Category: World

Jews observed the holiday of Lag B’Omer, on which ultra-Orthodox Jews customarily gather at the tomb of a prominent rabbi in antiquity on Mount Meron

AP

Israeli police arrested over 300 people Tuesday as officers attempted to control crowds that had assembled at a religious site in northern Israel in violation of coronavirus restrictions.

Police said that despite regulations against large assemblies at Mount Meron and police checkpoints on roads near the site, hundreds of religious Jews turned up and some “threw stones and other objects a police officers at the scene.”

Jews observed the holiday of Lag B’Omer, on which ultra-Orthodox Jews customarily gather at the tomb of a prominent rabbi in antiquity on Mount Meron. Celebrations are typically marked with enormous crowds, dancing and the lighting of bonfires.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Israelis marked the holiday in Jerusalem with large assemblies despite bans on public gatherings of more than 20 people due to the pandemic.

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community has been hit especially hard by the coronavirus outbreak. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said earlier this week that around 70% of the country’s more than 16,500 confirmed cases were ultra-Orthodox, who make up around 12% of Israel’s population.

Israel started easing restrictions on movement and gathering earlier this month. Israel has reported 260 deaths from COVID-19. More than half of those infected in Israel have recovered.

Hong Kong: Millions of people in Wuhan will be tested for the novel coronavirus within the coming days, after a new cluster of cases emerged despite a strict 76-day lockdown that was intended to eliminate the virus from the central Chinese city.

Over the weekend, six new cases were reported in the city, the first in 35 consecutive days. None of the new cases were imported from overseas, sparking concern that the infection could still be spreading in the city where the virus is thought to have first emerged.

In response to the outbreak, authorities in Wuhan will conduct city-wide nucleic acid testing over a period of 10 days, according to an emergency notice issued by local authorities and circulated by state run media outlet The Paper.

Nucleic acid tests work by detecting the virus’ genetic code, and can be more effective at detecting the infection, particularly in the early stages, than tests which examine a body’s immune response, though the latter are easier to conduct.

The ambitious screening drive, described in the report as a “ten-day battle,” could see up to 11 million people tested — more than the entire population of Greece.

Wuhan was the first city in the world to enter into lockdown and great effort has been expended in an attempt to eliminate the virus.

The city has been gradually returning to normal after that 76-day enforced lockdown lifted on April 8, with residents finally permitted to go outside, though many businesses remain closed.

Despite the ongoing economic pain and trauma, however, Wuhan had been held up as a poster child of China’s effective response to the pandemic, emerging “like a phoenix,” in the words of one state-backed newspaper.

The reemergence of the virus has already had ramifications for the local government. State media reported Monday that Zhang Yuxin, chief official of Changqing, the area where the new cases had been detected, was removed from his post “for failures in epidemic prevention and control work.”

While no new cases of the virus were reported in Wuhan as of Tuesday, any major increase in numbers as a result of the new testing will raise serious questions over the accuracy and transparency of the city’s previous figures. Officials are already facing accusations of covering up the severity of the virus in the earliest stages of the pandemic, and confusion over China’s national figures has been created by several shifts in diagnostic and reporting procedures.

Nor is Wuhan the only part of the country where new cases have been detected. The city of Shulan, in Jilin province in the country’s far northeast, was put under “wartime control mode” Sunday, after 11 people were confirmed to be infected with the virus.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea, previously thought to be largely on top of the virus, has also faced a setback this week, with a cluster of new cases detected in Seoul. The country’s president, Moon Jae-in, said Sunday that the fight against coronavirus is “not over until it’s over.”

By James Griffiths, CNN

AFP

Tehran: Virus-hit Iran will reopen its mosques for three nights over the next week so that worshippers can pray during one of the holiest times of year, a minister said Tuesday.

The Islamic republic shut its mosques and shrines in March as part of its efforts to contain the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

The reopening was granted for Laylat Al-Qadr — a high point during the fasting month of Ramadan that marks when the Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad.

But Health Minister Saeed Namaki sounded a note of caution as he announced that worshippers would be allowed to attend mosques and ceremonies for three of the next five nights.

“The biggest strategic mistake is to think that coronavirus is finished,” he said in remarks broadcast on state television.

“At any time, we can go back to bad circumstances” due to “negligence,” said Namaki.

“Our priority is to hold ceremonies outdoors” such as “in stadiums,” he said, “so that social distancing is properly observed.”

Namaki said his ministry agreed in a meeting to help “organize ceremonies from midnight to 2:00 am during the nights of Qadr.”

He said the move came in response to “concern” expressed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but stressed the supreme leader “always supports all measures” to contain the virus.

All gatherings would need to respect “sanitary protocols to the maximum,” he added.

But he warned: “They shouldn’t blame the health ministry and say they wanted to open mosques but didn’t care about people’s health.”
His remarks came shortly before Iran announced another 48 deaths from the virus taking its overall toll to 6,733.

Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said another 1,481 people tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 110,767 since the start of the crisis.

Iran has struggled to contain its outbreak of the virus that causes COVID-19 since announcing its first cases in the Shiite holy city of Qom on February 19.

The government closed schools, postponed major events and banned inter-city travel but it has eased restrictions gradually since April 11.
It allowed mosques to reopen on May 4 in 132 counties where the virus was deemed to be under control.

On Friday last week worshippers were able to attend the main weekly prayers for the first time in more than

The government warned on Monday of a setback in its efforts to contain the virus.

“We have regressed in Khuzestan due to (people) not observing health protocols,” Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said, referring to a southwestern province that is now the epicenter of the country’s outbreak.

“This can happen to any other province if we are not careful,” he added, noting that tighter measures would be reimposed in other places too if needed.

Experts inside and outside Iran have cast doubt on the country’s official COVID-19 figures, and say the real toll could be much higher.

Gulf News

The UAE announced 783 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Tuesday. The Ministry of Health and Prevention in UAE said the new coronavirus cases were detected through 32,000 tests conducted over the past few days.

This takes the total number of confirmed cases in the UAE to 19,661.

Two more deaths from the novel coronavirus have been also confirmed, taking the country’s death toll to 203, the ministry reported.

According to the ministry, the deceased, who are of various nationalities, suffered from pre-existing chronic illnesses coinciding with the coronavirus, which resulted in complications that led to their death.

631 recoveries have also been announced in the UAE. It is the highest number of recoveries reported in the county so far, and takes the total recoveries to 6,012.

The latest coronavirus patients, all of whom are in a stable condition and receiving the necessary care, were identified after conducting more than 32,000 additional COVID-19 tests among UAE citizens and residents over the past few days, the ministry said.

Mr. Birmingham described the import suspension as ”disappointing”, although he said it was not retribution by China over Australia’s call for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory illness.

Reuters

China has suspended imports from four large Australian meat processors, Australia’s Minister for Trade Simon Birmingham said on Tuesday, as sour bilateral ties threaten to disrupt the trade of several key agricultural commodities.

Mr. Birmingham said in a statement that Kilcoy Pastoral Company, JBS’s Beef City and Dinmore plants, and the Northern Cooperative Meat Company have been banned from exporting beef to China due to issues with labelling.

“Thousands of jobs relate to these meat processing facilities. Many more farmers rely upon them in terms of selling cattle into those facilities,” Birmingham told reporters in a press conference in Canberra.

Mr. Birmingham described the import suspension as ”disappointing”, although he said it was not retribution by China over Australia’s call for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory illness.

China has rejected the need for an independent inquiry, and Beijing’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, in late April said Chinese consumers could shun Australian goods in response to Canberra’s support for such an investigation.

Mr. Birmingham said China informed Australia that the decision was due to health certificate and labelling errors. Labelling issues were also cited by Beijing when the same companies and two others lost their licences to ship beef to China in 2017 for several months.

The suspension of the four beef processors comes just days after China proposed introducing an 80% tariff on Australian barley shipments.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department issued new regulations on Friday limiting visas for Chinese journalists to a maximum 90-day stay, with the possibility to request an extension.

AFP

China on Monday threatened to retaliate against a U.S. rule that tightening visa restrictions on Chinese journalists, in an escalating row after Beijing expelled more than a dozen American reporters.

Citing China’s treatment of the reporters, the U.S. Homeland Security Department issued new regulations on Friday limiting visas for Chinese journalists to a maximum 90-day stay, with the possibility to request an extension. Until now, visas for Chinese journalists lasted for the duration of their employment in the U.S.

“We express our strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this wrong action by the U.S. side, which is an escalation of the political crackdown on Chinese media,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijianat a daily press briefing. “We ask the U.S to correct its mistake immediately, otherwise China will have no other option but to take countermeasures,” Mr. Zhao said, without providing more details about the possible retaliation.

Diplomatic tensions

The tit-for-tat actions against journalists have added to searing diplomatic tensions, with the two countries trading barbs over the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to impose fresh trade tariffs on Beijing.

In February, China kicked out three journalists from The Wall Street Journal after the newspaper ran an opinion piece on the coronavirus crisis with a headline that Beijing called racist.

Weeks later, Washington curbed the number of Chinese nationals from state-run news outlets in the United States.

Beijing responded in March by expelling more than a dozen American journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Foreign journalists working in China receive one-year visas that must be renewed every year. But in an annual report, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said at least a dozen correspondents were issued press credentials valid for half a year or less. The report said Chinese authorities were “using visas as weapons against the foreign press like never before.”

Dubai: A fire broke out in the Dubai Expo site on Monday morning, a spokesperson confirmed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2yMXIQUr9hY

Plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from the site, which was the result of what has been described as a medium-sized fire caused by welding.

There were no injuries.

“A medium-sized fire broke out earlier this morning, on the Expo 2020 site in construction debris. The fire was brought under control quickly by emergency services,” An Expo 2020 spokesperson said

“It is now out, and nobody was harmed.”

– Agencies

The Kingdom decides to take a slew of austerity measures, including raising value-added tax and cutting a cost of living allowance for government employees.

Saudi Arabia, which under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been trying to diversify its economy away from oil and expand its regional influence through aggressive foreign policy posturing, has run into trouble with the economy hit by the double crises of the coronavirus pandemic and the oil price crash.

The Kingdom, 87% of whose budget revenues come from the petroleum sector, has already announced some “painful” economic decisions and signalled a rare readiness to scale back its regional operations to lift itself out of the “worst crisis in decades”.

On May 11, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that the Kingdom decided to take a slew of austerity measures, including raising value-added tax (VAT) and cutting a cost of living allowance for government employees. The allowance, which was introduced in 2018 to help workers tide over the effects of austerity measures taken during the last oil crash, will be suspended as of June 1, and the VAT, which was also rolled out in 2018, will be increased to 15% from 5% as of July 1, SPA reported, citing a statement of the Ministry of Finance.

Last month, the Kingdom announced a unilateral ceasefire in Yemen after five years of war in the clearest signal that Riyadh seeks to depart from its expensive military intervention in the neighbouring country parts of which are controlled by Shia Houthis rebels.

Worst crisis in decades

Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan had warned earlier that the government was considering painful measures to deal with the crisis. “The Kingdom hasn’t witnessed a crisis of this severity over the past decades,” he told the state broadcaster Al-Arabia on May 3.

When Saudi officials announced the Kingdom’s budget in December 2019, crude oil prices were over $60 a barrel. To balance its budget this year, Saudi Arabia requires oil prices to be around $76 a barrel, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, crashed by 50% in March. Brent crude price was at $26.31 on May 11 afternoon in London.

Amid the deteriorating situation, the Saudi government dipped its hands into the foreign reserves for meeting expenditures. The Kingdom saw a record $24 billion drop monthly drop in its reserves in March to $479 million. It is also raising billions in debt from the bond market.

Impact of virus

The coronavirus pandemic has aggravated the crisis with most economic activities suspended under a curfew. In March, the Kingdom shut down shops, malls, restaurants, cafes and other public places. All pilgrimages, including the annual Haj to Mecca, which hasn’t been interrupted since Napoleon’s 1798 attack of Egypt, were stopped.

Despite these actions, the virus continued to spread across the country. As of May 11 evening, the Kingdom has reported over 39,000 coronavirus infections and 246 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre. On top of it, it has also aggravated that economic woes. The IMF now forecasts the country’s GDP will fall 2.3% this year.

“The situation in Saudi Arabia has been deteriorating well before the pandemic. Economic pressures were already building up on the Kingdom. Coupled with this, we have the war against Yemen. On top of this, while the Crown Prince has projected himself as the fountainhead of liberalism, in actual fact, he’s emerged as a very authoritarian and harsh ruler, who can be extremely impulsive in decision making,” said Talmiz Ahmad, India’s former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, adding that the oil crash and the pandemic made the situation worse.

Unwinnable oil war

“The recent oil problem is almost entirely self-inflicted. Instead of engaging with Russia to discuss how they could consider new policies with regard to the OPEC-plus partnership, the Crown Prince very impulsively rejected Russia and started a completely unwinnable oil war, which has wounded not just Saudi Arabia, but also a very large number of countries in the region who are dependent on their oil revenues,” Mr. Ahmad told The Hindu.

Early March, Saudi Arabia decided to ram up oil production and offered discounts to buyers in a bid to win market share after it failed to reach an agreement with Russia on output cuts. The subsequent supply glut pulled down the prices. By the time the Saudis, Russians, and other major major oil producers agreed to cut output by 9.7 million barrels a day on April 13, it was too late. Daily demand had already fallen by more 20 million barrels a day as global economic activity came to a grinding half amid virus lockdowns.

Saudi officials agree that they are facing a history-changing crisis. “I do not think the world or the Kingdom will go back to the way things were before coronavirus,” Finance Minister Al-Jadaan said earlier this month. Besides the austerity measures already announced, the Kingdom will also defer some of the big-ticket projects initiated by the Crown Prince, which includes an expansion of the Mecca Mosque and building sports stadia and a $500 billion mega city in the deserts.

“Oil prices are unlikely to swing back to the pre-crisis levels any time soon as the world economy remains in doldrums. So the Kingdom has to look for fresh policy decisions,” said Mr. Ahmad. He added that his prognosis of the condition of the Kingdom is “negative”. But MBS could undertake a slew of radical domestic and foreign policy measures to reboot the country. “Domestically, the Kingdom has to cut expenditure, train its youth for new jobs, build a more accountable and responsive political order which the Crown Prince has promised and there has to be a healing touch in the royal family… The royal family can legitimately rule the nation only if it’s a united family,” he said.

“With regard to the foreign policy, the first step should be the engagement with Iran.” Mr. Ahmad added that if Saudi Arabia and Iran start engaging each other a host of conflicts in the region, from Yemen to Syria and Iraq, could be addressed.

With inputs from The Hindu

The friendly incident happened during a training exercise in the Gulf of Oman

AP

An Iranian missile fired during a training exercise in the Gulf of Oman struck a support vessel near its target, killing 19 sailors and wounding 15, Iran’s state media reported on Monday, amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

The statement significantly raised the death toll in Sunday’s incident from what was reported just hours earlier, when Iran’s state media said at least one sailor was killed.

The Konarak, a Hendijan-class support ship, which was taking part in the exercise, was too close to a target during an exercise on Sunday when the incident happened, the reports said. The vessel had been putting targets out for other ships to target. The media said the missile struck the vessel accidentally.

The friendly fire incident happened near the port of Jask, some 1,270 km southeast of Tehran, in the Gulf of Oman, state TV said.

A local hospital admitted 12 sailors and treated another three with slight wounds, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Iranian media said the Konarak had been overhauled in 2018 and was able to launch sea and anti-ship missiles. The Dutch-made, 47-meter vessel was in service since 1988 and had capacity of 40 tonnes. It usually carries a crew of 20 sailors.

Iran regularly holds exercises in the region, which is closed to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil passes. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which monitors the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iranian media rarely report on mishaps during its exercises, signaling the severity of the incident. This incident also comes amid months of heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 and imposed crushing sanctions on the country.

Tehran: While many residents in Iran’s capital are taking advantage of loosened COVID-19 controls, some worry about a new spike in infections in what remains the Middle East’s deadliest virus epicenter. “The line of fools,” muttered shopkeeper Manouchehr, peering disdainfully at a queue of customers outside a foreign currency dealer in the Sadeghieh district of western Tehran. Many in the long line stood close to one another and did not wear masks.

A traffic policeman told AFP such queues have appeared regularly ever since the money changers re-opened. People rarely observe basic anti-contagion protocols, he complained. The government began paring back coronavirus controls outside Tehran on April 11, arguing that the economy – already sagging under punitive US sanctions – needed to get back to bare bones operations. It allowed small businesses to reopen in the capital a week later, before permitting malls to welcome customers on April 21 and barbers on Wednesday.

At 802, declared daily infections in Iran on May 2 reached their lowest level since early March. But this critical daily number has since begun resurging, breaching 1,500 on Saturday to take the country’s total number of confirmed infections beyond 106,000. The capital’s streets, bazaars and malls are now bustling after being nearly deserted for weeks after the bulk of control measures were imposed in March.

Milad, a shopkeeper in a mall, was conflicted about the easing of movement restrictions. “All these customers coming in will endanger our lives – us who are forced to come” to work, he said. The mall gets very busy in the evenings, noted the 22-year-old, who did not have any protective equipment. The COVID-19 respiratory disease has killed nearly 6,600 people in Iran since the first two fatalities were reported in the city of Qom on February 19, according to authorities.

Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi has called Tehran the country’s “Achilles heel” in the fight against the virus. The city’s eight million residents are densely packed together and it is a magnet for hundreds of thousands of workers from other provinces. The government moved to ease restrictions even as Tehran remained at red on its color graded risk model – white denoting low risk, yellow medium and red high risk. Schools, universities, cinemas and stadiums remain closed to contain the spread of the virus.

“People being careful made infections drop, but as soon as the disease was deemed less of a concern, we saw cases grow,” said Masoud Mardani, an infectious disease expert at the health ministry. The rise is “partly due to the reopening (of businesses) and people going out shopping,” he told the semi-official ISNA news agency, while also citing an increase in travel in Tehran province. Health officials have vowed to re-impose stringent measures if the number of cases continues to climb.

But many Iranians remain adamant that they have to work to avoid financial ruin. “Life costs money,” said Hamed. “People have to go to work since this virus has been with us for about three months now.” The 22-year-old was among those out on the streets without a mask, deeming such protection “largely ineffective”. He had travelled over 150 km from Qom to Tehran for banking business for the private firm that employs him. It is a trip he has to undertake every few days and says he cannot refuse for fear of losing his job.

A few streets away, pedestrians were shopping for fresh vegetables and dried fruit – mostly women or older men, but this time, mainly in masks. “I think maybe only half the people follow health protocols” across the capital as a whole, said Zahra, a 30-year-old accountant. “Either people don’t care or don’t have the patience” to wear a mask, she said.

Mohammad, a former building contractor, complained that masks were expensive and in short supply. A disposable surgical mask can cost from 49,000 rials (30 US cents, using the unofficial rate) to 10 or 15 times that amount for the better quality durable coverings. “They should have given them to people for free,” said the mask-less 58-year-old. But Mohammad’s biggest gripe was overcrowding on buses, where red crosses marked on half of the seats to maintain social distancing are routinely ignored. He said he was outraged to see a bus with “40 people on it” during his morning commute and urged authorities to increase services. – AFP