Mr. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, was arrested at a Moscow airport after five months in Germany. The hearing took place inside the police station where he was being detained.
— NYT: Top Stories
Category: International & World
Supporters of leading opposition challenger Bobi Wine cheer as election officials count the ballots after polls closed in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021. Ugandans voted in a presidential election tainted by widespread violence that some fear could escalate as security forces try to stop supporters of Wine from monitoring polling stations.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda’s electoral commission says longtime President Yoweri Museveni has won a sixth term while top opposition challenger Bobi Wine alleges rigging and officials struggle to explain how polling results were compiled amid an internet blackout.
In a generational clash widely watched across the African continent, with a booming young population and a host of aging leaders, the 38-year-old singer-turned-lawmaker Wine posed arguably the greatest challenge yet to Museveni. He had strong support in urban centers where frustration with unemployment and corruption is high.
The electoral commission said Museveni received 58% of ballots and Wine 34%, and voter turnout was 52%.
The top United States diplomat to Africa has called the electoral process “fundamentally flawed.”
Thursday’s vote followed the East African country’s worst pre-election violence since the 76-year-old Museveni took office in 1986. Wine and other opposition candidates were often harassed, and more than 50 people were killed when security forces put down riots in November over Wine’s arrest. Wine petitioned the International Criminal Court this month over alleged torture and other abuses by security forces.
While the president holds on to power, at least 15 of his Cabinet ministers, including the vice president, were voted out, with many losing to candidates from Wine’s party, local media reported.
Wine claimed victory Friday, asserting that he had video evidence of vote-rigging and saying “every legal option is on the table” to challenge the official election results, including peaceful protests. Candidates can challenge election results at the Supreme Court.
Hours later, he tweeted that the military had entered his home compound and “we are in serious trouble,” which a military spokeswoman denied. Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was roughed up and arrested several times while campaigning but was never convicted, and eventually he campaigned wearing a flak jacket and said he feared for his life.
A heavy presence of security forces remained around his home, where he has said he was alone with his wife and a single security guard.
Uganda’s electoral commission has said Wine should prove his allegations of rigging, and it has deflected questions about how countrywide voting results were transmitted during the internet blackout by saying “we designed our own system.” It could not explain how it worked.
Monitoring of the vote was further complicated by the arrests of independent monitors and the denial of accreditation to so many members of the U.S. observer mission that the U.S. called it off. Another major observer, the European Union, said its offer to deploy electoral experts “was not taken up.”
“Uganda’s electoral process has been fundamentally flawed,” the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, tweeted Saturday, calling for the immediate and full restoration of internet access and warning that “the U.S. response hinges on what the Ugandan government does now.”
Museveni, once praised as part of a new generation of African leaders, still has support among some in Uganda for bringing stability. A longtime U.S. security ally, he once criticized African leaders who refused to step aside but has since overseen the removal of term limits and an age limit on the presidency.
The head of the African Union observer team, Samuel Azuu Fonkam, told reporters he could not say whether the election had been free and fair, noting the “limited” AU mission which largely focused on the capital, Kampala. Asked about Wine’s allegations of rigging, he said he could not “speak about things we did not see or observe.”
The East African Community observer team in its preliminary statement noted issues including “disproportionate use of force in some instances” by security forces, the internet shutdown, some late-opening polling stations and isolated cases of failure in biometric kits to verify voters. But it called the vote largely peaceful and said it “demonstrated the level of maturity expected of a democracy.”
Uganda’s elections are often marred by allegations of fraud and abuses by security forces. The previous election saw sporadic post-election riots.
— Associated Press
The campaign is unfolding in India, a country that has reported more than 10 million coronavirus infections.
— NYT: Top Stories
FILE – In this Dec. 23, 2020 file photo, a woman participates in a protest against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the new coronavirus pandemic in Brazilia, Brazil. The country hasn’t approved a single vaccine yet, and independent health experts who participated in its immunization program say the plan is still incomplete, at best. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Like many Brazilian public health experts, Dr. Regina Flauzino spent most of 2020 watching with horror as COVID-19 devastated Brazil. When the opportunity to join the government’s vaccination effort came, she was thrilled: She would be able to share her decades of on-the-ground experience.
But her excitement quickly faded. Flauzino, an epidemiologist who worked on Brazilian vaccine campaigns for 20 years, became frustrated with what she described as a rushed, chaotic process.
The government has yet to approve a single vaccine, and Health Ministry officials have ignored outside experts’ advice. Shortly after the government presented its vaccination plan, more than a quarter of the roughly 140 experts involved demanded their names be excised.
“We weren’t listened to,” Flauzino told The Associated Press. The plan’s creation “was postponed for too long and now it’s being done in a rush.”
Brazil has suffered more than 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, the second-highest total in the world after the United States, with infections and deaths surging again. Despite a half-century of successful vaccination programs, the federal government is trailing regional and global peers in both approving vaccines and cobbling together an immunization strategy.
The AP interviewed four expert committee members and four former Health Ministry officials. They criticized the government’s unjustifiable delay in formulating a vaccination plan, as well as months spent focused on a single vaccine manufacturer.
They also complained of President Jair Bolsonaro undermining the ministry’s effectiveness, pointing to the removal of highly trained professionals from leadership positions, who were replaced with military appointees with little or no public health experience. Experts also blamed the president, a far-right former army captain, for fueling anti-vaccine sentiment in Brazil, compromising the mass immunization effort.
‘STILL WAITING’
The government’s COVID-19 immunization plan, finally released on Dec. 16, lacked essential details: How many doses would be sent to each state and how would they be refrigerated and delivered? How many professionals would need to be hired and trained — and, above all, how much funding would governors receive to implement the campaign? The plan did not include a start date.
“How is each state going to organize its campaign if it doesn’t know how many doses it is going to receive, and the timeline for delivery?” said Dr. Carla Domingues, an epidemiologist who oversaw the logistics of Brazil’s 2009 H1N1 vaccine campaign, and worked on more than a dozen other vaccination efforts.
Bolsonaro’s press office and the Health Ministry did not respond to AP requests for comment about Brazil’s vaccination campaign or why more contracts with vaccine manufacturers were not signed in 2020.
The Health Ministry’s National Immunization Program has a long history of success. Created over 40 years ago, it has enabled Brazil to eradicate polio and significantly reduce measles, rubella, tetanus and diphtheria. The effort won recognition from UNICEF for reaching the vast country’s most remote corners and has contributed to extending Brazilians’ life expectancy from 60 to over 75 years.
The program “is the central axis of all vaccination campaigns in the country,” Flauzino said.
That is no small task in a nation of 210 million people, the world’s sixth-largest population. The program provides a complex blueprint for vaccination campaigns across more than 5,500 municipalities in 26 states and the federal district.
In a Dec. 1 Zoom meeting, Health Ministry officials presented the experts with a general overview of the COVID-19 vaccination plan. The consultants the AP interviewed said it became abundantly clear the ministry was incapable of providing many crucial details.
Epidemiologist Dr. Ethel Maciel, who was among those who later demanded her name be removed from the plan, said many of the experts’ recommendations weren’t implemented, including obtaining vaccines from more than one manufacturer. But neither she nor other consultants could voice their concerns.
“They didn’t let us talk during this meeting, our microphones remained on mute,” Maciel said, adding that officials instructed them to send their comments in writing, and that they would receive a response within a week.
“To this day, we’re still waiting,” she said.
SYRINGE SHORTAGE
Maciel was also shocked to hear that five months after the ministry signed its first contract to obtain vaccine doses in June – up to 210 million of the AstraZeneca and University of Oxford shot — it still hadn’t secured syringes to administer them.
The Health Ministry published its tender for 331 million syringes in mid-December, but received bids for only 8 million by its Dec. 29 deadline. Brazilian syringe manufacturers complained the government’s price limit was below market value.
State health secretaries had for months warned the federal government about the need to buy syringes as soon as possible to avoid excessive pricing, but to no avail, said Carlos Lula, chair of the National Council of Health Secretaries.
“It took too long,” Lula said. Dozens of other countries are already vaccinating, “and we’re falling behind.”
Hamstrung, the government told Brazilian syringe makers in December it would requisition 30 million units, to be delivered by the end of January. A call for an additional 30 million followed.
However, in an injunction issued last week, the Supreme Court prohibited the federal government from requisitioning syringes from state governments like Sao Paulo that had already purchased them.
“The federal government’s negligence cannot penalize the diligence of the state of Sao Paulo, which has been preparing for a long time, with due zeal, to face the current health crisis,” Justice Ricardo Lewandowski wrote in the ruling.
The syringe shortfall has left state governors scouring markets for their own supplies. The Health Ministry said this week that state stocks amounted to just 52 million syringes, plus an additional 71 million acquired by Sao Paulo.
For Domingues the confusion is emblematic of the government’s poor pandemic planning.
“You’d need at least six months to go through all the bureaucratic procedures and make that purchase,” she said.
A FAILURE OF LOGISTICS
The Health Ministry’s planning difficulties are all the more glaring considering the background of Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, an active-duty army general tapped for his expertise in logistics.
The rise of a military man with no experience in public health to the top of the institution in the midst of a pandemic worried experts. “We don’t have a minister who understands the health sector,” Flauzino said.
Since Pazuello took over in May, more than 30 military personnel have been appointed to key ministry positions, including the head of Anvisa, the agency that approves use of vaccines.
Bolsonaro’s contentious relationship with Sao Paulo state Gov. João Doria, a likely rival in next year’s presidential race, also played a role in Brazil’s vaccination debacle.
While Sao Paulo had zeroed in on Chinese pharmaceutical Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac vaccine with a contract in September for 46 million doses, the Bolsonaro administration delayed signing a contract for months, focusing only on the AstraZeneca shot, ignoring experts and state officials who urged including Sinovac in the national vaccination strategy.
“Neither laboratory has the capacity to supply the entire national territory,” said Luiz Henrique Mandetta, health minister during the first months of the COVID-19 health crisis until he was removed by Bolsonaro. “We will need a lot of vaccines.”
Then last week, even as Bolsonaro continued scoffing at CoronaVac, the Health Ministry announced it was buying up to 100 million doses of the Chinese-made vaccine.
But with the need to provide two doses of vaccine to some 210 million people, Brazil is still far short.
Pazuello this week visited the Amazon city of Manaus that’s suffering a brutal second wave of the virus, with hospitals again pushed beyond capacity. He offered assurance that vaccines would be dispatched to all states within four days of approval by health regulators, which could come as early as Sunday — followed by a 16-month vaccination campaign.
However, Pazuello was was still unable to provide a rollout date.
“The vaccine in Brazil will arrive on D Day and H Hour,” he said cryptically.
___ Álvares reported from Brasilia.
— Associated Press
FILE – This March 19, 2020, file photo, shows an envelope containing a 2020 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident. The U.S. Census Bureau has denied any attempts to systemically falsify information during the 2020 head count used to determine the allocation of congressional seats and federal spending. The Census Bureau statement was issued Monday night, Nov. 9, in response to reports by The Associated Press of census workers who said they were told by supervisors to enter fake answers on the head-count forms in order to close cases in the waning days of the census. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
U.S. Census Bureau statisticians are under significant pressure from Trump political appointees to figure out who in the U.S. is in the country illegally, and they’re worried that any such report they produce in the waning days of the Trump administration will be inaccurate, according to the bureau’s watchdog agency.
Two Trump appointees to top positions at the Census Bureau, Nathaniel Cogley and Benjamin Overholt, are the driving force behind the effort, according to a memo from the Office of Inspector General posted Tuesday. The appointments of Cogley and Overholt last year were highly criticized by statisticians, academics and Democratic lawmakers, who worried they would politicize the once-a-decade head count.
Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham has set a Friday deadline for bureau statisticians to provide him a technical report on the effort, whistleblowers told the Office of Inspector General.
“Bureau officials are concerned that incomplete data could be misinterpreted, misused, or otherwise tarnish the Bureau’s reputation,” said Inspector General Peggy Gustafson in the memo to Dillingham.
Gustafson’s memo asked Dillingham to answer what he intends to use the information for and why he was making it a top priority. The Census Bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
President Donald Trump two years ago ordered the Census Bureau to use administrative records to figure out who is in the country illegally after the Supreme Court blocked his administration’s effort to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census questionnaire. The statistical agency has not publicly said what method it’s utilizing to do that.
Information about the citizenship status of every U.S. resident could be used to implement another Trump order seeking to exclude people in the country illegally from the count used for divvying up congressional seats and Electoral College votes, as well as the annual distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending, among the states.
An influential GOP adviser had advocated excluding them from the apportionment process in order to favor Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. Trump’s unprecedented order on apportionment was challenged in more than a half-dozen lawsuits around the U.S., but the Supreme Court ruled last month that any challenge was premature.
However, the ability to implement Trump’s apportionment order is in jeopardy since the processing of the data is not scheduled to be done until early March, many weeks after Trump leaves office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in Jan. 20. Biden has said he opposes the effort.
The whistleblowers told the Office of Inspector General that the Census Bureau has not set rules for categorizing the citizenship status of U.S. residents. Bureau statisticians also do not fully understand the data since portions came from outside the bureau and they are worried incomplete data could be misinterpreted.
“One senior Bureau employee went as far to say that this work is statistically indefensible,” the Inspector General’s memo said.
___
Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP.
— Associated Press
The loss of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 on Saturday was a grim start to the year in a sprawling archipelago nation where barely a year goes by without an air disaster.
— NYT: Top Stories
A woman skies past the Cibeles monument in front of the City Hall during a heavy snowfall in central Madrid, Spain, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. An unusual and persistent blizzard has blanketed large parts of Spain with snow, freezing traffic and leaving thousands trapped in cars or in train stations and airports that had suspended all services as the snow kept falling on Saturday. The capital, Madrid, and other parts of central Spain activated for the first time its red weather alert, its highest, and called in the military to rescue people from cars vehicles trapped in everything from small roads to the city’s major thoroughfares. (AP Photo/Paul White)
MADRID (AP) — A persistent blizzard has blanketed large parts of Spain with 50-year record levels of snow, halting traffic and leaving thousands trapped in cars or in train stations and airports that had suspended all services as the snow kept falling on Saturday.
The bodies of a man and woman were recovered by the Andalucía region emergency service after their car was washed away by a flooded river near the town of Fuengirola. The Interior Ministry said a 54-year-old man was also found dead in Madrid under a big pile of snow.
More than half of Spain’s provinces remained on alert Saturday afternoon, five of them on their highest level of warning, for Storm Filomena. In the capital, authorities activated the red alert for the first time since the system was adopted four decades ago and called in the military to rescue people from vehicles trapped on everything from small roads to the city’s major thoroughfares.
More than 50 centimeters (20 inches) of snow fell in the capital. By 7 a.m. on Saturday, the AEMET national weather agency had recorded the highest 24-hour snowfall seen since 1971 in Madrid.
Sandra Morena, who became trapped late on Friday as she commuted to her night shift as a security guard in a shopping center, arrived home, on foot, after an army emergency unit helped her out on Saturday morning.
“It usually takes me 15 minutes but this time it has been 12 hours freezing, without food or water, crying with other people because we didn’t know how we were going to get out of there,” said Morena, 22.
“Snow can be very beautiful but spending the night trapped in a car because of it is no fun,” she added.
AEMET had warned that some regions would be receiving more than 24 hours of continuous snowfall due to the odd combination of a cold air mass stagnant over the Iberian Peninsula and the arrival of the warmer Storm Filomena from the south.
The storm is expected to move northeast throughout Saturday but it is expected to be followed by a cold snap, the agency said.
Transport Minster José Luis Ábalos warned that “snow is going to turn into ice and we will enter a situation perhaps more dangerous than what we have at the moment.”
He added that the priority was to assist those in need but also to ensure the supply chain for food and other basic goods.
“The storm has exceeded the most pessimistic forecasts we had,” Ábalos added.
Carlos Novillo, head of the Madrid emergency agency, said that more than 1,000 vehicles had become trapped, mostly on the city’s ring road and the main motorway that leads from the capital to the south, toward the Castilla La Mancha and Andalucia regions.
“The situation remains of high risk. This is a very complex phenomenon and a critical situation,” Novillo said Saturday morning in a message posted on social media.
“We ask all those who remain trapped to be patient, we will get to you,” he added.
Airport operator AENA said that the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas International Airport, the main gateway in and out of the country, would remain closed throughout the day after the blizzard bested machines and workers trying to keep the runways clear of snow.
All trains into and out of Madrid, both commuter routes and long-distance passenger trains, as well as railway lines between the south and the northeast of the country, were suspended, railway operator Renfe said.
The storm had caused serious disruptions or closed altogether over 650 roads by Saturday morning, according to Spain’s transit authorities, which urged people to stay indoors and avoid all non-essential travel.
The wintry weather even halted the country’s soccer league, with some of the La Liga top teams unable to travel for games. Saturday’s match between Spanish league leader Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao was postponed after the plane carrying Bilbao’s team on Friday was unable to land in the capital and had to turn around.
The regions of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid, home to 8.6 million people altogether, announced that schools would be closed at least on Monday and Tuesday.
Despite the numerous branches and even whole trees toppled by the weight of the snow, the blizzard also yielded surreal images that entertained many Madrileños, including a few brave skiers and a man on a dog sled that was seen on videos widely circulated on social media.
Lucía Vallés, a coach for a Madrid-based ski club who usually has to travel to faraway mountains with her clients, was thrilled to see the white layers of snow accumulating literally at her doorstep.
“I never imagined this, it has been a gift,” the 23-year-old said. “But I’ve never had so many photographs taken of me,” she added as she slid past the late 18th-century building that hosts the Prado Museum.
__
AP writer Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, contributed to this report.
— Associated Press
Agriculture Leaders Say Imports Clearly Contribute to Success of Domestic Industry by Providing Year-Round Supply of Super Fruit
WATSONVILLE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ahead of the incoming Biden Administration’s first major trade dispute, American and international blueberry berry growers, importers, distributors, purchasers, and suppliers have aligned to form The Blueberry Coalition for Progress & Health. The Coalition has been organized to oppose limitations on blueberry imports, including the upcoming International Trade Commission hearing on blueberry imports. All members of the Coalition agree that imports are not a substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic blueberry industry. In fact, the U.S. blueberry market is healthy, thriving, and is doing its best to keep up with the year-round marketplace demand for this healthy and nutritious fruit.
U.S. consumer consumption of blueberries has experienced more than a 300% increase in per capita consumption since 2005 and is now at an all-time high of 1.79 pounds per person. Restricting blueberry imports into the U.S. will limit consumers’ access to these healthy, delicious, and nutritional berries. Domestic growers cannot alone meet the rapidly growing U.S. consumer demand for a year-round supply of this healthy “super fruit.” Imports are crucial both to meet current demand and to continue to grow the market for the benefit of all growers, domestic and abroad.
“Our family has been farming in America for over 10 generations, and we are headquartered in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Our decision to farm in Mexico and Peru, in addition to the U.S., was in direct response from our retail customers to produce and deliver quality blueberries throughout the entire year,” said Dave Jackson co-owner of Family Tree Farms and a key member of the Coalition. “If we could grow blueberries year-round exclusively in the United States we would, but seasonal crops like blueberries require farming in other countries to meet growing consumer demand throughout the year.”
Blueberry demand has exploded in the United States, and supply has followed suit. While fresh and frozen blueberry imports have grown over the last five years, so have domestic shipments of both types of products. Production and sales volumes indicate both domestic and import supplies have their own independent growing seasons.
The seasonal nature of domestic production means that blueberries grown in the U.S. are essentially unavailable for 20 to 30 weeks a year for most U.S. consumers, and the vast majority of the increase in fresh blueberry imports has occurred during these months. Approximately 80% of imported fresh blueberries enter the U.S. in off-peak weeks, implying that the vast majority of imports do not compete with domestic blueberries. Given the lack of temporal overlap when the two sources of supply are present in the U.S. market, imported and domestic blueberries are better seen as complements than substitutes.
“The domestic industry has earned double-digit operating margins in every year of the time period included within the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation, which compares favorably to broader farm industry benchmarks,” added Joe Barsi, President of California Giant Farms of Watsonville, Calif. and also a leading member of the Coalition. “At California Giant Berry Farms, our mission is to deliver high-quality berries and take care of our growers. We believe that the counter seasonal supply of imports has increased consumption in the U.S. and has helped the health of the domestic blueberry industry.”
U.S. fresh blueberry production and shipments are heavily concentrated within a 20-week period, running from late-April to early-September. Over 90% of U.S. fresh blueberries are sold during the 20-week peak season. Farmers in large blueberry growing states including North Carolina and New Jersey sell all their blueberries in the peak weeks. Farmers in other large blueberry growing states including Georgia, California, Oregon, and Washington sell more than 90% of their crop in peak weeks. Farmers in every U.S. state except Florida sells at least 80% of its fresh blueberry crop within the 20-week peak U.S. season.
“The U.S. blueberry market is thriving, and our goal is to ensure that we continue to fairly meet the marketplace demand for this healthy and delicious fruit,” added Barsi. “Blueberry imports are crucial to U.S. consumers, retailers, and the U.S. economy, and they clearly contribute to the success of the domestic industry. We are launching this Coalition to alert America’s blueberry lovers and to educate decision makers on the stakes of their upcoming actions, and to prevent the destruction of the thriving and essential blueberry industry.”
To learn more about the benefits of imported blueberries to U.S. consumers, growers and the economy, visit the website for the Blueberry Coalition for Progress and Health.
About the Blueberry Coalition for Progress and Health
The Blueberry Coalition for Progress & Health is a broad cross-section of the U.S. blueberry industry – including domestic growers and shippers as well as importers and retailers – formed to oppose limitations on blueberry imports, including the initiated Section 201 investigation on blueberries. The U.S. blueberry market is thriving, and the goal of the Coalition is to ensure we fairly meet the marketplace demand for this healthy and delicious fruit. Members of the Blueberry Coalition for Progress and Health include:
- Agroberries S.A.
- Alpine Fresh Inc.
- Aneberries A.C.
- Berries Paradise S.A.P.I. de C.V.
- California Giant Berry Farms
- Camposol Fresh USA, Inc
- Driscoll’s, Inc.
- Family Tree Farms
- Fresh Produce Association of the Americas
- Giddings Berries
- Hortifruit
- Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce
- Pro Arandanos
- United Exports Limited
- Reiter Affiliated Companies
- Chilean Blueberry Committee
- Chilealimentos
For more information, visit: www.blueberrycoalitionforprogressandhealth.com
Contacts
Press Inquiries:
Marcus Gamo
Categories
Paris by bike
Pedaling across the Seine on a sunny day is a peak experience. How did the City of Light become a city of cycles?
— NYT: Top Stories
In the wake of the controversy surrounding Hilaria Baldwin’s relationship with Spain, a blog post written by her father about the culture’s impact on his life has resurfaced.
— FOX News