U.N. — A U.S.-LED COVID SUMMIT IN NEW YORK? That's what Axios reported Tuesday, but it was news to some of the leading non-profit organizations and other governments who are supposedly involved. Gavi, the force behind the global COVAX vaccine system, has been contacted by the White House about the event, but an advocate at another global non-profit told Global Translations "we haven't been involved in the planning, sounds like it came together quickly, and we're also trying to track down more info." The EU doesn't know anything about it, and the U.S. mission to the U.N. chose not to comment. A senior administration official told my colleague Carmen Paun that "we are still planning the President's [UNGA] schedule'' and "we are actively looking at Covid-19 and public-health centered options." Upshot: Expect some event — possibly along the lines of the EU-organized 2020 Covid pledging summit — but cast a skeptical eye on anything branded as a "summit": most national leaders won't be physically present in New York for this year's U.N. General Assembly. U.N. — WORLD'S BIGGEST FOOD FIGHT: U.N. officials may need their blue peacekeeping helmets in New York in September as a week-long food fight is brewing. The U.N. thinks it's organizing a "people's summit" with a big table, aimed at greening the world's food system. But more than 300 civil society organizations — including Greenpeace and Oxfam — disagree. They have boycotted a pre-summit meeting in Rome (where the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization is headquartered) complaining about the "undue corporate influence" of "Big Food" (and no, they don't mean the Big Banana — star tourist attraction of your host's home town). Non-profits are annoyed that the World Economic Forum and its multinational members and funders are partnering with the U.N. for the summit, and they've rallied Michael Fakhri, the U.N.'s independent special rapporteur on the right to food, to their side. The summit's critics worry about "heavy promotion of technological solutions" — sensing that companies are more interested in profiting from farmer data than solving food security issues, and are suspicious that the U.N.'s special envoy for the summit is Agnes Kalibata, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which promotes innovation and yield maximizing to small farmers, rather than the non-GMO methods favored by some non-profits. "The Summit is intended to kickstart a global conversation for the first time not just about crops or hunger or waste, but food systems in their entirety," Kalibata told POLITICO. "I know the trust in big business is incredibly low," said Peter Bakker , president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, who represented the corporate voice in Rome, but he warned activists they can't change a meeting they refuse to attend. "Everyone needs to be in the room," said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. CHINA — 12-YEAR SENTENCE UNDER HONG KONG SECURITY LAW: Leon Tong, an unaffiliated protester, was sentenced under parallel terrorism and secession charges. COVID — GERMANY APPROVES BOOSTER SHOTS PLAN: German regional health chiefs signed on to Health Minister Jens Spahn's plan Monday to start offering high-risk patients a third dose in September. COVID REALITY CHECK — U.S. VACCINE DONATIONS TOP 100 MILLION, COMMERCIAL EXPORTS STILL BLOCKED: The White House is triumphant — claiming shipments of more than 110 million Covid vaccines doses to more than 60 countries, but they're only telling one part of the story. — What the White House says: "According to the United Nations, this is more than the donations of all other countries combined and reflects the generosity of the American spirit." The White House is also a huge supporter of COVAX, the global vaccine facility. — What the donation numbers say: The European Union has donated 7.9 million doses (just 1 in 25 of the 200 million doses it has promised) and China has shipped 24.2 million, according to an internal EU document obtained by POLITICO. — What those numbers don't say: The EU has delivered around 503 million vaccine doses to 51 countries via commercial contracts, and China has exported around 390 million doses to 94 countries. Russia has exported only about 33 million doses out of a promised 800 million. The U.S. has not exported any doses via commercial contracts, because that's banned. — Left hand, right hand: The State Department said in a briefing call that Washington is a trustworthy Covid partner and cited 20 million donated doses to ASEAN countries (among a population of around 660 million, or one dose for every 33 people). A senior State Department official was unable to say anything about the Quad vaccine diplomacy initiative when asked, however, saying that "I would ask perhaps to check with the White House, which is kind of really driving this initiative." That's a billion dose-sized hole in America's vaccine diplomacy messaging based on the Quad pledge to the region. CLIMATE — WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT METHANE: In the rush to address carbon emissions — the bulk of emissions that are causing the global climate to change — we routinely underplay the risk posed by methane, a less common but far more potent greenhouse gas. Now, geologists have identified two methane-emitting strips of rock that are 541 million years old and hundreds of miles long in Siberia. The bad news: this methane is far more dangerous than the thawing permafrost long-deemed Russia's biggest climate risk. DIPLOMACY — HAVANA SYNDROME INVESTIGATION DEMANDED: A group of senators led by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), unveiled legislation to streamline investigations into a mysterious brain injuries affecting hundreds of American officials and personnel around the world.The bill comes after POLITICO first reported earlier this year that U.S. officials were sounding the alarm to Congress about Americans' increasing vulnerability to these incidents, which officials have struggled to understand. | 
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