Friday 10 July 2020

19 Dhul-Qa'da - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8314

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SPORT | 16BUSINESS | 13

Philippine economic

zone chief seeks

export-oriented

investors from Qatar

Pacers Holder

and Gabriel put

West Indies in

control

Education Minister participates in ALECSO General Conference

QNA — DOHA

Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Mohammed Abdul Wahed Al Hammadi participated, via video conferencing, in the meeting of the 25th regular session of the General Conference of the Arab

League’s Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALECSO).

The 25th regular session of the General Conference aims to present and approve the organisation’s work strategy during the next stage and evaluate its work in the pre-vious period.

ALECSO is a Tunis-based institution of the Arab League, and is mainly concerned with the development of Arab culture through promoting education, culture and science at the regional and national levels, and joint c o o r d i n a t i o n b e t w e e n member states.

New drive to remove thousands of abandoned cars in Industrial AreaQNA — DOHA

The Joint Committee for Removing Abandoned Vehicles in the country launched yesterday a comprehensive campaign to remove aban-doned cars and equipment in the Industrial Area in cooper-ation with the Public Clean-liness and Mechanical Equipment departments, Doha Municipality, and the security departments.

Around 10,000 abandoned cars are expected to be removed under this campaign.

Assistant Director of the Department of Public Cleanness at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), Muhammad Faraj Al Kubaisi, said the campaign which started yesterday will continue until the removal of all abandoned cars throughout the Industrial Area. He explained that 17,000 vehicles,

including 12,000 cars in the Industrial Area, were removed during 2019, adding that 5,000 of them were disposed and the rest will be disposed as well.

The campaign came after the committee was restruc-tured in accordance with Min-isterial Resolution No. 178 of 2020 and within the framework of the continuous efforts by the MME to limit the number of abandoned cars and equipment. The campaign is also an implementation of Law No. (18) of 2017 on public hygiene.

He pointed out that the dis-posal of abandoned vehicles will be through private com-panies in a safe and sound manner and according to inter-nationally and locally-approved standards. He called on the owners of the cars and garages in the Industrial Area to cooperate with the author-ities and remove their cars from the area. �P2

HMC opens new health facility in Industrial AreaQNA — DOHA

The Hamad Medical Corpo-ration (HMC) yesterday launched the soft opening of the Industrial Area Satellite Emergency Department (IASED), marking an important milestone in urgent care in Qatar.

The new center will serve less severe medical cases in the community with an aim to manage more severe cases at tertiary care center like the Hamad General Hospital.

Importantly, it will also enable those living and working in the Industrial Area to access the care they need when they

need it. HMC’s System Wide

Incident Command Center (SWICC) Committee Chair, Dr Saad Al Kaabi visited the new center and met its staff yesterday.

Plans are underway to open a similar center very soon in the Ras Laffan area.

HMC’s System Wide Incident Command Center (SWICC) Committee Chair, Dr Saad Al Kaabi and other officials at the newly-opened Industrial Area Satellite Emergency Department, yesterday.

Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Mohammed Abdul Wahed Al Hammadi participating in the Arab League’s Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation's meeting.

Surging exports cement Ruwais Port’s position in Qatar’s growthSACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

Ruwais Port has witnessed over 28 percent increase in export in 2019 compared to the previous year, showing it is no more a domestic port but has become a global port.

The port has cemented its position as an ideal gateway to

stimulate regional trade. Meeting the expectations, the port delivered a strong all-round performance last year.

“The (Ruwais) port wit-nessed almost 30 percent increase in the throughput of livestock and Reefer container volumes. There was also a 28.5 percent increase in export from the port compared to 2018 and

this has been good signs for a growing port,” noted the Annual report of Qatar Ports Man-agement Company (Mwani Qatar).

The aggregates throughput increased by almost 17 percent considering the ongoing infra-structure projects in the country.

Ruwais Port has become one of the most important ports to meet the increasing demands by the domestic market for foodstuff, meat and fresh and chilled produce.

Supportive steps taken by the authorities concerned have played a key role in increasing the flow of trade from the port.

In 2019, Mwani Qatar intro-duced new free storage period at Al Ruwais Port as a move to support the private sector, offering new incentives to cus-tomers as well as enhancing the role of the port.

Under the new increase, the company’s customers get double the previous free storage days at Al Ruwais Port for general cargo shipments (export and import) as it increased to six days instead of three days for imported cargo and 10 days instead of five days for exported cargo. �P3

Qatar's foreign policy pushing global cooperation, peace: EnvoyQNA — DOHA

The State of Qatar has affirmed that it has adopted over the past decades a foreign policy based on strengthening and promoting international coop-eration and solidarity with all countries and international and regional organisations in order to achieve world peace and contribute to efforts to realise development in various fields.

This came in the State of Qatar’s speech delivered by Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United

Nations Office in Geneva, H E Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri, during an interactive dialogue with independent expert on human rights and international solidarity Obiora Okafor regarding his report on his visit to the State of Qatar within the framework of the 44th session of Human Rights Council.

Al Mansouri thanked Obiora Okafor for his visit to the State of Qatar from Sep-tember 2-10, 2019, and praised the transparent, constructive and fruitful discussions he held

during the visit, while thanking him for his report which reflects many positive models

and practices adopted by the State of Qatar in embodying human rights-based solidarity

at the national and interna-tional levels.

He added that he noted with appreciation the praise by the independent expert for the State of Qatar, being the first country in the Gulf region to extend an open invitation to those charged with mandates within the framework of the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, and the State of Qatar’s active engagement with international and regional organisations and its hosting of various United Nations bodies. �P2

To promote and protect rights of expa-triate workers, Qatar has adopted important legislative and institutional reforms , the foremost of which is the abo-lition of the sponsorship system and its replacement with a contractual system."

H E Ambassador Ali Khalfan Al MansouriPermanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Office in Geneva

MoPH: 557 new COVID-19 cases; 1,165 recoveriesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced the registration of 557 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country. Another 1,165 people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recovered cases in Qatar to 97,272.

In addition, the Ministry announced four new deaths from the coronavirus. The deceased were aged 52, 53, 63 and 76 years. They were all receiving the necessary medical care. All new cases have been introduced to iso-lation and are receiving nec-essary healthcare according to their health status.

The Ministry further said that measures to tackle COVID-19 in Qatar have suc-ceeded in flattening the curve and limiting the spread of the virus. Also Qatar’s proactive and extensive testing of sus-pected cases has enabled the authorities to identify a high number of positive cases in the community.

The Ministry further said that Qatar has one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world, as a result of the country’s young population, proactive testing to identify cases early and expanding hospital capacity, especially intensive care, to ensure all patients receive the medical care they need and protecting the elderly and those with chronic diseases.

The Ministry asked people to be careful and protect the most vulnerable, while COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted.

Ruwais Port has become one of the most important ports to meet the increasing demands by the domestic market for food-stuff, meat and fresh and chilled produce.

Qatar's second commercial port witnessed almost 30 percent increase in the throughput of livestock and Reefer container volumes last year.

The aggregates throughput increased by almost 17 percent considering the ongoing infrastructure projects in the country.

02 FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020HOME

Shura Council participates in webinar on parliaments’ role in disaster risk reductionQNA — DOHA

The Shura Council participated yesterday in a webinar for parliamentarians entitled “Building back better: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to enhance the role of parliaments in disaster risk reduction”, held by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Discussions during the webinar focused on best practices for disaster risk reduction in the world, and the development of several preventive strategies in the event of future disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The Shura Council was represented at the webinar by H E Abdulrahman bin Yousuf Al Khulaifi, Member of the Council.

Shura Council attends parliamentary meeting on combatting COVID-19QNA — DOHA

The Shura Council yesterday partic-ipated in a parliamentary conference on the ‘Outbreak of COVID-19 Disease’, held by the Asian Parlia-mentary Assembly via video confer-encing.

Discussions during the con-ference focused on the health

and economic impact of the COVID-19; and the best prac-tices for combating the pan-demic; and reopening the Asian region in a sustainable and inclusive manner.

The Shura Council was repre-sented at the meeting by H E Rashid bin Hamad Al Meadadi, Member of the Council.

Led by Qatar’s representative, intergovernmental negotiations on UN future conclude in New YorkQNA — NEW YORK

The intergovernmental negoti-ations on the declaration of the heads of state and government, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (UN), were concluded at the UN Head-quarters in New York after arduous negotiations that lasted for nearly four months, starting with the first consultation session in February, held with the participation of all UN member states, and resulted in drafting the declaration to be adopted on September 21, 2020 at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly at the level of heads of state and government of member states.

H E the State of Qatar’s Per-manent Representative to the UN Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, along with H E Permanent Representative of Sweden to the UN, Anna Karin Enestrom led the intergovern-mental negotiations, mandated by the president of the 74th session of the General Assembly, in accordance with Resolution No. No. 73/299 of 73rd session of UN General Assembly.

Mandating H E Qatar’s Per-manent Representative with this delicate task reflects the international community’s trust

in the State of Qatar’s role and ability in building international consensus on vital issues that concern the international family, thanks to the insight-fulness of Qatar’s wise lead-ership that has accomplished building a modern, developed and prosperous country while enjoys balanced international relations, based on mutual respect and cooperation to achieve the goals of the United Nations.

It is noteworthy that the UN member states attach great importance to this vital decla-ration, as it comes after 75 years of the establishment of the United Nations, and reflects the orientations of the international community towards the desired role of the international organ-ization, as a unique global organization that derives its legitimacy from the member

states’ commitment to the UN Charter, and cooperation in facing common international challenges.

The declaration also reit-erates the principles and pur-poses of the UN Charter; the promotion of peace and con-flict prevention; respect for international law, the rule of law and justice; the promotion of human rights and sus-tainable development for peoples; guaranteeing equality between states in the sover-eignty and independence; respect for the territorial integrity of states; non-inter-ference in country’s internal affairs and peaceful conflict resolution.

The declaration also includes the world leaders’ commitment to make every effort to address all current and emerging challenges in order

to realize a world of peace, security, prosperity, devel-opment and human rights, being the main pillars upon which the United Nations was established. In the declaration, the world leaders also affirm that there is no other world organization that gives hope for a better world and for the future that everyone aspires to.

The Declaration affirms that the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law remain timeless, universal and an indispensable foundation for a more peaceful, prosperous and just world, and that Member States must abide by the international agreements they have entered into and the commitments they have made, and built accountable institu-tions that are governed by the rule of law.

The declaration refers to the commitment of Heads of State to promoting peace, pre-venting conflict and ending threats to international peace and security urgently through peaceful means, abiding by the Charter, principles of interna-tional law, and relevant reso-lutions of the Security Council, and upholding international agreements on disarmament and non-proliferation, climate change and environmental

conservation. The declaration also underlined that terrorism and violent extremism are serious threats to international peace and security.

In its conclusion, the decla-ration stresses that the sus-tainability of the planet welfare of generations for decades to come will be achieved only through rein-vigorated global action and by building on the progress achieved in the last 75 years, since the founding of the United Nations, and therefore world leaders are determined to ensure the future that the international community wants.

“To achieve this, we will mobilize resources, strengthen our efforts and show unprece-dented political will and lead-ership. We will work together with partners to strengthen coordination and global gov-ernance for the common future of present and coming genera-tions,” according to the declaration.

The President of the United Nations General Assembly announced that consensus has been achieved among Member States on the Declaration, as it will be finalized at the high-level meeting of the Assembly, s c h e d u l e d f o r n e x t September.

Qatar Museums to develop ancient village into new tourist attractionRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Qatar Museums (QM) is set to transform an old Islamic settlement in Qatar into a new tourist attraction with the Al Mafjar village project.

Located north of Qatar, Al Mafjar village is an abandoned late Islamic settlement adjacent to an unspoiled beach.

The project will see the village developed into a tourist attraction which, according to QM, will include “cultural and heritage eco-friendly activities and an open-air museum a m o n g m a n y o t h e r attractions.”

“This project of trans-forming a heritage village into a tourist attraction while retaining its old character is considered one of the most i m p o r t a n t r e s t o r a t i o n projects of Qatari villages with the support of the private sector,” QM said in a post in its official Facebook page on Wednesday.

For this project, Qatar

Museums recently signed an agreement with Seashore Group, one of the largest multi-disciplined Engineering and Contracting Company in Qatar to restore and refurbish the village.

“Seashore will work in cooperation with QM’s Depart-ments of Buildings and

Archaeological Sites Management, and Cultural Heritage Conser-vation to ensure the highest professional standards of con-servation and restoration,” said QM.

“With the revival of Qatar’s heritage in mind, Qatar Museums is constantly reviewing its plans to protect,

restore and revive cultural h o u s e s a n d v i l l a g e s throughout the whole country,” it added.

Qatar boasts a great number of heritage sites including ancient towns, watchtowers and settlements dating back thousands of years.

One of the country’s most famous heritage sites is the Al Zubarah Archaeological Site, one of the best-preserved examples of an 18th and 19th century Gulf merchant town, which had been included in UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. Al Zubarah is Qatar’s largest heritage site, with its impressive city wall, ancient residential palaces and houses, markets, industrial areas and mosques.

Other prominent heritage sites in Qatar are the ancient settlements of Freiha and Ruwayda, Barzan and Al Khor towers, Al Rakayat Fort, Ras Brouq, and Al Jassasiya - where some of the most impressive petroglyphs or rock carvings can be found.

Old ruins in Al Mafjar village north of Qatar. Photo taken from Qatar Museum’s Facebook page.

OFFICIAL NEWS

Amir condoles with President of Cote d’Ivoire

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim

bin Hamad Al Thani sent yester-

day a cable of condolences to H E

President of the Republic of Cote

d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, on the

death of Prime Minister Amadou

Gon Coulibaly.

Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin

Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister

and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh

Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al

Thani have also sent cables of con-

dolences to H E President of the

Republic of Cote d’Ivoire Alassane

Ouattara on the death of Prime Min-

ister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.-QNA

H E the State of Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the UN Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, along with H E Permanent Representative of Sweden to the UN, Anna Karin Enestrom led the intergovernmental negotiations, mandated by the president of the 74th session of the General Assembly, in accordance with Resolution No. No. 73/299 of 73rd session of UN General Assembly.

Qatar’s foreign policy pushing global

cooperation, peace: EnvoyFROM PAGE 1

The Ambassador said it reflects, as the independent expert mentioned, the fact that Qatar is making a great contribution to solidarity with other member states and peoples, including in the context of human rights.

The Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Office in Geneva added that the Qatari government has taken note of the recommendations of the independent expert mentioned in his report, and is pleased to note that a number of these recommendations are already being implemented, including those related to strengthening the work of civil society organisations, continuing efforts to achieve sustainable development, introducing human rights education in the various national curricula, reinforcing national efforts related to diversifying the sources of the economy, and addressing the negative effects of climate change.

Qatar will also continue its efforts to promote and protect workers’ rights taking into account what was recommended by the independent expert in this regard.

Among the most prominent examples that the independent expert mentioned in his report in this regard, he said, are the efforts of Qatar in interactive solidarity by providing support to countries affected by disasters, conflicts and climate change, as well as its efforts in preventive solidarity by investing in providing quality education at the national and international levels and implementing a number of programmes and initiatives in this regard with many international partners.

H E Ambassador Al Mansouri said the State of Qatar has imple-mented several projects and initiatives aimed at reducing air pol-lutants and carbon dioxide emissions, and increasing dependence on renewable energy sources.

On the promotion and protection of the rights of expatriate workers, Al Mansouri affirmed that Qatar has adopted important legislative and institutional reforms, the foremost of which is the abolition of the sponsorship system and its replacement with a contractual system.

New drive to remove thousands of abandoned cars

FROM PAGE 1

He stated that the campaign comes within the framework of ensuring the aesthetic and proper appearance of various areas of the state and that it will continue in cooperation with the authori t ies concerned unt i l the completion of the removal of all cars that distort the general view.

Assistant Director of the Mechanical Equipment Department and member of the Joint Committee, Marzouq Mubarak Al Masifari said the campaign was launched to remove the largest number of abandoned cars in the Indus-trial Area due to its impor-tance, pointing out that the Committee intensified its efforts during the past period through the continuous cam-paigns in all parts of the country, as more than 4,000 abandoned cars have been removed since the beginning of this year.

He expected the number of cars that will be removed from the Industrial Area during this campaign to reach approximately 10,000 cars that violate the hygiene law, at a rate of 50 to 70 cars per day.

He explained that after removing the vehicle and transporting them to the aban-doned vehicles collection unit at detention spots in Al Meshaf, Mesaimeer, and Umm Salal, the legal procedures are applied by granting a period of six months.

Afterwards, the cars are disposed of through the public auction hosted by the Ministry or through local companies that directly dispose of them by cutting them and using their components.

FAJR SUNRISE 03.22 am 04.50 am

W A L R U WA I S : 29o↗ 36o W A L K H O R : 32o↗ 42o W D U K H A N : 29o↗ 40o W WA K R A H : 29o↗ 43o W M E S A I E E D 29o↗ 43o W A B U S A M R A 28o↗ 4 4o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 06:50 – 20:05 LOW TIDE 03:43– 13:42

Misty at some places at first, becomes very hot daytime

with some clouds.

Minimum Maximum33oC 44oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.39 am06.30 pm

ASR ISHA

03.03 pm08.00 pm

Cypriot President meets outgoing Qatar envoy

03FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020 HOME

MME and Carrefour encourage sustainable shopping habitsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Supporting the cause of Inter-national Plastic Bag Free Day, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) partnered with Carrefour to remove all single-use plastic bags from its cash counters for three consec-utive days. To encourage more sustainable, long-term shopping habits, Carrefour provided each in-store customer with a free reusable bag, alongside ten reward points for MyClub members.

Running from 3 to 5 July, the green initiative aimed to fight plastic bag pollution and con-tribute to a more sustainable environment, in line with Qatar National Vision 2030 and the efforts of the MME.

Noof Bakhamis, Head of Awareness at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment in Qatar, said: “This marks the second year that we celebrate International Plastic Bag Free Day. In doing so, we hope to continue raising awareness of the long-term damage that single-use plastic consumption has on the environment and encouraging customers to shop with reusable bags. This year, in spite of the disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, we ran this initiative for three consecutive days, encouraging customers to reduce their plastic footprint by cutting down their con-sumption of single-use plastics.

We would like to commend Carrefour for their ongoing sus-tainability efforts and com-munity-mindedness. The brand continues to demonstrate its commitment to the people it serves by creating a successful

campaign geared towards the development of a greener, cleaner and more sustainable world”.

Laurent Hausknecht, Country Manager of Carrefour Qatar commented: “Sustaina-bility is at the heart of every-thing we do. We have a number of activities in place to change habits toward single-use plastic bags, such as creating quicker green cash counters in all our hypermarkets for those who bring reusable bags. Through our celebration of International Plastic Bag Free Day, we’re highlighting our commitment to tackling plastic pollution, having removed all single use plastic bags from our store for three days. We thank the Min-istry for its endorsement of this

important cause and hope that together, we’ve inspired cus-tomers to continue contributing to a greener, safer, and healthier world.”

Carrefour has saved over four million single-use plastic bags in the first six months of the year, which is equivalent to a reduction of seven tonnes in carbon emissions. Today, Car-refour is a leading regional retailer that is pioneering sus-tainable initiatives that con-tribute to a greener envi-ronment. The brand continues to plan new initiatives designed to protect the environment and encourage communities to play their part in creating a greener, cleaner world by reducing their reliance on single-use plastic bags.

A customer with free reusable bags.

Doha Festival City announces opening of new outlets, reopening of all stores on weekendsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Doha Festival City announced yesterday the opening of new retail stores from renowned global and local brands, adding to its extensive portfolio of first to market concepts in Qatar.

Doha Festival City is also now open for shoppers on weekends. Newly opened stores Digital House Pro, Karaca Home and Ambix, a French perfume specialty boutique at Doha Fes-tival City are now ready to welcome shoppers.

Visitors can now get their mobile maintenance fix from Digital House Pro, one of the leading companies that aims to become the world’s best phone

repair and maintenance in Qatar. Digital House Pro are shifting from a classic mobile shop to service companies as the first trusted retail branded phone repair.

Furthermore, visitors can enjoy an extensive range of home textile from Karaca Home, and enjoy the best quality coming straight from Turkey.

The story of Karaca began with enthusiasm and passion, spread from one family to another. Karaca believes in its responsibility of being a leading design brand that is unique in producing designs beyond imagination and pushing the limits. Shop for your home essentials this summer ranging

from bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room, acces-sories and much more at Karaca.

Visitors can also now shop for their favourite French per-fumes from Ambix specialty perfume boutique. Ambix Per-fumes was inspired, with a Qatari spirit, by the idea of creating a unique blend of Arabian perfumes and high quality French scents to produce an exquisite col-lection of perfumes that are distinguished by quality and elegance pursued by the Qatari community.

In keeping with the ruling of the Supreme Committee, Doha Festival City will open all stores for weekends, trading

Friday and Saturday, starting from today and with 50 percent capacity. Restaurants and food courts remain closed but welcome home delivery and takeaways.

Entertainment stores including Cinema and play areas will remain closed as well. Children under 12 are still excluded from entering the Mall until further notice.

Doha Festival City opening hours will be Sunday to Sat-urday from 8am to 10 pm. Stores will open on Friday from 10am to 11pm, and on Saturdy from 10am to 10pm. Monoprix remains open Sunday to Thursday from 8am to 11pm, and Friday and Saturday from 8am to midnight, while M&S

Food Hall remains open daily from 9am to 10pm. Boots Pharmacy will remain open from 9am to 10pm on weekdays, and from 9am to 11pm on weekends, and Kulud Pharmacy will be open daily from 8am to midnight. Banking and telecommunications branches will be open Sunday to Friday.

In line with the preventative measures set out by the author-ities, Doha Festival City has introduced stringent health and safety measures throughout the mall for its staff and visitors. This includes a thorough mall disinfection treatment on a weekly basis, robust cleaning and sanitization operations during mall trading hours, 127

hand sanitizing stations installed in the areas that have commonly touched surfaces.

At the entrance to the mall and all shops, visitors must show their green Ehteraz QR code, and should wear a face mask during their whole time in the mall.

Physical distancing stickers in common queuing areas, such as ATM machines, banks, tele-communication kiosks and branches and various retail shops were installed to help shoppers keep the required physical distance as set forth in the guidelines by the authorities. Stores will provide sanitizers on entry and at cash points to ensure the highest level of hygiene.

111 % rise in building permit issuance in JuneTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The number of building permits issued in June by municipalities in Qatar has increased by 111 percent compared to previous month, according to data released by the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA yesterday released the sixty-sixth issue of the monthly Statistics of Building Permits and Building Com-pletion certificates issued by all municipalities in the country. The total number of permits issued by the municipalities reached 572 in June, compared to 271 in May this year. Building completion certificates wit-nessed a rise of 103 percent in June compared to May.

Building permits and building completion certificates data is of particular importance as it is considered an indicator for the performance of the con-struction sector which in turn occupies a significant position in the national economy.

Al Rayyan municipality came at the top in terms of issuance of building permits as it issued 167 permits, accounting for 29 percent share in of the total issued permits.

Al Wakrah municipality came in second place with 125 permits, with a share of 22 percent, followed by Al Da’ayen

municipality with 100 permits (17 percent) and Doha munici-pality with 97 permits.

Umm Slal municipality issued 30 permits, Al Khor municipality 22 permits, Al Sheehaniya municipality 18 permits while Al Shamal municipality issued 13 permits.

In terms of type of permits issued, data indicated that the new building permits (resi-dential and non-residential) accounted 49 percent (282 permits) of the total building permits issued during the month of June 2020, while the percentage of additions permits constituted 47 percent (271 permits), and fencing permits had a share of 3 percent (19 permits) in total permits issued.

In terms of new residential buildings permits data, villas’ top the list, accounting for 68 percent (154 permits) of all new residential buildings permits, fol-lowed by dwellings of housing loans permits by 19 percent (43 permits) and apartments buildings by 10 percent (22 permits).

In a quick review of the data

on building completion certif-icates issued during the month of June 2020, according to their geographical distribution, we find that

Al Rayyan municipality comes at the top of the munic-ipalities where the number of building completion certificates issued were 90 certificates, accounting for 28 percent of the total issued certificates, while the municipality of Al Wakrah came in second place with 78 certificates, (24 percent), followed by munici-pality of Al Da’ayen with 58 cer-tificates (18 percent), then Al Doha municipality with 52 cer-tificates, (16 percent).

In terms of type of certifi-cates issued, data showed that the new building completion certificates (residential and non-residential) accounted for 73 percent (233 certificates) of the total building certificates issued during the month of June 2020, while the percentage of additions certificates consti-tuted 27 percent (87 certificates).

The President of the Republic of Cyprus, H E Nicos Anastasiades, met with Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Cyprus, H E Sultan bin Ibrahim Al Mahmoud, on the occasion of the end of his tenure. H E the Cypriot President praised the efforts of H E the Ambassador during his work, which contributed to upgrading the relations between the two countries, wishing him success in the future tasks entrusted to him.

Al Rayyan municipality came at the top in terms of issuance of building permits as it issued 167 permits, accounting for 29 percent share in of the total issued permits. Al Wakrah municipality came in second place followed by Al Da’ayen and Doha municipalities.

Ministry of Education honours winners of School Stars CompetitionQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education honoured students who won first positions in the School Stars competition organized by the Ministry in partnership with the Doha Film Institute (DFI).

Undersecretary of the Min-istry of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi honoured the students and communicated with them remotely, through the Microsoft Teams platform. He congratulated them on winning the competition, wishing them success in their sci-entific and practical lives.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education, in part-nership with DFI, had launched a short film competition, School Stars, for students of public and private schools in Qatar.

The theme for the first edition of the competition is ‘The Bright Side’. The contestants submitted short films, in Arabic or any other languages, expressing their opinions, obser-vations and experiences regarding the COVID-19.

The Ministry announced cash prizes to winners of future film-makers and producers in Arabic and other languages such as English, French or Hindi. The winner of first place will get QR10,000, second prize is QR7,500 and third prize QR5,000.

The competition aims to provide students with new skills, discovering media

talents, as well as taking advantage of their free time, in addition to introducing them to the possibility of producing short films. The ministry explained that the idea of the competition is to produce a short film of no more than one minute, and sending it to Doha Film Institute, where it is eval-uated by experts.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi honouring the students remotely.

PCR is standard test for COVID-19: HMCQNA — DOHA

Hamad Medical Cooperation (HMC) underlined that the polymerise chain reaction (PCR) test is the standard test used to determine whether an indi-vidual is infected with COVID-19.

Chairperson of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at HMC, Dr Einas Al Kuwari said: “The current gold standard test used to determine whether an individual is infected with COVID-19 is the polymerise chain reaction (PCR) test. This is a highly sensitive test which is carried

out using a swab of the back of the mouth and the top of the nose, and very accurately tells us if someone is COVID-19 positive.

“There is another test, the rapid serological test, which is carried out using a finger prick a little like a diabetes test. The results from this kind of test are very fast but less accurate than PCR testing. The use

of rapid serological tests must follow the clinical protocols and guidelines and to be done by clinical and trained staff. It is not rec-ommended to be used by public.”

Dr Einas Al Kuwari

Surging exports

cement Ruwais

Port’s position in

Qatar’s growth

FROM PAGE 1

Containers’ free period has become five days instead of three days for imported containers and seven days instead of five days for exported containers.

Ruwais Port, the second commercial port, is located at the northern tip of Qatar.

The port plays the role of an additional access facility to promote the regional com-mercial shipments and to revive and invigorate the economy of the northern part of Qatar.

The performance of Ruwais Port was outstanding in 2018 also.

The port saw more than 100 percent increase in the throughput of livestock and Reefer container volumes.

General cargo volumes at the port also registered a 30 percent increase from the previous year, crossing 100,000 MT for the year.

With the handling of around 240 vessels per month and average berth utilization of more than 73 percent, Ruwais Port remained an extremely busy port.

04 FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020 MIDDLE EAST

UN Council rejects Russia bid to limit Syrian aid deliveriesAP — UNITED NATIONS

The UN Security Council yesterday overwhelmingly rejected a Russian resolution that would have cut back the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria’s mainly rebel-held northwest to just one crossing point from Turkey.

Western countries that voted against the resolution have insisted on keeping the two current crossings from Turkey, with strong backing from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and human-itarian groups. UN humani-tarian chief Mark Lowcock has called the two crossings from Turkey “a lifeline for millions of civilians whom the UN cannot reach by other means.”

The Russian resolution needed a minimum of nine “yes” votes in the 15-member council for approval, but Moscow got support from only three other countries — China, Vietnam and South Africa.

Its failure to get the nine votes meant the US, UK and France didn’t need to consider using their veto. Those three permanent council members voted against the resolution along with Germany, Belgium, Estonia and the Dominican Republic. Four countries abstained — Tunisia, Niger,

Indonesia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Russia, Syria’s closest ally, circulated the draft resolution after it joined China on Tuesday in vetoing a draft resolution co-sponsored by Germany and Belgium to maintain aid deliv-eries through two border crossing points from Turkey for a year. It received 13 “yes” votes.

The current Security Council mandate for UN cross-border aid deliveries expires today (Friday), and Germany and Belgium are expected to cir-culate a new proposal, likely to

authorise the two current crossings from Turkey for six months. In a joint statement after the vote, Germany and Belgium said that “millions of people are counting on the Security Council to allow for as much humanitarian access as possible... (and) we will keep on working to this end.”

Russia has argued that aid should be delivered from within Syria across conflict lines. But the UN and humanitarian groups say aid for 2.8 million needy people in the northwest can’t get in that way.

US Ambassador Kelly Craft accused Russia and China of “breathtaking callousness and dishonesty” and distorting the realities on the ground. Their actions in both resolutions

underscore “a harrowing truth — that Russia and China have decided that millions of Syrian lives are an insignificant cost of their partnership with the mur-derous Assad regime,” she said in a statement.

Moutaz Adham, the Syria director for the humanitarian group Oxfam, called the Coun-cil’s failure to reach agreement “a devastating blow to the mil-lions of Syrian families who rely on this aid for clean water, food, health care and shelter.”

“Cross-border aid is needed now more than ever, as Syrians face the threat of COVID-19,” he said. “All available avenues for delivering aid will be critical in helping the more than 11 million people in need of assistance across Syria.”

In January, Russia scored a victory for Syria, using its veto threat to force the Security Council to adopt a resolution reducing the number of crossing points for aid deliveries from four to just two, from Turkey to the northwest. It also cut in half the yearlong mandate that had been in place since cross-border deliveries began in 2014 to six months, as Russia insisted.

The defeated German-Belgian resolution had dropped a call for the re-opening of an Iraqi crossing to the northeast to deliver medical supplies for the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said: “Do not waste your time on efforts to reopen the closed cross-border points.”

A Palestinian father's wait77 year-old Palestinian Samih Kaeden, a father of Abdulrauf Kaeden who has been detained for 17 years in Israeli prison, looks forward to the day he will meet his son in Rafah, Gaza, yesterday. A calendar hanging on the wall shows 120 days are left in Abdulrauf's release. Samih Kaeden crosses one day off every day on the calendar. The detainee's mother died last year.

Iran denies US seizure of arms on way to Houthis in YemenREUTERS — DUBAI

Iran yesterday denied that US forces had seized a boat carrying Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, saying the charge was aimed at extending a UN arms embargo on Tehran.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Washington on Wednesday that US and uni-dentified allied forces had interdicted a vessel off Yemen’s coast on June 28 that was car-rying Iranian arms to the Houthis.

“Lying, accusations and spreading hatred are key ele-ments of America’s foreign policy, especially in the current regime,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, quoted by state television. “Pompeo’s remarks stem from this approach.”

US President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a hardline with the United Nations to push it to strengthen the embargo on Iran, saying that lifting it would allow Tehran to acquire weapons that could fuel con-flicts in the Middle East.

“Americans are trying to provide excuses to continue their maximum pressure on Iran, advance their malicious goals and to extend the arms embargo on Iran,” Mousavi said. Relations between the US and Iran have worsened since 2018 when Trump abandoned an international accord under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The United States has reim-posed sanctions to throttle Iran’s oil trade and pressure Tehran to renegotiate the deal, give up its ballistic missiles, and cease its involvement in regional wars.

Iran-aligned Houthi rebels have been fighting the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, since 2015. It denies charges by Saudi Arabia and the United States that it gives financial and mil-itary support to the Houthis.

“The United States and Saudi Arabia have imposed a siege on the Yemeni people,” Mousavi said. “With such baseless accu-sations, they are trying to evade accountability and responsibility for their crimes in Yemen.”

Fuel shortage hits Sana'aYemeni drivers wait in line to refill their cars at a petrol station in the capital Sana'a, yesterday. A fuel shortage is blighting life in the swathes of Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, cutting electricity supplies, halting water pumps and stranding people in need of medical care as warring sides trade blame.

Iran hits record one-day virus death toll of 221AFP — TEHRAN

Iran reported a new single-day record death toll of 221 from the novel coronavirus yesterday, after weeks of rising numbers in the Middle East’s worst-hit country.

“Unfortunately in the past 24 hours we have lost 221 of our compatriots to the COVID-19 disease,” health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari

told a televised news con-ference. “The death toll has now reached 12,305.”

The country has been strug-gling to combat the outbreak since announcing its first cases in February.

“The number of (new) cases identified (since Wednesday) is 2,079,” Lari said, bringing the total number of infections to 250,458.

In response to the

resurgence of the disease, the authorities have made the wearing of masks mandatory in covered public places and are considering imposing further restrictions in the hardest hit provinces.

Stemming the coronavirus “requires the help of you, dear people, listening to our health advice”, Lari said, before again urging the public to wear masks and respect social distancing.

Palestinians hope Biden would roll back Trump’s embrace of IsraelREUTERS — RAMALLAH

Palestinian leaders hope Democrat Joe Biden will tone down Washington’s pro-Israel policies if he becomes US pres-ident, and Palestinian-Amer-icans have been pressing his campaign for a change, sources familiar with the efforts said.

So far, their efforts have had little impact, the sources said.

US President Donald Trump has recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the US Embassy to the city and made peace proposals envisaging Israeli sovereignty over parts of the occupied West Bank, ter-ritory Palestinians seek for a state.

Trump’s moves — including

aid cuts to the Palestinian Authority that exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank — have prompted Palestinian offi-cials to sever ties with Washington.

“If Mr Biden (is) elected in November, we hope that it will be a totally different dynamic,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said last week during a virtual con-ference with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Biden is the presumptive Democratic challenger in November’s election. He is on record as challenging plans by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend sover-eignty to Jewish settlements in

the West Bank — de facto annexation of territory Israel seized in a 1967 war.

“Biden opposes any uni-lateral action by either side that makes the prospects of a two-state solution less likely — including annexation, which Biden opposes now, and would continue to oppose as Pres-ident,” campaign spokesman Michael Gwin said in a statement for Reuters.

Gwin did not address what action Biden might take if he were president and Israel annexed West Bank land.

Netanyahu’s proposed move, under Trump’s peace blueprint, has been criticised by Arab and European nations. The Israeli leader is awaiting the

green light from Washington.Buoyed by support from

progressives in the Democratic party, Palestinian diaspora activists want Biden to take a more critical look at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

More than 120 prominent Palestinian-Americans have signed a “Statement of Prin-ciples” that they say determine their community’s support for candidates for federal office.

They include making aid to Israel conditional on it ending “practices that violate Pales-tinian rights and contravene international law”, and revoking any potential US rec-ognition of Israeli sovereignty in occupied territory.

“We want to see Biden

embrace the party’s progres-sives, who have recognised the shared struggle between Pales-tinians living under military occupation, and Black and brown Americans who face police brutality, systemic racism and injustice,” said Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in August.

Those positions have failed to gain traction with Biden’s team, three people familiar with the campaign’s thinking said.

“The progressives want a full-throttle platform change — a pro-Palestinian flank, an anti-annexation flank — but there just isn’t appetite in the cam-paign so far,” one of the sources said.

Syria condemned at chemical warfare watchdog over sarin attacksAFP — THE HAGUE

Member countries of the global toxic arms watchdog voted overwhelmingly yesterday to take action on a probe that blamed Syria for nerve gas attacks for the first time, diplomats said.

A report in April by a new investigations team at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found the Syrian air force used sarin gas and chlorine on the village of Lataminah in March 2017.

Only Russia, China and Iran voted against yesterday’s decision at the OPCW’s 41-member executive council, which refers the matter to the annual meeting of all 193 member states in November.

Syria could have its own voting rights suspended under the maximum punishment

allowed by the Hague-based, UN-affiliated body if it fails to take action demanded by yes-terday’s resolution, diplomats said.

“It’s a good result for inter-national security and the fight against impunity,” French ambassador Luis Vassy, whose country introduced the motion, said after the vote.

“It’s a success for this organisation, which is fulfilling its mandate.” British ambas-sador Peter Wilson tweeted that it was a “resounding majority” — 29 votes for, nine abstensions and three against — and that countries had voted to “take action on the IIT (Investigation and Identification Team) report”.

The motion accuses Syria of breaching the Chemical Weapons Convention by pos-sessing and using toxic arms.

Member states called for

Syria to “rectify the situation” and asked the head of the OPCW to report back on the matter, the French envoy said in a speech to the council this week.

The resolution also referred the situation to the annual meeting of all member coun-tries in November with “recom-mendations for measures which could be taken... in the event of lack of redress.” The OPCW investigations team found that two Syrian fighter jets dropped bombs containing the nerve agent sarin on Lataminah and that a helicopter dropped a barrel bomb full of chlorine on the village.

It was the first report by the team, set up after OPCW members in 2018 approved a Western-backed motion to allow the organisation to point the finger at perpetrators of attacks.

Three dead as fireworks truck explodes in TurkeyAFP — ISTANBUL

Three people were killed when a fireworks-laden truck exploded in Turkey on yesterday — the second such incident in less than a week, officials said.

The vehicle was carrying unexploded materials from a fireworks factory in the Black Sea province of Sakarya that was itself hit by a blast on Friday, killing six people and injuring over 100.

Television images showed white smoke rising from the scene of the latest incident in a mountainous area of the Adapazari district in Sakarya.

The interior ministry said three gendarmes were killed and six hurt in the blast which occurred as fireworks were being transferred ahead of a controlled detonation, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

Two of the dead were from the team in charge of disposing of the unexploded fireworks in a quarry.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu travelled to the scene, Anatolia reported.

Turkish officials launched an investigation into last Fri-day’s incident, which was described by the government’s disaster agency AFAD as an “industrial accident”. Local media reported that two owners of the factory were detained this week. The Hab-erTurk broadcaster’s website had reported that there had been previous explosions at the factory in 2009, 2011 and 2014, one of them fatal.

Kuwait, Oman report 3 deaths each from virus

QNA — KUWAIT/MUSCAT

The Kuwaiti health ministry yesterday reported 833 new COVID-19 infections for a total of 52,840 and three additional deaths to take the toll to 382.

The Health Ministry spokesperson Dr. Abdullah Al Sanad said that the new infec-tions included cases con-tracted the highly contagious disease and others being searched for the source of their infection, Kuwait’s KUNA reported. He pointed out that the 833 new COVID-19 cases included 536 Kuwaitis and 297 foreigners.

During the past 24 hours, 578 cases have recovered from the disease to bring the tally of recoveries to 42,686, the health ministry said.

Meanwhile, Omani Min-istry of Health yesterday announced 1,518 new cases of COVID-19 in the Sultanate, in addition to 3 new COVID-19 related death cases.

1,068 of the new cases were Omanis and 450 were non-Omanis. This brings the total number of positive COVID-19 cases to 51,725 in the Sultanate, in addition to 236 death cases. The Ministry also pointed out that 1,016 new cases have recovered, bringing the total number to 33,021.

UN humanitarian chief says the two crossings from Turkey are “a lifeline for millions of civilians whom the UN cannot reach by other means".

05FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020 ISLAM

Islam’s anti-racist message still resonates todayASMA AFSARUDDIN

One day, in Makkah, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

dropped a bombshell on his fol-lowers: He told them that all people are created equal.

“All humans are descended from Adam and Eve,” said Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in his last known public speech. “There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a non-Arab over an Arab, and no superiority of a white person over a black person or of a black person over a white person, except on the basis of personal piety and righteousness.”

In this sermon, known as the Farewell Address, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) outlined the basic religious and ethical ideals of Islam, the religion he began preaching in the early seventh century. Racial equality was one of them. Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) words jolted a society divided by notions of tribal and ethnic superiority.

Today, with racial tension and violence roiling contem-porary America, his message is seen to create a special moral and ethical mandate for American Muslims to support the country’s anti-racism protest movement.

Challenging kinshipApart from monotheism –

worshipping just one God – belief in the equality of all human beings in the eyes of God set early Muslims apart from many of their fellow Arabs in Makkah.

Chapter 49, verse 13 of Islam’s sacred scripture, the Quran, declares: "O mankind,

indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.”

This verse challenged many of the values of pre-Islamic Arab society, where inequalities based on tribal membership, kinship and wealth were a fact of life. Kinship or lineal descent – “nasab” in Arabic – was the primary determinant of an indi-vidual’s social status. Members of larger, more prominent tribes like the aristocratic Quraysh were powerful. Those from less wealthy tribes like the Khazraj had lower standing.

The Quran said personal piety and deeds were the basis for merit, not tribal affiliation – an alien and potentially desta-bilising message in a society built on nasab.

As is often the case with rev-olutionary movements, early Islam encountered fierce oppo-sition from many elites.

The Quraysh, for example, who controlled trade in Makkah – a business from which they profited greatly–had no intention of giving up the com-fortable lifestyles they’d built on the backs of others, especially their slaves brought over from Africa.

The Prophet’s (PBUH) message of egalitarianism tended to attract the

“undesirables”—people from the margins of society. Early Muslims included young men from less influential tribes escaping that stigma and slaves who were promised emanci-pation by embracing Islam.

Women, declared to be the equal of men by the Quran, also found Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) message appealing.

By Prophet Muhammad 's (PBUH) death, in 632, Islam had brought about a fundamental transformation of Arab society.

I can’t breatheEarly Islam also attracted

non-Arabs, outsiders with little standing in traditional Arab society. These included Salman the Persian, who travelled to the

Arabian peninsula seeking reli-gious truth, Suhayb the Greek, a trader, and an enslaved Ethi-opian named Bilal.

All three would rise to prominence in Islam during Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) lifetime. Bilal’s much-improved fortunes, in particular, illustrate how the egalitarianism preached by Islam changed Arab society.

An enslaved servant of a Makkan aristocrat named Umayya, Bilal was persecuted by his owner for embracing the new faith. Umayya would place a rock on Bilal’s chest, trying to choke the air out of his body so that he would abandon Islam.

Moved by Bilal’s suffering, Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) friend and confidant Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), who would go on to rule the Muslim community after the Prophet’s death, set him free.

Bilal was exceptionally close to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), too. In 622, the Prophet (PBUH) appointed him the first person to give the public call to prayer in recognition of his powerful, pleasing voice and personal piety. Bilal would later marry an Arab woman from a respectable tribe – unthinkable for an enslaved African in the pre-Islamic period.

Black lives matterFor many modern Muslims,

Bilal is the symbol of Islam’s egalitarian message, which in its ideal application recognises no difference among humans on the basis of ethnicity or race but rather is more concerned with personal integrity. One of the United States’ leading Black Muslim newspaper, published

between 1975 and 1981, was called The Bilalian News.

More recently Yasir Qadhi, dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, in Texas, invoked Islam’s egalitarian roots. In a June 5 public address, he said American Muslims, a population familiar with discrimination, “must fight racism, whether it is by education or by other means.”

Many Muslims in the US are taking action, supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and protesting police brutality and systemic racism. Their actions reflect the revolutionary – and still unrealised – egali-tarian message that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) set down over 1,400 years ago as a cor-nerstone of the Islamic faith.

www.theconversation.com

The legacy of truth and justice

ROBERT D CRANE

The legacy of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is a revival of the essence of all

religions. He revitalised personal awareness and loving awe of God leading to piety, which is a core aspect of taqwa, and a resulting commitment to truth and justice.

These two pillars of Islam and of every world religion reinforce each other. The neglect of either one can result in extremism. Without love and mercy, the pursuit of justice can result in cruelty and oppression. And without commitment to truth and justice, one’s love of God is powerless in the world. The two basic philosophical principles of Islam are known as monotheism and balance.

Monotheism refers to the concept that everything in the uni-verse is interrelated with everything else in a coherent whole, and that this unity is the inevitable result of the oneness of the ultimate, the Creator of all, whom Muslims refer to as Allah (God).

Balance, the second philosophical principle, emanates from the first one. Since God created the universe as a balanced whole, a task of every human is to help maintain this perfect balance by avoiding extremism.

Rights, responsibilitiesA framework for maintaining

balance in life is provided by Islamic law and is its very purpose. This framework is a hierarchical system of human responsibilities and rights. For example, one has a responsibility to defend one’s family and community, and one has an equal responsibility to respect individual human life. Therefore, those who kill innocents in the alleged defense of their community clearly have lost balance. This violates the design of God. It is extremist and therefore immoral.

The indignities of miserable poverty and political oppression can produce alienation, desperation, and extremism. Unfortunately, Muslims have suffered more than their share of both these causes and effects; but regardless of how understandable the source of extremism, the resulting indiscriminate violence and aggression is immoral and Islamically abhorrent. Extremism does not have to result from indignities, but it all too often does unless there is a source and framework for hope. The source must be spiritual, based on piety.

The framework must be a coherent body of human responsibilities and rights, based on a mutually reinforcing combination of divine guidance through revelation, and natural law (signs of divine order in the universe). Without this intellectual framework, people wander in an intellectual void, and this, in turn, can produce a spir-itual malaise.

Over the long run, the most pro-ductive initiative, available to the still largely silent majority of Muslims, to marginalise and disempower extremists is to fill the intellectual and spiritual void that serves as an ocean in which the extremists can sail.

One way to fill that void is to ally with like-minded Americans of other faiths to create mutual understanding of how classical Islamic ideals, as all classical religious principles and values, are consonant with classical American ideals, even though many people do not understand or live up to the respective ideals.

Emphasising that the founders of America and the great scholars of Islam shared a similar vision for a society based upon truth, justice, and mercy is one good way to nurture a commo-nality of purpose in life.

Framework of justiceJustice is the will and design of

Allah Almighty. It is also the under-pinning for the body of Islamic nor-mative law which provides the intel-lectual framework to understand and address all of reality. Muslims need to emphasise the universal Islamic prin-ciples, known as the “Maqasid Al Shariah,” which spell out precisely the human rights.

These principles, following the methodology instituted by the Prophet (peace be upon him) are considered to consist of seven responsibilities, the practice of which actualise the corre-sponding human rights.

The first one, known as Haqq Al Din, provides the framework for the next six in the form of respect for a transcendent source of truth that guides human thought and action. God instructs us in the Quran: “…and the word of your Lord is perfected in truth and justice.” (Quran, 6:115)

Next is Haqq Al Nafs or Haqq Al Ruh, which is the duty to respect the human person. The spirit of every person was created by God before and outside of the creation of the physical universe and is constantly in the presence of God. This is the basis of the intimate relationship between God and the individual as expressed in the Quranic verse: “We are closer to him than is his own jugular vein.”

(Quran, 50:16)The next universal principle is the

duty to respect the family and the com-munity at every level, all the way to the community of humankind as an important expression of the individual. This principle teaches that the

sovereignty of the person, subject to the ultimate sovereignty of God, comes prior to and is superior to any alleged sovereignty of the secular invention known as the State.

This principle teaches also that a community at the level of the nation, of a people who share a common nar-rative of the past, common values in the present, and common hopes for the future, such as the Palestinians, Kurds, Chechens, Kashmiris, the Uighur in China, and the Anzanians in the Sudan, have legal existence and therefore legal rights in international law. This opposes any national or inter-national entity that operates on the principle of “might makes right.”

The fourth is the duty to respect the rights of private property in the means of production. This requires respect for institutions that broaden access to capital ownership as a universal human right and as an essential means to sustain respect for the human beings.

The last three universal principles in Islamic law primarily concern what we might call the quality of life. The first is the right of freedom, which requires respect for self-determination of both persons and communities through political freedom, including the concept that economic democracy (which includes such ideas as giving citizens a voice in economic decision-making and ensuring that the collective well-being is not subordinated to private profit) is a precondition for the political democracy of representative government.

The secondary principles required

to give meaning to the parent principle of right of freedom and carry it out in practice are: The ultimate accounta-bility of both the ruled and the ruler to God; mutual consultation, to ensure the responsiveness of the ruler to the ruled, which must be institutionalized in order to be meaningful; the duty of policy makers, by engaging in consul-tation, to reach a consensus on any specific issue; and an independent judiciary.

Another principle is respect for human dignity. The two most important requirements for individual human dignity are religious freedom and gender equity.

The last universal or essential prin-ciple at the root of Islamic jurispru-dence, which can be sustained only by observance of the first six principles and also is essential to each of them, is respect for knowledge.

This framework for human rights is at the very core of Islam as a religion. Fortunately, this paradigm is now being revived by what is still a minority of courageous Muslims. They are deter-mined to fill the intellectual gap that has weakened the Muslim nation for more than 600 years. This revival can be part of a spiritual renaissance in all faiths, a reawakening that can transform the world.

Dr Robert Dickson Crane is the former adviser

to the late US President Richard Nixon. A revert to

Islam, Dr Crane has authored or co-authored more

than a dozen books on comparative legal systems,

global strategy and information management.

Courtesy: messageinternational.org

Justice is the will and design of Allah Almighty. It is also the underpinning for the body of Islamic normative law which provides the intellectual framework to understand and address all of reality. Muslims need to emphasise the universal Islamic principles, known as the “Maqasid Al Shariah,” which spell out precisely the human rights. These principles, following the methodology instituted by the Prophet (peace be upon him) are considered to consist of seven responsibilities, the practice of which actualise the corresponding human rights.

The Prophet’s (PBUH) message of egalitarianism tended to attract the “undesirables”—people from the margins of society. Early Muslims included young men from less influential tribes escaping that stigma and slaves who were promised emancipation by embracing Islam.

06 FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Ivory Coast Prime Minister Coulibaly dies at 61AFP — ABIDJAN

Ivory Coast Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly died on Wednesday after attending a Cabinet meeting, just three months before presidential elections that he was due to contest. He was 61.

Coulibaly was the ruling RHDP coali-tion’s candidate for president in an election scheduled in October. He was appointed prime minister in 2017.

“I am deeply saddened to announce that Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, the head of government, left us early this afternoon after taking part in a cabinet meeting,” Patrick Achi, secretary general to the Ivory Coast presidency, said on public television.

Coulibaly returned to the West African country last week after a two-month stay in France to receive medical treatment for recurring heart problems.

His death creates huge uncertainty over the election in the world’s top cocoa grower, which has returned to normalcy after years of political turbulence and a low-level civil war.

Coulibaly was named as the candidate for President Alassane Ouattara’s party in

early March, after Ouattara ended months of speculation and said he would not seek a controversial third term.

Ouattara in 2011 ousted the then-pres-ident, Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to step down after losing elections in a standoff that triggered violence that claimed some 3,000 lives. He has served two terms.

“I pay tribute to my younger brother, my son Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who was my closest collaborator for 30 years,” Ouattara said in a statement.

“I salute the memory of a statesman, a man of great loyalty, dedication and love

for his homeland,” he added.Coulibaly’s death raises the question of

who might now be chosen as the party’s presidential candidate, with some specu-lating it could be Defence Minister Hamed Bakayoko.

Others suggest that Ouattara might also decide to run again now and that there is no “plan B”.

Following the closure of Ivory Coast’s borders due to the coronavirus pandemic, Coulibaly — who had a heart transplant in 2012 — travelled to France on May 2 for medical care. He received a stent about a week after arriving in France following an exam of his coronary arteries.

“I am back to take my place by the side of the President, to continue the task of developing and building our country,” Coulibaly said on arrival at the airport in Abidjan last Thursday.

A father of five who earned an engi-neering degree in France, he had a repu-tation for hard work and a temper that led to his nickname, “The Lion” of Korhogo, the country’s fourth largest city, which was his native place. Coulibaly wielded great influence among traditional leaders of the Senoufo ethic group, from which he came.

A file photo of Amadou Gon Coulibaly

UN chief: Foreign interference in Libya ‘unprecedented’AP — UNITED NATIONS

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that foreign interference in Libya’s war has reached “unprecedented levels” and urged key players and their backers to unblock the political stalemate and agree to a cease-fire and peace talks.

Calling the current situation “gloomy,” the UN chief said on Wednesday that the United Nations political mission in Libya is undertaking de-esca-lation efforts, “including the creation of a possible demilita-rized zone,” to try to reach a negotiated solution and spare lives. He said between April 1 and June 30 there were at least 102 civilian deaths and 254 civilians wounded in Libya, “a 172% increase compared to the first quarter of 2020.”

Guterres addressed a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council six months after leaders

of 11 world powers and other countries with interests in Libya’s long-running civil war agreed at a conference in Berlin to respect a much-violated UN arms embargo, hold off on mil-itary support to the warring parties, and push them to reach a full cease-fire.

Guterres and speaker after speaker decried the failure of the parties to adhere to the Berlin agreement and demand its speedy implementation.

“We all took strong com-mitments in the Berlin con-ference in January and it’s now

time to translate our words into concrete actions,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the virtual meeting.

“The polarisation that has turned Libya into a theatre for proxy-war needs to stop. Action in support of one or the other Libyan parties needs to stop.”

Guterres told the Security Council that forces supporting the government are now 25 km west of Sirte, after two previous attempts to gain control of the city.

“The situation on the front lines has been mostly quiet since June 10,” he said. “However, we are very con-cerned about the alarming mil-itary buildup around the city, and the high level of direct foreign interference in the con-flict in violation of the UN arms embargo, UN Security Council resolutions, and the commit-ments made by member states

in Berlin.” Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal stressed that it was in Libya to support the legitimate gov-ernment at its request and sup-ported the Berlin agreement for

providing “the architecture for intra-Libyan talks.”

Referring to Hafter’s offensive, Onal said: “Placing the aggressor on equal footing with the leg i t imate

UN-recognised government is wrong and counterproductive. This grave mistake must be cor-rected.” And he said blaming Turkey for what’s happening in Libya “amounts to hypocrisy.”

Chief of Staff Mohammed Al Sharif attends a display of Haftar militia’s landmines, at Al Hadba Military School, in Tripoli, Libya, yesterday. Libyan Army displayed landmines and improvised explosive devices that militia affiliated with Khalifa Haftar laid in civilian settlements in the south of the capital Tripoli.

Antonio Guterres says between April 1 and June 30 there were at least 102 civilian deaths and 254 civilians wounded in Libya.

Moroccan policemen stand guard in a closed street after authorities declared a total lockdown following the discovery of many COVID-19 cases in a fish canning factory in the southern port city of Safi.

Morocco to start reopening borders after lockdownAP — RABAT, MOROCCO

Morocco will start gradually reopening its air and maritime borders next week after one of the world’s strictest border lockdowns, which trapped tourists inside the country and left thousands of Moroccans stranded abroad and unable to come home.

Only Moroccan citizens and expatriates living in Morocco will be allowed to travel in the first stage of the reopening starting July 14, according to a government statement yes-terday. National airlines will schedule as many flights as

necessary to return Moroccans living abroad as well as for-eigners living in Morocco. Pas-sengers are required to present both a PCR virus test taken within fewer than 48 hours of the flight, as well as an antibody test, before boarding planes heading for Morocco.

Ferries from the French port Sete and Italian port Genoa will be allowed to resume serving Moroccan ports. All other ports will be excluded from this operation for now.

Moroccan citizens and foreign residents will be able to leave Morocco by air and sea.

M o r o c c o a b r u p t l y

suspended all international passenger flights and passenger ships to and from its territory on March 15. Tourists scrambled to get out - and Moroccans abroad struggled to come home.

While other countries also closed borders to keep out the virus, Morocco went even farther, barring its own citizens from coming home in hopes of limiting the risk of coronavirus arriving on Moroccan soil and overwhelming its under-pre-pared hospitals. Morocco will start opening mosques next week, though weekly Friday prayers will remain banned.

35 troops killed in Nigeria ambush by militants AFP — KANO, NIGERIA

The death toll from a militant attack on a military convoy in northeast Nigeria has risen from 23 to 35, while 30 troops are still missing, security sources said yesterday.

Fighters linked to the so-called Islamic State group ambushed the convoy on Tuesday at Bulabulin village, about 40km from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Twenty-three soldiers were initially thought to have been killed in Tuesday’s attack, and many were listed as missing.

But security sources said more bodies had now been found in nearby bush.

“We lost 35 soldiers from the ambush. Eighteen others were injured while 30 are still missing. Their fate is not known,” a security source told AFP. “More bodies were recovered in the bush by rescue teams which led to a rise in the deaths,” he said.

Another source confirmed the new toll.

“Thirty-five bodies of troops were recovered as... search teams combed the area around the scene of the ambush. Another 30 have not been accounted for. It is not known whether they are dead or alive,” he said.

He said the militants torched a mine-resistant vehicle and carted away eight

guntrucks, guns and commu-nication equipment.

“It was a surprise attack. The terrorists hid inside heaps of foliage they gathered along the road and opened fire on the convoy as it passed. It was a close-range ambush,” he said.

The troops were returning from patrol and clearance operation against the insur-gents when they came under attack.

The Nigerian military con-firmed the ambush on Wednesday but insisted only two soldiers were killed and four wounded.

It said 17 insurgents were killed in the subsequent fighting.

Nigeria’s army has repeatedly claimed that the insurgency has been largely defeated and frequently under-plays any losses.

The decade-long conflict in northeast Nigeria has killed 36,000 people and forced around two million from their homes.

Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) splintered from the main Boko Haram group in 2016 and have become a dom-inant force.

ISWAP has focused most of its attacks on military targets but has increasingly launched bloody assaults on civilians in recent months.

Sudan replaces finance, foreign, energy ministers in reshuffleREUTERS — CAIRO

Sudan’s prime minister replaced the finance, foreign, energy and health ministers and three other senior cabinet post-holders yesterday as part of a sweeping reshuffle, the government said.

Authorities had said a reshuffle was coming, but few

had expected the exit of Ibrahim al-Badawi, who as finance min-ister led efforts to steady Sudan’s crisis-stricken economy and liaised with foreign donors.

The government said tran-sitional Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok had dismissed the health minister and accepted

the resignation of Badawi and the others. It named interim replacements to lead all seven ministries.

Hamdok leads a gov-ernment of technocrats under a 39-month power-sharing agreement between the military and civilian groups, following the removal of long-time

President Omar al-Bashir last year. Badawi’s interim replacement will be Heba Ahmed Ali, a senior finance ministry official, the gov-ernment statement said.

The reshuffle comes nine days after large street protests demanding faster and more comprehensive reforms from

transitional authorities.On the eve of the protests,

Hamdok had promised to take a number of major decisions, without giving details. Earlier this week, he fired Sudan’s police chief and his deputy, who were seen by pro-democracy groups as close to Bashir’s regime.

Nigeria: Virus

cases top 30,000

ANATOLIA — ANKARA

Over 450 new coronavirus cases have taken Nigeria’s nationwide tally past 30,000, authorities announced yesterday.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), 460 more COVID-19 cases and 16 fatalities were recorded in the country over the past 24 hours.

“Till date, 30,249 cases have been confirmed, 12,373 cases have been discharged, and 684 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Ter-ritory,” read an NCDC update.

On Wednesday, Nigeria restarted domestic flights in two major cities after a months-long suspension. Flight operations have resumed at Abuja and Lagos airports.

Ethiopia’s week of unrest sees 239 dead, 3,500 arrestedAP — ADDIS ABABA

At least 239 people have been killed and 3,500 arrested in more than a week of unrest in Ethiopia that poses the biggest challenge yet to its Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister.

In the Oromia region, the toll includes 215 civilians along with nine police officers and five militia members, regional police commissioner Mustafa Kedir told the ruling party-affiliated Walta TV on Wednesday.

Officials earlier said 10 people were killed in the capital, Addis Ababa, eight of them civilians, amid outrage after a popular singer was shot dead last Monday.

Hachalu Hundessa had been a rallying voice in anti-government protests that led to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed taking power in 2018. Abiy swiftly introduced political reforms that also opened the way for long-held ethnic and other grievances in Africa’s second most populous country.

The military was deployed during the outrage that fol-lowed Hachalu’s death.

In remarks last week while wearing a military uniform, Abiy said dissidents he recently extended an offer of peace had “taken up arms” in revolt against the government. He hinted there could be links between this unrest and the killing of the army chief last year as well as the grenade thrown at one of his own rallies in 2018.

Eight Chadian

soldiers killed in

mine blastAFP — N’DJAMENA

At least eight soldiers in western Chad were killed and many others wounded when their vehicle struck a landmine laid by suspected militants, security sources and a local official said yesterday.

The blast occurred on Wednesday at Kalam in the Lake Chad region, which has been battered by attacks from militants crossing from neigh-bouring Nigeria.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the toll at eight or nine dead and between 11 and 21 wounded.

A security source in Nigeria also gave the figure of nine dead and said the device had apparently been laid by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a splinter group of Nigeria’s Boko Haram.

One of the fatalities was a commander in the gendar-merie, the Chadian military source said.

07FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020 ASIA

Australia offers safe haven to Hong KongersAFP — SYDNEY

Australia offered pathways to permanent residency for thou-sands of people from Hong Kong yesterday in response to China’s crackdown on dissent, drawing a furious reply from Beijing.

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison said his government was suspending its extradition agreement with the city and, in addition to extending the visas of 10,000 Hong Kongers already in the country, threw open the door to thousands more wanting to start a new life Down Under.

Morrison said the decisions were taken in response to China’s imposition last week of a tough new security law in Hong Kong, which he said “con-stitutes a fundamental change of circumstances” for the semi-autonomous territory.

“Australia is adjusting its laws, our sovereign laws, our sovereign immigration pro-gramme, things that we have responsibility for and juris-diction over, to reflect the changes that we’re seeing take place there,” he said during a press conference.

Beijing shot back, con-demning the Australian announcements as violations of “fundamental principles of international relations”.

“China... reserves the right to take further reactions, all consequences will be borne by

Australia,” warned Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

“Any attempts to suppress China will never succeed.” Aus-tralian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said China’s moves in Hong Kong were discussed earlier Thursday with Aus-tralia’s so-called “Five Eyes” security partners -- New Zealand, the United States, Britain, and Canada.

The new law, which followed sometimes-violent pro-democracy protests, is the most radical change in Hong Kong’s

freedoms since Britain handed the city back to China in 1997 under an agreement designed to preserve its way of life for 50 years.

Beijing in recent months has imposed tariffs on some Aus-tralian imports and impeded trade in other key commodities in response to Australian steps to counter Chinese interference in the country.

China, Australia’s biggest trade partner and a competitor for influence in the Pacific, was notably infuriated when Can-berra led calls for a probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

New Zealand is also reviewing its relationship with Hong Kong because of the new law, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Thursday, “including extradition arrangements, con-trols on exports of strategic goods, and travel advice”.

Canada has also suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, while the British gov-ernment has offered more than three million Hong Kongers a broader path to citizenship.

Morrison brushed aside questions about whether the challenge over Hong Kong would likely lead to further Chinese retaliation.

“We will make decisions about what’s in our interests, and we will make decisions about our laws and our advi-sories, and we will do that rationally and soberly and con-sistently,” he said.

He also appeared undaunted by China’s angry response, issuing a joint statement with Japanese coun-terpart Shinzo Abe following a video summit hours later chal-lenging Beijing’s moves to assert control over the strategic South China sea.

Bangla authorities

say Rohingya

refugees cannot

leave island

AFP — DHAKA

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees on a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal will not be allowed to leave unless they agree to return home, Bangladesh authorities said yesterday.

The 306 Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar were put on Bhashan Char island in April after being taken off two boats trying to traffic them to Malaysia.

Their plight has been taken up by the United Nations, an international rights group and community leaders, who want them moved to more estab-lished refugee camps on the mainland.

“They will stay at Bhasan Char until they are repatriated to Myanmar,” Mohammed Khorshed Alam Khan, admin-istrator for the district cov-ering the island, said.

He said the refugees are well taken care of and have better facilities than in the overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar where 700,000 Rohingya fled in 2017 to escape a Myanmar military clampdown.

In April, Bangladesh authorities said the Rohingya would be kept on the island in order to stop the spread of coronavirus in the sprawling refugee camps.

But Human Rights Watch (HRW) questioned that moti-vation, and said the refugees were not being treated well.

“Bangladesh authorities are using the pandemic as an excuse to detain refugees on a spit of land in the middle of a churning monsoon sea while their families anxiously pray for their return,” said Brad Adams, the organisation’s Asia representative.

He also asked why Bang-ladesh authorities were not giving aid workers access to the island settlement.

A Rohingya leader from the Cox’s Bazar camps said relatives of those on the island wanted to hold talks with Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner.

“We request the authorities to send our children to our fam-ilies,” said Mohib Ullah, head of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, which lobbies for the Rohingya.

HRW said it had received reports that refugees on Bhashan Char had little freedom of movement or ade-quate access to food, safe water and medical care.

A government official involved with the case rejected the criticism, but admitted some refugees wanted to be reunited with their families.

Japan rescuers battle to reach thousands trapped by floodsAFP — KUMA, JAPAN

Japanese emergency services and troops scrambled yesterday to reach people cut off by cata-strophic flooding and landslides that have killed dozens and caused widespread damage, with more torrential rain forecast.

In the scenic tourist area of Gifu in central Japan, officials said landslides and floodwater had left just nearly 1,000 house-holds stranded — or around 2,300 people. But in the hardest-hit region of Kumamoto, attention was turning to clean-up operations after some of the heaviest rain for years.

A Kumamoto official said: “The number of people stranded is zero. We can now reach all the areas which had been iso-lated.” A reporter in the area saw part of a road collapsed into a river, and scenes of devas-tation in flood-affected houses.

In one home, an elderly man was struggling to clear up the debris and furniture littering the mud-caked floor, his traditional straw tatami mats in one room ruined.

The rain front started in the southwest early on Saturday and has since cut a swathe of destruction across Japan, dumping record amounts of rain and causing swollen rivers to burst their banks.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) said “heavy rain will likely continue at least until July 12, calling for “extreme vig-ilance” for possible landslides and flooding in low-lying areas.

The JMA issued its second-highest evacuation order to around 350,000 people. Such orders are not compulsory, however, and most residents are choosing not to go to shelters, possibly due to coro-navirus fears.

The death toll has climbed gradually as more victims are discovered in isolated areas.

Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters that 58 people were confirmed dead. He said authorities were investigating whether four

other deaths were linked to the floods, adding that 17 people were unaccounted for.

After five days blocked by floodwater and landslides, troops finally managed to rescue some 40 residents from Ashikita village in Kumamoto region.

Kinuyo Nakamura, 68, burst into tears of relief as she finally made it to an evacuation centre.

“Gosh, it was scary. My house, it’s such a mess, I cannot live there anymore,” she said as she came across someone she knew at the shelter.

People clean up the mess in a supermarket following heavy rains and flooding in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto prefecture in Japan, yesterday.

Graduate teaches Delhi children without access to online learningREUTERS — NEW DELHI

In a squalid slum below a partially built flyover in eastern Delhi, Satyendra Pal stands by a whiteboard propped against a straw hut, with half a dozen children wearing masks and sitting on the floor looking up at him.

This is Pal’s open air classroom, where he teaches children in their early teens, giving them their only lessons at present after India’s schools

shut four months ago as part of a lockdown to control the spread of the coronavirus.

While the lockdown has been eased in recent weeks, schools are unlikely to reopen anytime soon, as experts warn the peak of the virus in India could still be months away.

The government has pushed for classes to move online, but in India only 23.8 percent of households have access to the Internet, according to a 2017-18 government report.

A maths graduate who hails from a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Pal said he was inspired to teach by his readings and faith in Buddhism. Students are not required to pay for his classes. “I take whatever they give,” he said.

Pal’s students live in the slum and many spend their days helping parents as farm hands after class. There is no power in the area, and water supply is erratic.

“Our school has online

classes, but there is no proper Internet here,” said Preeti, a class 10 public school student. “I could not study on my own. I do feel scared about the virus but I am also worried about exams.”

Pal began teaching a dozen or so kids in 2015 under a tree in the slum, but by early this year he had some 300 students. With the help of his fellow slum-dwellers he built an indoor classroom inside a hut. Desks and benches were donated.

“I stopped the classes in

March because it was too dan-gerous, but parents requested me to teach again,” he said.

He restarted the classes in July for a limited number of stu-dents to ensure social dis-tancing. Charities helped provide masks and sanitisers.

His parents, he says, often tell him he could be earning better by working another job.

“I want to earn money, but if I focus on myself I will earn alone. If I help these kids, they will all earn with me.”

Ensuring food for tomorrowFarmers work in a rice paddy field in Narimanpura village on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, yesterday.

Australian state to release most from virus lockdown despite surgeREUTERS — SYDNEY

Australia’s second-most populous state will relax restrictions on many of the 3,000 people locked down in nine public-housing towers despite surging numbers of COVID-19 cases, state premier Daniel Andrews said yesterday.

Victoria state on Saturday confined residents of the towers in their homes amid a spike in COVID-19 cases, prompting widespread criticism from residents.

Andrews said that after testing all 3,000 people in the towers, residents in eight of the high-rise buildings would be allowed to leave their homes for essential reasons, the same rules in force throughout the state.

“There are such numbers of positive cases, together with known close contacts, that the assumption has got to be that everybody in that tower is a close contact of someone who is positive,” Andrews said of the tower that will remain in lockdown.

The relaxation of the rules relieved residents, many of whom have said they have been

left without sufficient food and supplies.

“I can’t keep my kids anymore inside. I can’t, whether they shoot me or not. I don’t think I can stay any more here, not allowed even an hour to play outside,” said Amina Yussuf, an Australian citizen of Somali descent who lives with her seven children in two-bedroom apartment in one of the Melbourne towers for which the strict lockdown is ending.

Victoria state has imposed broad restrictions on nearly 5 million in an attention to curb the spread of coronavirus, allowing people to leave their homes only to work, buy food or seek medical attention.

Australia has avoided the high casualty numbers of other countries to the COVID-19 pan-demic, which has killed 544,055 people globally, but the out-break in Victoria has stoked concerns of a second wave nationally.

Other states and territories have recorded few or zero cases in recent weeks and are con-tinuing to reopen their econ-omies, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison told residents not to become complacent.

“We must continue to follow those social distancing protocols all around Aus-tralia, even in states or terri-tories where the number of cases is effectively zero,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

Many states have shut their borders with Victoria in an attempt to stop COVID-19 from spreading.

The northern state of Queensland said it would ban non-residents arriving from Victoria. It will open its borders to people from other states and territories on Friday.

Even people travelling from Victoria who were willing to pay for the mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine would be banned, the Queensland gov-ernment said.

“They are making the decision that two weeks and that cost is worth it to get out of Victoria,” deputy premier Stephen Miles said in a televised news conference.

The country’s most pop-ulous state, New South Wales (NSW), closed its heavily traf-ficked border to neighbouring Victoria on Wednesday. South Australia also closed its border with Victoria.

Five more policemen held for custody death in India

REUTERS — CHENNAI

Five more policemen were arrested in a widening investi-gation into the deaths of a father and his son while in police custody in southern India, an officer said yesterday, in a case that has put policing in the country under a spotlight.

J Jayaraj, 59, and Bennicks Immanuel, 31, were detained for allegedly violating corona-virus lockdown rules in the town of Sathankulam last month and subjected to a brutal thrashing that resulted in rectal bleeding and eventual death, according to a letter to gov-ernment officials written by

Jayaraj’s wife J Selvaran.Police Inspector General K

Shankar said the five policemen arrested on Wednesday were accused of holding the two men down in a police station in Tamil Nadu state while others beat them.

“They have been held for abetment,” Shankar said.

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the decisions were taken in response to China’s imposition last week of a tough new security law in Hong Kong, which he said “constitutes a fundamental change of circumstances” for the semi-autonomous territory.

Her Excellency said that the State of Qatar attaches great importance to the issue of the rights of victims of terrorism and providing support to them. This is in line with the effective role of the State of Qatar in combating terrorism, protecting human rights, humanitarian work, and accountability for the most serious crimes.

08 FRIDAY 10 JULY 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 policy on the issue of Libya, which has been mired in conflict since the 2011 overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, is driven by its faith in dialogue and respect for countries’ unity and sovereignty.

Addressing a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Libya on Wednesday, Qatar’s top diplomat said the only solution to the crisis in Libya is to support the UN-recognised Government of National Accord and to implement the Skhirat Agreement, Security Council resolutions, and the results of the Berlin Conference.

Qatar’s Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the UN Security Council unanimously approved the Skhirat Agreement, which recognised the Government of National Accord as the only legitimate executive authority in Libya. Unfortu-nately, however, some countries that initially supported this agreement, later started backing opposing faction against the UN-recognised government. This, the Foreign Minister said, has led to the current situation.

Militia attacks on Tripoli over a year ago targeted innocent Libyan civilians and committed serious viola-tions of international humanitarian and human rights law. Militias also attacked healthcare facilities, including a missile strike on a hospital for COVID-19 patients in Tripoli during the coronavirus pandemic.

The militias also stand accused of laying landmines targeting civilians, as well as systematic extrajudicial killings. Mass graves have also been discovered recently in areas which were controlled by the militias.

The State of Qatar has reiterated its condemnation of these serious rights violations and has warned against supporting factions against the internationally-recog-nised Libyan government. Qatar has said that any agreed political solution based on dialogue and under-standing must include a clear and effective international mechanism to hold countries that do not abide by these international agreements to account. It is also important to hold countries, and not only some factions, accountable for violations of international law.

At the same time, Qatar has stressed the need to return to negotiations and national dialogue and com-plete the transitional period and achieve a solution that preserves the sovereignty and unity of Libya and fulfills the aspirations of the Libyan people, a solution that leads to building the state that the Libyans seek and deserve, away from narrow interests, personal aspirations, malignant agendas, and unlawful external interference.

Reaffirming its support for the United Nations Mission in Libya, Qatar has renewed its call to all actors to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and international human rights law and to hold accountable those responsible for violations and serious crimes.

Qatar’s stance on Libya

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Quote of the day

I'm deeply conscious that the citizens of Europe

... have become fearful again for their futures, for

their jobs, and for their incomes. The challenges

are great, but we will prevail, and we will

overcome them.

Paschal Donohoe, President of the Eurogroup

THE WASHINGTON POST

President Donald Trump has seized upon a new campaign battle cry to reopen the schools this fall, not with distance learning but in person. Trump’s call reflects a genuine need, felt by parents, teachers and students, to get back to the classroom. In any calculus of recovery, schools must be a priority. But it is important that reopening be done smartly, avoiding Trump’s previous bungling and leadership bankruptcy.

All over the country this week, teachers, parents, stu-dents and administrators are wrestling with the methods of how to accomplish this, knowing the stakes are high. Students have already lost months of work; many parents

need to return to jobs; a host of knock-on effects flow from canceled classes, including mental health troubles.

“Schools must open in the fall!!!” Mr. Trump declared on Twitter. But simply shouting the slogan is not a strategy. Schools must avoid hasty mis-calculations such as those evident in Trump’s thoughtless drive in May to reopen states, which badly backfired and led to the present pandemic surge. The current wildfire of infection must be extinguished as a prerequisite to going back to classrooms. If Americans can’t wear masks and stay out of bars and restaurants, they won’t get the school bells ringing soon.

Reopening will also require major new resources

that states and localities do not have. Ninety percent of school funding is local, and the gov-ernments are struggling under crushing pandemic burdens and tax revenue falloff. Phila-delphia schools superin-tendent William Hite Jr. esti-mated on Wednesdaythat the city would need $60 million to $80 million more just to meet the requirements of physical distancing, face masks, addi-tional staff to clean and san-itize schools, and proper venti-lation in old buildings. Some other estimates are that schools nationwide will need an additional $200 billion to safely reopen. Where is this coming from? A fresh eco-nomic stimulus package does not seem imminent from Washington.

Some schools are trying to

cope with it all by creating hybrid plans, sharing in-classroom time with online instruction, to which Trump sniffs, “I think it’s an easy way out.” To make matters worse, Trump on Wednesday threatened schools in a tweet, “May cut off funding if not open!” How is that going to help? Trump also ominously insisted he would press the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - the public health experts - to loosen guidance for school reo-penings. He knows better?

Another huge issue that must be faced is the vulnera-bility of adults. As the group Resolve to Save Lives pointed out, younger people are less prone to get seriously ill, and may not transmit the virus as much as adults.

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The key to the schoolhouse door

Established in 1996

QNA — NEW YORK

The State of Qatar said that, in light of the exceptional circumstances resulting from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there is a need to increase the level of support for victims of terrorism because they are part of society and they are affected by the difficulties arising from the pandemic.

This came in a statement delivered by Permanent Rep-resentative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Ambassador H E Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani in Webinar III: Addressing the Plight of Victims of Terrorism in a Challenging Envi-ronment”, during the United Nations’ 2020 virtual counter-terrorism week theme of “Strategic and Prac-tical Challenges of Countering Terrorism in a Global Pan-demic Environment”.

Her Excellency said that the State of Qatar attaches great importance to the issue of the rights of victims of ter-rorism and providing support to them. This is in line with the effective role of the State of Qatar in combating ter-rorism, protecting human rights, humanitarian work, and accountability for the most serious crimes. Accord-ingly, the State of Qatar directed part of its humani-tarian aid to the regions affected by terrorism, such as the assistance it provided to Mosul in Iraq, and the State of Qatar is a key supporter of the work of the United Nations Investigative Team to

Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by ISIS (UNITAD), and the State of Qatar is one of the strongest supporters of General Assembly resolutions on victims of terrorism, and has been one of the founding countries of the Group of Friends of Victims of Ter-rorism, Her Excellency said, praising the efforts of Spain and Afghanistan in leading the work of this group.

HE the Ambassador pointed out that when we address the plight of the

victims of terrorism in a challenging environment, we must remember that the war on terrorism aims to eradicate this scourge and address its root causes, prevent damage and suf-fering to the victims, and prevent any violation of their humanity and their dignity, because the victims are the human dimension of the impact of terrorism and they have an important role in the war on terrorism and violent extremism by making their voices heard and exposing the delusion of terrorist rhetoric and ter-rorist agendas and their actual effects on ordinary people in areas affected by terrorism.

Her Excellency stressed that everyone should have a moral duty to support the victims of terrorism and

ensure that they are treated with sympathy and respect for their dignity. When it comes to children, their rights must be respected and their best interests must be a pri-ority by all means, and their livelihood should not be neglected for reasons of national security.

She noted that when victims of terrorism face addi-tional challenges as a result of factors such as a global pan-demic, we must identify these challenges in order to be taken into account in the context of providing support to victims of terrorism, and perhaps the first of these challenges is that the COVID-19 pandemic which has become a top priority and it became the main concern of all.

On August 21, 2020, the International Day of Remem-brance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism will be marked, providing an oppor-tunity to renew this momentum and undertake activities at various levels to renew the firm commitment to strengthening international cooperation to prevent and combat terrorism, honor and support its victims and sur-vivors, and promote and protect their full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Her Excellency stressed that countries and the United Nations have an important role

in supporting the victims of ter-rorism through their programs. It is a pleasure that one of the areas on which the distin-guished partnership between the State of Qatar and the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism focuses is the area of providing support to victims of terrorism, as this is considered a strategic priority to the Office of Counter-Ter-rorism that benefits from the financial support provided by the State of Qatar to support the Office’s programs.

She praised the efforts of the Office’s “Victims of Ter-rorism Unit” in providing con-tinuous and effective support to victims of terrorism, keeping abreast of emergency changes, and updating the website of the “UN Victims of Terrorism Support Portal” so that victims and others can benefit from them in obtaining useful infor-mation and resources in this field, expressing aspiration to work with the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism to support its future plans in this important area.

Concluding, Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Ambassador H E Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani expressed solidarity with the victims of terrorism, adding they need all forms of soli-darity on a sustainable basis during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qatar stresses need to increase support for victims of terrorism in exceptional circumstances of COVID-19 pandemic

Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Ambassador H E Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani in Webinar III: Addressing the Plight of Victims of Terrorism in a Challenging Environment”, during the United Nations’ 2020 virtual counter-terrorism week theme of “Strategic and Practical Challenges of Countering Terrorism in a Global Pandemic Environment”.

09FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020 ASIA

US sees importance of North Korea talks despite tension, say officialsREUTERS — SEOUL

The United States has stressed the importance of resuming talks with North Korea, according to South Korea and the United States yesterday, even as North Korea has said it has no intention of returning to the negotiating table.

US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, who wound up three days of talks in Seoul, earlier rejected speculation he was seeking to meet North Korean officials during his visit, but said the United States was open to talks.

Biegun, the top US envoy on efforts to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, met South Korea’s national security adviser, Suh Hoon.

In the meetings, Biegun reaffirmed “continued US read-iness to engage in dialogue with” North Korea, the State Department said in a statement.

Biegun arrived in Japan later yesterday.

South Korea has been trying to promote peace efforts and Suh was instrumental in arranging summits between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump and Kim met for the first time in 2018 in Singapore, raising hopes for a negotiated end to North Korea’s nuclear programme. But their second summit, in 2019 in Vietnam, and later working-level talks, fell apart.

Trump said on Tuesday he was open to another meeting with Kim and thought it might be helpful, Voice of America said, citing a transcript of Trump’s interview with Gray Television, due to be aired on Sunday.

But North Korea, apparently frustrated that there’s been no sign of any easing of punishing sanctions against it, has said in

recent weeks it had no intention of sitting down again with the United States.

Tensions flared last month when North Korea blew up a

joint North-South liaison office on its side of the border, before dropping a threat of military action against the South.

B i e g u n h a s l e d

working-level talks with North Korea but the negotia-tions have been stalled since the two sides last met in Sweden in October.

US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun (left), and Japanese Vice-Foreign Minister Takeo Akiba pose for a photo session prior to their bilateral meeting at Iikura Guest House in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday.

Indonesian found

in freezer on

Chinese

fishing vessel

AFP — JAKARTA

The frozen body of an Indo-nesian man has been found aboard a detained Chinese fishing vessel, authorities said yesterday, adding that they suspected foul play in the crew member’s death.

Indonesian police said they intercepted two boats in the Malacca Strait this week after receiving a tip off that a crew member had died aboard one of the vessels.

The 20-year-old may have been tortured and his body had been kept inside a freezer of the Lu Huang Yuan Yu 117 since late June, said Riau province police spokesman Harry Golden Hart.

“The victim had physical injures, but we’re conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death,” he said.

Dozens of crew members hailing from China, Indonesia and the Philippines were being questioned in connection with the man’s death.

Anti-trafficking experts say the fishing industry is riddled with forced labour and exploited workers can face non-payment, overwork, vio-lence and death.

Indonesia and Southeast Asia are major sources of such labour and unscrupulous brokers target the poor and uneducated with promises of good wages at sea.

In June, two Indonesian crew members jumped off a Chinese boat to escape what they described as abuse and horrific conditions.

They were later rescued by an Indonesian fishing boat and police said Thursday they had arrested nine people over the abuse claims.

A month earlier, three dead Indonesian crew members were thrown off a Chinese-flagged vessel into the sea.

Jakarta later said it was told that the men had died of illness, while Beijing described the sea burials as being in line with international law.

Afghanistan to release prisoners from Taliban listREUTERS — KABUL

Afghanistan is to release more Taliban prisoners in the hope of getting peace talks going, a government spokesman said yesterday, after the insurgent group provided the government with a revised list of several hundred of their detainees.

Disagreement over about 600 prisoners from a total of 5,000 the Taliban want released

has prevented the launch of US-brokered peace talks aimed at ending nearly 19 years of war since the militants were ousted.

While releases by both sides have taken place, the Afghan government has said it does not want to release some prisoners for security reasons and its Western allies also object to some of them being set free.

“They have given us another list, the release process will

continue but direct talks should also start immediately,” Javid Faisal, spokesman for the National Security Council, tsaid.

The Taliban could not be reached for comment and it was not clear if they would be willing to start talks based on the release of the prisoners on the list.

The United States and the Taliban struck a landmark agreement in February on the withdrawal of US forces in

exchange for Taliban security guarantees.

As part of the pact, the Taliban agreed to open power-sharing talks with the US-backed government.

But a senior government official said there was still no agreement on starting the talks.

“The government will start the process of release in the coming few days and will com-plete the release whether the

Taliban agree or not,” he said.A diplomatic source said US

special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has overseen the negotia-tions with the Taliban, has been pressing Taliban leaders to compromise on the prisoner issue and there were hopes the hurdle would be overcome.

“Momentum is such that it would not be possible for any side to back out,” the source said.

Pakistan to

reopen education

institutions from

September 15

ANATOLIA — ISLAMABAD

All education institutions in Pakistan will reopen from September 15, the country’s education minister announced yesterday.

Addressing a press con-ference in the capital Islamabad, Shafqat Mahmood said all schools, colleges and univer-sities, which were closed on March 13 due to the coronavirus pandemic, will strictly follow health guidelines formulated by the federal government.

“Provinces are authorised to close those institutions which do not follow the SOPs [standard operating pro-cedure],” he said.

The government, however, he added, will review the virus situation in the first week of September before imple-menting its decision.

University dormitories, the minister said, shall operate at 30 percent capacity only.

Pakistan, which recorded its first COVID-19 case in late Feb-ruary, recently saw a decline in infections after a surge in June. It recorded 3,359 cases in the last 24 hours, a fall of over 3,000 from the peak of 6,895 on June 13. The country has so far reg-istered 240,847 cases, including 4,983 deaths and 145,311 recoveries.

Police stand guard outside the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after its official inauguration the day before in Hong Kong, yesterday.

China offers glimpse inside lab near Wuhan virus originAFP — BEIJING,

Chinese state media has offered a rare glimpse of the lab at the heart of coronavirus conspiracy theories, as it seeks to push back against claims the facility was the source of the global pandemic.

President Donald Trump and other US figures have repeatedly suggested the virus could have

leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or even been delib-erately produced there.

Footage broadcast by state-run CCTV is believed to be the first from within the institute’s P4 lab — for highly-dangerous Class 4 pathogens — since its inauguration in 2017.

However, it offered no new information on the lab’s workings.

It included only a few brief shots of actual laboratory areas, taken through thick glass windows. The report said safety protocols pre-vented closer access.

The piece focussed instead on rebutting leak suspicions.

“There have been no acci-dents of pathogen leaks or human infections” from the lab, said Yuan Zhiming, director of

the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory.

“An outbreak and pandemic caused by any infectious disease is bound to be the focus of public attention.” “Because of the fear and feeling of help-lessness and also the lack of information, many people would naturally link an area’s outbreak to its nearest lab.

HK opposition primary may

break new law: OfficialBLOOMBERG — HONG KONG

Primaries planned by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy oppo-sition may violate new national security legislation, a top government official said, comments that could fuel concerns their candidates will be disqualified from a key upcoming legislative election.

Secretary for Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Erick Tsang told the Oriental Daily newspaper yesterday that planning and par-ticipating in primaries could violate the law’s articles of secession, subversion and col-lusion, as well as its “Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance.” Pan-Democrat law-makers plan to hold primary votes on Saturday and Sunday in the run-up to the Legislative Council election slated for September.

Tsang said people have com-plained that the primaries intend

to manipulate and interfere with the legislative vote and said some candidates had pledged to veto the government’s budget in order to paralyse it, without naming specific candidates or specifying further. He said authorities were investigating relevant complaints and would take legal action if evi-dence suggested the security law had been violated.

The new security law has raised questions about basic freedoms in Hong Kong and its autonomy from mainland China. Tsang’s comments came the day after a new office overseeing the implementation of the law opened in the heart of the financial center.

There are fears the law will be used to prevent pan-Democrat candidates from running in Sep-tember, and the Beijing-backed government and its supporters have criticized activists by name for actions that could run afoul of the security measure and laws.

Missing Seoul mayor’s body found after massive searchAP — SEOUL

The missing mayor of South Korea’s capital, reportedly e m broi led in sexual harassment allegations, was found dead, more than half a day after giving his daughter a will-like message and then leaving home, police said.

Police said they located Park Won-soon’s body near a traditional restaurant in wooded hills in northern Seoul, more than seven hours after they launched a massive search for him.

His daughter called police on Thursday afternoon and said her father had given her “a will-like” verbal message in the morning before leaving home. She didn’t explain the contents

of the message, said an officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency who was responsible for the search operation.

Police said they mobilized about 600 police and fire officers, drones and tracking dogs to searchfor Park in the hills, where his cellphone signal

was last detected. They said the phone was turned off when they tried to call him.

His daughter called police after he couldn’t reach her father on the phone, the Seoul police officer said, requesting anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the

media about the matter.Kim Ji-hyeong, a Seoul Met-

ropolitan Government official, said Park did not come to work on Thursday for unspecified reasons and had canceled all of his schedule, including a meeting with a presidential official at his Seoul City Hall

office. The reason for Park’s dis-appearance wasn’t clear. The Seoul-based SBS television network reported that one of Park’s secretaries had lodged a complaint with police on Wednesday night over alleged sexual harassment such as unwanted physical contact that began in 2017. The SBS report, which didn’t cite any source, said the secretary told police investigators that an unspec-ified number of other female employees at Seoul City Hall had suffered similar sexual har-assment by Park.

MBC television carried a similar report.

Both the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and Park’s office said they couldn’t confirm the reports.

Police officer Lee Byeong-seok told reporters that Park was last identified by a security camera at 10:53 a.m. at the entrance to the hills, more than six hours before his daughter called police to report him missing.

Fire officer Jeong Jin-hyang told reporters that rescuers used dogs to search dangerous areas on the hills.

Park, 64, a longtime civic activist and human rights lawyer, was elected Seoul mayor in 2011. He became the city’s first mayor to be voted to a third term in June 2018. A member of President Moon Jae-in’s liberal Democratic Party, he had been considered a potential presidential candidate in 2022 elections.

Police said they located Park Won-soon’s (pictured), body near a traditional restaurant in wooded hills in northern Seoul, more than seven hours after they launched a massive search for him. Park, 64, a longtime civic activist and human rights lawyer, was elected Seoul mayor in 2011. He became the city’s first mayor to be voted to a third term in June 2018. A member of President Moon Jae-in’s liberal Democratic Party, he had been considered a potential presidential candidate in 2022 elections.

10 FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020EUROPE

Russia arrests governor over multiple murderAFP — MOSCOW

Russia yesterday arrested the popular governor of a far eastern region on suspicion of ordering the killings of several businessmen 15 years ago, sparking a furious reaction from his party.

Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region is sus-pected of being the “organiser of murders and the attempted murder of a number of entre-preneurs” in 2004 and 2005, the Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a statement.

Furgal stood for office rep-resenting the LDPR nationalist party and his arrest sparked a furious reaction from its leader.

In televised comments in parliament, LDPR’s firebrand leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said the party’s MPs could resign en masse in protest.

“If Furgal was allegedly mixed up in something, why did they wait 15 years?” he wrote on Twitter.

Furgal was elected Khabarovsk’s regional governor in 2018.

He secured 70 percent of the vote against the incumbent of the ruling United Russia in an embarrassing result for the party backing President Vladimir Putin.

While ostensibly an oppo-sition party, the LDPR mainly

backs Kremlin initiatives. Its MPs include Andrei

Lugovoy, Britain’s chief suspect in the polonium poisoning of former security agent Alex-ander Litvinenko.

Furgal’s detention comes ahead of regional elections in September and some analysts suggested it was a warning to opposition forces.

State news broadcasts showed a group of masked law enforcement officials in camou-flage pulling Furgal from the backseat of an SUV in a driveway.

He later flew into Moscow under escort and was taken for questioning by investigators, Russian news agencies reported. A court was expected to approve his detention.

Furgal’s arrest comes after Putin, who has been in power for two decades, this month oversaw a controversial con-stitutional vote that allows him to extend his grip on power after his fourth Kremlin term ends in 2024.

Khabarovsk region had among the highest rates of opposition votes in the

nationwide elections whose results the Kremlin has called a “triumph.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday he would “abstain from any comment” on Furgal’s performance as governor of the region, which borders China.

According to his official biography, Furgal, a former doctor, was a businessman from 1999 until taking office as a local lawmaker in 2005.

The investigation concerns two murders and one attempted murder, state news agency TASS reported, citing a source.

One of those killed was Fur-gal’s former business partner Oleg Bulatov, who was shot dead in the city of Khabarovsk in 2005.

The other victim, Yevgeny Zorya, was shot dead in the same city in 2004. Both crimes resembled contract killings. The attempted killing was in the neighbouring Amur region.

Investigators said the crimes were being re-examined after being passed from regional to national level.

Investigators said they had arrested four others over the same case and they are in detention.

Russia has a statute of lim-itation of 15 years for grave crimes, making it hard to see how the case will proceed, wrote RAPSI legal news agency.

Investigators said they had arrested four others over the same case and they are in detention.

Germany sees rise in number of right-wing extremistsAP — BERLIN

Germany recorded a significant rise in the number of right-wing extremists last year, after security agencies added thou-sands of members of the coun-try’s main far-right party to the count.

An annual report on extremism in Germany released yesterday estimates the number of right-wing extremists in the

country at 32,080 last year. This is an increase of almost 8,000 compared to the figure of 24,100 recorded in 2018.

The report, released by the BfV domestic intelligence agency, includes for the first time around 7,000 members of the Alternative for Germany party’s youth section and a radical faction known as The Wing. Both have come under heightened scrutiny from the

BfV because of their perceived extremist tendencies.

German authorities vowed to step up measures against far-right extremism following the killing of a regional politician by a suspected neo-Nazi, an attack on a synagogue in Halle and the fatal shooting of nine people in Hanau over the past year.

“(Far-right extremism) is the biggest security policy challenge in our country,” Interior

Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters at the presentation of the report in Berlin.

Authorities in Munich announced that they have searched premises linked to 12 German citizens in three states and neighboring Austria on sus-picion of smuggling weapons into the country. The suspects are affiliated with the far right and the Reich Citizens movement, a loose grouping

that denies the legitimacy of the current German state.

The number of far-left extremists increased by 1,500 to 33,500 last year, according to the report. More than two-thirds of those are classified as “not violence-oriented.”

The report also counts about 28,020 people in Germany with tendencies toward Islamic extremism, up from 26,560 in 2018.

Greece close to launching own COVID-19 testREUTERS — ATHENS

Researchers in Greece said they are close to launching a molecular test to detect COVID-19 which could provide a cheaper alternative to imported kits and uninter-rupted access to supplies.

Greece currently uses diag-nostic kits imported from a variety of suppliers abroad. The potential new test would use nasal swab samples, two researchers said, and could be available “in the coming future”.

Both researchers requested anonymity because of the sen-

sitivity of the project.Generally, tests both for the

virus itself and for the anti-bodies the immune system pro-duces to fight the infection are becoming more widely available, but they are not perfect. The tests can come back with false positives, false negatives or confoundingly ambiguous results.

The researchers said their test had a more than a 90 percent accuracy rate. Research centres and at least two pub-licly-funded Greek universities are involved in the project, launched in February, they said.

In an interview this week,

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the research “great work’.

“We won’t be depending on tests from abroad, and I believe we will be in a position to make some significant announce-ments on research into therapy protocols,” Mitsotakis said.

Researchers said they had also developed a test with ‘more than 90 percent accuracy’ which can detect COVID-19 antibodies, a sign that someone had contracted the virus.

Research was also underway into how antibodies could be used in a potential cure, they said.

A scientist works on cells that produce antibodies against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in a university lab in Athens, on Wednesday.

Two jailed for Danish tax office bombingREUTERS — COPENHAGEN

A Copenhagen court yesterday found two Swedes guilty of bombing the Danish tax agency and sentenced them to five and four years’ jail respec-tively.

Zacharias Tamer Hamzi, 24, and Nurettin Nuray Syuleyman, 23, were convicted of transporting a bomb via the Oresund Bridge, known from the TV crime series “The Bridge”, and detonating the device in August 2019.

The explosion in Copen-hagen shattered glass doors and windows and scorched metal cladding at the main entrance of the building in Nordhavn, just north of the city centre. One person was slightly wounded.

The motive for the bombing remained unclear, but the court dismissed ter-rorism charges. The prose-cutor had sought lifetime sen-tences for the childhood friends, neither of whom had been convicted of a serious crime before.

“I’m pleased that my client was convicted under the mildest charge,” said Michael Juul Eriksen, defence lawyer for Hamzi, who was jailed for five years.

Syuleyman had yet to decide whether to appeal against his sentence, said his lawyer, Kaare Traberg Smidt.

Despite the lesser sen-tence, special prosecutor Andreas Emil Christensen said he was satisfied.

Both were permanently expelled from Denmark and would serve their sentences in Sweden.

Denmark imposed tem-porary border controls at the Swedish border in November last year, after Swedes were suspected of being behind a number of serious attacks in the Danish capital.

Meghan Markle tries to prevent ‘friends’ being named in lawsuitAP — LONDON

The Duchess of Sussex asked a British court to prevent a news-paper from publishing the names of five friends who defended her while speaking to an American magazine under the shield of anonymity.

The former Meghan Markle made the request in a witness statement for her lawsuit against the Daily Mail and its parent company over excerpts from a “private and confi-dential’’ letter she wrote to her father that the newspaper pub-lished last year.

Her statement, filed in Brit-ain’s High Court, claims the newspaper has threatened to publish the names of the five women who spoke to People Magazine anonymously but are named in confidential court documents as part of her lawsuit.

“For the Mail on Sunday to expose them in the public domain for no reason other than clickbait and commercial gain is vicious and poses a threat to their emotional and mental well-being,’’ Meghan said in the statement. “The Mail on Sunday is playing a media game with real lives.”

Papers drawn up by

lawyers for the newspaper argue that the publication of the letter to the duchess’s father, Thomas Markle, was in response to a “one-sided” article in People Magazine in February 2019 featuring an interview with the “close friends.” The article referenced the letter, meaning it was in the public domain, the lawyers said.

The newspaper said it has “no intention,’’ of publishing the names this weekend. But it said the court should decide on the confidentiality to which Meghan’s friends are entitled.

The duchess said in her statement that the five friends made the choice on their own to speak to People. She accused the newspaper of trying to create a distraction.

“These five women are not on trial, and nor am I,’’ the statement said. “The publisher of the Mail on Sunday is the one on trial. It is this publisher that acted unlawfully and is attempting to evade account-ability; to create a circus and distract from the point of this case — that the Mail on Sunday unlawfully published my private letter. “Each of these women is a private citizen, young mother, and each has a basic right to privacy.’’

Kosovo veterans protest charges against ThaciAP — PRISTINA

Veterans of a rebel army that fought for Kosovo’s inde-pendence from Serbia held protests yesterday against the indictment of the country’s president on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges stemming from the conflict in the late 1990s.

Ninety-nine Kosovo Liber-ation Army veterans, symboli-cally representing the year the 1998-99 war in Kosovo ended,

gathered at a main square in the capital of Pristina and other cities to denounce the indictment of President Hashim Thaci as “unfair” and promoted by Serbia.

“Such acts from this court do not positively impact the reconciliation in the Western Balkans,” the head of a war vet-erans’ organisation, Hysni Gucati, said.

A prosecutor of an interna-tional court set up in The Hague but applying Kosovo laws

issued the indictment, which alleges Thaci and other former KLA members are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders of Serbs, Roma and Kosovo Albanian political opponents during and after the war with Serbia.

The indictment also includes charges of forced dis-appearances, persecution and torture.

Thaci, a former KLA com-mander, denies any responsi-bility for alleged war crimes .

Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans Organization (KLA WVO) members protest against the indictment of Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and former president of the Assembly of Kosovo, Kadri Veseli, on war crime by a special court, in Pristina, yesterday.

AFP — PARIS

There is “strong evidence” that COVID-19- positive mothers can pass the virus on to their unborn infants, scientists said yesterday, in findings that could affect how pregnant women are shielded during the pandemic.

While there have been iso-lated cases of babies infected

with the virus, the findings show the strongest link yet between m o t h e r a n d i n f a n t transmission.

Researchers in Italy studied 31 pregnant women hospitalised with COVID-19, and found the virus in an at-term placenta, umbilical cord and in breast milk.

They also identified specific COVID-19 antibodies in the

umbilical cords of several pregnant women as well as in milk specimens.

Claudio Fenizia, from the University of Milan and lead study author, said the findings “strongly suggest” that in-vitro transmission is possible.

“Given the number of infected people worldwide, the number of women that could be affected by this could be

potentially very high,” he said.Fenizia stressed that none

of the infants born during the study period tested positive for COVID-19.

“Although in utero trans-mission seems to be possible, it is too early to clearly assess the risk and potential conse-quences,” he said.

The World Health Organi-zation said last month that new

mothers infected with COVID-19 should continue breastfeeding.

“We know that children are at relatively low-risk of COVID-19, but are at high risk of numerous other diseases and conditions that breastfeeding prevents,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Among other findings, the team identified a specific

inflammatory response trig-gered by COVID-19 in the women’s placenta and umbilical cord blood plasma.

Fenizia said that the women studied were all in their third trimester, given the timeframe of Italy’s epidemic, adding that more research is currently under way among COVID-19-positive women in the early stages of pregnancy.

‘Strong evidence’ mothers can transmit virus to newborns: Scientists

11FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Bolsonaro faces criminal complaint for removing maskREUTERS — RIO DE JANEIRO

The Brazilian Press Association yesterday filed a criminal complaint to the Supreme Court against President Jair Bolsonaro (pictured), after he took off his mask in a televised interview in which he announced he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Bolsonaro made his announcement on Tuesday.

His illness is a potent symbol of his government’s botched response to the outbreak in Brazil, the second-worst in the world. More than 1.7 million people in Brazil have tested

positive for coronavirus and nearly 68,000 have died.

Brazilian broadcasters

pulled journalists off the job after they were exposed to Bol-sonaro in the interview, quar-antining them until they test negative for the disease.

In its complaint, the press association alleged that Bol-sonaro had committed at least two crimes related to putting someone’s life or health at imminent risk and failing to prevent the spread of an infec-tious disease.

The Brazilian Press Associ-ation, a prestigious professional group that advocates for jour-nalism, asked that its complaint be sent to the attorney general’s office to decide on whether there were grounds to proceed with a criminal probe.

Bolsonaro, 65, is currently in quarantine, and has said he

is feeling well. The far-right former army captain has a prickly relationship with jour-nalists, alleging unfair treatment and he is quick to label unfavo-rable coverage as fake news.

The president’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Facebook Inc on Wednesday suspended a network of social media accounts it said were used to spread divisive political mes-sages online by aides to the president and two of his sons.

The allegations by Facebook add to a crisis in Brazil, where

Bolsonaro’s sons and supporters have been accused of running a coordinated online campaign to smear opponents.

The accusations have spurred a congressional inquiry and a separate Supreme Court investigation into attacks on the judiciary, which led to police raids in May on the homes and offices of Bolsonaro allies.

Bolsonaro, who is under mounting criticism over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, has said the court’s investigation is unconstitutional and risks establishing cen-sorship in Brazil.

A view of a Walt Disney World theme park billboard is seen as it is scheduled to reopen tomorrow despite a surge in new COVID-19 infections throughout Florida, in Lake Buena Vista, yesterday.

Johnson clears way for Brexit ‘Russian meddling’ reportAFP — LONDON

Prime Minister Boris Johnson cleared the way yesterday for a long-awaited parliamentary report into alleged Russian interference in British politics to be published “as soon as possible”.

A government spokesman said parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) will be re-formed next week, and will then be free to publish its findings into concerns about disinformation and meddling

in the 2016 Brexit vote. The committee finished the

50-page report in March last year and the report was cleared by the intelligence agencies in October.

But Johnson failed to authorise its publication before the committee was disbanded ahead of the December general election, and it was then delayed until the committee was restored.

The nominations for the new committee members are expected to be published later

Thursday and put to a vote by lawmakers next Monday and Tuesday. The new members will then elect their own chairman.

Committee members have to be approved by the PM.

Johnson’s spokesman said publication of the Russia report “will be a matter for the new committee but we would encourage them to publish it as soon as possible”.

The ISC launched the inves-tigation in November 2017, in response to concerns about

attempts by Russia to influence the 2016 US presidential election and fears of meddling in Britain’s referendum vote the same year to leave the European Union.

Then prime minister Theresa May had accused Russia of “planting fake stories” to “sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions”.

The 2018 poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English town of

Salisbury, which London and its Western allies blamed on Moscow, only added to the ISC’s concerns.

Former ISC chairman Dominic Grieve had accused Johnson of deliberately delaying the report until after the election — something Downing Street denies.

Politicians in the main opposition Labour party have alleged the report could contain evidence of links between John-son’s Conservative party and Russian billionaires.

Florida virus deaths hit record BLOOMBERG — TALLAHASSEE

Florida reported records in both COVID-19 deaths and new hospitalisations yesterday.

The state had 120 deaths among residents, compared with 48 the previous day. Cumulatively, deaths among Florida residents climbed by 3.1 percent to 4,009, according to the report, which includes data through Wednesday.

The report is the clearest sign yet that the wave of new COVID-19 infections that started among younger residents has expanded and begun to have dire clinical consequences.

Governor Ron DeSantis has

repeatedly ruled out a sweeping mask mandate or taking the state back into a lockdown to stem the virus, although local governments have acted on their own.

While deaths typically lag infections by weeks, the report gave no indications that cases are abating.

Florida reported 232,718 COVID-19 cases yesterday, up 4 percent from a day earlier, compared with an average increase of 5 percent in the pre-vious seven days.

But the rate of people testing positive for the first time jumped to 18.4 percent for Wednesday from 14.1 percent

the day before. DeSantis has said he relies on the positivity rate, because it helps adjust for the impact of increased testing on positive-case counts.

Cumulative hospitalisations of Florida residents rose by 2.4 percent, or a record 409, to 17,167.

Miami-Dade County, Flor-ida’s most populous, again reported the highest numbers of virus patients in intensive care and hospitals generally since at least early April. Miami-Dade has 1,688 people in hos-pitals, up 32 from a day earlier. The number of patients in intensive-care beds rose to 358 from 343.

WHO launches global pandemic response probeAFP — GENEVA

The World Health Organi-zation, which has faced crit-icism over its early handling of the coronavirus crisis, yesterday launched an inde-pendent review into the global response to the pandemic.

A n n o u n c i n g t h e assessment, which will be pre-sented next May, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it should help the world understand how to prevent such crises in the future.

The Independent panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response will be headed by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

“Through you, the world will understand the truth of what happened and also the solutions to build our future better as one humanity,” Tedros said at the UN agency’s headquarters in Geneva.

At their last assembly in May, WHO member states agreed to a resolution tabled by the European Union, which called for an “impartial, inde-pendent and comprehensive evaluation... to review expe-rience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coor-dinated international health response to COVID-19”.

It said the investigation should probe “the actions of WHO and their time-lines per-taining to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

At the time, the WHO was

coming under attack from US President Donald Trump, who threatened to withdraw Wash-ington’s membership, accusing the agency of botching its han-dling of the pandemic and of being a “puppet of China”.

The US on Tuesday for-mally started its withdrawal from the WHO, making good on Trump’s threats to deprive the UN body of its top donor.

Tedros hit out at divisions in the international community, warning of the consequences.

“Make no mistake: the greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself — rather, its the lack of leadership and sol-idarity at the global and national levels,” he said.

“We cannot defeat this pan-demic as a divided world. The virus thrives on division but is thwarted when we unite.”

The new coronavirus pan-demic has claimed more than 550,000 lives worldwide, with nearly 12.1 million people infected since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to an AFP tally on Thursday.

“How is it difficult for humans to unite to fight a common enemy that’s killing people indiscriminately? Tedros said.

“Together is the solution, unless we want to give the advantage the enemy, to the virus that has taken the world hostage and this has to stop.”

Tedros said it was time for honest reflection, and stressed it was important to remain vigilant.

The Brazilian Press Association alleged that Bolsonaro had committed at least two crimes related to putting someone’s life or health at imminent risk and failing to prevent the spread of an infectious disease.

Previously acquitted UK man convicted of terror attack plan

AFP — LONDON

A former Uber driver cleared of planning a terror attack at Buckingham Palace was jailed for life after plotting a gun and knife rampage at London tourist sites.

Mohiussunnath Chowdhury was found guilty in February of planning to target popular attractions, including a London march last year using a gun, knife and van.

The 29-year-old was arrested before he could carry out the attack after he unknow-ingly revealed his plans to undercover police.

Covert officers posing as like-minded extremists befriended and monitored Chowdhury after a jury cleared him in December 2018 of slashing police with a sword outside Queen Elizabeth II’s London residence.

Chowdhury had convinced jurors he only wanted to be

killed by police and had no intention to hurt anyone.

However, little more than a year later a separate subse-quent trial found Chowdhury guilty of the new terror plans, after hearing he was driven by “dreams of martyrdom”.

He began posting extremist messages online within a week of his release from prison, and bragged to undercover officers about deceiving the jury which had cleared him.

During a five-month sur-veillance operation, officers learned he was planning to attack attractions including the Madame Tussauds waxwork museum, an open-top sight-seeing bus as well as the London event.

Jailing for him life, with a minimum term of 25 years, judge Andrew Lees said he was satisfied Chowdhury was “dan-gerous” and posed “a signif-icant risk to members of the public of serious harm”.

‘Glee’ star Naya Rivera missing, feared drownedAFP — LOS ANGELES

“Glee” star Naya Rivera (pictured below) is missing and feared drowned at a Cali-fornia lake, local officials said yesterday, with rescuers to continue a search for her.

The Ventura County Sher-iff’s office earlier tweeted it was looking for a “possible drowning victim” at the lake, and said a dive team was being deployed to the area.

Rivera, 33, is best known for her role as high school cheerleader Santana Lopez in “Glee”, the TV series she starred in for six seasons.

She rented a boat on Wednesday and took her four-year-old son onto Lake Piru, northwest of Los Angeles, a spokesman for Ventura County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

He was found by another person out on the lake “asleep and with his life vest on,” Eric Buschow said.

“The search is suspended until the morning and it will resume at daybreak”.

Rivera put up a photo of her and her son on Twitter Wednesday, alongside the phrase: “Just the two of us.”

Hundreds have left com-ments below the post, many offering their prayers.

Rivera and the boy’s father, actor Ryan Dorsey, divorced in 2018 and share custody of the child, according to the TMZ outlet.

Fellow “Glee” actor, Mark Salling, took his own life in 2018.

Another actor on the hit series, Canadian Cory Mon-teith, died in July 2013 of an overdose of drugs.

Ukraine Ministry says forest fires under controlAFP — KIEV

Ukrainian firefighters have brought under control forest fires that have killed five people and left dozens homeless, the interior ministry said yesterday.

Large-scale blazes erupted on Monday in the eastern Lugansk region and engulfed a village not far from the front line of Ukraine’s war with Moscow-backed separatists.

Yesterday, interior ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko told said that the situation was “better” and that the fires had been localised but declined to give further details.

About 1,500 firefighters, rescue workers and National Guard are involved in an effort to put out smoldering forest floor spots.

The number of hospitalised people has increased to 34 from 20, including 15 children, the interior ministry said.

On Monday, the blaze engulfed Smolyanynove, a village

just 20km from the frontline.More than 100 homes have

been destroyed entirely in Smo-lyanynove and another village, with dozens more damaged.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Wednesday the situation was improving during

his visit to the disaster zone with Pres ident Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

An AFP correspondent in Smolyanynove saw animal corpses and scorched buildings with their window panes melted and gardens burned.

Some local residents believe the fire was started deliberately to hide illegal logging in the area.

Police said it was consid-ering three possible causes including extreme weather con-ditions, careless handling of fire, and deliberate arson.

Firefighters trying to extinguish a wildfire at Novoaydarivsk district, Lugansk region, yesterday.

12 FRIDAY 10 JULY 2020AMERICAS

SC orders release of Trump’s financial recordsAFP — WASHINGTON

The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that President Donald Trump must hand over his tax returns to New York prose-cutors but temporarily blocked Congress from accessing his financial records.

The rulings prompted a string of furious tweets from Trump and were a setback to his claim of absolute immunity from criminal investigation while in office.

At the same time, the rulings may allow Trump to keep his finances private until after the November presidential election.

The nation’s top court ruled 7-2 against Trump in a case brought by Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, a Dem-ocrat who is seeking eight years

of the president’s financial records in connection with an alleged “hush money” payment made to actress Stormy Daniels.

Both of the conservative jus-tices appointed by Trump — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — joined Chief Justice John Roberts in rejecting the sweeping claim by Trump’s attorneys that the president enjoyed absolute immunity.

“Two hundred years ago, a great jurist of our Court estab-lished that no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to

produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Roberts said. “We reaffirm that principle today.”

The other case before the nation’s highest court con-cerned a request by three Dem-ocratic-led congressional com-mittees for Trump’s tax returns and financial records and the president received a temporary reprieve there.

In another 7-2 ruling, the court sent the congressional case back to a lower court for further consideration, saying it needs to further examine the

separation of powers questions raised.

Vance called the ruling “a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one — not even a president —is above the law.

“Our investigation, which was delayed for almost a year by this lawsuit, will resume, guided as always by the grand jury’s solemn obligation to follow the law and the facts, wherever they may lead,” Vance said.

Jay Sekulow, Trump’s attorney, also welcomed the rulings, seeking to portray them as a win for the president.

“We are pleased that in the decisions issued today, the Supreme Court has temporarily

blocked both Congress and New York prosecutors from obtaining the President’s financial records,” Sekulow said.

“We will now proceed to raise additional Constitutional and legal issues in the lower courts.”

Even if Trump’s financial records are eventually turned over to the New York prose-cutors by his accounting firm Mazars they may remain hidden from public view because of grand jury secrecy.

Trump reacted furiously to the rulings.

“This is about PROSECU-TORIAL MISCONDUCT,” he tweeted.

“This is all a political pros-ecution,” Trump added. “Now I have to keep fighting in a

politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!”

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic speaker of the House of Rep-resentatives, said she would continue to press for Trump’s financial records to be handed over to Congress.

“The Congress will continue to conduct oversight For The People, upholding the sepa-ration of powers that is the genius of our Constitution,” Pelosi said. “We will continue to press our case in the lower courts.”

The Democratic-led com-mittees are looking into the president’s finances and those of the Trump Organization and his family in what started as a probe into foreign influence in 2016.

US sanctions four Chinese officials over human rights abuses in XinjiangREUTERS — WASHINGTON

The United States yesterday imposed sanctions on Chinese officials, including a member of the country’s powerful Politburo, accusing them of serious human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority, a move likely to further ratchet up tensions between Washington and Beijing.

The Trump administration targeted Xinjiang region’s Com-munist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, who becomes the highest-ranking Chinese official to be hit with US sanctions, and the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau. The highly anticipated action follows months of open hostility toward Beijing in Washington over China’s han-dling of the novel coronavirus

outbreak and its tightened grip on Hong Kong.

“The United States calls upon the world to stand against the CCP’s acts against its own minority communities in Xin-jiang, including mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, reli-gious persecution, and forced birth control and sterilization,” a White House official said.

However, China denies mis-treatment of the minority group and says the camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

The sanctions were imposed under the Global Mag-nitsky Human Rights Account-ability Act, a federal law that allows the US government to target human rights violators around the world with freezes

on any US assets, US travel bans and prohibitions on Americans doing business with them.

A senior administration official who briefed reporters after the announcements described Chen as the highest ranking Chinese official ever sanctioned by the United States, adding that the sanction is “no joke. Not only in terms of sym-bolic and reputational affect, but it does have real meaning on a person’s ability to move around the world and conduct business.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Washington was also imposing further visa restrictions the the Chinese offi-cials, barring them and their immediate family from the United States.

Pandemic could push 45 million in LatAM into poverty: UNAFP — UNITED NATIONS

The COVID-19 pandemic could push 45 million people from the middle classes into poverty in already economically troubled Latin America and the Caribbean, the United Nations said yesterday.

“In a context of already gaping inequalities, high levels

of informal labour and frag-mented health services, the most vulnerable populations and individuals are once again being hit the hardest,” UN Sec-retary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The hard-hit region has registered more than three million cases of the novel coro-navirus, more than half of them

in Brazil, according to an AFP tally based on official sources.

Mexico, Peru and Chile have also been hard-hit.

Guterres said the region could see a stunning 9.1 percent drop in GDP, the worst in a century.

The devastating impact is being magnified, the UN said, because it follows seven years of weak growth and hits coun-tries where millions lack ade-quate healthcare or easy access to potable water.

The world organisation foresees a seven percent rise in the poverty rate this year, adding 45 million to the ranks of the poor, for a regionwide total of 230 million, more than one-third the total population there.

The UN also predicted a 4.5 percent rise in extreme poverty, those threatened with hunger.

The UN urged countries to provide an emergency basic income — averaging $140 a month per person — plus food subsidies for those in need.

Guterres also called on the international community to provide financial aid, help ensure the region’s liquidity and provide debt relief.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance called the ruling “a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one — not even a president — is above the law.

NY paints Black Lives Matter sign outside Trump TowerAFP — NEW YORK

New York City yesterday painted a huge Black Lives Matter sign on the pavement outside Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, replicating similar murals supporting the movement else-where in the United States.

President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly assailed the Black Lives Matter movement, did not immediately comment on the sign, done in giant block lettering in school-bus yellow, which filled the pavement outside his flagship hotel.

But when the plan was floated last month he accused the city’s Democratic leaders of “denigrating” the famous street with a “symbol of hate.”

Around a dozen volunteers from different organisations

painted the slogan, with civil rights leader Al Sharpton and Mayor Bill de Blasio picking up long-handled paint rollers to add some touches of their own.

“A painting is a nice symbol, but it doesn’t address systemic racism in any way. So as cool as it is, it’s important to focus on that,” said Francie Brewster, a 17-year-old said.

Similar murals have been painted in other American cities in support of the BLM movement, which has been at the forefront of public con-sciousness following weeks of anti-racism protests.

The protests were sparked by the killing by police of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis in May.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed an area on her city’s 16th Street, a block from

the White House, as Black Lives Matter Plaza, unveiling a giant yellow mural on that street. The area has become the epicenter of anti-racist demonstrations.

Trump Tower, a luxury sky-scraper near Central Park, is where Trump lived before leaving for the White House in January 2017. He stays there when he visits his hometown, although such visits have grown relatively rare. Residents in overwhelmingly Democratic New York remain largely hostile to his presidency.

Trump has frequently clashed with De Blasio, a Dem-ocrat, as well as with New York’s Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo. The president changed his official residence to Florida last year, but his business empire remains head-quartered in the Big Apple.

People gather around the newly painted “Black Lives Matter” mural along 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, yesterday.

Katharine Hepburn’s letters to Howard Hughes up for auctionREUTERS — LOS ANGELES

She signed off as “Country Mouse” and called him “My most excellent boss.”

She was Hollywood star Katharine Hepburn and he was eccentric entrepreneur Howard Hughes. Many of her letters to him are going up for auction in Los Angeles for the first time on July 23.

The emerald and diamond engagement ring Hughes gave to Hepburn in the year 1938 is also for sale, and is expected to fetch between $20,000 to $30,000 at the Profiles in History auction.

Brian Chanes, head of consignment relations at Profiles in History, said the items were rare because of their personal nature.

“Very little has really eked out because he (Hughes) was such a private individual,” Chanes said.

“We have over 55 hand-written letters, love notes, bedside notes from Katharine Hepburn. They were lovers for about a year, a year and a half, from 1937 to ‘38.”

Hughes and Hepburn never married but their romance, which was chronicled in the 2004 movie “The Aviator,” was a huge celebrity story at the time.

The love letters are expected to fetch up to $15,000 at the auction.

Hepburn used pet names and pseudonyms like C Mouse and Mrs H R Country when signing the letters, which showered the movie mogul and millionaire businessman with praise.

“My most excellent Boss” begins one. In another, “The Phila-delphia Story” actress called him “brilliant as Einstein,” and “graceful as a gazelle.”

The letters and engagement ring are part of a wider collection of Hughes’ documents and personal belongings that were acquired from the family of the late Vernon C Olson, who was private accountant to Hughes.

Other items include the two-tone jacket Hughes wore while piloting his huge Spruce Goose flying boat, his trademark fedora hat and contracts for multiple movies.

REUTERS — BOGOTA

Colombia lost 158,894 hectares of forest in 2019, a 19 percent drop from the previous year, the government reported yesterday, amid fears that destruction of the environment may have accelerated in 2020.

In 2018, Colombia, the world’s second-most biodiverse country after neighboring Brazil, saw 197,159 hectares of deforestation, according to government figures.

Deforestation spiked after Colombia signed a peace deal in 2016 with its largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as swaths of land became more accessible.

Government data shows that in 2017, almost 220,000 hec-tares of forest were destroyed, compared with about 124,000 hectares in 2015.

“We cannot lower our guard against one of the most tragic problems our country faces,” said acting Environment Minister Maria Claudia Garcia. “The challenge continues to be very big. We are moving in the right direction and we hope we can count on the participation of all Colombians in the fight against defor-estation,” she said in a statement.

Colombia’s Amazon region accounted for the majority of defor-estation in 2019 — representing 62 percent of the total — with 98,256 hectares of forest destroyed.

Colombia lost over 158,000 hectares to deforestation in 2019

A health worker checks the temperature of residents from surrounding communities heading to the weekly food market in Coata, 40km of Puno and close to the border with Bolivia, yesterday.

Mother admits to starving daughter, dumping body

AP — SILVER SPRING

A Maryland woman accused of starving her 15-month-old daughter for more than three weeks has been charged with first-degree murder in the toddler’s death, police said yesterday.

Kiearra Tolson, 23, of S i l v e r S p r i n g , t o l d investigators that she placed her daughter’s body in a plillowcase and trash bags after she died last month and discarded the chlld’s body in a dumpster at her apartment complex, the Montgomery County Police Department said in a news release.

T o l s o n a l s o t o l d investigators that she had starved her daughter, Blair Niles, for approximately three-and-a-half weeks, police said.

The child’s body hasn’t been recovered, but police said investigators found evidence in Tolson’s apartment corroborating her account.

A court filing says that police found a pillow without a pillowcase in Tolson’s apartment.

Tolson was arrested Wednesday after an acquaintance called 911 to report that Tolson had told her that she killed her child, according to police.

The child’s father told investigators that he last saw his daughter on April 17 and hadn’t had any contact with Tolson since then.

State District Court Judge John Moffett ordered Tolson held without bond at a hearing Thursday, according to Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy.

Korionoff said a public defender represented Tolson at the hearing.

A message left with the public defender’s office wasn’t immediately returned. Tolson is due back in court on July 16 for a bond review hearing.