WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday called on pharmaceutical companies to justify the success of their drugs intended to treat Covid.

He said there is disagreement on whether the drugs saved lives.

“With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public.”

In his post, Trump urged drug companies to be more transparent about their results to “clear up this MESS.”

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the latest round of Covid vaccines, but only for people at higher risk of severe illness. The three approved shots are made by Pfizer with German partner BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax with Sanofi.

The president’s comments also come days after he fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign. Four other top health officials at the CDC also announced they were quitting the agency last week, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

The leadership upheaval at the CDC follows a series of measures by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to overhaul federal health agencies and change US immunisation policies. He has instituted mass firings, gutted a key government vaccine panel and canceled studies on mRNA shot technology.

In an email to agency staff on Thursday, Kennedy pledged to continue what he has described as a mission to restore trust to the agency, touting “significant progress” already.

Public health experts, physicians, researchers, as well as current and former CDC employees, have said that Kennedy’s approach as well as cuts to both spending and staff have already hobbled the agency, warning that matters will worsen if he is allowed to continue.

So far, Kenedy has faced relatively little resistance from the White House, and the president appears to have gone along with the push to oust Monarez. It was the White House that announced last this week that Trump fired her, even though the announcement was initially made by Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services.

But in the Monday post, Trump appears to be torn between Kennedy and his detractors. The president doesn’t appear to embrace Kennedy’s view that Covid vaccines were decidedly harmful.

Trump has previously touted the success of Operation Warp Speed, the government-backed effort to develop Covid countermeasures, including vaccines.

“I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???” he wrote of the initiative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to accelerate the creation of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) development bank during the annual summit in Tianjin, aiming to broaden the group’s influence and scope.

“Amid increasing global complexity and turbulence, member states face growing security and development challenges,” Xi said in his opening remarks on Monday.

He pledged $1.4 billion in loans over the next three years for SCO member countries, though the funds were not specifically allocated to the new bank.

The summit brought together Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and leaders from several dozen nations.

Originally viewed as a counterbalance to U.S. influence in Central Asia, the SCO has expanded in size and influence over the years, but remains primarily a security-focused forum.

With the development bank and a loan program, Xi is seeking to expand the organisation’s role beyond security matters.

“He wants to provide an alternative world order, as the U.S.-led system is in decline.

This is the main narrative,” said Alfred Wu, a professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Xi also urged countries to “oppose Cold War mentalities, bloc confrontations, and bullying, and safeguard an international system with the United Nations at its core.”

He called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world, inclusive economic globalization, and a fairer and more just global governance system.”

Founded in 2001, the SCO now includes Russia, Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as full members.

Afghanistan and Mongolia are observers, while 14 other countries, mainly from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, participate as “dialogue partners.”

At the summit, Xi also criticized global “bullying behavior” as he met with regional leaders to discuss cooperation and stability.

He called on the leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi to “adhere to fairness and justice… oppose Cold War mentality, camp confrontation, and bullying behaviour”, in a speech in the northern city of Tianjin.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is gathering for a two-day summit, comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.

China and Russia have sometimes touted the SCO as an alternative to the NATO military alliance.

“The current international situation is becoming chaotic and intertwined,” Xi told the leaders.

“The security and development tasks facing member states have become even more challenging,” he added.

“Looking back, despite tumultuous times, we have achieved success by practicing the Shanghai spirit,” he said, referring to the name of the group.

“Looking to the future, with the world undergoing turbulence and transformation, we must continue to follow the Shanghai spirit, keep our feet on the ground, forge ahead, and better perform the functions of the organisation.”

The Netherlands has emerged as a world leader in protecting land from rising waters, investing up to 1.3 billion euros each year to maintain an extensive system of dikes, polders, canals, windmills, concrete barriers and embankments that keep floods at bay, The News reported citing a research.

Moreover, artificial dwelling hills or Terpins have also been built to increase the land elevation.

Similar to Bangladesh, the Netherlands has also created a scheme that alerts citizens of possible floods 24 hours before the otherwise uncontrollable waters hit the country.

The anti-flood system they have built over decades is on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the world.

The Dutch have also built a giant sea gate guarding the port of Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, and a c rucial hub for industries of all sorts.

A media house maintained: “The gate has two curved arms; each as tall and twice as heavy as the Eiffel Tower. When needed, they swing out into the water to lock together and sink to the bottom, forming a 22-meter-high wall against the sea. The barrier is one of the largest moving structures on Earth; its two ball-and-socket joints, anchored in the embankment on either side of the canal, weigh 680 tonnes each.”

From 1962 until 2004, the 31,500-acre Rotterdam was the world’s busiest port by annual cargo tonnage. It was overtaken first in 2004 by the port of Singapore, and later by Shanghai and other very large Chinese seaports.

In May 2019, global investors had enthusiastically embraced a national Netherlands 5.98 billion-Euro Green Bond designed to fund projects to cope with current and future climate change impacts and an advanced low-carbon economy.

Much of the bond focused on using coastal and river ecosystems as a safeguard for negative climate impacts such as high flood risk.

Investors responded to the bond immediately, oversubscribing the issuance by more than 15.2 billion Euros!

Although global warming can overwhelm the measures the Netherlands has taken to control floods, the risk of these water-related disasters has been reduced from once every 100 years to once every 1,250 years.

The region has a long history of devastating floods that continually reshape the land. For more than 1,000 years the residents of this region have devised ways to reclaim land from encroachment by the sea.

The Rhine, Meuse and Schelde are Holland’s three chief rivers.

The densely-populated Netherlands or Holland is known for its low elevation and approximately two-thirds of its area is vulnerable to flooding.

While 15 million people in the Netherlands live below the sea level, the river Rhine and its tributaries, the Meuse and the Mosel, have often attacked Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The first river dikes had appeared near the river mouths in the 11th century, where incursions from the sea added to the danger from high water levels on the river.

The 17th and 18th centuries were a period of many infamous river floods resulting in much loss of life. They were often caused by ice dams blocking the river. Land reclamation works, large willow plantations and building in the winter bed of the river all worsened the problem.

The “Encyclopedia Britannica” states: “The first Dutch food in 1287 had caused more than 50,000 casualties. A significant percentage of the country’s population perished in the disaster, and it has been rated as one of the most destructive floods in recorded history. Called the St Lucia flood, this event also created direct sea access for the village of Amsterdam, allowing its development into a major port city.”

The 1421 floods had killed up to 10,000 people.

In more recent history, February 1953 had seen one of the biggest natural disasters hitting the Netherlands ever, killing 2400 humans.

Around 770 square miles of southern Holland were inundated, forcing tens of thousands to flee.

Many were overtaken by the icy waters as more and more flood walls failed. The storm also devastated parts of England, Belgium and Germany.

Urbanisation is one of the major causes of flooding in Netherlands.

The urban population here accounts for 82.9% of the total population. A lot of buildings, roads, and cities have thus been built over the course of centuries, leading to destruction of vegetation, hence reducing the interception of rainfall when a storm is to occur.

Additionally, the excessive use of tar and cement to pave roads and sidewalks inhibit water from infiltrating the soil, which increases the chances of surface runoff.

These artificial structures are impermeable, and water is forced to flow back into the ocean through surface runoff, increasing the peak discharge in the area. Due to this, the lag time for water to flow back into the ocean has decreased, increasing the chances of flooding.

Due to land reclamation, areas close to the shoreline become more prone to coastal waves. Erosion takes place resultantly and the fast-sinking land leads to floods.

And then for the sake of urbanisation and providing land for agriculture and ploughing, deforestation has taken place.

Being the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products, agriculture plays an immense role in the Netherlands’ economy. Presently, over 70% of the country’s land is used for agricultural purposes.

The Guardian reported that the low-lying Netherlands has been fighting back water for more than 1,000 years, when farmers built the first dykes. 

“Windmills have also been pumping the stuff off the land since the 14th century. One of the most densely populated countries on the planet, 60% of the Netherlands is vulnerable to flooding, and its peat-rich agricultural soil is subsiding even as climate change is raising sea levels. The country’s universities are producing some of the world’s best water engineers and managers and it is exporting its expertise abroad; the Dutch government has advised on water governance projects in China, Africa and Australia,” the report stated. 

Meanwhile, The British newspaper revealed “there are no financial packages for people who have to move.”

It quoted a government official as saying: “They get the market value of their house and that is all. We will help them find another place, but not financially. The only thing we do is to make sure that they do not lose money.”