GENEVA

The World Health Organization (WHO) is looking at 10 vaccines in phase three trials as the northern hemisphere with skyrocketing cases faces a critical juncture in the fight against COVID-19, the chief scientist of global body said Friday.

"Our best expectations, as far as we know by watching the trials that are moving ahead, is that we may have results from one or two of the vaccine trials before the end of the year, possibly starting late November," said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan.

Speaking at a twice-weekly webinar hosted by the WHO, Swaminathan said that this is going to the bare minimum from results considered by regulators to be eligible to be at least looked at for emergency use authorization.

"So, it's data on efficacy and limited data on safety. Now, based on this, regulators will have to look at the data and decide what to do with it.

"As you know, we have criteria that we put out there, minimum criteria for an emergency use authorization," she said.

Swaminathan said expectations need to be balanced "because we know that the success rates of vaccine trials are 10 to 20%."

She said the good thing is there are many candidates in trial, but there will be successes, and there may also be failures.

"We have to be prepared to accept both."

Earlier, WHO's Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said the world is at a "critical juncture" in the pandemic, especially in the northern hemisphere.

"The next few months are going to be very tough, and some countries are on a dangerous track," said Tedros.

"Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases, and that is now leading to hospitals and ICU running close or above capacity, and we're still only in October."

He urged leaders to take immediate action to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing, and schools shutting again.

He noted: "Oxygen is one of the most essential medicines for saving patients with COVID-19, and many other conditions."

Tedros said many countries do not have enough oxygen to assist sick patients as they struggle to breathe.

Estimates suggest that some of the poorest countries may have just 5 to 20% of the oxygen they need for patient care.

"Through the pandemic, the demand for oxygen has grown exponentially," said the WHO chief.

Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, explained that Europe is experiencing a tremendous rise in the number of cases, increases in hospitalizations, and a tracking upwards of fatalities.

Yet efforts need to be made to keep the fatality rate low.

"When we go back to March, April, May, in the European region, we were seeing far above 50,000 cases a day, with almost 5,000 deaths per day, it was really, really bad from that perspective.

"Now we are seeing now anything up to 200,000 cases a week….And we're seeing about 2,000 to 2,500 deaths or below that.

"So, and I'm not saying that those deaths won't catch up; they can, and they are catching up. But there's still a lot of lives to be saved here," said Ryan./aa

ESKISEHIR, Turkey

Two Turkish scientists have developed a software that will significantly facilitate the deaf people’s access to knowledge.

The software developed by Ahmet Faruk Aslan and Ozer Celik, professors from Osmangazi University in the central Eskisehir province, will translate websites, PDF, and video content into sign language.

Work on the project started in 2016 when their funding application was accepted by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). Establishing an IT company with the endowment they received, Aslan and Celik developed three different softwares within four years to improve the life quality of the deaf people.

Among them are video translation system which allows video subtitles to be translated into sign language while its versions for PDF and the internet translate the contents into sign language.

Talking to Anadolu Agency, Celik said Turkey’s deaf population is around 3.5 million. “This figure reaches 360 million across the world.”

Celik remarked that around half of the deaf people experience hardships in understanding what they read.

“The reason behind this is the fact that Turkish sign language and spoken Turkish language are different. Sign language has a different grammar and limited vocabulary. As such, deaf people face difficulty when they read words that do not exist in sign language,” Celik added.

He also said they are currently working on a new software that will transform sign language into written texts./aa

Imagine not knowing the whereabouts and condition of your parents, children, brothers, sisters. For many Uyghurs abroad, that is the daily reality.

“You don’t know how he died; you don’t know when he died. And you can’t even kiss him for one last time.”

These are the words of Uyghur poet Fatimah Abdulghafur. Fatimah lives in Australia. In September 2020 she learned of the death of her father Ghopur Hapiz, almost two years after he had passed. Her father was most likely detained in an internment camp in March 2017; however, Fatimah is unsure of the exact details. She last spoke to her father in April 2016. Since then and until September, the Chinese government had not revealed any details about his whereabouts or condition; not when he was interned, not when he probably received a 10-year prison sentence for his travel overseas, and not even when he died.

The Chinese government’s actions defy description, must shock the conscience, and spur action. Ghopur was an innocent man. One could say he was persecuted because of his Uyghur ethnicity, but that would assume Chinese officials regarded Uyghurs as humans. They do not. The fate of Ghopur and the trauma of Fatimah are one piece in the larger genocide of my people.

If governments or multilateral organizations are lost as to how to tackle the enormity of ending the Uyghur nightmare, one important action to take is to publicly demand China come clean about the whereabouts and condition of Uyghurs reported as missing by their overseas relatives. The mass concealment of this information is a grave violation of rights standards and a moral violence on the Uyghur community.

In the past months, a handful of Uyghurs worldwide have been informed of the death or imprisonment of relatives only after long periods of advocacy and uncertainty. These few cases represent the surface of the issue and come in response to individual requests for information from state and multilateral bodies.

Abduherim Gheni, a resident of the Netherlands, received a response from the Chinese authorities only after submitting a request for information through the Dutch Foreign Ministry. Abduherim’s request listed 19 relatives whose whereabouts and condition remained undisclosed. On September 29, he was informed five of them had been handed prison sentences ranging from three to 16-and-a-half years. The welfare of the other 14 relatives remains unknown.

A few days before that, on September 26, Dr. Sulayman Aziz, an epidemiologist based in the United States, tweeted his brother, Alim, had received a 17-year prison sentence. Sulayman had spent four years seeking information on Alim.

Fatimah, meanwhile, only learned about her father’s death after she reported his disappearance to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in April 2019. China replied approximately a year and a half after she submitted the report. The delay is clearly unacceptable; however, nothing was said to the Chinese government.

We should not give the impression of being grateful to China for revealing basic information about people whose welfare they command; there are too many Uyghurs demanding information and waiting just to hear one word about the fate of their loved ones.

It is hard to imagine not knowing the whereabouts and condition of your parents, children, brothers, sisters, and other people close to you. For many Uyghurs, this has been the reality for over four years while hearing news daily about mass internments, coerced labor, forced sterilizations, and long prison sentences. Clearly, the most destructive force on the Uyghur family is the Chinese government. Uyghurs, like anyone, have a right to family life and unity. By denying us this basic measure of dignity, the Chinese government is denying our very humanity.

The U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules) clearly state family members should be notified in the event of imprisonment, illness, or death of a detained individual. The standards were adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 17, 2015. While I emphatically dispute the pretexts for mass detentions of Uyghurs, China has an obligation to inform family members of the whereabouts and condition of all detained individuals.

International actors, especially states where Uyghurs reside and multilateral organizations, should make every effort to systematically document missing relatives, not just individual cases, and ensure disclosure of their welfare is a priority in relations with China. Otherwise, we are tacitly accepting this barbarity and setting new rules for the behavior of China and other states committing genocide. As Uyghurs, we demand the return of our humanity.

BELGRADE, Serbia 

Systematic violence and torture have been inflicted by police against migrants in Croatia, according to a new report from the Danish Refugee Council (DRC).

Thousands of immigrants leaving their countries with hopes for a better life continue to use the so-called Balkan route which crosses Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia in an effort to reach Western Europe.

DRC representatives documented inhuman attacks inflicted by police on dozens of immigrants between Oct. 12 and Oct. 16 by conducting investigations along the Bosnia and Herzegovina-Croatia border and urged the EU to investigate incidents in the report that was released late Wednesday.

DRC said hundreds of immigrants living in Velika Kladusa on the Croatian border of Bosnia and Herzegovina live in difficult conditions. Investigators found cuts and wounds on the bodies of migrants who said were inflicted by police.

In one incident, five Afghans, including two minors, crossed the Croatian border near the Sturlic settlement on Oct. 12.

“On the same day, near Novo Selo, a uniformed police officer stopped them and then called two more officers. One of the migrants ran, and the other four were detained at a police station. Two days later they were taken to court, where they say they were to ‘appear as witnesses in the case launched against the fifth member of the group – the one who escaped,’ who had been accused of violent behavior towards police," DRC said in the report.

The asylum seekers told the DRC that they were taken “to some unknown location, where they were put in a van in the charge of 10 armed people, dressed in black and with full face balaclavas, army boots and with flashlights on their foreheads.”

Money was taken, belongings torched and they were ordered to strip to their underwear. The migrants allege that they were then forced to lie face down on the ground.

“One man in black was standing on the victim’s hands, preventing any movements. Legs were also restrained. Once the person was hampered, the beating started. They were punched, kicked, whipped, and beaten,” according to the report.

Medical reports confirm that injuries sustained were consistent with the use of a whip.

Medical reports published by The Guardian newspaper said immigrants caught in Croatia were whipped by police. The report in the British outlet had an accompanying photograph of an immigrant with whip marks on his body.

A migrant with the initials, MK, said he was sexually assaulted by a man using a branch.

"The testimonies collected from victims of pushbacks are horrifying," said DRC Secretary-General Charlotte Slente.

"More than 75 persons in one week have all independently reported inhumane treatment, savage beatings, and even sexual abuse," said Slente.

Mustafa Hodzic, a doctor in Velika Kladusa, who was quoted in the report, said there were wounds on the back and legs of an immigrant he examined and there was evidence of sexual abuse.

A Pakistani immigrant said his group was beaten with batons by people dressed in black after they were placed naked onto a truck.

"One of them took a selfie. Four people were on the ground naked. We slept still for 20 minutes," he said.

Officials in Croatia, which is an EU member, have not yet responded to the report which was sent to the EU Commission./aa

MUGLA, Turkey

A total of 232 asylum seekers, who were driven back to Turkish maritime territory by the Greek coast guard, were rescued Thursday by the Turkish coast guard.

Coast Guard teams rescued 121 in lifeboats from Marmaris shores, 35 off the coast of Bodrum and 76 from Datca.

After being taken to nearby ports, the asylum seekers were transferred to the Provincial Migration Office Directorate./aa

PARIS

Two Turkish-French women were violently manhandled by the police last week in France’s Grand Est region.  

Video and photos of the incident sparked outrage on social media, with some people accusing the French police of discrimination.

One of the women, 22-year-old Hatice Beyazit, told Anadolu Agency that she and her cousin Sevim Kocaturk had gone out for dinner on Oct. 17 when the police pulled them over for a routine traffic stop.

But things went awry after the officer referred to an old incident involving Sevim’s brother. She replied, saying: “I’m driving the car, not my brother.”

The police officer angrily responded, saying: “Shut up!” Hatice recalled.

Later, Hatice’s aunt and uncle arrived to calm the situation, but they were also subjected to discrimination.

"A police officer started to approach me, so I stretched out my arm asking him to respect the social distancing rule of 1.5 meters [to safeguard against the coronavirus], since he had no mask," Hatice said.

“The moment I said that, he grabbed my arm,” she said.  

The police also fired tear gas against Sevim, who was trying to come to her aid, Hatice said.

Hatice’s aunt was also struck by the police while she was trying to record the violence on her phone. 

Noting that she has not seen such incidents in their region before, Hatice said: "While talking about the rules, one of the police said to Sevim, 'This is not your country. You cannot know the rules.'”

They went to the hospital the same night on the advice of their lawyer and also filed a complaint against the police.

A police investigation into the incident continues, officials told Anadolu Agency.

Hatice, a graduate of business school, said she chairs an association called “Children’s Aid in Hospital” which helps hospitalized children as well as the elderly.

Noting that she could not find enough support, she said she always worked for the benefit of French society.

An Uber driver named Zohir who recorded the incident said he heard the police officer saying "You are not a citizen of this country. You cannot know the rules of this country. You do not speak French."/aa

BAKU, Azerbaijan 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with Turkish Chief Ombudsman Seref Malkoc on Thursday in Baku, and talked about recent attacks of Armenian forces.

According to the statement by Azerbaijan’s Presidency, Aliyev said they are fighting against a “savage enemy” while mentioning the attacks carried out by the Armenian forces on Azerbaijani civilian settlements.

The leader said: “As you know, we have many casualties, including children, women and the elderly. This once again shows the predatory nature of Armenian fascism. This shows once again that by breaking the back of Armenian fascism, we will save our region from great troubles and great tragedies.”

He added that Armenia poses a huge threat to the whole world.

“They want to destroy our cities; they want to break the will of the Azerbaijani people. But they fail and become even more depraved. We take our revenge on the battlefield,” Aliyev was quoted as saying.

“They have insulted our mosques. They have destroyed all our historical sites. There are only stones of houses left.”

Turkey's support

The president talked with pride on the support they receive from Turkey, and said that the rightful cause of Azerbaijan has been announced to the world through Turkish media.

“We continue our just cause. We have a brotherly country such as Turkey by our side. We are always together,” he added.

Reminding that some countries make Armenian-sided publications, Aliyev said: “This is great injustice. This is fraud. This is the distortion of events. Attempts to portray Azerbaijan as an aggressor or occupier have no basis, of course. Therefore, the presence of the Turkish media here from the first days and their reports from the war zone serve to provide accurate information on this issue to the world.”

The Turkish official, for his part, reminded that the Armenia’s occupation for 30 years put millions of Azerbaijani citizens into a situation where they have become refugees, and that the occupation has caused serious human rights violations.

Malkoc mentioned that Armenian forces do not retreat from the Azerbaijani territories despite the UN resolutions, instead, they volume their attacks.

He added that they came here to examine ongoing human right violations at site, and report all of them to the world, including all of the most important and related international actors.

In total, about 20% of Azerbaijan's territory – including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions – has been under Armenia’s illegal occupation for nearly three decades.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group – co-chaired by France, Russia, and the US – was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. A cease-fire, however, was agreed to in 1994.

World powers, including Russia, France, and the US, have called for a new sustainable cease-fire. Turkey, meanwhile, has supported Baku's right to self-defense and demanded the withdrawal of Armenia's occupying forces./aa