Category Archives: Helen Clark

Covid pandemic was preventable, says WHO-commissioned report

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Independent panel castigates global leaders and calls for major changes to ensure it cannot happen again

The Covid pandemic was a preventable disaster that need not have cost millions of lives if the world had reacted more quickly, according to an independent high-level panel, which castigates global leaders and calls for major changes to bring it to an end and ensure it cannot happen again.

The report of the panel, chaired by the former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a former president of Liberia, found “weak links at every point in the chain”.

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Global Covid report: Biden camp rejects Trump changes to travel restrictions

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Incoming US administration criticises move to remove entry bans as independent panel criticises WHO for not declaring emergency until 30 January

The Trump and Biden camps have clashed over future Covid travel restrictions with less than two days to go before the handover of power in Washington. It comes as an independent panel said Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully a year ago, and criticised the World Health Organization (WHO) for delays in declaring an international emergency.

In the US, a political row is brewing after Donald Trump announced he would rescind Covid entry bans on most non-US citizens arriving from Brazil and much of Europe, including the UK, effective 26 January, two officials briefed on the matter told Reuters.

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WHO’s Covid-19 inquiry is a shrewd move in a sea of disinformation

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Its findings should illuminate global responses amid conspiracy theories and Trump’s mudslinging

In the world of epidemiology it’s sometimes said that pandemics are lived forwards and understood backwards.

We encounter them head-on, chaotically, trying to fathom the disease in real time even while trying to mitigate its impact. Lessons generally come later as the evidence accumulates.

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Helen Clark: WHO coronavirus inquiry aims to ‘stop the world being blindsided again’

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Former New Zealand prime minister says WHO director general said during early days he was ‘screaming every day but no one is listening’

A former prime minister of New Zealand whose leadership was defined by stability and thoroughness has been appointed to investigate if the World Health Organization failed to adequately warn of the coronavirus pandemic.

In global circles, Helen Clark became known as a “fighter” and has described the WHO investigation as “exceptionally challenging” and a “very tough gig”, given the review would be conducted in the midst of a pandemic. Speaking to the Guardian from her home in Auckland, Clark said she had to start immediately – “before another pandemic is upon us”.

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Helen Clark: ‘I’d like to think I was ahead of my time’

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Interviewed about her plans for retirement, the former Aotearoa New Zealand prime minister says the word is not in her vocabulary

Helen Clark, 69, is the second woman to hold the post of prime minister of Aotearoa New Zealand and fifth-longest serving prime minister. She was also the first female head of the United Nations Development Program.

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‘Not welcome’ in Australia: from Tampa refugee to Fulbright scholar, via New Zealand

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New Zealand gave a home, and hope, to Abbas Nazari. He wishes all refugee children could be given the same chance

Abbas Nazari was stranded on a ship in the Indian ocean when he first heard the words “New Zealand”.

Then aged 7, Nazari’s mother, father and four siblings were among 430 asylum seekers, predominantly of the ethnic minority Hazaras of Afghanistan, plucked from a sinking fishing boat by the Norwegian cargo ship, the Tampa. They were later transferred to the HMAS Manoora, where they waited for asylum after Australia refused to accept them; creating an international quagmire over which country would, or should, offer sanctuary on humanitarian grounds.

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New Zealand PM John Key announces shocking resignation

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Wellington: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who won praise for his economic stewardship after the global financial crisis, unexpectedly announced his resignation on Monday, saying it was time to leave politics after more than eight years in power. Key said he had no immediate future plans, but told reporters he would stay in parliament long enough for his centre-right National Party to avoid a by-election for his seat.