A ransomware attack paralyzed the networks of at least 200 U.S. companies on Friday, according to a cybersecurity researcher whose company was responding to the incident. The REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the attack, said John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs. He said the criminals targeted a software supplier called Kaseya, using its network management package as a conduit to spread the ransomware through cloud service providers. Other researchers agreed with Hammond’s assessment. “Kaseya handles large enterprise all the way to small businesses globally, so ultimately, [this] has the potential to spread to any size or scale business,” Hammond said in a direct message on Twitter. “This is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack.” Such cyberattacks typically infiltrate widely used software and spread malware as it updates automatically. It was not immediately clear how many Kaseya customers might be affected or who they might be. Kaseya urged customers in a statement on its website to immediately shut down servers running the affected software. It said the attack was limited to a “small number” of its customers. Brett Callow, a ransomware expert at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, said he was unaware of any previous ransomware supply-chain attack on this scale. There have been others, but they were fairly minor, he said. “This is SolarWinds with ransomware,” he said. He was referring to a Russian cyberespionage hacking campaign discovered in December that spread by infecting network management software to infiltrate U.S. federal agencies and scores of corporations. Cybersecurity researcher Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec, said he was already working with six companies hit by the ransomware. It’s no accident that this happened before the Fourth of July weekend, when IT staffing is generally thin, he added. “There’s zero doubt in my mind that the timing here was intentional,” he said. Hammond of Huntress said he was aware of four managed-services providers — companies that host IT infrastructure for multiple customers — being hit by the ransomware, which encrypts networks until the victims pay off attackers. He said thousand of computers were hit. “We currently have three Huntress partners who are impacted with roughly 200 businesses that have been encrypted,” Hammond said. Hammond wrote on Twitter: “Based on everything we are seeing right now, we strongly believe this [is] REvil/Sodinikibi.” The FBI linked the same ransomware provider to a May attack on JBS SA, a major global meat processor. The White House and the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
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Month: July 2021
Russia Bolsters Presence in Central African Republic With 600 More Military Instructors
Russia recently sent a group of 600 military instructors to the Central African Republic to train the army, police, and national gendarmerie, Russia’s foreign ministry said Friday.Moscow is in the spotlight after a United Nations report, seen by Reuters Tuesday, said Russian military instructors and local troops had targeted civilians with excessive force, indiscriminate killings, occupation of schools and large-scale looting.The Kremlin has said it is a lie that Russian instructors had taken part in killings or robberies.Russia notified the United Nations Security Council of the deployment of the 600 instructors, Russia’s foreign ministry told Reuters in a statement Friday. It did not say when exactly they arrived.Moscow has been jockeying for influence in the troubled African nation with France, which has around 300 troops there. The gold and diamond-rich country of 4.7 million people is mired in violence.Moscow’s latest deployment of instructors comes after it said it had sent 175 instructors to CAR to train the army at the request of the local authorities in 2018, a number that subsequently grew to 235. Another batch of 300 were sent ahead of last December’s elections to train local troops, it said.”The Russian specialists will continue their work based on the needs of the official authorities of the CAR, taking into account CAR’s leadership as well as the ongoing clashes between regular CAR troops and militants,” the foreign ministry said.It said that the instructors would not themselves be involved in combat operations against illegal groups.”The goals of achieving a lasting settlement and ensuring security in the country cannot be met without effective support for the CAR authorities in enhancing the combat capabilities of the national armed forces and law enforcement agencies,” it said.
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Explainer: When is the War in Afghanistan Really Over?
As the last U.S. combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, the question arises: When is the war really over? For Afghans the answer is clear but grim: no time soon. An emboldened Taliban insurgency is making battlefield gains, and prospective peace talks are stalled. Some fear that once foreign forces are gone, Afghanistan will dive deeper into civil war. Though degraded, an Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State extremist network also lurks. For the United States and its coalition partners, the endgame is murky. Although all combat troops and 20 years of accumulated war materiel will soon be gone, the head of U.S Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, will have authority until September to defend Afghan forces against the Taliban. He can do so by ordering strikes with U.S. warplanes based outside of Afghanistan, according to defense officials who discussed details of military planning on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials said Friday that the U.S. military has left Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years. The facility was the epicenter of the war, but its transfer to the Afghan government did not mark the U.S. military’s final withdrawal from the country. Two officials say the airfield was handed over in its entirety. They spoke on condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to disclose the handover to the media. A look at the end of the war: What’s left of the combat mission? Technically, U.S. forces haven’t been engaged in ground combat in Afghanistan since 2014. But counterterrorism troops have been pursuing and hitting extremists since then, including with Afghanistan-based aircraft. Those strike aircraft are now gone and those strikes, along with any logistical support for Afghan forces, will be done from outside the country. Inside Afghanistan, U.S. troops will no longer be there to train or advise Afghan forces. An unusually large U.S. security contingent of 650 troops, based at the U.S. Embassy compound, will protect American diplomats and potentially help secure the Kabul international airport. Turkey is expected to continue its current mission of providing airport security, but McKenzie will have authority to keep as many as 300 more troops to assist that mission until September. It’s also possible that the U.S. military may be asked to assist any large-scale evacuation of Afghans seeking Special Immigrant Visas, although the State Department-led effort may not require a military airlift. The White House is concerned that Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort, and are thereby vulnerable to Taliban retribution, not be left behind. When he decided in April to bring the U.S. war to a close, President Joe Biden gave the Pentagon until Sept. 11 to complete the withdrawal. The Army general in charge in Kabul, Scott Miller, has essentially finished it already, with nearly all military equipment gone and few troops left. Miller remained in the country Friday but is expected to depart in coming days. But will his departure constitute the end of the U.S. war? With as many as 950 U.S. troops in the country until September and the potential for continued airstrikes, the answer is probably not. How wars end Unlike Afghanistan, some wars end with a flourish. World War I was over with the armistice signed with Germany on Nov. 11, 1918 — a day now celebrated as a federal holiday in the U.S. — and the later signing of the Treaty of Versailles. World War II saw dual celebrations in 1945 with Germany’s surrender marking Victory in Europe (V-E Day) and Japan’s surrender a few months later as Victory Over Japan (V-J Day) following the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Korea, an armistice signed in July 1953 ended the fighting, although technically the war was only suspended because no peace treaty was ever signed. Other endings have been less clear-cut. The U.S. pulled troops out of Vietnam in 1973, in what many consider a failed war that ended with the fall of Saigon two years later. And when convoys of U.S. troops drove out of Iraq in 2011, a ceremony marked their final departure. But just three years later, American troops were back to rebuild Iraqi forces that collapsed under attacks by Islamic State militants. Victory or defeat?As America’s war in Afghanistan draws to a close, there will be no surrender and no peace treaty, no final victory and no decisive defeat. Biden says it was enough that U.S. forces dismantled al-Qaida and killed Osama bin Laden, the group’s leader considered the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Lately, violence in Afghanistan has escalated. Taliban attacks on Afghan forces and civilians have intensified and the group has taken control of more than 100 district centers. Pentagon leaders have said there is “medium” risk that the Afghan government and its security forces collapse within the next two years, if not sooner. U.S. leaders insist the only path to peace in Afghanistan is through a negotiated settlement. The Trump administration signed a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that said the U.S. would withdraw its troops by May 2021 in exchange for Taliban promises, including that it keep Afghanistan from again being a staging arena for attacks on America. U.S. officials say the Taliban are not fully adhering to their part of the bargain, even as the U.S. continues its withdrawal. NATO missionThe NATO Resolute Support mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces began in 2015, when the U.S.-led combat mission was declared over. At that point the Afghans assumed full responsibility for their security, yet they remained dependent on billions of dollars a year in U.S. aid. At the peak of the war, there were more than 130,000 troops in Afghanistan from 50 NATO nations and partner countries. That dwindled to about 10,000 troops from 36 nations for the Resolute Support mission, and as of this week most had withdrawn their troops. Some may see the war ending when NATO’s mission is declared over. But that may not happen for months. According to officials, Turkey is negotiating a new bilateral agreement with Afghan leaders in order to remain at the airport to provide security. Until that agreement is completed, the legal authorities for Turkish troops staying in Afghanistan are under the auspices of the Resolute Support mission. Counterterror missionThe U.S. troop withdrawal doesn’t mean the end of the war on terrorism. The U.S. has made it clear that it retains the authority to conduct strikes against al-Qaida or other terrorist groups in Afghanistan if they threaten the U.S. homeland. Because the U.S. has pulled its fighter and surveillance aircraft out of the country, it must now rely on manned and unmanned flights from ships at sea and air bases in the Gulf region, such as al-Dhafra air base in the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon is looking for basing alternatives for surveillance aircraft and other assets in countries closer to Afghanistan. As yet, no agreements have been reached.
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Experts Question if WHO Should Lead Pandemic Origins Probe
As the World Health Organization draws up plans for the next phase of its probe of how the coronavirus pandemic started, an increasing number of scientists say the U.N. agency it isn’t up to the task and shouldn’t be the one to investigate.Numerous experts, some with strong ties to WHO, say that political tensions between the U.S. and China make it impossible for an investigation by the agency to find credible answers.They say what’s needed is a broad, independent analysis closer to what happened in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.The first part of a joint WHO-China study of how COVID-19 started concluded in March that the virus probably jumped to humans from animals and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.” The next phase might try to examine the first human cases in more detail or pinpoint the animals responsible — possibly bats, perhaps by way of some intermediate creature.But the idea that the pandemic somehow started in a laboratory — and perhaps involved an engineered virus — has gained traction recently, with President Joe Biden ordering a review of U.S. intelligence within 90 days to assess the possibility.Earlier this month, WHO’s emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, said that the agency was working out the final details of the next phase of its probe and that because WHO works “by persuasion,” it lacks the power to compel China to cooperate.Some said that is precisely why a WHO-led examination is doomed to fail.“We will never find the origins relying on the World Health Organization,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University. “For a year and a half, they have been stonewalled by China, and it’s very clear they won’t get to the bottom of it.”Women wait to receive the vaccine for COVID-19 in New Delhi, India, July 2, 2021.Gostin said the U.S. and other countries can either try to piece together what intelligence they have, revise international health laws to give WHO the powers it needs, or create some new entity to investigate.The first phase of WHO’s mission required getting China’s approval not only for the experts who traveled there but for their entire agenda and the report they ultimately produced.Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, called it a “farce” and said that determining whether the virus jumped from animals or escaped from a lab is more than a scientific question and has political dimensions beyond WHO’s expertise.The closest genetic relative to COVID-19 was previously discovered in a 2012 outbreak, after six miners fell sick with pneumonia after being exposed to infected bats in China’s Mojiang mine. In the past year, however, Chinese authorities sealed off the mine and confiscated samples from scientists while ordering locals not to talk to visiting journalists.Although China initially pushed hard to look for the coronavirus’s origins, it pulled back abruptly in early 2020 as the virus overtook the globe. An Associated Press investigation last December found Beijing imposed restrictions on the publication of COVID-19 research, including mandatory review by central government officials.Jamie Metzl, who sits on a WHO advisory group, has suggested along with colleagues the possibility of an alternative investigation set up by the Group of Seven industrialized nations.Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, said the U.S. must be willing to subject its own scientists to a rigorous examination and recognize that they might be just as culpable as China.“The U.S. was deeply involved in research at the laboratories in Wuhan,” Sachs said, referring to U.S. funding of controversial experiments and the search for animal viruses capable of triggering outbreaks.“The idea that China was behaving badly is already the wrong premise for this investigation to start,” he said. “If lab work was somehow responsible (for the pandemic), the likelihood that it was both the U.S. and China working together on a scientific initiative is very high.”
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COVAX Urges Countries Not to Widen Vaccine Divide
COVAX, the World Health Organization initiative for the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, is urging countries to recognize as fully vaccinated all people who have received COVID-19 vaccines that COVAX has recognized as safe and effective.“Any measure that only allows people protected by a subset of WHO-approved vaccines to benefit from the re-opening of travel,” COVAX said, would only serve to further widen “the global vaccine divide.” Such a move would also intensify “the inequities we have already seen in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines,” the COVAX statement said.India said Friday it has sent teams to six states to contain high COVID infection rates. The states receiving the teams are Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Manipur.India’s health ministry said Friday it had recorded 46,617 new cases and 853 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.On Thursday, Washington announced it is dispatching “surge response” teams to U.S. areas hard hit by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, recently said the variant first identified in India poses the “greatest threat” to bringing an end to the COVID outbreak in the U.S.Also Thursday, Johnson & Johnson announced that “its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine generated strong, persistent activity against the rapidly spreading delta variant and other highly prevalent SARS-CoV-2 viral variants. In addition, the data showed that the durability of the immune response lasted through at least eight months, the length of time evaluated to date.”The World Health Organization’s African region is facing a serious third wave of COVID-19 cases, driven by variants throughout the continent.In a virtual briefing with reporters Thursday, WHO Africa Regional Director Matshidiso Moeti said new cases have increased in Africa by an average of 25% for six straight weeks to almost 202,000 in the week ending June 27, with deaths rising by 15% across 38 African countries to nearly 3,000 in the same period.“The speed and scale of Africa’s third wave is like nothing we’ve seen before,” Moeti said. “The rampant spread of more contagious variants pushes the threat to Africa up to a whole new level.”Meanwhile, WHO European Regional Director Hans Kluge said Thursday that region’s streak of 10 straight weeks of declining COVID-19 cases has come to end. During his weekly briefing in Copenhagen, he said cases in the region’s 53 countries increased 10% last week.Kluge attributed the rise to “increased mixing, travel, gatherings and easing of social restrictions,” which he said is taking place amid “a rapidly evolving situation” – the emergence of the more transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus, a situation aggravated by the region’s slow rate of vaccinations.Women stand in a line to get tested for COVID-19 in New Delhi, India, July 2, 2021.Elsewhere in Europe, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer called the decision by the organizers of the Euro Cup 2020 soccer championships “utterly irresponsible” for holding their tournament during a pandemic.Seehofer said the decision by the Union of European Football Associations to hold games in stadiums around Europe with largely unmasked crowds of up to 60,000 people was clearly more about commerce than protection. He said that while some localities put restrictions on the crowds, the organization should have made those decisions itself.Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced Thursday that new emergency measures will go into effect Saturday for the islands of Java and Bali to blunt the rise of new cases in the world’s fourth most-populous country.The measures, which include tighter restrictions on movement and air travel, a ban on restaurant dining and the closure of nonessential offices, will last through July 20, a period that includes the Muslim holiday of Eid.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Friday that it has recorded 129.6 million global COVID cases and nearly 4 million deaths.The United States has remains the world leader in COVID cases with 33.7 million cases, followed by India with 30.4 million and Brazil with 18.6 million.Johns Hopkins says more than 3 billion vaccines have been administered.
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Billionaire Blast Off: Richard Branson Plans Space Trip Ahead of Rival Bezos
Call it a space race for billionaires: British mogul Richard Branson one-upped rival Jeff Bezos on Thursday, announcing that he too will blast beyond Earth’s atmosphere — as many as nine days ahead of the Amazon founder.With both tycoons having created space tourism companies and positioned themselves as leaders in the suborbital-flights-for-the-wealthy sector, the move signaled clear if not fierce competition.The announcement follows Bezos’ proclamation in early June that he and his brother would be part of the crew on the first manned flight aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle.The move stole the thunder from Branson, who had long vowed to participate in a Virgin Galactic test flight before the launch of regular commercial operations slated for 2022.The tables were turned on Thursday however: while Bezos may have thought he could dominate the day’s space news with a morning announcement that barrier-breaking 82-year-old female aviator Wally Funk would join him on his New Shepard flight, it was Branson who had the last laugh.Virgin Galactic announced Branson would be a “mission specialist” aboard the SpaceShipTwo Unity, which will go to space as early as July 11, “pending weather and technical checks.””I truly believe that space belongs to all of us,” Branson said, adding that “Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good.”If the schedule holds, Branson will make it to the cosmos before Bezos, who said he would travel to space on July 20.Better than ‘the guys’Branson “will evaluate the private astronaut experience and will undergo the same training, preparation and flight as Virgin Galactic’s future astronauts,” the company said.While Branson’s trip has been several years in the making, Funk’s is 60 years overdue: she was one of the Mercury 13 — the first women trained to fly to space from 1960-61, but excluded because of their gender.When she blasts off with the Bezos brothers, Funk will become the oldest person ever to go to space, taking part in the journey not only with the siblings but also one other traveler who paid $28 million at auction for the seat.”I can hardly wait,” Funk said in a video posted on Bezos’ Instagram account, where she is seen hugging the Amazon founder in an explosion of joy.The oldest person to have travelled in space so far is U.S. astronaut John Glenn, who flew in 1998 at the age of 77 on the space shuttle Discovery.A seasoned pilot, Funk has accumulated 19,600 flight hours, and was also the National Transportation Safety Board’s first female air safety inspector.Funk recalled her time in the Mercury 13 program, stating that “they told me that I had done better and completed the work faster than any of the guys.””So I got ahold of NASA, four times. I said I want to become an astronaut, but nobody would take me. I didn’t think that I would ever get to go up.”Writing on Instagram, Bezos said, “It’s time. Welcome to the crew, Wally.”Ironically, Funk had also purchased a ticket years ago to fly into space with Virgin Galactic.Apples and orangesThe spacecraft developed by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are very different, even if the passengers will ultimately have more or less the same experience: a few minutes of weightlessness.In the case of Virgin Galactic, the spacecraft is not a classic rocket, but rather a carrier airplane that reaches a high altitude and releases a smaller spacecraft, the VSS Unity, that fires its engines and reaches suborbital space, then glides back to Earth.Blue Origin, meanwhile, is more of a classic rocket experience, with a vertical launch after which a capsule will separate from its booster, then spend four minutes at an altitude exceeding 100 kilometers, during which time those on board experience weightlessness and can observe the curvature of Earth.The booster lands autonomously on a pad 3.2 kilometers from the launch site, and the capsule floats back to the surface with three large parachutes that slow it down to about 1.6 kph when it lands.
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Private Firms Keep Expanding Operations in Space
Private space operations continue to expand. Plus, Europe’s space agency continues its quest for diversity, and a French astronaut makes good — sort of — on a promise to his crewmates. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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Chinese Hackers Attacked Afghan Council Network, Cybersecurity Firm Says
As part of a cyberespionage operation targeting Central Asian countries, Chinese hackers recently sought to breach the computer networks of Afghanistan’s National Security Council, researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point reported.The alleged attack by the Chinese-speaking hacking group known to cybersecurity experts as IndigoZebra is the latest in an operation that goes back as far as 2014 and has targeted political entities in neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the researchers wrote in a FILE – An iPhone displays a Facebook page, Aug. 11, 2019. Facebook said March 24, 2021, that hackers in China had used fake accounts and impostor websites in a bid to break into the phones of Uyghur Muslims.This is the first major Chinese cyberespionage operation in Afghanistan to come to light, coming just weeks after An icon for the Pulse Secure smartphone app, right, and a computer desktop info page are seen in Burke, Va., June 14, 2021. Suspected Chinese hackers penetrated U.S. entities’ computers in what cybersecurity experts called a major espionage campaign.China conducts large-scale cyberespionage operations around the world, cybersecurity experts say. In its latest threat assessment to Congress, the U.S. intelligence community wrote in April that China “presents a prolific and effective cyberespionage threat, possesses substantial cyber-attack capabilities, and presents a growing influence threat.”The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.Check Point researchers said they investigated the cyberattack in Afghanistan after stumbling upon a suspicious email on a website that detects malware in email communications. The email had been apparently posted by one of its recipients on the Afghan National Security Council, according to Alexandra Gofman, the lead investigator on the Check Point team that probed the operation.Khalid Mafton of VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report.
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South African Firm to Produce COVID-19 Vaccine for African Countries
The South African pharmaceutical company Aspen has begun production of hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine for African countries. To speed up the process, the company is getting a large funding boost from the U.S. government.
Speaking during a virtual press briefing Thursday, Mark Marchick, a top executive for the U.S. International Development Financial Corporation, said Aspen would receive about $712 million to produce vaccine for people in Africa.
“Our consortium of development financing institutions would provide a direct loan to Aspen, among other things, to strengthen their balance sheet with long-term financing, support vaccine production and expand their operations with core operations based in South Africa. This loan will help them increase capacity to support Aspen’s effort to produce vaccines for the continent this year and next year,” Marchik said.
Gayle Smith, the U.S. State Department coordinator for the global COVID-19 response, said the investment will help Africa deal with long-term health issues.
“We see this investment as in the short-term a really viable response to the urgent need on the continent for vaccines for COVID and also, importantly, as a long-term investment in the capacity of the continent to increase its own production of this vital goods so there is a greater availability and resilience over time, so it’s a short-term investment with a long-term vision,” Smith said.
It is estimated that the world needs at least 11 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to at least help communities return to normal lives. So far, less than 2% of Africans have received a vaccine.
The need for vaccine has prompted criminals to exploit Africa’s weak regulatory systems to bring in phony and substandard drugs.
In November, officers from South Africa’s customs and crime unit seized 2,400 fake COVID-19 vaccine doses. Zambian and Chinese nationals were arrested.
In January of this year Nigeria’s food and drug administration advised the public to be aware of nefarious players pushing phony vaccines.
Adebayo Alonge, head of RxAll, an organization that fights counterfeit and substandard pharmaceuticals in Africa using artificial intelligence technology, said African governments need systems to efficiently distribute and keep track of the vaccine.
“They can have selected sites across the country where people can go and be vaccinated. People pre-book online or by SMS and make a record of those people who have come and taken the vaccine at those locations,” Alonge said.
Aspen, which is based in the city of Durban, is slated to produce 400 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Distribution will begin in the next few weeks.
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WHO: COVID-19 Cases Rise Again in Europe after 10-Week Decline
The World Health Organization says the recent decline in the number of new coronavirus infections throughout Europe “has come to an end.”Hans Kluge, the director of the U.N. health agency’s Europe region, said Thursday during a news briefing in Copenhagen that the number of cases in the area’s 53 countries rose 10 percent last week. Kluge attributed the rise to “increased mixing, travel, gatherings, and easing of social restrictions,” which he said is taking place amid “a rapidly evolving situation” — the emergence of the more transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus, a situation aggravated by the regions slow rate of vaccinations. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.With more than 60 percent of all people still waiting for at least their first shot of COVID-19 vaccine, and with the relaxed restrictions on travel and “social mixing,” Kluge warned the European region will be “Delta dominant” by August. “Delays in getting vaccinated cost lives and economies, and the slower we vaccinate, the more variants will emerge,” he told reporters.The warning from WHO Europe comes as Russia reported another record-setting 672 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, breaking the record of 659 deaths posted just the day before. Russia has posted 5.4 million cases since the start of the pandemic, including 132,973 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced Thursday that new emergency measures will go into effect on Saturday for the islands of Java and Bali to blunt the rise of new cases in the world’s fourth most-populous country. The measures, which include tighter restrictions on movement and air travel, a ban on restaurant dining and the closure of non-essential offices, will last through July 20, a period that includes the Muslim holiday of Eid. Indonesia has been dealing with the worst coronavirus outbreak in Southeast Asia, posting 24,836 new infections and 504 deaths on Thursday, both of them record-setting numbers. The country has recorded more than 2.1 million coronavirus infections, including 58,491 deaths.Johns Hopkins University is now reporting 182.2 million confirmed coronavirus infections, including 3.9 million deaths. The United States remains the global leader in both categories with 33.6 million overall cases and 604,718 deaths.
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Cambodia Backs Vaccinations as COVID-19 Case Load Soars
Amid rising caseloads of coronavirus infections as it emerges from a strict COVID lockdown, Cambodia is pinning its hopes on a vaccination rollout that will help the nation reach herd immunity, even as the nation confronts unique challenges that could hamper that effort.Daily case numbers reached a record high of 1,130 Wednesday, far more than reported in April, when severe lockdowns, bans on alcohol sales and travel between provinces were imposed.Cambodia, though, like most developing countries, faces a range of problems not typically associated with wealthier countries in the West, particularly overcrowding in the capital, Phnom Penh, where several people often rent one room, in some cases one bed, to find a few hours’ sleep, away from the grind outside.Bradley Murg, a senior adviser to the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, told VOA people here simply don’t have the space, security, or access to health services and supermarkets as those in the leafy suburbs of Western cities in countries such as the United States or Australia.“In a highly densely populated city like Phnom Penh, it’s incredibly difficult to implement a lockdown effectively even with a whole-of-government approach,” he said.“There are naturally going to be challenges in light of the level of development, in light of the daily needs of the population et cetera,” he added.“Ultimately a permanent lockdown or long-term lockdown is simply not a feasible strategy in Cambodia or in Phnom Penh specifically.”The closure of markets resulted in food shortages and price gouging, with authorities struggling to enforce lockdowns after dividing the capital into yellow, orange and red zones, depending on case numbers and transmissions – with red areas containing the greatest risks.Restrictions have eased, but schools, bars, gyms and many other businesses remain closed, while restaurant hours have been curtailed with strict social distancing and other health measures in place.Hang Sokunthea, an academic and author of I Am a Daughter, a book about female empowerment in Cambodia, said life during the pandemic has been harsh on the poor.“A lot of the poor families live very close to each other, which is where a lot of the red zones was located, where they live together and then they spread the COVID infection even faster,” she told VOA.Moreover, she said, “without the market, without having the living income, they just cannot really make much of a living,” she said.The situation resulted in a cat-and-mouse game between the police and vendors, Hang Sokunthea said, adding, “they were just selling anything on the streets even with the police chasing them.”Keo Savady is a small business operator, selling clothes online, and, like many from Cambodia’s burgeoning middle classes, she too is feeling the pinch after losing her job at the Hard Rock Cafe in Phnom Penh.“The bad thing is I just start my new online business, a small online business, and it doesn’t work because of the situation, COVID-19 is not so good,” she said, adding, “me and my family, some of them lost their job, so we had to find a smaller room.”Cambodia had emerged relatively unscathed from the pandemic during its first year but that changed on Feb. 20 when, authorities say, two Chinese women bribed their way out of quarantine, went out dancing and spread the disease.Since then, the number of confirmed cases has climbed from less than 500 to more than 50,000 with more than 44,143 recoveries and 602 deaths.However, Cambodia is ranked second, after Singapore, in its vaccination rollout among the 10 Association of South East Asian Nations countries after securing about 11 million doses of Sinopharm and Sinovac from China.It says a total of 20 million doses will be secured by August, while funding from Australia and the United States has enabled access to the COVAX-facility and AstraZenica vaccinations.“When one places Singapore in comparison to Cambodia in terms of level of development, level of infrastructure etcetera – it’s truly remarkable that Cambodia’s had this level of success in its all-of-government campaign to rollout vaccinations as quickly as possible,” Murg said.“The kingdom is well on track towards meeting its goals and it’s a story that has not received nearly the attention it deserves,” he added.Almost 18% of Cambodia’s population of 16.5 million people have been fully vaccinated with two doses, while a quarter of its population have received a single dose.Cambodia hopes to reach herd immunity with 10 million people vaccinated by the end of the year and it wants to reopen its tourism industry in the fourth quarter to fully vaccinated tourists.
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