Gulf Times

Monday, October 26. 2020 7

POLITICS
BC NDP leader John Horgan speaks at the
party’s headquarters following a majority
government win in Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada.
COMMENT
Vaccine verdict due by
early December: Fauci
US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci
yesterday said it would be clear whether a
Covid-19 vaccine was safe and effective by
early December, but that more widespread
vaccination would not be likely until later in
2021. “We will know whether a vaccine is safe
and effective by the end of November, the
beginning of December,” Fauci told the BBC.
“When you talk about vaccinating a substantial
proportion of the population, so that you can
have a significant impact on the dynamics of
the outbreak, that very likely will not be until
the second or third quarter of the year,” he
added.
WILDLIFE
Workers eradicate nest
of ‘murder hornets’ in US
Agricultural department workers wearing
protective suits have eradicated the first nest
of giant “murder hornets” discovered in the US,
vacuuming them out of a tree in Washington
state. The nest of Asian giant hornets was found
by Washington State Department of Agriculture
(WSDA) entomologists on a property in Blaine,
near the border with Canada. They spent weeks
searching for the nest, trapping hornets and
tracking them, using dental floss to tie tiny radio
trackers on the insects, which are nearly two
inches in length and have a painful sting. A team
of workers vacuumed the insects out of their
nest in the cavity of a dead tree.
AMERICAS/BRITAIN
ACHIEVEMENT
SpaceX launches
60 more satellites
California-based rocket builder SpaceX has
successfully launched its latest fleet of Starlink
Internet satellites into orbit, marking the second
such mission this week. A previously flown
two-stage Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space
Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station at 11.31am EDT (1531GMT) carrying
a set of 60 new Starlink satellites for SpaceX’s
ever-expanding mega constellation. Following an
on-time liftoff, the company capped the mission
with a successful rocket landing at sea. SpaceXs
goal with Starlink is to provide broadband service
globally at speeds and with latency previously
unavailable in hard-to-reach and rural areas.
PEOPLE
Venezuelan politician
Lopez arrives in Madrid
Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez
arrived in Madrid yesterday, Spain’s foreign
ministry said in a statement, after spending the
past year at the Spanish ambassador’s residence
in Venezuela to escape house arrest. Lopez’s
decision to leave the Spanish embassy in
Venezuela was “personal and voluntary”, it said.
Lopez’s party, Popular Will, did not say how he
left Venezuela, but two people familiar with the
matter said he travelled via Colombia. Lopez, in
a series of tweets hinted he had left Venezuela.
“Venezuelans, this decision has not been easy,
but rest assured that you can count on this
servant to fight from anywhere,” Lopez tweeted.

‘We’re not
going to
control
Pence to keep
pandemic’:
Trump aide
campaigning as
AFP
Washington close aides test
D Covid positive
onald Trump’s chief
of staff said yesterday
“we’re not going to con-
trol the pandemic,” drawing a
rebuke from the Biden campaign
that “they are admitting defeat.”
Chief of staff Mark Mead-
ows was speaking amid a sharp Reuters Devin O’Malley, a spokesman can facilitate the spread of the
resurgence of the coronavirus Washington for the vice president, said on virus.
across the US, with case num- Saturday that Pence and his wife Biden’s running mate, senator
bers setting daily records and both had tested negative and that Kamala Harris, took four days

the death toll fast approaching
225,000.
When a CNN interviewer asked
Meadows why the administration
would not get control of the virus,
he replied, “Because it is a conta-
gious virus just like the flu.”
He then qualified that, saying,
“We are making efforts to con-
tain it.”
Democrat Joe Biden’s run-
ning mate Kamala Harris was
asked during a campaign stop
in Michigan about Meadows’
comments and said: “They are
admitting defeat, and I’ve been
saying that, and Joe Biden has
been saying that since the be-
ginning.”
She criticised Meadows for
likening the coronavirus to the
flu, according to a pool report.
“This is the greatest failure of
any presidential administration
in the history of America,” she
said.
Biden and Harris have been
hammering Trump over his han-
dling of the pandemic, which
has seen the US suffer roughly
one-fifth the world death total
though its population is only 4%
the total.
CNN interviewer Jake Tapper
pressed Meadows about Pence,
who heads the White House
coronavirus task force, seem-
ingly flaunting guidelines of the
federal Centers for Disease Con-
trol by travelling and not self-
quarantining after exposure to
Short.
“I can tell you he is wearing a
mask and will be wearing a mask
today,” Meadows said. “Obvi-
ously, when you have an expo-
sure you have to take additional
mitigation factors.”
U
S Vice President Mike
Pence pressed ahead with
campaigning including
a trip yesterday to the battle-
ground state of North Carolina
after multiple close aides tested
positive for the coronavirus, as
the pandemic remained front and
centre in the presidential race.
With nine days to go before the
November 3 election in which
Democrat Joe Biden is challeng-
ing Republican President Donald
Trump, the White House cited
Pence’s status as an “essential
worker” as justification for his
travel despite exposure to his
chief of staff, Marc Short, who
tested positive on Saturday.
Multiple other senior aides
to Pence also tested positive for
Covid-19, the White House chief
of staff said, as new nationwide
infections soared to record num-
bers in recent days amid a pan-
demic that has killed 225,000
Americans.
In addition to dominating
the campaign policy debate —
with Trump insisting the US is
“rounding the turn” on the crisis
while Biden has blasted Trump’s
disjointed response — the pan-
demic has changed Americans’
voting habits, with 58.7mn bal-
lots already cast.
White House chief of staff
Mark Meadows told report-
ers that White House doctors
cleared Pence travel after Short
tested positive.
Pence is scheduled to address
rallies in Kinston, north Carolina
and Hibbing, Minnesota.
US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Manchester-Boston Regional Air- While Biden holds a wide lead
port in Londonderry, New Hampshire yesterday. Trump’s re-election campaign yesterday sought to in national opinion polls, polls
brush off another Covid outbreak in his team by focusing its attacks on Joe Biden’s energy levels and show closer contests in those two
accusing him of “47 years of failure” in Washington. key states.
Pence would maintain his sched-
ule “in accordance with the CDC
(Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention) guidelines for essen-
tial personnel.”
It was the latest reminder of
the way that Trump — who was
hospitalised for three nights
this month after contracting
Covid-19 — and those around
him have downplayed the advice
of public health experts to wear
masks and observe social dis-
tancing guidelines to stem trans-
mission of the virus.
In an appearance on the CNN
programme ‘State of the Union,’
Meadows yesterday cited the
“essential personnel” distinc-
tion for Pence as justification for
the vice president not adhering
to CDC guidelines for isolation
after potential exposure to an in-
fected person.
Meadows said Pence would
continue to campaign and speak
at rallies.
“I spoke to the vice president
at midnight,” Meadows told
CNN. “And what I can tell you
he’s doing is wearing a mask,
socially distancing, and when he
goes up to speak he will take the
mask off and put it back on.”
Meadows declined to say
whether Pence, who has headed
the White House coronavirus
task force, would be tested daily
going forward, but did say “we do
test on a regular basis.”
Trump has mocked Biden for
wearing a protective mask and
has addressed packed rallies in
which many of his supporters are
not wearing masks.
Public health experts have said
such events with many people in
close quarters not wearing masks
off the campaign trail earlier this
month after her communica-
tions director tested positive for
Covid-19.
Former New Jersey gover-
nor Chris Christie, who himself
caught Covid-19 and was hospi-
talised for a week after spending
several days at the White House
without wearing a mask, yes-
terday said he was “surprised”
Pence was continuing cam-
paigning.
“Everybody’s gotta put the
health of the people they’re going
to be in touch with first,” he told
ABC’s This Week programme.
Meanwhile, an influential
newspaper in New Hampshire
with a record of endorsing Re-
publican presidential candidates
endorsed Biden yesterday.
“America faces many chal-
lenges and needs a president to
build this country up. This ap-
pears to be outside of Trump’s
skill set,” the New Hampshire
Union Leader said in an editorial.
Trump is running out of time
and opportunities to change
minds and shift the race in his
favour. After voting early in his
home state of Florida on Satur-
day, Trump raced through rallies
in three states — North Carolina,
Ohio and Wisconsin.
Biden, who made two cam-
paign stops in Pennsylvania
on Saturday, had no campaign
events yesterday.
During his swing through
Pennsylvania, Biden renewed his
criticism of Trump for not tak-
ing the health crisis seriously
enough and warned of a resur-
gence during the winter months
of the virus, which is on the rise
in numerous states.

Labour vows to force new
vote on free school meals
Guardian News and Media
London
the government has so far dug in
to defend its position.
Security ‘incident’
Britain’s oldest person
dies at the age of 112
Guardian News and Media refused a card from the Queen on
London her 100th birthday because “she
added: “The public want to see did not want people to know how
the government taking a na- old she was”.

B
In an apparent softening tional lead on this and I think ritain’s oldest person, Joan Born in Holland Park, west
of tone after a No 10 spokes- the government will probably Hocquard, who drove am- London, Hocquard spent much

L
abour has thrown down
the gauntlet to Down-
ing Street by pledging to
force another Commons vote if
it does not U-turn on its refusal
to provide free school meals in
England during the holidays, as
a senior Conservative MP ad-
mitted the government has mis-
judged the country’s mood over
the issue.
In a fresh intervention that
will boost the campaign being
led by the footballer Marcus
Rashford, the Labour leader,
Keir Starmer, yesterday said his
party would push for another
vote if there is no change of
course before Christmas.
Labour was defeated by the
government in a vote on the pol-
icy last week, prompting busi-
nesses and councils – some of
them Tory-led – to step forward
to offer to feed children in the
October half-term break, but
man last week refused to
praise councils and firms of-
fering help, the Northern Ire-
land Secretary, Brandon Lewis,
said Rashford deserved “huge
credit” for his work on the issue
although he stood by Downing
Street’s line.
It comes as Sir Bernard
Jenkin, the Conservative chair
of the influential Commons liai-
son committee, said the govern-
ment had “misunderstood the
mood of the country” on free
school meals.
As the government contin-
ues to resist appeals to reverse
its move, Jenkin told the Sophy
Ridge on Sunday programme on
Sky News: “I think we have to
admit that we have misunder-
stood the mood of the country
here.”
Highlighting that the gov-
ernment had funded local
councils to provide support, he
have to think again on that,
particularly if there’s going to
be more votes in the House of
Commons.
“I think when you have got the
chairman of the education se-
lect committee (Robert Halfon)
not supporting the government
on this – and he’s a Conserva-
tive – I think the government
has to listen to the Conservative
party.”
Asked how he would vote in
any further Commons divi-
sions, Jenkin said: “I shall wait
to see what the government says
and how they respond to the
situation.”
Halfon, who voted against the
government on the free school
meals motion on Wednesday,
wrote in the Spectator on Sat-
urday: “Combating child hun-
ger should, therefore, be a cause
that all Conservatives can em-
brace.”
bulances during the World
War II, has died aged 112.
Hocquard died at her home in
Poole, Dorset, on Saturday.
Her nephew, Paul Reynolds,
74, said she had always sought
to live life to the full and that she
“loved eating butter and cream
and didn’t believe in dieting”.
She was born on March 29,
1908, under the reign of Edward
VII, the same day as the world’s
former oldest man, Bob Weighton,
who died in Hampshire in May.
Their final birthday celebra-
British police yesterday said they had been called by a vessel tions were held behind closed
off England’s south coast amid reports of a security incident doors because of the national
involving stowaways on an oil tanker. “We are aware and coronavirus lockdown.
dealing with an ongoing incident on board a vessel which The pair also shared a birthday
is situated south of the Isle of Wight,” a spokesman for with Alf Smith from St Madoes
Hampshire police said. British media, including Sky News, in Perthshire, who shared the
reported that around seven stowaways had attempted to title of Britain’s oldest man with
take over the ship, although lawyers Tatham and Co, who Weighton until his death in 2019
represent the vessel’s owners, told the BBC that it was “100% at the age of 111.
not a hijacking”. Reynolds described Hocquard
as an independent spirit who had
of her childhood in Kenya, where
her father was a colonial of-
ficer in charge of shipping on the
Great Lakes in east Africa.
She later worked as a cook in
a French hotel near Geneva in
Switzerland, and met her hus-
band, Gilbert, through their
shared love of sailing.
During World War II, she drove
ambulances in London before
she and Gilbert moved to the
south coast of England.
The couple travelled across
Europe in a camper van and went
on yachting holidays until his
death in 1981.
In the late 1980s she met wid-
ower Kenneth Bedford, who was
20 years her junior, at the Bourne-
mouth Gramophone Society and
they had lived together since in
Poole. She lived “an extraordinary
innings and died peacefully in her
own home, which is all you could
wish for”, said Reynolds.