Former British PM Gordon Brown tells Trump :::: "you are wrong to leave the World Health Organization. You should think again"

This too has a big China angle !! 

While the current WHO was created in 1948 under the umbrella of the United Nations, there has been an international global health organisation in the more than 170 years since 1851, the first being set up to deal with cholera as it initially spread undetected and then unaddressed across the world.

President Donald Trump wants to leave WHO, arguing that the US shoulders too much of the burden of WHO expenditure, while the WHO listens to China, which, he says, pays only a small portion towards the organisation.  

Gordon Brown 

As someone who has advised the World Health Organization on finance, I know that funding is allocated on a tried-and-tested formula primarily based on the size of a country’s economy, which is similar to that used to pay for UN peacekeeping and contributions to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 

The US represents more than a quarter of the world economy – currently 27% –, but, in fact, the USA’s assessed contribution to WHO is below that figure, limited to 22% of all global assessed contributions. 

And because assessed contributions represent only one quarter of the spending of the World Health Organization, most of its income comes from voluntary contributions made by member states and private charities such as the Gates Foundation. 

The US administration makes $368m in voluntary contributions. So, taking all assessed and voluntary contributions together, the US provides about 18% of WHO’s overall funding, hardly an excessive amount when compared with its 27% share of the world economy.

However, it will be erroneous to suggest that row over WHO getting into China's grip is a new controversy.

In 2020 during the peak of the pandemic, the 'Foreign Policy' wrote:

"After initial denials and cover-ups, China successfully contained the COVID-19 outbreak—but not before it had exported many cases to the rest of the world. 

Today, despite the falsehoods it initially passed on, which played a critical role in delaying global response, it’s trying to leverage its reputed success story into a stronger position on international health bodies."

How WHO Became China’s Coronavirus Accomplice

Beijing is pushing to become a public health superpower—and quickly found a willing international partner, said the piece penned by Hinnerk Feldwisch-Drentrup.  

Even Taiwan had joined the issue and had said : 

"As head of WHO, Dr. Tedros should assume the duty to include all parties, since he emphasized “we are only as strong as we are united”.  

The government of Taiwan once again calls on the Director-General to put aside all political discrimination, maintain neutrality and professionalism, invite Taiwan to fully participate in all WHO meetings and mechanisms regarding the fight against COVID-19, and ....

restore Taiwan’s observer status in the World Health Assembly, for the health and well-being of the people of Taiwan and all the world."  

Xi and China friendly Tedros !!

Under Donald Trump, is American democracy at an advanced state of cognitive decline ? 

By way of background music that actually functioned, there seemed to be a competition between the incoming and outgoing presidents to determine who could issue the most disgraceful pardons, with Trump gifting exoneration to 1,500 of the January 6 rioters like some sort of insurrection Wonka. 

Meanwhile, Joe Biden took the moment of the inauguration ceremony itself to sneak out pre-emptive pardons for most of his family, an act of such craven shamefulness that the kindest response was to think: you’d better be completely, dribblingly gaga by now because that is seriously the only excuse, writes Marina Hyde for 'The Guardian'.  

Full American democracy is barely 60 years old, yet seems to be in an advanced state of cognitive decline. 

At his inauguration yesterday, Donald Trump seated the tech bosses, his nerd broligarchy, in front of his supposed cabinet. Needless to say, it was all a hopelessly overstimulating day for Elon Musk, whose double salute on stage later was a pure Dr Strangelove spasm, generously described by the Anti-Defamation league as “an awkward gesture”, she writes. 

Listen, if your friends won’t tell you, then who will?

Now at the global stage, Donald Trump made an impact on the Middle East even before he sat down in the Oval Office to start his second term as president.

He cut through the delaying tactics that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in alliance with his ultra-nationalist coalition partners, had used to avoid accepting the ceasefire deal that Trump's predecessor Joe Biden put on the negotiating table last May.

American pressure on Hamas and other Palestinian groups is a given. Under Biden, pressure on Israel was the lever that was never pulled. Trump starts his second term claiming credit, with reasonable justification, for getting the ceasefire deal in Gaza over the line. He can bask in some glory, says BBC.

ends