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Floods in Germany, Belgium Leave More Than 100 Dead as Rescuers Race to Find Survivors

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BERLIN—Rescuers in Germany and neighboring countries were racing to find survivors from the region’s worst flooding this century, as the death toll rose to over 100 with hundreds still missing following days of torrential rainfall that some politicians and scientists linked to climate change.

German authorities used helicopters and drones to locate survivors who fled to roofs and high ground without being able to collect any of their belongings when the homes were engulfed by flash floods that turned streets into rivers, swept away cars and crushed houses.

The German military joined in the effort to support thousands of rescue workers amid a shortage of helicopters and other hardware after hundreds of houses collapsed or became severely damaged in the Western states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. At least 93 people had been killed in Germany, according to local authorities on Friday.

Some 1,300 people are currently unaccounted for in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, a town about 35 miles south of Cologne, according to local authorities, though this may in part be due to mobile phone services being interrupted in parts of the region.

A handout photo from authorities in Rhein-Erft shows the extent of the flooding.



Photo:

rhein-erft-kreis/EPA/Shutterstock

Wreckage in Verviers, Belgium on Friday.



Photo:

yves herman/Reuters

Thousands of survivors were being put up in schools, hotels and sports halls amid a warning not to return to their homes even if the waters subside due to danger of the foundations crumbling after days of flooding, RhinelandPalatinate’s premier Malu Dreyer said in a broadcast interview Friday. Towns in the area are known for their medieval urban cores made up of half-timbered housing.

“I am shaken by the catastrophe that has caused the suffering of so many people in the flooded areas. My condolences go to the relatives of the dead and missing. I thank from my heart the many tireless helpers and rescue services,” German Chancellor

Angela Merkel

said in a tweet released by her spokesman on Thursday.

Similar scenes were playing out in southern Belgium, where at least 14 people died and many were being evacuated in the worst-hit areas in the Wallonia region, local authorities said. Across the border in the Dutch province of Limburg, rescuers were evacuating areas hit by the floods.

Meteorologists blamed the flooding on a rare summer cyclone that lingered over the flooded areas for days. They said changes in global weather patterns meant the storm remained stationed over Europe instead of drifting eastward.

The jet stream, a westbound wind current over the North Atlantic, has begun to meander over Western Europe in recent years, creating pockets of weather that could briefly capture storms over the area, said

Andreas Marx,

a climate researcher with the Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research in Germany.

There was no doubt that the disaster had been related to climate change, said Germany’s interior minister

Horst Seehofer,

and called for more political action to lower emissions in the future.

Two firefighters died on Thursday while rescuing people trapped by the floods, according to authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The rainfall in the region has been subsiding since Thursday but infrastructure remained severely affected.

Survivors told German television how the torrent took away all of their possessions and in some cases swept away their entire homes. Parts of the Rhine, a major European waterway that swelled over its banks, remained closed to traffic.

Damaged cars were piled up on a street in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany, on Friday.



Photo:

friedemann vogel/EPA/Shutterstock

People passed sand bags in Erftstadt, Germany, on Friday.



Photo:

thilo schmuelgen/Reuters

The floods coincide with a bout of severe heat and drought in parts of the U.S. and Europe, and some scientists say there is evidence of extreme weather events becoming more frequent as climate change progresses.

An October 2020 report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction found that the number of major natural disasters in the period 2000 to 2019 had risen 74.5% compared with the period 1980-1999, with a large part of the difference accounted for by weather-related events such as floods, storms and droughts.

While not all extreme weather events can be explained by climate change, many scientists have warned that global warming would lead to more unpredictable weather patterns and an increased occurrence of extreme events such as this year’s heat wave in the western U.S., according to Mr. Marx, the Helmholtz-Center researcher.

Mr. Marx noted that Germany had experienced similar disasters in the past 15 years and that it is difficult to establish a clear link between individual events and global climate change.

“But it is also true that such events are expected as the climate changes: a heated earth surface means more water in the atmosphere, and that can lead to severe rains and we are seeing this take place now,” Mr. Marx, who specializes in drought research, said.

There is clear evidence that extremely wet periods that regularly take place are getting wetter, while extremely dry periods are becoming drier due to climate change, he said.

A police car in the city center of Kircheim, Germany.



Photo:

Jonas Guettler/Associated Press

—Sha Hua contributed to this article.

Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com

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World

Convicted terrorists lead religious services in federal prisons: IG

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Convicted terrorists – some associated with al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and Al-Shabaab – were allowed to lead religious services in federal prisons because of a shortage of chaplains, according to a recent inspector general report evaluating the Bureau of Prisons. 

Moreover, the bureau’s internal watchdog found prison officials had little oversight of what was being said or taught during some of the inmate-led religious services. 

The July inspector general report said that convicted terrorists led religious services in four of 12 federal prison facilities that were part of the evaluation. At one prison, terrorist inmates led religious services even though the BOP hired a contract faith provider, because the inmates had disagreements with the contractors, the report says. 

“At another one of these facilities we found that an al-Qaeda affiliated inmate, who was convicted on terrorism charges, was permitted to lead services on a frequent basis,” the IG report notes. “The facility’s chaplain explained that the inmate was selected to lead services by the other inmate faith group members due to his extensive faith knowledge and Arabic fluency.”

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“At two other facilities we learned that inmates with ties to two prominent terrorist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Shabaab were permitted to lead services, with at least one doing so on a regular basis at this facility,” the report continues.

The investigation found inadequate monitoring of the inmate-led services. 

“We observed real-time religious services at six of the institutions that we visited to determine the quality of the BOP’s video monitoring systems within its Chaplaincy Services departments,” the report states. “Based on our observations, we found that the video monitoring equipment was inadequate at five out of the six institutions we visited.”

In this Feb. 18, 2020, file photo prisoners stand outside of the federal correctional institution in Englewood, Colorado. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

The IG report recommends the “BOP strengthen existing policy to include clear guidance about when inmates may be permitted to lead religious services, which inmates should be prohibited from leading services, and minimum monitoring requirements for religious programs or services led by inmates.”

The Bureau of Prisons is already adding chaplains and will tackle other issues, BOP spokesperson Emery Nelson said. 

“The BOP is revising agency policy to provide clear guidance on inmate-led religious services and to strengthen chapel security measures,” Nelson told Fox News in an email. “Like all policies, this revised draft is pending negotiation with the national union.”

FORMER PRISON WORKER FLIRTED WITH INMATES BEFORE HELPING TWO KILLERS ESCAPE, DOC SAYS: ‘IT WAS A FANTASY’

The inspector general audit said about 70% of federal prisoners identify with a religious denomination. Based on the BOP’s guidelines, it should have 357 chaplains and 122 religious service assistants — but it has just 236 chaplains and 64 assistants, which is about 30% below the BOP’s guidelines. 

About 84% of BOP’s chaplains were Protestants, but only one-third of federal inmates identify as Protestants. Meanwhile, the remaining 37 chaplains represent seven additional religions. Catholics and Muslims are particularly underrepresented. 

The ratio for Muslims is 176 inmates for every one religious chaplain, contractor or volunteer, according to the report. For Catholics, it’s a ratio of 48 inmates to one religious leader, and a 22 to 1 ratio for Protestants. About 16 religious groups in federal prisons don’t have any chaplains. 

Fewer qualified chaplains, contractors or volunteers for any specific group makes an inmate-led religious service more likely in that specific group.  

“One particular concern was the potential for an inmate to use a religious leadership role to engage in prohibited activities or as a method to obtain power and influence among the inmate population,” the IG report says. 

The First Step Act, a prison and criminal justice reform bill signed by President Trump in 2018, provided additional funding for prison chaplains, said Nelson, the BOP spokesperson.

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“In FY21 [fiscal year 2021], the BOP added several chaplaincy positions as part of the First Step Act,” Nelson said. “In addition, the BOP has drafted updates to agency policy to provide greater flexibility to hire more chaplains across a greater range of faiths by allowing waivers to the general policy that chaplains must be a certain age, have a graduate level theological degree, and have completed coursework in interfaith study.”

The IG report also said federal prisons were not taking advantage of having remote religious services, which were common among houses of worship during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“And to leverage the use of technology, the BOP will be purchasing videoconferencing equipment to enable religious services and faith-based programming to be broadcast from field chapels across facilities,” Nelson said. 

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Huge floods leave at least 108 dead in Europe

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The death toll from devastating floods in Europe soared to at least 108 on Friday, most in western Germany where emergency responders were frantically searching for missing people.

Adding to the devastation, several more were feared dead in a landslide in northern Germany on Friday triggered by floods.

Hundreds were unaccounted for in the country, while the death toll in Belgium jumped to 15 with more than 21,000 people left without electricity in one region.

Luxembourg and the Netherlands were also hammered by heavy rains, inundating many areas and forcing thousands to be evacuated in the city of Maastricht.

But Germany was the hardest hit, with unsuspecting residents caught completely off guard by the torrent dubbed the “flood of death” by Germany’s top-selling daily Bild.

“I fear that we will only see the full extent of the disaster in the coming days,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said from Washington late Thursday, where she met with President Joe Biden.

Streets and houses were submerged by water in some areas, while cars were left overturned on soaked streets after flood waters passed. Some districts were completely cut off from the outside world.

In Ahrweiler, several houses collapsed completely, drawing comparisons to the aftermath of a tsunami.

At least 24 people were confirmed dead in Euskirchen, one of the worst-hit towns just to the north.

“My empathy and my heart go out to all of those who in this catastrophe lost their loved ones, or who are still worrying about the fate of people still missing,” Merkel told reporters in Washington.

Adding to the town’s woes, a nearby dam remains at risk of giving way.

– Fearing the worst –

The number of casualties in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has reached 43, bringing the national toll to at least 93, authorities said Friday.

Germany’s toll was likely to rise with large numbers of people still missing in NRW and Rhineland-Palatinate, the hardest-hit states.

In the devastated Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate, around 1,300 people were unaccounted for, although local authorities told Bild the high number was likely due to damaged phone networks.

Regional interior minister Roger Lewentz told local media that up to 60 people were believed to be missing, ” and when you haven’t heard from people for such a long time… you have to fear the worst”.

“The number of victims will likely keep rising in the coming days,” he added.

Several people were dead and missing after a landslide in Erftstadt-Blessem in NRW, local officials said Friday.

“Houses were largely swept away by the water and some collapsed,” the Cologne local authority said on Twitter, while a spokeswoman for the local government told AFP there were “confirmed” deaths.

– Billions in damages –

Gerd Landsberg, head of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, said the cost of the damage was likely to run into “billions of euros”.

Winfied Koeller, a resident of the city of Hagen in NRW, told public broadcaster WDR he had “never experienced anything like this in my life” after being rescued from his car by firefighters.

Also in Hagen, Sebastian Kiefer was helping to fill sandbags in front of a local restaurant. “It’s crazy when you think about the power behind the water,” he told WDR.

Konstantin Hartmann, from the village of Roetgen-Mulartshuette in the Eifel region, told the broadcaster his barn had been completely destroyed. “It’s all ruined in there. Nobody helped us, nobody.”

In Belgium, the army has been sent to four of the country’s 10 provinces to help with rescue and evacuations.

The swollen Meuse river “is going to look very dangerous for Liege”, a nearby city of 200,000 people, warned Wallonia regional president Elio Di Rupo.

– Climate change? –

The severe storms have put climate change back at the centre of Germany’s election campaign ahead of a September 26 poll marking the end of Merkel’s 16 years in power.

Germany “must prepare much better” in future, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said, adding that “this extreme weather is a consequence of climate change”.

Because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, climate change increases the risk and intensity of flooding from extreme rainfall.

In urban areas with poor drainage and buildings located in flood zones, the damage can be severe.

Political candidates were quick to comment following the floods.

North Rhine-Westphalia premier Armin Laschet, the conservative running to succeed Merkel, called for “speeding up” global efforts to fight climate change, underlining the link between global warming and extreme weather.

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search for missing goes on as toll tops 90

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BERLIN (AP) — The death toll from devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium rose above 90 on Friday, as the search continued for hundreds of people still unaccounted for and officials warned such disasters could become more common due to climate change.

Authorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said 50 people had died there, including at least nine residents of an assisted living facility for people with disabilities. In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state officials put the death toll at 30, but warned that the figure could rise further.

Some 1,300 people in Germany were still reported missing, though authorities said efforts to contact them could be hampered by disrupted roads and phone connections.

In a provisional tally, the Belgian death toll has risen to 12, with 5 people still missing, local authorities and media report early Friday.

The flash floods this week followed days of heavy rainfall which turned streams and streets into raging torrents that swept away cars and caused houses to collapse across the region.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Joe Biden expressed their sorrow over the loss of life during a news conference at the White House late Thursday.

The long-time German leader, who was on a farewell trip to Washington, said she feared that “the full extent of this tragedy will only be seen in the coming days.”

Rescuers were rushing Friday to help people trapped in their homes in the town of Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne. Regional authorities said several people had died after their houses collapsed due to subsidence, and aerial pictures showed what appeared to be a massive sinkhole.

Three people were rescued from the Wurm River in Heinsberg county late Thursday.

The governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state, Armin Laschet, has called an emergency Cabinet meeting Friday. The 60-year-old’s handling of the flood disaster is widely seen as a test for his ambitions to succeed Merkel as chancellor in Germany’s national election on Sept. 26.

Malu Dreyer, the governor of neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate state, said the disaster showed the need to speed up efforts to curb global warming.

“We’ve experienced droughts, heavy rain and flooding events several years in a row, including in our state,” she told the Funke media group. “Climate chance isn’t abstract anymore. We are experiencing it up close and painfully.”

She accused the Laschet and Merkel’s center-right Union bloc of hindering efforts to achieve greater greenhouse gas reductions in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and a major emitter of planet-warming gases.

The German army has deployed 900 soldiers to help with the rescue and clear-up efforts.

Thousands of people remain homeless after their houses were destroyed or deemed at-risk by authorities, including several villages around the Steinbach reservoir that experts say could collapse under the weight of the floods.

Across the border in Belgium, most of the drowned were found around Liege, where the rains hit hardest. Skies were largely overcast in eastern Belgium, with hopes rising that the worst of the calamity was over.

In the southern Dutch province of Limburg, troops piled sandbags to strengthen a 1.1 kilometer (0.7 miles) stretch of dike along the Maas river and police helped evacuate some low-lying neighborhoods.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday night that the government was officially declaring flood-hit regions a disaster area, meaning businesses and residents are eligible for compensation for damage.

Meanwhile, sustained rainfall in Switzerland has caused several rivers and lakes to break their banks. Public broadcaster SRF reported that a flash flood swept away cars, flooded basements and destroyed small bridges in the northern villages of Schleitheim und Beggingen late Thursday.

__

Associated Press writers Raf Casert in Brussels and Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report.

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Pacific Rim leaders discuss economic way out of pandemic

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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among Pacific Rim leaders gathering virtually to discuss strategies to help economies rebound from a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will chair the special leaders’ meeting Friday of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

But the pandemic and vaccine diplomacy have proved to be divisive issues among members of a forum that says its primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

Biden spoke by phone with Ardern on Friday ahead of the leaders’ retreat and discussed U.S. interest in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region, a White House statement said.

“They also discussed our cooperation on and engagement with Pacific Island nations,” the statement said.

The Biden administration has put a premium on tending to relations with allies in the Pacific early in his administration.

One of his first high-profile acts of diplomacy as president was hosting a virtual summit with fellow leaders of the Quad — Australia, India and Japan — a group central to his efforts to counter China’s growing military and economic power. And he hosted Suga and South Korea President Moon Jae-in for the first in-person foreign leader meetings of his presidency. South Korea is a APEC member and India is the only country in the Quad that is not.

Biden plans to use the virtual APEC retreat to talk to leaders about his administration’s efforts to serve “as an arsenal of vaccines to the world” in the battle against COVID-19 pandemic and how members of the alliance can collaborate to bolster the global economy, according to a senior Biden administration who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S. has donated 4.5 million vaccine doses to Indonesia, 2 million to Vietnam, 1 million to Malaysia, and 3.2 million doses will soon be delivered to the Philippines. The White House says donations to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea, will also soon be delivered. Laos and Cambodia are the only countries among those eight vaccine recipients that are not APEC members.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the “important meeting” came at a critical time as the world was facing a resurgence in COVID-19 infection numbers and international cooperation against the pandemic had entered a new stage.

“We hope all parties can uphold the vision of an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, carry forward the Asia-Pacific partnership, send a positive message of fighting the coronavirus with solidarity and deepen economic recovery and cooperation,” Zhao said.

Suga will speak about his determination to hold a safe and secure Olympics when the games start in Tokyo on July 23, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said.

Suga will also emphasis Japan’s determination to secure fair access to vaccines for all countries and regions to support the global effort toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic, and Tokyo’s vision to expand a free and fair economic bloc, Kato said.

Ardern said APEC’s first leaders’ meeting outside the usual annual summits “reflects our desire to navigate together out of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.”

“APEC economies have suffered their biggest contraction since the Second World War over the past year, with 81 million jobs lost. Responding collectively is vital to accelerate the economic recovery for the region,” said Ardern, whose South Pacific island nation has been among the most successful in the world in containing the virus.

The pace of a global vaccine rollout and conditions attached to international vaccine deals are vexed issues among APEC members.

The United States has been accused by some of hoarding vaccines. Biden came up well short on his goal of delivering 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the rest of the world by the end of June as a host of logistical and regulatory hurdles slowed the pace of U.S. vaccine diplomacy.

Although the Biden administration has announced that about 50 countries and entities will receive a share of the excess COVID-19 vaccine doses, the U.S. had shipped fewer than 24 million doses to 10 recipient countries by July 1, according to an Associated Press tally.

Taiwan, an APEC member that China claims as a renegade territory, has accused Beijing of tying the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to political demands. The government of the self-ruled island says China has intervened to block vaccine deliveries to Taiwan from fellow APEC members Japan and the United States.

China has accused Australia of interfering in the rollout of Chinese vaccines in former Australian colony Papua New Guinea. Both Australia and Papua New Guinea are also APEC members.

Sino-Australian relations plummeted last year when Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the pandemic.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who will also join the meeting, said in a statement now was a “critical time for Australia to engage with regional partners to promote free trade facilitation, in particular for vaccines and essential goods; build momentum for strengthening the multilateral trading system; and secure a sustainable and inclusive recovery.”

China said that by May it was providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic.

The vaccines were donated or sold at “favorable prices,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.

The online leaders’ meeting that is chaired from the New Zealand capital Wellington and straddles 11 time zones comes before the scheduled annual summit in November.

New Zealand’s pandemic response has been among the most effective in the world and the isolated nation of 5 million people has recorded just 26 COVID-19 deaths. But its vaccination campaign has been far slower than in most developed countries.

Ardern said leading a regional response to the pandemic was one of New Zealand’s highest priorities when it took over as APEC’s chair from Malaysia in an annual rotation among the 21 members.

“I will be inviting discussion on immediate measures to achieve more coordinated regional action to assist recovery, as well as steps that will support inclusive and sustainable growth over the long term,” she said. “APEC leaders will work together to get through the pandemic and promote a sustainable and inclusive recovery, because nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”

____

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Chicago and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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China Covid-19: Unvaccinated people in parts of the country to be denied access to hospitals, parks and schools

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Over the past week, dozens of county-level governments in at least eight provinces have published notices warning citizens they have until late July or early August to receive their vaccinations, after which they will face a variety of restrictions on everyday life.

Shao Yiming, an epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told state media that given the protection rate of Chinese vaccines is below 100%, China will need to fully vaccinate 80% to 85% of residents, equivalent to 1 billion of the country’s 1.4 total population, in order to meet the December deadline.

With China having largely contained the virus’ spread, many residents initially saw little need to get vaccinated. A history of safety scandals involving domestic vaccines also contributed to public hesitancy. However, several recent local outbreaks, including in the northern Anhui and Liaoning provinces, and Guangdong in the south, have fueled fears of infection, prompting a rush to get vaccinated in affected regions.

And across the country, the vaccination rate has accelerated in recent months, with more than 10 million shots administered per day on average. As of Wednesday, the Chinese government had administered 1.4 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, according to state media estimates, though it remains unclear as to the total percentage of the population who have received two shots.

The all-out campaign has seen government workers descending on neighborhoods in efforts to convince people to get vaccinated, with vaccination sites offering benefits, ranging from shopping vouchers to free groceries and ice cream.

But experts cautioned that many residents who have yet to receive a single dose would be harder to reach, especially in rural areas, leading local governments to take more drastic measures to ensure herd immunity.

“All those strategies they used to entice people to get their vaccine … may not work in this next stage of vaccination efforts,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Making it mandatory may be the only workable solution to the problem,” he added.

Bans on entry

In the first two weeks of July, at least 50 counties across 12 Chinese provinces issued notices warning of strengthened measures to encourage unvaccinated citizens to get their shots, adding that “not being vaccinated will affect life and going out.”

To date, notices of new measures have been posted in Sichuan, Fujian, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Anhui, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Zhejiang and Inner Mongolia.

Most of the areas imposing the measures are relatively small by Chinese standards — the largest is Zaozhuang City in Shandong province, which has a population of 4.2 million people. The first of the measures was announced on July 8 with new notices still being posted as of Friday.

The policies vary greatly from place to place — in 33 of the counties, the authorities said vaccination records will be checked on entry to public facilities, including administrative buildings and health facilities, and citizens who have not received their shot will be encouraged to do so.

But in 19 counties, the local governments have explicitly warned that within weeks, unvaccinated citizens could be banned from a wide range of public places and services.

“Starting from July 17, in principle, people who have not been vaccinated … are not allowed to enter key places such as inpatient departments of hospitals, nursing homes, schools, libraries etc.,” said a notice posted in Sichuan’s Jingyan district, adding it would make an exception for those with a legitimate health reason for avoiding the vaccine. The notice also said unvaccinated supermarket employees and market stall owners would be barred from their jobs.

In a few counties the measures are even more extreme. In Guangxi, two cities — Guiping and Beiliu — both said students would not be allowed to go to school unless both of their parents were fully vaccinated. After vocal opposition on social media, the notices were deleted although it is unclear if the restrictions will still apply.

And in Tanghe county, in Henan province, state media reported that local government agencies would stop paying employees, or workers at state-owned enterprises if they refused to get vaccinated.

Test balloon or official pressure?

Chinese officials are not alone in ordering vaccinations for certain key workers, or banning access to those who haven’t received shots. French President Emmanuel Macron has ordered all health workers to get vaccinated at the risk of losing their jobs, while proof of two shots will be required to enter hospitals, restaurants and some forms of transport in France from early August.

Similarly, the Australian government has mandated all aged care workers must have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot by mid-September.

But these are the first such measures in China, leading to criticism, with some worrying the restrictions are a forerunner to nationwide mandatory vaccination.
Writing in the state-owned China News Weekly, Shen Kui, director of the Research Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Peking University, questioned the legality of the measures, which he likened to de facto mandatory vaccinations.

“Unvaccinated people will face various barriers in living and working under the policy. The only way to avoid these obstacles is to get the vaccine. If it’s not force-vaccination, what can it be?” asked Shen.

“Before mandatory Covid-19 vaccination becomes a legal requirement, there is no legal basis to enforce such restrictions,” he added.

An editorial about the new measures for schoolchildren in Guiping, posted on the popular online news site Sohu, said ignoring citizens’ right to not take the vaccine was a “betrayal and abuse of people’s trust.”

“As a local administrative department, it should respect the people, advance and retreat with the people, and build a united epidemic prevention front,” the editorial said.

To date, China’s central government has not formally mandated vaccination against Covid-19. Jin Dongyan, professor of precision medicine at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, said the policies were likely the result of local government officials under extreme pressure to deliver on Beijing’s vaccination goals.

Under the Chinese government’s top-down administrative structure, policy edicts are often laid out by the country’s leadership and then left up to local officials to decide how to implement them. Failure to meet the policy targets could cost local politicians future promotions or even their jobs.

“They have to deliver and they will use all means at their discretion and they will try all available options,” said Jin.

But Council on Foreign Relations’ Huang questioned whether the new policies were the overzealous work of local government officials under pressure to deliver on vaccination targets, or a test balloon being floated by the Communist Party in Beijing.

The Chinese government has a long history of trialing potentially controversial initiatives at a local level before introducing them nationally to see how it will be received by citizens, said Huang.

“Maybe this is a central government initiative,” he said.

Huang added if Beijing wanted to make sure China could maintain herd immunity, it might have to make the vaccine mandatory whether it was a popular measure or not. “For any vaccines with efficacy rates lower than 80%, you need to have the entire population vaccinated,” he said. “Simply asking people to get the vaccine is not going to achieve that.”

China has approved five domestic vaccines for use — two developed by state-owned Sinopharm, and others from Sinovac, CanSino and Anhui Zhifei — with the majority of the population receiving either Sinopharm or Sinovac shots.

So far, trials show Sinopharm and Sinovac have a lower efficacy against Covid-19 than their mRNA counterparts. In Brazilian trials, Sinovac had about 50% efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19, and 100% effectiveness against severe disease, according to trial data submitted to the World Health Organization. Sinopharm’s efficacy for both symptomatic and hospitalized disease was estimated at 79%, according to the WHO.

CNN’s Nectar Gan and Yong Xiong contributed to this report.

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Delta variant surges in Middle East and North Africa as region braces for ‘catastrophic consequences’

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Abu Dhabi
CNN
—  

The Middle East and North Africa is witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases aggravated by the Delta variant of the virus – and it may get worse over coming weeks – according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

An increase in coronavirus cases has been reported in Libya, Iran, Iraq and Tunisia as the region edges toward a “critical point,” WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office said Wednesday. Across the region, more than 11 million cases have been recorded in total since the start of the pandemic.

WHO also warned of possible “catastrophic consequences” of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins in the week of July 20 and is traditionally celebrated with large or medium-sized social gatherings.

Tunisia, one of the Arab world’s worst-hit countries by the Delta variant, has reimposed lockdowns. It has also appealed to Arab Gulf countries for critical aid, as its health care sector faces “catastrophe,” according to the Tunisian government.

Saudi Arabia has announced that it will send Tunisia 1 million vaccine doses, and the UAE has also donated half a million vaccines.

The North African country now has the highest Covid-19 mortality rate in the Eastern Mediterranean region as well as on the African continent after the Delta variant circulated widely in the country, according to WHO. Oxygen beds and intensive care unit beds in Tunisia are at 90% and 95% occupancy levels respectively.

“Between 8,000 and 9,500 cases are currently being reported every day, with wide circulation of the Delta variant. In less than one week, the number of deaths almost doubled, from 119 deaths on 5 July to 189 deaths on 8 July,” WHO said, referring to Tunisia.

Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images

The body of a Covid-19 victim is placed into a casket at the Ibn al-Jazzar hospital in the Tunisian city of Kairouan on July 4, 2021.

Iran, which has been one of the worst-hit countries in the region since the start of the pandemic, nearly broke its daily record of cases after reporting more than 23,000 new infections on Thursday. The country’s daily average tally almost doubled over the last four weeks, and the number of daily deaths has increased over the past two weeks, WHO said.

Last week, Iraq, where less than 1% of the population has received a vaccine dose, reported its highest daily tally since the start of the pandemic, according to the country’s health ministry. This week, a fire wreaked havoc on a hospital treating coronavirus patients, killing more than 92 people and further underscoring the poor state of the country’s health sector.

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Dozens dead, more than 1,000 may be missing after floods in Germany

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At least 50 people are dead and more than 1,000 others are unaccounted for after floods in Germany caused rivers to burst their banks, swept away cars and caused homes to collapse Thursday, authorities said.

The government in the district of Ahrweiler, which is in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said as many as 1,300 people are assumed to be missing.

Officials said at least 30 people died in North Rhine-Westphalia state and that 28 died in neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate to the south, The Associated Press reported.

Storms caused deadly flooding in Belgium, where media reported eight deaths. Luxembourg and the Netherlands also experienced flooding.

In Germany, torrential rain and storms stranded people on rooftops, and authorities used inflatable boats and helicopters to identify and rescue residents. The German army deployed soldiers to assist in the operation.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to meet with President Joe Biden, said the situation was “characterized by fear, by despair, by suffering.”

Hundreds of thousands of people were faced with catastrophe, she said, and homes became death traps.

“My empathy and my heart goes out to all of those who in this catastrophe who lost their loved ones or who were still worrying about the fate of people still missing,” she said.

Biden also expressed his condolences and the condolences of the American people to those affected by the flooding in Germany and other countries.

In Schuld, which is in Ahrweiler, Edgar Gillessen said the devastation was “simply catastrophic.”

“All these people living here, I know them all. I feel so sorry for them. They’ve lost everything. All they have is what they’ve had on them — it’s all gone,” Gillessen, 65, told Reuters. “A friend had a workshop over there, nothing standing. The bakery, the butcher — it’s all gone. It’s scary. Unimaginable.”

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that her thoughts were with those affected by the flooding in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and that the European Union stands ready to help.

In Belgium, the Vesdre River broke its banks and sent torrents of water churning through the streets of Pepinster, close to Liege, its destructive power bringing down some buildings.

France sent a helicopter and a rescue team to Belgium to assist local authorities, and Italy and Austria have offered flood rescue teams, the European Commission said.

Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed.

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Russia bans media outlet that published Vladimir Putin scoops | Russia

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The Kremlin’s war on independent journalism in Russia has escalated after the Proekt investigative media outlet was outlawed in an act of revenge for a series of deeply embarrassing revelations about Vladimir Putin and top Kremlin officials.

The rare decision to ban a critical media outlet by fiat is a bellwether for Russia’s new wave of investigative news outlets, which compete to publish damaging scoops about top officials and are now bracing for the Kremlin to employ similar pressure on them to shut down.

State media on Thursday announced that Russia’s justice ministry had added Proekt to a list of “undesirable organisations”, meaning its journalists must stop working for the site or face criminal prosecution, and added eight journalists, including Proekt’s editor-in-chief, Roman Badanin, to a register of “foreign agents”. Several reporters for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Open Media were also declared foreign agents.

It is illegal for other news agencies to link to or directly quote materials from an undesirable organisation, meaning, theoretically, they would have to purge their archives of any reference to Proekt’s work or possibly face criminal charges. The status would also outlaw any efforts by Proekt to crowdfund; their donors could also face charges.

The assault on Proekt on critical and independent media in Russia has seen news websites like Meduza and VTimes declared foreign agents (the latter has since shut down), journalists from the student journal DOXA put on trial, the investigative arm of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund declared “extremist”, and millions sought in fines against the US-funded RFE/RL.

Alexei Navalny releases investigation into Vladimir Putin’s wealth – video

But it is the first time that a news outlet has explicitly been banned under the law (the closest example is the closure of the media arm of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia) and appears to indicate how Proekt touched a nerve in the Kremlin by investigating top officials and sensitive subjects like Russia’s bungled Covid-19 response and its deployment of mercenaries to Africa.

Last week, Badanin and two other employees of Proekt were targeted with house searches by police who said they were investigating a four-year-old slander case. But Proekt’s employees tied the searches to their plans to release a damning investigation into the interior minister, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, which alleged that his family members had become fabulously rich since his appointment in 2012 and that he was suspected of having ties to organised crime.

Proekt has also published investigations into some of Putin’s most feared associates, including Chechnya head Ramzan Kadyrov and the businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. Using leaked property and passport information, the website also contended in an article last year that Putin had a daughter by a secret mistress.

For years, Kremlin-friendly businessmen had bought out or reined in critical outlets, warning journalists not to cross the “double lines” or be fired.

But the emergence of new investigative outlets like Proekt, which reduced their footprint in Russia to avoid government pressure, has left the government with fewer tools to control their output besides declaring them foreign agents, bankrupting them, or seeking other ways to close them down.

Proekt did not immediately comment on the government decision on Thursday.

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Biden bids Merkel farewell: Friends — with disagreements

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Welcoming Angela Merkel to the White House for a final time, President Joe Biden renewed his concerns to the German chancellor Thursday about a major, nearly complete Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline but said they agreed Russia must not be allowed to use energy as a weapon.

The two discussed — though made no apparent headway — on differences over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline during a largely friendly farewell visit for Merkel as she nears the end of a political career that has spanned four American presidencies.

“On a personal note, I must tell you I will miss seeing you at our summits,” Biden said as he stood by Merkel, the second-longest serving chancellor in Germany’s history, at a late afternoon White House press conference. “I truly will.”

Merkel, who had a famously difficult relationship with former President Donald Trump, showed her ease and familiarity with Biden, who has long been a fixture in international politics, repeatedly referring to him as “Dear Joe.”

Asked to compare her relationship with Biden to hers with Trump, Merkel remained diplomatic, saying only that it was in any German chancellor’s interest to “work with every American president.” She added with a smile, “Today was a very friendly exchange.”

But their personal warmth notwithstanding, the U.S.-German relationship is entering new territory as Merkel, who is not seeking another term in September elections, nears her departure from office. There are concerns on both sides about how the two nations will negotiate growing disagreements.

The United States has long argued that the Nord Stream 2 project will threaten European energy security by increasing the continent’s reliance on Russian gas and allowing Russia to exert political pressure on vulnerable Eastern and Central European nations, particularly Ukraine. But Biden recently waived sanctions against German entities involved in the project, a move that angered many in Congress.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, in a letter to Biden on Thursday ahead of the leaders’ meeting raised concerns that the pipeline is already having an economic impact on U.S. ally Ukraine. Rubio said Gazprom, the company that operates Nord Stream 2, “has already started to reduce its use of pipelines in Ukraine” as the new gas pipeline nears completion.

Merkel sought to downplay the differences, and to stress that the pipeline was in addition to — not meant to displace — Ukrainian pipelines.

“Our idea is and remains that Ukraine remains a transit country for natural gas, that Ukraine just as any other country in the world has a right to territorial sovereignty,” Merkel said. She added that Germany stood ready to react to Moscow “should Russia not respect this right of Ukraine that it has as a transit country.”

Merkel also raised concerns about COVID-19 travel restrictions that prevent most Europeans from traveling to the U.S.

Biden said he had brought in the head of his coronavirus task force to discuss the issue and that he expected to be able to offer a more definitive answer “within the next seven days” about when the restrictions might be eased.

Merkel started her day with a working breakfast with Vice President Kamala Harris, and Harris’ office said the two had a “very candid discussion.”

Back home in Germany, Merkel’s country and neighboring Belgium dealt with the aftermath of heavy flooding that left more than 60 people dead and dozens missing.

“My sympathy goes to the relatives and of the dead and missing,” she said.

Officials in Washington and elsewhere are wondering what course Germany might take after the September vote.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union is leading in polls, but the environmentalist Greens and the center-left Social Democrats are also vying to lead a future government. While the three parties differ in many policy areas, all are committed to a strong trans-Atlantic relationship.

Germany has strong trade ties with China but has also been critical of Beijing’s human rights record. Merkel is keen to avoid a situation in which Germany, or the European Union, might be forced to choose sides between China and the United States.

Merkel has insisted on the need to cooperate with China on global issues such as climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, even while then-President Trump was accusing Beijing of having started it the pandemic.

Still, Merkel stressed in her comments to reporters that she wants Germany and the European Union to coordinate their policy toward China with Washington, including on issues such as labor rights, trade and cybersecurity.

“I believe that the foundations of our dealings with China should be based on the common values” of the U.S. and Germany, she said.

The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders urged Biden to lean on Merkel to drop her opposition to proposals for suspending vaccine patents. Merkel, a trained scientist, has argued that lifting the patents wouldn’t be effective and could harm future research and development efforts.

A group of Democratic lawmakers called on Germany to drop its “blockade” of a COVID-19-related waiver of intellectual property rights under global trade rules. Such a waiver, the lawmakers argued, would help scale production of effective vaccines around the world.

The Biden administration has expressed support for the waiver being discussed at the World Trade Organization, but White House officials did not anticipate differences being resolved during Merkel’s visit.

While there are points of tension, Biden seemed eager to offer Merkel a proper farewell.

He hosted Merkel and her husband, as well as an array of lawmakers and administration officials, current and past, at the White House for a dinner Thursday evening. The guest list included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as two of his predecessors — Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell.

The Republican Senate and House leaders, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, were also in attendance along with other top U.S. and German officials. The menu featured crispy sea bass and black pepper tagliatelle.

Earlier Thursday, Harris hosted Merkel for breakfast at her residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, commending her for her “extraordinary career.” Merkel in turn noted the historic nature of the Harris vice presidency.

“I can only say that I’m delighted, too, for this opportunity here to meet the first madam vice president of the United States of America,” Merkel said before the two leaders stepped into a residence to talk over a breakfast of Gruyère soufflé, seasonal fruit and charcuterie.

Also Thursday, Merkel received an honorary doctorate, her 18th, from Johns Hopkins University and spoke at the university’s School of Advanced International Studies.

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Jordans reported from Berlin and Madhani from Chicago.

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