With so-called “vaccine diplomacy increasing China’s influence in Europe,” the Wall Street Journal reports that Hungary and Serbia are already using it, Montenegro and Macedonia start in a few days, and Germany and Austria also want it.
The problem was that, in the case of the “three vaccines” previously approved in the region, the American Pfizer and Moderna and the British AstraZeneca, “the manufacturers struggled to deliver”. The United States “initially focused on vaccinating its own population.”
A Hungarian official stressed that “the veto on the export of vaccines by the United States” left his country with no way out. Another, a Serb, said she had tried Pfizer and AstraZeneca, received few doses and “it’s because we are calling on China that we have the best vaccination in Europe”.
The problem extends to Latin America. In the Washington Post, “Foreigners get vaccinated in the United States”. Below he details that they are Latin American, “maybe thousands.” He quotes celebrities from Mexico and Argentina who have traveled to Miami to drink.
He reports that the Mexican government ordered the lab “aggressively, but supplies from Pfizer have run dry.” And that the governors of Florida and Texas are already moving to arrest the foreigners.
The website of the American organization AS / COA warns of an “emblematic moment”, which took place two weeks ago. In the headline of the Mexican Proceso: “No vaccine is coming … And López Obrador asks Biden. But the representative regretted not being able to help him”.
Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina and Mexico are already looking to China, if not Russia, AS / COA warns, predicting “unforeseeable consequences for alliances and geopolitics in Latin America”.
ORDER OF THE RIVER
At Washington Post’s home (above), correspondent: “My wife and I caught Covid-19. Our doctor in Brazil prescribed a drug used to treat parasites in cattle.”
‘Shame on you, NYT’
At the end of the week, The New York Times reported that “China has refused to pass important data to the WHO”, a report which then led to Beijing’s aggressive indictment by Washington.
But scientists from the World Health Organization’s mission to China came out denouncing, via Twitter: “Our statements have been deliberately distorted.” One, who chairs the New York EcoHealth Alliance, went further:
“It is disappointing to spend time with reporters to see quotes poorly chosen to match a previously prescribed narrative. Shame on you, NYT.”
NO GENOCIDE
Highlighting the weekend on The Economist, the editorial “How to Talk About Xinjiang” notes that Biden’s Secretary of State, echoing Trump’s, “called the persecution of the Uyghur genocide,” Muslims from this Chinese region. “But is that correct?” He asks, to reply that “it is not”.
Beijing “locked up maybe a million” and “sterilized Uyghur women. But that’s not killing them.” He maintains that “Biden is right to criticize the abuse, but he must do it with the truth.” Accusing China of genocide, “in the absence of mass murder, is to lessen the unique stigma of the word.”
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this column? The subscriber can release five free accesses from any link per day. Just click on the blue F below.