South Africa’s Zulu king dies

JOHANNESBURG: Goodwill Zwelithini, the king of South Africa’s Zulu, died yesterday aged 72 after weeks in hospital, his palace announced. The king wielded great influence among millions of Zulus through his largely ceremonial and spiritual role despite having no official power in modern South Africa. “It is with the utmost grief that I inform the nation of the passing of King Goodwill Zwelithini,” the palace said in a statement signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a powerful veteran politician who is also a Zulu prince.

MOSCOW: Russia is ramping up overseas output of its Covid-19 vaccine, pledging to supply shots to almost one in 10 people on the planet this year even as it has produced only a tiny fraction of that so far.

“We have capacity to provide the vaccine to 700 million people outside Russia this year,” Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which backed Sputnik V’s development and is in charge of its foreign rollout, said on Wednesday.

“The biggest producers will be India, China and South Korea.”

Russia’s success in persuading so far around 50 countries to approve the shot has bolstered its global ambitions, with several million doses already delivered to Latin America, led by Argentina and Mexico.

But the production roll-out has gone slower than RDIF initially forecast and in Russia, take-up of the inoculation has lagged.

At the moment, the United States gives more shots every two weeks than Russia has produced of Sputnik V since the start of the epidemic.

So far, international deliveries remain relatively small as Russia races to boost output. Within Russia, about 13 million two-dose sets have been produced, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said last week.

RDIF won’t release data on how many have been shipped abroad and the Kremlin says exports aren’t cutting into local supplies. Public statements from recipient countries put the total at less than four million.

Sputnik is being used in about 30 countries, according to RDIF, compared to at least 64 for the Pfizer vaccine, of which 95 million doses have already been administered globally.

Despite the political push, Russia isn’t offering discounts on Sputnik for low-income countries. In Africa and Latin America, Sputnik sells for the same price of roughly US$10 per dose as in the rest of the world.