In our “World View” today, Iran’s foreign minister is vowing to retaliate against Israel following reports the country was behind a blackout at an Iranian nuclear enrichment site. Javad Zarif speaking to state-run TV saying, quote, “The Zionists want to take revenge because of our progress on the way to lift sanctions, but we will take our revenge.” The Israeli government hasn’t commented on its involvement officially, but several reports suggest the Israeli spy agency carried out the attack. The latest spat threatens to derail efforts to encourage Iran to reimpose limits on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting US sanctions.

Indian regulators have granted emergency use approval to Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. That makes it the third vaccine approved in the country, and it comes as India overtakes Brazil as a nation with the second highest number of COVID infections after the US. Russia’s vaccine’s now been approved for use in more than 50 countries, touting a 91% efficacy rate. Roughly 105 million doses have been administered in India so far among a population of 1.4 billion.

And over in China, a rare public admission questioning the efficacy of its homegrown vaccines. The director of China’s CDC said current Chinese vaccines offer low protection against the coronavirus, and the country needs to consider other technologies for immunization. He also praised the benefits of the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna, after initially questioning their safety.

Those comments were quickly scrubbed by Chinese censors, while state-run media said they were a complete misunderstanding. Vaccine developers, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have both been criticized for their lack of transparency, and they have yet to publish peer review data on late stage clinical trial research.

Source » yahoo