the kind of thing that we saw with the Delta variant, which is, ultimately vaccines were still effective, or are we going to see something like a 50 percent decrease in efficacy, which would mean we need to reboot the vaccines.”

Moderna, like other pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, has already started work to adapt their vaccines if necessary.

Cases of the Omicron variant have so far been confirmed in at least 15 states and some 40 countries.

The United States last week imposed a travel ban on South Africa and seven other southern African countries to stem the variant spread.

Fauci said on Sunday he hoped the restrictions would be lifted “within a quite reasonable period of time.”

KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Sunday rejected condemnation by Western nations over dozens of alleged “summary killings” of former security force personnel documented by rights groups since the Islamists returned to power.

The US, other Western nations and allies on Saturday said they were “deeply concerned” by allegations by Human Rights Watch and others that point to “serious human rights abuses”.

Alleged summary killings and enforced disappearances “contradict” an amnesty declared by the Taliban for former security force personnel after the Islamists defeated a Western-backed regime and retook control of the country in mid-August, the State Department said.

The European Union, Australia, Britain, Japan and others also put their names to the statement.

But the Taliban's Interior Ministry on Sunday rejected both the Western rebuke and rights groups' allegations.

“These reports and claims are not based on evidences,“ spokesman Qari Sayed Khosti said in a video statement released by the Taliban. “We reject such claims.”

“We have some cases where some former ANDSF members were killed but they have been killed because of personal rivalries and enmities,“ he said, referring to the now-defunct Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.

Many ex-regime security personnel “who had martyred hundreds of mujahideen and civilians are living peacefully” in the country on the basis of the general amnesty the Taliban granted, he added.

HRW on November 30 released a report that it says documents the summary execution or enforced disappearance of 47 former members of the ANDSF, other military personnel, police and intelligence agents “who had surrendered to or were apprehended by Taliban forces” from mid-August through October.

The Taliban's return came some 20 years after they were driven out by US forces who toppled a government that earned outrage for its brutal treatment of women, failure to uphold human rights and harsh interpretation of Islam.

Today's Taliban leaders, keen to gain international respectability, have pledged their regime will be different.

But in its report HRW said Taliban leaders have directed surrendering security forces to register with authorities in order to be screened for ties to certain military or special forces units, and to receive a letter guaranteeing their safety.

“The Taliban have used these screenings to detain and summarily execute or forcibly disappear individuals within days of their registration, leaving their bodies for their relatives or communities to find,“ HRW said.

Calling for an investigation into these incidents, the joint statement released by the State Department said: “We will continue to measure the Taliban by their actions.”

“We underline that the alleged actions constitute serious human rights abuses and contradict the Taliban’s announced amnesty,“ the US-led group of nations said, as they called on Afghanistan’s new rulers to ensure the amnesty is enforced and “upheld across the country and throughout their ranks.”

The Taliban demanded that the claims be backed by evidence.

“If they have documents and evidences they should share it with us,“ Khosti said, adding that falsely “tagging personal enmities” onto actions by the Taliban authorities “is unjust”.

Washington held talks with Taliban officials earlier this week, the second round of discussions since US forces left the country at the end of August.

At the talks, in Doha, US officials urged the hardline Islamist group to provide access to education for women and girls across the country.

It also “expressed deep concern regarding allegations of human rights abuses”, a US spokesman said.

Cut off from billions of dollars in aid provided to the previous regime, Afghanistan's new rulers -- designated Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the US -- are grappling with an insurgency by a division of the Islamic State and are struggling to feed millions of people as Winter descends.-AFP

BAGHDAD: It was meant to compete with the Taj Mahal in grandeur, but former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's monumental Al-Rahman Mosque project was never completed.

Instead, the half-finished edifice of grey concrete stands in the heart of Baghdad as testimony to the sectarian and political strife that has shaped much of Iraq's modern history.

The aim was for the mosque, with a capacity for 15,000 worshippers, to be one of the largest in the Middle East.

Launched in the 1990s in the midst of a crippling Western embargo over Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, the construction of the mosque was designed to be a snub to Washington.

But the dictator's dreams of grandeur -- along with them his iron-fisted rule -- would come crumbling down with the 2003 US-led invasion.

Today, a vast hole gapes at the sky from where an 84-metre-tall (280-foot), gold-adorned ceramic dome was supposed to cover the central prayer hall.

Around it, eight secondary domes 28 metres high, each flanked by eight smaller domes, stand in a suspended state of near completion.

Several cranes are frozen in time above the edifice, which towers over the upscale Mansur district of the capital.

“Unfortunately, we’ve neglected the country’s heritage,“ architect and university professor Mohamed Qassem Abdel Ghaffour told AFP.

“These projects belong to all Iraqis, we should make use of this heritage, and turn them into cultural and touristic sites,“ he added.

“All of this is Iraq’s money and the state must profit from it.”

Although it was initially built as a Sunni mosque, it was taken over by Shiite clerics after the fall of Saddam.

Today, it is a symbol of division between Shiites, now the dominant political force in Baghdad after decades of marginalisation in the Shiite-majority Arab state.

“After the fall of the old regime, the mosque fell under the control of the Islamic Virtue Party,“ a senior government official who asked to remain anonymous told AFP.

“The party was never able to complete construction, because the costs are huge.”

Saddam Hussein “wanted a mosque bigger than the Taj Mahal”, he recalled.

The Islamic Virtue Party has blocked government plans to turn the mosque into a university or museum, the official said.

Although the party's takeover of the mosque remains unofficial, its members hold the main weekly prayers each Friday at noon under one of the secondary domes.

About 150 families have lived for years in makeshift homes that sprouted on vacant lots surrounding the mosque.

In January 2020, a court recognised the authority of the Shiite waqf -- the institution that manages the community's religious properties -- over the mosque.

The verdict obliged the Islamic Virtue Party to pay $200 million in compensation, according to a statement from the waqf.

The waqf accuses the party of having occupied the site “for more than 16 years”, “without any legal or religious legitimacy”.

But the court ruling has not been enforced.

Activist Subeih al-Kachtini said that Iraqi security forces had tried several times to intervene.

“But faced with the weapons of the state, there are the weapons of the parties,“ he said.

Development of land adjacent to the mosque to build a shopping centre or a housing complex could create up to 20,000 jobs, according to the waqf.

But “construction cannot resume until the mosque is removed from partisan conflicts”, Kachtini said, and the status quo remains.

For Caecilia Pieri, a researcher at the French Institute of the Near East, the mosque testifies to the “policy of architectural symbolism” of Saddam’s Baathist regime.

The late dictator’s approach could be summed up as: “I write Allah Akbar (God is Greatest) on the national flag and build mosques,“ said Pieri, a specialist in the architecture of Baghdad in the 20th century.

Mazen al-Alussi, who headed the department in charge of conception and planning under Saddam, said the project was a “one of a kind” initiative.

The cost to complete the mosque need not be exorbitant, said Alussi. “It should be turned into a unified mosque where both Shiites and Sunnis can pray.”-AFP