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Brazil green-lights Covid-19 vaccines for children age 5-11

AFP

Brazilian health authorities authorized Covid-19 vaccines for children age five to 11 on Wednesday, as South America’s most populous country faces a rapid increase in cases due to holiday gatherings and the arrival of the Omicron variant.

The final green light by Brazil’s Ministry of Health comes three weeks after the nation’s independent medicines regulator, Anvisa, declared Pfizer-BioNTech’s child-size dose to be safe and effective.

“To all those parents who want to vaccinate their children, the Ministry of Health will guarantee doses of the (Covid) vaccine,” said Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga in Brasilia.

Controversy abounded in Brazil until Wednesday’s announcement, with many alleging an improper delay by the government.

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President Jair Bolsonaro, who did not get vaccinated and said he will not immunize his 11-year-old daughter Laura, asked weeks ago to publish the names of those responsible for Anvisa’s decision, unleashing a wave of threats.

The final authorization comes amid a rising rate of infections in the country and a struggle to repair the health ministry’s hacked Covid website.

Brazil’s Health Ministry recorded 18,759 new cases in 24 hours in its latest data released Tuesday, the highest level since October 5.

The seven-day average also rose to 9,876 new cases, up from 5,033 the previous Tuesday, and 3,386 the week before that.

The rapidly increasing rate of new infections follows a trend seen in other nations where Omicron has taken hold.

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“We will have growth of the Omicron variant here as in all the other countries,” said Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist with the Federal University of Espirito Santo.

“The Christmas and New Year holidays, and the Omicron variant contributed a lot,” she explained.

But she also noted that Brazil “has a backlog of data due to a problem with the tracking system,” meaning the site is currently being updated which inflates the number of cases.

The issue stems from a cyberattack last month that disabled the government’s website for tracking infections and deaths, while allowing hackers to steal personal data and delete citizens’ health passes.

Authorities in Rio de Janeiro, wary of Omicron’s increasing impact, on Tuesday announced the cancelation of next month’s carnival street celebrations.

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After the United States, Brazil has the second highest number of deaths due to Covid with around 620,000 since the global pandemic began.

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International

Trump to sign over 200 executive orders, declaring National Emergency at U.S.-Mexico Border

Donald Trump will sign over 200 executive orders this Monday, including declaring a national emergency at the southern U.S. border and designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorists on his first day as president, according to U.S. network Fox News.

A senior administration official familiar with the executive actions Trump will sign, and who was authorized to inform the media according to Fox News, said that the president will sign multiple “omnibus” executive orders, each containing dozens of significant actions.

The source indicated that Trump will declare a national border emergency, order the U.S. military to work with the Department of Homeland Security to fully secure the southern border, and make it a national priority to eliminate all criminal cartels operating on U.S. soil. This version of the emergency declaration had previously been reported by CNN News and was also confirmed to The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

According to Fox News, Trump will close the border to all undocumented foreign nationals through a proclamation. He will also create task forces for national security protection, working with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and other agencies to “completely eradicate the presence of criminal cartels.”

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International

Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday the appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone (‘Rocky’) and Jon Voight (‘Midnight Cowboy’), as well as actor and director Mel Gibson (‘Braveheart’) as special ambassadors to the “very problematic” Hollywood.

“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.

“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.

Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.

Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”

The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.

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International

Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan

Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.

The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).

The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”

This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.

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