China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a U.S. analyst said Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources. Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated. It was unclear which company had supplied its drug candidate to the Kims and whether it had proven to be safe, he added. FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this undated photo released Nov. 16, 2020, by KCNA.”Kim Jong Un and multiple other high-ranking officials within the Kim family and leadership network have been vaccinated for coronavirus within the last two to three weeks thanks to a vaccine candidate supplied by the Chinese government,” Kazianis wrote in an article for online outlet 19FortyFive. Citing U.S. medical scientist Peter J. Hotez, he said at least three Chinese companies were developing a coronavirus vaccine, including Sinovac Biotech Ltd, CanSinoBio and Sinophram Group. Sinophram says its candidate has been used by nearly 1 million people in China, although none of the firms was known to have publicly launched Phase 3 clinical trials of their experimental COVID-19 drugs. North Korea has not confirmed any coronavirus infections, but South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has said an outbreak there cannot be ruled out as the country had trade and people-to-people exchanges with China, the source of the pandemic, before shutting the border in late January. Microsoft said last month that two North Korean hacking groups had tried to break into the network of vaccine developers in multiple countries, without specifying the companies targeted. Sources told Reuters they included British drugmaker AstraZeneca. The NIS said last week it had foiled North Korea’s attempts to hack into South Korean COVID-19 vaccine makers.
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Month: December 2020
Amnesty International Urges UN to Renew South Sudan Arms Embargo
Amnesty International is urging the United Nations Security Council to renew its arms embargo on South Sudan, saying violence, atrocities and war crimes against civilians have quadrupled this year despite a cease-fire and formation of a unity government in February. The Security Council first imposed an arms embargo on South Sudan in May 2018, which it renewed a year later and again in May 2020. Brian Castner, senior crisis adviser and weapons investigator at the New York-based rights group Amnesty International, told South Sudan in Focus the embargo is needed because government forces do not “use their weapons responsibly,” adding that they are “often the ones committing the atrocities themselves.” In a report Amnesty International submitted to the Security Council last week ahead of a midterm review of South Sudan’s arms embargo to be conducted sometime before December 15, the rights group reported numerous cases of extrajudicial executions, forced displacement, rape, torture and destruction of civilian property by government and former opposition forces from April to June 2020 in Central Equatoria state.The report said the level of violence against civilians quadrupled this year compared with last year, despite a cease-fire and a government of national unity in place. Amnesty International carried out research to determine if there were still “cases of violence against civilians and massacres and forced displacement and the burning of villages,” and found that from April to June of this year, that period “was one of the most violent times for civilians in South Sudan for years,” according to Castner.He said that in the middle of the year, there was four times the rate of violence compared with the year before, according to data from the Stimson Center, a Washington-based organization that identifies itself as a nonpartisan policy research center “working to solve the world’s greatest threats to security and prosperity.”The South Sudan People’s Defense Forces, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition, and the National Salvation Front (NAS) clashed repeatedly in Central Equatoria state, where government forces attacked civilians who were accused of supporting rebel forces, Castner said. “We identified 110 homes that had been burned in various villages, mass displacement of tens of thousands of people, and specific cases of torture and extrajudicial executions in the course of that fighting,” Castner told South Sudan in Focus. In Yei, Lanya, and Morobo counties of Central Equatoria state, Amnesty International found “a pattern where first those forces clash, government forces and NAS, and afterwards the government forces will go into the nearby villages and accuse those civilians of being supporters of NAS, of supplying them with food,” Castner said. Aside from the several interviews Amnesty conducted with civilians and survivors of rights abuses, Castner said satellite imagery and other data show that violence against civilians also occurred in Jonglei, Lakes, Warrap and Western Equatoria states. “The month of May was the worst month for violence against civilians in four years, so any narrative that the peace process is working, that the unity government is working, that South Sudan should no longer be ‘punished’ – it’s the word they sometimes used with the arms embargo – because the war is over, well violence against civilians was the worst in four years in the month of May; that tells me the war is not over,” Castner told VOA. He said the documented atrocities and human rights violations that occurred in South Sudan this year mean the arms embargo “should stay in place.” Government forces and the rebel group the National Salvation Front have clashed several times this year. Each time, each accuses the other of violating a cease-fire signed in Rome, Italy, at the beginning of 2020.The most recent violation took place earlier this month while the two parties were engaged in a trust-building workshop in Rome. It led to the withdrawal of the South Sudan Opposition Movement Alliance from the workshop when the group accused the government of attacking their forces in Lobonok County of Central Equatoria state. A government army spokesperson denied the accusation and said it was NAS forces that initiated the attack.
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Biden’s Cabinet Picks Include Some Firsts
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has begun naming picks for his new Cabinet, as well as other top-level administration officials. Biden has pledged to choose a Cabinet that reflects the diversity of the American population. His selections will be scrutinized by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and must win confirmation in a narrowly controlled Senate, whose majority party will be determined by two Georgia Senate runoffs in January. Here are Biden’s selections so far.Janet YellenSecretary of the TreasuryYellen, 74, is a familiar face in financial circles, having been the chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, as well as the top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to head the Treasury Department. She previously was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010 and was Fed vice chair from 2010 to 2014 alongside then-Chairman Ben Bernanke. As head of the Fed, Yellen kept interest rates near zero until late 2015, when she lifted them very slowly to encourage employment gains.FILE – In this July 27, 2016, file photo, Neera Tanden speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.Neera TandenDirector of the Office of Management and BudgetTanden is president of the liberal Center for American Progress research group and has previously worked in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. She was director of domestic policy for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and helped craft the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration’s sweeping health care bill popularly known as Obamacare. Tanden was also policy director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. If confirmed, Tanden, 50, a South Asian American, would be the first woman of color to lead OMB, the agency that oversees the federal budget.President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State Tony Blinken speaks at The Queen theater, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Antony BlinkenSecretary of StateBlinken was deputy secretary of state during the Obama administration and has close ties with Biden. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, Blinken, 58, has long served in foreign policy positions during Democratic administrations, including as a member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. He was also staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden was chair of the panel, and later was then-Vice President Biden’s national security adviser.Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to be director of Homeland Security, speaks in Wilmington, Del., Nov. 24, 2020.Alejandro MayorkasSecretary of Homeland SecurityMayorkas is a former deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and will be the first Latino and immigrant nominated to head the agency. Born in Havana, Cuba, Mayorkas, 60, came to the United States as a political refugee with his family when he was a child. Following a career as a lawyer, he joined the Obama administration in 2009 as director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, where he implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, granting protection to immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, speaks as President-elect Biden announces his national security nominees.Linda Thomas-GreenfieldUnited Nations AmbassadorThomas-Greenfield is a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service who has served on four continents. She was President Obama’s top diplomat on Africa from 2013 to 2017, leading U.S. policy in sub-Saharan Africa during the West Africa Ebola outbreak. After leaving the State Department, Thomas-Greenfield took a senior leadership position at former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s global strategy company. Biden plans to elevate the position of U.N. ambassador to Cabinet level.President-elect Joe Biden’s climate envoy nominee former Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at The Queen theater, Nov. 24, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.John KerrySpecial Envoy for ClimateKerry is a prominent and longtime figure in the Democratic Party — a former secretary of state in the Obama administration; a former senator from Massachusetts for more than 25 years; and the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. The special envoy for climate is not a Cabinet position, but Kerry will sit on the National Security Council, the first time the NSC will include an official dedicated to climate change. Kerry tweeted after the announcement of his selection, “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is.”President-elect Joe Biden’s Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines speaks at The Queen theater, Nov. 24, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.Avril HainesDirector of National IntelligenceHaines is a former deputy director of the CIA and a former deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration. She will be the first woman nominated to lead the U.S. intelligence community. Haines, 51, is a lawyer and has previously worked with Biden while serving on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as deputy chief counsel when Biden was the committee’s chairman. After leaving the Obama administration in 2017, she held several posts at Columbia University.Former State Department Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan speaks during a hearing on Iran before the House Foreign Affairs Committee at Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 11, 2017.Jake SullivanNational Security AdviserSullivan was Biden’s national security adviser during the Obama administration. He was also deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At age 44, Sullivan will be one of the youngest people to serve in that role in decades, according to the Biden transition team.
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