By David Lawder
WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) &#8211; Now that the U.S. President Joe Biden has backed a proposed waiver for COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property rights, the next stop is for the World Trade Organization to hammer out a deal &#8211; a process that could take months.
Not only are the negotiations expected to be lengthy, they are also likely to result in a waiver that is significantly narrower in scope and shorter in duration than the one initially proposed by India and South Africa, trade experts said.
Prior to Biden&#8217;s announcement, the two countries confirmed their intention to draft a new proposal at a WTO General Council meeting on Wednesday, prompting the body&#8217;s new Director General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to express hope for &#8220;a pragmatic solution.&#8221;
Ten meetings in seven months have failed https://www.reuters.com/article/trade-wto-vaccines-idINKBN2CM03C to move WTO members toward consensus on the original waiver proposal
&#8220;At a minimum, it&#8217;s going to be a month or two,&#8221; Clete Willems, a former Trump White House trade official who previously worked at the U.S. trade mission to the WTO in Geneva, said of any possible agreement.
&#8220;Right now, there is no proposal on the table that would waive the TRIPS agreement simply for vaccines,&#8221; he said, referring to the WTO&#8217;s agreement on &#8216;Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights&#8217; that governs the transfer of property like movie rights or vaccine-manufacturing specifics.
A more realistic goal may be completion of the agreement in time for the WTO&#8217;s next ministerial conference, scheduled for Nov. 30 through Dec. 3, said Willems, now a trade partner at the Akin Gump law firm in Washington. That would give vaccine producers more time to boost global supplies which could help contain the virus and ease pressure for the waiver.
The initial IP waiver proposal https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/IP/C/W669.pdf&amp;Open=True by India and South Africa last October included vaccines, treatments, diagnostic kits, ventilators, protective gear and other products related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

HAGGLING OVER WORDS
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Wednesday that she will pursue &#8220;text-based negotiations&#8221; on the WTO waiver, the standard but tedious process for trade deal talks. Negotiators trade texts with their preferred wording, then try to find common ground, sometimes leaving blank spaces for thorny differences to be settled by politicians.
All 164 WTO member countries must reach consent on such decisions, with any one member able to veto them, so there could be a lot of red pencils out. Negotiations are likely to be held in a mixture of virtual and in-person meetings.
&#8220;Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved,&#8221; Tai said in a statement that tamped down expectations for a quick deal.
U.S. companies, which strive to influence the USTR&#8217;s trade negotiations, are already mobilizing to try to ensure the WTO talks lead to a waiver that&#8217;s as narrowly targeted as possible.
&#8220;This is a mitigation effort. We&#8217;re aiming to make it less bad than it otherwise would be,&#8221; one industry source said.
Some Republican lawmakers are pushing the argument that the decision will hand American technology to China.
&#8220;What this decision will do, if it goes forward, is benefit countries like China that are aggressively trying to obtain U.S. technology to bolster their own domestic champions,&#8221; Republican Senator Mike Crapo said in a statement.
While Biden&#8217;s backing adds political impetus to get a deal done, other countries with big pharmaceuticals sectors, including Britain, Japan, Switzerland and in the European Union, were opposed to the waiver and have the ability to block a deal.
On the plus side, a successful waiver negotiation would &#8220;improve the atmospherics&#8221; at the WTO, which has been marked by failure to reach agreement on substantive new trade policy since its inception in 1995, said Harry Broadman, a former Clinton administration trade official who helped negotiate the trade body&#8217;s creation.
&#8220;It&#8217;s good that the WTO hopefully can actually think about a consensus,&#8221; Broadman said, adding that he sees slim prospects that a vaccine deal could revive prospects for broader WTO negotiations. (Reporting by David Lawder; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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Vaccine IP waiver could take months for WTO to negotiate-experts

* reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=cpurl://apps.cp./Apps/fx-polls?RIC=ZAR= rand poll data
* reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=cpurl://apps.cp./Apps/fx-polls?RIC=CNY= yuan poll data
* reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=cpurl://apps.cp./Apps/fx-polls?RIC=INR= rupee poll data
* Reuters poll graphic on emerging market currencies outlook: https://tmsnrt.rs/3xMfqgu
By Vuyani Ndaba
JOHANNESBURG, May 6 (Reuters) &#8211; Emerging market currencies will find support from higher commodity prices and domestic vaccination rollouts this year, despite turbulence in U.S. Treasury yields that could diminish their appeal, a Reuters poll found.
Just last week Treasury yields in the United States rose again as traders and investors inferred the Federal Reserve&#8217;s tone in last month&#8217;s policy meeting was a start to discussion on tapering the bond buying programme, sapping emerging market gains after good a run in April.
Still, the emerging markets currency index, heavily weighted toward China given the size of its economy, has more than reversed 2020 losses.
In the May 3-5 Reuters poll, nearly two-thirds of 40 strategists polled said currencies linked to commodity-exporting nations would perform better against the dollar over the next 12 months than strictly high or low yielding emerging market currencies.
&#8220;Given our generally bullish outlook on commodity for 2021, we expect commodity exporters to remain supported, in both EM and DM (developed markets), even in the face of a stronger DXY,&#8221; noted FX analysts at Citi.
&#8220;These currencies will also generally be aided by the rates divergence trade.&#8221;
In response to an additional question, more than two-fifths of 47 analysts said sentiment for emerging market currencies for this year would be dominated by the pace of vaccine rollouts domestically, followed by risk-reversals with regards to U.S. Treasuries and increasing new cases and variants of COVID-19.

COMMODITY PRICES
The Chinese yuan, the most actively traded emerging market currency, was predicted to gain almost 1% to 6.43/$ in six months&#8217; time, while India&#8217;s rupee, hit by a surge in coronavirus infections, was expected to slip over 0.7% to 74.5/$.
The rand was expected to weaken almost 3% to 14.89/$ in six months, after performing best among emerging markets tracked by Reuters in the past quarter. The Mexican peso will firm slightly to 20.15/$ by 0.4%.
&#8220;South Africa and Mexico represent the EM proxies for European and U.S. investors, so to get them stronger than their long-term average would take a considerable rise in EM bullishness,&#8221; wrote Charles Robertson, head of macro strategy at Renaissance Capital.
&#8220;This is plausible on rising commodity prices pulled by China. South Africa&#8217;s and Mexico&#8217;s rates are low which doesn&#8217;t help, but if U.S. 10-year yields drop back from 1.6% to 1% and commodity price trends remain helpful, we&#8217;d be tempted to revise our end-year rand forecast from 14/$ to 13/$.&#8221;
Goldman Sachs analysts said: &#8220;One way for EM investors to manage a rise in U.S. yields is to lean into commodity exposures.&#8221;
Copper prices climbed back towards 2021 highs recently, supported by prospects for higher demand while commodity exporting companies keep reporting better production and profit expectations in South Africa due to much better returns from selling raw materials abroad.
Still, fears of inflation in the United States have in part driven higher treasury yields which have competed with emerging market currencies&#8217; yield appeal, disrupting healthy EM returns since late last year.
&#8220;The Fed beginning the tapering conversation could bring with it upside in U.S. Treasury yields that have proven to be a significant headwind to growth linked/high beta FX, particularly across EM,&#8221; said Brian Daingerfield, head of G10 FX strategy at NatWest.
However, some investors do not think the pace of money supply in the United States from stimulus packages means inflation will quicken and trigger the Fed into higher rates, likely benefiting risk taking in emerging market currencies.

(For other stories from the May Reuters foreign exchange poll:)

(Reporting by Vuyani Ndaba and Vivek Mishra; Polling by Khushboo Mittal and Hari Kishan; Editing by Jonathan Cable and Alison Williams)
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POLL-Higher commodity prices and vaccines to buoy EMFX vs. U.S. yields

NIAMEY, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Unidentified gunmen killed 15 soldiers and wounded four more on Tuesday in an attack on an army post in southwest Niger, the ministry of defence said on Wednesday.
The attack in north Tillabery region, which borders Mali and Burkina Faso, came two days after gunmen killed 16 soldiers in the nearby Tahoua region of the West African country.
The soldiers were part of a special anti-jihadist force called Operation Almahaou, said Niger&#8217;s defence minister in a statement. They were attacked on Tuesday afternoon by heavily armed men on motorcycles, whom he described as &#8220;terrorists&#8221;.
Several of the assailants were also killed in combat, while others retreated toward the north and are being pursued, said the statement.
The area is overrun by jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, who have killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians since 2018 when they began broadening their reach beyond bases in Mali.
The scale of the violence this year has called into question claims of progress in the fight against Islamist militants by governments in West Africa&#8217;s Sahel region and former colonial power France, which has 5,000 troops there to support them. (Reporting by Boureima Balima; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by David Gregorio)
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Gunmen kill 15 soldiers in attack in southwest Niger

By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Novavax Inc&#8217;s COVID-19 vaccine had efficacy of 43% against infections caused by the South African variant in a group that included people with and without HIV, and 51% in people who were HIV negative, according to a new analysis published on Wednesday.
The post-hoc analysis was published in the New England Journal of Medicine along with full data from the company&#8217;s trial in South Africa, which included nearly 2,700 volunteers who had not been previously infected with the coronavirus.
Results announced in January showed efficacy of 49.4% against symptomatic COVID-19 in the South African trial looking at a mixture of the original virus and the South African variant, and 60.1% among those who were HIV-negative.
The study also showed that prior infection with an earlier version of the virus did not reduce the risk of COVID-19 caused by the South African variant among people who got placebo shots.
The average age of trial volunteers was 32. Most cases were mild-to-moderate.
The study did not provide data on efficacy of the Novavax vaccine in preventing severe disease or hospitalization, &#8220;one of the most important factors in determining the usefulness of a vaccine,&#8221; said Dr Peter English, a retired consultant in communicable disease control and former chair of the British Medical Association’s Public Health Medicine Committee.
&#8220;Most vaccines are less effective at preventing mild disease than they are at preventing severe disease; so this vaccine could turn out to be much more effective at preventing hospital admissions and deaths – we simply don’t know, yet,&#8221; said English, who was not involved in the study.
The trial&#8217;s main goals were to test how the vaccine performed in people who were HIV negative, as well as those who were HIV positive and medically stable. The study excluded other volunteers taking drugs to suppress the immune system or those with auto-immune diseases, which could reduce vaccine efficacy. Among those evaluated, 94% were HIV negative and 6% were HIV positive.
Novavax has said it is making new versions of its vaccine to protect against emerging virus variants. The company is expected to report data from its ongoing late-stage study in the United States and Mexico in the second quarter. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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Novavax vaccine shows 43% efficacy against South African variant, study finds

GENEVA, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; The head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden&#8217;s plan to back a proposed waiver on intellectual property rights to boost global vaccine production was a &#8220;monumental moment in the fight against #COVID-19.&#8221;
Biden earlier on Wednesday threw his support behind a proposed World Trade Organization waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, bowing to mounting pressure from U.S. Democratic lawmakers and more than 100 other countries.
The WHO&#8217;s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has repeatedly urged countries to support the proposal brought by India and South Africa at the WTO, said in a tweet: &#8220;This is a monumental moment in the fight against #COVID19. The commitment by @POTUS Joe Biden &amp; @USTradeRep @AmbassadorTai to support the waiver of IP protections on vaccines is a powerful example of United States leadership to address global health challenges.&#8221; (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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Biden move on vaccine IP ‘monumental moment’ in COVID-19 fight -WHO chief

By Carl O&#8217;Donnell
May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Moderna Inc said on Wednesday early human trial data shows that a third dose of either its current COVID-19 shot or an experimental new vaccine candidate increases immunity against variants of COVID-19 first found in Brazil and South Africa.
The booster shots, given to volunteers previously inoculated with Moderna&#8217;s two-dose vaccine regimen, also boosted antibodies against the original version of COVID-19, Moderna said.
The early data comes from a 40-person trial testing both Moderna&#8217;s existing shot and a version developed to protect against the South African variant of COVID-19 called mRNA-1273.351. Moderna is also studying a shot that combines both the new and existing vaccine. (Reporting by Carl O&#8217;Donnell; Editing by Howard Goller)
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Moderna booster increases antibodies against COVID-19 variants, early data shows

GENEVA, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; The world cannot act soon enough to put idle manufacturing capacity to work making COVID-19 vaccines to help redress a massive imbalance in global supply, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday.
WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments was &#8220;both the moral and economic issue of our time&#8221;. The World Health Organization said in April that of 700 million vaccines globally administered, only 0.2% had been in low-income countries.
Okonjo-Iweala told a meeting of the 164-member WTO that those who had ordered more vaccines than they needed must share with others. Members should also address export restrictions and bureaucracy disrupting vital medical supply chains.
She urged governments to work with manufacturers to use production capacity available in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Indonesia and Senegal that could be turned around in a matter of months.
Production needed to rise from the 5 billion doses produced today to the 10.8 billion being forecast for this year to 15 billion, in particular if booster doses would be needed.
The debate on vaccine inequity at the WTO has centred a proposal by India and South Africa to waive intellectual property rights, at least for the duration of the pandemic.
Ten meetings of WTO members have failed to achieve a breakthrough and Wednesday&#8217;s online gathering was no different as 42 countries gave their views. However, members also heard that India and South Africa intend to refine their proposal before another discussion later in May.
Okonjo-Iweala said she was happy to hear of the revised text.
&#8220;I am firmly convinced that once we can sit down with an actual text in front of us, we shall find a pragmatic way forward,&#8221; she said, referring to a balance between developing country demands while protecting research and innovation.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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Put idle capacity to work now making vaccines, says WTO head

* Families at highest heat risk struggle to afford cooling
* Pandemic-related rise in poverty a big contributor
* Situation worst in virus-hit South Asia
By Laurie Goering
LONDON, May 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; Rising poverty, as the coronavirus pandemic slows economies, means an extra 50 million people this year may struggle without air conditioners, fans or other cooling devices needed to keep them healthy and productive, researchers warned Wednesday.
As governments see their budgets squeezed, some will lack cash to expand access to electricity, and even connected families may not be able to afford cooling, said researchers from Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), a U.N.-partnered organisation working on universal access to clean energy.
The widening cooling gap is expected to be worst in South Asia &#8211; where countries including India are now battling both more severe heatwaves and runaway COVID-19 infections &#8211; and, to a lesser extent, in sub-Saharan Africa, they said.
As climate change brings increasingly intense and risky heat extremes around the world, the decline in cooling access could have big impacts on health and productivity, said Brian Dean, head of energy efficiency and cooling for SEforALL.
&#8220;If somebody can&#8217;t sleep at night, they&#8217;re going to have mental and physical health issues, productivity issues the next day, learning issues if they’re in school,&#8221; he told an online briefing.
This is the first year the number of people at high risk from lack of cooling has gone up, he said, with the rural poor in particular likely to see a reversal from earlier gains.
The World Bank has estimated an additional 119 million-124 million people were pushed into poverty in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Altogether, more than a billion people around the world &#8211; largely in 54 most-vulnerable countries from Nigeria to Bangladesh &#8211; now fall into the high-risk category for lack of cooling, noted the latest SEforALL assessment.
The report, for the first time, also tried to identify states or districts where people are at high risk, even in countries with an overall lower risk.
In Mexico, for instance, both Veracruz and Guerrero states showed up as heavily threatened by heat and poor cooling access, as summer temperatures more often pass 35-40 degrees Celsius, said Alvin Jose, an energy specialist at SEforALL.
The report also identified particularly high-risk districts in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
The aim of the finer-scale data is to help governments &#8220;triage&#8221; where to best spend limited money, Jose said.
A growing number of governments around the world have published national cooling plans, including China, India, Rwanda and Caribbean nations such as Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago, he noted.
India&#8217;s is particularly comprehensive, but even it must do more to put its plan into action, he added.
As Indian families wait outside hospitals in a desperate attempt to find oxygen for relatives sick with COVID-19, many are out in the sun in 40C temperatures because hospitals do not have adequate shade, Jose said.
&#8220;There are a lot of issues in urban design (and) city planning&#8221; still to resolve, he said.

LOW-COST SOLUTIONS
Ben Hartley, who works on energy efficiency and cooling access at SEforALL, said some low-cost ideas could help cash-strapped people and governments reduce heat risks.
White-painted &#8220;cool roofs&#8221;, for instance, have kept families in countries such as Bangladesh more comfortable in their homes even as temperatures soar outside, and planting trees similarly can cool urban spaces, he said.
In Indonesia&#8217;s industrial buildings, cool roofs have in some cases held indoor temperatures for workers 10C lower than without them, he said.
&#8220;If you&#8217;re working in a highly dense environment with hundreds of other people, it can get very, very warm,&#8221; he said &#8211; which means such cooling efforts can be life-saving.
Jose noted that jobs in cooling have seen few layoffs even during pandemic lockdowns, in part as people working at home buy products and services to cope with hot conditions.
Sales of air conditioners and refrigerators also have remained strong as global temperatures rise and people prioritise staying cool, while effective refrigeration is essential for delivering coronavirus vaccines, he said.
Dean said he hoped low-cost cooling ideas could help ensure a coronavirus-linked rise in poverty would not also fuel heat-related risks, driving even more poverty.
&#8220;We&#8217;re pushing for solutions that will enable it not to be a downward spiral but an upward one,&#8221; he said. (Reporting by Laurie Goering @lauriegoering; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
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‘Cooling gap’ widens, despite rising heat, as pandemic hikes poverty

By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; U.N. chief Antonio Guterres believes vaccine makers should allow other companies to produce versions of their COVID-19 shots, a U.N. spokesman said on Wednesday, as the World Trade Organisation discussed waiving patent rights to boost supply to developing countries.
&#8220;The Secretary-General has often called for technology transfers and sharing of know-how and voluntary licensing or sharing of licensing,&#8221; spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
WTO members are assessing signs of progress after seven months of talks on a proposal by South Africa and India to waive patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines. WTO decisions are based on consensus, so all 164 members must agree.
Some U.N. officials say the waiver discussion is a distraction and an ideological fight that won&#8217;t solve the problem of how to scale up vaccine manufacturing.
The 60 sponsors of the proposal from emerging economies are pitted against richer developed countries &#8211; such as Switzerland, the United States and in the European Union &#8211; where many pharmaceutical companies are based.
Guterres has long called for COVID-19 vaccines to be made available to all countries and appealed for more money to fund the COVAX vaccine sharing facility, which aims to buy up to 1.8 billion doses in 2021 to ensure equitable global access.
COVAX is run by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. children&#8217;s agency UNICEF.
Last month UNICEF called for vaccine Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to be simplified through &#8220;voluntary and proactive licensing&#8221; but warned this alone wouldn&#8217;t increase production.
&#8220;IPR holders would need to provide technology partnerships to accompany IP licenses, proactively share know-how and sub-contract to manufacturers without undue geographic or volume restrictions,&#8221; UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said.
&#8220;This challenge requires not forced IP waivers but proactive partnership and cooperation,&#8221; she said.
She cited recent manufacturing partnerships as &#8220;encouraging examples&#8221; and urged others to follow suit, to increase the scale and geographic diversity of manufacturing capacity. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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U.N. chief pushes voluntary sharing of COVID-19 vaccine licenses

SOUTH AFRICA&#8217;S ANC SAYS HAS STARTED CORRESPONDING WITH MEMBERS AFFECTED BY &#8220;STEP ASIDE&#8221; RULE ON CORRUPTION, OTHER SERIOUS CRIMES
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SOUTH AFRICA’S ANC SAYS HAS STARTED CORRESPONDING WITH MEMBERS AFFECTED BY “STEP ASIDE” RULE ON CORRUPTION, OTHER SERIOUS CRIMES

By Will Dunham
May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; It is a scene that exudes sadness: a child perhaps 2-1/2 or 3 years old buried in a shallow grave under the sheltered overhang of a cave, head resting on a pillow and the upper part of the body carefully wrapped in a shroud.
Scientists said on Wednesday they have found the oldest-known human burial in Africa, the continent that gave rise to our species, dating to about 78,000 years ago at a cave site called Panga ya Saidi near the Kenyan coast. They nicknamed the youngster &#8216;Mtoto,&#8217; meaning &#8216;child&#8217; in Swahili.
The discovery, the researchers said, sheds light on the development of early complex social behaviors in Homo sapiens.
&#8220;This is at the root of the symbolic mind that characterizes Homo sapiens,&#8221; said anthropologist María Martinón-Torres, director of the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Spain and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.
&#8220;The child was buried in a residential site, close to where this community lived, evincing how intimately life and death are related. Only humans treat the dead with the same respect, consideration and even tenderness they treat the living. Even when we die, we continue to be someone for our group,&#8221; Martinón-Torres added.
Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, later spreading worldwide.
The highly decomposed bones, found in a circular pit, were encased in plaster and eventually taken to CENIEH for study.
The researchers determined that the child, whose gender remains unclear, was placed in the grave in a flexed position, the body lying on its right side, with knees drawn toward the chest.
The cranium and three neck bones collapsed into a void left by the decay of a pillow made of perishable material. The position of a shoulder bone and two ribs indicated the upper body was wrapped in a perishable material. The body was fresh at the time of burial, rapidly covered with earth scooped from the cave&#8217;s floor.
&#8220;This would likely have been a group act, perhaps by members of the child&#8217;s family. All of these behaviors are, of course, very similar to those observed in our own species today, so we can relate to this act even though the burial dates to 78,000 years ago,&#8221; said study co-author Nicole Boivin, an archaeologist and director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.
The researchers pondered the special significance of a child&#8217;s burial.
&#8220;It is certainly very interesting and may be evincing a particular grief or sorrow to such an early loss of someone they loved,&#8221; Martinón-Torres said.
It is unclear when funerary behavior began, but ancient Homo sapiens and our Neanderthal cousins both practiced it. Martinón-Torres called it &#8220;a type of behavior that allow us to maintain links with those who died and offer a farewell.&#8221;
The oldest apparent Neanderthal burial site, in Israel, dates to about 120,000 years ago, similar in age to the oldest-known Homo sapiens burials, also in Israel, Boivin said.
The researchers said it is unclear whether funerary behavior began outside Africa and was later adopted in Africa or began in Africa but archeological evidence is lacking.
Mtoto was part of a hunter-gatherer culture, with remains of various antelope species and other prey found at the site, an upland setting in a tropical forest. Also found were stone tools for scraping and boring holes, and stone points that could be used as part of a spear.
&#8220;So, we have a picture of what life was like at the time of Mtoto&#8217;s life and death,&#8221; Boivin said.
(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O&#8217;Brien)
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Child’s burial 78,000 years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

* Chad seen as test case for new debt relief initiative
* President&#8217;s death casts doubt over speed of debt overhaul
* Failure to secure deal this year could deter other countries
By Joe Bavier and Karin Strohecker
JOHANNESBURG, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Political turmoil in Chad has cast doubt over the Central African oil producer&#8217;s efforts to agree relief on its nearly $3 billion debt burden, widely seen as a test case for a global plan to help the world&#8217;s most indebted countries.
Six months ago, the Group of 20 (G20) major economies launched a common framework designed to help governments to overhaul the debt they owe to official and commercial creditors after the COVID-19 crisis sent the burdens of many developing countries spiralling.
The plan aims to offer a long-term fix rather than the temporary relief of an earlier 2020 debt service suspension initiative (DSSI).
However, ratings agencies warned that doing so could lead to downgrades and only three countries &#8211; Zambia, Ethiopia and Chad &#8211; have requested relief under the framework.
Without a case proving the framework can secure smooth debt restructuring, others are likely to shy away, exacerbating pressures on the world&#8217;s most vulnerable economies.
&#8220;If countries see the costs but don&#8217;t see the benefits, why would they go for it?&#8221; said Daouda Sembene at the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD).
&#8220;That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s critical to have that first win. And time is of the essence,&#8221; said Sembene, who previously represented West and Central Africa on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive board.
Debt restructuring talks in Zambia &#8211; Africa&#8217;s first pandemic-era sovereign default &#8211; have been bogged down by tensions between Chinese lenders and Eurobond holders.
Ethiopia&#8217;s situation is unlikely to warrant a full-blown restructuring, observers said.
Chad, whose commercial external debt is concentrated in one unlisted loan seemed an obvious candidate.
&#8220;Chad is the only realistic chance there is to prove that the common framework can actually work,&#8221; said one emerging markets investor.

TURMOIL AND DOUBT
But progress has been far from swift and could slow down further following the death in April of President Idriss Deby, who ruled the West African oil producer for three decades.
Chad reached a provisional agreement on an IMF programme &#8211; considered a necessary step for debt restructuring &#8211; in January but it has yet to be approved by the IMF board.
Investors told Reuters that many were surprised a memorandum of understanding between the government and official creditors had not yet been signed.
G20 and Paris Club creditors &#8211; including China, France, India and Saudi Arabia &#8211; backed N&#8217;Djamena&#8217;s common framework request after they met for the first time on April 15.
Five days later Deby was killed in a battle with rebels, plunging Chad into political turmoil and throwing the future of the debt talks in doubt.
&#8220;To benefit from the common framework, they must first sign onto a programme with the IMF,&#8221; a senior French official told Reuters. &#8220;With the current political situation, this question is a bit delayed.&#8221;
Chad&#8217;s finance ministry did not respond to questions about the future of the debt restructuring.
Bypassing the constitution, a military council took power after Deby&#8217;s death, and appointed his son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby, as head of state.
Recent moves to restore some civilian rule have done little to calm violent protests. The opposition rejected the appointment of a transitional government on Sunday, denouncing it as a continuation of an old order they hoped to erase and raising the prospect of more unrest.
Rebels in the north remain a threat.
&#8220;The risk has obviously increased – both in risk from rebels and the risk from popular unrest,&#8221; said one creditor. &#8220;But there is hope that the debt restructuring can get back on track.&#8221;
LOOMING WRITEDOWNS
A successful restructuring will need not only agreement from official creditors but will also mean private creditors will have to accept losses.
Around 40% of Chad&#8217;s $2.8 billion external debt at the end of 2019 was commercial, comprised mainly of an oil-backed loan from Swiss commodities trader Glencore.
Trading at just over half its face value before Deby&#8217;s death, the loan was lately quoted at 40 cents on the dollar, indicating added pressure and expectations of a writedown.
Under the G20 framework, official creditors are meant to agree among themselves on the depth of any concessions on their debt. The terms are then translated into a proposal for private creditors.
Several people familiar with the situation said Glencore, which already restructured the loan twice, would resist terms considered too harsh and is likely to expect those past concessions to weigh favourably into any decision on haircuts.
Glencore declined to comment.
&#8220;The way they see it they can help a bit, but ultimately they are not subject to public and multilateral pressure, and since they have security on the loan they will inevitably get paid,&#8221; the emerging markets investor said.
The G20, reluctant to renew its debt service suspension programme beyond 2021, will want a success story for the common framework by year-end.
That will likely work in Chad&#8217;s favour.
&#8220;If it was only Chad involved, I&#8217;d say it could take a long time to resolve this,&#8221; said the CGD&#8217;s Sembene. &#8220;But the Chadians aren&#8217;t going to be alone in this. They&#8217;ll have the G20 also wanting to get a deal done.&#8221; (Reporting by Joe Bavier in Johannesburg and Karin Strohecker in London, additional reporting by Julia Payne in London, Ange Aboa in Abidjan and Mahamat Ramadane in N&#8217;Djamena; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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ANALYSIS-Chad unrest casts pall over debt deal and global relief push

NAIROBI, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Kenya will waive work and business permits for investors from its neighbour Tanzania, President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Wednesday, as his counterpart made similar overtures in a thawing of often frosty relations between the two countries.
Kenya, east Africa&#8217;s biggest economy and one of its most liberal, and Tanzania, which still imposes fairly tight capital controls and ranked No. 2, have long tussled for influence.
“We would like to see many investors from Tanzania coming to do business in Kenya. And I want to say this, Tanzanian investors are free to come and do business in Kenya without being required to have business visas or work permits,&#8221; Kenyatta said during a Kenya-Tanzania business meeting in Nairobi.
&#8220;The only thing you will be required to do is to follow the laid down regulations and the laws,&#8221; he told the meeting, attended by Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Relations between the two neighbours have been at times testy and got worse under Tanzania&#8217;s late President John Magufuli, with officials at times trading barbs over trade restrictions, and last year, over COVID-19 compliance.
Hassan, was sworn in in March after Magufuli died, said her government had embarked on tax and other business reforms to make it easier for Kenyan investors to operate in Tanzania.
Hassan&#8217;s office said late on Tuesday the two governments had also pledged to speed up completion of electricity transmission and road construction projects Kenya and Tanzania are jointly carrying out.
The two governments also agreed to speed up groundwork for the construction of a natural gas pipeline linking Tanzania&#8217;s commercial capital Dar es Salaam and Kenya&#8217;s port city of Mombasa.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Alison Williams)
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Kenya and Tanzania ease cross-border business rules as relations thaw

JOHANNESBURG, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s governing African National Congress (ANC) has served its Secretary General, Ace Magashule, with a suspension letter, Eyewitness News reported on Wednesday.
Magashule faces corruption charges. The party said on Tuesday that one of its committees had reaffirmed that all members charged with corruption or other serious crimes must vacate their posts within 30 days or face suspension.
ANC spokesman Pule Mabe had no immmediate comment when contacted by Reuters.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf; editing by John Stonestreet)
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South Africa’s ANC suspends Secretary General Magashule – Eyewitness News

By Sonia Elks
LONDON, May 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; Midwives are routinely &#8220;overlooked and ignored&#8221; despite saving millions of lives a year, the United Nations said on Wednesday, urging the world to hire more women and safeguard new life.
In a joint report compiled with medics, the U.N. said urgent investment was needed to plug a global shortfall of some 900,000 midwives, with the added benefit of boosting jobs for women.
Two in every three deaths in childbirth could be prevented by 2035 if the world starts recruiting and training now, the U.N. said in its &#8220;State of World&#8217;s Midwifery 2021&#8221; report.
&#8220;Midwives are continually overlooked and ignored,&#8221; said Franka Cadee, president of the International Confederation of Midwives, which co-authored Wednesday&#8217;s report with the World Health Organization and the United Nations agency UNFPA.
&#8220;It&#8217;s time for governments to acknowledge the evidence surrounding the life-promoting, life-saving impact of midwife-led care,&#8221; Cadee said in a statement.
Almost one in five women gives birth without a skilled health provider, exposing both mothers and babies to risk, said the report, which analysed care in 194 countries.
Latest estimates put stillbirths at about 2 million a year, along with an estimated 2.4 million new-born deaths and some 295,000 maternal deaths, either during or soon after pregnancy.
The report said about 1.1 million more sexual, reproductive, maternal, new-born and adolescent health workers were needed &#8211; most of them midwives in Africa &#8211; and they should have a greater say over healthcare in their communities.
Progress on boosting the number of midwives is slow, it found, with a growing gap between rich and poor nations set to widen existing health inequalities still further.
The lack of midwives is driven by gender inequality, with countries overlooking sexual and reproductive health and under-estimating the value of a female-dominated workforce.
Fixing the gaps in provision could save an estimated 4.3 million mothers and babies a year, cutting two in three needless deaths by 2035, said analysis conducted for the report published in &#8220;The Lancet&#8221; medical journal last December. The report urged governments to put money into boosting midwife numbers, improving training and offering midwives a greater role in health policy and maternal healthcare.
&#8220;Midwives play a vital role in reducing the risks of childbirth for women all over the world,&#8221; said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who runs the WHO.
Increasing their numbers will &#8220;deliver a triple dividend in contributing to better health, gender equality and inclusive economic growth,&#8221; he added in a statement. (Reporting by Sonia Elks @soniaelks; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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Call for more midwives as millions die in childbirth

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Wednesday underscored the urgency of addressing a proposal to waive some intellectual property rights under global trade rules given the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tai said all of her actions with regard to the propsed waiver &#8211; which has been opposed by the United States and a handful of other countries with big pharmaceutical industries &#8211; were made through the lens of saving lives.
&#8220;As with everything in this pandemic, time is of the essence,&#8221; Tai told an online event hosted by the Financial Times when asked about the timing of a decision on the waiver proposed by India and South Africa. (Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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U.S. trade chief Tai says ‘time of the essence’ in addresssing vaccine waiver at WTO

By Mark Gleeson
JOHANNESBURG, May 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Former Belgian international Hugo Broos has been named new coach of South Africa, signing a five-year contract to the 2026 World Cup, it was announced on Wednesday.
The 69-year-old, who was part of the Belgium team that reached the World Cup semi-finals in 1986, coached Cameroon to the African Cup of Nations title in 2017. But he stayed less than two years in the job.
He has also managed Club Brugge and Anderlecht to Belgian league titles, and was named the country&#8217;s Coach of the Year on four separate occasions.
He has also coached in Algeria, Greece, Qatar and Turkey, and last worked as technical director of Belgian club KV Oostende.
Broos replaces Molefi Ntseki who was fired last month after South Africa failed to reach the next Cup of Nations in Cameroon in January.
Broos arrives in the post weeks before the kick off of the group phase of the African World Cup qualifiers. South Africa compete in Group G with Ethiopia, Ghana and neighbours Zimbabwe. (Reporting by Nick Said Editing by Christian Radnedge)
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