Category: World

PTI

Los Angeles: Scientists have found the likely order in which COVID-19 symptoms first appear, an advance that may help clinicians rule out other diseases, and help patients seek care promptly or decide sooner to self-isolate.

According to the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, the likely order of symptoms in patients with COVID-19 is fever, followed by cough, muscle pain, and then nausea, and/or vomiting, and diarrhea.

“This order is especially important to know when we have overlapping cycles of illnesses like the flu that coincide with infections of COVID-19,” explained study co-author Peter Kuhn, a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) in the US.

With this new information, Kuhn said doctors can determine what steps to take to care for patients, and prevent their condition from worsening.

The researchers believe identifying patients earlier may reduce hospitalisation time since there are better approaches to treatments now for COVID-19 than during the beginning of the pandemic.

In the current study, the scientists predicted the order of symptoms from data on the rates of symptom incidence of more than 55,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in China, all of which were collected from February 16 to 24 by the World Health Organization (WHO).

They also studied a dataset of nearly 1,100 cases collected from December 11, 2019 through January 29, 2020, by the China Medical Treatment Expert Group via the National Health Commission of China.

To compare the order of COVID-19 symptoms to that of influenza, the scientists examined flu data from 2,470 cases in North America, Europe and the Southern Hemisphere, which were reported to health authorities from 1994 to 1998.

“The order of the symptoms matter. Knowing that each illness progresses differently means that doctors can identify sooner whether someone likely has COVID-19, or another illness, which can help them make better treatment decisions,” said Joseph Larsen, study lead author from USC.

While fever and cough are frequently associated with a variety of respiratory illnesses, including Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which caused the 2002-03 pandemic, they said the timing and symptoms in the upper and lower gastrointestinal tract set COVID-19 apart.

“The first two symptoms of COVID-19, SARS, and MERS are fever and cough. However, the upper GI tract (nausea/vomiting) seems to be affected before the lower GI tract (diarrhea) in COVID-19, which is the opposite from MERS and SARS,” the scientists wrote in the study.

According to the research, a very small fraction of patients experienced diarrhea as an initial symptom.

“This report suggests that diarrhea as an early symptom indicates a more aggressive disease, because each patient in this dataset that initially experienced diarrhea had pneumonia or respiratory failure eventually,” the scientists wrote.

“The highest reported symptom is fever, followed by cough or dyspnea, and then finally, a small percent of patients reported diarrhea. This order confirms the most likely paths that we have determined,” they noted.

PTI

Turkey has diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, but relations have been strained for years. In 2010 Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists trying to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas

REUTERS

ISTANBUL: Turkey is considering suspending diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and withdrawing its ambassador over the Gulf state’s accord to normalise ties with Israel, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

The Turkish foreign ministry said history would never forgive the UAE’s “hypocritical behaviour” in agreeing such a deal, which recasts the order of Middle East politics.

Under the U.S.-brokered, the first between Israel and a Gulf Arab, the Jewish state agreed to suspend its planned annexation of areas of the occupied West Bank. Palestinian leaders have denounced it as a “stab in the back” to their cause.

“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached. Now, Palestine is either closing or withdrawing its embassy. The same thing is valid for us now,” Erdogan said, adding he gave orders to his foreign minister.

“I told him we may also take a step in the direction of suspending diplomatic ties with the Abu Dhabi leadership or pulling back our ambassador,” he told reporters after Friday prayers.

The Foreign Ministry had earlier said Palestinians were right to reject the deal in which the UAE betrayed their cause.

“History and the conscience of the region’s peoples will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behaviour,” it said. “It is extremely worrying that the UAE should, with a unilateral action, try and do away with the (2002) Arab Peace Plan developed by the Arab League.”

Turkey has diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, but relations have been strained for years. In 2010 Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists trying to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

The deal makes UAE the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Officials reported 12 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, all linked to a now 30-strong cluster that was first detected in a family in Auckland two days ago.

REUTERS

New Zealand’s first coronavirus outbreak in three months has spread further, officials reported on Friday, just hours before Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to announce whether a lockdown in the country’s biggest city will be extended.

Officials reported 12 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, all linked to a now 30-strong cluster that was first detected in a family in Auckland two days ago. Officials believe an imported strain of the virus is responsible for the country’s first outbreak in three months, but are still investigating how the family was infected.

Ms. Ardern, under pressure ahead of a general election next month, repeated her “go hard, go early” response to the pandemic this week, putting Auckland, home to about 1.7 million people, into lockdown and reinstating social distancing measures across the country.

PM Ardern is due to announce later on Friday whether those measures will be extended, but there is growing concern that a repeat of the tough five-week lockdown she imposed earlier in the year could cripple the economy.

Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said it was a positive sign that all the new confirmed cases were linked to the Auckland cluster, but noted two were recorded in Tokorua, in the neighbouring Waikato region. Authorities had also identified one other probable case, Mr. Bloomfield said, in which connections still had to be traced.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said during a televised news conference, adding that contact tracing and testing would continue at high levels in coming days.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins said genome testing suggested the new virus outbreak had originated in Britain or Australia, but officials were still investigating how the family in Auckland contracted it.

Mr. Bloomfield dismissed suggestions by health experts it was likely the virus had been quietly spreading in Auckland for weeks, saying there was “very good evidence” that was not the case.

“The nature of this outbreak shows how once you identify the first case you find quite a lot quite quickly,” he said. “We just wouldn’t have not found cases in community if it was lurking away in the community.”

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said late on Thursday that a quarantine facility breach had been identified as the source, but Mr. Hipkins said there was no evidence for that yet.

The main opposition National Party has blasted the government, saying it failed to secure quarantine facilities and accusing it of withholding information about the latest outbreak.

Economy worries

New Zealanders celebrated when Ms. Ardern appeared to eliminate community transmission of the coronavirus with the earlier hard lockdown that forced almost everyone to stay at home.

But opinion is divided on whether the 40-year-old leader should repeat that strategy, given its huge economic cost and mounting global evidence that the virus cannot be permanently suppressed.

Westpac Banking Corp estimated the current level of lockdown measures in Auckland and the rest of New Zealand would cost the economy about NZ$300 million, or 0.5% of gross domestic product.

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Deputy Governor Geoff Bascand told Reuters a sustained resurgence of the virus posed “a major risk” to the bank’s outlook, given its baseline scenario has an assumption that the virus is contained in the country.

PM Ardern is expected to announce her decision on lockdown measures at 1730 local time (0530 GMT) after meeting with her cabinet and the release of the daily infection numbers.

Viruses can survive up to two years at temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, but scientists and officials say there is no strong evidence so far the coronavirus can spread via frozen food.

REUTERS

Two cities in China have found traces of the new coronavirus in cargoes of imported frozen food, local authorities said on Thursday, although the World Health Organization downplayed the risk of the virus entering the food chain.

A sample taken from the surface of frozen chicken wings imported into the southern city of Shenzhen from Brazil, as well as samples of outer packaging of frozen Ecuadorian shrimp sold in the northwestern city of Xian, have tested positive for the virus, local Chinese authorities said.

Shenzhen authorities identified the chicken as originating from a plant owned by Aurora, Brazil’s third-largest poultry and pork exporter.

As confirmed COVID-19 cases continue to rise globally, the discoveries raise fresh concerns that the coronavirus that causes the disease can spread on surfaces and enter the foodchain. A day earlier, officials started investigating whether the first COVID-19 cases in New Zealand in more than three months were imported by freight.

Viruses can survive up to two years at temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, but scientists and officials say there is no strong evidence so far the coronavirus can spread via frozen food.

“People should not fear food, food packaging or delivery of food,” the World Health Organization’s head of emergencies programme Mike Ryan told a briefing.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Agriculture Department said in a joint statement “there is no evidence that people can contract COVID-19 from food or from food packaging.”

All contacts test negative

Brazil’s Aurora, which is unlisted, said it had not been formally notified by the Chinese authorities of the alleged contamination. The company said it takes all possible measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and there is no evidence it is spread through food. Brazil’s agriculture ministry said it was seeking clarification from Chinese authorities.

Reuters could not immediately reach the Ecuadorean embassy in Beijing.

Shenzhen’s health authorities traced and tested everyone who might have come into contact with potentially contaminated food products, and all results were negative, the city’s notice said.

“It is hard to say at which stage the frozen chicken got infected,” said a China-based official at a Brazilian meat exporter.

The Shenzhen Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters said the public needed to take precautions to reduce infection risks from imported meat and seafood.

The health commission of Shaanxi province, where Xian city is located, said authorities were testing people and the surrounding environment connected to the contaminated shrimp products, which were sold in a local market.

In addition to screening all meat and seafood containers coming into major ports in recent months, China has suspended some meat imports from various places, including Brazil, since mid-June.

Seven Argentine meat processing plants are temporarily not exporting to China because they have registered cases of COVID-19 among their employees, a source from the Argentine agricultural health agency Senasa said on Thursday.

Origin in animal market

The first cluster of COVID-19 cases was linked to the Huanan seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Initial studies suggested the virus originated in animal products on sale at the market.

Li Fengqin, who heads a microbiology lab at the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment told reporters in June the possibility of contaminated frozen food causing new infections could not be ruled out.

Xinfadi market, a sprawling food market in China’s capital of Beijing, was linked to a cluster of infections in June. Authorities said the virus was found in the market on a chopping board on which imported salmons were handled.

How the virus entered Xinfadi market in the first place is yet to be determined, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in its latest update of the investigation in July. The market will be reopened from the weekend.

Under the deal, Israel will suspend applying sovereignty to areas of the West Bank that it had been discussing annexing.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates have reached a “historic” deal that is expected to lead to “full normalisation of relations” between the two Middle Eastern nations in an agreement that United States President Donald Trump helped broker.

Under the agreement, Israel on Thursday agreed to suspend applying sovereignty to Palestinian areas of the occupied West Bank that it had been discussing annexing.

The deal was the product of lengthy discussions between Israel, the UAE and the US that accelerated recently, White House officials told the Reuters news agency.

A joint statement was tweeted out Thursday by Trump, that spelled out some the issues that had been agreed.

HUGE breakthrough today! Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends, Israel and the United Arab Emirates!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2020

The agreement came after a phone call on Thursday between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

The UAE becomes only the third Arab nation to have active ties with Israel and the first Gulf Arab state to do so. 

“This historic diplomatic breakthrough will advance peace in the Middle East region and is a testament to the bold diplomacy and vision of the three leaders and the courage of the United Arab Emirates and Israel to chart a new path that will unlock the great potential in the region,” the statement said.

The joint statement lays out some of the issues agreed between the UAE and Israel in the normalisation deal

Trump hailed the agreement as a first step, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.

“Now that the ice has been broken, I expect more Arab and Muslim countries will follow the United Arab Emirates,” he said.

But the move was slammed by senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi on Twitter. 

“Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it’s been doing to Palestine illegally & persistently since the beginning of the occupation,” senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi wrote on Twitter. She also said the UAE has come forward with its “secret dealings/normalization with Israel”.

Delegations from Israel and the UAE will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications and other “areas of mutual benefit,” the statement said.

It said the the UAE “will immediately expand and accelerate cooperation” for coronavirus treatment and to develop a vaccine.

The deal will lead the way for the US, UAE and Israel to “launch a Strategic Agenda for the Middle East to expand diplomatic, trade and security cooperation,” the joint statement said, citing that the three countries have a similar outlook on the threats and opportunities in the region.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Infection of cells by floating virus could be key to understanding community transmission

Sceptics of the notion that coronavirus spreads through the air, including many expert advisers to the World Health Organisation, have held out for one missing piece of evidence: proof that floating respiratory droplets called aerosols contain live virus and not just fragments of genetic material.

Now a team of virologists and aerosol scientists has produced exactly that: confirmation of infectious virus in the air.

“This is what people have been clamouring for,” Linsey Marr says, an expert in airborne spread of viruses who is not involved in the work. “It’s unambiguous evidence that there is infectious virus in aerosols.”

A research team at the University of Florida succeeded in isolating live virus from aerosols collected up to 5m from patients hospitalised with Covid-19 – farther than the 2m recommended in social-distancing guidelines.

The findings, posted online last week, have not yet been vetted by peer review but have already caused a stir among scientists. “If this isn’t a smoking gun, then I don’t know what is,” Marr tweeted last week.

But some experts say it is still not clear that the amount of virus recovered is sufficient to cause infection.

The research was exacting. Aerosols are minute by definition, measuring only up to 5 micrometres across; evaporation can make them even smaller. Attempts to capture these delicate droplets usually damage the virus they contain.

“It’s very hard to sample biological material from the air and have it be viable,” Shelly Miller says, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies air quality and airborne diseases. “We have to be clever about sampling biological material so that it is more similar to how you might inhale it.”

In the new study, researchers devised a sampler that uses pure water vapour to enlarge the aerosols enough that they can be collected easily from the air. Rather than leave these aerosols sitting, the equipment immediately transfers them into a liquid rich with salts, sugar and protein, which preserves the pathogen.

“I’m impressed,” Robyn Schofield says, an atmospheric chemist at Melbourne University, in Australia, who measures aerosols over the ocean. “It’s a very clever measurement technique.”

As editor of the journal Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, Schofield is familiar with the options available but says she has not seen any that could match the new one.

The researchers had previously used this method to sample air from hospital rooms. But in those attempts, other floating respiratory viruses grew faster, making it difficult to isolate the coronavirus.

This time, the team collected air samples from a room in a ward dedicated to Covid-19 patients at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital. Neither patient in the room was subject to medical procedures known to generate aerosols, which the WHO and others have contended are the primary source of airborne virus in a hospital setting.

The team used two samplers, one just over 2m from the patients and the other about 5m from them. The scientists were able to collect virus at both distances and then to show that the virus they had plucked from the air could infect cells in a lab dish. The genome sequence of the isolated virus was identical to that from a swab of a newly admitted symptomatic patient in the room.

The room had six air changes per hour and was fitted with efficient filters, ultraviolet irradiation and other safety measures to inactivate the virus before the air was reintroduced into the room.

That may explain why the researchers found only 74 virus particles per litre of air, John Lednicky says, the team’s lead virologist at the University of Florida. Indoor spaces without good ventilation – such as schools – might accumulate much more airborne virus, he says.

But other experts say it is difficult to extrapolate from the findings to estimate an individual’s infection risk.

“I’m just not sure that these numbers are high enough to cause an infection in somebody,” Angela Rasmussen says, a virologist at Columbia University in New York. “The only conclusion I can take from this paper is you can culture viable virus out of the air,” she says. “But that’s not a small thing.”

Several experts note that the distance at which the team found the virus is much farther than the 2m recommended for physical distancing.

“We know that, indoors, those distance rules don’t matter any more,” Schofield says. It takes about five minutes for small aerosols to traverse the room even in still air, she adds.

The findings should also push people to heed precautions for airborne transmission like improved ventilation, Seema Lakdawala says, a respiratory virus expert at the University of Pittsburgh. “We all know that this virus can transmit by all these modes, but we’re only focusing on a small subset,” Lakdawala says.

She and other experts note one strange aspect of the new study. The team reports finding just as much viral RNA as they did infectious virus, but other methods generally found about 100 times more genetic matter.

“When you do nasal swabs or clinical samples, there is a lot more RNA than infectious virus,” Lakdawala says.

Lednicky has received emails and phone calls from researchers worldwide asking about that finding. He says he will check his numbers again to be sure.

But ultimately, he adds, the exact figures may not matter. “We can grow the virus from air – I think that should be the important take-home lesson,” he says. – New York Times

With inputs from The Irish Times

Beijing is working on a strategic collaboration with Tehran and is supporting a nuclear program in Saudi Arabia, which west can’t afford to keep ignoring

The multiplicity of crises, from political to economic to coronavirus-related, is distracting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz from an important shift in the Middle East, which has major implications for Israel’s security. Namely: China’s moves in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

When Netanyahu and Gantz talk about Iran, they dwell on the Iranian-Syrian axis and insist that the international community, especially the United States, should escalate the sanctions against the Islamic Republic. But this policy to which they and the entire Israeli defense establishment have been adhering becomes ever less relevant as indications mount that China is stepping up its involvement in Iran and Saudi Arabia. This has been happening as the United States weakens and also because U.S. President Donald Trump doesn’t hide that he has no interest in the Middle East malaise, mainly because the U.S. doesn’t need Arab oil as badly as it used to, and because he isn’t committed to maintaining an American military presence in the region. This is also glaringly evident in Russia’s re-engagement with Syria and recently with Libya as well, and its sale of weapons to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

But China isn’t strengthening only as a corollary of America’s declining global status. It also stems from China’s far-seeing strategy and long-term vision aimed to gain it the pole position as the world’s greatest power.

In June, Iran approved a draft agreement for a 25-year strategic collaboration with China on economic and security-related issues, worth about $600 billion ($17 billion a year). Under the agreement, Iran will sell oil to the Chinese at a discount, in exchange for which it will receive priority for Chinese investments in initiatives involving banking, transportation, energy, communications and technology. Russia is also working on a similar strategic 20-year treaty with Iran.

What should perhaps worry Israel most of all is the Chinese-Iranian plan to form a joint commission for developing weapons and scientific collaborations, including in cyberwarfare, as part of a Chinese move to step up its intelligence and military presence in the entire Middle East, including in Israel. Further evidence of its aspirations is the military exercise it held in the Indian Ocean in late 2019 with the Russian and Iranian navies.

It bears stressing that it remains unclear whether the Iranian-Chinese agreement will be signed, because Beijing has hinted that it is not pleased with Iranian leaks about the treaty.

Apparently Riyadh, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, realized that if it wants to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons, its salvation won’t come from Trump or Netanyahu; and it may be signaling that it has also decided to embark on the nuclear road.

About a week ago the Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia has a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from the uranium ore mines in its territory, and that it built the facility with China’s help. Saudi Arabia stated years ago that if Iran develops nuclear weapons, it would too. About a year ago the brother of the Saudi crown prince, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who also serves as the energy minister, said that his country wants to purchase knowhow in order to achieve control of all the components and stages of the nuclear process. In the past Saudi Arabia tried to purchase nuclear reactors for electricity generation, which would have also given it the knowhow, technology, equipment, materials and infrastructure for a potential military program. The United States was willing to accede to the request but conditioned it on a Saudi commitment not to build facilities for uranium enrichment. Riyadh refused. Israel maintained silence.

The Saudis know that if the U.S. doesn’t build the nuclear power reactors for them, Russia or China would be happy to do so. As its oil reserves dwindle, it’s only natural for Saudi Arabia to want to diversify its energy sources and build nuclear reactors. The question is whether it will also build facilities to enrich uranium, and other sites to necessary to enhance the nuclear program. In that connection China is a familiar supplier for Saudi Arabia, having sold it long-range missiles in the past. Another optional supplier would be its ally Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Saudi ministry of health has announced the launch of clinical trials for a vaccine against the coronavirus (COVID-19), as part of cooperation with a Chinese company.

According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the third phase will conduct clinical studies in different countries, including Saudi Arabia, and will be applied to large numbers of volunteers.

The first stage of the study included “a recombinant adenovirus type-5 vectored COVID-19 vaccine” on a total of 108 volunteers in China in March. Later tests on 603 volunteers were conducted between April 11-16, the report added, The New Arab reported.

Both stages showed positive results with little side effects, according to a published study in The Lancet.

In Saudi Arabia, the third phase will see 5,000 healthy volunteers over the age of 18 take part in the trial.

“Research teams will follow up with the participants after giving them the dose to ensure that no side effects appear. The follow-up will be through direct visits with doctors participating in the study,” SPA said.

The experiments will be carried out across Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, Mecca and Dammam. Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council stressed the importance of “equitable and unhindered access” to diagnostics, treatments and vaccines, and said any vaccine developed against Covid-19 should be considered a “global public good”.

The death toll from coronavirus reached in Saudi Arabia 3,130 deaths, and the total number of cases rose to 287,262.

With inputs from the Middle East Monitor

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces new lockdown norms in Auckland.

AP

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday said authorities have found four cases of the coronavirus in one Auckland household from an unknown source, the first reported cases of local transmission in the country in 102 days.

Ms. Ardern said Auckland, the nation’s largest city, will be moved to Alert Level 3 from midday Wednesday through midnight Friday, meaning that people will be asked to stay at home, while bars and many other businesses will be closed.

These three days will give us time to assess the situation, gather information, make sure we have widespread contact tracing so we can find out more about how this case arose and make decisions about how to respond to it once we have further information, Ms. Ardern said at a hastily called news conference late Tuesday.

I know that this information will be very difficult to receive, Ms. Ardern said. We had all hoped not to find ourselves in this position again. But we had also prepared for it. And as a team, we have also been here before.

She said that traveling into Auckland will be banned unless people live there and are traveling home.

She said the rest of the country will be raised to Level 2 through Friday, meaning that mass gatherings will be limited to 100 attendees and people would need to socially distance themselves from each other.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the infections were confirmed after a person in their 50s went to their doctor on Monday with symptoms and was swabbed twice, testing positive both times. Six other people in the person’s household were then tested, with three more positive results.

Importantly, the person has no history of overseas travel, Bloomfield said, adding that the source of the infections remains unknown.

Until Tuesday, the only known cases of the virus in New Zealand were 22 travelers who had recently returned from abroad and were being held in quarantine at the border.

The country has been praised globally for its virus response.

New Zealand initially got rid of the virus by imposing a strict lockdown in late March when only about 100 people had tested positive for the disease. That stopped its spread.

Life had returned to normal for many people in the South Pacific nation of 5 million, as they attended rugby games at packed stadiums and sat down in bars and restaurants without fear of getting infected. But some had warned that the country had become complacent.

New Zealanders have never routinely worn masks, but authorities have been urging people to buy them just in case.

The outbreak comes less than six weeks before New Zealanders are due to go to the polls in a general elections

Former Saudi intelligence officer filed lawsuit accusing the crown prince of sending a hit squad to try and kill him.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has been issued a summons by a US court for a lawsuit by a former top Saudi intelligence agent who was reportedly targeted in a foiled assassination attempt.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia issued the summons on Friday, a day after Saad al-Jabri filed the lawsuit accusing Prince Mohammed of sending a hit squad to Canada to try and kill him.

A summons is an official notice of a lawsuit, given to the person or persons being sued.

Al-Jabri, who lives in Canada, reportedly under increased protection by police and private security guards, claimed that his close ties with the US intelligence community and deep knowledge of the prince’s activities had rendered him one of the aspiring monarch’s key targets.

“Few places hold more sensitive, humiliating and damning information about Defendant bin-Salman than the mind and memory of Dr. Saad – except perhaps the recordings Dr. Saad made in anticipation of his killing,” the lawsuit read.

Saudi Arabia, which has issued Interpol red notices seeking al-Jabri’s return – which have since been dismissed by the agency as political – has urged other countries to send al-Jabri back to the kingdom, accusing the former senior intelligence officer of corruption.

The summons, which named 12 people in addition to Prince Mohammed, added: “If you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint”.

The suit asserts that MBS had ordered the detention of two of al-Jabri’s children, who have gone missing from their home in the capital Riyadh in mid-March, and that other relatives have also been arrested and tortured “all in an effort to bait Dr. Saad back to Saudi Arabia to be killed”.

The claims in the lawsuit are allegations which have not been proven.

“MBS will now vigorously lobby President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to issue what is called a letter of suggestion immunity,” Bruce Fein, a former US associate deputy attorney general, told Al Jazeera.

“It is rather an odd realm of law, but it asks the court to dismiss the case because it will interfere with the foreign relations of the US and relations with a head of state or high-level officials.

“But that means November [US elections] will be critical for Saudi Arabia. I can guarantee you right now that Saudi Arabia and the crown prince are talking with Pompeo and Trump asking them get him out of this.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)