June, 09 2021, 03:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Olivia Engling, Communications and Operations Manager, olivia@jubileeusa.org
WTO Considers COVID Vaccine Access Waiver for Poor Countries
WASHINGTON
The World Trade Organization began a process that could make it easier for poor countries to produce or procure COVID-19 vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies hold vaccine patents and WTO action is necessary to waive the patents. Less than 2% of coronavirus vaccines reached poor countries.
"Without enough vaccines, developing countries continue to lose lives and jobs," said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network. LeCompte's group advocates for equitable medicine access in trade agreements. "We must move as fast as possible so all people can receive coronavirus vaccines, therapies and medical equipment to respond to the crisis."
The IMF warns of a worrying trend where rich countries have too many vaccines while developing countries face deep vaccine shortages. On Tuesday, the World Bank reported that two-thirds of developing countries are expected to be in worse economic shape than they were before the pandemic.
"Unless we act quickly on global vaccine access, most of the world's countries will see lost decades of development," stated LeCompte. "As the crisis worsens in developing countries, wealthy countries will face more economic shocks."
Pressure for a vaccine access process intensified on the trade body after the Biden Administration called for a COVID waiver on vaccine patents.
Jubilee USA Network is an interfaith, non-profit alliance of religious, development and advocacy organizations. We are 75 U.S. institutions and more than 750 faith groups working across the United States and around the globe. We address the structural causes of poverty and inequality in our communities and countries around the world.
(202) 783-3566LATEST NEWS
Judge Fines Trump $9K, Warns of 'Incarceratory Punishment' for Next Gag Order Violation
The former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee is on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals.
Apr 30, 2024
The New York judge presiding over former U.S. President Donald Trump's trial for allegedly falsifying business records on Tuesday held the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee in criminal contempt for repeatedly violating a gag order, fined him $9,000, and threatened to jail him if he does it again.
Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to pay $1,000 for each violation of the gag order and directed him to remove eight offending social media posts.
"Defendant violated the order by making social media posts about known witnesses pertaining to their participation in this criminal proceeding and by making public statements about jurors in this criminal proceeding," Merchan wrote in his 8-page decision.
Trump is "hereby warned that the court will not tolerate continued willfull violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment," the judge added.
Trump faces 34 felony charges for falsifying records related to alleged hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle.
Overall, Trump is charged with 88 federal and state felonies related to this case and three others that stem from interfering with and trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and mishandling classified documents.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Columbia Students Occupy Historic Campus Building, Renaming It After Child Killed by IDF
"Students and community members are risking suspension and arrest to end the true state of emergency on campus, Columbia's complicity in the genocide in Gaza."
Apr 30, 2024
Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University early Tuesday occupied a campus building with a long history of anti-war and anti-apartheid demonstrations, storming the hall and renaming it after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza earlier this year.
Video footage shows dozens of students celebrating as other protesters who entered Hamilton Hall unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in honor of 6-year-old Hind Rajab.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student-led advocacy group, said in a statement following the takeover that Columbia's leadership "forced protesters to escalate by contributing to a genocide while refusing to follow baseline standards of conduct that make negotiation possible."
"We call on the press and members of the public to hold Columbia accountable for any disproportionate response to students' actions today," the statement continued. "To Columbia's administrators and trustees: Do not incite another Kent or Jackson State by bringing soldiers and police officers with weapons onto our campus. Students' blood will be on your hands."
Taking over Hamilton Hall as done in 1968, Columbia students unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall," in reference to Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces.
Hundreds of students cheer as the banner is revealed, erupting into chants to "Free Palestine." pic.twitter.com/Oi8WgdZmqf
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) April 30, 2024
The occupation came after Columbia began suspending students who refused to leave their pro-Palestinian encampment by administrators' Monday deadline of 2:00 pm ET. Columbia and other universities across the U.S. are facing growing backlash for violently cracking down on demonstrations calling on the schools to divest from companies profiting off Israel's assault on Gaza.
The Associated Press reported that Columbia students on Tuesday morning "locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall" and "carried furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus."
Following the takeover, Columbia limited campus access to students and essential employees, barring members of the press from entering to cover the ongoing demonstrations.
CUAD said Tuesday that students intend to "remain at Hind's Hall until Columbia concedes" to organizers' "three demands: divestment, financial transparency, and amnesty."
"Students and community members are risking suspension and arrest to end the true state of emergency on campus, Columbia's complicity in the genocide in Gaza," the group added. "Taking back our own campus is the only and last response to an institution that obeys neither its own 'rules' nor ethical mandates."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Authoritarian Bullying': Journalist Arrested at Texas Campus Protest Faces Felony Charge
"Violently arresting journalists and then charging them with felonies is unacceptable," said Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Apr 30, 2024
A photojournalist who was violently arrested while covering a pro-Palestine student protest at the University of Texas at Austin last week is reportedly being charged with felony assault on an officer, a charge that press freedom advocates condemned as an obvious attempt to intimidate reporters.
Citing court documents, a local NBC affiliate reported Monday that FOX 7 journalist Carlos Sanchez "faces a charge of assault on a peace officer, a second-degree felony."
"The affidavit said Sanchez lunged toward a Texas Highway Patrol officer, who was on campus assisting the university's police department during its response to the protest, striking him with his camera," according to KXAN. Sanchez was initially taken into custody on criminal trespass charges, which were later dropped.
Videos of Sanchez's arrest and the chaotic moments preceding it went viral on social media last week, with the footage showing Texas state troopers hurling the journalist to the ground with his camera after he appeared to collide with the back of an officer as police attempted to move a group of demonstrators.
Sanchez denied intentionally hitting an officer. The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) said in a statement Monday that "contrary to the police affidavit in support of the arrest, video of the incident does not show Sanchez intentionally hitting an officer with his camera, and there is no reason why a FOX 7 journalist, who was there to cover the protests, not participate in them, would strike an officer."
FPF said Texas authorities should drop the assault charge immediately.
Guy with camera gets rko’d by police at Palestine protest. #ut #palestine #protest pic.twitter.com/5HI2SU8VKs
— Christopher Kuhlman (@Chris_Kuhlman00) April 24, 2024
Seth Stern, FPF's director of advocacy, said in a statement late Monday that "violently arresting journalists and then charging them with felonies is unacceptable, authoritarian bullying."
"It's doubly bad when police were there to shut down free speech in the first place," said Stern. "Even after law enforcement assaults of journalists covering protests in 2020 resulted in millions in settlement payments, many officers clearly haven't learned their lesson. As even the U.S. Department of Justice has acknowledged, protests are newsworthy, and journalists need to be allowed to cover them and their aftermath, even when protestors are dispersed."
"It's important to keep in mind that none of this would have happened if American universities weren't inviting militarized police forces onto campuses to break up student protests," Stern added. "The police response to the protests—against journalists and students alike—has been far more violent than the protests ever were."
Sanchez's arrest drew swift condemnation from press freedom organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said last week that it was "very concerned by the violent arrest of a FOX 7 Austin journalist who was simply doing his job and covering matters of public interest."
Ashanti Blaize, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, said the felony charge against Sanchez is "intimidation and retaliation" by Texas authorities, who violently arrested student protesters again on Monday at the University of Texas at Austin campus.
"There will undoubtedly be a chilling effect on journalists who will cover this developing story, not just in Austin, but across TX," Blaize wrote on social media. "The public has a right to know what's happening on the ground, which means journos must be allowed to do their First Amendment-protected jobs without fear of law enforcement interference or threats of arrest and detainment."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular