Xi, Putin call for equal treatment of Covid vaccines at G20 meeting

Bloomberg

China’s President Xi Jinping urged Group of Twenty (G20) leaders to treat all Covid-19 vaccines equally as he pushed for greater mutual recognition of World Health Organization-approved shots.
Addressing the summit via video link, Xi called on nations to back the World Trade Organisation making an early decision on whether to waive intellectual property rights for vaccines and encouraged companies to transfer technology to developing nations, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Xi also took the opportunity to lash out at those he said were politicising the tracing of the origins of Covid-19 and building “small cliques” based on ideology in tech innovation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin advanced a similar message on Covid shots, accusing some G-20 members of
protectionism on the issue of recognising vaccine certificates. Xi and Putin are among those skipping an in-person appearance in Rome. Both countries face a fresh rise in Covid cases.
Negotiators at the summit are also racing the clock to reach a climate deal that can be taken on to the crucial United Nations COP26 summit in Glasgow. Officials have failed so far to agree on a draft, with stark differences over timelines to reach specific climate goals and whether countries can wean themselves off coal entirely. The hope is for COP26 to advance pledges made in the Paris climate accord.
US President Joe Biden met with French President Emmanuel Macron to ease tensions over a submarine deal involving Australia. Frictions remain though Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over Brexit and fishing access. There is a sideline meeting on supply chain bottlenecks. Leaders formally endorsed an ambitious plan to overhaul the way countries tax multinational companies.
Russia’s president urged fellow leaders in a video address to instruct their health ministries to “work out as soon as possible the question of mutual recognition of national vaccine certificates,” accusing some
G-20 states of indulging in “unfair competition.”
While he reiterated that Russia had registered the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, its Sputnik V shot still hasn’t been recognised by regulators in the EU and the US.
Putin also blamed the “root cause” of surging food and energy prices on “serious budget deficits in developed economies.”
The US was responsible for 40% of the total budget deficit of all G-20 states while Russia had curtailed spending and planned a surplus this year, he said. Continued budget deficits “creates the risk of high global inflation in the medium term,” threatening business activity and efforts to reduce inequality.