nudge

Yeah, they're deluded... That's a ridiculous offer.

Don't think it matters much to them, one way or another. They have strategical interests in the country, and they've been on pretty good terms with both the military and Aung San Suu Kyi (bar a few issues regarding the Chinese-backed armed groups in the north), so this probably doesn't change anything as much as they are concerned. If anything, international community potentially increasing sanctions on Myanmar as a reaction to the coup will likely make the Burmese military more dependent on China and strengthen their ties.

I'd say that the main criticism is not for what she has done, but rather for what she failed to do though - namely, for not standing up for Rohingya, no? I understand why people in the West would have expected her to do that; but in all honesty, I think that's a very naive expectation to have. First of all, she has had limited say in what is still essentially a military rule pretending to be a democratic civilian government, a move that was made in order to improve the country's image, get international sanctions lifted and qualify for international aid. Military still has 25% guaranteed seats in the parliament regardless of the outcome of the elections, they control defense and home affairs ministries as well as the police force and border controls, former high-ranking military personnel occupy top civil positions, the generals have the majority of seats in the National Defence and Security Council which has the power to suspend democratic government, and they also have veto power over constitutional changes. So essentially any reforms that the military doesn't approve of have no chance of being implemented, and all of Aung San Suu Kyi's and her party's attempts to ammend the constitution have been fruitless. Secondly, given how divided Myanmar is by ethnic and sectarian lines, standing up for and speaking in favour of the Rohingya would be a political suicide in a country where the majority of the Bamar population holds very negative views about most of the minority groups and where numerous ethnic conflicts have been brewing for decades, with ethnic armed groups controling roughly a third of the country's territory. The anti-Rohingya prejudice, in particular, is so deep-seated among the Buddhist Bamar population, that being seen as a defender of Rohingya interests would have cost her and the NLD a significant amount of votes. A peaceful resolution of those conflicts has actually been one of Aung San Suu Kyi's and the NLD's key priorities in their political agenda. In fact, after getting elected, she requested the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State to be formed, it was led by Kofi Annan, included other international and Burmese experts, and called for improvement on human rights, a review of the citizenship law, and investing heavily into the infrastructure in order to lift the population out of poverty. Interestingly enough, shortly before their final report was released, the military moved troops into the Rakhine State, and a day after it was released, the Rohingya rebel groups launched several attacks on military/police outposts, basically starting the events that led to the atrocities and the ongoing humanitarian disaster. Other efforts for peaceful resolution of other ethnic conflicts in the country also failed miserably after proposed constitutional ammendments were blocked by the military, and most of the ethnic armed groups refused to sign the nationwide ceasfire agreement as a result. As sad as it is, both the Burmese military and the numerous armed ethnic groups as well as other countries and entities backing them all have major political and economic stakes in the continuation of hostilities; none of them are interested in peace. The extreme tribalism in Myanmar's society is another factor that significantly hinders any progress, and in all honesty, I don't see that changing, ever. So yeah, Aung San Suu Kyi definitely had to keep balance between opposing the military and working along with them in order to be allowed to be a part of the political process, and her political actions (or, in case of the Rohingya issue, her inaction) are also heavily influenced by the views and attitudes of the general population. She's not a saint, but I don't see her as a villain either. Truth is though, she is still the symbol of hope to tens of millions of Burmese, and her popularity and personality cult is probably the only thing threatening the status quo of the army rule - which is even more evident now after yesterday's coup. A bit funny how a huge military apparatus is still afraid of the popularity of a frail old woman who doesn't even have constitutional power to lead. Anyway, as I said in my previous post, regardless of what anyone thinks of Aung San Suu Kyi, a return to a fully blown military junta will only make things worse. The new acting state leader after the coup is Min Aung Hlaing, an army general and Commander-in-Chief who has prior record of human rights violations against ethnic minorities, with several court cases in various international courts still ongoing. He's the one who has been calling the shots in military crackdown against the Rohingya too, and it's a bit amusing to see how the West (and Muslim) countries prefered to ramble about Aung San Suu Kyi "not saying anything against it" instead of paying attention to the ones who were actually directly responsible for it. If anything, her tarnished image led to significantly decreased support for her internationally, and thus has only benefited the military and encouraged them to seize complete power again. It's another sad indication that the region is once again succumbing to instability, internal conflicts, authoritarianism and stagnation, while a significant part of the population is still in poverty and has little to no access to proper education, housing and health services, indicating little hope for any progress in the future.

By "people", do you mean posters on reddit and fb comments section with a saint complex who used to deitify her in the past and now think she's a literal reincarnation of Hitler? I would say they know little about Myanmar’s political landscape and the complexity of the country's ethnic conflicts throughout the ages. Anyway, regardless of anyone's opinion on Aung San Suu Kyi, the fact that there's another military coup in a region which already consists of very frail democracies - or rather of military-controlled facades of democracy - is worrying and sad, and will definitely hinder the stability and development of the region.

Military seized power and declared state of emergency for one year. Telephone and TV signals are cut off, internet expected to be shut down soon, too.

It seems there's a coup happening again in Myanmar... Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s president and other senior ruling party figures have been detained by the military in early morning raids.

"They say it's a classic"

Yeah, it's nothing groundbraking, but it has that certain campiness, silly wit and a bunch of scifi cliches that make it feel like a throwback to the 80s/90s TV I like the premise and character development too... Adventure scifi about a bunch of renegades on a spaceship with quite a few twists in the story, it's fun.

And, how do you like it?

Dark Matter. A sci-fi series that I somehow missed when it initially aired. A bit campy, but in a good sense. Binged Season 1 in two sitting, very enjoyable.

Michael Zetterer is recalled from his loan at Zwolle and will take Kapino's place as the second goalkeeper. In worse news, Hertha are apparently very interested in signing Rashica - a loan until summer with a compulsory purchase clause of 15 million is reported

Thanks!

I follow your lead Also @Dr. Gonzo where is my pico de gallo recipe?

Chong's loan terminated @DeadLinesman

Decided to be all fancy and cooked some mussels today...

You mean the Sanofi one? The EU ordered 300m doses of it in September, a month after it ordered 400m doses of Astrazeneca, which is the biggest order along with J&J and CureVac (both also 400m doses).

I agree they shouldn't get political and involve the UK into something that is basically just a contractual dispute between the bloc and a private pharmaceutical company. I don't know if the EU is trying to save face and hide their own mistakes or not, but from what I've read so far, for me it looks like the main issue in this particular case is AZ having contracts with the UK and the EU that are basically incompatible with each other. Mainly as their contract with the UK apparently guarantees that all vaccine produced in the UK will stay in the UK until they get the promised 100 million doses and thus essentially bans any exports to other countries before that, whereas the contract with the EU also lists the UK manufacturing sites as part of the EU supply and delivery chain; those sites are also listed in the delivery schedule appendix, which is sadly redacted, so we unfortunately can't see the delivery dates and number of doses that AZ was expected to deliver. So now that AZ faces problems in their EU sites, they can't redirect any doses from the UK because the UK contract strictly forbids that, while the EU expects that to happen because based on their contract, they consider the UK sites part of the supply network. It is a complete clusterfuck and a legal minefield for sure, but I don't see how the EU is the main (or the only) culprit in all this (other than the unnecessary political shite), and I think it's well within their rights to be vocal about it.

I agree that the exports control is not helpful and that Macron is talking shite as usual, but I can definitely understand the frustration, especially after reading the contract. It might seem hostile, but if the EU are clearly convinced that AZ is NOT making "its best reasonable efforts" to meet the agreed delivery goals, then what options do they have, really? Not many, it seems. Taking legal action is one, but what does it achieve? Getting the vaccine is still the key priority, and any legal battle would last for ages. Should the EU just suck it up then and accept what they believe is a severe contract breach, and let its vaccine rollout scheme take a huge hit because of this? Really, really bad situation for everyone involved.

Well, when you pay over hundreds of millions in advance in order to expedite production, and then shortly before the intended delivery date get informed that you will get less than 40% of what you paid for with no expected increase in the near future, I think it's understandable that everyone's a bit frustrated and angry.

Disagree. 66% overall efficacy for a single dose is not bad at all, but even better is the 85% efficacy against severe cases and 100% efficacy against hospitalisation and death, with protection increasing 50+ days after the shot. This seems like a vaccine that is inexpensive, easy to store, transport and distribute, with a single shot providing protection against severe course of disease. Use it for younger, healthy people while leaving the other, more effective ones to the elderly and people in risk groups. They are also testing a two-dose regiment, which will likely have an increased efficacy too.

You mean a single vaccine for both flu and the coronavirus? No, the two are simply too different. There might be attempts to create a combined jab in the future, most likely an mRNA one, I would imagine. Edit: after a quick look, it appears that at least four companies are indeed hoping to create a combined flu/covid vaccine in the future, with trials potentially starting as early as in 2022!

All viruses mutate, that's natural. Flu viruses mutate extremely fast and there are so many different strains, hence why we have a new flu vaccine pretty much every season. Coronaviruses mutate at a much slower rate and are much more stable as they have an inbuilt genetic proofreading mechanism, so a vaccine is likely to be effective longer and protect against numerous variants (most mutations are completely insignificant and do not matter). There's a good chance that this virus will never go away and will just circulate every winter as other four coronaviruses or flu, but with a high percentage of world's population acquiring immunity through vaccination or infection, it will not be a real threat anymore. That's how the pandemic will end, most likely.

South African variant has many mutations in the spike protein (the main structure that the virus uses to bind to and infect host cells), which may result in it partially escaping neutralising antibodies that your body produces after vaccination (the vaccine uses the genetic sequence of the original virus without the mutations). Good thing about mRNA vaccines is that they are quickly and easily modifiable, hence why genetic sequencing should be a priority.

More than 15,000 participants between 18-84 years of age, 27% of them over the age of 65. No breakdown for each age group yet, but at least the sample size is representative. Similar to the Pfizer vaccine, this one is very effective against the original variant and the UK variant, and less so against South Africa variant - 95.6%, 85.6% and 60% accordingly.

In view of all this, I think India deserves public admiration for providing more than 3 million doses of the vaccine for free to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives, over 0.5 million doses to Sri Lanka, with more free shipments to Mauritius, Myanmar, Seychelles and Afghanistan set to follow. What a refreshing change of attitudes.