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European Union officials are fuming over Italy’s agreement to manufacture Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, warning they have yet to approve the jab for use in the bloc.  
 
The production deal, announced earlier this week, has prompted an exchange of angry barbs between EU and Russian officials with the head of the European Medicines Agency, EMA, urging member states to withhold emergency authorization for Sputnik, saying otherwise it would be playing “Russian roulette” with public health.
 
But Italy, along with several member states, including Hungary, is tiring of the shortage across the bloc of coronavirus vaccines and is desperate to accelerate its inoculation program, although Italy’s health minister has said he will wait for EU approval before any Sputnik jabs are administered to Italians.  
 
The remarks by the EMA’s Christa Wirthumer-Hochem, who has urged EU states to refrain from using Sputnik until her agency has reviewed the vaccine properly, has drawn a sharp response from Moscow. The developers of the vaccine are demanding an apology and the Kremlin has dubbed Wirthumer-Hochem comments “regrettable.”
 
“We demand a public apology from EMA’s Christa Wirthumer-Hochem for her negative comments on EU states directly approving Sputnik V. Her comments raise serious questions about possible political interference in the ongoing EMA review,” they tweeted.
 Russia steps in
 
Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, said the deal struck between the state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund, which funded Sputnik’s development, and the Italian-Swiss firm Adienne Pharma & Biotech, could help Italy to make up for the shortfall in vaccines.  
 
Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s head, says the deal has the potential to “save many lives in Italy.”FILE – Signage is seen at the plant of Italian-Swiss pharmaceutical company Adienne Pharma & Biotech, in Caponago, near Milan, Italy, March 9, 2021. Russia signed a deal with the company to produce millions of doses of its Sputnik vaccine this year.Hungary is already administering Sputnik jabs and the Czech Republic and Slovakia have started to receive doses. Their decision to break ranks with the EU has come as public frustration has mounted with the bloc’s coronavirus inoculation rollout, which has been marred by logistical mistakes and hidebound bureaucracy, leaving EU member states desperately short of vaccines as public patience wears thin.
 
Ursula von der Leyen, EU president and her commissioners pushed for vaccine procurement and disbursement to be overseen by the EU, arguing it would advertise the bloc’s strength and solidarity while reducing the risk of vaccine rivalry among the 27 member states.
 Finding another way
 
But last month, during an angry session of the European Parliament, she said that individual member states could have vaccinated their populations more quickly had they acted alone rather than having the EU oversee vaccine purchase and distribution. The EU was much slower to lodge purchase orders from Western drug companies than the US and Britain. Production hiccups have compounded the shortfall, prompting last week’s ban by the EU on 250,000 vaccine doses, that were produced in Italy, being shipped to Australia.
 
The troubled EU rollout has lagged far behind inoculation programs in Britain and the United States. Around six percent of the E.U.’s 450 million people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, far behind America’s 18 percent and Britain is 30 percent.  
 
Serbia, the best performing European nation after Britain, has dosed a quarter of its population, largely thanks to its omnivorous approach and readiness to use a variety of vaccines — those developed by Western companies as well Russia’s Sputnik and China’s Sinopharm. Serbia isn’t a member of the EU.  
 
“Whether vaccines come from China, the US or EU — we don’t care as long as they’re safe and we get them as soon as possible,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic told Western broadcasters recently. Last week, leaders from Israel, Austria and Denmark announced an alliance to develop and produce a future generation of coronavirus vaccines. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said EU authorities are “too slow in approving vaccines.”FILE – A nurse prepares a dose of the Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine for a patient at a clinic in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 30, 2020.The deal struck by Sputnik in Italy still needs to be approved by Italian regulators before production can start and before the vaccine can be used to inoculate Italians. Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported this week that the Italian health minister Roberto Speranza favors using the jab only once Sputnik gets approval from the EU’s medicines regulator.
 
Russian officials have accused EU regulators of foot-dragging on the approval process for Sputnik, saying they have had months to review the safety of the drug. And they point out Sputnik has been approved by regulators in 46 countries around the world, including Argentina and the UAE. Production agreements have been struck with Brazil, China, India, and South Korea. Austria recently indicated it might be interested in a production deal, too.  
 Soft power  
 
Russia says it is ready to sell 50 million of the two-dose vaccine to Europe as soon as the EU go-ahead is given. The Russian developers say the jab is 91.6 percent effective against COVID-19, based on peer-reviewed findings published in February in the authoritative British medical journal The Lancet.  
 
Science aside, some European officials and national leaders are wary of the EU accepting Sputnik, fearing that the Kremlin has a political angle in marketing it and will exploit the vaccine as a soft-power weapon to try to broaden its influence in Europe. Baltic and Polish politicians worry that the Kremlin is using the vaccine as part of a game in corona-diplomacy aimed at widening political rifts within the EU.
 
Ukrainian officials say Sputnik, which is banned in Ukraine, is a “hybrid weapon.” Ihor Zhovkva, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s foreign policy adviser, said an interview Monday with the Baltic News Service: “This is also a part of propaganda, a part of hybrid war – to spread this unchecked vaccine and to say that Russia is always willing to extend its helpful arm in order to treat the world while their aim is the opposite.”
 
The skepticism is dismissed by others. Vincenzo Trani, head of the Italian-Russian chamber of commerce, said he’s glad Italy is likely to become the first European country to produce Sputnik. “We understand that without a vaccine there is no chance to live and develop further. Geopolitics should not be a priority — people’s health and business should be priorities,” he told reporters this week.  
 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday refuted claims by European Union Council President Charles Michel that Britain had imposed a ban on COVID-19 vaccine exports. In an online blog posted Tuesday to the EU website, Michel wrote that Britain and the United States have imposed “an outright ban” on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced in their territory. FILE – European Council President Charles Michel attends a news conference in Brussels, August 19, 2020.Speaking during the prime minister’s question time in the House of Commons, Johnson said Britain had not blocked the export of “a single COVID-19 vaccine” or any vaccine components.  “This pandemic has put us all on the same side in the battle for global health. We oppose vaccine nationalism in all its forms,” he said. Last year, then-U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order prioritizing any COVID-19 vaccines produced in the United States for U.S. citizens. It is not clear if that order constitutes an outright ban or if U.S. President Joe Biden will let it stand. The COVID-19 vaccination drive in Britain has been viewed by many as a tremendous success, unlike the 27-nation bloc, where leaders have been criticized for a slow rollout. About 35% of British adults have had a vaccine shot, while the EU is behind with 9.5%  COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. 
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Russia said Wednesday it was restricting the use of Twitter on the grounds the company has not removed banned content. State communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said if Twitter does not comply with Russian law, there will be further actions against the service, including a complete ban. The agency said Wednesday’s action involved slowing service speeds for all those in Russia accessing Twitter on mobile devices and half of those using the service in other ways. Twitter did not immediately comment on the new restrictions. The move is the latest by Russia to tighten control of the internet. It previously banned a number of websites, including Dailymotion and LinkedIn. 
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One of the most dramatic claims in Prince Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was the allegation that their son was denied a royal title, possibly because of his skin color.
Harry and Meghan’s son, seventh in line to the British throne, is Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. In contrast, the children of Harry’s older brother, Prince William, are Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
Meghan said that while she was pregnant “they” — presumably the palace — “were saying they didn’t want him to be a prince … which would be different from protocol.”
She implied it might be a case of “the first member of color in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be.”Was Archie Snubbed?
Queen Elizabeth II has nine great-grandchildren, including Archie. They are not princes and princesses, apart from the three children of Prince William, who is second in line to the throne and destined to be king one day.
A decree issued by King George V in 1917 limits the titles of prince and princess to the children of the monarch, children of the monarch’s sons and “the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales” — that’s William’s son Prince George.
Bob Morris from the Constitution Unit at University College London, said the rule was drawn up to trim the increasingly unwieldy number of princely titles.
“Queen Victoria had nine children who were all princes and princesses, and then they had children and so forth, and George V took the view … that something needed to be done to tidy up the situation,” he said.
The queen has the power to amend the rules, and in 2012 she decreed that all the children of Prince William and his wife, Catherine, not just the eldest, would be princes and princesses.
Under the George V convention, Archie is not a prince, but will become one as the grandchild of a monarch once current heir to the throne Prince Charles is king.
In her interview, Meghan said she was told that “they want to change the convention for Archie.”  
It is unclear what she was referring to, but Morris said Prince Charles has let it be known “that he favors a smaller royal family” when he takes the throne.
Archie was eligible for a “courtesy title” at birth, such as Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. At the time, it was reported that Harry and Meghan had chosen not to give him a title.
But Meghan told Winfrey that “it was not our decision to make.”Does The Title Affect Archie’s Security?
Meghan expressed concern that without a title, Archie “wasn’t going to receive security.”
But a royal title such as prince or princess does not automatically bring security protection. Full-time working royals — including Meghan and Harry before they moved to North America last year — receive taxpayer-funded police bodyguards. Senior royals who have jobs outside the family, such as Prince Andrew’s daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, do not.What Does The Palace Say?
Buckingham Palace has not responded to specific allegations in the interview. In a statement, it said “the issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
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Greece’s prime minister appealed for calm Tuesday night after youths protesting an incident of police violence attacked an Athens police station with firebombs and severely injured one officer. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis issued a statement strongly condemning the violence at the march.  “Blind rage leads nowhere,” Mitsotakis said. “These scenes of violence must be the last.” The violence came during a demonstration by about 5,000 people, according to a police estimate, in the southern Nea Smyrni district, about 4 kilometers southwest of central Athens. Hundreds of youths threw firebombs and stones at police, who tried to repel them with water cannons, tear gas and stun grenades. At one point in the clashes, rioters pulled down a police officer riding pillion in a column of motorcycle police. Dozens rushed at him, hitting him with clubs and stones and raining blows on him. Other officers eventually succeeded in repelling the mob, and the injured police officer was taken to hospital. A police officer stands over an injured companion during a demonstration against a police crackdown on gatherings, in Athens, Greece, March 9, 2021.“It should serve as a wake-up call that the life … of a young policeman was endangered,” Mitsotakis said. “At this point everyone must display restraint and calm.” Opposition parties also condemned the riots. Police said another two officers were injured, and 10 people were arrested on suspicion of taking part in the riots. There were no immediate reports on injured demonstrators. Rioters also caused extensive damage to parked vehicles. Before the demonstration started, police said they had confiscated quantities of firebombs destined for use by violent protesters. They said several participants in the march were armed with iron bars. The march to the Nea Smyrni police station was in reaction to an incident on Sunday during police enforcement of pandemic lockdown measures in a square in the same area. Video showed a police officer repeatedly beating with a baton a man who did not appear to have engaged in any threatening behavior. Police said officers had earlier been attacked by dozens of people who objected to them trying to issue fines to people who were not obeying lockdown restrictions. An investigation has been ordered into Sunday’s incident. 
 
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Buckingham Palace said Tuesday the British royal family is “saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the past few years have been” for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, popularly known as Harry and Meghan.Following a widely publicized CBS interview Sunday with Oprah Winfrey, in which issues of race, family dynamics and suicidal thoughts were raised, a Buckingham Palace statement issued on behalf of Queen Elizabeth said, “While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”The statement, published on Twitter, also said the couple and their son Archie will always be “much loved family members.”The statement comes after Markle, who is biracial, said a member of the family raised concerns over “how dark” Archie would be. The former actress is now pregnant with her second child.In February, the palace announced the duke and duchess would not return as working royals, almost a year after it was announced that they would be stepping down from their duties as working members of the royal family. The couple moved to North America later that year. They currently reside in California.Tuesday marks the first time the royal family has publicly responded to the issues raised in the Sunday interview. 
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With the Kremlin cutting deals to ship its Sputnik V vaccine to countries struggling to combat the coronavirus, Russian soft power is on display. Yet the global outreach campaign is happening amid signs the government is struggling to inoculate its own population at home.  For VOA from Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.Camera: Ricardo Marquina
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Russia has sent invitations to leading Afghan politicians, the Taliban, and envoys of the United States, China, and Pakistan to participate in a three day conference starting March 18 on how to facilitate the peace process in Afghanistan.The proposal was first floated by the Russian Special Envoy on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov in an interview with the Russian Sputnik news agency last month.Saying that the Doha peace negotiations seemed to have come to a standstill, Kabulov told the agency that his government had taken the Americans on board for a Moscow meeting.“[W]e have another mechanism, which has emerged over the past 2 years, by the way, at the initiative of the Americans, and which we have supported – to form a small group of the states most influential on the Afghan processes, which, besides Russia, the USA and China, include, naturally Pakistan and Iran,” he told Sputnik.Kabulov said Iran was hesitant to sit at the table with the Americans due to diplomatic differences but he was hopeful its position would change.Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said his government was deliberating whether to attend the conference in Moscow.Faraidoon Khwazoon, the spokesman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) also said the invitation was under consideration.Dmitriy A. Zhirnov, the Russian ambassador in Kabul, has met several Afghan leaders, including Abdullah Abdullah and Hamed Karzai in past weeks.Meanwhile, United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the international agency had not yet received a formal request from the U.S. to convene a foreign minister level conference on Afghanistan.“We’ve seen it because it was in the media, but we have… as far as I’ve checked, we have not received the letter officially,” he said.However, he added that the U.N. was ready to “support any effort to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and we stand ready to assist, if so requested by the parties.”U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers remarks at the State Department in Washington, March 3, 2021.In a letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, obtained by VOA last Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. would ask the United Nations to “convene foreign ministers and envoys from Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, and the United States to discuss a unified approach to supporting peace in Afghanistan.”Those were the countries, according to the U.S. secretary of state, that had to work together for a chance at successfully resolving Afghanistan’s conflict.The multiple simultaneous efforts to jumpstart a stalled peace process come under the shadow of a looming deadline of May 1, when, under a deal the U.S. signed with the Taliban in February 2020, the U.S. is supposed to withdraw all foreign forces from Afghanistan.Many, including Secretary Blinken as per his letter, fear such a move, under the current security situation in Afghanistan, would mean the Taliban might make swift territorial gains.Many in Afghanistan fear a repeat of the 1990s when, after the Soviet withdrawal and a collapse of the government, civil war engulfed the country, killing thousands and damaging the capital, Kabul, with repeated attacks.The administration of President Joe Biden is reviewing the deal signed by the former administration of President Donald Trump, but has said that all options, including the complete withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, are still on the table.Many Afghanistan experts say that if the U.S. unilaterally decides to stay in Afghanistan after May 1st, the Taliban would consider it a breach and may start the war against the U.S. again. After last year’s deal, the Taliban stopped attacking U.S. and NATO forces in the country.U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was in Qatar last weekend to meet the Taliban and the group’s spokesman said he shared with them a proposal to take the peace process forward that includes setting up a transitional government in Afghanistan that includes the Taliban.President Ghani and his senior officials have rejected the idea of a transitional government, saying the only way to change a government in Afghanistan is through elections. 
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The Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) Tuesday cautiously upgraded its 2021 global economic forecast, citing vaccine rollouts and the U.S. stimulus package passed last week as positive signs.
 
At a virtual news conference at the organization’s headquarters in Paris, OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone told reporters it expects the world economy to rebound and grow by 5.6 percent in 2021 and by 4 percent in 2022. In December, the group predicted global growth of 4.2 this year and 3.7 next year.
 
Boone cautioned there were risks to the upgraded prediction, notably the pace of vaccination programs. She said the faster nations can vaccinate, the quicker they can open and return to normal economic activity. She said it was important nations speed the pace of vaccinations to keep COVID-19 variants from causing new surges.  
 
While the vaccine rollout would give a shot in the arm to the global economy, Boone said the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that is to be voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives was a big factor in the upgraded interim forecast. She said, “This will not only boost the U.S. economy, but it will fuel global growth through increased demand in the United States and from the U.S. to the rest of the world.”
 
She said the U.S. spending proposal has the potential to add a full percentage point to the organization’s global forecast.
 
The OECD forecasts the U.S. economy will grow 6.5 percent this year and 4 percent next year, a significant bump from its December forecasts of 3.2 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2022.
 
The OECD chief economist said Europe needs to speed up its overall vaccination programs before adding significant economic stimulus. “More stimulus without vaccinations would not be as effective because consumers would still not go out, shopping, travelling, dining, doing normal things. It’s the combination of health and fiscal policy that matters.”
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