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    Pfizer, BioNTech initiate study to evaluate Omicron vaccine in adults

    OWSA Staff
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    Pfizer, BioNTech initiate study to evaluate Omicron vaccine in adults

    First participants enrolled in clinical trial received Omicron-based vaccine candidate as a two-dose primary series and as a booster dose.

    Drugs and pharma giants Pfizer and BioNTech have announced initiation of a clinical study to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of an Omicron-based vaccine candidate in healthy adults aged between 18 and 55 years.

    The study will compare the original shot of the vaccine with a version tweaked to recognize the highly contagious Omicron strain.

    Participants of the study will come from the companies’ Phase 3 COVID-19 booster study. This study is part of the two companies’ ongoing efforts to address Omicron and determine the potential need for variant-based vaccines.

    “While current research and real-world data show that boosters continue to provide a high level of protection against severe disease and hospitalization with Omicron, we recognize the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future,” said Kathrin U. Jansen, Pfizer’s senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development.

    “Vaccines continue to offer strong protection against severe disease caused by Omicron. Yet, emerging data indicate vaccine-induced protection against infection and mild to moderate disease wanes more rapidly than was observed with prior strains,” said Prof. Ugur Sahin, CEO and Co-founder of BioNTech.

    The study will evaluate up to 1,420 participants across the three cohorts and the trial will involve 1,420 people in the 18 to 55 year age group across the United States and South Africa. First participants enrolled in clinical trial received Omicron-based vaccine candidate as a two-dose primary series and as a booster dose.

    Spreading fast

    Vaccine manufacturers said new versions of their vaccines to target the highly infectious Omicron variant could be ready within 100 days, in the immediate days after the new strain of COVID-19 was detected. But there were doubts.

    Omicron has spread at neck-break speed. Andrew Pollard, who led the development of the Oxford-AZ vaccine said that it was “quite difficult to make and deploy an updated vaccine quickly enough” to make a difference.

    Clinical and real-world data continue to find people who are vaccinated, particularly those that have received a booster, maintain a high level of protection against Omicron, particularly against severe disease and hospitalization.

     

    Image: Hippox — licenses to use under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

    ICRC still clueless on data breach

    OWSA Staff
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    ICRC still clueless on data breach

    ICRC’s “deep data drive” into the hacking of its servers does not seem to have yielded much, except the knowledge that hackers had been inside these systems and had access to the data on them.

    The International Committee of Red Cross is still searching for answers, 10 days since it determined that servers hosting personal information of more than 500,000 people receiving Red Cross services were compromised in a cyber-security attack.

    An ICRC cyber partner detected an anomaly on the servers that contained information relating to the Red Cross’ restoring family links (RFL) services. RFL provides a unique service, reconnecting people separated by war, violence, migration and other causes. Every day, Red Cross societies all over the world, with help from ICRC, reunite 12 people with their families, ICRC claims.

    But ICRC’s “deep data drive” does not seem to have yielded much, except the knowledge that hackers had been inside these systems and had access to the data on them. For a start, there is no clarity on when the data breach first happened for how long it had been going on. Reports say that the breach was “determined” on 18 January.

    The breach included personal data such as names, locations, and contact information of more than 515,000 people from across the world. But so far, the ICRC only presumes that the data sets were copied and exported.

    “We must presume so. We know that the hackers were inside our systems and therefore had the capacity to copy and export it,” The organisation has said in a statement.

    No dark web clues; no ransom demands, yet

    As a global network, ICRC has access to various levels of hierarchies within entities that even the most powerful governments often fail to establish. Yet, its statement, now 10 days on since the attack happened, says, “We do not know who is behind this attack.”

    It says that the ICRC hasn’t so far had any contact with the hackers and that no ransom has been asked for. “In line with our standing practice to engage with any actor who can facilitate or impede our humanitarian work, we are willing to communicate directly and confidentially with whoever may be responsible for this operation to impress upon them the need to respect our humanitarian action,” the statement reads.

    On reports that the information had been put up for sale on the dark web, the statement says that the organisation has “a dedicated team who are following any reports we receive of data being available on the dark web.”

    ICRC says that it does not wish to speculate on any possible misuse of this data. ICRC says, “If misused or in the wrong hands, it could potentially be used by States, non-state groups, or individuals to contact or find people to cause harm.”

    Yet, going by the statement put out by the organisation’s headquarters in Geneva, the world’s largest humanitarian organisation could see this coming.

    As it says in its statement, “We have been long aware of the danger that our data could one day be the target of an attack.” It says that the organisation has “invested substantially in cyber security and work with trusted partners to maintain high standards of data protection and systems.”

    Strong brand

    People connected with the Red Cross in SouthAsia doubt that this event will have long-term impacts on ICRC’s work, especially because RFL is not ICRC’s most resource intensive work.

    “ICRC is a preferred organisation for humanitarian funding in situations of wars and conflicts by many governments,” says a senior official who has closely observed the working of the highly privileged Swiss private organisation. “It is a brand and this latest happening will not disturb its reputation very much,” he said.

    Micro-estimates of wealth data ‘can help tackle poverty’

    SciDevNet
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    Micro-estimates of wealth data ‘can help tackle poverty’

    Around 97 million people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2021. Now, researchers at the University of California and the Data for Good programme say new wealth data set can help policymakers tackle poverty.

    By Neena Bhandari / SciDev.Net

    A data project charting poverty levels in detail across the global South could help policymakers better target social assistance and humanitarian aid, researchers say.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened poverty globally, with an estimated 97 million more people, most of them in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), pushed into extreme poverty in 2021, according to the World Bank.

    But a dearth of reliable and up-to-date poverty data in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) poses a major challenge for governments and civil society.

    To bridge this data gap, researchers at the University of California and the Data for Good programme, which collates data from Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, have developed a public data set of Relative Wealth Index (RWI), which provides micro-estimates of wealth of all populated areas in the 135 LMICs. The study was published in PNAS on 18 January.

    Joshua Blumenstock, chancellor’s associate professor at the University of California School of Information and one of the lead authors of the study, said: “The estimates of absolute and relative wealth are very fine-grained, with one for every 2.4-kilometre square grid cell, which is small enough to satisfy the needs of most policymakers, but also large enough to respect the privacy of individual households.”

    “In essence, this makes it feasible for policymakers to determine the relative wealth of small villages and neighbourhoods. For example, Nigeria has used these micro-estimates to identify the poorest urban wards (a neighbourhood) in the country and then prioritise those wards to receive social assistance from the government,” he adds.

    Constructing estimates by combining data

    The estimates are constructed by combining data from nearly 1.5 million in-person Demographic and Health S with massive quantities of “big data” from satellites, mobile phone networks, and other sources, including aggregated and de-identified connectivity data — with personal information removed to protect privacy — from Facebook.

    “In rough terms, the algorithms use the big data to interpolate wealth estimates into areas where surveys have not been conducted,” said Blumenstock, who is also director of the Data-Intensive Development Lab, and co-director of the Center for Effective Global Action.

    To check the accuracy of these micro-estimates, the researchers worked with data gathered by several different independent organisations to compare estimates from their algorithm with objective estimates from third party .

    “For instance, we compared what our algorithm-generated estimates say about the wealth of people in village X to what an independent survey firm says about the wealth of people in village X. We found that — across four independent data sources from 18 different countries — our new micro-estimates provide remarkably accurate measurements of relative wealth and poverty in LMICs,” Blumenstock told SciDev.Net.

    Need more qualitative local data

    Hoa Thi Minh Nguyen, senior lecturer at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, who was not involved in the study, said its breadth across the global South made it a helpful resource for policymakers.

    “However, further information is needed in validating the accuracy of the estimates,” she told SciDev.Net. “The research uses the information on income and expenditure from about 4,000 microregions in total to validate their prediction for 19.1 million (presumably highly heterogeneous) microregions in the world. […] more qualitative local data is needed in targeting the poor, especially when resources are constrained.”

    This public data set of the RWI is available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange and can be explored using an interactive interface. Researchers are hopeful that it will facilitate targeted policy responses to the pandemic and help countries in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

    Deborah Hardoon, is poverty and inequality lead for Development Initiatives, an organisation which aims to use data to tackle poverty, told SciDev.Net: “The data used in these studies can make an important contribution to our understanding of poverty and inequality. However, it is important that these studies do not distract from, or purport to override, the more fundamental need to get the foundational data right in complex country settings, in a way that is locally owned and enables disaggregation (e.g. by gender or ethnicity) and an understanding of local context.”

     

    This piece has been sourced from SciDev.Net

    Image: Hippopx licensed to use under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

    India should spend its way out of post-COVID-19 economic crisis

    Policy Circle
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    India should spend its way out of post-COVID-19 economic crisis

    In view of the structural break in the global economy as well as the domestic economy, the government’s budget plans should be two-pronged — one to revive the domestic economy, and, second to gain a firm foothold in the global economy.

    By Charan Singh

    The Union Budget is more of a policy statement than an accounting exercise. Therefore, the country expects finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to come up with a vision for the Indian economy, which is still reeling under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The world economy and Indian economy have already suffered from prolonged uncertainty. The world suffered losses in terms of jobs, education, and the health of the labour force. So, the Budget should ensure the stakeholders that the country has a well-thought-out plan for recovery.

    Labor and capital are the essential inputs for economic growth. The pandemic affected labour in India. Many migrant labourers went back home. Few returned but others are still struggling in villages. The private sector and commercial banks also suffered because of the slowdown. Hence, Budget 2022 has to devise a roadmap for labour and capital.

    Budget 2022 must cushion COVID-19 impact

    Budget 2022 will be unique as it is being prepared in the midst of the third wave of COVID-19 and uncertainty about the future of the global economy. Internationally, there are different winds blowing with the UK declaring that pandemic is over and the US is on the verge of reversing the interest rate cycle. In contrast, there is research pointing out that the global economy is still vulnerable and that growth prospects will improve only by 2023.

    In India also, the impact of the pandemic was varied across states. The absence of migrant labour is impacting agriculture and manufacturing, especially MSMEs, in many states. Therefore, the government has to support the economy and should not worry too much about fiscal deficit. This is not recommending fiscal profligacy, but one should not be tied down by the targets set by the Maastricht Treaty which itself are under review. The need of the hour is to lend support to all segments of the economy, ranging from consumption to production.

    Budget 2022 will have to serve two purposes — providing immediate support to different sectors of the economy and planning for the recovery phase from 2023 to 2025. In the immediate support to individuals, the government could consider raising the threshold of income tax which can provide impetus to consumption demand.

    New revenue sources

    The government could also consider recovering some amount of tax forgone by raising expenditure tax on goods and services purchased by higher income groups. This will also help reduce the widening income inequalities. The pandemic has hurt many household budgets which has reflected negatively in expenditure on children’s education. While some parents have shifted children from private schools to government schools, others have stopped sending children to school altogether. Consequently, many schools have closed down.

    The government could consider direct benefit transfer (DBT) to parents of school-going children. In any society during financial distress, the medical expenditure of the elderly suffers immediate neglect. The government could consider DBT to the elderly in terms of enhanced monthly pension for at least two years.

    The global crisis has demonstrated the ill-effects of the monopoly growth of China in global supply chains. To offer an alternative to the global economy, the government could consider infrastructure support in the Northeast to prepare the area for international investment. Tax incentives and tax holidays can induce domestic industry to move into the Northeast, creating economic activity in the region and providing the pull factor for global industry.

    No time for fiscal consolidation

    MSMEs are the largest employers after agriculture and have suffered the most during the crisis. The government has been providing some support through NBFCs, but the feedback from MSMEs has been that the support has not reached the grassroot level. In fact, MSMEs are a very heterogeneous group and most of them do not have deep pockets to survive the pandemic. The government would have to provide a liberal accommodation in terms of tax holidays to MSMEs to ensure the survival and employment generation of MSMEs.

    The medical industry in India, including pharma, has established its presence in terms of quality. To make India a destination of medical tourism, the government could consider incentives to promote indigenous medicines as well as set up hospitals with ultra-specialisation. These can be organized in special economic zones in different parts of India, so that the reputation built over the pandemic can be capitalised and translated into becoming a global medical hub for research and treatment.

    The pandemic has caused immense harm to migratory labour which needs to be productively engaged now. They need to be weaned from unproductive MGNREGA work. The need is to have special schemes for village and cottage industries through mudra loans. Each mudra loan dispersed has the potential to create a few jobs. To enhance the efficiency of expenditure, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) would be helpful as they are the closest to the people.

    In this time of stressed finances, the government should continue to purse disinvestment, and privatisation. Further, given the stress in the economy, the government will have to continue supporting the banking system. It should pursue privatisation of banks too and may also consider placing a few banks under an asset monetisation programme.

    There has been a structural break in the global economy as well as in the domestic economy. The global and domestic economy will now begin to normalise after the third wave of COVID-19. The government’s plan should be two-pronged — one to revive the domestic economy and second to gain a firm foothold in the global economy.

    Budget 2022 should make an effort to provide a road-map on the following: a) role of banking sector including NBFCs; b) Role of MSMEs in industrialization; and c) enhancing the role of India in global economy. The government should capitalise on this rare opportunity when the world is attempting a reset, and ensure that India is able to improve its status in the global financial architecture.

    This piece has been sourced from Policy Circle — policycircle.org

    Traditional Chinese medicine stirs a concoction in Asia, Africa and the Americas

    OWSA Staff
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    Traditional Chinese medicine stirs a concoction in Asia, Africa and the Americas

    Animal rights groups are voicing concern as the China’s traditional medicine business is leading to the harvesting of animals, besides plants, thus threatening biodiversity.

    On 18 January, a Canada-based Chinese herbal medicine company pleaded guilty to charges of being in possession of 20,000 fins from a protected shark species. Hand Hing Medicine Ltd. was fined $75,000 by the Vancouver provincial court.

    On 20 January, officials of Assam’s Kaziranga national park reported finding an adult female rhinoceros’ carcass. Its horn was missing and park officials suspected this to be the work of poachers. Rhino horn occupies a place of pride in traditional Chinese medicine (TMC).

    A global Chinese medicine boom has sparked fears for endangered species from Asia, Africa and even the Americas. Rising exports of traditional Chinese medicine products, rising on the crest of the Belt and Road initiative, is accelerating the harvest of rare and endangered plant produce and animal body parts.

    Animal rights groups are alarmed and accuse Chinese medicine companies of plundering bio-diversity for short-term pecuniary interests.

    Recent years have seen the rise of chains of traditional Chinese medicine suppliers and clinics across Africa, according to a report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

    “The aggressive expansion of traditional Chinese medicine in many African countries is posing a direct threat to the future of some endangered species,” the group said in a statement.

    While the majority of Chinese medicinal treatments are plant-based, there is also a distinct animal and wildlife component to the Chinese pharma practices. The profit motive has led many pharmaceutical companies to source ingredients from threatened animals, aggravating the pressure on the survival of these species, EIA explains.

    “Any utilization of threatened species in traditional Chinese medicine could potentially stimulate further demand, incentivise wildlife crime and ultimately lead to over-exploitation,” EIA campaigner Ceres Kam warned.

    Missing Indian donkeys

    On 21 December 2021, a senior official of the department of animal husbandry in New Delhi, wrote to the home ministry, voicing concern over the sharp drop in India’s population of donkeys following the last animal census. The donkeys and donkey hides, he said in his communication, were being smuggled to Nepal.

    The official based his letter on a research by Brooke India, a NGO working on equines that points to donkeys and donkey hide smuggled through the porous Indo-Nepal border to supply ejiao, a gelatinous compound obtained from donkey hide for Chinese medicinal use for virility and longevity.

    Brooke India communication officer Amit Kumar says that the insatiable Chinese demand for ejiao is an important factor in the ugly race leading donkeys in the region to extinction. He cites the example of neighbouring Pakistan where, he says, donkeys are on the verge of extinction.

    In November 2019, UK-based Donkey Sanctuary reported that 4.8 million donkey hides were required to satisfy the global demand for ejiao, resulting in steep declines of donkey populations around the world.

    “The ejiao industry has experienced significant growth over the past six years,” Amit Kumar says. “In the three years between 2013 and 2016, the annual production of ejiao increased from 3,200 to 5,600 tonnes, a growth of over 20 per cent.”

    EIA’s Kam is concerned that the dependence on animals will have the knock-on effect of drastically increasing demand for treatments containing wildlife and, in turn, cause more species to become threatened or extinct.

    She says, “Ultimately, the unfettered growth of traditional Chinese medicine poses a serious threat to the biodiversity found in many African countries, all in the name of short-term profit.

    “Any utilisation of threatened species could potentially stimulate further demand, incentivise wildlife crime and ultimately lead to over-exploitation.”

     

    Image: Hippopx Creative Commons Zero – CC0

    No takers for COVID-19 booster vials in Sri Lanka

    OWSA Contributor
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    No takers for COVID-19 booster vials in Sri Lanka

    There is a rise in COVID-19 hospitalisations in Sri Lanka. Yet, people are reluctant to take the vaccine booster.

    Over 5000 cases of COVID-19 were reported from across Sri Lanka last week. 82 people had died. Almost 65 per cent of the people in the island nation have been fully vaccinated.

    But Sri Lanka has another, and a very different problem on its hands.

    There are no takers for the millions of unused booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in the country. Health authorities say they would hate to see the vaccines expire.

    State minister of pharmaceutical production Channa Jayasumana said the booster dose stock in store will expire by July 2022. The stock is around nine million.

    “We purchased around 14 million booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and only close to five million have been distributed so far,” he said. “If the public refuses to take the booster dose now, it will expire by July 2022.”

    From urging people to contemplating legal action

    Health officials have been urging people to get the initial vaccines and if eligible to take the booster dose without delay.

    “Please take it, because data indicates that the number of patients are increasing,” said Deputy Director of the Colombo National Hospital Dr Chandana Gajanayaka.

    The lack of enthusiasm flies in the face of the island nation’s strong record of a highly functional immunisation programme.

    “Legal action against those responsible for the spread of communicable diseases can be taken under the Penal Code”, said Senal Fernando, secretary of the government medical officers association.

    Fernando said that “provisions of the quarantine ordinance can be used against persons who do not comply with directions given by the proper authorities under the quarantine ordinance.”

    Health officials on Monday started to administer the second dose for children between 16-19 years of age.

    Spate of hospitalisations and sick staff

    COVID-19 admissions to the hospital in the country have increased over the past week and public health inspectors union chairman Upul Rohana said, adding that the number of symptomatic cases and hospitalisations have increased throughout the country.

    He spoke of hospital staff too falling sick and said that there has been an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients requiring oxygen.

    Rohana’s warning was clear: the numbers will continue to rise and likely lead to a situation similar to the second wave of the pandemic.

     

    Image courtesy: Sri Lanka Red Cross Society

    21 million COVID-19 cases globally reported last week is highest ever

    OWSA Staff
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    21 million COVID-19 cases globally reported last week is highest ever

    21 million cases reported from across the world represent the highest number of weekly cases recorded by the World Health Organisation since the beginning of the pandemic.

    In its weekly report on the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organisation has said that 21 million cases were reported from across the organisation’s six regions across the globe during the last week ending Saturday 23 January 2022. Nearly 50,000 new deaths were reported.

    This represents a five per cent increase during the week, while the number of deaths remained similar to that reported during the previous week.

    This is the highest number of weekly cases recorded by the world body since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago.

    “Across the six WHO regions, over 21 million new cases were reported this week, representing the highest number of weekly cases recorded since the beginning of the pandemic,” the WHO said in its weekly update.

    As of 23 January 2022, over 346 million confirmed cases and over 5.5 million deaths have been reported worldwide.

    A slower increase in case incidence was observed at the global level, with only half of the regions reporting an increase in the number of new weekly cases, as compared to five out of six regions in the previous week.

    The Eastern Mediterranean Region reported the largest increase in the number of new cases (39 per cent), followed by the South-East Asia Region (36 per cent) and the European Region (13 per cent).

    WHO’s South-East Asia region includes SouthAsian countries, but not Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    The number of new weekly deaths increased in the South-East Asia Region (44 per cent), the Eastern Mediterranean Region (15 per cent) and the Region of the Americas (seven per cent), while the other Regions all reported declines in new weekly deaths.

    Community transmission levels in India

    In the meantime, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) declared that Omicron has reached community transmission levels in the country.

    According to INSACOG’s statement released on Sunday, “Omicron is now in community transmission stage in India and has become dominant in multiple metros, where new cases have been rising exponentially.”

    While most Omicron cases so far have been asymptomatic or mild, INSACOG said that global data shows that the majority of severe cases and deaths have been in unvaccinated people.

    The INSACOG reports includes its study from genomic surveillance across the country.

    Nepal faces trade deficit as COVID-19 rules

    OWSA Contributor
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    Nepal faces trade deficit as COVID-19 rules

    High cost of petroleum imports, lower exports and crashing in-home remittances together with a collapse of the tourism sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a widening of the country’s trade deficit in the first six months of the current financial year.

    Nepal’s trade deficit has increased by 46.64 per cent and currently stands at Nepali Rs. 880.49 billion in the first six months of the current financial year. Nepal’s financial year begins on 15 July and this report covers the six months ending mid-January 2022.

    According to the foreign trade statistics division of Nepal’s Department of Customs, the export trade has increased by 95.48 per cent to Rs. 118.85 billion during the first six months (mid-July 2021 to mid-January 2022) of the current financial year. Nepal’s exports were worth Nepali Rs. 60.79 billion in over the same period during the last financial year.

    But this huge leap in exports was not enough because the country’s import trade too increased by 51.13 per cent to Rs. 999.34 billion during these six months. That led to high trade deficits.

    COVID-19 impact on the economy

    Petroleum products account for Nepal’s single largest chunk of import expenses. But COVID-19 did not stop the landlocked country from importing petroleum products worth Nepali Rs. 96.71 billion (including diesel, petrol and aviation fuel). Besides, the country also spent Nepali Rs. 29.2343 billion on importing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) over the past six months.

    Nepal’s export earnings come mainly from exports of agricultural commodities – palm oil, cardamom, tea and coffee.

    The other major source of income is remittances from migrant Nepali nationals working overseas. That has come crashing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent days, Nepal has worked overtime with foreign diplomatic missions to promote its labour exports. Newspapers gave space to pictures of out-going workers queuing up to leave the country and the government announced that it would monitor the seat allocations for subsidised travel on the country’s loss-incurring national carrier.

    But the pandemic hurt most when tourists to the Himalayan country stopped arriving. Again, that was due to COVID-19.

    Not unexpected

    The swollen state of current trade deficits was not unforeseen. In November, the Nepal Rastra Bank (the country’s central bank) stepped in to reverse a foreseeable trend by discouraging the import of what it felt were non-essential goods.

    Then, the central bank’s quarterly review of the of the monetary policy had mandated importers to deposit a cash margin to be able to open and operate a letter of credit for goods it categorised as non-essential goods. This was a departure from the previous practices of the lending banks deciding on the cash margins, depending on their assessment of the creditworthiness of the borrowers.

    The swelling forex reserves were also anticipated after a review of the first quarter of the financial year that showed that the country’s gross foreign exchange reserves decreased by 6.5 per cent. This, the Nepal Rastriya Bank had said, was due to for three consecutive months to surging imports and a constant fall in the inflow of remittances.

    With India at 85 among 180 nations, Transparency International says Asia a case of ‘grand corruption’

    OWSA Staff
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    With India at 85 among 180 nations, Transparency International says Asia a case of ‘grand corruption’

    The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released today Transparency International by shows that corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide – with 86 per cent of countries making little to no progress in the last 10 years. With the exception of Bhutan, the index gives reason for worry in SouthAsia.

    India’s ranks 85th (up from rank 86 in 2020) among 180 countries in corruption perception index (CPI) in 2021 released by Transparency International today.

    The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people. It uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

    India’s score on the index this year, however remains unchanged at 40.

    The 2021 corruption perceptions index (CPI) shows that corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide, with 86 per cent of countries making little to no progress in the last 10 years.

    Transparency International found countries that violate civil liberties consistently score lower on the CPI. Complacency in fighting corruption exacerbates human rights abuses and undermines democracy, setting off a vicious spiral, the global watchdog organisation says. As these rights and freedoms erode and democracy declines, authoritarianism takes its place, contributing to even higher levels of corruption.

    While countries in Asia Pacific have made great strides in controlling bribery for public services, an average score of 45 out of 100 on the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows much more needs to be done to solve the region’s corruption problems.

    Even some higher-scoring countries are experiencing a decline as governments fail to address grand corruption, uphold rights and consult citizens.

    “Among those with weak scores are some of the world’s most populous countries, such as China (45) and India (40), and other large economies such as Indonesia (38), Pakistan (28) and Bangladesh (26),” Transparency International says. “A concerning trend across some of these nations is a weakening of anti-corruption institutions or, in some cases, absence of an agency to coordinate action against corruption.”

    Erosion of rights in Asia

    Asia has witnessed 10 years of mass movements calling for action against corruption, but sadly little has changed, Transparency International notes. Public outrage has instead been co-opted by strongmen – in the form of populist leaders in democratic countries and authoritarians elsewhere.

    “From India to the Philippines (33) to China, such leaders have been able to portray themselves as more effective than state institutions and win mandates to gain and stay in power,” the organisation says. “Furthermore, in most countries, corruption is spreading through severe restrictions on the very civil liberties – like freedom of association and speech – which allowed people to take to the streets and call for action.”

    The watchdog organisation says that the case of India is particularly worrying. While the country’s score has remained stagnant over the past decade, some of the mechanisms that could help reign in corruption are weakening, it says.

    “There are concerns over the country’s democratic status, as fundamental freedoms and institutional checks and balances decay. Journalists and activists are particularly at risk and have been victims of attacks by the police, political militants, criminal gangs and corrupt local officials,” the reports says.

    “Civil society organisations that speak up against the government have been targeted with security, defamation, sedition, hate speech and contempt-of-court charges, and with regulations on foreign funding.”

    Furthermore, the lowest scorers in the region, Afghanistan (16) and North Korea (16), have dropped even further (from 19 and 18, respectively) since last year. These two fragile states do not have the basic institutional infrastructure – such as mechanisms for administration and rule of law – to form an integrity system. They also repress citizens who speak out against corruption.

    Petty corruption down, but grand corruption persists

    An encouraging development is the relatively low occurrence of petty corruption in many Asian countries. Tackling bribe-seeking for basic services lightens the economic burden on the poor, improving their standard of living.

    Those countries stuck in the middle of the index, like Malaysia (48), Indonesia (38) and the Maldives (40) face a more complex challenge: grand corruption. This is the abuse of high-level power that benefits the few at the expense of the many, and which can destroy whole sectors, create recessions and end democracies. In such cases mere technical interventions, useful in addressing petty corruption, are not enough.

    Addressing grand corruption requires the systematic dismantling of rent-seeking structures and dishonest cultures that public officials use to pocket public funds. This needs to be driven by political leaders who hold power to account, for the common good.

    COVID-19 opening a door to corruption and repression

    Alongside a massive public health mobilisation, Asian governments responded to the pandemic by rolling out some of the world’s biggest economic recovery plans. But such large-scale responses, conducted without adequate checks and balances, inevitably lead to corruption.

    Wrongdoing in emergency procurement has led to price inflating, the theft of medical supplies and sales of counterfeit medicines and materials. This left many citizens more vulnerable to COVID-19 – and almost certainly cost lives.

    Despite the fact that whistle-blowers, journalists and a vigilant public can help safeguard funds from corruption, COVID-19 has also been used as an excuse to suppress criticism. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Cambodia and Singapore are just a few countries that have increased digital surveillance to silence those trying to hold governments accountable during the pandemic.

    The report highlights another facet of public discourse that direct impacts corruption. It says, “as authoritarian regimes refine their cyber-surveillance technologies, vicious online harassment by government-backed trolls is further restricting freedom of speech.”

    Study points at US role in illegal tiger trade

    OWSA Contributor
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    Study points at US role in illegal tiger trade

    Data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, revealed 292 seizures of tiger parts illegally entering the United States between 2003 and 2012.

    By Sarah Fecht

    A new study hints at a major role of the United States in the trafficking of tiger parts. The research points to San Francisco, Dallas, and Atlanta as the main entry hotspots for these illegal products and says that the role of the US has for long been has underestimated. The research.

    Previously, studies on tiger trafficking patterns primarily focused on 13 Asian countries where tigers still roam free, with very little research on the United States. The new study, published in Conservation Science and Practice, investigated the extent and attributes of tiger parts entering the United States from 2003 to 2012.

    Data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, revealed 292 seizures of tiger parts illegally entering the United States during those years, indicating that the scale of trade may have been underestimated. A 2019 study, for example, covering the more recent period of 2000 to 2018, documented 624 seizures of illegal tiger products, but estimated that only 6 happened in the U.S., based on media reports.

    “People in the U.S. have this false notion that the illegal trade in tiger parts is half a world away. In reality, we in the US are involved in and driving a large portion of the illegal trade,” said lead author Sarika Khanwilkar, a PhD candidate at Columbia University and the founder of the non-profit Wild Tiger. “This research is a step to better understand the role of the U.S. in the global tiger trade, which will improve policy and enforcement and direct future research efforts.”

    Tigers are endangered, with less than 5,000 individuals estimated to remain in the wild. Illegal trade in tiger parts, mostly for medicinal purposes, contributes to the species’ decline.

    Trade over digital platforms

    Tigers are endangered, with less than 5,000 individuals estimated to remain in the wild. Illegal trade in tiger parts, mostly for medicinal purposes, contributes to the species’ decline.

    China has been and remains the main destination and largest consumer of tiger parts, but the new data shows that U.S. import seizures represent almost half (46.8%) of global seizures.

    Khanwilkar and her coauthors caution that their study may also underestimate the scale of tiger trafficking in the United States, because the use of digital platforms to trade and pay for illegal wildlife products has increased, and economic prosperity has expanded demand. The data also doesn’t reflect the most recent trends; after the team’s original FOIA request in 2013, regulations around FOIA requests to the Fish and Wildlife Service limited the quality of data that was available.

    DNA analysis to help trace origins

    The researchers found that, of the 65.8 per cent of seized parts with a known origin, 99.5 per cent came from wild tigers. The majority of seized products were imported from China and Vietnam (34.2 per cent and 29.5 per cent, respectively). However, a lack of data about the country of origin (which can be different to the country of export) made it difficult to determine trafficking routes or understand where wild tigers were poached to supply the trade.

    The authors propose several ways to better monitor the source and trafficking routes to improve policy, enforcement, and ultimately contribute to conserving wild tigers.

    For example, they suggest enhancing detection efforts in San Francisco, Dallas, and Atlanta, which were the main hot-spots for illegal tiger imports.

    They also recommend using forensic DNA analysis to determine the origin and source (wild versus captive) of the illegally traded tiger parts. Finding out where these tiger parts came from would provide guidance as to where to focus conservation and enforcement efforts.

     

    Image: Hippox Creative Commons Zero – CC0 license 

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