Saturday 8 August 2020

18 Dhul-Hijja - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8343

Choose the network of heroes Enjoy the Internet

SPORT | 16BUSINESS | 11

UK says it’s

confident of Brexit

trade deal as EU

changing tone

Al Duhail tie

one of the

toughest for Al

Sadd: Xavi

QRCS sends humanitarian aid to people of LebanonTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

As part of the immediate humanitarian response to the Beirut Port explosion, an aircraft of the Qatar Emiri Air Force left Doha yesterday morning, carrying relief aid cargo sent by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) as a gift of solidarity from the people of Qatar to the brotherly people of Lebanon.

QRCS leaders were present during the departure of the aircraft, including Ali bin Hassan Al Hammadi, Sec-retary-General; Eng. Ibrahim Abdullah Al Maliki, Chief Executive Director and Acting Director of Relief and Inter-national Development; and Dr. Fawzi Oussedik, Head of International Relations and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), said QRCS in a statement.

As the aircraft arrived in

Beirut, it was received by the staff of QRCS’s representation mission in Lebanon, in coop-eration with the Lebanese Red Cross. They coordinate with the embassy of Qatar in Lebanon to facilitate the entry and handover of the cargo.

Consisting of tonnes of relief and medical aid, the cargo is the first of successive batches of aid to be sent under the Heart for Beirut, a humanitarian campaign launched by QRCS to provide health, shelter, and food aid to alleviate the impact of the disaster on the affected vul-nerable people and support the efforts of the Lebanese Red Cross.

Together with the host National Society, QRCS’s mission is providing food meals and other urgent aid for the affected families, in order to help them to with-stand the current ordeal.

QA resumes flights to Houston, PhiladelphiaTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Airways, the only Gulf carrier that never stopped flying to the US during the crisis in an effort to take over 160,000 stranded people home, has continued to work closely with

the US government and airports as the airline rebuilds its US network.

The national carrier of Qatar has now announced the resumption of flights to two additional US gateways, Houston (IAH) and Philadelphia

(PHL) along with expanding fre-quencies to daily to Los Angeles (LAX) from August 12 and double daily to New York (JFK) from September 1.

This news, which will add three weekly flights to Houston from September 2 and four

weekly flights to Philadelphia from September 15, wi ll see the airline’s US operations grow to eight gateways including Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth and Washington, DC, strengthening its positions as the leading international carrier operating services to and from the US.

Strong partnerships in place with American Airline and JetBlue, which currently empower Qatar Airways pas-sengers to book onward travel with American Airline on more than 600 daily flights and with JetBlue on more than 70 daily flights, will amplify the reach of these flights even further.

By mid-September 2020, travellers will gain access to 56 weekly flights in the airline’s US network and will be able to book onward travel with American Airline to over 200 destinations on more than 850 daily flights, and with JetBlue to over 55 destinations on more than 150 daily flights. �P2

Amir donates QR50m to ‘Lebanon in Our Hearts’ driveSANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani donated QR50m to the ‘Lebanon in Our Hearts’ campaign which raised over QR65.2m during a two-hour live transmission on Qatar TV yesterday.

The time of fundraising TV programme was extended for 15 minutes to give opportunity to more people to extend their helping hand for this noble deed.

The live fundraising cam-paign which began yesterday at 9pm concluded at 11:15pm. The second live fundraising program will be aired today at 9pm on Qatar TV.

A total of QR65,244,865 donations were made by indi-viduals, banks and companies operating in the country. The major donors after generous donation of H H the Amir include Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) and Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) as each of them donated QR1m. Barwa Bank donated QR500,000, Ahli Bank contributed with QR300,000.

The Group donated QR400,000. Many companies including healthcare, eateries etc contributed as per their capacity.

An individual Hamad bin Ahmad bin Ali Al Thani donated QR100,000. A woman Umm Sad contributed QR100,000. An individual who did not want to be named donated QR300,000.

The fundraising campaign was organised by the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activ-ities (RACA) in cooperation with Qatar Charity (QC) and the Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS), to support Lebanese people, fol-lowing the tragic disaster that struck the port of Beirut. The campaign is in line with the position of the State of Qatar towards the Lebanese people.

A number of scholars, humanitarian activists and rep-resentative from local charity organizations were guests of the programme who encouraged people to extend their helping hand for their brothers in

Lebanon at this tough time. Professor Dr. Ali M Al

Qaradaghi, Secretary-General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and Vice-Chairman for European Council for Fatwa and Research lauded H H the Amir for his generous donation.

“This is really very hon-ourable stand of H H the Amir and this is not the first time as Qatar is known for supporting people of different countries in their tough times,” said Al Qaradaghi.

He called upon residents – citizens and expatriates — to make generous contributions.

Campaign raised over QR65.2m during a two-hour live transmission on Qatar TV

The live fundraising transmission in progress on Qatar TV last night.

“This is our duty extend helping hands to our brothers in Lebanon.”

Farah Barri, acting charge d’affaires of Lebnon Embassy in Qatar during her intervention to the fundraising program on tele-phone thanked H H the Amir for his generous donation.

She said that Qatar is among those country which dispatched assistance first to Lebanon as it is well known for supporting other countries.

General Secretary of Qatar Red Cresent Society (QRCS), Ali bin Hasan Al Hammadi said that QRCS immediately communi-cated with Red Cresent of Lebanon after the blast.

“We – a team from QRCS – visited the site of the incident to assess the situation of need. Medical assistance and food sup-plies were dispatched for the affected of the blast,” said Al Hammadi.

Qatari technical

team begin

assembling 2 field

hospitals in Beirut

QNA — BEIRUT

A technical team from the State of Qatar have begun work on assembling equipping the two field hospitals sent by the State of Qatar in support of the Lebanese concerned authorities to treat the people wounded and affected by the Beirut Port explosion incident, which took place on Tuesday.

The team that arrived in Beirut on Thursday evening, on board a Qatari Emiri Air Force plane, began their duties by assembling the first hos-pital inside the Al- Roum Hospital, provided that the second hospital would be assembled in the vicinity of the Jeitaoui Hospital.

The Lebanese side will manage the two field hos-pitals after the end of the tasks of the Qatari medical team, which will oversee the start-up.

The second live fundraising program will be

aired today at 9pm.

Commercial Bank of Qatar and Qatar Islamic

Bank donated QR1m each. Barwa Bank donated

QR500,000 and Ahli Bank QR300,000. The Group

donated QR400,000.

The campaign was organised by the Regulatory

Authority for Charitable Activities in cooperation

with Qatar Charity and the Qatar Red Crescent

Society.

Strong partnerships in place

with American Airline and

JetBlue, which currently

empower Qatar Airways pas-

sengers to book onward

travel with American Airline

on more than 600 daily flights

and with JetBlue on more

than 70 daily flights, will

amplify the reach of these

flights even further.

A view of the Philadelphia downtown.

LAST 16 - SECOND LEG

YESTERDAY'S RESULTSManchester City 2 - 1 Real

Madrid 1 (Aggregate 4-2)

Juventus 2 - 1 Lyon (Aggregate 2-2)

Lyon win on away goals

Stunning creations on display at Qatar's first virtual fashion showRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Dozens of stunning creations by international brands and local designers in Qatar were on display during the country’s first virtual fashion show held on Thursday at The Pearl-Qatar as part of Qatar Summer Programme presented by the Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC).

Hundreds of fashion aficio-nados watched the show in the comfort of their homes when

it was broadcast live via QNTC’s social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Live. The event, which was organised by QNTC in part-nership with United Devel-opment Company (UDC), show-cased a diverse collection of ready-to-wear, menswear and eveningwear by a number of leading fashion brands and stores including The Project, Per Lei Couture, Ashwa Fashion, Maison Royale Fashion, Liwani and Youssef Al Jasmi. �P2

TODAY'S FIXTURESFC Bayern Munich vs Chelsea

FC Barcelona vs Napoli(Both matches kick off at 10.00pm Qatar time)

FROM PAGE 1

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker, said: “Qatar Airways has remained committed to bringing people home safely since the onset of the pandemic, and our com-mitment to the US, a very important strategic market, has never wavered.

We are proud of our repa-triation efforts to-date, and we look forward to providing trav-ellers access to even more flights to the US with the resumption of flights to Houston and Phila-delphia, two major cities.”

“The addition of these flights brings us to eight US destinations and maintains our position as the largest international carrier in the U.S., and we look forward to soon returning to all ten of our incredible US gateways.”

Travellers can plan their travel to Qatar Airways’ eight U.S. destinations with peace of mind, as the carrier has extended its booking policies to offer passengers maximum flexibility and choice, ranging from unlimited date changes to the option of changing your destination as often as needed

within 5,000 miles of the original destination. Fare dif-ference fees will not apply for travel completed before 31 December 2020. Full terms and conditions are available at www.qatarairways.com/RelyOnUs.

Over the past several months, Qatar Airways has led the industry by maintaining a global network that never fell below 30 destinations. In doing so, the airline collected unri-valled experience in carrying

passengers safely and reliably and became uniquely posi-tioned to effectively rebuild its network.

The carrier has stringently implemented the most advanced safety and hygiene measures on board its aircraft and in Hamad International Airport – from introducing enhanced PPE suits for cabin crew, to becoming the first airline to require passengers to wear face shields in addition to face coverings.

OFFICIAL NEWS

02 SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 03.41 am 05.04 am

W A L R U WA I S : 36o↗ 39o W A L K H O R : 34o↗ 45o W D U K H A N : 35o↗ 39o W WA K R A H : 31o↗ 46o W M E S A I E E D 31o↗ 46o W A B U S A M R A 32o↗ 41o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 06:36 – 19:15 LOW TIDE 02:53–13:38

Very hot daytime with some clouds and slight dust at places

at times.

Minimum Maximum35oC 46oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.40 am06.17 pm

ASR ISHA

03.08 pm07.47 pm

Qatar reiterates cooperation with UN to fight terrorismQNA — NEW YORK

The State of Qatar has reiterated its commitment to continue cooperation with the United Nations and member states to eradicate terrorism, affirming its cooperation with multilateral bodies within the framework of international cooperation.

Qatar has also expressed its belief in the importance of evi-dence-based policies and an understanding of the causes and forms of links between terrorism and organised crime, stressing its endeavour to enhance infor-mation security, encourage inter-national cooperation to combat cybercrime, and provide a safe and robust cyber environment.

This came in a statement delivered by Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani before the UN Security Council, which held an official meeting on “addressing the links between terrorism and organised crime.”

Her Excellency stated that the State of Qatar continuously coop-erates with these bodies within the framework of international cooperation to identify best prac-tices for a coordinated and effective response through initi-atives, referring to the interna-tional academic conference to study the relationship between organised crime and terrorism, which was held in Doha on April 25, 2018, in cooperation between the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the College of Law at Qatar University.

Her Excellency noted that in May 2017 Doha hosted a workshop on stopping terrorist financing, held in cooperation with the UNODC and the Financial Action Task Force in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena FATF). and also pointed to the State of Qatar’s participation in sponsoring the high-level con-ference on international and regional cooperation in com-bating terrorism financing through illicit drug trafficking and organised crime, which was held by Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe on 17 / 5/2019 in coordination with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office.

HE the Permanent Repre-sentative said, “Believing in the importance of evidence-based policies and understanding the causes, forms and circumstances of the links between terrorism and crime, the State of Qatar

participated in sponsoring the study on ‘identifying and exploring the relationship between human trafficking, ter-rorism and terrorist financing’, conducted by the Executive Directorate of Counter-Terrorism Office in 2018 to shed light on this important issue.

Her Excellency also touched on the necessary measures taken by the State of Qatar at the domestic level, especially the continuous updating of laws and regulations related to combating terrorism and its financing, to tackle any emerging terrorist challenges.

She pointed out that the State of Qatar has repeatedly updated its national legislation and regu-lations related to combating cybercrime and terrorism, pre-venting the spread of weapons.

HE Sheikha Alya Al Thani stated that misusing information

resources and technologies and harnessing them to facilitate sus-picious financial transactions is a constantly growing risk that requires thorough study and effective tackling. She stressed that Qatar seeks to enhance information security and encourage international cooper-ation to combat cybercrime and provide a safe and strong cyber environment, pointing out that the Qatar has been a victim of a cybercrime that has been a pretext for fabricating a regional crisis that has severely damaged regional and international security and stability since 2017.

Her Excellency praised the national committees established by the State of Qatar to combat terrorism, organised crime, arms proliferation and interde-pendence between them, and took financial and economic measures, such as investigations to discover networks that facil-itate organised crime, noting the strict customs measures imposed by Qatar to combat the import of contraband.

Warning of the danger of international terrorism and crime in all their forms, Her Excellency said that “what increases these dangers is that terrorist groups feed on crime, and in return,

criminal gangs have benefited from the spread of terrorism.”

She referred to terrorist groups active in human traf-ficking by recruiting young men to carry out terrorist operations and using sexual violence as a terrorism tactic.

on the backdrop of the threat of terrorism and organised crime and in light of the current chal-lenges posed by (COVID-19) pan-demic, Her Excellency said, that these dangers are not limited to a specific country, and therefore bilateral and multilateral coop-eration is necessary for an effective response, underlining the important role played by the UN bodies and agencies.

Concluding her statement, Qatar’s Permanent Represent-ative to the United Nations H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani reit-erated the State of Qatar’s com-mitment to continue cooper-ation with the United Nations and member states to eradicate terrorism, stressing that inter-national terrorism in its various forms poses a grave threat, as is the case with organised crime, of various kinds that include human trafficking, drugs, weapons and electronic piracy to name a few.

H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani

Amir congratulates Cote d’Ivoire PresidentDOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin

Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Amir

H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad

Al Thani sent yesterday cables of

congratulations to President of the

Republic of Cote d’Ivoire H E Alas-

sane Ouattara on the anniversary

of his country’s Independence Day.

Prime Minister and Minister of Inte-

rior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa

bin Abdulaziz Al Thani also sent a

cable of congratulations to Prime

Minister and Minister of Defence

of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire H E

Hamed Bakayoko on the anniver-

sary of his country’s Independence

Day. -QNA

MADLSA warns

against sharing

information with

unofficial entities

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs has warned residents against dealing with non-official entities tempting people for job opportunities or inviting them to participate in providing social services.

The Ministry asked residents to not share their personal infor-mation with such entities.

“Amid publishing adver-tisements from unofficial and unlicensed entities during the past, the Ministry of Adminis-trative Development, Labour and Social Affairs calls members of the community to be cautioned and do not deal with such entities or accounts through social networking sites, websites and SMS asking indi-viduals to provide personal information for job opportu-nities or participating in pro-viding social services,” the Min-istry tweeted recently.

The Ministry stressed that residents should not share any information or personal details to these unofficial accounts and unlicensed entities and avoid dealing with them.

The Ministry said that people can get updated about its activities and news through official website adlsa.gov.qa and social networking site @ADLSAQa.

MoPH: 291 new

virus cases; 311

recoveries

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) reported yesterday 291 new confirmed cases of coro-navirus (COVID-19), and 311 recoveries from the virus, bringing the total number of people who recovered from the disease in Qatar to 109,142 cases. The MoPH announced two new deaths. All new cases have been introduced to isolation and are receiving necessary healthcare according to their health status.

ICC holds webinar on innovative physics teaching, learning

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Indian Cultural Centre’s (ICC) Science Club recently organised a webinar on ‘Innovative Physics Teaching & Learning Through Simple Experiments’ by Dr. Brajesh Pandey, Associate Professor with Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Pune.

The event was attended by over 1,000 students, teachers and parents through Zoom t and through Facebook live on ICC FB page, said ICC in a statement.

The programme was hosted by Activity Incharge of ICC Science Club – Dr. Shuarra

Hussain, who introduced the guest to the audience and emphasised the need to transform society through basic sciences.

ICC President, AP Man-ikandan encouraged the audience to attend many such programmes in future which ICC come up with as this will help in developing scientific attitude and temperament among the science lovers of Qatar. Vice President and Club Coordinator, Vinod Nair said that these types of workshops play a vital role in skill enhance-ments among the community.

Her Excellency also touched on the necessary measures taken by the State of Qatar at the domestic level, especially the continuous updating of laws and regulations related to combating terrorism and its financing, to tackle any emerging terrorist challenges.

QRCS officials, including Ali bin Hassan Al Hammadi, Secretary-General; Eng. Ibrahim Abdullah Al Maliki, Chief Executive Director and Acting Director of Relief and International Development; and Dr. Fawzi Oussedik, Head of International Relations and International Humanitarian Law, posing during the departure of the aircraft carrying aid to Lebanon.

QRCS sends aid to Lebanon

QA resumes flights to Houston, Philadelphia

Stunning creations on display at first virtual fashion show

FROM PAGE 1

Highlighting the evening’s show were 10 elegant abaya pieces from the collection of abaya brand Shades. The glit-tering show was aptly held at The Pearl-Qatar which is home to high-end retail shops, world-class restaurants, luxury accom-modations, and diverse leisure and entertainment facilities.

This first-of-its-kind fashion show in Qatar complemented QNTC’s continuous efforts to support the burgeoning fashion industry in the country through events such as the Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition and Design District at Shop Qatar.

The event was held in line with the Qatar Summer Pro-gramme, a vibrant line-up of offers and activities arranged by QNTC for people to enjoy during the summer holidays.

The programme is being organised in collaboration with QNTC’s partners from across

the public and private sectors. The programme offers

people wide-ranging hospitality deals at more than 40 establish-ments across the country, including discounts of up to 50 percent on room bookings, as well as promotions on cultural activities and outdoor adven-tures such as kayaking, fishing and desert safaris.

Through fruitful collabo-ration with its stakeholders, QNTC is developing attractive promotions and activities to strengthen the tourism industry and ancillary sectors such as retail, culture and hospitality, working to deliver a robust cal-endar of events throughout the year that reinforce Qatar’s position as a preferred tourist destination for families.

This year’s summer pro-gramme presents ample choices for citizens and residents to explore and rediscover the unique experiences Qatar has to offer.

The country’s first-ever virtual fashion show presented by QNTC on Thursday at The Pearl-Qatar featured a diverse collection of designs by international fashion brands.

A view of the Manhattan Bridge.

Qatar provides

aid to Haiti

QNA — SANTO DOMINGO

The Embassy of the State of Qatar to the Dominican Republic has provided medical aid to the Republic of Haiti to help confront the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The shipment, provided by Qatar Charity, included medical and preventive assistance.

Acting Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the State of Qatar to the Dominican Republic Yaser Awad Al Abdulla presented the shipment of Qatari medical aid to Acting Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Haiti to the Dominican Republic Yves Rody Jean.

03SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020 HOME / MIDDLE EAST

Opportunities for language education in a post-pandemic worldTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Dudley Reynolds, Co-Area Head of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar — a Qatar Foundation partner university — has discussed why students need to be allowed to experience how “multilin-gualism makes a place richer”.

He has said that schools should do more. They should lay the foundation for a better future and try to make the community they serve a smarter, fairer, and more wel-coming place.

He wrote, “the past year has made us all very aware of the dangers and injustices of a divided world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen how inequities in healthcare, living conditions, and economic security mean that some people fare better than others. We have also realised how none of us will be healthier than the least healthy among us.

“We must begin to dis-mantle the barriers within our communities that lead to eco-nomic disparities, and also those that cause us to see the person beside us as a ‘worker,’ a ‘citizen,’ an ‘Arab,’ or a ‘Black person’ before we see them as a human being. Jobs, national-ities, and races should never

be ignored — they are important parts of who we are. But we must realise that all jobs, all nationalities, and all races contribute to the well-being of our world. How can we teach this?”

“Last year, I authored a report on Language Policy in Globalised Contexts for the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), Qatar Foun-dation’s global education ini-tiative. I argued that if schools want to improve their commu-nities and begin dismantling social barriers, they need to rethink how they use and teach languages. They should chal-lenge the perception that some languages are more valuable than others.

“Too often, languages spoken at home are not used in school. A United Nations report estimates that as many as 40 percent of students worldwide have to study in a language they do not fully understand. In addition to making learning difficult, this policy decision tells them their home language is not good enough for school. It makes them question whether they are part of a community.”

Moreover, when teaching Arabic or English or Malayalam, we often focus on one language at a time and forbid all others. This suggests that what we

know about one language is not helpful when learning another language, that languages somehow compete for mental space. It also presents a false picture of how languages are spoken in the world outside the classroom, Reynoldsn said.

Go into any shop in Qatar and you will hear multiple lan-guages being spoken, often by the same individual as part of a single conversation. Skilled users of a language can easily go between mult iple languages.

They recognise connections and use what they know in one language to help them with another. They have a deep understanding of how all lan-guages work as a medium for informing, persuading, and entertaining. Seeing how social divisions have exacerbated the impact of COVID-19, I realize even more the imperative of valuing and supporting what each student thinks of as “their” languages, of including in school curricula multiple opportunities to learn addi-tional languages that increase economic opportunities and open up different ways of seeing the world. Students need to feel valued by their com-munity; they need to value people who are different from them. They need the mental exercise that comes with

making connections between languages. They need to leave behind fears of languages they do not understand and expe-rience first-hand how multi-lingualism makes a place richer.

The changes that I am asking for are more than token acknowledgment of diversity. As detailed in the report, they involve changes to how we structure curricula, the financial support we provide for learning inside—as well as outside—schools, the power we give teachers to design

instruction for their individual students, and even what we teach as language knowledge.

While working on the report, I had the chance to observe specialists from Qatar Foundation’s Education Devel-opment Institute working with schools from Qatar Founda-tion’s Pre-University Edu-cation to implement such changes. They started by asking school leaders about their own experiences hearing and learning languages and what they could do to value the experiences of each of

their students. Real, practical changes that can be imple-mented at the level of indi-vidual schools begin with crafting a broad, shared vision for how each individual should feel as part of a community.

As we emerge from an iso-lated and divided pandemic world, I hope we will envision the opportunities education systems worldwide provide to promote languages and mul-tilingualism as vehicles for collaboration and community building, Dudley Reynolds has said.

Syrian doctors fearvirus spreading fasterthan clinics can testAFP — BEIRUT

Syria’s capital is facing a “terrible” spike in COVID-19 infections, with hospitals packed, patients scouring Facebook for advice and medics fearing the virus is spreading faster than clinics can test for it.

Authorities in government-held areas have confirmed 999 cases including 48 deaths — but even the health ministry admitted this week it lacks the “capacity... to carry out widespread testing in the provinces”.

Nine years of war have bat-tered Syria’s health sector, with hospitals damaged by bombing, vital equipment lacking and doctors hurt or forced to flee fighting.

That has set the country up poorly to deal with the corona-virus, a new invisible danger for doctors more accustomed to dealing with trauma wounds and victims used to huddling together under bombs, not keeping apart.

Week on week, COVID-19

appears to be spreading faster.From July 30 to August 6, the

Syrian health ministry logged more than 260 new cases, com-pared to only 154 infections the previous week.

“There has been a massive spread among cities,” the min-istry admits, saying there are only 25,000 hospital beds available in government-controlled areas.

In Damascus, doctors report that public facilities are already packed and unable to admit new patients.

“It’s extremely terrifying,” said Dr. Nubugh Al Awa, dean of Damascus University’s medical school.

“Many people are going to state-run hospitals but unfortu-nately all the rooms are full,” Awa told a health-focused Facebook page updating Syrians on coro-navirus cases in their country.

“Patients in a bad state are not admitted to the intensive care unit unless another patients dies.”

In June, the World Health

Organisation said it was “con-cerned” about the spread of COVID-19 in Syria, citing “poor infrastructure and fragile health systems vastly weakened by conflict.” But Health Minister Nizar Yaziji said Western sanc-tions against the government, not war, had hamstrung the country’s response.

“There are huge difficulties in getting ventilators because of the sanctions that have been imposed,” Yaziji said, claiming

they also made it impossible for Syria to import medicines, sign deals with pharmaceutical com-panies or pay outside suppliers.

But the United Nations and countries including Russia and China have provided direct medical support to Syria.

With cases on the rise, authorities in Damascus recently ordered gyms, sports centres and summer schools to close indefinitely.

Seven football players from the national team tested pos-itive for COVID-19, according to the Syrian Sports Federation.

But doctors in Damascus say the official case numbers reflect only those admitted to hospital, not infected individuals who may be staying at home.

“The real numbers are much higher than the official ones,” said a doctor in the capital who spoke on condition on anonymity.

A municipality worker disinfecting a car in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

Israeli army

claims downing

drone coming

from Lebanon

AFP — JERUSALEM

The Israeli army said it had shot down a drone overnight Thursday into yesterday that came from Lebanon, a border on heightened military alert due to recent skirmishes.

Israeli troops overnight “identified a drone which infil-trated into Israeli airspace in the Mount Hermon area, along the Israeli side of the Blue Line” demarcating the Jewish state and Lebanon, the army said.

“The drone was monitored and downed,” it said, adding Israeli troops were conducting searches in the area.

Mount Hermon is a stra-tegic and fortified outpost at the crossroads between Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

An Israeli military official told AFP that the drone had arrived from Lebanon.

The army’s statement said that troops were on “elevated preparedness in the North and will not tolerate any violation of Israeli sovereignty”.

Palestinian girl martyred by Israeli stray bulletANATOLIA — JENIN

A Palestinian girl yesterday succumbed to her wounds she susta ined ear l ier yesterday when she was shot by the Israeli army at her home in Jenin city, north of West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement

that Dalia Assamoudi, 23, from Jenin “was martyred as a result of being shot by the Israeli army.” In an earlier statement, the ministry said Assamoudi was in critical condition after undergoing a surgery.

Eyewitnesses said that she was wounded by random

gunfire while she was at her home. Yesterday morning, an Israeli force broke into Jenin and fired live bullets against Palestinian protesters, with clashes erupting.

The Israeli army has yet to comment on the incident.

The Israeli army usually storms Palestinian towns to

arrest Palestinians “wanted” by Israeli security services, and clashes with them.

International law views the West Bank and East Jeru-salem as “occupied terri-tories” and considers all Jewish settlement-building activities on the land to be illegal.

Israeli army targets Hamas position in GazaANATOLIA — GAZA CITY

The Israeli army bombed a position of the Palestinian group Hamas late Thursday in the north of the blockaded Gaza Strip, according to local media. Israeli warplanes struck the position in Beit Lahiya belonging to the Izz ad-Din Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. No information was reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry on casualties. Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation also said the Israeli army targeted some positions in Gaza.

Qatar’s Internal Security Force’s (Lekhwiya) Search and Rescue Team commenced search and rescue operations at Beirut Port yesterday morning in collaboration with other several international teams. The pictures were tweeted yesterday by the Embassy of Qatar in Lebanon.

Lekhwiya’s Search and Rescue Team commences operation in Lebanon

Dudley Reynolds (right), Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar.

04 SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Lebanon sees possible ‘externalinterference’ in port explosion

AGENCIES — BEIRUT

Lebanon’s president said yesterday an investigation into the biggest blast in Beirut’s history would examine whether it was caused by a bomb or other external interference, as residents tried to rebuild their shattered lives after the explosion.

Aoun rejected calls for an international probe into the blast after world leaders and Lebanese nationals abroad and at home pressed for an impartial investigation.

When asked by a journalist during a televised interview if he thought an international probe would dilute the "truth", the president answered, "of course".

Moments later on his Facebook page, the president spelled out his position further, saying, "the goal behind calls for an international investigation into the port issue is to dilute the truth."

The search for those missing has intensified, as rescuers sifted rubble in a race to find anyone still alive after Tues-day’s blast that killed 154, smashed up a swathe of the city and sent seismic shockwaves around the region.

“The cause has not been determined yet. There is a pos-sibility of external interference through a rocket or bomb or other act,” President Michel Aoun said in comments carried by local media and confirmed

by his office. He said it would also consider whether the explosion was due to negligence or an accident. He previously said highly explosive material had been stored in unsafe con-ditions for years at the port. A source has said an initial probe blamed negligence related to storage of the explosive material. The United States has previously said it has not ruled out an attack. Israel, which has fought several wars with Lebanon, has also previously denied it had any role.

Security forces fired teargas at a furious crowd in Beirut late on Thursday, as anger boiled over at the ruling elite, who have presided over a nation that faced economic collapse even before the deadly port blast that injured 5,000 people.

The small crowd, some hurling stones, marked a return to the kind of protests that had become a feature of life in Beirut, as Lebanese watched their savings evaporate and currency disintegrate, while government decision-making floundered.

“There is no way we can rebuild this house. Where is the state?” Tony Abdou, an unem-ployed 60-year-old.

His family home is in Gem-mayze, a district that lies a few hundred metres from the port warehouses where 2,750 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate was stored for years, a ticking time bomb near a densely populated area.

A security source and local

media previously said the fire that caused the blast was ignited by warehouse welding work.

Volunteers outside swept up debris from the streets of Beirut, which still bears scars from the 1975-1990 civil war and has often witnessed big bombings and other unrest since then.

“Do we actually have a gov-ernment here?” said taxi driver Nassim Abiaad, 66, whose cab was crushed by falling building wreckage just as he was about to get into the vehicle.

“There is no way to make money anymore,” he said.

The government has promised a full investigation. State news agency NNA said 16 people were taken into custody.

But for many Lebanese, the explosion was symptomatic of years of neglect by the author-ities while corruption thrived.

Officials have said the blast, whose seismic impact was recorded hundreds of miles away, might have caused losses amounting to $15bn.

Hospitals, many heavily damaged as shockwaves ripped out windows and pulled down ceilings, have been overwhelmed by the number of casualties. Many were struggling to find enough foreign exchange to buy supplies before the explosion.

In the port area, rescue teams set up arc lights to work through the night in a dash to find those still missing, as fam-ilies waited tensely, slowly losing hope of ever seeing loved ones again. Some victims were hurled into the sea because of the explosive force. The weeping mother of one of the missing called a prime time TV programme on Thursday night

to plead with the authorities to find her son, Joe. He was found — dead — hours later.

Lebanese Red Cross Sec-retary General George Kettaneh told local radio VDL that three more bodies had been found in the search, while the health min-ister said on Friday the death toll had climbed to 154. Dozens are still unaccounted for.

Charbel Abreeni, who trained port employees, showed pictures on his phone of killed colleagues. He was sitting in a church where the head from the statue of the Virgin Mary had been blown off.

“I know 30 port employees who died, two of them are my close friends and a third is missing,” said the 62-year-old, whose home was wrecked in the blast. His shin was bandaged.

A man stands in the rubble of his damaged office in the Lebanese capital Beirut, yesterday.

Coronavirus cases in Africaexceed 1 million markANATOLIA — ADDIS ABABA

Coronavirus cases in Africa exceeded the 1 million mark yesterday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday, as the continent recorded 14,656 new cases over the last 24 hours.

The death toll from the virus in Africa reached 22,066, while recoveries rose to 690,436. Southern Africa has confirmed a total of 565,100 cases, of which South Africa alone took by far the greater proportion that stood at 538,200.

North Africa has 170,200 cases, West Africa 136,800, East Africa 85,600 and Central Africa 49,600. At least 10,200 people lost their lives to the virus in Southern Africa, 7,000 in North Africa, 2,000 in West Africa, 1,900 in East Africa and 945,000

in Central Africa.Ten countries account for 89

percent (735,482) of all reported COVID-19 cases in the African Region: South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mada-gascar & Senegal. South Africa accounts for more than half, according to WHO Africa office.

There has been a 13% increase in the number of virus cases in Africa over the past week, compared to a 18% increase recorded during the previous reporting period, it added. Meanwhile, the Muslim community in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde will be able to perform their first Friday prayer at the Tsinga Islamic Complex after four months.

Worshipers have been asked to respect social distancing and to wear masks.

27 dead in

Mauritania boat

disaster: UNAFP DAKAR

Twenty-seven people died after the engines on their migrant vessel failed, leaving them stranded off the coast of Mauri-tania, the United Nations said yesterday.

The UN’s refugee agency and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said in a joint statement that they were “deeply saddened at the tragic death of 27 people”.

A boat en route towards Spain’s Canary Islands ran into engine trouble between the northern Mauritanian city of Nouadhibou and the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara, according to the statement.

“Those on board were left stranded at sea and began suf-fering from extreme dehy-dration,” it added.

The incident occurred “some days ago,” the UN said, although the exact date remains unclear.

Mauritanian coastguards rescued a lone survivor, a Guinean man, near Nouadhibou on Thursday.

The search for those missing has intensified, as rescuers sifted rubble in a race to find anyone still alive after Tuesday’s blast that killed 154, smashed up a swathe of the city and sent seismic shockwaves around the region.

Gunmen kill 21

villagers in

northern Nigeria

AFP — LAGOS

Gunmen have killed 21 villagers in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state, police said yesterday, in the latest deadly violence between ethnic Fulani herders and local farmers over grazing and water rights.

Community leaders however said a higher total of 33 people were killed in the assaults on the remote five vil-lages which took place early on Thursday.

Motorcycle-riding gunmen suspected to be Fulani herders stormed the villages in the pre-dominantly Christian district of Zangon Kataf, shooting res-idents as they fled their homes, state police spokesman Mohammed Jalinge said.

“The villages were attacked by gunmen on motorcycles in which 21 people were killed and three were injured,” Jalinge said.

He said the assailants launched the attacks during a heavy downpour when resi-dents, including local vigi-lantes, were in bed.

Jalinge said the attacks occurred despite a round-the-clock curfew in the area after violence between the two sides escalated in recent weeks.

Uganda’s prisoner population surges,raising fears of COVID-19 outbreakREUTERS — KAMPALA

Uganda has recorded a 10 percent increase in the number of people in jail since March, a prison official said yesterday, with thousands jailed for alleged violations of coronavirus lockdown rules.

By imposing one of Africa’s strictest lockdowns, the country of 42 million has reg-istered just 1,213 COVID-19 cases and five deaths from the disease, despite crumbling public hospitals, doctors’ strikes and corruption scandals. But there have been at least three cases of the novel coronavirus in jails, fuelling concerns it could spread among prisoners. About 30 inmates who feared infection have escaped since the pandemic hit Uganda, though some have since been recaptured.

“Fear of contracting COVID-19 has been fuelling anxiety among inmates and we had mass escapes at two prisons,” said Frank Baine, spokesman for Prisons service.

Correctional facilities worldwide have been fertile ground for COVID-19. Africa’s prison population of more than 1 million is especially vulnerable because of over-crowding, malnutrition and limited healthcare, health experts say.

Authorities in Togo, Dem-ocratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Kenya have reported COVID-19 outbreaks in their prisons. The number of prisoners in Uganda has risen from 59,000 to 65,000 in five months, exacerbating overcrowding, Baine said, adding that lockdown viola-tions — such as defying curfews, travel bans and restrictions on using vehicles — accounted for the unusually large increase in inmates.

“During the lockdown,

people continued to commit crimes but the justice system more or less came to a stand-still so the prisoner population inevitably went up,” Baine said.

Uganda’s jails can com-fortably accommodate only 20,000 inmates, according to the prisons service.

“Anything beyond 20,000 is stretching our capacity,” he said, adding that an amnesty by President Yoweri Museveni for some violators of COVID-19 regulations was now starting to reduce the prisoner numbers.

During the lockdown, a ban on private and public vehicles prevented some inmates being taken to court for hearings and some were unable to travel home imme-diately when they had served their sentences.

A file photo of members of Local Defence Unit offloading relief material during a distribution exercise to civilians affected by the lockdown as part of measures to prevent the potential spread of coronavirus, in Kampala, Uganda.

Rwanda opens seven virus

testing centres in provinces

ANATOLIA — KIGALI

Besides decentralising responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the East African country of Rwanda has issued a series of safety measures for travellers.

Located in the Great Rift Valley, where the Great Lakes region converges with East Africa, landlocked small country reopened its airports for commercial flights last week, but kept its land borders still closed.

Travelers destined for Rwanda are required to test twice for the COVID-19 within 72 hours of departure and get screened before entering into the airport, according to a statement issued by the coun-try’s health ministry.

“We are now adopting the decentralization strategy, where experts are deployed to different provinces to help dis-tricts to build their capacities in terms of response to COVID-19,” Tharcisse Mpunga,

Rwandan State Minister in charge of Primary Healthcare told Anadolu Agency.

According to US-based Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Center, Rawana has so far reported 2,111 COVID-19 infec-tions with 5 deaths. As many as 1,258 people have recovered.

The minister said that testing centers are being set up in provinces, to help to trace and treating infections so that at national level health workers concentrate on the capital Kigali.

He said the ministry is now able to test some 5,000 samples a day up from the initial capacity of 400.

The ministry has set up seven testing centers coun-trywide, to decongest Kigali, where all samples were tested.

“The goal is to ensure that provinces are self-sufficient as they will no longer need to rely on lab services in Kigali, which will enable medical staff in the city to concentrate on national cases,” he said.

Ouattara’s third

term bid opposed

in Ivory Coast

REUTERS — ABIDJAN

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara’s decision to run for a third term in office violates the constitution and will destabilise a country still recovering from civil war, his opponents said yesterday.

In a speech on Thursday evening, Ouattara went back on an earlier pledge and said he would run in the October 31 election, drawing accusations that he is following in the foot-steps of other African leaders who have manipulated consti-tutions to hang onto power.

Ivory Coast law limits pres-idential terms to two, but Ouattara says that a new con-stitution adopted in 2016 acted as a reset button, allowing him to run again. Even before Ouat-tara’s announcement, the vote was seen as a stern test of Ivory Coast’s stability. Ouattara’s first win in 2010 sparked a brief civil war that killed about 3,000 people when his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept his loss. Politicians from that era, including Gbagbo, are still vying for power and influence, which has revived old political tensions.

“President Ouattara is sowing the seeds of the desta-bilisation of Ivory Coast,” Maurice Kakou Guikaoué, the executive secretary of the opposing Democratic Party of Ivory Coast, said

By imposing one of Africa’s strictest lockdowns, the country of 42 million has registered just 1,213 COVID-19 cases and five deaths, despite crumbling public hospitals, doctors’ strikes and corruption scandals.

05SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

India surpasses 2 million virus cases as health volunteers strikeAP — NEW DELHI

As India hit another grim mile-stone in the coronavirus pandemic yesterday, crossing 2 million confirmed cases and more than 41,000 deaths, community health volunteers went on strike complaining they were ill-equipped to respond to the wave of infection in rural areas.

Even as India has main-tained comparatively low mor-tality rates, the disease has spread widely across the country, with the burden shifting in recent weeks from cities with robust health systems to rural areas, where

resources are scarce or nonexistent.

The Health Ministry reported 62,538 cases in the past 24 hours, raising the nation’s confirmed total to 2,027,074. It said 886 more people had died, for a total of 41,585.

But the ministry said that recoveries were growing. India has the third-highest caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil. It has the fifth-most deaths but its fatality rate of about two percent is far lower than the top two hardest-hit countries. The rate in the US is 3.3 percent, and in Brazil 3.4 percent, Johns Hopkins Uni-

versity figures show.The caseload in the country

of 1.3 billion has quickly expanded since the government began lifting a monthslong lockdown hoping to jump-start a moribund economy. India is projecting an economic con-traction in 2020.

Life cautiously returned to the streets of the capital of New Delhi and the financial hub Mumbai, which appear to have passed their peaks.

In Mayur Vihar, a neigh-borhood in east Delhi, shop-keeper and pharmacist Rajiv Singhal described the daily phone calls he received when he tested positive for COVID-19

from officials within the Delhi state government, the Delhi police and the federal gov-ernment to check on his condition.

“Despite our huge popu-lation and rampant illiteracy, if we have only two million cases so far, it shows that the gov-ernment has played a big role in reducing the spread,” he said.

But authorities elsewhere in India were reimposing lock-downs after sharp spikes in cases, including in Uttar Pradesh, a state of 220 million residents where infections in every district are weighing heavily on the fragile health system. After fully reopening in

June, the state reimposed a weekend lockdown in July.

Shachindra Sharma, a 60-year-old graphic designer in the state capital of Lucknow, only leaves his house for a weekly grocery shop.

“I do not fear the disease but I do fear the government system, which has crumbled,” he said.

Around 900,000 members of an all-female community health force began a two-day strike yesterday, protesting that they were being roped in to help with contact tracing, personal hygiene drives and in quar-antine centres, but weren’t given personal protective

equipment or additional pay, according to organizer A R Sindhu.

The health workers, known as Accredited Social Health Activists, or ASHA, which means ‘hope’ in several Indian lan-guages, have been deployed in each village on behalf of the Health Ministry. Their work ranges from escorting children to immunization clinics to counseling women on childbirth.

But while their regular work hasn’t reduced, they are increasingly being involved by state governments in the fight against the pandemic, said Sindhu.

Sri Lanka President,brother tighten gripwith big election winREUTERS — COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elec-tions handed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his older brother an overwhelming majority, results showed yesterday, giving the family power to enact sweeping changes to the constitution of the island nation.

Rajapaksa had sought, and achieved, a two-thirds majority for his Sri Lanka Podujana Per-amuna party and its allies to be able to restore full executive powers to the presidency, a move analysts say could push the country toward authoritarianism.

The ruling group won 150 seats in the 225-member par-liament, according to a tally published by the election com-mission from Wednesday’s vote.

The two-thirds majority will see Rajapaksa’s brother and ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, 74, taking over as prime min-ister tomorrow as the tourism-dependent nation struggles to recover from last year’s deadly

Islamist militant attacks and, more recently, lockdowns to control the coronavirus pandemic.

The brothers’ popularity has risen among the majority Sin-halese since the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks and because of their record in crushing Tamil separatist rebels in 2009.

President said the resto-ration of full executive powers was necessary to implement his agenda to make the country of 21 million economically and militarily secure. No timeline has been set for such a move.

“We will ensure (Sri Lanka) will not stand disappointed

during our tenure,” Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Twitter.

Currently, significant power is bestowed on parliament and the prime minister after a pre-vious government led by the now- opposition amended the constitution and set up inde-pendent commissions to oversee the police and the judiciary, among other arms of the government.

“We have seen in the past when governments have had a two-thirds majority (they do) not have to worry about checks and balances,” historian and political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda said.

“In fact they have untram-melled power, that is what we have observed in both India and Sri Lanka. In the past in Sri Lanka, the governments which had this level of power in 1970 and thereafter in 1977 generated a lot of social discontent.” Veteran journalist and political commentator Victor Ivan antic-ipates a power struggle between the brothers, who are known for stamping out the Tamil Tigers insurgency for a separate

homeland for the Hindu minority during the elder Rajapaksa’s presidency in 2009, ending a 25-year civil war.

“The president wants to change the constitution to take back the power to the presi-dency,” Ivan said. “In this situ-ation either the elder brother must step aside and cede power to the younger brother, or the younger man must take a step back and allow the older brother to exercise power.”

Sri Lanka’s economy con-tracted by 1.6 percent in the first

quarter of 2020 as COVID-19 restrictions battered a country still recovering from last year’s Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed 269 people and par-alysed the tourism industry.

Capital Economics expects the Indian Ocean nation’s economy to shrink four percent this year, in what would be its worst performance in more than 50 years.

In a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is keen to check Chinese

influence on its southern neighbour, Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to deepen relations between the neighbouring countries.

“Sri Lanka and India are friends and relations,” the senior Rajapaksa, who had drawn his country closer to China during his presidency, said on Twitter after the call.

Sri Lanka in 2017 had to cede control of its southern port of Hambantota to its Chinese financiers after struggling to repay its debt for the project.

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (right) greets supporters at his home in the southern town of Tangalle yesterday, after the parliamentary election results.

Australia Premier

refuses to attack

political foes

over pandemic

AP — CANBERRA

Australia’s prime minister on Friday rejected demands from within his own conservative party to publicly attack the center-left Victoria state government over its flawed handling of the nation’s worst coronavirus outbreak and an economically damaging lockdown.

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison has been widely applauded for attempting to rise above party politics in the national response to the pan-demic. State governments ruled by the conservative Liberal Party as well as those governed by the center-left Labor Party are sending nurses and other medical resources to Victoria, the only state struggling to curb a second wave of infections.

But Victoria’s decision to throw 250,000 people out of work in Australia’s second-most populous city, Mel-bourne, with the country’s toughest lockdown threatens to fracture the fragile political truce.

Morrison said while his Liberal-led coalition tried to influence Victoria’s Labor gov-ernment in confidential meetings on its pandemic responses, “states have compIete and total control over those types of restric-tions.” “I don’t see a great advantage of engaging in that process in some sort of public spectacle,” Morrison said. “I don’t think that would be good for public confidence. I don’t think that would be good for public assurance.” Compared to the United States, Australia has largely succeeded in keeping partisan politics out of the nation’s pandemic response.

Rescue workers search for survivors at the site of a landslide in Munnar, Kerala, India, yesterday.

Massive landslide kills 15 in KeralaAP — NEW DELHI

A mudslide triggered by heavy monsoon rain and flooding killed at least 15 people and buried 20 homes of tea plan-tation workers in southern India yesterday, police said.

Twelve people have been rescued, said police officer Eldhose Madhai, adding that more than 50 people were unaccounted for in the region.

Kerala state’s top elected official, Pinarayi Vijayan,

confirmed 15 deaths and said a 50-member rescue team has been sent to Rajamalai area in Idukki equipped with nighttime equipment for rescue efforts.

The Press Trust of India news agency said police and fire service officers were already in the area. Communi-cation links and electricity lines were snapped and a bridge in the area was washed away.

The meteorological office issued a red alert with more rain expected in the region.

A shrine in Ernakulam dis-trict on the bank of the Periyar River was almost submerged as water levels rose after sluice gates of a dam were opened.

The Muthirapuzha River also flooded low-lying areas of Munnar, also in Iddiki district.

Annual monsoon rains hit South Asian from June to Sep-tember. The rains are crucial for rain-fed crops planted during the season but often cause extensive damage.

Seafarers stranded by virus stall 3 ships off AustraliaBLOOMBERG — CANBERRA

Seafarers aboard three vessels who’ve been stuck at sea beyond their original contracts are stalling vessels in Australia, halting work and demanding to be repatriated, according to the International Transport Workers’ Federation.

Port and border restrictions to halt the spread of COVID-19 have snarled crew swaps, stranding workers on ships beyond their original contracts. That’s left about 250,000 sea-farers stuck at increasing risk of physical and mental exhaustion, according to the International Chamber of Shipping.

The Conti Stockholm, Ben Rinnes and Unison Jasper vessels are idle and blocking berths in the ports of Fremantle, Geelong and Newcastle, respec-tively, the union said in a statement on Thursday. The crews are within their rights to refuse to sail, the union said.

“These three ships are just the tip of the iceberg. With international crew change all but blocked for the last five months — you can expect to see more and more crews decide to drop anchor and get off in Australia,” ITF Coordi-nator for Australia Dean

Summers said in the statement. “The consequence for Aus-

tralia’s mineral and agricultural exports and flow of imports will be significant. This is an eco-nomic and humanitarian emergency.”

The Unison Jasper was hauling alumina, according to the ITF. The Ben Rinnes was chartered by Cargill Inc to transport soy, it said.

“We are frustrated to learn of crew members being over contract on the Ben Rinnes, which is unfortunately one of many such cases at the moment,” a spokesperson for Cargill said, adding that the firm recognizes the challenges that many crew are facing and is working to try and repatriate them.

Many of the crew on the Ben Rinnes had been on board for longer than the legal maximum, and one of the sea-farers has been on the ship for more than 17 months, according to ITF. The crew signed five-month extensions after their nine-month tour after the vessel owner promised to repatriate them, the union said.

The Conti Stockholm is at an anchorage in Fremantle while a solution is being is worked out, according to a spokesperson from the port.

Air India plane skids off runway, breaks apart; 17 deadAGENCIES — KOZHIKODE

At least 17 people were killed and over 100 injured when an Air India Express passenger plane overshot the runway and broke into two after landing in the southern city of Calicut in heavy rain yesterday, officials said.

The Boeing-737 flight from Dubai was flying home Indians stranded overseas due to the coronavirus pandemic. There were 190 passengers and crew on board, the civil aviation

ministry said in a statement. Among them were 10 infants.

Television footage showed rescue workers moving around the wreckage in pouring rain. The aircraft lay split into at least two chunks after he plane’s fuselage sheared apart as it fell into a valley 30 feet below, authorities said.

Media reports suggested that the plane skidded off a runway, crashing nose-first into the ground.

The Kerala state police chief

said at least 17 people had been killed, with at least four pas-sengers stuck the wreckage.

The civil aviation ministry said in a statement there was no fire on board.

Local TV news channels showed passengers, some of them lying motionless on stretchers, brought into a hos-pital surrounded by health workers wearing masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Air India Express AXB1344, was a repatriation flight

operated by the government to bring Indians home during international travel restrictions due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Millions of Indians work in the Gulf.

“Pained by the plane accident in Kozhikode” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted referring to Calicut’s new name. “My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover at the earliest,” he said.

“We regret that there has been an incident regarding our

aircraft,” Air India Express said in a statement. Aviation regu-lators in the UAE had no imme-diate comment.

The plane was carrying 191 people, including 10 babies and 7 crew, the DGCA said.

The so-called table-top airport is located on a hill, and several international airlines had stopped flying bigger air-craft including Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 jets into Kozhikode due to safety issues over the length on the runway.

The ruling group won 150 seats in the 225-member parliament, according to a tally published by the Election Commission from Wednesday’s vote.

06 SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020ASIA

Afghan grand assemblymeets to discuss releaseof 400 Taliban prisonersAP — KABUL

A traditional grand assembly met yesterday in Kabul to decide whether to release a final 400 Taliban prisoners, the last hurdle to negotiations between Afghanistan’s political lead-ership and the Taliban under a peace deal the insurgents signed with the United States earlier this year.

The meeting of the council of elders, known as Loya Jirga, was initially expected to last three days but could end as early as tomorrow.

The Kabul-Taliban negotia-tions are seen as a critical step toward lasting peace in Afghan-istan and a roadmap to what the country might look like after decades of war, with the Taliban joining the political mainstream. They are also to decide what con-stitutional changes would be made in a post-war Afghanistan, and how the rights of women and minorities would be protected.

The negotiations would also determine the fate of the tens of thousands of heavily armed men on both sides of the conflict — the Taliban on one side, and the warlords and armed militias

loyal to Kabul on the other.The Taliban have rejected

yesterday's gathering in Kabul, claiming it had no legal status. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement late Thursday saying the 400 pris-oners had to be released if peace talks with the Taliban were to move forward.

"We acknowledge that the release of these prisoners is unpopular,” Pompeo said. "But this difficult action will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and Afghanistan’s friends: reduction of violence and direct

talks resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war."

If the council agrees to free the 400 Taliban — the last batch of prisoners whose release the insurgents have demanded under the US-Taliban accord from February — talks between Kabul and the Taliban could begin as early as on Monday.

A survey circulated at the Loya Jirga yesterday put the choice bluntly: decide to free the Taliban prisoners and talks could begin on Monday, or refuse and the war would con-tinue. If the Taliban are freed, direct talks could be followed by a lasting cease-fire.

The Loya Jirga, which is expected to cost the cash-strapped Afghanistan $4.5m, is being attended by several thousand participants even as the Health Ministry earlier this week said as many as half of Kabul's residents have been infected with the coronavirus. The true figures are believed to far surpass the more than 36,900 officially reported cases, including 1,298 deaths.

The Afghan Health Minister, Jawad Osmani, recently said as many as 10 million people — a

third of Afghanistan's popu-lation — have been infected.

In his statement, Pompeo said the Taliban had "also com-mitted to significantly reduce violence and casualties during the talks."

Since the US-Taliban deal in February, the Taliban have not attacked American and Nato troops, but have continued to wage war on Afghan security forces. The US and Nato have also begun withdrawing some troops in line with the agreement.

The deal calls on the Taliban to guarantee that Afghanistan

will not be used as a staging ground for attacks on the United States or its allies. The with-drawal of US and Nato troops hinges on the Taliban meeting those commitments and not on a positive outcome to negotia-tions between the Taliban and Kabul's political leadership.

The deal also called on Kabul to free 5,000 Taliban while the insurgents were to free 1,000 government and mil-itary personnel.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has so far freed all but 400 of the Taliban prisoners, insisting on a traditional council

to decide their release, saying their crimes were too serious for him to decide on alone.

At the assembly yesterday, Abdullah Abdullah, who was made head of the High Council for National Reconciliation to end political infighting in Kabul, took over the leadership of the Loya Jirga from its previous head, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a warlord.

Ghani told the participants they must decide "one way or another” on the 400 Taliban prisoners.

"It is time to decide,” Ghani said, urging the participants to decide quickly.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (left) speaks during the first day of the Loya Jirga, a grand assembly of Afghan elders, at the Loya Jirga Hall in Kabul, yesterday.

Mahathir plans new party to woo majority Malay supportREUTERS — KUALA LUMPUR

Veteran Malaysian politician Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday he planned to set up a new party to champion the interests of the country’s ethnic majority Malays, six months after the coalition he headed lost power in a political upheaval.

Mahathir, 95, quit in Feb-ruary in a political gamble to strengthen his hand but it back-fired and Muhyiddin Yassin, who had been part of his gov-ernment, unexpectedly emerged as prime minister after

forging an alliance with the United Malays National Organ-isation (UMNO) to gain a par-liamentary majority.

Mahathir has since pushed for a confidence vote in par-liament to oust Muhyiddin for what he said was bringing back to power the graft-tainted UMNO party rejected by voters in an historic election two years ago.

His new party aimed “to redeem the dignity of the Malays tainted by treachery, cheating, lying, corruption and greed due to the deeds of other Malay party leaders”, Mahathir

told reporters, adding it would not be aligned with any existing coalition.

Malays make up more than two-thirds of the population, followed by ethnic Chinese, Indians and other minority groups.

Having led Malaysia for 22 years until 2003, Mahathir came out of retirement to join hands with former foes to oust then Prime Minister Najib Razak, who last month was found guilty of corruption in the first trial over a multi-billion-dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB.

Mahathir, who was the world’s oldest head of gov-ernment after his surprise comeback in 2018, said his party had been hijacked by Muhyiddin and a new inde-pendent party was necessary. Mahathir has yet to give the party a name.

“This party will be inclusive and moderate and will show to other ethnicities that the Malays are not treasonous, able to keep promises and do not refuse sincere and principled cooper-ation,” he said, calling on the government not to hinder its registration.

Philippines defends coronavirus response after soaring casesREUTERS — MANILA

The Philippines has seen a jump in coronavirus infections due to intensified testing, the presidential spokesman said on Friday, defending the country’s response to the pandemic after overtaking Indonesia to record the most cases in Southeast Asia.

Infections have surged nearly seven-fold to more than 122,000, while deaths have more than doubled since a strict lockdown was lifted in June. It prompted authorities to reimpose a lockdown in and around Manila earlier this week.

“While we do not want to see these numbers, this is a result of our intensified testing,” Harry Roque, spokesman of President Rodrigo Duterte, told a briefing.

“This means we know where our enemy COVID is,” Roque said, adding that it allowed health authorities to properly trace, isolate and treat patients.

Eighty medical groups rep-resenting more than a million Philippine doctors and nurses warned last week of a collapse of the healthcare system without tighter controls and called for more testing and tracing.

Nearly 1.6 million people have been tested in the country, though this is less than two

percent of its 107 million pop-ulation. The Philippines has said it plans to test 10 million people by the second quarter of 2021.

There are now 100 testing laboratories in the Philippines, up from just one in February.

The Philippines is ahead of Indonesia, which has tested 951,910 of its nearly 270 million people, though well below the per capita testing in neighbours such as Singapore and Malaysia.

The Philippines’ health ministry on Friday reported 3,379 additional cases, bringing the total of confirmed infec-tions to 122,754. Deaths rose by 24 to 2,168.

The country now has the highest case load in eastern Asia including China, dis-maying many Filipinos.

“There’s still no mass testing up to now. I think that is the solution and the only way to bring down the cases of COVID-19 in the country,” said Ronald Rueda, a motocycle-riding courier in Manila.

Meanwhile, Russia's ambas-sador to Manila said yesterday that Russia is willing to supply a coronavirus vaccine to the Philippines, or team up with a local firm to mass produce it.

“We are ready to supply vaccines to the Philippines,” Igor Khovaev, Russia’s ambas-sador to the Philippines, told a virtual news conference

Medical residents attend a 24-hour strike amid the coronavirus disease pandemic to protest a government plan to increase medical school admissions by 400 a year for the next decade to prepare for potential infectious disease outbreaks, in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday.

China sentences

fourth Canadian

to death on

drug charges

AP — BEIJING

China has sentenced a fourth Canadian citizen to death on drug charges in less than two years following a sharp downturn in ties over the arrest of an executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei.

Ye Jianhui was sentenced yesterday by the Foshan Municipal Intermediate Court in the southern province of Guangdong. Ye had been found guilty of manufacturing and transporting illegal drugs, the court said in a brief statement.

Another suspect in the case was also given the death penalty and four others sen-tenced to between seven years and life in prison, it said. Death sentences are automatically referred to China’s highest court for review.

Ties between Canada and China have nosedived over Can-ada’s late 2018 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a company executive and the daughter of Huawei’s founder, at Vancouver’s airport at the request of the US, which wants her extradited to face fraud charges over the com-pany’s dealings with Iran. Her arrest enraged Beijing, which calls it a political move aimed at constraining China’s rise as a global technology power.

Ye’s sentencing came a day after fellow Canadian Xu Weihong was given the death penalty by the Guangzhou Municipal Intermediate Court, also in Guandong province. Convicted Canadian drug smuggler Robert Schellenberg was sentenced to death in a sudden retrial shortly after Meng’s arrest, and a Canadian citizen identified as Fan Wei was given the death penalty in April 2019 for his role in a mul-tinational drug smuggling case.

Medical residents stage protest in South Korea

Pakistan resumes international flight operations at all airportsINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

The government of Pakistan yesterday allowed international flight operations in Pakistan to fully resume at all airports, a day after it announced the lifting of several coronavirus restrictions in light of reducing cases and deaths.

A Notam (notice to airmen) issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that oper-ations will resume from August 9 at 1900 hours. “The gov-ernment of Pakistan is pleased to allow all international pas-senger operations to/from all air-ports as avai lable pre-Covid-19.

“International scheduled flight operations to/from Pakistan will revert to authori-sations as per summer-20 scheduling season. However, international flight operations

shall be conducted in accordance with established guidelines and applicable standard operating procedures (SOPs).

“International cargo and special flight operations may also be conducted to/from Pakistan as per applicable SOPs,” it said.

In another Notam, the CAA said all types of domestic pas-senger operations would be allowed to and from all air-ports. A day earlier, the Avi-ation Division had announced that domestic flight operations would be restored from all air-ports in the country from August 6 midnight.

Aviation Division’s senior joint secretary, Abdul Sattar Khokhar, said all operators would be required to implement the established guidelines, SOPs, and that they would seek prior schedule approval from the competent authority.

Malaysia’s former financeminister charged with graftAP — KUALA LUMPUR

Malaysia’s former finance minister was charged Friday with corruption over a $1.5bn undersea tunnel project, a move he slammed as political perse-cution by the new government.

Lim Guan Eng, who was part of a reformist government ousted in March, pleaded not guilty to a charge of soliciting 10 percent of potential profits in 2011 as a bribe for the contract. He was detained late on Thursday by the anti-corruption agency after they summoned him for questioning over the project in northern Penang state.

The project was approved during Lim’s tenure as Penang chief minister from 2008-2018, before he became Malaysia’s finance minister. The 7.2km

tunnel project from Penang island to peninsular Malaysia includes several highways and is to be funded through a land swap of reclaimed prime land.

“This is a baseless allegation and it’s politically motivated to tarnish and smear my reputation as well as, of course, my effort to execute my role as an opposition parliamentarian,” Lim, 59, said after he was released on bail.

The charge didn’t mention how much Lim could have gained. He faces up to 20 years in jail and a fine if convicted. The anti-corruption agency also said that Lim will face two other charges in a Penang court next week, one related to the tunnel project and another in a dif-ferent case. It didn’t give details.

Lim’s Democratic Action Party tweeted that the charges

against him were political perse-cution as the project was awarded through an open tender and that no payment had been made.

Construction for the tunnel project hasn’t started yet as the state government is still reviewing the feasibility study.

National Bernama news agency said Lim’s wife, Betty Chew, was also detained yes-terday after she was called to the anti-graft agency in Penang for questioning. Local media quoted her lawyer as saying she has been freed on bail and will be charged with money laundering.

No further details were pro-vided. Local media cited sources as saying Chew will be charged alongside her husband. Anti-graft officials couldn’t be immediately reached for comments.

"But this difficult action (prisoner release) will lead to an important result long sought by Afghans and Afghanistan’s friends: reduction of violence and direct talks resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war."

Britain’s Met Office warned the public to take precautions against dehydration and sunburn and be ready for a dramatic rise in temperatures following a rather cool week.

07SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE

Thousands seek refuge from searing heatin Britain and FranceAP — LONDON

Residents and visitors in Britain sought refuge from searing heat yesterday, with thousands mobbing beaches and parks despite warnings to maintain social distance and other pre-cautions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the UK’s infection rate limiting the ability of its citizens to travel abroad, temperatures that rose to 36.4 degrees Celsius at London’s Heathrow Airport and Kew Gardens pro-duced a larger than normal August population seeking places to cool off.

Her Majesty’s Coastguard responded to 70 calls by midday, a number above normal for this time of year.

“The beaches across the whole of the southwest are extremely busy at the moment with both locals who are holi-daying at home this year and an influx of visitors to the region,’’ said Kitty Norman, a water safety expert at the the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

“The sheer volume of people making social distancing tricky

is one thing to be conscious of before planning your trip to the beach.’’ The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers said it expects a surge of passengers to the beaches from Blackpool to Southend and Brighton to Bournemouth this weekend as the heatwave con-tinues. “It is important that the Public Health England COVID-19 safety standards are maintained at all times,’’ union senior assistant general sec-retary Mick Lynch said.

The mercury was also on the rise in France, where the national meteorological service Meteo-France placed 45 departments, including Paris and its inner

suburbs, on orange alert warning the public should be vigilant for a heatwave. Temperatures were set to rise to 42 degrees Celsius in parts of the country.

Britain’s Met Office warned the public to take precautions against dehydration and sunburn and be ready for a dra-matic rise in temperatures fol-lowing a rather cool week.

Public Health England issued a heat-health warning and advised people sheltering indoors to close curtains on windows facing the sun.

“This summer, many of us are spending more time at home due to COVID-19,’’ said Ishani Kar-Purkayastha, a consultant at Public Health England.

“A lot of homes can overheat, so it’s important we continue to check on older people and those with under-lying health conditions, partic-ularly if they’re living alone and may be socially isolated.”

Britain’s 10 warmest years have occurred since 2002, with last year producing the hottest day on record at 38.7 Celsius at Cambridge Botanic Garden on July 25, 2019.

A construction worker refreshes himself in Bordeaux, southern France, yesterday during high temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius.

Germany closes two schools in new virus blowAFP — BERLIN

Hundreds of children were sent home yesterday as Germany closed two schools over coronavirus infections, in a new blow to hopes for a return to normality after the summer holidays.

Just days after schools in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania became the first to reopen full time after the break, some 800 students were forced to head home from the Goethe Gymnasium in Lud-wigslust after a teacher tested positive for COVID-19.

The infected teacher has not given any lessons since the secondary school reopened on Monday, but all 55 teachers will now have to be tested for the virus. The school will remain closed until at least Wednesday, said a statement issued by the district.

Separately, 100 pupils from a primary school in Rostock district have been placed under quarantine for two weeks after a pupil was confirmed infected.

The situation in Meck-lenburg-Western Pommerania is closely watched across the country as it was the first of Germany’s 16 states to reopen the school gates on Monday after summer holidays.

Scientists look beyond antibodies in virus immunity huntAFP — PARIS

Could the ghosts of your previous colds help protect you from COVID-19, even if you have never been infected by the new coronavirus spreading across the planet? Scientists are investigating a poorly-understood immune mechanism in the body that they hope could help efforts to curb the pandemic.

At the moment, people who think they have had the virus might get a sero-logical test to check for antibodies.

These proteins help fight off infection and may prevent them from getting the disease again in the future — but there are signs that with COVID-19 they could fade away within weeks.

This leaves the other instrument in the body’s toolkit — T lymphocytes — a

type of white blood cell responsible for the second part of the immune response. With little yet known about how they operate against COVID-19, scientists are racing to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

One hypothesis is that these T cells might help give people a level of cross-immunity protection from COVID-19 because they “remember” previous infec-tions by other viruses in the same family, four of which cause common colds.

“The immune system is complex,” said Andreas Thiel, who co-authored a study that looked at the presence of T cells able to react to the new corona-virus, both among those with confirmed infections and healthy people.

The research, published last week in the journal Nature, found that at least a third of adults that had never had

COVID-19 have these T cells. “These most likely originate from previous infections with endemic coronaviruses,” Thiel, a professor at Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies, said.

But he cautioned that much more research was needed to find out whether their presence would necessarily mean immunity. The research followed a study by a team in Singapore published in Nature earlier in July that reached a similar conclusion.

Another study from the United States, published on Tuesday in the journal Science, found a number of T cells that reacted both to the new virus, SARS-CoV-2, as well as to the coronaviruses that cause colds. “This could help explain why some people show milder symptoms of disease while others get severely sick,” said co-author Daniela

Weiskopf, of La Jolla Institute for Immu-nology, in a statement.

This study builds on research, pub-lished in the journal Cell in May by the same team, which detected these SARS-CoV-2 reacting T cells in 40 to 60 percent of people who had never had COVID-19.

The vaccines currently in devel-opment for the new coronavirus seek to trigger both types of immune response. Previously attention, however, has largely focused on the immunity con-ferred by antibodies.

“But we must not think that nothing else exists,” Yonathan Freund, professor of emergency medicine at the Paris Pitie-Salpetriere hospital, said. Studies have shown that the level of antibodies for patients who have had COVID-19 drops rapidly, perhaps within a few weeks.

A man looks up to the Planpincieux glacier from the village of La Palud, in Courmayeur, Val Ferret, northwestern Italy.

Italian valley still in ‘red zone’ as Mont Blanc glacier threatens collapseAFP — COURMAYEUR, ITALY

An Italian alpine resort remained on high alert yes-terday over fears a vast chunk of a glacier on the slopes of the Mont Blanc massif could plummet in high temperatures.

“No one gets through! No cars, bikes or pedestrians,” was the message at a checkpoint where an automatic barrier and two guards blocked the small tarmac road snaking up into a lush valley below the Planpin-cieux glacier, not far from the town of Courmayeur and the Italian-French border.

The huge ice block meas-uring around 500,000 cubic metres — “the size of Milan cathedral or a football pitch covered in ice 80 metres (260 feet) thick” according to an official — could yet break free of its perch about 2,600 to 2,800 metres above sea level.

Late on Wednesday, author-ities ordered the evacuation of a “red zone” at the base of the slope for at least 72 hours, so far moving just 75 people — around 20 locals and the remainder

holidaymakers. At this time of year, the small Val Ferret valley now blocked off is usually busy with tourists heeding the call of the mountains.

Located in the Aosta Valley region, the spot is not far from where a vital road tunnel pierces the Alps between France and Italy.

But the “red zone” is at least four kilometres from the tunnel entrance, while tourists could still be seen strolling through the streets of Courmayeur.

It was “urgent and vital” to move people directly in the path of a potential ice fall, Cour-mayeur mayor Stefano Miser-occhi said, highlighting an “ele-vated state of alert” during the 72-hour evacuation. The coming three days are expected to bring especially high temper-atures as much of Europe sizzles under a heatwave.

There are more than 4,000 glaciers — vast, ancient reserves of ice — dotted throughout the Alps, providing seasonal water to millions and forming some of Europe’s most stunning land-scapes. But they are under

severe threat from climate change. A study last year by Swiss scientists found that Alpine glaciers could shrink between 65 and 90 percent this century, depending on how effectively the world drags down greenhouse gas emissions.

At Planpincieux this week, “it’s an especially delicate situ-ation because (the temperature) upsets the water level between

the ice and the rock, and in turn the stability of the glacier,” Aosta Valley natural risk man-agement director Valerio Segor said. “Our problem now is that not enough water can escape, it stays under the glacier like a bubble and risks lifting it up” — which could prompt its most fragile section to tumble into the valley, Segor added.

During a helicopter flypast, a

witness saw a gaping chasm in the lower part of the glacier as it hung from the mountainside. Last autumn, another section of ice from the Planpincieux glacier threatened to collapse, prompting road closures in the area, and heightened surveillance has since been introduced.

Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps at over 4,800 metres.

Russia wants to return to Venus, build reusable rocketAFP — MOSCOW

The head of Russia’s space agency said yesterday that Ros-cosmos wants to return to Venus and bring back soil samples and build spacecraft that will surpass Elon Musk’s rockets.

Last week America’s first crewed spaceship to fly to the International Space Station in nearly a decade returned safely to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico.

The mission was carried out

jointly by Nasa and Musk’s SpaceX. Its Falcon 9 rocket is semi-reusable. “We are making a methane rocket to replace the Soyuz-2,” Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with state news agency RIA Novosti.

He said it will be a reusable space complex, noting that it will be possible to use its first stage at least 100 times.

“Of course we are looking at what our American colleagues are doing,” said Rogozin. “But our

engineers are trying to take a shortcut — not to repeat what our SpaceX colleagues are doing but surpass them.”

Rogozin said he was not impressed with the SpaceX spacecraft, saying its landing was “rather rough”. “It’s not designed for ground landing — that’s exactly why American colleagues chose to land on the water the way it was done 45 years ago,” Rogozin said.

Russia had for many years enjoyed a monopoly as the only

country able to ferry astronauts, and the SpaceX launch meant the loss of a sizeable income. A seat in the Soyuz costs Nasa around $80m.

Rogozin said he also wanted Russia to return to Venus. “It was always a ‘Russian planet,’” he said. The Soviet Union was the only nation to have landed probes on the surface of Venus.

“I believe that Venus is more interesting than Mars,” Rogozin said, adding that studying Venus could help scientists understand

how to deal with climate change on Earth. Venus, whose atmos-phere is made up nearly com-pletely of carbon dioxide, is considered to be the hottest planet in the solar system.

“If we don’t study what is happening on Venus then we won’t understand how to prevent a similar scenario from happening on our planet.” He said he wanted Russians — in cooperation with Americans or by themselves — to bring back the surface materials of Venus.

UK angry at ‘unacceptably high’ Channel migrant numbersAFP — LONDON

British interior minister Priti Patel yesterday described the volume of migrants crossing the Channel as “appalling and unacceptably high” and called on France to help keep numbers down.

Patel made her comments on social media the day after British border officials detained 235 migrants as they tried to cross the narrow stretch of water between the UK and France — a daily record high.

The government has come under increasing political pressure from critics to tackle the issue and has floated the idea of using the Royal Navy to patrol the Channel.

“The number of illegal small boat crossings is appalling and unacceptably high. The figures are shameful,” Patel said in a series of messages on Twitter.

Patel, whose parents left Uganda in the 1960s to live in Britain, called on “genuine ref-ugees” to claim asylum in European Union states rather than travel to the UK. “We also need the cooperation of the French to intercept boats and return migrants back to France,” she wrote.

Last month the interior ministers of France and Britain signed an agreement to create a new joint police intelligence unit to combat migrant traf-fickers and reduce the number of illegal Channel crossings.

Ireland reimposes some virus curbs in three countiesREUTERS — DUBLIN

Ireland announced its first localised reimposition of some coronavirus restrictions yes-terday as it sought to control outbreaks in three of the coun-try’s 26 counties, one of which borders the most populous, Dublin.

Restaurants, cafes and clubs in Kildare, Laois and Offaly can only serve food in outdoor areas to small groups for the next two weeks, with residents only allowed to leave their county in limited circum-stances. The adjoining counties accounted for almost half of all cases in Ireland over the last two weeks.

“We all need to understand that this virus is still a deep and urgent threat, it is merciless and it is unrelenting. We have to be decisive. We can’t afford to wait and see,” Micheal Martin said in his first televised address as Prime Minister.

08 SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

QATAR'S treatment of thousands of expatriate workers engaged in different infrastructure and other devel-opment works has been widely acclaimed by several international labour unions and agencies. They are not treated as workers, but as guests of the country. The authorities always strive to provide them with the best facilities available whether it is accommodation or enter-tainment avenues and keenly follow their welfare.

When the COVID-19 made its entry into the country, Qatar was well aware that its workforce is vulnerable and will be exposed to the pandemic. Keeping this in mind the country had taken several measures much in advance to prevent and mitigate the impact of the infection among the workers by establishing special hospitals, placing preventive measures, reducing the presence of number of workers at sites, limiting the number of people that can be carried in buses etc to name a few. Companies employing workers were required to ensure measures such as social distancing, hand wash facilities, temperature monitoring in labour accommodations and work sites. These efforts proved effective in the management of spread and treatment of COVID-19 among a large section of the society.

Convinced that creating awareness plays a key role in controlling any pandemic, Better Connections program of the Ministry of Transport and Communica-tions (MoTC) has said that over 400 computers will be provided at self-isolation residences in labour cities to spread the message of tackling COVID-19. The program aims at raising awareness electronically about COVID-19 for 1.5 million migrant workers through a government portal in five languages through text messages and informational video materials, the MoTC tweeted.

The program has already achieved many milestones including 1,962 ICT-equipped facilities, 19,000 com-puters donated for the program and five languages for awareness via workers’ Hukoomi portal. It envisages to train 50,000 workers to impart knowledge to fellow workers. It also plans to provide 1,000 content pages on workers’ Hukoomi portal and make available more than 400 computers at self-isolation residences at labour cities.

Qatar has been keen on taking advantage of the full potential of digital communication modes to get a message across a vast number of population. It is very essential to make enough infrastructure facilities available such as gadgets like computers, mobile handsets, proper cabling and data receiving equipment etc. For Qatar, a country with all the modern hard and soft infrastructure and equipment in place, it is much easier to make full use of the communication avenues.

The workers will be able to absorb the message in its true sense and spirit when they get it in their own language, which will also definitely serve the purpose of the sender.

Raising workforce awareness

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Quote of the day

Sri Lanka People’s Front has secured a resounding

victory. It is my belief that that the expectation

to have a Parliament that will enable the

implementation of my ‘vision for prosperity’ policy

will be reality tomorrow.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lays a wreath to the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing, at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan, yesterday, on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.

Three-quarters of a century ago, the United States unleashed hell. The atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prefigured the end of World War II and the start of an uncertain and, in many ways, terrifying new age. The US-Soviet nuclear rivalry settled over most of the remainder of the 20th century, with calculations of mutual assured destruction ensuring the frigidity of the Cold War. Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the only two places attacked in war with nuclear weapons, though the world’s atomic arsenals now contain weapons exponen-tially more deadly than what was used then.

We still don’t have an exact number for those killed in the two Japanese cities - estimates range from 110,000 to 210,000 people. The radi-ation fallout sickened and probably curtailed the lives of countless others. Every year, the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand vigil in memory of those who died and the horror of what ravaged their cities. They also keep issuing urgent appeals to a world that is slowly for-getting what it means to live under the permanent shadow of an atomic holocaust.

This year, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui urged the Japanese government to

ratify a 2017 UN treaty calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. He described what befell Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki a few days later as the result of an “upsurge in nationalism” that “led to World War II” and the US decision to drop atomic bombs on the two cities.

“We must never allow this painful past to repeat itself,” Matsui said. “Civil society must reject self-centered nationalism and unite against all threats.” But in the age of President Donald Trump, self-centered nationalism is front and center. Despite the efforts of advocates of nuclear non-proliferation, eight countries possess nuclear weapons (nine, if you count Israel’s clandestine program), while the two big powerhouses - the United States and Russia - are locked in a worrying esca-lation after decades of reducing their arsenals.

On the grounds that Russia was violating the pact, the Trump administration last year pulled out of the Inter-mediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, one of the linchpins of late-Cold War diplomacy. Analysts also suspect attempts to renew the New START Treaty - a key arms reductions pact with Russia that is set to expire early next year - probably will fail, thanks in part to White House demands that China’s far smaller arsenal also now be subject to its terms.

“From the Russian stand-point, we’re not serious about arms control at this point,” said Thomas Graham, a former senior director for Russia on the National Security Council under Pres-ident George W. Bush, to my Washington Post colleague

Karen DeYoung for an Aug. 1 article. “There is simply not time now to negotiate a new agreement, bilateral, let alone trilateral.” Instead, both sides tout their advances in nuclear weaponry, with tactical addi-tions that are bound to com-plicate the strategic landscape and raise new fears of a global nuclear arms race. “For the first time in the history of nuclear weapons, we don’t have to catch up with anyone,” Russian President Vladimir Putin declared in January. “On the contrary, the world’s other leading nations will have to first create the weapons that Russia already has.” “The president has made clear that we have a tried and true practice here,” said Mar-shall Billingslea, the Trump administration’s arms control negotiator, earlier this year. “We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion.” International offi-cials are worried about the shifting status quo. “The web of arms control, transparency and confidence-building instruments established during the Cold War and its aftermath is fraying,” UN Sec-retary General António Guterres warned in a video message beamed to Hiro-shima on Thursday.

“Division, distrust and a lack of dialogue threaten to return the world to unre-strained strategic nuclear competition.” Experts warn that emerging technologies of cyberwarfare, including arti-ficial intelligence, risk multi-plying the possibility of con-flict and miscalculation. “We are returning to the days of the 1950s and 1960s, when each country decided for itself how many and what kind of

weapons to deploy,” Vienna-based disarmament expert Nikolai Sokov told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.

Adding to their alarm is the sense that the memory of what it felt like to be afraid of nuclear war - let alone being victims of it as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - is slipping away. “Decades of fearing a nuclear war that didn’t happen may have induced an unwarranted complacency that this threat belongs to the past,” wrote Jessica Matthews, a former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “A million people gathered in New York’s Central Park in 1982 to call for an end to the arms race in the largest political demonstration in US history. Today the prospect of nuclear disaster is barely noticed.”

“We have forgotten how to fear nuclear war,” Sokov told Der Spiegel. “And the bad thing about that is that if people aren’t afraid of it, it will become inevitable.” Nothing inspires fear more than reading the firsthand accounts of what those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki endured.

“What I felt at that moment was that Hiroshima was entirely covered with only three colors. I remember red, black and brown, but, but, nothing else,” said Akiko Takakura, a 20-year-old in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. “Many people on the street were killed almost instantly.

Ishaan Tharoor is a col-umnist on the foreign desk of The Washington Post, where he authors the Today's WorldView newsletter and column

AFP — BERLIN

The coronavirus pandemic may have sent advertising revenues plunging worldwide, but Germany’s beloved newspapers expect to emerge winners from the crisis thanks to accelerating digital development and renewed trust in the media.

“The newspaper industry has so far come through the crisis relatively well,” said Monique Hofmann, a media specialist with the Verdi trade union in Germany, where more newspapers are sold than in any other European country.

“We believe that readers’ demand for information will remain high,” she said, pre-dicting that if it takes advantage of new develop-ments, the industry can “not

only survive the crisis, but emerge from it stronger”.

According to the Associ-ation of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV), there are some reasons to be cheerful about how the sector was affected at the height of the crisis in March, April and May.

A recent BDZV report showed that only one in 10 members suffered a dramatic drop in circulation numbers. A quarter said sales were stable and around half managed to limit the decline to between one and five percent.

Despite a steady decline in sales in recent years, Germany still sells some 14 million copies of 327 different daily newspapers every day, according to BDZV figures from 2019.

This puts daily newspaper

sales well ahead of Britain, for example, which has just over nine million, or France which has six million.

On top of that, the country has 17 weeklies and six Sunday editions.

The crisis has certainly left its mark: advertising revenues have collapsed, sometimes by as much as 80 percent, and about a third of employees have been laid off, according the BDZV’s Anja Pasquay.

But “German newspapers were printed and delivered on time every day”, she points out. And digital subscriptions, which have long lagged behind print sales, have gone “through the roof”.

“Publishing houses unan-imously told us that projects -- especially digital ones -- that had been under consid-eration for months or even

years were suddenly success-fully implemented within a few weeks,” Pasquay said.

Friedrich Kalber, a spokesman for the Axel Springer group, reported record digital subscriptions in March and April for the con-servative Die Welt daily and the Bild tabloid, Germany’s best-selling newspaper, though he was unable to give figures.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung sold 150,000 new digital subscriptions in March alone, a level that the centre-left Munich newspaper had previously only hoped to achieve by the end of 2020.

The coronavirus pan-demic has led to a hunger for credible information and a renaissance for traditional media, according to Frank Thomsen, editor of the Stern news magazine.

A new nuclear race is under way, 75years after the US dropped the bomb

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German newspapers fight to rise from ashes of virus crisis

Established in 1996

ISHAAN THAROOR THE WASHINGTON POST ·

Long-ruling strongman Alexander Lukashenko has headed the ex-Soviet country bordering Russia since 1994 and tomorrow's polls could hand him his sixth term.

09SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Supporters of Svetlana Tikhanouskaya, a candidate in the upcoming presidential election and President Alexander Lukashenko’s main challenger, attend a rally in Minsk, Belarus, on Thursday.

Rising star shakes up Belarus strongman’sre-election bidAFP — MINSK

Belarus holds presidential polls tomorrow with a novice oppo-sition candidate posing the greatest challenge in years to long-ruling strongman Alex-ander Lukashenko.

The 65-year-old authori-tarian leader has headed the ex-Soviet country bordering Russia since 1994 and tomorrow's polls could hand him his sixth term.

After appearing to guar-antee himself a smooth path to victory by detaining and ejecting major opposition can-didates, Lukashenko has been blindsided by the rapid rise of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, by far the strongest of his four rivals in voter surveys.

She has run an effective and stylish campaign, with open-air rallies attracting thousands of Belarusians around the country, chanting “change” and “freedom” while waving lit-up cellphones to a song about breaking down prison walls.

The 37-year-old English

teacher and translator by pro-fession who calls herself “an ordinary woman, mother and wife” stepped into the race at great personal risk after the detention of her husband, a popular opposition blogger, who had hoped to stand himself.

Initially uncomfortable in the spotlight, Tikhanovskaya has attracted broad support with her promise to free detained opposition figures including her husband. She also says that if she wins she will call fresh elections that will include the entire opposition.

Her all-female campaign team includes the wife of one barred opposition chief and the campaign manager of another. Their T-shirts display their trio of symbols: a fist, a heart and a V for victory sign.

Tikhanovskaya has urged voters to help ward off election fraud by not taking part in early voting and by voting late on the main polling day. The result remains in little doubt, however.

Belarus has not held polls judged free and fair since 1995 and this time Minsk has not invited observers from the European OSCE observer group for the first time since 2001.

In the run-up to the vote, Lukashenko has sought to gal-vanise support for his rule by warning of outside threats and raising the spectre of violent mobs. The KGB security service announced detentions of a group of Russian mercenaries allegedly planning to destabilise the vote, saying they were from Wagner, a shadowy private army reportedly funded by a

close associate of President Vladimir Putin.

Adding further embarrassment for Russia, the men testified that they were en route to other coun-tries including Venezuela. Belarus accused them of planning mass unrest along with detained oppo-sition figures including Tikhanovskaya’s husband.

Lukashenko also gave non-specific warnings of a plotted massacre in Minsk and foreign-funded cyber campaigns aimed at inciting “colour revolutions”

in a televised address this week.In the past he has crushed

protests with riot police and hefty jail terms, prompting Western sanctions. He said he would accept the outcome of the vote but asked for a chance to “save the country”.

Some questioned Lukash-enko’s state of health as he sounded hoarse, looked pallid and constantly mopped his brow. Usually a vigorous man who proclaims his love of rural life and sport, he recently

acknowledged he had con-tracted coronavirus “without symptoms” — after repeatedly dismissing fears over the virus and refusing to put the country into lockdown.

Belarus is often described as Europe’s last dictatorship and still has the death penalty. Lukashenko has retained close ties to Moscow, though he often plays Russia and the West against each other, and the country’s economy is heavily dependent on Russian oil imports.

Argentine marshland threatened by worst fires in decadesAFP — ROSARIO

Ravaged by drought, the Parana Delta in Argentina, one of the largest and most biodiverse in the world, has been burning like never before since the beginning of the year.

During the first seven months of 2020, more than 11,000 fires were detected in the 14,000 square kilometer region, according to the Antonio Scasso Museum of Natural Sciences.

More than 530 square kil-ometers of marshland — an area equivalent to three times Argentina’s sprawling capital Buenos Aires, which lies to the

southeast — has been razed, according to estimates based on satellite images. The flames are devastating the rich biodiversity of a territory that is home to 700 species of plants and animals, according to the National Rosario and Littoral universities.

“The fires generate an immediate impact and others that are felt over the medium and long term: the death of animals, the loss of the natural habitat of many species, impov-erishment of the soil, water and air contamination, emissions that generate climate change,” Graciela Klekailo, from Rosario University, said.

The delta is a flood plain made up of several islands where the Parana River empties into the Rio de la Plata.

The question on everyone’s mind, though, is who is respon-sible? Environment Minister Juan Cabandie accuses livestock pro-ducers of using fire to clear dry pastureland and regenerate it for their livestock. Cabandie has filed a criminal complaint against pro-ducers and land tenants.

But those producers deny the accusations and claim the fires undermine their activities, in turn blaming authorities for “lack of control and neglect”.

Jorge Postma, from Rosario University, says this year’s

exceptional conditions have caused the catastrophe.

The Parana River — whose name means little sea in the local Guarani language — is much lower than normal. “Right now the level of the Parana River in the Rosario port hydrometer is 80 centimeters. Normally in this area at this time of year it’s three or four meters,” said Postma.

Javier Torres belongs to a family in the city of Entre Rios that has produced honey for decades. This year, 270 bee hives in the Delta’s island areas were devoured by fire.

“It took years to build and will take me years to rebuild.

I’m heart- broken. I haven’t received any help from anyone so far,” Torres said.

Depending on the direction of the wind, the largest coastal cities on the western bank of the Parana, such as Rosario, San Lorenzo and Villa Constitucion, are engulfed by a dense cloud of smoke that causes breathing problems and allergies.

It’s made all the worse by the coronavirus pandemic. In June, Rosario University researchers found that the city’s air had five times the allowed level of pollution. “This is very serious in the context of a pan-demic, with breathing issues,” the researchers wrote.

Deaths from coronavirus in Mexico surpass 50,000AFP — MEXICO CITY

Mexico passed the grim mile-stone of 50,000 coronavirus deaths, far more than the worst-case estimates of the government, which faces crit-icism of its handling of the crisis and the economic fallout.

The country has the world’s third-highest fatality toll from the disease, behind only the United States and Brazil.

The health ministry announced 819 more deaths in its daily update, taking the total to 50,517 since the Latin American nation’s first case was detected in February.

The overall number of infections registered now stands at 462,690 in the nation of more than 128 million. “Unfortunately, because it is always unfortunate even if it was only one, we have 50,517

deaths from COVID-19 in Mexico,” deputy health minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said.

When it comes to deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, Mexico is in 13th place worldwide, based on official data. The death toll far exceeds the range of between 6,000 and 30,000 projected by the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in February.

Those estimates soon began to look implausible as Mexico, where self-isolating to stop the virus spreading was voluntary, began to gradually open up parts of its economy.

Although the death toll con-tinues to rise, Lopez-Gatell, who oversees the fight against the virus, voiced optimism this week that there was already “better control”.

The epidemic is still active, “but during the month of July it

began to slow down,” he said. Some experts question the

government’s performance in confronting the crisis. “The number of cases, like deaths, must be substantially more than official figures show since we have done few tests,” Alejandro Macias, who led the country’s fight against the swine flu pan-demic in 2009, said.

At the same time, he acknowledged successes such as revamping hospitals to deal with the crisis. But in other areas, such as the number of tests carried out, “Mexico has frankly gone against international recommen-dations,” Macias said.

The government maintains that the health system has suf-fered from neglect stretching back three decades, long before it came to power, resulting in a shortage of 240,000 professionals.

A bicycle taxi driver wearing a face mask works on a street as the coronavirus disease outbreak continues, in Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico.

Court rejects extradition of Catalan separatistAFP — BRUSSELS

A Belgian court yesterday rejected the extradition of a former Catalan regional min-ister to face charges in Spain related to the banned 2017 independence referendum, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors could yet appeal the decision not to sur-render Lluis Puig, but it will give hope to other exiled Catalan separatist leaders such as former regional president Carles Puigdemont.

The Brussels public prose-cutor said the court “refused to execute the European arrest warrant on the grounds that the Spanish authority which issued the warrant was not competent to do so. “The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office is consid-ering whether to appeal against this decision,” it added.

Three years after the refer-endum Spain is still pursuing several of Catalan politicians who chose exile rather than face prosecution and jail time for organising the vote.

Nine more Catalan officials who remained in Spain,

including former regional vice president Oriol Junqueras, were sentenced to 13 years in prison last October by the Supreme Court. They, however, faced sedition charges.

Puig — who is 60 and was Catalan culture minister — faces a charge of disobedience and misusing public funds to help organise the referendum. Three former colleagues prosecuted for the same offences received only €60,000 fines and were banned from public office.

Puigdemont, and his former health and education ministers Toni Comin and Clare Ponsati face the more serious sedition charge. Puigdemont and Comin are also in Belgium — where they are subject to a European arrest warrant issued by Spain — while Ponsati is in Scotland and faces an extradition claim.

All three, however, are elected members of the European Parliament and as such enjoy immunity from pros-ecution. Spain has asked the par-liament to strip them of this priv-ilege, but a decision on this by their fellow MEPs has been delayed by the virus crisis.

Peru names new cabinet chief in bid to end spat with CongressAFP — LIMA

Peru’s President Martin Viz-carra named a new cabinet chief in a bid to resolve a dispute with Congress.

Vizcarra replaced his pre-vious cabinet chief, Pedro Cateriano, after the entire cabinet resigned following a vote of no confidence in Cate-riano by Congress on Tuesday.

Cateriano had only been in the post for three weeks. The new cabinet headed by Walter Martos, a retired general who is also defense minister, must now build bridges with Con-gress, which is controlled by a diverse alliance of populist left-wing and center-right parties.

Martos, 62, is the first mil-itary man to hold the post of cabinet chief in a decade. He’s the fifth cabinet chief named by Vizcarra since he assumed the presidency in March 2018.

Martos must appear before Congress within 30 days to explain his plan of gov-ernment. Congress is demanding that Vizcarra pri-oritize dealing with the coro-navirus pandemic and saving the economy.

Former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft dies, aged 95

AFP — WASHINGTON

Brent Scowcroft, the respected national security adviser to two Republican presidents and a Washington heavyweight who served administrations from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, has died aged 95, the George H W Bush Foundation announced yesterday.

An outspoken critic of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Scowcroft was a member of the Republican foreign policy estab-lishment who nevertheless endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 White House campaign won by Pres-ident Donald Trump. He died of natural causes, a statement from the foundation said.

“No individual has pro-vided as many commanders-in-chief as much national security advice — irrespective of party lines,” the statement continued. The current national security advisor under Trump, Robert O’Brien, called Scowcroft “one of the most distinguished individuals to serve” in the post.

“Scowcroft set the standard for effective lead-ership and defined the modern role of the NSA,” O’Brien said.

Preston becomes latest UK city to face virus lockdownAFP — LONDON

Preston, in the northwest of England, yesterday became the latest UK town to face a local lockdown due to a reported rise in coro-navirus infection rates. Under the restrictions, which come into force at midnight, people from separate households will be banned from meeting each other at home.

Official figures showed a rolling seven-day rate of new cases of the virus in Preston rose from 20.3 per 100,000 people in the seven days to 27 July, to 32.8 in the seven days to 3 August.

“Government has declared Preston as an ‘area of intervention’ following a spike of coronavirus cases in the city,” said Preston City Council on Twitter.

“The announcement means the city will be subject to addi-tional measures seen elsewhere in the county.” Restrictions were placed on Manchester and nearby stretches of northern England last month, as well as the central city of Leicester.

President Donald Trump has urged states to resume in-person classes, saying the virus “will go away like things go away,” but health officials have told states with rising counts to be on guard.

10 SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2020AMERICAS

US surpasses 160,000 coronavirus deaths as school openings nearREUTERS — NEW YORK

More than 160,000 people have died from the coronavirus pan-demic in the United States, nearly a quarter of the global total, according to a Reuters tally yesterday, as the country debates whether schools are ready to reopen in coming weeks.

The country recorded 160,003 deaths and 4.91 million cases, the highest caseload in the world. Public health experts have voiced concern for weeks that Americans in some quarters were resisting wearing masks and maintaining safe social distances.

Coronavirus deaths are rising in 23 states and cases are rising in 20 states, according to a Reuters analysis of data the past two weeks compared with the prior two weeks. On a per-capita basis, the United States ranks 10th highest in the world for both cases and deaths.

Yesterday's grim milestone marks an increase of 10,000 deaths in nine days in the United States. Many of those died in California, Florida and Texas, the top three US states for total cases. While new infec-tions appear to be declining in those states, new outbreaks are emerging coast to coast.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the lead coordinator for the White House coronavirus response, warned of worrying upticks in the rate of tests coming back positive in several cities, including Boston, Chicago,

Detroit and Washington.In Massachusetts, which

has been praised for having one of the most effective con-tainment strategies in the country, Governor Charlie Baker reduced the maximum number allowed at outdoor gatherings from 100 to 50.

Nearly 300,000 US resi-dents could be dead from COVID-19 by December 1, Uni-versity of Washington health experts said, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if Americans were scrupulous about wearing masks.

Throughout the country, US officials, teachers’ unions, parents and students were debating how to reopen schools safely. President Donald Trump has urged states to resume in-person classes, saying the virus “will go away like things go away,” but health officials have told states with rising counts to be on guard.

New York Governor Andrew

Cuomo said yesterday some 700 school districts in the state could reopen classrooms, but insisted schools do extensive consultation with teachers, stu-dents and parents beforehand.

New York school districts are free to opt for only remote learning, in-class learning or some hybrid of the two. Safety plans for reopened classrooms must first be approved by the state’s Department of Health, Cuomo said.

In New York City, where 1.1 million children attend the

country’s largest network of public schools, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said students’ attendance will be limited to between one and three days each week. Parents in New York City have until Friday to request all-remote learning for children.

Chicago Public Schools, which make up the country’s third largest school district, reversed course this week, saying students would stick with remote learning when the school year begins.

Some states, including

Florida and Iowa, are man-dating schools provide at least some in-person learning, while the governors of South Carolina and Missouri have recom-mended all classrooms reopen.

Texas had demanded that schools reopen but has since allowed districts to apply for waivers as the state grapples with a rising caseload. The Houston Independent School District has said that the school year will begin virtually on Sep-tember 8, but will shift to in-person learning on October 19.

A person walks by a public school on the Upper East Side in the Manhattan borough of New York City yesterday. Due to the low COVID-19 infection rates reported in the city, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all New York school districts may reopen this fall.

Trump loses bid to add fourth debate with Biden in early SeptemberREUTERS — WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign on Thursday lost its bid to add a fourth debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden in early September.

In rejecting the request, the Commission on Presidential Debates said it remains com-mitted to the current schedule of three 90-minute debates beginning in late September.

It would only add a fourth

debate, or move an existing debate to earlier in the month, if both sides in the campaign for the November 3 election agreed to it, it said.

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had asked for either a fourth debate in the first week of September or for the first debate to be moved up from Sep-tember 29 because voters in some states would already be able to cast votes before then.

The commission said voters will have a choice

whether to watch a debate before casting a ballot, adding voters “are under no com-pulsion to return their ballots before the debates.” Trump, a Republican, is trailing Biden in most national opinion polls.

The battleground state of North Carolina is scheduled to begin sending out mail-in ballots to registered voters who requested them on Sept. 4, with several other states to follow in September. A massive surge in mail-in voting is expected

because of fears the coronavirus may spread at public polling places.

In a response to the com-mission, Giuliani said the cam-paign was “disappointed” by the rejection and still believed Americans deserve to see the candidates “compare their records and visions for the United States before actual voting begins.” The Biden cam-paign said it was pleased Trump had accepted the commission invitation to debate.

“As we have said for months, the commission will determine the dates and times of the debates, and Joe Biden will be there,” Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo said.

The commission has organized three debates and one vice presidential debate during each presidential cam-paign since 2000. The presi-dential debates are set for Sep-tember 29 in Ohio, October 15 in Florida and October 22 in Tennessee.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, (right) speaks, flanked by US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, after meeting with the White House Chief of Staff and the US Treasury Secretary on coronavirus relief at the US Capitol in Washington, DC yesterday.

White House turns down Democrats’ offer to meet halfway with $2trn virus planREUTERS — WASHINGTON

Congressional Democrats yes-terday offered to reduce a pro-posed coronavirus aid package by $1 trillion if Republicans would add a trillion to their counter-offer, an idea President Donald Trump’s negotiators rejected before fresh talks even started.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disclosed the offer as she and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer prepared to meet White House negotiators again. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the White House negotiators, rejected Pelosi’s proposal out of hand, telling reporters, “that’s a non-starter”.

After nearly two weeks of talks that have failed to make substantial progress, the Repub-lican president has threatened to

pull his negotiators out and instead issue executive orders to address the human and eco-nomic toll of a crisis that has killed more than 160,000 Amer-icans and thrown tens of millions of people out of work.

It was unclear how much any president could do by executive order. At a news conference, Schumer said the president could not order any new money spent — as that is the power of Con-gress — but could only defer costs until they were eventually paid.

Democrats favor a $3 trillion-plus economic aid program, while leading Repub-licans have proposed about a third of that in their own plan.

“Yesterday I offered to them, we’ll take down a trillion if you add a trillion in,” Pelosi said. “They said absolutely not.” She said she would make the offer again at an afternoon negotiating

session with Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “We have a moral responsibility to find common ground,” Pelosi said.

Schumer said the White House would have to com-promise with Democrats, because they need Democratic votes to get anything passed by Congress. Schumer placed some of the blame for the lack of progress on Meadows, for-merly one of the most conserv-ative Republican congressmen on Capitol Hill.

“His positions are quite hardened and non-compro-mising, moreso than Mnuchin,” Schumer said. “Mr. Meadows is from the Tea Party. You have 20 Republicans in the Senate greatly influenced by them, and they don’t want to spend the nec-essary dollars to help get America out of this mess."

Twitter, Facebook take fresh steps to curb election manipulationAFP — SAN FRANCISCO

Twitter and Facebook announced moves to thwart efforts to deceive or divide voters as the US nears a con-tentious presidential election.

Twitter unveiled new steps to prevent the spread of content from “state-affiliated media” used to advance a govern-ment’s political agenda — a move affecting key outlets from Russia and China.

Facebook, meanwhile, said it took down accounts running a deceptive campaign out of Romania pretending to be Americans supporting US Pres-ident Donald Trump.

The network targeted the US with posts about the upcoming presidential election; the Trump campaign, conservative ide-ology, Christian beliefs and the far-right organization Qanon linked to conspiracy theories, according to Facebook.

San Francisco-based Twitter said it would add new labels to state-affiliated media accounts and would “no longer amplify” their tweets through its recom-mendation systems, in the latest move to identify and limit the spread of government-led influence campaigns.

A Twitter spokesperson said outlets affected by the new policy include Russian-based Sputnik and RT and China’s Xinhua, but did not provide a full list. “Unlike independent media, state-affiliated media frequently use their news cov-erage as a means to advance a political agenda,” Twitter explained in a statement. Twitter said the decision would not affect “state-financed

media organizations with edi-torial independence,” specifi-cally citing the British-based BBC and US-based National Public Radio.

Twitter’s announcement follows a similar action by Facebook earlier this year which labeled content from media which are editorially controlled by governments.

The moves come amid con-cerns over campaigns by gov-ernments aimed at influencing elections and public sentiment in other countries through media outlets that disguise their true origins. State-led influence campaigns were prominent on social media during the 2016 US elections and have been seen around the world.

A recent report by Oxford University researchers found disinformation and conspiracy theories spread by leading media outlets from Russia and China, as well as from Iran — all of which are state-con-trolled or closely aligned to regimes in power. Twitter also plans new authentication labels for “key government officials” authorized to speak on behalf of the state.

Facebook removed 35 Facebook accounts, three pages, and 88 Instagram accounts as part of an ongoing fight against “coordinated inau-thentic behavior,” according to security policy head Nathaniel Gleicher. “The people behind this network used fake accounts to pose as Americans, amplify and comment on their own content, and manage pages including some posing as President Trump fan pages,” Gleicher said.

Atlantic infor very busyhurricane seasonAFP — MIAMI

This year’s Atlantic hurricane season could be one of the busiest on record, with as many as 25 named storms, forecasters said.

Due to atmospheric and oceanic conditions, “this year, we expect more, stronger, and longer-lived storms than average,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administra-tion’s Climate Prediction Center.

Forecasters predict this season will see 19 to 25 named storms, of which seven to 11 will reach hurricane strength.

Of these, three to six will be major hurricanes, with winds of 111 miles per hour (180 kph) or greater. The NOAA was updating a forecast from May that called for 13-19 named storms, with up to 10 of them growing into hur-ricanes. An average season has 12 named storms.

Facebook employees to work from home until July 2021; get $1,000 for home offices

REUTERS — NEW YORK

Facebook Inc will allow employees to work from home until July 2021 due to the coro-navirus outbreak and will give them $1,000 for home office needs, a spokeswoman for the social media giant said.

The company joins other big technology firms that have taken similar steps recently. Late in July, Alphabet Inc’s Google said it would allow employees who do not need to be in the office to work from home until the end of June 2021, while Twitter Inc had proposed remote work indefinitely for some of its employees.

“Based on guidance from health and government experts, as well as decisions drawn from our internal discus-sions about these matters, we are allowing employees to con-tinue voluntarily working from home until July 2021”, a Facebook spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “In addition, we are giving employees an additional $1,000 for home office needs,” it added.

Record number of women running for US House: CenterAFP — WASHINGTON

A record number of women are running for seats in the House of Representa-tives in November’s US election, the Center for American Women and Politics said yesterday.

A total of 243 women have secured party nominations for House seats, according to the center, a division of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

With primary nominating contests still to come in 13 states, the number is expected to rise, the center said. It said the pre-vious record for the number of female House candidates was in the 2018 midterm elections, when there were 234.

Of the women who have won party nominations so far for the November 3 election, 74 are Republicans and 169 are Democrats, the center said.

The previous record for female Republican candidates was 53 in 2004 while 182 Democratic women ran for the House in 2018. A record number of women and minority candidates were elected to Congress in 2018.

Nearly a quarter of the 435 seats in the House are held by women — 88 Democrats and 13 Republicans. There are cur-rently 26 women in the 100-seat Senate — 17 Democrats and nine Republicans. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, is the first woman ever to hold the post.