The EU’s inner watchdog has criticised as “problematic” the European Fee’s defence over its refusal to launch textual content messages between President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer.
The EU Ombudsman had referred to as on the bloc’s govt to share the controversial exchanges concerning the EU’s buy of vaccine contracts.
The textual content change was reported by a New York Instances reporter in April 2021.
The Fee, nevertheless, mentioned in a response launched on Wednesday that “the search undertaken by the president’s cupboard for related textual content messages similar to the request for entry to paperwork has not yielded any outcomes.”
“On account of their short-lived and ephemeral nature, textual content and immediate messages, generally, don’t include necessary info regarding insurance policies, actions and selections of the fee, nor are they within the possession of the establishment,” Fee Vice-President Věra Jourova wrote within the response.
She added that the Fee would “attain out to all the opposite establishments of the Union and suggest that they draw up collectively steering for his or her employees on the usage of trendy communication instruments akin to textual content and occasion messages.”
Greater than half of the 4.2 billion COVID-19 vaccines reserved by the EU had been equipped by the American-German firm Pfizer/BioNTech.
However NGOs and MEPs have expressed concern that key points of the contracts with the laboratories have remained confidential.
Following a request by the New York Instances, the Fee had launched three paperwork, however not textual content messages between von der Leyen and Pfizer boss Albert Bourla.
EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly referred to as the Fee’s response on Wednesday “problematic” however mentioned {that a} full evaluation can be printed in a few weeks.
In January, she had requested the EU Fee to hold out “a extra thorough search” for the textual content messages.
She criticised the truth that “no try had been made” to take action, saying that such a “method of performing didn’t meet the expectations of transparency” on public entry to EU paperwork.
“Within the context of the Ombudsman’s inquiry, it emerged that the Fee doesn’t contemplate that textual content messages usually fall underneath its inner standards for doc recording, as a result of short-lived nature of their content material,” the assertion learn.
“The Ombudsman considers that this constituted maladministration.”
These college graduates in Gaza finished training just one week before the war began.
We reached out to everyone in the class WhatsApp group to see how they were doing.
It’s difficult to reach anybody in Gaza. Blackouts are common, and internet access is sporadic. But 34 responded.
They were among Gaza’s most ambitious students.
The dentistry program at Al-Azhar University was very selective, and very demanding, and they had big plans. “We dream a lot — more than a brain can imagine,” one said.
But instead of starting new jobs, they found themselves plunged into endless days of burying the dead and fearing for the living.
The students had hired a videographer to capture their celebrations on the final day of exams, about a year before they finished their internships, in 2022. “The most wonderful day in our lives,” one said. That was before the Israeli assault in the Gaza Strip began.
We reached members of the class of 117 students through Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. They wrote or talked to us from tents and balconies. Some even climbed on water tanks or walked long distances to grab a phone signal.
All told us they had lost loved ones. Two of their classmates were dead. And many feared they would be next.
Most of their homes lay in ruins. Many described being hungry, and losing drastic amounts of weight.
The survivors described how their loved ones were killed. The New York Times was not able to verify every attack or the circumstances of every death.
This is not the first time war has come to Gaza. Israel and the Hamas militants who made the territory their stronghold have fought repeatedly over the years, but Gaza has never seen this degree of destruction and death. Israel says that it is doing what is needed to defeat Hamas, and that it takes great efforts to protect civilians, but even its allies have begun to characterize the bombing as indiscriminate.
The graduates spoke with anger, desperation and bewilderment about how much Israel’s bombardment, now in its seventh month, has taken from them.
“We had a lot of wars before, but this one is just different,” one said. “Usually it would affect people, but not people that you know. This war took everyone.”
Loss came early for Madeha Alshayyah. She had fled her home in Gaza City, but her grandmother, uncles and cousins stayed behind, despite the bombs.
“They all died and are still under the rubble,” Madeha said.
Now, her sister is missing. She went to the market one day and never came back, she said.
Salem Shurrab had known his best friend, Mouayad Alrayyes, since they were children. They used to meet every night at a cafe at the same table.
Mouayad’s home was bombed while he was out, and his family was killed. He wrote to Salem that he wished he had died, too, “so I don’t feel the pain.”
“Your pain is mine,” Salem replied.
Hours later, Salem said, Mouayad was killed by a rocket when he went to retrieve the bodies.
Mirna Ismail’s home was destroyed, but that did not even come up in her WhatsApp groups.
Now, they discuss “only the urgent things, only who has been killed,” she said. “If someone lost his house, it is not an urgent thing now.”
Mirna lost two friends and a cousin. “We all know someone who has been killed,” she said. “And we can’t understand why they are killing them.”
The class WhatsApp group was how most of the graduates learned that two of their classmates were dead.
On Dec. 2, Aseel Taya was at home with her family, including her father, Sofyan Taya, a prominent researcher in physics and applied mathematics, when Israeli warplanes struck, the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education said. They were all killed.
Officially dentists 👩⚕️
Messages have been translated.
“Why Aseel? What did she do to deserve that?” Mirna recalled feeling. “At that time it’s not easy to cry,” she said. “You only think that this is a lie and I will see her again.”
Aseel Taya (via Rasha H. Zendah)
In February came word of another classmate’s death.
Officially dentists 👩⚕️
Messages have been translated.
Noor Yaghi was sheltering with her family in central Gaza when Israeli airstrikes hit their home. She was “like a flower,” said Asmaa Dwaima, who described her “laughing and making fun of herself and us in the labs.” The Feb. 22 strikes killed at least 40 people, according to local media.
Noor’s remains were never found, said her cousin Asil Yaghi. “Her body seems to have become small pieces,” she said. “My heart is squeezing and my tears don’t stop.”
Noor Yaghi (left) and her twin sister, Aya (via Asil Yaghi)
For many of the students, the talk is of bodies and body parts.
Muhammad Abdel Jawad was visiting an injured cousin at the hospital when he heard that the residential tower where he lived with his family had been hit. He returned home to find his sisters with “burns all over their bodies,” he said.
His father was missing.
Two days later, Muhammad went back to the remains of his home. “I found my father’s body in front of me,” he said. “I tried everything I could to get him out.” His 16-year-old sister was also killed, he said.
Ola Salama said her uncle’s body was found with no head and no feet after his house was bombed.
“The scenes I saw were more horrific than horror movies,” she said. “But they are all real.”
“The missile cut her body into pieces,” Alaa Jihad Hussain said of her 22-year-old cousin, who was killed alongside her husband and daughter. With communications often down, some of the graduates feared their loved ones might be dead without their knowing.
Only by chance did some learn about a relative’s death. When Mahmoud Naser ran into an acquaintance at a shelter in Rafah, he learned his uncle had been shot, apparently by an Israeli sniper.
“I am afraid of dying these days, and that my friends won’t find my name among the names of martyrs because there are too many,” said Asmaa Dwaima, who, already, can count three friends and four cousins among the dead.
“I’m also afraid they won’t find an internet connection to log in and publish a silly story to commemorate me.”
Mohammed Al-Baradei (right) grew up with Ahmad Al-Hourani, attending university and spending afternoons in the gym together.
But when the house next door was bombed, a wall fell on Ahmad as he slept, Mohammed said.
“All my life was with him,” he said. “All of it ended in a moment.”
Alaa AlAbadla (right) last saw his friend Basel Farwana in the seaside area where they were sheltering. Basel was killed when he went home to get a nylon sheet and some blankets for his family’s tent, Alaa said.
But Alaa has little time to mourn. He is busy looking for clean water to survive. “We don’t have time to be sad,” he said. When Israeli forces invaded Gaza from the north, most of the graduates fled south. Mazen Alwahidi was one of the few exceptions.
Food shortages are most severe in the north, and Mazen said he had lost 46 pounds and has resorted to eating donkey feed. “It was like garbage,” he said. “But we have no other choices.”
He said his aunt, a cancer patient, died without access to treatment. They buried her on a street, near a destroyed graveyard.
Noor Shehada also remains in the north. Her family was relying on wild herbs to survive, she said.
“We are starving. We are living in the 18th century.”
Before the war, her uncle traveled to Israel for chemotherapy. Without access to treatment, he died, she said.
Najat Shurrab said her cousin’s 2-year-old twins, Muhammad and Hamada, had been killed. “They were defenseless civilians,” she said.
Ms. Shurrab has a 7-month-old daughter, Masa, and they have been living in a tent in Rafah.
Every day is a struggle to find diapers and food for her baby, she said, and she fears what the future holds for the child.
Areej al-Astal was pregnant when she evacuated first to a tent in Rafah and then to an overcrowded house with her husband’s family. She slept on the floor for two months.
With food scarce, she said, she gained no weight during her whole pregnancy. Eventually, she escaped to Egypt and gave birth to a son. “The word ‘dreams’ has ended,” she said. “It no longer exists in our imagination at all.”
More than 100 members of Areej’s extended family have been killed in the Israeli assault, according to a Gazan health ministry spokesman. “I can’t count them,” Areej said.
After being displaced five times, Rabeha Nabeel and her family decided to return home, though it was missing walls.
“Even if it’s destroyed, it’s our house,” she said.
Rabeha said 27 members of her extended family were killed in the first week of the war. “I lost five of my close friends, my house, my job, my university, my happy memories and my city,” said Mohammed Zebdah.
Mohammed was supposed to pick up his certificate on Oct. 8, but then the bombs started falling.
Many of the graduates told The Times they had just gotten jobs at clinics that are now in ruins. One said he had recently begun working as a volunteer in Khan Younis, treating as many as 60 refugees a day. A few others managed to leave the country.
Months after the joyous celebrations of the graduates, the buildings of Al-Azhar University where they had their dentistry classes bear the scars of war.
“On Oct. 7, all hopes and dreams went with the wind,” Mohammed said.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa faces an unusual national election this year, its seventh vote since transitioning from white minority rule to a democracy 30 years ago. Polls and analysts warn that for the first time, the ruling African National Congress party that has comfortably held power since Nelson Mandela became the country’s first Black president in 1994 might receive less than 50% of votes.
One big reason is Jacob Zuma, the former president and ANC leader who stepped down in disgrace in 2018 amid a swirl of corruption allegations but has emerged in recent months with a new political party. It intends to be a major election player as the former president seeks revenge against former longtime allies.
A SOUTH AFRICAN COURT OVERTURNS BAN, RULES THAT FORMER LEADER JACOB ZUMA CAN RUN IN THE ELECTION
Here is what you need to know about the 82-year-old Zuma’s return to the political ring and how it might play a significant election role.
Former South African president, Jacob Zuma, sings and dances after addressing his supporters of the UMkhonto WeSizwe, (MK) party outside the High court in Johannesburg, South Africa, Thursday, April 11, 2024. For the first time since 1994, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) might receive less than 50% of votes after Zuma stepped down in disgrace in 2018 amid a swirl of corruption allegations and has given his support to the newly-formed MK. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
WHO IS JACOB ZUMA?
Zuma has long been one of South Africa’s most recognizable politicians. He was a senior leader in the ANC during the liberation struggle against apartheid. A former ANC intelligence chief, he has repeatedly threatened to reveal some of the party’s secrets. While Zuma was not one of Mandela’s preferred choices to succeed him, Mandela trusted Zuma to play an influential role in ending deadly political violence that engulfed KwaZulu-Natal province before the historic 1994 elections. The province has remained a vocal base of support for Zuma ever since, and members of Zuma’s Zulu ethnic group make up its majority. Zuma became deputy leader of the ANC in 1997 and was appointed South Africa’s deputy president in 1999.
HOW DID HE BECOME PRESIDENT?
Zuma’s path to power included legal challenges. In 2006, he was found not guilty of raping the daughter of a comrade at Zuma’s home in Johannesburg. A year earlier, he was fired as South Africa’s deputy president after his financial advisor was convicted for corruption for soliciting bribes for Zuma during an infamous arms deal. Alleging a political witch hunt, Zuma launched an aggressive political campaign that saw him elected ANC president in 2007. His campaign appealed to widespread discontent with then-President Thabo Mbeki, who was often described as autocratic and aloof. The corruption charges against Zuma were later dropped, amid controversy, and he was elected South Africa’s president in 2009.
HOW DID HE LOSE POWER?
Zuma’s presidency was often under fire. His close friends and allies, the Gupta family, were accused of influencing appointments to key cabinet positions in exchange for lucrative business deals. The allegations of corruption in government and state-owned companies eventually led the ANC force Zuma to resign in 2018. A judicial commission of inquiry uncovered wide-ranging evidence, and Zuma in 2021 was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in jail for refusing to testify. Zuma remains aggrieved with the ANC and his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa. But few South Africans expected the break to go so far.
HOW HAS HE REEMERGED?
Zuma shocked the country in December by denouncing the ANC and campaigning against a party that had been at the heart of his political career. His new political party, UMkhonto WeSizwe, was named after the ANC’s military wing, which was disbanded at the end of the struggle against white minority rule. The ANC has launched a legal case seeking to stop the new party from using a name and logo that are similar to those of the military wing. The charismatic Zuma continues to crisscross the country, delivering lively speeches, and an image of his face will represent the party on ballots.
WHAT ARE ZUMA’S ELECTION CHANCES?
The ANC already had been facing pressure from other opposition parties. But Zuma’s new party threatens to draw support from within the often divided ANC. South Africa’s electoral body has cleared him to run for a parliament seat, despite his past conviction. Polls suggest the new party may emerge as one of the country’s biggest opposition parties and could play a significant role if the weakening ANC must form coalitions to run the country. Addressing his supporters at a recent rally, Zuma declared that “I need to return so that I can fix things.”
EU leaders have supported deeper engagement with Lebanon to help safeguard it from the repercussions of the crisis gripping the Middle East, Charles Michel has said.
“We had an in-depth discussion on Lebanon,” the European Council President told reporters following a summit of EU leaders in Brussels late on Wednesday.
“They have a lot of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and we all understand it’s our responsibility to engage with this country (…) including the Lebanese armed forces,” Michel explained, adding that future cooperation with Lebanon could include steps to manage migration flows into Europe.
In the summit’s conclusions, the 27 leaders say they stand ready to “work with all partners to avoid further escalation of tensions in the region, notably in Lebanon.”
It comes after tensions between Iran and Israel reached a dangerous high over the weekend when Tehran launched an unprecedented barrage of drones and missiles towards Israeli territory.
A deepening economic crisis and fragile government makes Lebanon particularly vulnerable to the instability gripping the region. The presence of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah – which has continuously exchanged fire across the border with Israel since the outbreak of the war with Hamas, and which took part in Tehran’s aerial attack last weekend – also risks dragging the country into the deepening conflict.
The country is also home to some 210,000 Palestinian and 1.5 million Syrian refugees, meaning further instability could unleash a wave of migrants towards Europe.
Last week, Cyprus announced it would halt the processing of asylum applications due to a surge in arrivals of Syrian refugees transiting through Lebanon and attempting to reach the island, which lies just 260 km off the Lebanese coast in the Mediterranean sea.
Speaking ahead of the conference, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides announced he and Commission President von der Leyen would travel to Lebanon in early May to address a range of issues, including migration.
Christodoulides also said he would encourage other EU leaders to consider reassessing the so-called “safe areas” within Syria in order to facilitate the return of migrants and refugees.
Michel, however, refrained from confirming whether other leaders had backed the proposal. “We need to engage with Lebanon, that’s very clear. Migration is only one aspect,” Michel said.
“We try to engage with third countries to develop partnerships on migration, but not only on migration,” he added.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was among the leaders that called for an “assessment” of the situation in Lebanon, Michel said.
Since sweeping to power in late 2022, Meloni has been a key driver in EU efforts to strengthen the EU’s so-called “external dimension” of migration by striking deals with third countries that include targeted measures to crack down on human traffickers and curb the departures of irregular migrants towards European shores.
The bloc’s deal with Tunisia, which injects EU cash into the North African country in return for tighter migrant controls, has nonetheless been slammed by human rights defenders for ignoring the documented abuses and authoritarian tendencies of the Tunisian government.
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