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India says Covid vaccine exports to restart in October
AFP
India will resume exporting Covid-19 vaccines from October, five months after it stopped sending supplies abroad in the face of a deadly wave of infections, the health minister said Monday.
The South Asian giant, dubbed the “pharmacy of the world”, was a major supplier to the Covax programme aimed at ensuring poor countries can access doses.
Exports stopped in April, according to foreign ministry data, when a virus surge in India pushed the healthcare system to breaking point and there was a huge demand for jabs.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said more than 300 million vaccine doses would be produced in October and one billion in the last three months of the year.
“India will be resuming export of vaccines… in order to fulfill the commitment of India towards Covax,” Mandaviya said in a statement.
“The surplus supply of vaccines will be used to fulfill our commitment towards the world for the collective fight against Covid-19.”
Covax is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, with UNICEF using its vaccine logistics expertise to handle the delivery flights.
Under Covax, the 92 poorest countries can access jabs for free, with donors covering the cost.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) plant, producing AstraZeneca doses, was supposed to be the early backbone of Covax’s supply chain.
A Gavi spokesman welcomed the news from New Delhi.
“This could have an immense positive impact on both health security within India as well as globally,” he told AFP.
“Our priority right now is to engage with the government of India and the SII to understand the impact this will have on our supply schedule, as we race to protect as many vulnerable people as we can from Covid-19.”
Some 5.9 billion coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered around the world, according to an AFP count.
So far, Covax has shipped 286 million doses — far below where it wanted to be at this stage — to 141 participating economies.
In a tweet, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged world leaders to “guarantee vaccine equity and equitable access to other Covid-19 tools”.
Launched in January, India’s vaccination campaign was slow to take off because of shortages and hesitancy among the population.
But the pace has picked up in recent weeks, with authorities currently administering between five to eight million coronavirus shots every day.
The country hit a record 22 million coronavirus jabs in a day on Friday as part of a special vaccination drive for the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Trump files $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against The New York Times, which denounced the legal move on Tuesday as an attempt to silence the press.
In this new stage of his presidency, the 79-year-old Republican leader has escalated his long-standing hostility toward traditional media, repeatedly attacking critical journalists, limiting their access, or taking them to court.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, seeks $15 billion in damages, along with additional punitive compensation “in an amount to be determined at trial.”
The New York Times had reported last week that Trump threatened legal action over articles concerning a birthday letter allegedly sent by him to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The letter featured a typed message inside the outline of a nude woman. Trump denies that the accompanying signature is his.
“For too long, The New York Times has been allowed to lie, defame, and slander me freely — and that ends NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
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Maduro warns Venezuela would enter armed struggle if attacked by foreign forces
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated on Friday that if his country were attacked, it would enter a phase of armed struggle, amid his claims of “threats” from the United States, which is conducting a military deployment in Caribbean waters near Venezuela’s coast under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
Maduro emphasized that Venezuela is currently in the non-armed phase, which he described as political, communicational, and institutional, but added that if the country were somehow aggressed, it would move to a planned, organized armed struggle involving the entire population, whether the threat is local, regional, or national.
“We would enter a stage of armed struggle, in defense of peace, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and our people,” Maduro said during an event activating citizen militias, broadcast on state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
He also noted that Venezuela is currently in a phase of readiness and preparation to defend the country and will proceed to the deployment of defensive capacities, including training and retraining of the entire Venezuelan population.
Maduro described the Venezuelan people as pacifist yet warrior-like, asserting that “no one will enslave us, neither today nor ever.”
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USCIS gains law enforcement powers: Agents now authorized to investigate and arrest immigration violators
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), traditionally responsible for handling naturalizations, visas, residence permits, and work authorizations, is now expanding its role to include law enforcement powers, according to a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Under the new directive, specially designated USCIS agents are now authorized to investigate, arrest, and bring to justice individuals who violate U.S. immigration laws. Previously, USCIS primarily managed administrative and bureaucratic processes, while enforcement responsibilities were handled by agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Illegal immigration has been a central issue under President Donald Trump’s administration, with DHS reporting that over 300,000 migrants have been arrested in the first six months of his presidency. However, the number of people who have crossed U.S. borders illegally in recent years remains controversial, with experts estimating between 8 to 10 million individuals.
The policy shift also comes amid heightened legal battles over immigration enforcement. Recently, a federal judge blocked the deportation of minors to Guatemala, who were moments away from boarding a flight. Trump’s aggressive measures, including large-scale raids in cities like Los Angeles, have faced multiple judicial challenges, some upheld and others overturned at various federal levels, including the Supreme Court.
According to the DHS statement, the expanded authority allows USCIS to “manage investigations from start to finish rather than referring cases to ICE,” aiming to reduce backlogs and combat fraud within the immigration system.
USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow will have the power to appoint and train special agents under the order signed by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ensuring that the agency can effectively execute its newly granted enforcement responsibilities.
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