Monthly Archives: June 2021

‘Lab Leak’ Probe Welcomed But Many Scientists Still Believe It’s A Natural Virus : Goats and Soda – NPR

Posted: June 2, 2021 at 5:55 am

President Biden directed the intelligence agencies to look for evidence of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured). Many scientists still think its more likely the virus came form the wild. Hector Retamal /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

President Biden directed the intelligence agencies to look for evidence of an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured). Many scientists still think its more likely the virus came form the wild.

This week, President Biden directed his intelligence agencies to take another look at whether the coronavirus resulted from a lab accident in China. For many, the announcement felt like a big change, putting what had been a conspiracy theory about the virus's origins back on the table.

But not much has changed for Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University who has analyzed the genome of the coronavirus. "Nothing's really tipped me or made me flip-flop or anything about it," he says. "I'm more convinced than ever that this is a natural virus."

Garry and many other scientists, including the President's chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, continue to believe the preponderance of evidence points toward a natural source. That's been the case for every previous disease known to infect humans.

Nevertheless, this week's announcement has created room for what some researchers hope can be a more balanced discussion of the possibility of a laboratory accident. "I think it opens the door for other scientists to weigh in without being called conspiracy theorists," says Alina Chan, a geneticist at MIT's Broad Institute who has long argued for the laboratory theory to be more thoroughly considered.

A natural origin would be more in line with what's come in the past. "The historical basis for pandemics evolving naturally from an animal reservoir is extremely strong," Fauci told senators at a hearing earlier this week. Ebola, HIV and the major influenza viruses all came from nature, he said.

In the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Garry sees parallels to another natural outbreak. Most of the first reported cases of this virus were in wet markets in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Wet markets were also central to the outbreak of the original SARS virus, which began spreading in the early 2000s.

Back then, the virus was traced quickly. "People got lucky," he says. "They were able to identify the restaurants the first cases ate at, and then go back to the wildlife farms where they'd bought the civets as it turns out." Those civets had been infected by bats.

The fact that nobody's pinpointed the source for the new coronavirus isn't particularly unusual, adds Garry. It can take years to figure out a source; the natural source of the Ebola virus remains a mystery, for example. But he thinks it's out there: "It's just a matter of time before we find the progenitor in a bat or some other species."

Ian Lipkin, at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, is another researcher who's taken a hard look at the genetics of this virus. He says that there's no evidence for human manipulation. In fact, the way the virus infects people is so quirky, he thinks it couldn't have been made in a lab.

"We would not have known how to design this virus, even if we had wanted to do so," he says. "When I say 'we,' I really do mean the scientific community, whether we mean scientists in Europe or the U.S. or China, for that matter."

But he adds, it is still possible that a scientist in China could have found the coronavirus in nature and that a lab accident ensued. "It's possible that the virus was brought into the laboratory, that it was grown inside a cell line, that somebody became infected and left the laboratory inadvertently and carried the virus with them."

The laboratory in question, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has collected viruses from bats in the field and has published some of the genetic sequences. So far, none have matched SARS-CoV-2.

Nevertheless, "both scenarios are still on the table," says geneticist Chan. Chan says she herself hasn't reached any conclusions about whether a lab is responsible: "There's nothing that's a smoking gun," she says.

The intelligence community is also unsure. In a brief statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the nation's intelligence agencies believed both a lab accident and a natural outbreak were possibilities.

Most agencies did not reach a conclusion, while two supported the natural cause theory and one the lab leak with "low/medium confidence." That could mean that the intel is based on just a few sources, or on sources that are unreliable, says Eric Brewer, a former National Security Council staffer now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The bottom line is that there's a lot of uncertainty," he says.

Former President Trump frequently mentioned the lab leak theory without providing evidence, and Chan says that gave the discussion a political taint: "I was compared to insurrectionists and Qanon" for raising the possibility, she says.

She and other scientists had hoped a World Health Organization mission to China earlier this year might conduct a more serious examination of the theory. But it fell far short of her expectations because China obstructed investigators. "They always had to be chaperoned by people from the government, they were always being monitored," she says.

Chan was one of more than a dozen scientists who signed on to a letter in the journal Science calling for a more open look at the possibility the virus came from a lab. She welcomes the intelligence review that Biden ordered and believes it may be the only way, at this stage, to gather evidence on the origins of the coronavirus. "Will China suddenly become one of the most transparent countries on earth?" she says. "I cannot imagine how that will happen."

In the end, all three scientists agree that the available evidence is far from conclusive, and all welcome further investigation. The question of where the virus came from needs to be answered, says Chan. "Our lives depend on finding out how this virus got started," she says, "so we can prevent another one from getting started five to 10 years from now."

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Immunity to the Coronavirus May Persist for Years, Scientists Find – The New York Times

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Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The findings may help put to rest lingering fears that protection against the virus will be short-lived.

Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response.

Both reports looked at people who had been exposed to the coronavirus about a year earlier. Cells that retain a memory of the virus persist in the bone marrow and may churn out antibodies whenever needed, according to one of the studies, published on Monday in the journal Nature.

The other study, posted online at BioRxiv, a site for biology research, found that these so-called memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen for at least 12 months after the initial infection.

The papers are consistent with the growing body of literature that suggests that immunity elicited by infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 appears to be long-lived, said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research.

The studies may soothe fears that immunity to the virus is transient, as is the case with coronaviruses that cause common colds. But those viruses change significantly every few years, Dr. Hensley said. The reason we get infected with common coronaviruses repetitively throughout life might have much more to do with variation of these viruses rather than immunity, he said.

In fact, memory B cells produced in response to infection with SARS-CoV-2 and enhanced with vaccination are so potent that they thwart even variants of the virus, negating the need for boosters, according to Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York who led the study on memory maturation.

People who were infected and get vaccinated really have a terrific response, a terrific set of antibodies, because they continue to evolve their antibodies, Dr. Nussenzweig said. I expect that they will last for a long time.

The result may not apply to protection derived from vaccines alone, because immune memory is likely to be organized differently after immunization, compared with that following natural infection.

That means people who have not had Covid-19 and have been immunized may eventually need a booster shot, Dr. Nussenzweig said. Thats the kind of thing that we will know very, very soon, he said.

Upon first encountering a virus, B cells rapidly proliferate and produce antibodies in large amounts. Once the acute infection is resolved, a small number of the cells take up residence in the bone marrow, steadily pumping out modest levels of antibodies.

To look at memory B cells specific to the new coronavirus, researchers led by Ali Ellebedy of Washington University in St. Louis analyzed blood from 77 people at three-month intervals, starting about a month after their infection with the coronavirus. Only six of the 77 had been hospitalized for Covid-19; the rest had mild symptoms.

Antibody levels in these individuals dropped rapidly four months after infection and continued to decline slowly for months afterward results that are in line with those from other studies.

Some scientists have interpreted this decrease as a sign of waning immunity, but it is exactly whats expected, other experts said. If blood contained high quantities of antibodies to every pathogen the body had ever encountered, it would quickly transform into a thick sludge.

Instead, blood levels of antibodies fall sharply following acute infection, while memory B cells remain quiescent in the bone marrow, ready to take action when needed.

Dr. Ellebedys team obtained bone marrow samples from 19 people roughly seven months after they had been infected. Fifteen had detectable memory B cells, but four did not, suggesting that some people might carry very few of the cells or none at all.

It tells me that even if you got infected, it doesnt mean that you have a super immune response, Dr. Ellebedy said. The findings reinforce the idea that people who have recovered from Covid-19 should be vaccinated, he said.

Five of the participants in Dr. Ellebedys study donated bone marrow samples seven or eight months after they were initially infected and again four months later. He and his colleagues found that the number of memory B cells remained stable over that time.

The results are particularly noteworthy because it is difficult to get bone marrow samples, said Jennifer Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the work.

A landmark study in 2007 showed that antibodies in theory could survive decades, perhaps even well beyond the average life span, hinting at the long-term presence of memory B cells. But the new study offered a rare proof of their existence, Dr. Gommerman said.

Dr. Nussenzweigs team looked at how memory B cells mature over time. The researchers analyzed blood from 63 people who had recovered from Covid-19 about a year earlier. The vast majority of the participants had mild symptoms, and 26 had also received at least one dose of either the Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

So-called neutralizing antibodies, needed to prevent reinfection with the virus, remained unchanged between six and 12 months, while related but less important antibodies slowly disappeared, the team found.

As memory B cells continued to evolve, the antibodies they produced developed the ability to neutralize an even broader group of variants. This ongoing maturation may result from a small piece of the virus that is sequestered by the immune system for target practice, so to speak.

A year after infection, neutralizing activity in the participants who had not been vaccinated was lower against all forms of the virus, with the greatest loss seen against the variant first identified in South Africa.

Vaccination significantly amplified antibody levels, confirming results from other studies; the shots also ramped up the bodys neutralizing ability by about 50-fold.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said on Sunday that he would not get a coronavirus vaccine because he had been infected in March of last year and was therefore immune.

But there is no guarantee that such immunity will be powerful enough to protect him for years, particularly given the emergence of variants of the coronavirus that can partially sidestep the bodys defenses.

The results of Dr. Nussenzweigs study suggest that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who have later been vaccinated will continue to have extremely high levels of protection against emerging variants, even without receiving a vaccine booster down the line.

It kind of looks exactly like what we would hope a good memory B cell response would look like, said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the new research.

The experts all agreed that immunity is likely to play out very differently in people who have never had Covid-19. Fighting a live virus is different from responding to a single viral protein introduced by a vaccine. And in those who had Covid-19, the initial immune response had time to mature over six to 12 months before being challenged by the vaccine.

Those kinetics are different than someone who got immunized and then gets immunized again three weeks later, Dr. Pepper said. Thats not to say that they might not have as broad a response, but it could be very different.

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Biden Orders Intelligence Inquiry Into Origins of the Coronavirus – The New York Times

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The intelligence on the three workers came from outside the United States intelligence agencies own collection, which means its veracity is more difficult to authenticate. The source of the information was unclear, but several American officials said they believed the report that the three researchers got sick.

American intelligence officials do not know whether the lab workers contracted Covid-19 or some other disease, like a bad flu. If they did have the coronavirus, the intelligence may suggest that they could have become sick from the lab, but it also could simply mean that the virus was circulating in Wuhan earlier than the Chinese government has acknowledged.

Also toward the end of Mr. Trumps term, State Department officials began examining the origins of the virus and concluded that it was highly unlikely to have appeared naturally and thus was likely the product of laboratory work.

CNN first reported the effort and suggested that the groups efforts had been shut down by the Biden administration, prompting scathing Republican criticism. A State Department spokesman, Ned Price, denied that, saying that the teams findings were briefed to senior officials in the departments arms control bureau in February and March.

With the report delivered, the work was ended, Mr. Price said.

Mr. Trump issued a statement on Tuesday boasting of his early insistence that the Wuhan lab was the source of the virus. To me, it was obvious from the beginning, he said. But I was badly criticized, as usual.

Despite the absence of new evidence, a number of scientists have lately begun speaking out about the need to remain open to the possibility that the virus had accidentally emerged from a lab, perhaps after it was collected in nature, a lab origin distinct from a creation by scientists.

It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators on Wednesday.

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Russian military forming 20 new units to counter NATO …

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The Russian military on Tuesday said thatit will form 20 new units to counter a growing threatfrom NATO, The Associated Press reported.

An increased number of U.S. strategic bomber flights, the deployment of NATO warships and military drills by NATO allieswere among the reasonsRussian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave for the country's decision to beef up its military forces.

We will form another 20 units and formations in the Western Military District until the years end, Shoiguannouncedduringa Tuesday meeting with other top military officials.

Thousands of NATO troops with several warships and dozens of aircraft are currently taking part in exercises that stretch through the European region, according to the AP, whichShoigu saiddestroy the international security system and force us to take the relevant countermeasures.

NATO saidthat these exercises aren't a part of war games with Russia butare to preparea response toany attack on any one of its members.

However, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted that Russia itself has invested in new military weapons and iswilling to usethemagainst neighboring countries like Georgia and Ukraine.

This is one of the main reasons why NATO over the last years has increased the readiness of [its] armed forces, Stoltenberg said, according tothe AP.

Russiahas backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern region, a conflict that has led to the deaths of 14,000 people, after annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Russia recently recalled troops that were stationed in the western part of the peninsula in April.

Shoigu said that the country will add those new units to theirits existing Western Military District by the end of 2021, according to the AP. He also noted thatthatmilitary units have commissioned 2,000 pieces of weaponry in 2021.

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Russia to form 20 new military units in west to counter NATO

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MOSCOW (AP) The Russian military will form 20 new units in the country's west this year to counter what it claims is a growing threat from NATO.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the announcement Monday at a meeting with top military officials. He pointed to a growing number of flights by U.S. strategic bombers near Russia's borders, deployments of NATO warships and increasingly frequent and massive drills by alliance forces.

He charged that such actions destroy the international security system and force us to take the relevant countermeasures."

We will form another 20 units and formations in the Western Military District until the year's end, Shoigu said

He added the military units in Western Russia have commissioned about 2,000 new pieces of weaponry this year.

Last month, a massive troop buildup in Russias south and southwest near the Ukrainian border raised concerns in Ukraine and the West, which urged Moscow to withdraw its forces.

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 following the ouster of the country's Moscow-friendly president and then threw its weight behind separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in seven years of fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has recalled some troops from its western part after sweeping maneuvers in April, but Shoigu ordered them to leave their weapons behind for Russia's Zapad (West) 2021 military exercises in September.

He noted Monday that preparations for the exercises, which will be conducted jointly with Belarus, are now in their final stage and emphasized that the maneuvers have an exclusively defensive character.

Last week, Russia offered political support to its ally Belarus, which diverted a Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Lithuania on a ruse to arrest a dissident journalist. The European Union denounced the flight's diversion as piracy and responded by barring the Belarusian flag carrier from its airspace and advising European airlines to skirt Belarus' airspace.

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NATO Defence Ministers address Afghanistan and the NATO 2030 agenda – NATO HQ

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NATO defence ministers met virtually on Tuesday (1 June 2021) to discuss preparations for the upcoming NATO Summit and the way forward in Afghanistan. To prepare for the Summit, defence ministers addressed the NATO 2030 agenda to strengthen the Alliance. They focused on plans to reinforce Allied unity, including with a strengthened commitment to collective defence. This means rapid and full implementation of our military adaptation and continued improvements to our readiness, our capabilities and our defence investments, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

On Afghanistan, defence ministers agreed that continued support for the Afghan forces, government and people is the best way that NATO can contribute to the peace efforts. The Secretary General stressed that NATO will continue to provide advice and capacity-building support to the Afghan security institutions and funding for the Afghan security forces. We are also lookingat how we can provide military education and training outside Afghanistan, focused on Special Operations Forces, and we are looking at how to fund the provision of services enabling Allies and the international community to stay in Kabul, including support for the airport, he noted.

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EXCLUSIVE France resists more joint funding of ‘brain dead’ NATO – Reuters

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A $20 billion plan to give NATO more flexibility in facing military threats, climate change and China's rise has hit firm resistance from France, which fears the move could undermine its defence priorities, four diplomats and a French defence source said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg proposed in February that allies put more money directly into existing, albeit small common budgets, rather than rely on the current system that each government pays for its own military operations.

That was a response to long-standing tensions with the United States which says European allies do not contribute enough to their own defence. A deal at a June 14 summit with U.S. President Joe Biden would likely shore up transatlantic unity, two of the four diplomats who spoke to Reuters said.

The proposal also seeks to heed French President Emmanuel Macron's 2019 warning that NATO was "brain dead" because the alliance, formed in 1949 to contain a military threat from the Soviet Union, lacked a clear political strategy in the post-Cold War, multipolar world.

But France believes the idea - which the diplomats said was to put some $20 billion into common budgets over 10 years - is unlikely to benefit French military priorities and risks diverting attention and resources away from building up weak defence capabilities among European Union member states.

Most of them are also part of NATO.

"If the idea is to brutally increase the contribution of countries to common budgets and change the philosophy of NATO, moving from national responsibility to the dilution of responsibility, France's response will be clearly no," a French armed forces ministry source told Reuters.

The EU has been working since December 2017 to develop more firepower independently of the United States, led by France, the EU's remaining major military power after Britain left the bloc.

"For us, it is not an issue of NATO versus Europe but NATO versus the national defence of each member state," the French armed forces ministry source said.

The source said Paris was still open to hearing counter arguments and details, however. France already meets NATO's target to spend 2% of economic output on defence.

One of the four diplomats said French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly was upset by Stoltenberg's decision to go public in February with the outline of his proposal. Stoltenberg met Macron in Paris on May 21, praising the French president for France's "significant defence investment".

A NATO official told Reuters that pre-summit negotiations were constructive and that NATO foreign and defence ministers would discuss the proposal, part of Stoltenberg's NATO 2030 reform package, when they convene on June 1.

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Germany and other European allies, as well as Canada, also want to know what any extra money would be spent on before they loosen their purse strings. The summit with Biden may only agree to carry out an analysis of common funding, the diplomats said.

"Some Europeans are asking: do we build up NATO, or do we develop the EU's defence capacity to complement NATO?" said a senior NATO diplomat. "Each euro can only be spent once."

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, suggested that allies fund collectively more of their deterrent operations on allied territory, rather than the current system that a single ally bears all the costs of a deployment.

Allies could invest in upgrading allied bases to adapt to climate change, protecting telecoms and computer networks against cyber attackers and in space. Stoltenberg said in February: "If we want to do more, we also need more resources."

NATO common-funded budgets amount to 0.3% of total allied defence spending, or some $2.5 billion, to run NATO commands and military infrastructure. That figure is lower than NATO's historical average of about 0.5%, the diplomats said.

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stripes – US B-52H bombers fly over all 30 NATO nations with alliance escorts on Memorial Day – Stars and Stripes

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A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress flies over Adazi Military Training Base, Latvia, June 13, 2016. (Nicole Keim/U.S. Air Force)

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany U.S. long-range strategic bombers were flying a Memorial Day mission over all 30 NATOcountriesin Europe and North America, officials said Monday.

The B-52H Stratofortress aircraft, deployed to Moron Air Base, Spain, were expected to fly with aircraft from more than 20 allies, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa said in a statement.

Its the second time a bomber task force deployed to Europe has conducted such a mission since the U.S. began deploying bombers to the region in 2018, USAFE said.The mission is called Operation Allied Sky.

Todays mission is an awesome demonstration of NATO air superiority, Gen. JeffHarrigian, NATO Allied Air Command and USAFE-AFAFRICA commander, said in Mondays statement.

TheU.S. Air Forceseight-engine bombers, based out of Barksdale Air Force Base, La., arrived atMoron Air Basetwo weeks ago. Four B-52s from the 2nd Bomb Wing and over 200 personnel deployed on a short-notice tasker, Air Force Maj. Marisa King, 96th Bomber Task Force director of operations, said in a video statement last week.

On Monday, the long-range heavy bombers were expected to conduct aerial refueling and integration flights with the aircraft of several allies over Europe, from Turkey to Norway. KC-135Stratotankeraircraft based at RAF Mildenhall, England, were expected to support the mission, which also included a North American leg over the U.S. and Canada, supported by aircraft from those countries.

The last time U.S. bombers conducted an overflight of all 30 allies was in August,andthat effortinvolved six B-52s out of Minot Air Force Base, N.D., escorted by some 80 fighter jets at various stages.

Since 2018, U.S. bombers deployed to Europe have taken part in more than 200 sorties with allies and partners, mainly as a deterrent response to Russias military resurgence.

Early last week, the Barksdale-based bombers worked with HungarianGripens, Italian Eurofighters and F-16s from Greece, Romania and Bulgaria during simulated target training in the Black Sea region.

The bomberslaterflew with RAF Eurofighter Typhoons and Hellenic F-16s over the east Mediterranean Sea before conducting counter-maritime exercises with P-8A Poseidon aircraft from U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africas Patrol Squadron 40.

The bomber rotation comes as the alliance conducts a series of large-scale exercises across Europe involving thousands of troops. It also follows Russias deployment last month of thousands of troops to the border area along Ukraine, which raised concern among NATO allies.

Bomber missions demonstrate the credibility of our forces to address a global security environment that is more diverse and uncertain than at any other time in our history,Harrigiansaid in Mondays statement.

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Turkey to run Kabul international airport in deal with Nato – The National

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The Turkish government has agreed to take over responsibility for Kabuls international airport in a $130 million deal with Nato, an Afghan government official told The National.

The deal is likely to be widely welcomed after weeks of uncertainty over the Turkish governments continued commitment to defending Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Several hundred of the Nato members troops are already stationed at the airport, from which civilian and military aircraft operate.

This will provide assurances to the international community and it is a better solution because the Taliban have never attacked the Turks

Mahmood Shah Abibi, Afghanistan Aviation Support Association

As a September 11 total US and Nato troop withdrawal deadline looms and violence surges, the diplomatic community is increasingly concerned over safe travel in and out of Afghanistan.

The details and the exact takeover date are yet to be confirmed, the official said. A second senior source confirmed the deal.

Last month, Afghanistans Civil Aviation Authority asked Nato to hand over control of the air traffic control tower at Kabuls airport, leading to concerns over the Afghan governments capacity to safely and securely run its international airports after the withdrawal.

We are struggling with the transition of taking over the airports from Nato control, a government official said last month.

We dont have the capacity to run the airports with Afghans alone due to a lack of expertise, nor do we have the financial ability to bring in private contractors.

Three rockets landed close to Kabuls airport in December last year, killing one person and injuring two others. The target and the group responsible remain unclear.

In 2016, a suicide bomber targeted Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, the exiled Afghan vice president, near the airport. Fourteen people were killed and 60 injured. ISIS claimed responsibility.

The Taliban and ISIS claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the citys airport intended to kill US defence secretary James Mattis in September 2017. No one was injured and Mr Mattis had left the airport several hours before.

In 2015, a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint near the entrance, killing five people and injuring 16.

Andrew Watkins, a senior Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the deal would calm the nerves of international governments and donors, but many issues would remain, even with Turkey running the airport.

There is a web of capacity gaps in the Afghan authorities security information, screening and inspection procedures to prevent smuggling, as well as concerns over the fairness of the contracting process due to prevalent corruption within the government, he said.

Mr Watkins said there has been no opportunity for Afghanistan to increase its capacity, because air traffic control has been run by Nato military staff since 2004.

The by-product is there is no opportunity for an organic, local specialised labour force in the field of air traffic control to ever develop. It shouldnt come as a surprise to the international powers that have kept it out of Afghans hands that its not something thats transferable and immediately implanted, he said.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, former national security adviser to Afghanistans President Ashraf Ghani, said that from 2010 efforts were made to build Afghanistans capacity to run the international airports by 2014.

But the plan did not come to fruition.

A report published in 2015 found that despite the US government spending approximately $562.2 million to support reconstruction of Afghanistans civil aviation system since 2002, it was unable to train enough air-traffic controllers for the country to independently operate airspace management services.

This was partly the reason the planned transition of responsibilities did not occur, the report said. Instead, the US facilitated the Afghan government in establishing contracts.

For the Afghan government to take over control, we need three or four years for transition, but now we have to take over in three months, said Mr Spanta, who spoke to The National before learning of the deal with Turkey.

Diplomats will not trust [the safety and security of the airport] and they will leave Afghanistan. This is very dangerous.

Commercial flights to Afghanistan being stopped is a possibility. Some international airlines refused to land in neighbouring Pakistan for more than a decade, resuming only in 2019, owing to concerns over airport security.

Last week, the Australian government closed its embassy in Kabul. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the closure was because of an increasingly uncertain security environment where the government has been advised that security arrangements could not be provided to support our ongoing diplomatic presence as international troops withdraw.

The concern now for the Afghan government and humanitarian organisations is that other embassies will follow suit.

If that was the case, it would signal a lack of confidence in the current Afghan governments ability to hold things together following the withdrawal.

It would also send a worrying message to Afghans that the international community is abandoning them amid a deteriorating security situation.

That would send a worrying message to Afghans that the international community is abandoning them in a deteriorating security situation.

But Mahmood Shah Habibi, head of the Afghanistan Aviation Support Association, believes that news of Turkey taking over responsibility of Kabuls airport will quell some fears.

This will provide assurances to the international community and it is a better solution because the Taliban have never attacked the Turks, Mr Habibi said.

However, it should be a joint venture with the Afghan government or responsibility should be transferred over to Afghans in the next year.

"Afghans were contracted by Nato, but Nato was never admitting Afghans can do the jobs because it didnt want to lose contracts.

Nato's foreign and defence ministers met on Tuesday to prepare for the blocs first summit with US President Joe Biden on June 14 and to discuss the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In a statement on May 21, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the bloc planned to continue financially supporting the functioning of Kabul airport.

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U.S., partners fly over all 30 NATO nations – UPI News

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June 1 (UPI) -- U.S. B-52H Stratofortress aircraft flew over all 30 NATO allied nations in North America and Europe Monday.

B-52s currently deployed to Morn Air Base, Spain, and U.S.-based aircraft planned to fly with more than 20 NATO allies across two combatant commands, according to a press release issued by U.S. European Command before the flight took place.

NATO allies conducted a similar exercise in August of last year.

It is the latest iteration in a series of Bomber Task Force missions that have included flights in Europe, including a mid-May flight in which B-52s operated in multiple areas of responsibility.

"Bomber missions demonstrate the credibility of our forces to address a global security environment that is more diverse and uncertain than at any other time in our history," Gen. Jeff Harrigian, NATO Allied Air Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander, said in the release. "Today's mission is an awesome demonstration of NATO air superiority and together there is no challenge we cannot tackle."

Nations scheduled to participate in the mission included Belgium, Canada, Denmark and Turkey.

KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft assigned to the 100th Air Refueling Wing, RAF Mildenhall, England, were also dispatched to support the flight.

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U.S., partners fly over all 30 NATO nations - UPI News

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