MANILA: The Philippines said on Tuesday it will expand its COVID-19 vaccination program to include the general public and children aged 12-17 years old for the first time from October to achieve herd immunity and gradually return to normal life.
The Southeast Asian nation of 110 million people has reported one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Asia since the pandemic began last year, prompting authorities to impose strict anti-virus measures in the worst-affected areas and relax curbs in other parts to spur economic activity.
Still, vaccination measures have been slow, with only 20.3 million or 26 percent fully vaccinated and 23.6 million receiving their first dose since March when the government launched its vaccination drive for five priority groups, including health workers, senior citizens, those with comorbidities, economic frontliners, and indigents.
"The good news is, the president has approved the vaccination of the general population beginning October," President Rodrigo Duterte's spokesperson, Harry Roque, said in a press briefing.
"We will also start inoculating children (between 12 to 17 years of age) ...in October. This has also been approved by the president," he added, urging parents to register their children for the vaccination.
Malacañang's announcement comes a day after Duterte threatened to invoke police power of the state on those who refused to get vaccinated.
In a recorded address aired on Monday night, Duterte implored the public to get immunised, specifically Filipinos residing in areas with ample COVID-19 vaccine shots.
“Government has no power to compel any religion, faith, or church...We can only cooperate. But the police power of the state can be invoked if you pose a threat to others... (because) then you are already a danger to society,” he said.
Duterte further explained that once the Philippines had achieved herd immunity through mass immunization, it would be "safe to gradually ease restrictions."
“I now encourage you — those who have yet to receive the vaccines — to get inoculated...We are almost pleading down on our knees," he said.
The Philippines leader warned government employees to leave their office if they refuse vaccination, especially those at the frontline or tasked with interacting with people.
Citing a report from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Duterte said that unvaccinated persons who got infected with COVID-19 are likely to get hospitalized with more severe or critical conditions compared to those who were already inoculated.
Meanwhile, Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL), said on Tuesday that whether or not the president could implement police power to compel those who refuse to get vaccinated was a "tricky, debatable and complicated" matter.
"As a general rule, the State can invoke police power for the protection of life, public health and for the public interest. But there are loose ends that need to be tied up. These include questions of liberty, necessity, privacy, proportionality, coverage, parameters and even sanctions of specific measures to make it compulsory or mandatory," he told Arab News.
"Yet resort to the use of police power under the circumstances in the country dodges or ignores questions on availability and access to the vaccines as well as to the who, when and where," he added.
Olalia said the move also "glosses over the fact that all measures or responses of the government thus far have been confused and confusing."
Meanwhile, in his report to the president, National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. said that the Philippines was expecting the delivery of COVID-19 jabs to reach 100 million by October end.
Galvez added that economic centers such as Metro Manila, Baguio City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, and Davao City had surpassed the 50 percent vaccination targets in their areas.
Locals, for their part, elicited mixed reactions to the government's move.
One parent who asked not to be named, said "it would be better if vaccination against COVID-19 is compulsory but not coercive", just as it is in the case of other vaccines.
Mariel San Diego, a fully vaccinated government employee based in Luzon island's Pampanga province, said it would be better for the president to allow local government units to act on the matter. "Or if he really wants to do it, maybe he should start in his home city, Davao," San Diego told Arab News.
Others said individuals should be allowed to exercise their choices.
"The virus does not come from the unvaccinated. Both vaccinated, and unvaccinated can be carriers or transmitters. My choice of not getting the vaccine is from my family's history of allergic reactions. I could die with just a shot," Virginia Pasalo, a resident of Pangasinan province, said.
"These vaccines also lack clinical trials. I will wait for other medications to be available," she added.
Philippines to begin vaccinating children against COVID-19 from October
https://arab.news/ypd73
Philippines to begin vaccinating children against COVID-19 from October
- Health authorities to widen program to include 12-17 year olds, general public to reach herd immunity, government says
What does Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range US weapons mean?
- The ballistic missiles, developed by US aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin, have nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — of most of the weapons in Ukraine’s possession
- Biden authorized Ukraine to use the ATACMS to strike deeper inside Russia, according to a US official and three other people familiar with the matter
KYIV, Ukraine: The US will allow Ukraine to use American-supplied longer-range weapons to conduct strikes deeper inside Russian territory, a long-sought request by Kyiv.
It isn’t yet clear if there are limits on Ukraine’s use of the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, as there have been on other US missile systems. Their deployment could — at least initially — be limited to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops seized territory earlier this year.
Since the first year of the war, Ukrainian leaders have lobbied Western allies to allow them to use advanced weapons to strike key targets inside Russia — which they hope would erode Moscow’s capabilities before its troops reach the front line and could make it more difficult for the Russian forces to strike Ukrainian territory. It could also serve as a deterrent force in the event of future ceasefire negotiations.
The US has long opposed the move, with President Joe Biden determined to avoid any escalation that he felt could draw the US and other NATO members into direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. The Kremlin warned on Monday that the decision adds “fuel to the fire.”
The decision comes in the waning days of Biden’s presidency, before President-elect Donald Trump assumes office. Trump has said he would bring about a swift end to the war, which many fear could force unpalatable concessions from Kyiv.
What are ATACMS?
The ballistic missiles, developed by US aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin, have nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — of most of the weapons in Ukraine’s possession. They carry a larger payload and have more precise targeting for pinpoint attacks on air fields, ammunition stores and strategic infrastructure.
The United States has supplied Ukraine with dozens of ATACMS (pronounced attack-ems) and they have been used to destroy military targets in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine such as Crimea — but not on Russian soil.
What is Biden allowing Ukraine to do?
Biden authorized Ukraine to use the ATACMS to strike deeper inside Russia, according to a US official and three other people familiar with the matter.
The longer-range missiles are likely to be used in response to North Korea’s decision to send troops to support Kremlin forces, according to one of the people familiar with the development. Pyongyang’s troops are apparently being deployed to help the Russian army drive Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s Kursk border region, where they launched an incursion in August.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the US decision publicly.
It was the second time that Washington has expanded Ukraine’s authority to use its US-provided weapons systems inside Russian territory.
In May, after Russia’s offensive into the Kharkiv region threatened to stretch Ukrainian forces thin, Biden permitted the use of HIMARS systems — with a range of 80 kilometers (50 miles) — to quell that advance. That decision helped Ukrainian soldiers stabilize the fight for a time by forcing Russian forces to pull back military assets.
Why does Ukraine need longer-range weapons?
Ukraine has been asking its Western allies for longer-range weapons in order to alter the balance of power in a war where Russia is better resourced, and strike with precision air bases, supply depots and communication centers hundreds of kilometers (miles) over the border.
It hopes the weapons would help blunt Russia’s air power and weaken the supply lines it needs to launch daily strikes against Ukraine and to sustain its military ground offensive into Ukraine.
If used in Kursk, the weapons would likely require Russian forces preparing for counterattacks to push back valuable equipment and manpower and complicate battle plans.
In lieu of Western weapons, Ukraine has been regularly striking Russia with domestically produced weapons, with some capable of traveling up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), but still lacks sufficient quantities to do serious long-term harm.
Will the decision change the course of the war?
Ukrainian leaders are being cautious about the announcement — and senior US defense and military leaders have persistently argued that it won’t be a gamechanger. They also have noted that Russia has moved many key assets out of range.
“I don’t believe one capability is going to be decisive and I stand by that comment,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said, noting that the Ukrainians have other means to strike long-range targets.
Analysts have also suggested the effect could be limited.
“Today, many in the media are talking about the fact that we have received permission to take appropriate actions. But blows are not inflicted with words. Such things are not announced. The rockets will speak for themselves,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of the announcement.
The effect of the decision depends on the rules set for the weapons’ use.
If strikes are allowed across all of Russia, they could significantly complicate Moscow’s ability to respond to battlefield demands.
If strikes are limited to the Kursk region, Russia could relocate its command centers and air units to nearby regions, blunting the effect of those logistical challenges. That would also mean many of the valuable targets Ukrainian officials have expressed desire to hit may still be beyond reach.
Either way, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Charlie Dietz has noted the ATACMS wouldn’t be the answer to the main threat Ukraine faces from Russian-fired glide bombs, which are being fired from more than 300 kilometers (180 miles) away, beyond the ATACMS’ reach.
In addition, the overall supply of ATACMS is limited, so US officials in the past have questioned whether they could give Ukraine enough to make a difference — though some proponents say that even a few strikes deeper inside Russia would force its military to change deployments and expend more of its resources.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, said the US decision would not alter the course of the war.
“To really impose costs on Russia, Ukraine would need large stockpiles of ATACMS, which it doesn’t have and won’t receive because the United States’ own supplies are limited,” she said. “Moreover, the biggest obstacle Ukraine faces is a lack of trained and ready personnel, a challenge that neither the United States nor its European allies can solve and that all the weapons in the world won’t overcome.”
What are the key remaining questions?
In addition to it being unclear what, if any, restrictions the US will impose on the weapons’ use, it’s also not known how many the US will give to Ukraine.
While the US has provided ATACMS to Ukraine in various military aid packages, the Defense Department will not disclose how many have been sent or exactly how many of those missiles the Pentagon has. Estimates suggest the US has a number that is in the low thousands.
The recent American election raises questions over how long this policy will be in place. Trump has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s spending to support Ukraine — and could reverse moves like this one.
On the other hand, it’s also not clear whether other allies might step up: The decision may encourage Britain and France to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles, also known as SCALP missiles, with a range of 250 kilometers (155 miles).
Trump appears to be planning to attend SpaceX ‘Starship’ launch scheduled for Tuesday in Texas
- Trump frequently regaled audiences on the campaign trail with a dramatic account of the last Starship test
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump appears to be planning to attend a SpaceX “Starship” rocket launch on Tuesday, in the latest indication of founder Elon Musk ‘s influence in the Republican’s orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued temporary flight restrictions over Brownsville and Boca Chica, Texas area for a VIP visit that coincides with the SpaceX launch window for a test of its massive Starship rocket from its launch facility on the Gulf of Mexico. The flight restrictions put in place over Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida when he is there will be lifted briefly while the Texas security measures are in place.
Trump’s visit comes as billionaire Musk has been a near-constant presence at Trump’s side as he builds out his administration, attending meetings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, accompanying him to meetings with Capitol Hill Republicans in Washington last week and to a UFC fight in New York on Saturday.
Trump frequently regaled audiences on the campaign trail with a dramatic account of the last Starship test, that included the capture of the booster at its launchpad by a pair of mechanical arms.
Tuesday’s 30-minute launch window opens at 4 p.m. central time, according to the company, with the company again looking to test the landing capture system of the booster in Texas, while the upper stage continues to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Musk pumped an estimated $200 million through his political action committee to help elect Trump and has been named, along with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead an advisory committee tasked by Trump to dramatically cut governmental costs and reshape how Washington operates, which has sparked ethics concerns over Musk’s many interests before the federal government.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the president-elect’s plans.
Where’s Joe? G20 leaders have group photo without Biden
- Biden had earlier urged the G20 leaders to support Ukraine’s “sovereignty” in the face of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
RIO DE JANEIRO: Joe Biden headed for a photo with fellow G20 leaders in Rio de Janeiro at his final summit as US president on Monday, only to find they had already taken the picture without him.
Frustrated US officials blamed “logistical issues” for the blunder which meant that Biden missed out on the shot, along with the Canadian and Italian prime ministers.
It came during a South American tour during which Biden’s counterparts have been looking past the outgoing US president in political terms and toward his successor Donald Trump.
Biden’s swan song on the world stage has seen the 81-year-old try to shore up his legacy before Trump potentially takes a wrecking ball to it with his isolationist “America First” foreign policy.
World leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron walked down a red carpeted ramp at Rio’s stunning bayside museum of modern art to the group photo set-up.
They took to a stage, chatted and joked as they gathered to pose against the backdrop of the Brazilian city’s iconic Sugarloaf Mountain. The snap was over in a second.
Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau then came in from another direction, after a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit, but it was too late and the other leaders had already dispersed.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also missed the picture. She, Biden and Trudeau formed a separate huddle.
“Due to logistical issues, they took the photo early before all the leaders had arrived. So a number of the leaders weren’t actually there,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.
US officials denied that Biden missed the photo — officially for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s launch of an alliance to curb world hunger — to avoid appearing alongside Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Biden had earlier urged the G20 leaders to support Ukraine’s “sovereignty” in the face of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was conspicuously absent from the Rio summit. His arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court over the Ukraine war.
Moscow warns the US over allowing Ukraine to hit Russian soil with longer-range weapons
KYIV, Ukraine: The Kremlin warned Monday that President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied longer-range missiles adds “fuel to the fire” of the war and would escalate international tensions even higher.
Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain, new factor to the conflict on the eve of the 1,000-day milestone since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.
It also came as a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and injuring 84 others. Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 43, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, US officials told The Associated Press on Sunday, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
The Kremlin was swift in its condemnation.
“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The scope of the new firing guidelines isn’t clear. But the change came after the US, South Korea and NATO said North Korean troops are in Russia and apparently are being deployed to help Moscow drive Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk border region.
Biden’s decision almost entirely was triggered by North Korea’s entry into the fight, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, and was made just before he left for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.
Russia also is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region. It has also conducted a devastating aerial campaign against civilian areas in Ukraine.
Peskov referred journalists to a statement from President Vladimir Putin in September in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes.
It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Putin said at the time. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
Peskov claimed that Western countries supplying longer-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kyiv. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” he said.
Putin warned in June that Moscow could provide longer-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allowed Ukraine to use its allies’ arms to attack Russian territory. After signing a treaty with North Korea, Putin issued an explicit threat to provide weapons to Pyongyang, noting Moscow could mirror Western arguments that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how to use them.
“The Westerners supply weapons to Ukraine and say: ‘We do not control anything here anymore and it does not matter how they are used.’” Putin had said. “Well, we can also say: ‘We supplied something to someone — and then we do not control anything.’ And let them think about it.”
Putin had also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.
Biden’s move will “mean the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in military action against Russia, as well as a radical change in the essence and nature of the conflict,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue military support to Ukraine. He has also vowed to end the war quickly.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a muted response Sunday to the approval that he and his government have been requesting for over a year, adding, “The missiles will speak for themselves.”
Consequences of the new policy are uncertain. ATACMS, which have a range of about 300 kilometers (190 miles), can reach far behind the about 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line in Ukraine, but they have relatively short range compared with other types of ballistic and cruise missiles.
The policy change came “too late to have a major strategic effect,” said Patrick Bury, a senior associate professor in security at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.
“The ultimate kind of impact it will have is to probably slow down the tempo of the Russian offensives which are now happening,” he said, adding that Ukraine could strike targets in Kursk or logistics hubs or command headquarters.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, agreed the US move would not alter the war’s course, noting Ukraine “would need large stockpiles of ATACMS, which it doesn’t have and won’t receive because the United States’ own supplies are limited.”
On a political level, the move “is a boost to the Ukrainians and it gives them a window of opportunity to try and show that they are still viable and worth supporting” as Trump prepares to take office, said Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The cue for the policy change was the arrival in Russia of North Korean troops, according to Glib Voloskyi, an analyst at the CBA Initiatives Center, a Kyiv-based think tank.
“This is a signal the Biden administration is sending to North Korea and Russia, indicating that the decision to involve North Korean units has crossed a red line,” he said.
Russian lawmakers and state media bashed the West for what they called an escalatory step, threatening a harsh response.
“Biden, apparently, decided to end his presidential term and go down in history as ‘Bloody Joe,’” lawmaker Leonid Slutsky told Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, called it “a very big step toward the start of World War III” and an attempt to “reduce the degree of freedom for Trump.”
Russian newspapers offered similar predictions of doom. “The madmen who are drawing NATO into a direct conflict with our country may soon be in great pain,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta said.
Some NATO allies welcomed the move.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland, which borders Ukraine, praised the decision as a “very important, maybe even a breakthrough moment” in the war.
“In the recent days, we have seen the decisive intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine, above all, those missile attacks where civilian objects are attacked, where people are killed, ordinary Ukrainians,” Duda said.
Easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing,” said Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna of Russian neighbor Estonia.
“We have been saying that from the beginning — that no restrictions must be put on the military support,” he told senior European Union diplomats in Brussels. “And we need to understand that situation is more serious (than) it was even maybe like a couple of months ago.”
But Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, known for his pro-Russian views, described Biden’s decision as “an unprecedented escalation” that would prolong the war.
EU top diplomat has ‘no more words’ on Mideast suffering
- Borrell said a majority of the 27 European Union states had — as expected — rejected his call to suspend political dialogue with Israel over the Gaza war
BRUSSELS: The EU’s outgoing top diplomat Josep Borrell said Monday he had “no more words” to describe the crisis in the Middle East as he delivered a bleak assessment at his swansong foreign ministers’ meeting.
At a somber press briefing after the Brussels talks, Borrell said a majority of the 27 European Union states had — as expected — rejected his call to suspend political dialogue with Israel over the Gaza war.
Barely concealing his frustration at the EU’s failure to weigh on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his five-year mandate, Borrell earlier said he had “exhausted the words to explain what’s happening.”
“This is a war against the children,” the 77-year-old foreign policy chief told reporters after the talks. “The most frequent age of the casualties in Gaza is five years old.”
He described an “apocalyptical situation in Gaza, where 70 percent of the death toll is being paid by children and women,” with two million people displaced. He also acknowledged the suffering of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other militant groups since the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says that 43,922 people, mostly civilians, have been killed there since October 7.
Borrell’s proposal to suspend the EU’s political dialogue with Israel — part of a wider agreement governing trade ties — had been expected to hit opposition from numerous member states including key powers France and Germany.
“Most of the member states considered that it was much better to continue having diplomatic and political relationship with Israel,” Borrell confirmed.
But he said his services had “at least put on the table” all the information produced by UN bodies and international organizations on the ground “in order to judge the way the war is being waged.”
Since Israel unleashed its devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza, EU states have been deeply divided over the conflict — with Borrell often an outlier in denouncing what he views as Israel’s excesses.
On Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Borrell likewise voiced frustration at the shortcomings in Europe’s response as the conflict reaches its 1,000th day.
“It’s not only 1,000 days. It is 4,000 days since Putin attacked Ukraine the first time,” Borrell said.
“Maybe our response should have been firmer, stronger since the beginning,” he said.
“It’s clear that each step that is being left without reaction encourages Russia to escalate further,” he warned — pointing at Russia’s use of drones from Iran, weapons and troops from North Korea, and dual-use goods from China.
Moscow’s all-out assault in February 2022 upended European security and came to dominate Borrell’s time at the helm of the bloc’s diplomacy.
Since then the EU has spent billions of dollars on arming Ukraine and Russia has been hit by repeated sanctions despite regular obstacles from reluctant EU states such as Hungary.
But Borrell leaves the stage at a perilous time — with the re-election of Donald Trump in the United States heralding challenges for Europe and Russia advancing in Ukraine.
“If we want to be a geopolitical player, if we want to use the language of power, we have to be more united,” warned Borrell, who is to hand over to former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas in December.
“It’s time for Europe to take their strategic responsibilities,” Borrell said. “It’s time for Europe to step up.”
