Follow RT on The Israel-Palestine conflict is an age-old struggle over land and religion. But political atrophy in Israel and the Palestinian territories is giving extremists excessive power to fill the vacuum through gratuitous violence.
The military flare-up between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza, as well as the simultaneous communal clashes inside Israel between its Jewish and Arab citizens, have brought to the fore a fundamental question – what is the purpose or goal of the deadly fighting?
But the reality is messier. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are unanimous or sure about where they are heading. The violence is not a means to any clear desired national outcome but a repetitive instrument to vent out frustrations triggered by internal fragmentation on each side.
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UAE to offer third dose of COVID vaccine to residents
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced plans to offer a third dose of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine to people who were vaccinated with two doses.
The third dose will be offered as a booster shot amid concerns over the efficacy of the vaccine.
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“An additional supportive dose of Sinopharm is now available to people who have received the vaccine previously and who have now completed more than six months since the second dose,” the UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority said.
Doctors in Tokyo ask government to cancel Tokyo Olympic games over COVID surge
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Nigeria is currently a beneficiary of the United Nations-led COVAX facility which is facilitating the procurement of vaccines for African countries.
In February 2021, COVAX had
announced the donation of 16 million doses to Nigeria, although the country is currently distributing the 3.9 million doses supplied in March for the first phase of vaccination.
The AstraZeneca vaccine doses currently being distributed in the country are sourced from the SII.
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Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, had said Nigeria is
expecting 58 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX and African Union AVATT platform, while Faisal Shuaib, executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), had said the country should receive some vaccine doses via COVAX by the end of May or in June.
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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Monday
asked G7 countries to donate COVID vaccines to COVAX, the global alliance against COVID-19, to address the shortfall in the supply of the vaccine.
G7 is an intergovernmental organisation made up of leaders from leading industrial nations.
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India had pledged to supply the AstraZeneca vaccine produced by its Serum Institute to COVAX but restricted exports following a second wave of infections.
Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director, said the donations will help prevent vulnerable countries from becoming the next global hotspot.
“Sharing immediately available excess doses is a minimum, essential and emergency stop-gap measure, and it is needed right now,” Fore said.