World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus criticized drugmakers (STAT), including Pfizer and Moderna, for marketing COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to wealthy countries and called for them to instead focus on supplying poorer countries that are far behind in vaccination campaigns. “We’re making conscious choices right now not to protect those in most need,” Tedros said.
 
WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there is not enough evidence that boosters are needed as soon as six months after the first vaccine dose and urged wealthy countries to reconsider administering boosters. Yesterday, Israel began offering third vaccine doses (Times of Israel) to immunocompromised adults, and Pfizer met with U.S. officials to explore the possibility of boosters in the United States. Meanwhile, the COVAX initiative to supply poorer countries with vaccines has faltered (AP) as new variants spread, and global daily COVID-19 deaths have begun to rise after falling for ten weeks. 

In its annual defense report, Japan for the first time stated (Bloomberg) that “the stability of the situation around Taiwan is important” for Japanese and international security. Beijing responded (SCMP) that Tokyo was “grossly interfering” in its internal affairs.
 
Taiwan: Technology giants Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Foxconn Technology Group made a deal with a Chinese firm to procure ten million doses (FT) of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Taiwan, ending an impasse in which the island struggled to acquire vaccines due to tensions with Beijing.
 
For the Asia Unbound blog, Roman Shemakov discusses Taiwan’s vaccine shortage.

Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that a recent dissolution of the country’s lower house of Parliament was unconstitutional and that the body must be immediately restored (PTI). It also ordered that head of Congress Sher Bahadur Deuba be named prime minister. The move strikes a blow (Al Jazeera) to caretaker Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli, who had hoped to hold elections.
 
Myanmar: Four new, unspecified charges were filed (Al Jazeera) against deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a court in Mandalay, adding to other charges filed against her since she was ousted by a military coup in February. Suu Kyi’s lawyers reject all of the charges.

At least sixty-four people died in a fire (CNN) in the COVID-19 isolation ward of a hospital in the city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, health officials said. Exploding oxygen tanks are believed to have sparked the blaze.

The European Union established a military mission (AFP) to train Mozambican forces in their battle against jihadis in the country’s north. A Portuguese commander will head the mission, and around half the instructors are expected to be Portuguese.
 
For the Africa in Transition blog, CFR’s John Campbell looks at the growing foreign involvement in counterinsurgency efforts in Mozambique.
 
Ethiopia: Thousands of people from the war-torn region of Tigray who now live in cities across Ethiopia are being detained, the Associated Press reports. Some have had their businesses closed by authorities. Police are accusing some detainees of having links to Tigrayan fighters, but human rights advocates say many of the accusations lack evidence and amount to racial profiling.

Bulgaria’s antiestablishment There is Such a People party, which is led by former pop star Slavi Trifonov and has been unclear about its platform, holds a slight lead (FT) in the vote count from Sunday’s national election, the country’s second in three months. After the April vote, no party earned enough support (Politico) to form a majority.

Europe: The EU military cooperation pact Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which launched in late 2017, is beset by delays in fifteen of its forty-six projects, according to a progress report seen by Politico.

The United States is revoking travel visas (AP) for one hundred lawmakers, judges, and prosecutors who helped the current Nicaraguan government. The move comes in response to the detentions of opposition members and the suppression of protests.
 
Venezuela: Authorities arrested opposition figure Freddy Guevara (Bloomberg) and entered the home of opposition leader Juan Guaido to threaten him with arrest. 

Democratic lawmakers fled Texas (NYT) in an attempt to block the passage of new restrictions on voting rights proposed by the state legislature. The move buys time, but ultimately, Republican control of both chambers of the legislature means the measure will likely pass.

A report by five UN agencies found that global hunger spiked in 2020 (WHO), with 2.3 billion people lacking year-round access to adequate food. This indicator rose more in one year than in the previous five years combined, raising concerns of social unrest and migration (FT), the United Nations said.
 
This photo essay examines how global food insecurity has surged during the pandemic.