FILE - Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the WHO, speaks at the Reaching The Last Mile Forum on Nov. 19, 2019, at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi.(Jonathan Gibbons/Reaching the Last Mile Forum via AP Images)
The head of the World Health Organization says he will begin an independent evaluation of the U.N. health agency’s response to the coronavirus pandemic “at the earliest appropriate moment.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the pledge Monday after an independent oversight advisory body published its first interim report about the U.N. health agency’s response to COVID-19 from January to April.
The 11-page report raised questions such as whether WHO’s warning system for alerting the world to outbreaks is adequate, and suggested member states might need to “reassess” WHO’s role in providing travel advice to countries.
The advisory body’s review and recommendations appeared unlikely to appease the United States administration, which has been scathing in its criticism of WHO — in part over President Donald Trump’s allegation that it had criticized a U.S. travel ban that he ordered on people arriving from China, where the outbreak first appeared late last year.
Trump ordered a temporary suspension of funding for WHO from the United States — the health agency’s biggest single donor — pending a review of its early response. But the review panel, echoing comments from many countries, said such a review during the “heat of the response” could hurt WHO’s ability to respond to it.
Former President Donald Trump denounced the civil fraud case over his business practices as a politically motivated “scam” as he arrived defiantly for a trial in the lawsuit, which could cost him control of Trump Tower and other prized properties.
McCarthy passed a temporary spending bill with Democratic support, enraging Gaetz and other far-right members whose demands for spending cuts were a nonstarter with the Senate and President Joe Biden.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom fulfilled his pledge to appoint a Black woman if Dianne Feinstein’s seat became open. The long-serving Democratic senator died Thursday after a series of illnesses.
In a statement Sunday, the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund said it would comply with the order but remained confident of prevailing in the lawsuit, which was brought by conservative activist Edward Blum’s American Alliance for Equal Rights.
