The risks posed by coronavirus variants prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to forecast in internal documents that vulnerable populations such as the elderly will need annual COVID-19 booster shots and the general population will need biennial ones, Reuters reports. 

Scientists have warned that the spread of the virus’s Delta variant, in particular, could trigger a dangerous new phase of the pandemic (Science). Portugal announced new restrictions (BBC) to battle the variant this week, and Israel is reinstating an indoor mask mandate (Haaretz) today after a rise in cases attributed to the variant. Despite the likely need for boosters, the WHO report forecasts that around twelve billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines are produced next year, only slightly above the eleven billion expected for this year. Because vaccine effectiveness against variants is still being investigated, the report also included a more optimistic, but less likely, scenario in which no boosters are needed.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and High Council for National Reconciliation Chair Abdullah Abdullah will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden (Al Jazeera) at the White House today. Biden is expected to signal support for the government in Kabul and for talks between the government and the Taliban as the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan amid a deteriorating security situation there.   
 
CFR’s Max Boot explains the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
 
Afghanistan: The United States will begin to relocate (NYT) thousands of Afghan interpreters, drivers, and others who worked with U.S. forces to a location outside of Afghanistan while they apply for U.S. visas, Biden said yesterday.

Pro-democracy activists in Thailand held a protest (Diplomat) for the first time since March to commemorate the end of the country’s absolute monarchy in 1932. They called for the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and changes to the country’s constitution.
 
For the Asia Unbound blog, Pavin Chachavalpongpun looks at the crisis in Thai politics.
 
Hong Kong: Three security officials who have helped lead Hong Kong’s crackdown on dissent since 2019 were promoted (SCMP). Secretary of Security John Lee Ka-chiu will take on the role of chief secretary, the second most powerful position in the city’s government.  

The chief of Egyptian intelligence, Major General Abbas Kamel, met with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (National) and other senior U.S. officials in Washington, where they discussed Gaza’s reconstruction, Libya’s stability, counterterrorism, and the dispute over an Ethiopian dam on the Nile, among other issues. Kamel is the most senior  Egyptian government official to visit the United States since President Joe Biden took office. 
 
Iran: A Canadian forensic team said that Iran acted with incompetence and recklessness (Reuters) when it downed a Ukrainian passenger plane in January 2020, but acknowledged that the strike was not premeditated. Iran criticized the team’s report as highly politicized. 

Child soldiers ages 12–14 carried out a massacre (WaPo) in northeastern Burkina Faso earlier this month, killing more than 130 people, a government spokesperson said. Around 10 percent of schools in the country have closed due to rising insecurity, making children more vulnerable to combat recruitment.
 
Nigeria: The country’s twelve-year conflict with Islamist insurgents in its northeast claimed the lives of almost 350,000 people (Reuters) by the end of 2020, a death toll ten times higher than previous estimates, the UN Development Program said.

Residents of the British territory of Gibraltar voted in a referendum to ease its abortion law, one of the strictest in Europe (NYT). Abortion will now be allowed in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy if a woman’s physical or mental health is at risk, and later in cases of severe fetal abnormality. 

The remains of as many as 751 people, mainly Indigenous children, were discovered in unmarked graves (NYT) near a former residential school, where Indigenous children were taken from their families to be forcibly assimilated into Canadian culture. It is the second such discovery in recent weeks. The government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on such schools has described their purpose as “cultural genocide” (CBC).
 
Peru: An official on the committee responsible for declaring the winner of the June 6 presidential race resigned and was later suspended, blocking the continuation of the electoral process (Bloomberg) until a stand-in is appointed. Leftist Pedro Castillo won the vote count by a slim margin, but his opponent, Keiko Fujimori, refuses to concede.
 
CFR’s Paul J. Angelo and Chloé Mauvais look at Peru’s polarized election.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are set to visit El Paso, Texas, today (Politico) to address migration issues. Harris has been tapped to lead diplomatic efforts on preventing the root causes of migration to the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.