GENEVA-Agence France-Presse

The World Health Organization unveiled on Oct. 13 a team of scientists it wants to investigate new pathogens and preventing future pandemics - plus reviving the stalled probe into COVID-19’s origins.

The group of 26 experts will be charged with producing a new global framework for studies into the origins of emerging pathogens of epidemic and pandemic potential - and their remit includes SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease.

Besides the COVID-19 crisis, a growing number of high-risk pathogens have appeared or reappeared in recent years, including MERS, bird flu viruses, Lassa, Marburg and Ebola.

The WHO announced earlier this year that it would set up a Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO).

"The emergence of new viruses with the potential to spark epidemics and pandemics is a fact of nature, and while SARS-CoV-2 is the latest such virus, it will not be the last," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

"Understanding where new pathogens come from is essential for preventing future outbreaks."
The 26 members that the WHO has put forward were chosen from a field of more than 700 applications and are drawn from a range of scientific disciplines.

And the team the WHO has named is subject to a two-week public consultation.

They include Christian Drosten, the head of Berlin’s Institute of Virology; Yungui Yang of the Beijing Institute of Genomics; Jean-Claude Manuguerra of France’s Institut Pasteur; and Inger Damon from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Several of the experts were on the joint WHO-China scientific mission investigating the origins of COVID-19: Vladimir Dedkov, Farag Elmoubasher, Thea Fischer, Marion Koopmans, Hung Nguyen and John Watson.

The terms of reference say the group must give the WHO an independent evaluation of all available scientific and technical findings from global studies on the origins of COVID-19.

It must also advise the U.N. health agency on developing, monitoring and supporting the next series of studies into the origins of the virus. That could include "rapid advice" on the WHO’s operational plans to implement the next series of studies into the pandemic’s origins, and advice on additional studies.
The pandemic has killed more than 4.85 million people and battered the global economy since the virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

After much delay, a WHO team of international experts went to Wuhan in January 2021 to produce a first phase report, written in conjunction with their Chinese counterparts.

Their March report drew no firm conclusions, but ranked four hypotheses.

Most probable was that the virus jumped from bats to humans via an intermediate animal, it said. It judged a leak from the Wuhan virology laboratories was "extremely unlikely".

However, the investigation faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply.

In August, China rejected the WHO’s calls for a renewed probe on the ground into the origins of COVID-19.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said SAGO would urgently assess what was now known, what still remained unknown, and what rapidly needed to be done.

"I anticipate that the SAGO... will recommend further studies in China and potentially elsewhere," she told journalists.

"There’s no time to waste in this."

Michael Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies director, said it may be the "last chance to understand the origins of this virus" in a collegiate manner.

Earlier on Oct. 13, Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told the U.N. correspondents’ association that SAGO’s work should not be "politicized".

"If we are going to send teams to any other places, I believe it’s not to China because we have received international teams twice already," he said.

"It’s time to send teams to other places."

Interestingly, the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have pursued remarkably similar foreign policies based on a great power competition with Russia and principally China, as what is now, according to the Pentagon, "the pacing threat."

President Barack Obama made the decision in 2011 to "pivot" to Asia, subsequently softened to "rebalancing." And he toughened military strategy to read "deter and defeat if war comes" these competitors, along with North Korea, Iran and violent extremism.

President Donald Trump's National Defense Strategy expanded Obama's, directing the Department of Defense "to contain, deter and defeat" China and Russia as principal dangers and upping the competition by imposing tariffs on China that led to a tariff war.

President Joe Biden's team has not released its National Security and Defense Strategy yet. However, it is clear that the same general directions will be followed with perhaps more emphasis on the "deter" than "defeat" criterion.

I have been critical of great power competition strategies for a number of reasons. First, nowhere has the "contain, deter and defeat" requirements been defined in close to specific terms. From what are our adversaries being contained? How and from what are they being deterred? And how do we defeat thermonuclear-armed enemies in war?

Second, where is the off-ramp for reducing these tensions and moving toward more stable and peaceful relations? In the past with the USSR and for a time with the Russian Federation, arms control was one mechanism. But the United States seems unwilling to address arms control without China's participation, which declines even a discussion. Perhaps a new agreement will be reached with Moscow. However, that is not certain.

Last, does no one recall history? In August 1914, the great power competition among Russia, Wilhelmine Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Austro-Hungary and lesser states erupted in world war with the assassination of one archduke. Could a similarly small spark ignite a major war today?

The Trump administration concocted two unlikely fait accompli scenarios as the basis for its strategy: a Russian takeover of the three Baltic states and a Chinese invasion and occupation of Taiwan. However, both are farfetched at best. NATO's Article 5 that an attack against one is an attack against all protects the three Baltic member states. And as President Xi Jinping declared last weekend, China will pursue peaceful unification. While many do not trust Xi's word, China lacks the military capacity for the foreseeable future to launch a successful invasion of Taiwan.

Great power competition also helped cause World War II. Nazi Germany was determined to dominate Europe and much of the world as a great power. Likewise, fascist Japan had great power aspirations as it moved to establish its Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in the late 1930s. Of course, given the horrors of World War I and the understandable pressure not to start another war, the democracies were complacent and appeased these powers, and the junior partner Italy until it was too late.

2021 is far different. NATO collectively spends about $1 trillion dollars on defense. Germany and Japan are on the side of the democracies. And Russia and China have no real allies.

The Biden administration has two options. If it continues the Obama-Trump line of great power competition, it must define, certainly to itself, what the criteria are to contain, deter and defeat both. Failing that understanding, no strategy can be successful unless through luck.

The second option is to reject the great power competition foundation, beginning with lifting the tariffs. The role of the Defense Department as stated in Title X of the U.S. Code suffices: "Be prepared to conduct prompt sustained operations incident to combat," adding globally, and without naming specific enemies.

Greater emphasis on allies and engagement with partners and potential adversaries is vital to prevent an untoward or accidental event from escalating into war. And far more focus must be placed on defeating what Vladimir Lenin called "active measures," or interactions below using force but ones that can be politically destabilizing and more dangerous through cyber and social media influence operations.

Given the political turmoil in Europe -- Germany without Angela Merkel; the United Kingdom and European Union deadlocked over the Northern Island trade protocol; Poland's court rejecting EU law; Czechoslovakia in political crisis; France furious over the canceled Australian submarine deal; Romania without a government again; and an energy crisis enveloping the continent -- a new strategy is vital.

Great power competition is not it. But will the Biden administration recognize this need and recall what happened in 1914? Probably not.

Harlan Ullman is senior adviser at Washington, D.C.'s Atlantic Council, the prime author of "shock and awe" and author of the upcoming book, "The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large."

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

A private intelligence company warned federal law enforcement agencies in a briefing that former President Donald Trump's supporters were planning a violent insurrection two weeks ahead of the events on January 6 in Washington, D.C.

The attack against the Capitol appeared to take federal law enforcement off guard, as a mob of pro-Trump rioters quickly overwhelmed officers protecting the legislative building. In the wake of the violence, law enforcement officials have suggested they were unaware of the seriousness of the threat. However, newly reported documents show the government received advanced warning.

"[A] supposedly violent insurrection by [Trump's] supporters has 'always been the plan,'" a December 24 briefing by SITE Intelligence Group warned its subscribers, which include federal law enforcement, Politico first reported Thursday.

Rita Katz, the founder and executive director of SITE, said that federal law enforcement's response to the warnings demonstrated a "profound failure to act."

(0:17)

0:13/0:30

"A potpourri of communities overtly strategized to storm the Capitol building and arrest—if not outright kill—public officials and carry out a coup," Katz told Politico. She said that officials "were alerting their superiors and other agencies to the threats SITE had identified—many of which ended up manifesting that day, just as they were written."

Katz explained that SITE's briefing about specific threats were circulated by the "FBI and other agencies well before January 6."

Capitol Police said in February that they had been aware of possible violence and had taken additional precautions, even arming officers with assault rifles to protect members of Congress. However, they said that the they had largely expected a more traditional protest and not the level of violence that eventually transpired.

"Although the Department's January 3rd Special Assessment foretold of a significant likelihood for violence on Capitol grounds by extremists groups, it did not identify a specific credible threat indicating that thousands of American citizens would descend upon the U.S. Capitol attacking police officers with the goal of breaking into the U.S. Capitol Building to harm Members and prevent the certification of Electoral College votes," Yogananda Pittman, assistant chief of Capitol Police, said during a House hearing in February.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Justice and the FBI for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6 in an apparent effort to prevent the formal certification of President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory. Ahead of that attack, Trump urged his supporters during a rally at the Ellipse to march to the Capitol and to "fight like hell." Many proceeded to follow that guidance.

The crowd was largely animated by Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was "rigged" or "stolen" in favor of Biden. Despite dozens of failed election challenge lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies as well as multiple audits in key battleground states, no evidence has emerged substantiating the former president's extraordinary allegation.

Many of the Trump supporters expressed a desire to kill top American lawmakers, such as then-Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Some rioters set up a large noose outside the Capitol, while some suggested they wanted to "hang" Pence for refusing to unconstitutionally overturn the election results.

More than 660 people have been charged in connection to the Capitol assault. It took about four hours for law enforcement to clear the legislative building of rioters and end the violence on January 6.

His secret girlfriend has lots of secret wealth.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longtime mistress has an estimated net worth of $100 million in “shadow wealth,” including swanky apartments and a yacht, despite her modest background, a trove of newly leaked documents reveal.

Svetlana Krivonogikh, 46, has been romantically linked with the Russian strongman since he was still deputy mayor of her hometown of St. Petersburg, and reportedly has a daughter with him.

But Krivonogikh — who grew up in a communal apartment — and other Putin cronies have been enriched through shell companies in the Virgin Islands and elsewhere, the Guardian reported.

In September 2003, an offshore company called Brockville Development Limited — through two other Panamanian companies — bought her a luxury fourth-floor apartment in Monte Carlo. She’s also acquired a flat in St. Petersburg and other valuable assets, according to the reporting.

Krivonogikh is far from alone in benefiting from a long-standing relationship with Putin.
For years Russia’s inner circle has gravitated to Monaco, where lax tax laws and policies have made the waterfront city a favorite for the wealthy.

“It has become Moscow-on-Sea. The mentality is to show off,” local lawyer Dominique Anastasis told the Guardian. “Nobody asks where your money comes from. There’s no culture of checking. You don’t make a tax declaration.”

Among the wealthiest of the Russian-Monaco circle is Gennady Timchenko, a former Soviet bureaucrat who has been friends with Putin since the 1990s.

A former oil trader, Timchenko was given an oil export license by Putin in 1991, and later co-founded a Swiss-based oil export company named Gunvor — with the Russian president long rumored to be a silent partner in the firm.

Forbes reported Timchenko’s net worth at $22 billion, the outlet said.

Another member of Putin’s inner circle is Peter Kolbin, an old family friend, who took over as director of Leningrad-based International Petroleum Products in 2003 despite having few qualifications for the job.

Putin has denied ties to the lucrative companies detailed in the Pandora Papers.

But jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has referred to Putin as “the world’s richest man,” according to the Guardian.