| Wednesday, Feb 24, 2021 | | | Good morning. We’re covering a global vaccine drive that kicked off with a shipment to Ghana, how President Bashar al-Assad is mired in Syria’s economic crisis and Japanese animators living in poverty. | |  By Jillian Rayfield | | | A worker at the airport in Accra, Ghana. The country has received a shipment of 600,000 vaccine doses. Francis Kokoroko/Reuters | | | The West African nation of Ghana received the first major shipment of Covid-19 vaccines under a global sharing program aimed at making vaccine access more equal. Ghana and other West African countries will begin vaccinations in the coming days, officials said. | | | The program, called Covax, has a goal of delivering two billion free doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries this year, which officials said would make it the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. | | | Context: Many public health officials have criticized the unequal distribution of vaccines as wealthy nations have bought up tens of millions of doses for their populations. At least 44.5 million Americans, for instance, have already received a shot. The Ghana shipment of 600,000 doses covers just 1 percent of the population. | | | President Emmanuel Macron of France has called for Europe and the U.S. to send up to 5 percent of their vaccine supplies to developing nations. The doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine sent to Ghana were produced by the Serum Institute of India. | | ■ Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine provides strong protection against severe disease and death from Covid-19, and may reduce the spread of the virus by those who have been vaccinated, according to new analyses by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which could authorize the vaccine in the U.S. as early as Saturday. ■ Deaths in Japan fell for the first time in more than a decade, a jarring contrast to the huge tolls suffered by many countries. Data suggests that measures taken to control the virus may have also curbed the spread of other illnesses. | | ■ Israel has pledged to give spare coronavirus vaccines to some foreign allies, reigniting a debate about its responsibilities to Palestinians living under its occupation. | | | Golden Bauhinia Square, a symbol of Hong Kong’s return from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times | | | New curriculum guidelines unveiled by Hong Kong’s government have an ambitious aim: to use history to instill in the city’s youngest residents a deep affinity for and loyalty to mainland China. | | | The new lesson plans are part of a vast campaign to teach future generations a curated lesson about Hong Kong’s past. The effort by the government also includes a $100 million project to write a 66-volume chronicle of the city. | | | Critics say the new curriculum guidelines are a misleading and dystopian campaign to shape young minds and turn history into pro-China propaganda. | | | Context: When antigovernment protests swept Hong Kong in 2019, pro-Beijing officials blamed the education system for promoting liberal values. Since then, Beijing has imposed a strict set of restrictions on the city in its efforts to quash dissent. | | | Buying food in Damascus with a photo of Syria’s president in the background. With the rising cost of food, 60 percent of Syrians are at risk of going hungry. Youssef Badawi/EPA, via Shutterstock | | | Syria’s economic meltdown has hobbled the reconstruction of destroyed cities, impoverished the population and left many struggling to get enough food. And President Bashar al-Assad has offered few solutions. | | | In a private meeting with Syrian journalists last month, Mr. al-Assad blamed a range of forces for Syria’s woes, including world capitalism and “brainwashing” by social media. But he offered no concrete steps to stem the crisis. | | | As the 10-year anniversary of Syria’s civil war looms, the economy is worse than at any time since the war began. The meeting offered a rare, unvarnished look at a leader who seemed out of touch. | | | Related: A German court convicted a former officer in the Syrian secret police of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, in a case hailed as a landmark by rights groups. | | | Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times | | | The global market for Japanese anime reached an estimated $24 billion by 2019, and the pandemic has only increased demand. But many of the workers who help create the shows make as little as $200 a month, and under grueling working conditions. Above, Tokyo’s Akihabara district, a center of anime culture. | | | Studios can pay low wages because there are so many young people passionate about anime who want to work in the business. “There are a lot of artists out there who are amazing,” said a translator who works in the industry, so the studios “have a lot of cannon fodder.” | | | Tiger Woods: The golfer was “awake, responsive and recovering” after surgery for injuries to his right leg sustained in a single-car crash. He was said to have been driving at a “greater speed than normal” when the crash occurred. | | | Australia: A woman filed a formal police report against a former government employee who she said raped her in 2019. Since she went public, three other women have come forward about the same man. | | | Israel: A memoir by the daughter of Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated authors, who died in 2018, has shocked the country with allegations of physical and emotional abuse. Other family members have defended him. | | | From Opinion: Our video team was able to produce a short film from inside a Covid-19 ward in Arizona, thanks to nurses who wore body cameras and who spoke candidly about the trauma and burnout of battling the pandemic. | | | Snapshot: Above, Pete Lee, a filmmaker, directs a shoot in Texas over Zoom while in quarantine in Taipei, Taiwan. He is one of many air travelers around the world who have found themselves enduring mundane hotel quarantines because of government restrictions. | | | What we’re reading: The Polk Awards, the prestigious journalism honors, announced its winners, which were dominated by work about the pandemic. You can read some of the winning stories here. | | | Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich. | | | Cook: This easy, crispy fried rice gets a lot of its brawny richness from just a small amount of bacon, while the cabbage lends sweetness. | | | Read: “Klara and the Sun,” Kazuo Ishiguro’s eighth novel, is narrated by Klara, a humanoid machine who has come to act as a companion for 14-year-old Josie. | | | By many measures, Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaeton performer, is the world’s biggest pop star. And he’s part of a larger shift: the diversification of pop stardom. A realm that’s historically been dominated by English-speaking acts — like the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey — no longer is. | | | Mara Corsino for The New York Times | | | “A growing number of the biggest pop stars in the world are from outside the traditional capitals of the continental U.S. and U.K.,” Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg writes. According to Bloomberg’s most recent Pop Star Power rankings — based on album sales, digital streams, YouTube views and more — five of the 25 biggest current pop stars are from Puerto Rico. Another seven are from Colombia, India or South Korea. YouTube is another place where English-speaking acts are losing their dominance, as Tim Ingham writes in Rolling Stone. | | | The trend also reflects the growth of the world’s consumer markets, like India’s. When we checked the YouTube ranking yesterday, six of the top 10 artists on YouTube’s global charts were from India; the others were from Puerto Rico, Colombia or South Korea. | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. — Jillian | | Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. Sanam Yar wrote the Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
