Vaccine shortages hit poor countries

As many as 60 countries, including some of the world’s poorest, might be stalled at the first shots of their coronavirus vaccinations because nearly all deliveries through the global program intended to help them are blocked until as late as June.

COVAX, the global initiative to provide vaccines to countries lacking the clout to negotiate for scarce supplies on their own, has in the past week shipped more than 25,000 doses to low- income countries only twice on any given day. Deliveries have all but halted since Monday.

During the past two weeks, according to data compiled daily by UNICEF, fewer than 2 million COVAX doses in total were cleared for shipment to 92 countries in the developing world - the same amount injected in Britain alone.

On Friday, the head of the World Health Organization slammed the “shocking imbalance” in global COVID- 19 vaccination. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said that while one in four people in rich countries had received a vaccine, only one in 500 people in poorer countries had gotten a dose.

The vaccine shortage stems mostly from India’s decision to stop exporting vaccines from its Serum Institute factory, which produces the overwhelming majority of the AstraZeneca doses that COVAX counted on to supply around a third of the global population at a time coronavirus is spiking worldwide.

REPUBLICAN PARTY GOP strongholds push ‘ culture war’ legislation

An ardent abortion foe who once opposed allowing gay couples to be foster parents, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is the unlikeliest figure to complain about bills on the “culture wars” reaching his desk.

But by vetoing a ban on gender confirming treatments for transgender youth, the Republican offered a rare rebuke to fellow conservatives who have been in overdrive this legislative session with bills expanding gun rights and restricting LGBTQ and abortion rights.

“I was told this week that the nation is looking at Arkansas because I have on my desk another bill passed by the General Assembly that is a product of the cultural war in America,” Hutchinson said as he announced his decision. “I don’t shy away from the battle when it is necessary and defensible, but the most recent action of the General Assembly, while well- intended, is off- course.”

Even for veterans of the culture wars like Hutchinson, this year has been a jarring one in Republican- controlled statehouses from South Carolina to South Dakota. Fueled by an influx of hard- right lawmakers echoing former President Donald Trump and the backing of outside groups, Republican legislatures are pushing the bounds in already deeply Republican states on issues such as gun rights, access to abortions, and increasingly, protections for transgender people.

The bills reflect the larger mood of the Republican Party, which nationally has struggled to define Democrats in the postTrump era. Instead, the focus has been on issues that drive the party’s base and that Republicans use to portray Democrats as out of touch with average Americans.

MYANMAR Reports: Forces kill 82 in single day in city

At least 82 people were killed in one day in a crackdown by Myanmar security forces on pro- democracy protesters, according to reports Saturday from independent local media and an organization that keeps track of casualties since the military’s February seizure of power.

Friday’s death toll in Bago was the biggest one- day total for a single city since March 14, when just over 100 people were killed in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Bago is about 60 miles northeast of Yangon. The Associated Press is unable to independently verify the number of deaths.

The death toll of 82 was a preliminary one compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which issues daily counts of casualties and arrests from the crackdown in the aftermath of the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Their tallies are widely accepted as highly credible because cases are not added to their totals until they have been confirmed, with the details published on their website.

In its Saturday report, the group said that it expected the number of dead in Bago to rise as more cases were verified.

Associated Press