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US to Buy Millions of Pfizer Vaccine Doses to Donate to World

In this March 2, 2021, file photo, pharmacy technician Hollie Maloney loads a syringe with Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at the Portland Expo in Portland, Maine. (AP)
In this March 2, 2021, file photo, pharmacy technician Hollie Maloney loads a syringe with Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at the Portland Expo in Portland, Maine. (AP)
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US to Buy Millions of Pfizer Vaccine Doses to Donate to World

In this March 2, 2021, file photo, pharmacy technician Hollie Maloney loads a syringe with Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at the Portland Expo in Portland, Maine. (AP)
In this March 2, 2021, file photo, pharmacy technician Hollie Maloney loads a syringe with Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at the Portland Expo in Portland, Maine. (AP)

The United States plans to buy hundreds of millions of additional doses of the Pfizer Inc COVID-19 vaccine to donate around the world, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing two unidentified people familiar with the deal.

The purchase was to be announced early next week to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

President Joe Biden has stressed the importance of a global vaccination campaign as a way to defeat the virus and the United States has planned a virtual COVID-19 summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly meeting.

The United States is pushing global leaders to endorse its targets for ending the COVID-19 pandemic, including ensuring 70% of the world’s population is vaccinated by the 2022, according to a draft US document viewed by Reuters.

Details of the deal were not final, the Post reported.

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Panama Leaders Past and Present Reject Trump’s Threat of Canal Takeover

The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)
The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)
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Panama Leaders Past and Present Reject Trump’s Threat of Canal Takeover

The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)
The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)

The status of the Panama Canal is non-negotiable, President Jose Raul Mulino said in a statement Monday signed alongside former leaders of the country, after Donald Trump's recent threats to reclaim the man-made waterway.

The US president-elect on Saturday had slammed what he called unfair fees for US ships passing through the Panama Canal and threatened to demand control of the waterway be returned to Washington.

Mulino dismissed Trump's comments Sunday, saying "every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama".

He reiterated Monday in a statement -- also signed by former presidents Ernesto Perez Balladares, Martin Torrijos and Mireya Moscoso -- that "the sovereignty of our country and our canal are not negotiable."

The canal "is part of our history of struggle and an irreversible conquest," read the statement, which the four politicians had signed after a meeting at the seat of the Panamanian government.

"Panamanians may think differently in many aspects, but when it comes to our canal and our sovereignty, we all unite under the same flag."

Former leader Laurentino Cortizo, who did not attend the meeting, also showed support for the statement on social media, as did ex-president Ricardo Martinelli.

The 80-kilometer (50-mile) Panama Canal carries five percent of the world's maritime trade. Its main users are the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Chile.

It was completed by the United States in 1914, and then returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.

Panama took full control in 1999.