The world at a glance ... NEWS 9
Erbil, Iraq
Rocket attack: A rocket attack in the normally peaceful capital of
Iraqi Kurdistan this week killed a civilian contractor with the U.S.-
led military coalition and wounded six other personnel, including
a U.S. soldier. The rockets rained down on Erbil’s airport and on
residential areas nearby, and an unknown number of civilians were
wounded. A little-known, Iranian-backed Shiite militant group
calling itself the Guardians of the Blood Brigade claimed responsi-
bility; Iran said it had nothing to do with the attack. White House
press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden “reserves the right to
respond in the time and manner of our
choosing” to the attack. Attacks on U.S.
forces in Iraq briefly stepped up early
last year after top Iranian commander
Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S.
drone strike in Baghdad. Analysts said
this rocket attack could be Iran’s attempt
to test the Biden administration. Wounded by a rocketJerusalem
Vaccine works great: A new study
from Israel has found that Pfizer’s
Covid-19 vaccine is proving to be
remarkably successful in blocking
new symptomatic cases of the dis-
ease. Israel leads the world in inocu-
lations, having administered at least one shot of a two-dose regimen
to 42 percent of its 9 million population. The new study found a 94
percent drop in symptomatic Covid cases among 600,000 people
who had received two doses of Pfizer’s shot, compared with a simi-
lar sized group that had not been vaccinated. The Pfizer group was
also 92 percent less likely to develop severe illness from the dis-
ease; no Covid deaths occurred among those who had received
the shot. “It is now unequivocal that Pfizer’s vaccine against
the coronavirus is incredibly effective in real life one week
after the second dose,” said study co-author Ran Balicer.Riyadh
Feminist activist freed: A prominent Saudi Arabian
women’s rights activist who pushed to overturn the
country’s ban on female drivers has been freed after spend-
ing nearly three years in prison, following pressure from
the Biden administration. Loujain al-Hathloul, 31,
was arrested on charges of incitement and serving a
foreign agenda just weeks before authorities legal-
ized women drivers in 2018. Hathloul is “a power-
ful advocate for women’s rights,” President Biden
said, “and releasing her was the right thing to
do.” She will be on probation, though, and
can’t leave the country for five years. The Biden
administration said this week it was going to
“recalibrate” the U.S.-Saudi relationship. On the
campaign trail, Biden criticized former President
Trump’s policy of giving Riyadh “a blank check
to pursue a disastrous set of policies.”Pyongyang
Vaccine theft attempt: North Korea tried to hack the American
pharmaceutical firm Pfizer to steal information on how to make its
Covid vaccine, a South Korean lawmaker revealed this week. Ha
Tae-keung said South Korean intelligence had briefed lawmakers
on the attack, but he didn’t say whether the hack was success-
ful. Microsoft announced in November that North Korean and
Russian hackers had tried to crack into the computer systems of at
least seven pharma firms working on vaccines. Analysts said North
Korea probably wanted to steal and sell a vaccine formula, not use
the information to make its own shot. The totalitarian country is
under strict international sanctions and often uses industrial espio-
nage to make money. It’s unclear how bad the pandemic is there.
Dictator Kim Jong Un says there have been no coronavirus cases.Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Where is the princess? A daughter of Dubai’s ruler—who disap-
peared after she attempted to flee the emirate in 2018—is being
held captive by her family “in a villa converted into a jail,” accord-
ing to video messages she sent her friends. Desperate to escape
what she said was her father’s cruel treatment, Sheikha Latifa bint
Mohammed Al Maktoum, now 35, tried to sail across the Arabian
Sea to reach India. The boat was stormed by commandoes, and
Sheikha Latifa was forcibly returned to Dubai. In captivity, she sent
her friends video messages using a smuggled-in phone. “Every day,
I’m worried about my safety and my life,” she says in one message.
Her friends gave the videos to the BBC after they lost contact with
her late last year. The royal family insists she is completely fine.Wuhan, China
When did virus start? Data gathered by
the World Health Organization during
its recent fact-finding mission in Wuhan
suggest that Covid-19 was already wide-
spread in the city when it was officially
identified there in December 2019. WHO
lead investigator Peter Ben Embarek told
CNN that the earliest patients in Wuhan
exhibited more than a dozen different strains of the virus, indicating
it had been around long enough to have mutated numerous times.
Investigators found 92 suspected Covid-19 cases from October and
November 2019 across Hubei province, where Wuhan is located.
These patients were severely ill with Covid-like symptoms, but
of the 67 who were later tested for Covid antibodies all proved
negative. Ben Embarek said the investigators would seek access to
200,000 samples from Wuhan’s blood donor bank that date back
two years to see whether any similar coronavirus was detected.Re
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Wuhan’s ‘wet market’Al-HathloulGetting inoculated