President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called for urgent action on the coronavirus pandemic as he introduced a health care team that will be tested at every turn while striving to restore the nation to normalcy.

Biden laid out three Covid-19 priorities for his first 100 days in office: a call for all Americans to voluntarily mask up during those 100 days, a commitment to administer 100 million vaccines and a pledge to try to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools.

“I know that out of our collective pain, we will find our collective purpose: to control the pandemic, to save lives, and to heal as a nation,” Biden said.

Topping the roster of picks was health secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, a Latino politician who rose from humble beginnings to serve in Congress and as California’s attorney general. Others include a businessman renowned for his crisis management skills and a quartet of medical doctors, among them Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease specialist.

The usual feel-good affirmations that accompany such unveilings were overshadowed by urgency, with new cases of Covid-19 averaging more than 200,000 a day and deaths averaging above 2,200 daily as the nation struggles with uncontrolled spread.

Vaccines are expected soon. Scientific advisers to the government meet Thursday to make a recommendation on the first one, a Pfizer shot already being administered in the United Kingdom.

Indeed, President Donald Trump held his own event Tuesday, to take credit for his administration’s work to speed vaccine development.

But having an approved vaccine is one thing, and getting it into the arms of 330 million Americans something else altogether. Biden will be judged on how well his administration carries out the gargantuan task.

On Tuesday, the president-elect warned that his team’s preliminary review of Trump administration plans for vaccinations has found shortcomings. And he called on Congress to pass legislation to finance administration of vaccines as they become more widely available next year. That would effectively close the loop, from lab to patient.

The rest of Biden’s extensive health care agenda, from expanding insurance coverage to negotiating prices for prescription drugs, will likely hinge on how his administration performs in this first test of competence and credibility.

Becerra, Biden’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, will be backed in the White House by businessman Jeff Zients, who will assume the role of coronavirus response coordinator. Running complex, high-risk operations is his specialty.

Alongside Fauci, the other medical doctors selected include infectious-disease specialist Rochelle Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vivek Murthy as surgeon general and Yale epidemiologist Marcella Nunez-Smith to head a working group to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments.

Participating by video, Fauci called Biden’s 100-day plan “bold but doable, and essential to help the public avoid unnecessary risks and help us save lives.”

Ever the straight talker, he admonished: “The road ahead will not be easy. We have got a lot of hard and demanding work ahead.”

HHS is a $1 trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.

In choosing Becerra to be his health secretary, Biden tapped a prominent defender of the Affordable Care Act. But Becerra, 62, will face questions in his Senate confirmation about whether he possesses sufficient health care and management experience.

Becerra as a congressman played an insider role helping steer “Obamacare” to passage, and as California attorney general he leads a coalition of Democratic states trying to block the Trump administration’s latest attempt to overturn it. He has been less involved in the day-to-day work of combating the coronavirus.

Becerra would be the first Latino to serve as U.S. health secretary. In announcing his pick Tuesday, Biden initially stumbled on the Spanish pronunciation of Becerra’s name.

But Biden was drawn to Becerra’s working-class roots, his longtime effort to increase access to health care and his willingness to work with Republicans to solve problems like getting patients access to COVID-19 treatments.

Accepting his nomination via video link, Becerra called it a “breathtaking opportunity” to help shape the future of health care.

“I share the president-elect and vice-president-elect’s determination to rebuild unity and civility in America,” he added.

Biden is under pressure from fellow Democrats to ensure that his Cabinet is diverse. Black and Asian American groups are pressing for more representation.

Biden’s choice of Becerra smooths, but does not end, the concerns of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about Latino representation. Becerra’s mother emigrated from Mexico, and his U.S.-born father spent his formative years in that country.

Then-California Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Becerra as California’s top prosecutor in late 2016. Becerra instantly struck a combative tone toward the incoming Trump administration.

Defending California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act was a key priority, but he also focused on protecting young immigrants from deportation and defending California’s climate change laws.

As HHS secretary, Becerra would be responsible for overseeing the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied minors who enter the U.S. illegally. Becerra has helped lead a coalition of fellow state attorneys general who sued over the Trump administration’s child separation policies.

Republicans immediately made clear their attack lines. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas argued that Becerra was unqualified because he lacked ties to the health care or pharmaceutical industries. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana blasted his support for “Medicare for All,” which is not Biden’s policy. Abortion opponents have called Becerra “unacceptable.”

The HHS secretary’s job requires political connections, communications skills, managerial savvy, a willingness to learn about complex medical issues and a creative legal mind to use vast regulatory powers without winding up on the losing end of lawsuits.

Becerra will need to establish ties with governors who will play outsize roles in distributing the coronavirus vaccine.

Source: AP

Lloyd Austin, who led US troops into Baghdad in 2003 and rose to head the US Central Command, has been chosen by President-elect Joe Biden to be the first African-American secretary of defence, US media reported Monday.

A veteran of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the retired four-star army general, 67, beat out the favourite for the job, former under-secretary of defence Michele Flournoy, amid pressure on Biden to nominate more minorities for positions in his cabinet.

CNN, Politico and the New York Times cited unnamed sources familiar with the decision, after Biden said earlier Monday that he had made his choice and would announce it on Friday. Austin would require Senate confirmation to take up the post.

He spent four decades in the army, graduating from the West Point Military Academy and following a career with a wide range of assignments, from leading platoons to running logistics groups and overseeing recruiting, to senior Pentagon jobs.

In March 2003 he was the assistant division commander of the 3rd Infantry Division when it marched from Kuwait into Baghdad in the US invasion of Iraq.

From late 2003 to 2005, he was in Afghanistan commanding the Combined Joint Task Force 180, the principle US-led operation seeking to stabilise the security situation in the country.

In 2010 he was made commanding general of US forces in Iraq, and two years later became the commander of the Central Command, in charge of all Pentagon operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Few African-Americans in command jobs

Austin retired from the military in 2016, and joined the board of directors of Raytheon Technologies, one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors.

He would require special approval from the Senate due to federal law that requires military officers to wait seven years after retirement before serving as the Pentagon chief.

The waiver has happened twice — most recently for general Jim Mattis, the first defence secretary in the administration of President Donald Trump.

But members of the Senate agreed begrudgingly, amid concerns over Trump’s views on the military, and several said at the time that they wouldn’t want to do it again.

“He shouldn’t be considered for the same reason that Sec. Mattis shouldn’t have been,” said Congressman Justin Amash in a tweet.

“The law prohibits recently retired members of the Armed Forces from serving in this civilian capacity. Biden would be the second president in a row to violate this norm.”

Austin would take responsibility for the 1.2 million active service members, of which about 16 percent are Black.

But Blacks serve disproportionately in the lower ranks and few have achieved high command positions.

The issue became more clear over the past year when African-American servicemen and women expressed support for the national Black Lives Matter movement against police racism and abuse.

Former defence secretary Mark Esper said he held numerous listening sessions to make White soldiers understand what their Black colleagues felt.

Source: AFP

The United States notched a record number of coronavirus cases in 24 hours for the third day running, as it was reported that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will get a vaccine within weeks.

A tally by Johns Hopkins University showed the world’s worst-hit country — which has seen a dramatic virus resurgence in recent weeks — reached nearly 230,000 new infections and 2,527 Covid-related deaths on Saturday alone.

For two weeks, the US has regularly topped 2,000 deaths per day, as it had in the spring at the height of the first wave of the country’s outbreak.

Source: AFP

Humanity is facing a new war, unprecedented in history, the Secretary General of the United Nations has warned. The stark message from António Guterres follows a year of global upheaval, with the coronavirus pandemic causing governments to shut down whole countries for months at a time, while wildfires, hurricanes and powerful storms have scarred the globe.

“To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken. Dear friends, humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back and it is already doing so with growing force and fury,” Guterres said.

Guterres said “biodiversity is collapsing. One million species are at risk of extinction. Ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes. Human activities are at the root of our descent toward chaos. But that means human action can help to solve it”.

The Earth continued to endure a period of significant heating in 2020 according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Its provisional assessment suggests this year will be one of the three hottest, just behind 2016 and 2019.

The warmest six years in global records dating back to 1850 have now all occurred since 2015. The most notable warmth was in the Siberian Arctic, where temperatures were 5C above average.

Source: Africa News

The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned that “a severe revenge and punishment” has been put on Iran’s agenda in response to the assassination of a high-profile nuclear scientist with the Defense Ministry.

Major General Hossein Salami made the remarks in a message released on Friday after the targeted killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of the Iranian Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (known by its acronym as SPND), in Absard city of Damavand County, Tehran Province.

Salami hailed Fakhrizadeh as a leading scientist in the country’s strategic industries and a prominent professor at Imam Hussein University of Tehran, and strongly condemned his assassination in a “terrorist crime designed and directed by the fake, terrorist and infanticide Zionist regime.”

“Undoubtedly, the valuable efforts and endeavors of this honorable martyr in the field of the defense industry and other strategic areas of the country, as well as the field of countering the coronavirus will remain in the historical memory of this land” while inspiring students at universities and IRGC’s scientific and technology centers to make achievements in the future.

“The blind-hearted enemies of the Iranian nation, especially those who designed, perpetrated and supported this crime, should know that such crimes will not undermine the Iranians’ will and determination to continue this glorious and powerful path, and that a severe revenge and punishment is put on the agenda.”

Source: Presstv

On a day of grace and grievance, President-elect Joe Biden summoned Americans on Wednesday to join in common purpose against the coronavirus pandemic and their political divisions while the man he will replace stoked the fading embers of his campaign to “turn the election over.”

Biden, in a Thanksgiving-eve address to the nation, put the surging pandemic front and center, pledging to tap the “vast powers” of the federal government and to “change the course of the disease” once in office. But for that to work, he said, Americans must step up for their own safety and that of their fellow citizens.

“This is the moment when we need to steel our spines, redouble our efforts and recommit ourselves to this fight,” Biden said. “Each of us has a responsibility in our own lives to do what we can to slow the virus.”

President Donald Trump, who has scarcely mentioned the pandemic in recent days even as it has achieved record heights, remained fixated on his election defeat.

He sent his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other members of his legal team to meet Pennsylvania Republican state senators in Gettysburg. Inside a hotel near the hallowed battlefields of civil war, they again aired complaints about the election and repeated allegations of Democratic malfeasance that have already disintegrated under examination by courts.

“We have to turn the election over,” Trump said from the Oval Office, where he joined the meeting by speakerphone.

“This was an election that we won easily,” he said. “We won it by a lot.” In fact, the election gave Biden a clear mandate, and no systemic fraud has been uncovered. Judge after judge has dismissed the Trump campaign’s accusations as baseless, and the transition to Biden’s presidency is fully underway.

Nevertheless, Trump repeated: “This election has to be turned around.”

Trump had been expected to appear in person in Gettysburg, but did not after another member of his legal team tested positive for the coronavirus. Few at the meeting wore masks.

Altogether, the forum heard — and cheered — yet another declaration from a U.S. president seeking to reverse a democratic election and the voters’ will because he wants to stay in power. The setting was about a mile from the scene of Pickett’s Charge, where Union troops repelled a desperate Confederate attack in July 1863 and helped turn the tide of the Civil War.

The president followed up by pardoning former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the second Trump associate convicted in the Russia probe to be granted clemency by Trump.

The pardon was part of a broader effort to undo the results of an investigation that for years has shadowed Trump’s administration and yielded criminal charges against a half dozen associates. The pardon voids the criminal case against Flynn just as a federal judge was deciding whether to grant a Justice Department request to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynn’s own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts.

For his part, Biden has largely projected serenity as the necessary elements of a presidential transition — money, access to office space and more — were held at bay for nearly three weeks by Trump’s machinations and a delayed ascertainment by the General Services Administration that he had won the election. On Wednesday, he addressed Trump’s raw tactics only in passing.

“Our democracy was tested this year,” Biden said, “but the people of this nation are up to the task.”

“In America, we have full and fair and free elections, and then we honor the results,” he said. “The people of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for anything else.”

And he offered an optimistic vision, calling on Americans to “dream again” and predicting that “the 21st century is going to be an American century.”

Biden pledged more virus testing, more protective gear and clearer guidance for businesses and schools to reopen when he becomes president. Until vaccines are distributed, he said, masks, social distancing and limits in the size of gatherings “are our most effective tools to combat the virus.”

Biden’s remarks came as COVID-19 cases are surging nationwide. Hospitalizations, deaths and the testing positivity rate were also up sharply as the nation headed into Thanksgiving, and public health experts have warned that the large family gatherings expected for the holiday are likely to extend and exacerbate the surge.

He has formed a coronavirus advisory board of scientists, doctors and public health experts, and plans to establish a COVID-19 coordinator in the White House to lead his administration’s response.

This week, however, Biden focused beyond the crisis stateside and unveiled his national security team on Tuesday, including his nominees for secretary of state, director of national intelligence and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Drawing implicit contrasts with Trump, Biden said the team “reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.” He’s also expected to name Janet Yellen as treasury secretary in the coming weeks.

In urging Americans to be vigilant in their Thanksgiving plans, Biden said Wednesday he was taking precautions of his own, eschewing his traditional large family gathering and spending the holiday instead with just his wife, daughter and son-in-law.

He’s traveling with his wife, Jill, to Rehoboth Beach, the small Delaware beach town where the two have a vacation home. That’s where they’ll host their family for Thanksgiving dinner. Biden is expected to stay through the weekend in Rehoboth before returning to Wilmington for further work on the transition.

Trump will forgo his usual plans to celebrate Thanksgiving at his private club in Florida and will instead remain at the White House.

Source: AP

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen to head the US Treasury, a choice that, if confirmed by the Senate, would make her the first woman in the job.

The 74-year-old, whose nomination was confirmed to AFP by a financial source close to the Biden administration, would be tasked with steering the world’s largest economy as it struggles with mass layoffs and a sharp growth slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Yellen will be the next treasury secretary” and she could be formally announced as early as Tuesday, the source said, confirming news first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Yellen’s candidacy was supported by left-wing members of Biden’s Democratic Party, according to the source, and requires Senate confirmation.

Yellen broke barriers when former president Barack Obama nominated her to serve as Fed chair in 2014, a position President Donald Trump ousted her from four years later.

At the Fed, Yellen was seen as a “dove” inclined towards low interest rates to support employment.

She would succeed Steven Mnuchin, and likely be faced with breaking a months-long deadlock in Congress over passing a new stimulus spending bill for the US economy — assuming lawmakers don’t act before Biden’s inauguration in January.

Chief economist at Grant Thornton Diane Swonk called Yellen “a highly talented and gifted economist” on Twitter.

“She will make a great treasury secretary at a critical time and write yet another chapter in the history books,” she said.

‘Essential’ spending’

The United States is home to the world’s largest Covid-19 outbreak, and as the economy convulsed Congress rallied in March to pass the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that expanded unemployment payments, supported small businesses and allocated money to hard-hit airlines to maintain their staff.

But those provisions expired over the summer, leading to 32,000 furloughs among major airlines alone and raising fears of a renewed economic slump.

Congress has been deadlocked on passing more aid, with Democrats supporting another $2.2 trillion measure but Republicans insisting on a series of smaller bills.

Gregori Volokhine, president of Meeschaert Capital Markets, called Yellen a “friend of the markets” for supporting further spending that would boost equities, and noting her confirmation would mark a return of technocrats to the executive branch.

“After four years of political appointments, we have appointments of professionals, not only political professionals but also professionals in their professions,” he said.

Currently a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Yellen has signaled her support for more spending.

“Fiscal policy has a very important role to play now,” she said in an appearance this month. “I believe it’s essential.”

Biden, who served as vice president under Obama and defeated Trump in the November 3 election, has been moving quickly to fill key slots in his incoming cabinet.

Earlier Monday, he announced a slew of appointments to key national security roles including former Obama official Antony Blinken as secretary of state.

The Dow closed up 1.1 percent following news of Yellen’s nomination as well as another upbeat announcement concerning a Covid-19 vaccine.

Source: AFP

Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies vowed on Sunday to spare no effort to supply COVID-19 drugs, tests and vaccines affordably and fairly to “all people”, reflecting worries that the pandemic could deepen global divisions between rich and poor.

The pandemic and prospects of an uneven and uncertain economic recovery were at the centre of a two-day summit under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia, which will hand the G20 presidency to Italy next month.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and its unprecedented impact in terms of lives lost, livelihoods and economies affected, is an unparalleled shock that has revealed vulnerabilities in our preparedness and response and underscored our common challenges,” the final communique said.

G20 nations will work to “protect lives, provide support with a special focus on the most vulnerable, and put our economies back on a path to restoring growth, and protecting and creating jobs for all.”

On vaccines, tests and treatments, the leaders said: “We will spare no effort to ensure their affordable and equitable access for all people.”

Source: France 24

UN General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir on Monday criticised the Security Council, saying it was failing to respond to the world’s biggest challenges due to “competing interests.”

“The council has, on many occasions, failed to carry out its responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” Bozkir, a Turkish diplomat, said at a debate on reforming the body.

“Competing interests among its members and frequent use of the veto have limited the Security Council’s effectiveness. Even in some of the most urgent humanitarian crises, the council could not provide a timely and adequate response.”

There has been growing criticism of the body, which has not been reformed in decades, with France’s President Emmanuel Macron saying in a recent interview with Le Grand Continent that it “no longer produces useful solutions.”

Bozkir said reform of the Security Council was “an unavoidable imperative — both challenging and essential.”

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Security Council has held few meetings devoted to the virus.

It took more than three months to overcome friction between the United States and China to pass a resolution on July 1 calling for more international cooperation and to support a call by the secretary-general for a ceasefire in war-torn countries to help fight the disease.

During the debate on reform, the 193 UN members discussed the right to veto, the privilege of the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, China, Russia, France and United Kingdom), enlarging the forum and its regional balance.

Modest expansion of council?

Russia, which has used its veto 15 times since 2011 on the Syrian dossier alone, and the US do not wish to see that power reduced.

“The United States remains open, in principle, to a modest expansion of the Security Council,” said American diplomat Ngoyi Ngoyi. But “this must be pursued in a way that will not diminish the Security Council’s effectiveness, or its efficiency, and will not alter or expand the veto.”

Deputy Russian ambassador Anna Evstigneeva argued that “ideas leading to the erosion of the prerogatives of the permanent members of the Security Council, including the right to veto, are unacceptable.”

Using the veto, or even the threat of using it, “have repeatedly prevented the United Nations from becoming associated with dubious companies,” she added.

Later, Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun criticised an “over-representation of developed countries” and called for a larger presence of small and medium nations, particularly African ones.

The Security Council, which can decide on international sanctions and the use of force, has 15 members. In addition to the five permanent nations, it has 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Germany is a candidate for another permanent seat on the Council, along with Brazil, Japan and India. Africa is seeking two spots but has yet to identify potential future beneficiaries.

Source: AFP