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Spain train collision investigators examine rail damage theory

Experts investigating the deadly rail collision in southern Spain, which killed 45 people and left dozens more injured, believe the accident may have happened after one of the trains passed over a damaged section of rail. The disaster occurred near the Andalucían town of Adamuz on Sunday, when a high-speed train operated by Iryo, a private company, derailed and collided with an oncoming high-speed train operated by the state rail company, Renfe. A preliminary report published by the Rail Accidents Investigation Commission (CIAF) on Friday found nicks in the wheels on the right-hand side of the three front carriages of the Iryo train consistent with an impact with the top of the rail. “These nicks in the wheels and the observed deformation in the rail are consistent with the rail being fractured: with the rail’s continuity interrupted, the section before the break would initially bear the full weight of the wheel, causing that part of the rail to sag slightly,” the report said. “Since the section of rail after the break would not be acting in unison with the section before it, a step would momentarily form between the two sides of the fracture, which would strike the wheel rim.” Given the available information, the report added: “We can hypothesise that the rail fracture occurred prior to the passage of the Iryo train involved in the accident and therefore prior to the derailment.” But the CIAF also stressed that the theory was provisional and would be subject to further testing and investigation. Two days after the Adamuz accident, a train driver was killed and 37 people were injured when a train was derailed by the collapse of a retaining wall near Gelida in Catalonia. The two deadly events have led Semaf, Spain’s largest train drivers’ union, to call a three-day strike in February to demand measures to guarantee the safety of railworkers and passengers. Semaf said industrial action was “the only legal avenue left for workers to demand the restoration of safety standards on the railway system and, consequently, guarantee the safety of both railway professionals and passengers”. The tragedy has also been seized on by opposition parties which have accused Spain’s socialist-led coalition government of a chaotic response and a lack of transparency. “The state of the railways is a reflection of the state of the nation,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party, said on Friday. He added: “Right now, we don’t have the best rail system in our history; what we have is the worst government in our history.”

EU says Russia wants to ‘freeze Ukraine’ ahead of rare trilateral talks with US – Europe live

That’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, but Aneesa Ahmed is here to take you through the afternoon in Europe.

British crown was world’s largest buyer of enslaved people by 1807, book reveals

The British crown and the navy expanded and protected the trade in enslaved African people for hundreds of years, unprecedented research into the monarchy’s historical ties to slavery has found. The Crown’s Silence, a book by the historian Brooke Newman, follows the Guardian’s 2023 Cost of the crown report, which explored the British monarchy’s hidden ties to transatlantic slavery. The book reveals that by 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade in its empire, the British crown had become the world’s largest buyer of enslaved people, buying 13,000 men for the army for £900,000. Buckingham Palace does not comment on books, but a source said King Charles, who has previously spoken of “personal sorrow” at the suffering caused by slavery, took the matter “profoundly seriously”. Newman said she had started working on the book 10 years ago, having found “secret correspondence” detailing George IV’s fears of an uprising like the Haitian Revolution happening in Jamaica. She made the discovery while researching an earlier work about the Caribbean island, which was a British colony for more than 300 years. Newman, who is an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US, researched royal archives and manuscripts relating to the Royal Navy, colonial officers, government officials, the Royal African Company and the South Sea Company for The Crown’s Silence. She said: “The crown used to trumpet their connections to the transatlantic slave trade. They put the royal brand on this practice and literally on people’s bodies.” In the 18th and early 19th century, “formerly enslaved people, like Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince and Ottobah Cugoano, were directly appealing to the monarchy, sending books that they’ve written, sending them letters and petitioning them in newspapers. And the monarchy is doing nothing. “It’s only as you have activism on the part of people like [Black abolitionists] Sons of Africa that things really start changing in the 19th century and the monarchy starts to dramatically pivot away from their previous stance,” Newman said. “One of the key revelations is that the crown owns thousands of enslaved people in the Caribbean up until 1831. Even when George IV is essentially overseeing the Royal Navy’s suppression of the transatlantic slave trade, he is still technically profiting from the labour and sale of enslaved people. This is something the government are aware of and they’re concerned about how it looks.” Newman said enslaved people “owned” by the crown had included workers on plantations that had been forfeited after revolts or planters dying without heirs, and people “purchased in the king’s name” to work at royal dockyards and naval installations, in a process that began in Jamaica under George II. She added: “White people sent to work on the island were succumbing to tropical fevers and they decide we need to purchase enslaved men and boys we can train as skilled labourers who will be owned by the king – as shipwrights, as carpenters, as caulkers, servicing Royal Navy ships. Once they decide that this is a cost-saving measure for the monarchy, they start replicating it elsewhere.” The book details how after abolition, Africans liberated from slavers’ ships by Royal Navy patrols were coerced into apprenticeships or conscripted into British military service. Slavery exploded as an industry in the 18th century, after the Royal African Company, founded by the Stuart monarchy, lost its monopoly, fuelling the expansion of English cities such as Liverpool and Bristol, Britain’s insurance and finance sectors, and the United States, Newman said. The Royal Navy was “critically involved in expanding the slave trade, in protecting slaving vessels … loaning out Royal Navy vessels to slave trading companies and stocking them with men and supplies”, she added, from the reign of Elizabeth I until the 18th century, with profits flowing back to thecrown. “By the 18th century, [the British monarchy] don’t need to be involved in these more minor behind-the-scenes ways – it becomes about defending the empire itself in major imperial conflicts like the seven years’ war and the American Revolution. “George II and George III start thinking about enslaved men as pawns in this imperial chess game. Even after the abolition of the slave trade, liberated Africans are forcibly conscripted into West India regiments and a royal forces station in west Africa. “Things are not really better regardless of whether you’re owned by the monarchy or not. They want it to be better because it should be, if you’re going to have the king as your nominal master, but that’s not the way things played out on the ground.” • The Crown’s Silence: The Hidden History of Slavery and the British Monarchy by Brooke Newman (HarperCollins, £25) is published on 29 January. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Trump says US ‘armada’ heading to Middle East as Iran death toll put above 5,000

Donald Trump has said a US “armada” is heading towards the Middle East and that the US is monitoring Iran closely, as activists put the death toll from Tehran’s bloody crackdown on protesters at 5,002. Speaking on Air Force One as he returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos overnight, he said: “We have a lot of ships going that direction, just in case. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely … we have an armada ... heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it.” The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers are due to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days. Additional air defence systems are being deployed, most likely around US and Israeli airbases. The UK said it would send RAF Eurofighter Typhoon jets from 12 Squadron to Qatar, at Doha’s request. The US president pulled back from attacking Iran two weeks ago, despite promising “help is on its way”, largely because he felt he had been given no military option that would prove decisive in securing regime change in Tehran. He was also urged to hold back by the Gulf states. In an update on Friday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said the death toll from the Iranian crackdown on protesters had reached to 5,002 – comprising 4,716 demonstrators, 203 government-affiliated people, 43 children and 40 civilians not taking part in the protests. The agency’s numbers have been accurate in previous unrest in Iran and rely on a network of activists there to verify deaths. HRANA said at least 26,541 people had been arrested. The UN Human Rights Council is meeting in Geneva to discuss the crackdown on the protests, which started on 28 December when traders took to the streets in Tehran in response to a sudden dip in the value of the rial. Protests spread and demands expanded to include calls for an end to the country’s government, creating the most serious and deadliest unrest in the country since the 1979 revolution. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, who heads Iran’s Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, which coordinates the army and the Revolutionary Guards, warned the US on Thursday that any military strike on Iran would turn all US bases in the region into “legitimate targets”. The protest movement has largely petered out in the face of the crackdown, which was accompanied by an unprecedented internet blackout, though chants of “death to the dictator” are taking place at bitter and often well-attended funerals. Videos are still trickling out from inside Iran showing how security forces were given licence to shoot to kill protesters, especially from 5-8 January. One of the main reformist newspapers, Ham-Mihan, has been shut down for printing two stories: one on the pursuit of protesters in a hospital and the other detailing the severity and brutality of the suppression more widely. Many leading reformists have not been able to express their views on the crackdown, and the few that have been allowed to address wider audiences seem to be blaming both sides for a collapse in social solidarity brought on by a crash in the exchange rate. The extent to which these problems are caused by sanctions or internal inefficiency is debated. In his longest reflection to date on the violence, the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist elected 18 months ago, claimed “the civil and just protest of the people was turned into a bloody and violent battle due to a conspiracy by those who wish Iran ill will”. Scott Bessant, the US treasury secretary, took credit while in Davos for the protests, saying US sanctions had led to the unrest and that maximum economic sanctions “worked because in December, their economy collapsed”. He added: “We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the streets. This is economic statecraft, no shots fired, and things are moving in a very positive way here.” Trump has repeatedly left open the option of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. But the prospect of immediate American action seemed to have receded in recent days, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance.

Nine bedrooms, seven untimely deaths: can ‘cursed’ Venice palace finally attract a buyer?

It ought to be an estate agent’s dream. Primely positioned on the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice, just steps away from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the storied Palazzo Ca’ Dario has shimmered on the water since the late 15th century, its elegant early Venetian Renaissance facade among the city’s most distinctive. Named after its first owner, Giovanni Dario, a diplomat hailed a hero after securing a peace treaty with the Ottoman empire, over the centuries the palazzo has been home to nobles, merchants and even British rock music royalty. In 1908, it was painted by Claude Monet during his trip to Venice and one year later was cited by Henry James in his travelogue Italian Hours. But the sprawling building, which comes with nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms and grand reception rooms filled with frescoes, has proved stubbornly difficult to sell – and not necessarily because buyers have been spooked by its price tag, reportedly €20m (£17.4m). Estate agents have struggled to overcome its reputation as “Venice’s cursed palace” owing to a string of owners and guests who met untimely, and in some cases violent, deaths. Now freshly renovated, the sale of Palazzo Ca’ Dario has been given another push, the challenge entrusted to the Venice unit of Christie’s International Real Estate and Engel & Völkers. Christie’s describes the building as an “architectural gem” boasting gothic arches, antique Murano chandeliers and a loggia terrace, while noting its location in a “peaceful” Venetian neighbourhood tucked away from the crowds. What the marketing spiel doesn’t mention are the tragic tales that have embellished the local legends of it being jinxed. As the story goes, the palazzo is associated with at least seven deaths, the most gruesome in 1970 when its then owner, Count Filippo Giordano delle Lanze, was murdered within its walls by his boyfriend, a sailor who fled to London and was himself later murdered. Christopher “Kit” Lambert, at the time the manager of the Who, bought the property the following year. Although he claimed to have been unbothered by the supposed curse, he is said to have told friends that he slept elsewhere in order to escape the ghosts. Still, local people have blamed the curse for his descent into drugs, subsequent financial crisis and death in London in 1981 after falling down a flight of stairs. In the 1980s, the palace was bought by the Italian financier Raul Gardini, who became embroiled in a high-profile corruption scandal and killed himself in Milan in 1993. The legends also allude to the palazzo casting misfortune on those who simply came within striking distance or holidayed there. Mario Del Monaco, an operatic tenor, was planning to buy the property in 1964, but changed his mind after being involved in a serious car accident on his way to view it; John Entwistle, the Who’s bass player, died in the US in 2002 a week after renting it. Palazzo Ca’ Dario was mostly derelict after that, and although it attracted interest from some prospective buyers enamoured of its architecture – rumoured to include Woody Allen – it is claimed they were put off by its ghostly undertones. In 2006, the building was bought by an American firm on behalf of its current owner, whose identity has not been made public. The fact that the property has been empty ever since has only enhanced the tales. Arnaldo Fusello, a general manager at Christie’s in Venice, said Venetians liked to tell a good yarn, especially to tourists. “For example, the gondolier who rows past the building, it’s a little bit like that,” he said. He also pointed to the “hundreds” of inhabitants over the centuries who had lived to a ripe old age at the palazzo, including Dario, who died of natural causes at 80 years old. Davide Busato, a historian in Venice, said the rumours had begun in the 1970s but got into full swing after the suicide of Gardini, generating a journalistic field day. “The Venetians lapped it up,” he said. “They love telling a story and it’s quite normal for them to exaggerate, like they did with Poveglia island.” Poveglia is an abandoned and reputedly haunted island within the Venetian lagoon. Venetians were an otherwise pragmatic bunch, and usually unswayed by superstition, Busato said, “but they do like to amaze people, especially those who come from the outside”. Busato said Venice was full of historic buildings where murders and suicides had taken place and which today hosted luxury hotels. “As with all legends, the ones surrounding Palazzo Ca’ Dario get a little bit mixed up – the storytellers take a few concrete facts and magnify them.” Fusello is confident the building will overcome its eerie reputation and now sell. He said it had so far attracted “a lot” of interest, from a mix of Italians and foreigners. “This is a place where history lives,” he said. “And if you want to live history, then this is the perfect home, although it’s important that whoever buys it dedicates themselves to keeping this property alive.”

Leaked video shows Venezuela regime’s desperate struggle to control message

The communications minister holds a phone up to a microphone before a gathering of regime-friendly influencers. On speakerphone is Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who claims that when US forces captured the dictator Nicolás Maduro, she and other members of his cabinet were given 15 minutes to decide whether to comply with Washington’s demands – “or they would kill us.” Rodríguez, the former vice-president who assumed power after the US attack – and has since been praised by Donald Trump for playing along with his demands – says she was doing so only because the “threats and blackmail are constant”. She also concedes that her priority was “to preserve political power”. Her remarks appear in a leaked recording of the nearly two-hour meeting, which was held in Venezuela seven days after the US attack. The video, first reported by the local journalism collective La Hora de Venezuela, gives a rare glimpse into the workings of Venezuela’s Chavista regime, and reveals how the country’s rulers rushed to regain control of the narrative after Washington removed its figurehead. Amid reports that Rodríguez and other cabinet members held talks with the US and its envoys before the attack , the recording reveals the surviving regime figures’ concerns that they would be branded traitors – and their efforts to prevent their political movement from fracturing from within. “The only thing I would ask for is unity,” Rodríguez says in her call to the group. Before putting her on speakerphone, the then communications minister, Freddy Ñáñez, seeks to defend Rodríguez, calling for “gossip, rumours, intrigues and attempts at discrediting” her to be shut down. He argues that she is “the only guarantee we have that … we can bring back the president and the first lady – but also turn the page and reconfigure our forces”. Rodríguez, who spoke on speakerphone for six minutes, said it “hurt … to have to assume responsibilities in these circumstances”. She then referred to the US military operation: “The threats began from the very first minute they kidnapped the president. They gave Diosdado [Cabello, the interior minister], Jorge [Rodríguez, the acting president’s brother and congressional president] and me 15 minutes to respond, or they would kill us.” Rodríguez said that at first US troops allegedly “told us [Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores] had been assassinated, not kidnapped”, and that she, her brother and Cabello replied that they “were ready to share the same fate”. “And I tell you, we stand by that statement to this day, because the threats and the blackmail are constant, and we have to proceed with patience and strategic prudence, with very clear objectives, brothers and sisters,” she added, before listing three goals: “to preserve peace … to rescue our hostages … and to preserve political power”. The meeting appears to have been recorded on a videoconferencing platform – most of the influencers were in the room, but others joined online – and it remains unclear how it was leaked. Neither the Venezuelan nor the US governments responded to requests for comment. Rodríguez has not repeated the allegation of a US death threat, and this week officials in Washington said she would soon visit the US capital. “We are in a process of dialogue, of working with the United States, without any fear, to confront our differences and difficulties … and to address them through diplomacy,” said Rodríguez on Wednesday. Since the capture and rendition of her predecessor, Rodríguez has walked a fine line, voicing defiance at home but signalling to Washington that she is ready to cooperate with the Trump administration. The historian and political analyst Margarita López Maya, a retired professor at the Central University of Venezuela, said it was difficult to know whether there had even been a death threat. “It may be a narrative Rodríguez herself is constructing to hold the base together, because everyone knows that Maduro’s removal could only have happened with internal complicity,” said López Maya. At the meeting, the communications minister urged influencers to be “careful” with “purists” who “will come out saying we are handing over the country, the revolution, betraying” Chavismo. Ñáñez also claimed that “everything happening today”, including US control over Venezuelan oil, “is simply the plan that Maduro put on the table”, adding: “It’s not a concession, a gift or a defeat; selling oil to the US has always been our plan.” Since the US strike, the regime has maintained a seemingly contradictory rhetoric, flooding social media and Telegram channels with harsh-sounding language against the US while complying with all of Trump’s demands. “I think what the [Venezuelan] government is really negotiating is how to save its own skin,” said López Maya. Days after the video was leaked, Ñáñez was named as the environment minister in a cabinet reshuffle. One of the first moves by his successor, the writer Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela, was to create a social media account purportedly aimed at “defending the truth about Venezuela against fake news campaigns”, a move that is being seen as another example of how, even without Maduro and amid a rapprochement with the US, the regime remains fundamentally unchanged, marked by repression, hundreds of political prisoners and no timetable for new elections. “We have two broad options: one is that the country opens up to a democratic transition,” said López Maya. “The other is the one Chavismo is clearly playing with: obeying the US, but trying to buy time to see whether, along the way, they can remain in power through an authoritarian option with some economic openings,” she added.

Russia deploys new high-speed drones amid claims they contain western parts

Russia has begun using a new model of high-speed drone against Ukraine amid claims by Kyiv’s military intelligence directorate that key parts are sourced from western and Chinese companies. Wreckage recovered from a so-called Geran-5 long-range attack drone that was fired at Ukraine in early January points to a series of new capabilities that experts believe could pose a serious threat to Ukraine’s already struggling air defence if deployed widely. Local reporting suggests two of the drones have been shot down, both this year, one near Kyiv and another near Dnipro. Powered by a Chinese turbo jet engine, the Geran-5 has a long cylindrical body attached to wings, unlike previous iterations based on Iran’s delta-shaped Shahed drone, making it appear more like a conventional aircraft. With an estimated top speed of 600km/h (370mph) it is considerably faster than the previous jet-powered Geran-3, which had a top speed of less than 400km/h. The increasing speed of Russian attack drones was cited by members of Ukraine’s small-fire mobile air defence teams – who deploy in pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on them to shoot down drones – to the Guardian last year as an increasing challenge as the window of time to shoot them down was getting smaller and smaller. The Geran-5 has a range of just under 1,000km (620 miles) and can carry a 90kg payload. There has been speculation Russia hopes to extend the weapon’s range further still by delivering it mid-air from a manned jet. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a speech at the World Economic Forum this week that Russia appeared to be producing more drones – as many as 500 a day – and ballistic missiles than it was using in attacks. While Russia fired a record 810 drones against Ukraine in a single night in September, smaller daily air attacks are more typical. “Russia has about 500 [more] Iranian drones each day and dozens of missiles, ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy said at Davos. Such a figure would mark an almost trebling of Russian production at its factory in the Alabuga special economic zone from early last year when Ukrainian intelligence said about 170 drones a day were being produced. Ukraine has also expressed concern that components identified in the new drones allegedly include parts from Germany and China, and microchips that appear to have been produced in the US. The emergence of the Geran-5 marks an apparent change in emphasis in Russia’s drone warfare. While experts had been predicting ever larger numbers of daily drone attacks, the average number fired each day has become relatively stable at an average of a little over 170. Instead, according to a report produced by the Institute for Science and International Security this week, Moscow appears to be more focused on technological developments to beat Ukraine’s air defences. The report said: “Presently, there has been an observed increase in the relative number of Shahed-type drones that are equipped with online video cameras and radio modems, as compared to the total number of such UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. “The implementation of such an upgrade necessitates the utilisation of specialised equipment and the presence of operators who have undergone the requisite training to effectively control Shahed-type drones. This phenomenon may also be one of the factors contributing to the observed limitation in the growth of the total number of launches.” Among other innovations reported this year by the Ukrainian intelligence directorate have been Geran-2 drones that appear to have been equipped with portable anti-aircraft missiles apparently for use against Ukrainian aircraft attempting to shoot them down.

‘It’s the sovereignty of the country’: Guinea-Bissau says US vaccine study suspended

US health officials insisted it was still on. African health leaders said it was cancelled. At the heart of the controversy is the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau – one of the poorest countries in the world and the proposed site of a hotly debated US-funded study on vaccines. The study on hepatitis B vaccination, to be led by Danish researchers, became a flashpoint after major changes to the US vaccination schedule and prompted questions about how research is conducted ethically in other countries. On Thursday, Quinhin Nantote, a military doctor and the recently appointed minister of health in Guinea-Bissau, confirmed to journalists that the trial has been “cancelled or suspended” because the science was not well-reviewed. Guinea-Bissau experienced a coup in November, and top leaders were recently replaced. A team of research experts at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, at Nantote’s request, will travel to Guinea-Bissau to help officials review the study. Officials from Denmark and the US have also been invited to review the trial, Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa CDC, said at the press meeting. The decision to halt the trial is not for international organizations or foreign countries to determine, Kaseya said. “It’s the sovereignty of the country,” he said. “I don’t know what will be this decision, but I will support the decision that the minister will make.” Officials with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have called into question the credibility of the Africa CDC, after officials with the organization confirmed the study was cancelled. “To be clear, the trial will proceed as planned,” Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said in a statement on Wednesday. He said the Africa CDC was waging “a public-relations campaign aimed to shape public perception rather than engaging with the scientific facts”. When asked by the Guardian, he offered no proof of either claim. An HHS official also called the Africa CDC “a powerless, fake organization attempting to manufacture credibility by repeating its claims publicly”, adding that the organization was “not a reliable source”. Kaseya said he had spoken to senior HHS officials, who were unaware of the statement, and he pointed to the Africa CDC’s key role in responding to outbreaks with global implications. “It’s very important to fund research that Africans actually want,” said Abdulhammad Babatunde, a medical doctor and global health researcher in Nigeria. “Africans want to solve Africa’s problems, not satisfy the curiosity of the funders.” The researchers would have given hepatitis B vaccines to 7,000 infants at birth and withheld the vaccines for another 7,000 infants until six weeks of age in order to study the overall health effects of giving the vaccines alongside other shots. Nearly one in five adults and about 11% of young children in Guinea-Bissau have hepatitis B – putting them at high risk of severe illness and death. “This is not acceptable,” said Babatunde of the study’s design. “To prevent things like the Tuskegee study and others, the control group has to get the standard of care, and the intervention group should get [potentially] better care.” The World Health Organization recommends giving the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns within 24 hours of birth. Infants in Guinea-Bissau currently receive the shot at six weeks of age, but the doses will roll out to all newborns in 2028 in order to close gaps in care standards. “The current reason why the vaccine is not achieving coverage in Guinea-Bissau is because there’s no funding, and the funding should try to promote the vaccine, not use children as lab rats,” Babatunde said. Officials in an imbalanced power structure may be intimidated, he said. “It might be a very tough call for the officials in Guinea-Bissau, depending on what they stand to lose if they restrict the study. At this moment, it’s [time] for other African member states to come support Guinea-Bissau, to maintain their sovereignty and protect the children of Guinea-Bissau.” When deciding whether a revised version of the study will move forward, “the most important voice” is that of Guinea-Bissau’s ministry of health, which is responsible for protecting the health of all Bissau-Guineans, said Gavin Yamey, professor of global health at the Duke Global Health Institute. “So hearing from ministry officials today is hugely important.” The confusion in Guinea-Bissau comes back to how the trial was given the green light, said Nantote, who spoke in Portuguese through a translator. An early version of the study was approved by Guinea-Bissau’s six-person ethics committee, Comité Nacional de Ética em Pesquisa em Saúde (CNEPS), on 5 November, according to the Danish researchers. The researchers have since made updates that have not been approved by the committee. The Guinea-Bissau ethics committee, CNEPS, initially approved the study, according to an individual who identified himself to the Guardian as the interim director of CNEPS. The study did not mention that infants would go unvaccinated, he said – but the ethical concern is that the vaccine would be withheld from some newborns at birth, when it is most needed. No further changes have been made to the design of the trial because it was “suspended” by the country’s ministry of health, he said. “We think that they did not meet and they did not address this issue adequately,” Nantote said of the ethics committee. The Danish researchers did not appear to seek approval from ethics boards in Denmark or the US, though the Helsinki declaration requires approval from research ethics committees in both the sponsoring and host countries. The HHS did not respond to the Guardian’s questions on ethical concerns and its characterization of the Africa CDC. The researchers did not respond to inquiries about the trial’s cancellation or questions about their research. The HHS, the researchers, and the University of Southern Denmark did not respond to inquiries about whether US or Danish ethical committees were consulted. Nantote and Kaseya both highlighted the challenges to health in Guinea-Bissau. Less than a quarter of the country has access to basic services such as water and sanitation. Poverty and food insecurity are persistent. With limited access to healthcare, maternal mortality is high, and malaria is a leading cause of death. “The authorities of Guinea-Bissau, they know that,” Kaseya said. “They are doing their best to address that.”