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Biden administration names former Obama aide Malley as Iran envoy: official

Biden administration names former Obama aide Malley as Iran envoy: official
January 29, 2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Thursday named Robert Malley, a former top adviser in the Obama administration, as special envoy for Iran, a senior State Department official said, confirming an earlier Reuters report.

Malley was a key member of former President Barack Obama’s team that negotiated the nuclear accord with Iran and world powers, an agreement that Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 despite strong opposition from Washington’s European allies.
 
Earlier, the United States aims to acquire an additional 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, enough to inoculate most Americans by summertime, as he races to curb a pandemic he warned could still get worse.
 
Biden’s administration will purchase 100 million doses each of the vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech, and Moderna Inc, increasing the overall total doses to 600 million, with delivery expected by summer.

The previous purchase target was 400 million doses.

Each vaccine requires two doses per person to be fully effective, suggesting the new purchases would build up enough of a stockpile to inoculate most of the country’s 331 million people. The vaccines are not approved for use by most children.

“This is a wartime effort,” Biden said in the White House State Dining Room under a painting of President Abraham Lincoln, who led the Union to victory in the U.S. Civil War.

Pfizer is confident it can deliver the extra doses in the time frame specified by Biden, spokeswoman Sharon Castillo said. Moderna declined to comment.