Foreign News
Former UK PM Boris Johnson says his gov’t underestimated COVID-19 threat
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has acknowledged his government “got some things wrong” in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as he gave evidence at a public inquiry into his handling of the global health crisis.
In the first of two days in the witness box on Wednesday, Johnson apologised for “the pain and the loss and the suffering” caused to the families of the victims.
Testifying under oath, Johnson acknowledged that “we underestimated the scale and the pace of the challenge” when reports of a new virus began to emerge from China in early 2020.
The former prime minister has faced a barrage of criticism from former aides for alleged indecisiveness and a lack of scientific understanding during the pandemic.
Johnson – forced from office last year over lockdown breaching parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic – accepted that “mistakes” had “unquestionably” been made but repeatedly insisted he and officials did their “level best”. “I understand the feeling of the victims and their families and I’m deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and the suffering to those victims and their families,” he said.
Johnson, 59, was briefly interrupted as a protester was ordered out from the inquiry room after refusing to sit down during the apology.
Several others were also later removed.
“Inevitably we got some things wrong,” Johnson continued, adding he took personal responsibility for all the decisions made. “At the time I felt … we were doing our best in very difficult circumstances.”
![Protesters holds a placard reading "The dead can't hear your apologies" during a gathering outside the UK Covid-19 Inquiry building in west London, on December 6, 2023 [HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/dead-cant-hear-1701874429.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C492&quality=80)
Ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the inquiry last week that he had tried to raise the alarm inside the government, saying thousands of lives could have been saved by putting the country under lockdown a few weeks earlier than the eventual date of March 23, 2020.
Britain went on to have one of Europe’s longest and strictest lockdowns, as well as one of the continent’s highest COVID-19 death tolls, with the coronavirus recorded as a cause of death for more than 232,000 people.
Grilled by inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith, Johnson acknowledged that he did not attend any of the government’s five crisis meetings on the new virus in February 2020, and only “once or twice” looked at meeting minutes from the government’s scientific advisory group. He said he relied on “distilled” advice from his science and medicine advisers.
Johnson’s understanding of specialist advice was doubted last month by his former chief scientific officer, Patrick Vallance, who said he was frequently “bamboozled” by data.
The ex-leader has also denied claims he said he would rather “let the bodies pile high” than impose another lockdown.
His former top aide Dominic Cummings and communications chief Lee Cain both criticised their ex-boss when they gave evidence at the inquiry.
Cummings, who has faced his own criticism for writing expletive-filled WhatsApp messages, said Johnson circulated a video to his scientific advisers of “a guy blowing a special hairdryer up his nose ‘to kill Covid’.”
Cain said COVID-19 was the “wrong crisis” for his ex-boss’s skillset, adding that he became “exhausted” by his alleged indecision in dealing with the crisis.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was Johnson’s finance minister during the pandemic, is due to be questioned at the inquiry in the coming weeks.
Johnson – whose lengthy written submission to the inquiry will be published later on Wednesday – insisted the “overwhelming priority” of his government had been protecting the National Health Service (NHS) and saving lives.
Rebutting evidence that Britain fared worse than its European neighbours, he argued “every country struggled with a new pandemic” while noting the UK had an “extremely elderly population” and is one of the continent’s most densely populated countries.
Johnson, who was treated in intensive care for COVID-19 early on in the pandemic, has reportedly spent weeks with his lawyers, reviewing thousands of pages of evidence ahead of his testimony.
His grilling began with questions about a failure to provide about 5,000 WhatsApp messages on his phone from late January 2020 to June 2020.
“I don’t know the exact reason,” he claimed, adding the app had “somehow” automatically erased its chat history from that period. Asked if he had initiated a so-called factory reset, Johnson said: “I don’t remember any such thing”.
(Aljazeera)
The United States military says that two service members have been killed and four medically evacuated following an Iranian missile and drone attack in Jordan.
In a statement shared on Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said that one service member remains missing following an Iranian strike on Friday.
“On July 17, two US service members in Jordan were killed in action as US Central Command (CENTCOM) and partner forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. Additionally, one service member is currently missing in action,” the statement reads.
“Four American service members were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals. They have since been discharged. Other personnel who were evaluated for minor injuries have returned to duty.
“Out of respect for the families, CENTCOM will withhold additional information, including the identities of the fallen warriors, until 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified.”
The statement appears to be the first US confirmation of fatalities resulting from renewed Iranian strikes on US forces, following the breakdown of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that temporarily paused fighting between the US and Israel, and Iran.
Responding to the deaths of the two service members, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve”.
CENTCOM later announced that it was launching retaliatory airstrikes against Iran at President Trump’s direction.
[Aljazeera]
A seventh consecutive night of attacks by United States forces on targets across Iran has left 10,000 people without water after a desalination plant was hit, with Iran retaliating by launching another wave of drones and missiles at US-allied Gulf states.
Hamzeh Pour, chief executive of the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company, was quoted by the Tasnim news agency on Saturday as saying that a seawater pumping station and a power transformer at the Bunji desalination plant in Jask in southern Iran were “completely destroyed”, depriving 20 villages of water.
Iran’s retaliation also targeted civilian infrastructure, a war crime under international humanitarian law.
In the early hours of Saturday, Kuwait announced the closure of its airspace and said two power and water desalination plants were hit by Iranian attacks. Several Kuwaiti firefighters were wounded while responding to a fire sparked by the strikes, the country’s firefighting force said.
Air raid sirens also sounded repeatedly in Bahrain, where authorities urged residents to seek shelter.
In Jordan, authorities said they intercepted 10 Iranian ballistic missiles.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its naval forces had targeted a US military fuel pier at Kuwait’s al-Ahmadi port and a US warplane assembly site at Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa Air Base. The IRGC also said it attacked a US base in Azraq in Jordan, claiming to have destroyed two American fighter jets.
The Iranian attacks came after the US military’s Central Command, or CENTCOM, announced it had carried another wave of overnight strikes targeting “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities” in Iran.
[Aljazeera]
Rescuers are rushing to locate dozens of people missing in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, after a deadly landslide buried homes in the area, according to Chinese authorities.
The landslide took place around 9:10am (01:10 GMT) on Friday in Chongqing’s Pengshui county, killing eight people, leaving 34 unaccounted for and displacing more than 1,100, reported state media.
Footage shared by China’s CCTV broadcaster showed a huge buildup of rocks and dirt covering part of a residential and commercial street at the bottom of a mountain in the region.
Ten people have been rescued from the debris, including two who are seriously injured, reported China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.
Water, electricity and gas supplies were cut off within a one-kilometre (0.6-mile) radius of the landslide to prevent further disruptions. More than 800 rescuers have gone to the site, reported CCTV.
Authorities said they sent more than 8,000 disaster relief items to Chongqing, including tents, folding beds and family emergency kits.
Pengshui county is located in the southeast part of Chongqing, bordering the provinces of Hubei and Guizhou.
The area where the landslide happened is known for “unpredictable” steep terrain, a local official told a news conference, adding that dangerous rocks remain along the sides of the cliff.
The government has allocated 50 million yuan ($7.36m) in natural disaster relief funds to support the rescue and relief operations and to provide assistance to affected residents, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
[Aljazeera]
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