The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has broken with advice from its own internal advisory panel to back a booster shot of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings.
The move came on Friday one day after an advisory panel to the agency did not recommend that people in high-risk jobs, such as teachers, and risky living conditions should get boosters. The panel had only recommended boosters for elderly and some people with underlying medical conditions.
Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said her agency had to make recommendations based on complex, often imperfect data.
Read more at:
CDC overrides advisory panel to back Pfizer booster for Americans with high-risk jobs | US news | The Guardian
Showing posts with label Controversy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Controversy. Show all posts
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
BIG TECHNOLOGY: US right wing populist and their allies allies disagree over big tech
Why US rightwing populists and their global allies disagree over big tech
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
The Netherlands: Britons in Netherlands take fight for their EU rights to Dutch court - by Daniel Boffey and Lisa O'Carroll
The claimants will argue that the rights of UK citizens are independent of the country’s EU membership, according to legal documents seen by the Guardian.
The case will be heard in Amsterdam on Wednesday, where a referral to the European court of justice will be sought, in what could be a major test of the treatment of UK nationals by the EU and UK in the Brexit talks, with potentially huge ramifications.
While the ECJ could find that only citizens who have exploited their right to free movement to live in the EU are being unlawfully treated, everyone in the UK could potentially benefit.
Five UK nationals along with the Commercial Anglo Dutch Society (Cads) and the lobby group Brexpats – Hear Our Voice are the named claimants. They are being assisted by Jolyon Maugham, the QC behind a series of recent Brexit legal challenges.
The group argue in their action against the Dutch government that after Brexit on 29 March 2019, anyone who had UK citizenship before that date should legally retain EU rights including freedom of movement and the right of residence.
They say the EU’s treaties are silent on what happens to citizens of a member state that leaves the union. But they claim the Lisbon treaty gives “real weight” to the rights of EU nationals, and that these are not coupled to the political fate of their home country.
The group’s lawyer, Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm, said he expected the court to take six weeks at most to decide whether to refer the case to the ECJ. “We are in a rush,” he said. “I’m convinced that the ECJ should assess these questions. Theresa May famously said ‘Brexit means Brexit’ but no one knows what that means.”
One of the claimants, Stephen Huyton, a director of a US firm headquartered in the Netherlands who has lived in the country for 23 years, said he was concerned about the right of his children, who have British passports and are studying in the UK, to return to the Netherlands to live and work.
“There are a number of points to this and one is emotional,” he said. “We have lived outside the UK for more than 15 years and so we were not allowed to vote in the referendum. That is the rule. So a lot of us really feel disenfranchised by the whole process. It was a raw nerve, and it remains a raw nerve.
“I did not make a lifestyle choice by moving here, I moved here for work. And when I came out I came out on a set of terms and conditions. The whole issue of the UK being able to leave the EU [through article 50 of the Lisbon treaty] wasn’t in the treaties at that point.
“In UK common law, we generally have a rule that we don’t apply law retrospectively, and in some ways that is what they are doing.”
Maugham, who is financially backing the legal action, said he was hopeful the case could have profound implications for UK citizens who want to retain their rights.
“Article 20 gives EU citizenship rights to nationals of member states but it is silent on the issue of what happens to those rights if a member state ceases to be a member state,” he said. “Previous ECJ cases have suggested that EU citizenship rights have an independent reality, not just as an adjunct to national citizenship rights.
“The question is: would anyone who is a citizen of the UK on 29 March 2019 benefit from EU citizenship rights after that date? Of course, we cannot know what the [ECJ] might say. But I can see it taking the opportunity to give meaning and resonance to those rights.”
Maugham conceded that a favourable ruling by the ECJ could throw up an “awkward asymmetry” between the way UK and EU citizens are treated on either side of the Channel.
“The question whether UK citizens can assert EU citizenship rights in the EU after Brexit is a question of EU law,” he said. “But the question whether non-UK EU citizens can assert EU citizenship rights in the UK after Brexit is a question of UK law.
“It may turn out that there is an awkward asymmetry: UK citizens enjoying generous EU rights but EU citizens suffering meagre UK rights.”
Debra Williams, 55, founder of Brexpats, one of the claimants, who has spent a decade moving between Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium for her husband’s work, said: “EU citizenship means the world to me.
“It’s not that I’m not proud to be Welsh and British; I am, but I’m also proud to be European. I’m doing this for the kids, and the grandkids, they should have what we have, to be able to travel and work freely in Europe. Otherwise it’s going to be work permits and visa, that will be a tragedy for them.”
Read more Britons in Netherlands take fight for their EU rights to Dutch court | Politics | The Guardian
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Oil: Will Cheap Oil Kill Global Stability ? "No it won't say experts-Yes it will says Wall Street PR on steroids" - by Judy Dempsey
Kris Bledowski, Director of economic studies at the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation notes:
"The answer depends on how “stability” is defined. In political terms, one could see some instability creep in or deepen in countries where oil plays a disproportionately large fiscal role.
Yet this impact would be felt locally rather than globally, andmostly in countries with already-weak polities. Venezuela, Nigeria, or parts of the Middle East come to mind. It’s less likely that potential conflicts could spill over outside domestic or localtheaters.
The economic impact has already been felt the world over. In the United States, mining activity has depressed industrial output, while in Canada the entire economy plunged into recession in 2015 as a result of sharply lower oil prices.
At the same time, income losses are being at least partly offset by gains on the consumer end. Shifts in relative prices of major inputs or outputs occur all the time,and the world economy is resilient enough to absorb them. Overall, oil and its derivatives make up a small and declining share of unit energy costs.
If global investment flows are more unpredictable, currencies more volatile, and changes in income more pronounced, other factors should be taken into account as well. Among them are differences in monetary policies (in the United States and the EU), private debt levels (in Brazil and China), and economic governance (in Russia and Saudi Arabia).
Ian Bremmer, President and founder of Eurasia Group says:
"Did Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms kill Soviet stability? No. They hastened the melting of frozen instability. That’s the impact of cheap oil on the Middle East, in particular the Sunni Arab petrostates and the governments that rely on their largesse.
There’s already little domestic legitimacy keeping these regimes in place. The United States has little desire toact as the region’s policeman, and nobody else is going to pick up the baton.
Communication technologies allow disenchanted young men to more easily mobilize.
And there are scant few social, economic, and political reform efforts among the governments themselves; security solutions don’t address the underlying problems. Cheap oil makes those conflicts grow sharper. And faster."
Jan Cienski, Energy and security editor at POLITICO says:
"No, cheap oil won’t kill global stability—infact, it will bolster it. That doesn’t mean low oil prices aren’t terrible news for a host of countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Angola, and other emerging markets that have built their budgets on oil exports. But as their revenues shrink, their largely autocratic rulers will have to focus more on keeping their people from rebelling over budget cuts and less on causing trouble abroad.
No, cheap oil won’t kill global stability—in fact, it will bolster it. That doesn’t mean low oil prices aren’t terrible news for a host of countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Angola, and other emerging markets that have built their budgets on oil exports.
But as their revenues shrink, their largely autocratic rulers will have to focus more on keeping their people from rebelling over budget cuts and less on causing trouble abroad."
Deborah Gordon, Director of Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program notes: "mighty global omnipotence is often attributed to oil. But it’s unclear whether low (or high) oil prices themselves can be squarely blamed for growing global instability. Increasing oil market volatility, however, could prove to be a stronger destabilizing force.
If oil prices continue to swing wildly back and forth in the years ahead, this could confound economic, technological, and geopolitical fundamentals."
Note EU-Digest: Wall Street and the financial Industry seem to be the only ones who are saying that lower oil prices will contribute to Global Economic and Political Instability , mainly because it hurts their energy investments and market portfolio's . The drop in oil prices, however, has been very beneficial to consumers and the the economy in general.
EU-Digest
"The answer depends on how “stability” is defined. In political terms, one could see some instability creep in or deepen in countries where oil plays a disproportionately large fiscal role.
Yet this impact would be felt locally rather than globally, andmostly in countries with already-weak polities. Venezuela, Nigeria, or parts of the Middle East come to mind. It’s less likely that potential conflicts could spill over outside domestic or localtheaters.
The economic impact has already been felt the world over. In the United States, mining activity has depressed industrial output, while in Canada the entire economy plunged into recession in 2015 as a result of sharply lower oil prices.
At the same time, income losses are being at least partly offset by gains on the consumer end. Shifts in relative prices of major inputs or outputs occur all the time,and the world economy is resilient enough to absorb them. Overall, oil and its derivatives make up a small and declining share of unit energy costs.
If global investment flows are more unpredictable, currencies more volatile, and changes in income more pronounced, other factors should be taken into account as well. Among them are differences in monetary policies (in the United States and the EU), private debt levels (in Brazil and China), and economic governance (in Russia and Saudi Arabia).
Ian Bremmer, President and founder of Eurasia Group says:
"Did Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms kill Soviet stability? No. They hastened the melting of frozen instability. That’s the impact of cheap oil on the Middle East, in particular the Sunni Arab petrostates and the governments that rely on their largesse.
There’s already little domestic legitimacy keeping these regimes in place. The United States has little desire toact as the region’s policeman, and nobody else is going to pick up the baton.
Communication technologies allow disenchanted young men to more easily mobilize.
And there are scant few social, economic, and political reform efforts among the governments themselves; security solutions don’t address the underlying problems. Cheap oil makes those conflicts grow sharper. And faster."
Jan Cienski, Energy and security editor at POLITICO says:
"No, cheap oil won’t kill global stability—infact, it will bolster it. That doesn’t mean low oil prices aren’t terrible news for a host of countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Angola, and other emerging markets that have built their budgets on oil exports. But as their revenues shrink, their largely autocratic rulers will have to focus more on keeping their people from rebelling over budget cuts and less on causing trouble abroad.
No, cheap oil won’t kill global stability—in fact, it will bolster it. That doesn’t mean low oil prices aren’t terrible news for a host of countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Angola, and other emerging markets that have built their budgets on oil exports.
But as their revenues shrink, their largely autocratic rulers will have to focus more on keeping their people from rebelling over budget cuts and less on causing trouble abroad."
Deborah Gordon, Director of Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program notes: "mighty global omnipotence is often attributed to oil. But it’s unclear whether low (or high) oil prices themselves can be squarely blamed for growing global instability. Increasing oil market volatility, however, could prove to be a stronger destabilizing force.
If oil prices continue to swing wildly back and forth in the years ahead, this could confound economic, technological, and geopolitical fundamentals."
Note EU-Digest: Wall Street and the financial Industry seem to be the only ones who are saying that lower oil prices will contribute to Global Economic and Political Instability , mainly because it hurts their energy investments and market portfolio's . The drop in oil prices, however, has been very beneficial to consumers and the the economy in general.
EU-Digest
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)