Not only does crippling poverty mean that once a vaccine is rolled out, those will be the last to make use of it: but before one is approved, many lower classes will see deaths from failed trial products, and there will be little international notice. Russia is using their poor as guinea pigs when there is little evidence promoting their vaccine, and India ‘pharmacy of the world’ has a reputation for lacking bureaucracy and a lack of controversy and attention. If the developing world continuous racing with the same rigour as in the Cold War, the international community had better start paying attention.
putin
Where’s Waldo: Russia Edition
Russia has a precedent – as with the Chernobyl emergency, they are not speaking up. There is a rouse in place, that of a national holiday from work, to mask the very real lockdown occurring in Russia, too. This shows that Russia, like everyone else, is faced with a pandemic-shaped threat, which they are actually reacting to. But why stay quiet about it, and why not help the rest of the world, which is what is expected of a superpower?
What is so great about Russia’s Vladimir Putin?
Vladimir Putin is set to lead Russia for another six years after securing 73.9% of the vote in Sunday’s presidential election. Yes, the same man who is currently being blamed for the attempted murder of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The turn out for the elections this year was 63.7%, less than the number […]
Rhetoric: Fake News
“The media is really, the word, one of the greatest of all [the] terms I’ve come up with, is ‘fake’ … I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years, but I’ve never noticed it.” This garbled syntax may be familiar to you by now. It belongs to the current President of the […]
James Comey’s testimony: enough to bring down Trump?
Donald Trump’s presidency has been less than stable thus far, and that is, perhaps, an understatement. Trump and his team have been plagued by rumours and accusations since he announced he would run for office. Some of these have been ridiculous fairy tales invented by political opponents; others have been worryingly likely with ominous consequences. […]
The Comey Scandal
I’d been dreading this move for weeks. It’s directly in line with everything we know about Trump and the incompetence he’s surrounded himself with, so I’m not surprised to hear that President Trump has fired the head of the FBI, James Comey. The White House press has been vigorously engaging itself in vain attempts to […]
Ten thoughts for 2017
After the trials and tribulations of 2016, here are ten thoughts to take away for 2017: 1) Don’t cling too hard to any predictions, good or bad. If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that if a storm has been brewing for a while, no amount of wishful thinking or good intentions will preventing from breaking – […]
Goodbye Free Aleppo
Forget Brexit. Forget Trump. When historians look back at 2016, they will not care how many famous people died. They will look on this year as the year in which the international community stood back and watched the Syrian genocide. I was brought up, like most Europeans, to believe that the reason we study the history […]
We cannot talk about Syria without talking about Assad
On April 22 2016, the Assad regime in Syria, and its Russian military allies, broke a negotiated ceasefire by unleashing a bombing campaign against opposition-held areas of the country’s second city, Aleppo. The embattled government claimed to be targeting Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat an-Nusra, which has had varying levels of influence in the city over the past […]
Why I owe it all to: Angela Merkel
With the release of Time’s ‘People of the Year’ earlier this month, there emerged the usual controversies. Many readers condemned the decision to place ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in second position, arguing that it demonstrated crass insensitivity to the extremist violence he has advocated. Meanwhile, Donald Trump demonstrated characteristic modesty at being runner up, […]