Tuesday 18 August 2020

28 Dhul-Hijja - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8353

Choose the network of heroes Enjoy the Internet

BUSINESS | 13 PENMAG | 15 SPORT | 20

Al Duhail

focused on win

over Al Ahli:

Ali Afif

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

QIIB launches a

major update of

its mobile banking

application

SEMI-FINALTODAY'S FIXTURE

PSG vs RB Leipzig Kick off at 10:00pm Qatar time

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr. Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, and Turkey’s Minister of Defence, H E Hulusi Akar, met yesterday with Chairman of the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord of Libya, H E Fayez Al Sarraj, in Tripoli. During the meeting, they discussed the latest developments in Libya. The meeting was attended by the State of Qatar’s Ambassador to Libya, H E Mohammed bin Nasser bin Jassim Al Thani, along with a lineup of Qatari Armed Forces’ senior officers. �P2

Contract awarded forEdutainment Ride atQetaifan Island NorthTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qetaifan Projects, a company owned by Katara Hospitality, has announced that it has awarded the design and build contract for the edutainment immersive water ride in Qetaifan Island North to British company Sarner International.

Sarner International is an award-winning design and audiovisual studio for design, building and installation of innovative experiences for

brands, museums and theme parks all over the world.

This step comes within the construction works and aug-mented reality preparations for one of the waterpark rides, which number up to 36. In addition to the Icon Tower, which is 80 metres high.

The Edutainment Ride is inspired by the history of oil dis-covery in Qatar; it is to explain the process of how oil is formed, located, drilled, extracted, trans-ported, separated and then used

in today’s world. The ride follows a track through a set of scenes. With the addition of special effects such as 3D mapping, animatronics, pro-jection, special lighting, heat, vibration, lightning, drilling machines and fog screens.

The story is enhanced and enriched into an exciting and immersive ride with thrills and exhilaration throughout its length. The ride will be designed in coop-eration with Qatar Museums in order to ensure the quality of the content and its historical validity and to come out with the best realistic image stemming from the Qatari perspective and culture for oil exploration and extraction.

Guests enter the Edutainment Ride through an introductory exhibition which explains some of the background events that happened when oil was first sus-pected in the region. The attraction is housed in two buildings and one ride tower, and a cave houses the log flume ride with entrance and exit exhibition areas to display the story, as well as disembarkation and embar-kation of the ride.

From the platform, the guests are taken on to one of three boats of the ride and enter the Edutainment Cave; each boat can take a maximum of 16 guests. After exiting the cave, the guests enjoy the outside section of the ride until they reach the Edutainment Tower; where the boat will be elevated to another level so they can enjoy the second half of multi-media presentations. �P3

QM's Open Call for second 6/5 initiativeTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

In its continued efforts to take art beyond Museum walls and nurture Qatar’s public art land-scape, Qatar Museums (QM) has announced the Open Call for the second edition of its 6/5 initiative, which will see artists from across the country mark the blockade through a commissioned sculpture to be installed at a des-ignated location in Doha.

The 6/5 Open Call invites artists to conceptualise and propose a permanent public artwork that explores the theme of “blockade” to commemorate 5th of June, 2017, when the blockade was imposed on Qatar.

Commenting on the public art initiative Abdulrahman Al Ishaq Acting Director of Public Art Department at Qatar Museums, said: “The 6/5 initiative not only marks an important date in

Qatar’s recent history, but also provides a creative platform for young and talented artists in Qatar to contribute to the coun-try’s thriving cultural landscape.

“Public art is key in sparking dialogue, and we invite all aspiring and established artists to apply to be part of this unique opportunity to unleash their creativity and engage the community through sculptures that represent Qatar’s history, unity and resilience.” �P3

Qatar Post supports country by deliveringone million packages during COVID-19THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Post, the national provider of postal services, continues to offer reliable, timely and secure delivery services in spite of COVID-19 challenges.

Commenting on the success of their services Hamad Al Fahida, Chief Operating Officer, at Qatar Post said: “These difficult circumstances have given rise to greater opportunities for Qatar Post to show its innovation for delivery solutions and we have delivered over one million items to valuable customers and our Qatar community during this pandemic period.”

Qatar Post’s agile response to the Ministry of Public Health’s (MoPH) call for collab-oration with Hamad Medical Centre (HMC) and Primary

Health Care Centre (PHCC) for the home delivery of vital med-ications to thousands of house-holds across the country has been met with high praise and appreciation by MoPH partners and patients.

On average, Qatar Post has

been delivering over 10,000 items per month for these com-mercial businesses, connecting local consumers with their pur-chases from a range of Qatari and international retailers from various outlets across fashion, sports, electronics, cosmetics

and home accessories. The Medicine Delivery

program allows patients to order their refill medication directly from HMC and PHCC, as well as to acquire newly prescribed medication, and have them delivered directly to their homes. The service was launched within three weeks of the approach to Qatar Post by the Ministry of Public Health and involved the mobilisation of additional resources in record time.

The speed and quality of these vital deliveries are mon-itored daily and managed through weekly virtual pro-gramme meetings with MoPH Officials and the Qatar Post Team. Since its launch, the service has witnessed over 80,000 deliveries per month across the country during the pandemic. �P2

HMC reminds people of ‘safe zone’ for elderly at homesFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

With the recent call by the health authorities to create a ‘safe zone’ in the house for the elderly to protect from COVID-19, Hamad Medical Corporation in a social media campaign has reminded people about the guidelines.

It highlighted that creating a safe zone in the home can protect the elderly family members and those with chronic conditions.

The ‘safe zone’ will be a des-ignated area of the house for these at-risk people. Anyone who enters this zone must wash their hands, wear a mask and maintain physical distancing. The area should be thoroughly sanitised and kept clean as possible.

“Keep the number of people who visit and interact with elderly relatives and those with chronic conditions to a minimum. This small group of people should ensure they follow preventive advice at all times to minimise their risk of contracting the virus and passing it onto the vulnerable family member. These people should isolate themselves at the first sign of any symptoms and get a test,” it said.

To recall, addressing a press conference organised by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) last week, Dr. Hamad Al Romaihi, Director of Health Pro-tection and Communicable Disease Control at the Public

Health Department and co-chair of the National Pandemic Prep-aration Committee, said that cre-ating a ‘safe zone’ in the house for elderly is an important action that people can take to protect the vulnerable section of society from COVID-19.

Also Qatar has enhanced targeted care to protect the elderly and most vulnerable during COVID-19.

Global evidence has shown that while COVID-19 can affect people of all ages and health status, the elderly are much more likely to experience severe symptoms and are therefore more at risk from becoming seriously ill if they contract the illness.

In response to this evi-dence, Hamad Medical Corpo-ration (HMC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), has established a comprehensive plan to help protect this vul-nerable group of society.

The plan includes compre-hensive public education and awareness campaign to inform elderly citizens and their fam-ilies about adhering to important guidelines for their safety.

Dr. Hanadi Al Hamad, National Lead for Healthy Ageing in Qatar and Medical Director of Rumailah Hospital and Qatar Rehabilitation Institute, has said that with increasing age, natural immune system becomes less able to cope with the symptoms caused by the virus. �P3

Deputy PM, Turkish Defence Minister meet Chairman of Libya's Presidential CouncilQNA — TRIPOLI

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs H E Dr. Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah and Turkey’s Minister of Defence H E Hulusi Akar met yesterday with Chairman of the Presi-dential Council of the Government of National Accord of Libya, H E Fayez Al Sarraj in Tripoli.

During the meeting, they discussed the latest develop-ments in Libya.

H E the Deputy Prime Min-ister and Minister of State for Defenxe Affairs and H E the Turkish Minister of Defence met with President of Libya's

High Council of State H E Khalid Al Mishri in Tripoli. During the meeting, they dis-cussed the latest developments in Libya.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs H E Dr. Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah and Tur-key’s Minister of Defence H E Hulusi Akar also met with Libyan Minister of Interior H E Fathi Bashagha in Tripoli. During the meeting, they dis-cussed the latest developments in Libya.

H E the Deputy Prime Min-ister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs and H E Tur-key’s Minister of Defence also met with Libyan Defence

Ministry’s Undersecretary H E Salah Al Namroush, Com-mander of Central Region Major General Mohammed Al Haddad and Tripoli region Commander Major General Abdulbasit Marwan. During the meeting, they discussed the latest developments in Libya.

The meetings were attended by the State of Qatar’s Ambassador to Libya H E Mohammed bin Nasser bin Jassim Al Thani along with a lineup of Qatari Armed Forces’ senior officers.

H E the Deputy Prime Min-ister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs arrived in Libya yesterday on an official visit.

The waterpark spans 137,000sqm and is surrounded by six beaches and a hotel with the capacity of 350 keys, in addition to the beach club and retail area.

The waterpark features 36 waterslides and rides and is part of Qetaifan Island North, which is part of Lusail City.

The whole island spans approximately 1.3 million sqm, and the project’s area on the island extends to approximately 830,000sqm.

The Medicine Delivery program allows patients to order their refill medi-cation directly from HMC and PHCC.

Since its launch, the service has witnessed over 80,000 deliveries per month across the country during the pandemic.

OFFICIAL NEWS

02 TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020HOME

Amir congratulates Indonesia President

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim

bin Hamad Al Thani, 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 sent yesterday cables

of congratulations to President

of the Republic of Indonesia H E

Joko Widodo on the anniversary

of his country’s Independence

Day. -QNA

Secretary-General of Ministry of Foreign Affairs bids farewell to Iranian envoy

Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, met yesterday with Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the State of Qatar, H E Mohammed Ali Subhani, on the occasion of the end of his tenure. H E Hammadi extended thanks to H E the Ambassador for his efforts in strengthening bilateral relations, and wished him success in his future duties.

Ashghal completes main upgrading works on Umm Al Dome, Al Muaither and Al Innabi StreetsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced the completion of main upgrading works on Umm Al Dome, Al Muaither, and Al Innabi Streets and their opening to traffic, at a total length of 6km.

Besides, three new sig-nalised intersections were constructed and opened as part of Umm Al Dome Street Improvement Project in Muaither area.

On this occasion, Eng Fahad Mohamed Al Otaibi, Head of Western Areas Section in the Roads Projects Department, said: “The recently developed Umm Al Dome, Al Muaither, and Al Innabi Streets are among the most important commercial streets in the area, and the most crowded as well. Collec-tively they serve the needs of many commuters who use these streets on a daily basis to go to local shops, service centres, public facilities, and schools which are served by these streets.”

“After having studied the traffic in this pivotal area, we concluded that the best solution to be applied was to convert the traffic on Umm Al Dome Street and Al Muaither Street to one-way streets, which has significantly con-tributed in easing the traffic flow.”

Al Otaibi said that Ashghal will implement a new project in the near future to serve the area and improve the con-nection with Umm Al Dome and Al Muaither Streets through the upgrade of the intersecting streets to reduce the travel time for road users who wish to use either one of the two streets and change their destinations.

On his part, Eng Mohammed Masoud Alateeq, the project engineer explained: “These recently upgraded streets are also con-sidered main roads that serve many residential neighbour-hoods around the area such as Muaither and Al Rayyan areas.”

The opening of the two streets has helped improve traffic flow, alleviate daily traffic congestion, and

enhance traffic safety levels especially after turning Umm Al Dome Street into a one-way street with two lanes, starting from Muaither North Street until Al Innabi Street as well as converting Al Muaither Street to a one-way route with two lanes, starting from Al Innabi Street until Muaither North Street.

Eng Alateeq pointed out that Ashghal has included Umm Al Dome and Al Muaither streets in the same project in order to expedite their completion since they introduce a new traffic plan in the area. The project involved providing full infra-structure, including 1,135 car parking bays and installed new LED street lights.

The project is currently working on completing some of the remaining works, which include the completion of road marking, landscaping and beautification works.

Qatar Embassy provides medical equipment for workers in El Salvador’s penitentiary centresQNA — SAN SALVADOR

The Embassy of the State of Qatar to the Republic of El Salvador, in coordination with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in El Salvador, provided medical and preventive equipment for workers in prisons and penitentiary centres in El Salvador, as part of the Global Programme for the Implemen-tation of the Doha Declaration.

A press conference, held on this occasion, was attended by El Salvador’s Deputy Minister of Justice and Director-General of Penitentiary Centres H E Osiris Luna, Acting Charge d’Affairs at the Embassy of the State of Qatar to El Salvador HE

Tariq Othman Al Othman, and Head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Monica Mendoza.

H E Al Othman affirmed at the press conference that Qatar will continue to support El Sal-vador to confront the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis.

He said that providing support, including personal protection supplies, for front line workers in prisons and penitentiary centres in El Sal-vador comes in coordination with the UNODC within the framework of the Doha Declaration.

Passengers arriving

from Turkey to show

COVID-19 test results:

Qatar Airways

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Airways has said that effective from today, passengers arriving in Qatar from Istanbul, Turkey, must present a negative result of a COVID-19 medical test taken within 48 hours of arrival to Doha at an accredited medical centre.

“Passengers travelling from other gateways in Turkey to Doha will be required to take a COVID-19 medical test on arrival at Hamad International Airport (HIA),” Qatar Airways tweeted yesterday.

The Ministry of Public Health has accredited COVID-19 testing centres in Turkey including Ankara Sehir hospital, Basaksehir Cam ve Sakura Sehir hos-pital, Kartal Dr. Litfi Kirdar hospital and Sakarya Üniver-sitesi Eğitim Ve Araştırma Hastanesi.

Besides, three new signalised intersections have been constructed and opened as part of Umm Al Dome Street Improvement Project in Muaither area.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr. Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, and Turkey’s Minister of Defence, H E Hulusi Akar, met with Libyan Minister of Interior, H E Fathi Bashagha, in Tripoli (left) and Libyan Defence Ministry’s Undersecretary, H E Salah Al Namroush, Commander of Central Region Major General Mohammed Al Haddad and Tripoli region Commander Major General Abdulbasit Marwan.

Deputy PM, Turkish Minister of Defence meet Libyan Minister of Interior and Defence Ministry officials

H E Al Othman affirmed at the press conference that Qatar will continue to support El Salvador to confront the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. He said that providing support for front line workers in prisons and penitentiary centres comes in coordination with the UNODC within the framework of the Doha Declaration.

Qatar Post delivered one million packages during COVID-19

FROM PAGE 1

Qatar Post has extended the same delivery arrangements to cover the distribution of medical reports, medical consumables, nutritional and diabetes-related products keeping patients away from pharmacies and health centres in an effort to contain the potential spread of the coronavirus.

These services have now further expanded to include service providers from the private sector such as Sidra Med-icine for the delivery of medica-tions and supplements.

Throughout the COVID-19 period, Qatar Post has also con-tinued to support various gov-ernment ministries by providing a trusted, timely and safe delivery service for important documents on behalf of Qatar’s Metrash2 e-Government service.

This includes the delivery of driving licences, vehicle regis-trations, Qatar IDs and passports to citizens and expats enabling the day to day life in Qatar to continue. During the pandemic, Qatar Post has dealt with a 30 percent increase in these important deliveries.

Qatar Airways to operate flightsto and from 13 Indian citiesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Airways will be oper-ating flights between India and Doha from 13 cities in India effective August 18 to August 31, 2020 a part of the Qatar-India ‘air bubble’ deal.

Eligible travellers from India are: Qatari national, any Indian national holding a valid Qatar visa with permission to enter based on Qatar’s current entry regulations.

Eligible travellers from Doha are: Indian nationals in Qatar, Qatari nationals holding valid visa to enter India.

“On our flights, we will only be able to accommodate the passengers who qualify for one of the mentioned cate-gories,” the airline said on its website.

“For more information about the process of returning to the State of Qatar and the

quarantine measures in place, please visit the Ministry of Public Health website or Qatar Portal website .” It further added.

The airline reiterated that “respective Government’s entry regulations will apply to all passengers and urged everyone to check their website for information about COVID-19 RT-PCR medical test.

FAJR SUNRISE 03.48 am 05.09 am

W A L R U WA I S : 33o↗ 37o W A L K H O R : 29o↗ 42o W D U K H A N : 35o↗ 40o W WA K R A H : 29o↗ 45o W M E S A I E E D 28o↗ 45o W A B U S A M R A 29o↗ 40o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 16:33 – 02:39 LOW TIDE 09:37–00:00

Hot daytime with some clouds and slight dust at times.

Minimum Maximum34oC 43oC

ZUHR

MAGHRIB

11.38 am06.09 pm

ASR

ISHA

03.07 pm07.39 pm

FROM PAGE 1

On this occasion, Sheikh Nasser bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, Head of the Business Devel-opment Department at Qetaifan Projects, said, “This cooperation comes as a continuation of the realization of the company’s vision to make Qetaifan Island North the first entertainment destination of its kind in Qatar. This matter is of great impor-tance and we consider it a national duty due to the contri-bution it will add in the sectors of tourism, hospitality and enter-tainment, not only that, but in terms of competitive interna-tional standards that express the concerted efforts exerted in pro-moting Qatari tourism. “

He continued, “There is no doubt that adding an edutainment ride introducing visitors to the history of Qatar would work to attract the largest number of tourists of different age groups, especially those interested in exploring different cultures. Of course, there will be regular school trips and more local partnerships with bodies and institutions interested in art and culture.”

He added, “This cooperation comes within a series of local and global partnerships that will prepare to host the 2022 World Cup and serve Qatar Vision 2030, especially since we at Qetaifan Projects are working to position

Qetaifan Island North as a modern entertainment desti-nation that provides a unique experience and actively con-tributes to providing sustainable solutions that serve tourism and hospitality.”

The waterpark and its Icon tower will be managed and operated by Rixos International Hotels Group for the first time in Qatar, along with the hotel and the Beach Club. Rixos Group is famous for its ownership of the Land of Legends Waterpark in Turkey.

Ross Magri, Managing Director of Sarner International, said “Sarner’s 50 year experience in both the theme park and museum markets is perfectly suited for this innovative project that combines the two, to create

an immersive water ride that is not only fun but also educational. We are therefore delighted to have been awarded the contract, working with some of the best teams in the world to deliver what will be another award-winning project that will stand the test of time.”

The waterpark spans 137,000 square meters and is surrounded by six beaches and a hotel with the capacity of 350 keys, in addition to the beach club and retail area. The waterpark features 36 waterslides and rides and is part of Qetaifan Island North, which is part of Lusail City. It will be the first entertainment and tour-istic island in Qatar, making it a distinctive waterfront for the city.

03TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020 HOME

National libraries have potential to play crucial role in promoting interaction between nations: Al KuwariFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

National libraries have the potential to play a crucial role in promoting constructive interaction and sharing knowledge between nations, said H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kuwari, Minister of State and President of Qatar National Library, while speaking at a virtual forum recently.

Qatar National Library and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) held the forum on ‘Cultural Diplomacy: The Role of National Libraries in Developing Nations,’ and brought together government leaders, foreign ministers, high commissioners and inde-pendent policy advisers.

“National libraries must not lag behind in their vital role of promoting constructive interaction between nations and creating opportunities for cooperation and interaction that empower our universities, research centres, scholars and intellectuals,” said H E Al Kuwari.

“Other human activities, such as sports, can boost cul-tural diplomacy to spread wider and reach bigger audi-ences, and Qatar is a leader in this field,” he added.

H E Al Kuwari explained that cultural diplomacy has long been complementary to, and supportive of, traditional diplomacy through the mutual representation of countries and the role of embassies.

The Minister of State also expressed his sympathies regarding the recent explosion in Beirut. “Beirut is a truly dis-tinguished capital of culture not only in the Middle East, but across the whole world,” he said,

“Lebanon’s intellectual freedom made it a refuge from the harshest conditions for every oppressed writer, thinker, novelist and creative artist. Doha, under its slogan ‘Arab culture is a homeland,

and Doha is its capital,’ shares Beirut’s grief and affirms its confidence in the continuing cultural status of Beirut,” he said.

He also explained the Qatar National Library’s mission and vision to be a hub of knowledge, research and science for the community, the region and the world. He also discussed the important activ-ities and initiatives such as Qatar Digital Library.

“It’s often remarked that

cultural diplomacy reveals the soul of the nation. Qatar National Library’s com-mitment to working with partners across the world, especially those from devel-oping nations, will ultimately benefit the nation of Qatar, the region and the international research community,” said H E Al Kuwari.

“Qatar National Library, and the nation’s commitment to knowledge acquisition, at a time when libraries around the

world are underfunded and neglected, shows a desire to build bridges and facilitate understanding and knowledge sharing across the world,” he said.

The forum was moderated by Rabih El Haddad, Director of the UNITAR Division for Multilateral Diplomacy and the panel included Félix Ulloa, Vice President of El Salvador; Dr. Amina Mohamed, Minister of Sports, Heritage and Culture of Kenya; Mamadou

Tangara, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Gambia; Bocchit Edmond, Adviser to the Pres-ident of Haiti and former Min-ister of Foreign Affairs; Ram-onjavelo Manambahoaka Valery Fitzgerald, Secretary General of the Presidency of Madagascar; Ali Said Faqi, Office of the President of Somalia, Somali Ambassador to Benelux and the European Union; H E Peter David, Foreign Minister of Grenada and several others.

The panel discussed the vital role of national libraries and create a global knowledge sharing opportunity in the post COVID-19 world.

“We have a five-year plan to digitise our national library, and to work with partners such as Qatar to improve the services to our people,” said Moses Mose, Solomon Islands Ambassador to the EU, discussing about his country’s national library.

While, Peter David, Foreign Minister of Grenada, focused on the new national library project on of his country and said, “For us, cul-tural relations are so important. Our national library was destroyed in a hurricane, and preserving our cultural heritage became a priority. Developing our new public library is critical as a focal point of cultural contact, where we can come together with other countries like Qatar to help us deepen our relations with the world.”

The Forum concluded with some recommendations to boost cooperation and enhance interaction between libraries across the world, including harnessing tech-nology to enhance the digiti-zation of libraries; enhancing communication and inter-action between libraries as part of cultural diplomacy to spread science and knowledge, and using cooperation between national libraries as a means to enhance cultural and educational relations between countries.

Qatar National Library and UNITAR host a virtual forum on Cultural Diplomacy and the Role of National Libraries in Developing Nations.

Minister of State and President of Qatar National Library H E Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kuwari

“National libraries must not lag behind in their vital role of promoting constructive interaction between nations and creating opportunities for cooperation and interaction that empower our universities, research centers, scholars and intellectuals,” said H E Al Kuwari.

Qatar’s envoy to France holds reception on Qatar-France Year of Culture 2020QNA — PARIS

Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the French Republic H E Sheikh Ali bin Jassim Al Thani held a reception in the French city of Cannes on the occasion of Qatar-France Year of Culture 2020, and to strengthen ties of friendship and cooperation with various French regions.

The ceremony was attended by a number of the most prom-inent officials in Cannes, and a group of French personalities in the sectors of culture, arts, sports and performing arts. During this function, the models of the eight Qatari stadiums designated to host the 2022 World Cup were displayed.

In a speech during the cer-emony, H E the Ambassador explained the most prominent engineering and technical char-acteristics of these stadiums and

how they evoke the multiple aspects of Qatari culture by mixing traditional Arab heritage and modernity.

He pointed to technologies used in the construction of these stadiums, which make most of them eco-friendly, while most of the stadiums relied on the tech-nology of creating innovative stadium units so that their upper layers are removed after the matches and offered later to developing countries lacking infrastructure.

His Excellency stressed that offering stadiums to developing countries is an integral part of the file of the State of Qatar hosting this important sporting event, and it would help to develop football on the international stage. He also referred to the metro network that Qatar is building to facilitate access to all stadiums. His Excellency

emphasised the growing role that Qatar devotes to sports, and the efforts aimed at highlighting the sports sector from a cultural and scientific perspective, and thus highlighting the social, economic, technical and artistic stakes in this sector.

Some of the French officials, who attended the function, expressed their admiration for these stadiums, as they reflect the rich diversity that enriches the society in Qatar and how they emulate the overall dimension of the World Cup as a platform for exchanging cultures from dif-ferent countries all over the world.

They pointed out that these stadiums, inspired by the Qatari and Arab culture, are in harmony with the components of football and carry a translation of the sus-tainable legacy that the event will leave.

A view of the reception organised by Ambassador of Qatar to France, H E Sheikh Ali bin Jassim Al Thani, in the French city of Cannes on the occasion of Qatar-France Year of Culture 2020.

288 new virus cases and 294 recoveries reportedTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced the registration of 288 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country. Another 294 people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recovered cases in Qatar to 112,088.

All new cases have been introduced to isolation and are receiving necessary 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. The number of daily new cases and hospital admissions has gradually declined over the past few weeks.

However, the Ministry has emphasised on the importance of taking precautions against COVID-19. “Even though restrictions are being lifted, and numbers are declining, this does not mean that the COVID-19 pandemic is over in Qatar.,” the Ministry said.

Qetaifan Island North will be the first entertainment destination of its kind in Qatar.

Contract awarded for EdutainmentRide at Qetaifan Island North

QM’s Open Call for second 6/5 initiativeFROM PAGE 1

The QM 6/5 initiative is open to Qatari artists and artists of any nationality who are based in Qatar and hold a valid Qatar residency permit. Artists can be at any stage of their career but must possess strong skills to execute the proposed project by May 5, 2021.

Artists should consider the relevance of the piece to the community and the message they would like to convey through their artwork, and also take into consideration weight, dimensions, materials and budget.

Successful applicants will receive a commission con-tract to execute their pro-

posed public artwork.For more information

about the 6/5 Open Call and to download an application form, please visit https://www.qm.org.qa/en/65-open-call-2nd-edition. Artists must send a completed application form and proposal to PAO-penCall@qm.org.qa before September 17, 2020.

HMC reminds

people of ‘safe

zone’ for elderly

at homes

FROM PAGE 1

“The COVID-19 symptoms can include high fever, per-sistent dry cough, aches and pains and extreme fatigue, and these can be challenging for anyone, but often more so as we get older and our resilience to deal with the symptoms of an infection weakens. The problems are exacerbated when people have additional chronic health condition, such as diabetes, heart and kidney disease or similar; many of which become more prevalent with increasing age,” she said, recently.

04 TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020HOME

Carnegie Mellon Qatar appoints associate dean for diversity, climateTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Michael Trick, the dean of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), has created a new leadership role to oversee and guide the campus’ efforts to become a more diverse, inclusive and equitable learning and working community.

Annette Vincent (pictured) will be CMU-Q’s first associate dean of diversity and climate. Vincent joined the CMU-Q faculty in 2012 and has served as program director for Bio-logical Sciences since 2016. In

her new role, Vincent will provide leadership in planning, implementing, and evaluating goals related to diversity, inclusion, climate and equity.

Trick said: “This new role is integral to the Carnegie Mellon mission of cultivating a diverse, world class talent, encouraging collaboration and ensuring indi-viduals can achieve their full potential. I am very pleased that Professor Vincent will be guiding our community as we continue to grow and thrive.”

Trick is also expanding the responsibilities of the academic

area heads, a key role that encompasses education, cur-riculum, budget, program

development and faculty hiring. The areas heads are: Gordon Rule in Biological Sciences, Fuad Farooqi in Business Adminis-tration, Khaled Harras in Com-puter Science, Selma Limam Mansar in Information Systems, and Marion Oliver and Dudley Reynolds in Arts and Sciences.

“While some of the area heads are new in their roles, all of them have been at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar for several years,” said Trick. “I am proud to see that CMU-Q not only attracts superb educators from around the world, but

many of our faculty members choose to stay in Qatar, to grow their careers and to give back to this academic community through university service.”

Farooqi replaces John O’Brien, who will continue as senior associate dean for faculty and outreach. Harras replaces Kemal Oflazer, who will remain associate dean of research.

The new leadership team is already tackling their first chal-lenge. As the pandemic con-tinues to shift the way univer-sities worldwide are delivering their curricula, CMU-Q has

opted to begin the academic year in remote learning mode, with the possibility of shifting to hybrid mode when it is safe to do so.

“CMU-Q’s primary focus is to provide a quality education to our students, no matter what. This leadership team is seizing the challenge of pandemic restrictions and guiding our entire faculty to adapt the way we teach and engage with our students,” said Trick. “Although this year will look a little dif-ferent, I am excited to see how our community comes together.”

HBKU faculty

member inducted

into prestigious

academy

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

A Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) faculty member’s dedi-cated work in many fields, including public health, popu-lation health and social computing, has been recognised with a prestigious honour.

Dr. Mowafa Said Househ PhD (pictured), an Associate Professor in the University’s College of Science and Engi-neering (CSE), has been elected Fellow of the International Academy for Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), estab-lished in 2017 through the auspice of the International Medical Informatics Associ-ation (IMIA).

IMIA is the world body for health and biomedical infor-matics. It provides leadership and expertise to multidisciplinary, health-focused community and policy makers to enable the transformation of healthcare in accord with the global vision of improving the wellbeing of the planet’s human population.

The election into the academy is a prestigious honor in the fields of biomedical and health informatics, as it seeks to recognize highly qualified experts in these fields.

Dr Mowafa’s primary research interests are around the use of information and com-munication technologies to empower patients and clini-cians, specifically focusing on social media and mobile tech-nologies in healthcare in the promotion of public health practice and healthcare literacy.

Education City Stadium: A beacon of sustainabilityTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Sport is a tool that brings people together, regardless of age, interests, language, and ethnicity. And major sporting events hosted in ‘green’ buildings can be used as vehicles to educate the public on the importance of sustainability.

“For a developing nation as multi-cultural as Qatar, sport is a way of bringing people together, and allowing them to share memorable moments,” said Hamoda Y Youssef, Head of Tech-nical Affairs at Qatar Green Building Council, a member of Qatar Foun-dation (QF).

“Sport on its own is a great gath-ering point, and can serve as a platform for people to interact and engage pos-itively. So to send the message of sus-tainability through a sporting event or building is very powerful.”

The Education City Stadium, which was officially inaugurated earlier this year within QF’s Education City, is a beacon of education and sustainability to the world, and was the first FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 venue to achieve a five-star Global Sustaina-bility Assessment System certification from the Gulf Organisation for

Research & Development. The stadium boasts a range of eco-

friendly features, including incorpo-rating a passive design, which takes advantage of the climate to maintain a comfortable temperature inside the structure. It also utilizes sustainable materials, sourcing 85 percent regionally and 55 percent locally, while 29 percent was generated from recycled content. Other key features

include low-flow water fixtures, an efficient irrigation system, native and drought-tolerant flora, and energy-efficient LED lighting systems.

Further demonstrating that learning is at the very heart of the stadium, following the conclusion of the World Cup – and as it moves into its legacy phase – 20,000 seats will be donated to support the construction of stadiums in developing countries. And it is set to serve as a hub for social and community engagement by also housing two progressive QF schools – Qatar Academy for Science and Tech-nology and Academyati, both part of QF’s Pre-University Education.

“Typically, cities are shaped by the architecture of their iconic buildings – for example, the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur,” said Youssef.

“In Qatar, as we are gearing up for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, the stadiums will be our new iconic buildings for the next few years, and even after the event itself.

“There will be enormous memories shared within these stadiums, billions of people – even if not actually in Qatar – will experience the matches. And if you promote these iconic buildings as

sustainable, you are delivering a pow-erful message to the world.”

These buildings, according to Youssef, can serve as education tools – not just on the global stage, but also at a grassroots level, where members of the community have the opportunity to engage and learn from them first-hand, and reflect what they learn in their daily lives and actions.

“By demonstrating the various sustainable features to visitors, you can educate people on how to utilize different eco-friendly tools within their homes and within their own wider communities, and show how these measures can be scaled accord-ingly,” he said. “This is significant, because if you don’t do that, people

will think that only expensive buildings with endless resources can be sustainable.”

Youssef refers to this as non-intrusive learning. “It’s not a classroom,” he says. “Use subtle, non-intrusive learning tips and tricks. Allow people to learn without feeling over-whelmed, unsettled, or guilty.

“For example, within Education City, QF’s Student Housing complexes boast dashboards detailing how the buildings are energy efficient, water efficient, and in some cases high-lighting their air quality. In QF’s Oxygen Park, the Qur’anic Botanic Garden has added detailed labels to the plants, including the history of the species.”

Hamoda Y Youssef, Head of Technical Affairs at Qatar Green Building Council.

The stadium boasts a range of

eco-friendly features, including

incorporating a passive design,

which takes advantage of the

climate to maintain a comfortable

temperature inside the structure.

VCUarts Qatar researchers awarded HBKU Innovation Center GrantTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

A proposal submitted by three researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar), a Qatar Foun-dation (QF) partner university, to develop an innovative peda-gogical model that employs virtual reality technology as a medium of instruction, has been recently awarded a grant by QF’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

The VR-based project – titled, ‘Reimag-ining Edu-cation Beyond C O V I D - 1 9 With Virtual Embodiment’ – addresses the main chal-lenges in the global edu-cation system, and can be adapted to both hybrid and remote learning envi-r o n m e n t s within Qatar.

The draft proposal was submitted in response to a R a p i d R e s p o n s e Innovation Call

by HBKU for investigating inno-vative methods to address expected changes beyond the COVID 19 pandemic and its repercussions on the economy, society, trade and international relations.

All three researchers – Sherin Karawia, Assistant Instructor, VCUarts Qatar; Mona Kassem, Instructional Technol-ogist and IT Analyst, VCUarts Qatar; and Mariam Rafehi, Adjunct Faculty at both North-western University in Qatar (NU-Q) and VCUarts Qatar – have previously worked on various projects that explore the applications of technology in education.

One of the main drivers of the project is to help education leadership and faculty overcome the challenges of using cutting-edge technology and software in classroom settings.

“To allow for the project out-comes to be easily replicated, we will use VR-based collaboration tools that have already been adopted in the industry, and evaluate these within the context of education,” said Rafehi.

“What is unique about our approach is the use of virtual embodiment to promote resil-ience, innovative problem-solving, and optimism among learners on a local or global scale.”

This novel cross-disciplinary approach is intended to improve student engagement, construc-tivist learning, as well as build 21st century skills such as empathy, critical thinking, and innovation, to name but a few. In short, education is re-imagined to be more forward-looking, and resolve the chal-lenges brought on by traditional teaching methodologies.

“The investigation itself will be carried out as a collaboration between VCUarts Qatar and NU-Q; the innovative peda-gogical model will be tested on student cohorts at both univer-sities over the fall semester,” said Kassem .

“The results generated in the study will serve as a proof-of-concept. The outcome of this project will be a web-based resource that will explain how the VR model can be adopted by the wider education community within Qatar.”

VCUarts Qatar’s research proposal could not be timelier – it comes at a watershed moment in the history of education.

Karawia notes how the recent transition to online class-rooms – brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – amplified the aforementioned challenges.

“The limitations of tradi-tional education forced the con-versation upon educators and policy-makers across the globe,” she said. “The sheer number of webinars and online-discussions on the topic – hosted by various stake-holders such as the UNESCO, through CNN, to individual gov-ernments – since the start of the pandemic, vouch for this.

Cross-campus collaboration within Qatar Foundation campuses addresses challenges in traditional education amplified by COVID-19.

One of the main drivers of the project is to help education leadership and faculty overcome the challenges of using cutting-edge technology and software in classroom settings.

05TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Customs chief arrested over Beirut blastAP — BEIRUT

The head of Lebanon’s customs authority was formally arrested yesterday after being ques-tioned over the massive explosion in Beirut earlier this month, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The investigation is focused on why nearly 3,000 tonnes of explosive ammonium nitrate was being stored at the city’s port. The ignition of the stockpile caused an explosion that tore through the capital, killing at least 180 people and wounding 6,000.

Thirty people are still missing after the August 4 blast, which caused an estimated $10bn to $15bn in damage.

Documents that surfaced

after the blast, the single most destructive in Lebanon’s history, showed that officials have known for years that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were stored in a warehouse at the port and knew about the dangers.

Judge Fadi Sawwan ques-tioned customs chief Badri Daher, who was detained days after the blast, for 4 1/2 hours in the presence of his two lawyers

before issuing the arrest warrant, the agency said. Daher will remain in custody as the investigation continues.

NNA said that after ques-tioning Daher, Sawwan headed to the scene of the blast to survey the damage and will later return to question Hassan Koraytem, who was the top port official until the day of the blast.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said the probe into the devastating blast is “very complex” and would not be fin-ished quickly, adding that the probe is divided into three parts. The first aims to determine the circumstances surrounding the cargo, the second where it came from and who shipped it, and the third to find who was

responsible for handling and securing it.

Aoun said the FBI and French investigators were helping because “they, more than us, have the capability and ability to find out the details of what got the ship here, what is the source and who owns it.”

A nine-member team of FBI investigators landed in Beirut on Sunday, according to a Leb-anese aviation official, and were believed to have joined the investigation. French investi-gators have been active for days at the port.

Popular anger has swelled over the ruling elite’s corruption and mismanagement. Lebanon’s government, which is supported by the militant Hezbollah group and its allies, resigned on August

10 and continues to serve in a caretaker capacity.

There are no formal consul-tations underway on who will replace Hassan Diab as prime minister and no likely candidate has emerged.

Meanwhile, Lebanon is facing a surge in coronavirus cases after the Beirut port blast, prompting medical officials to call for a two-week lockdown to try to contain the pandemic.

The blast overwhelmed the city's hospitals and also badly damaged two that had a key role in handling virus cases. Medical officials had warned of the dangers of crowding at hos-pitals in the aftermath of the explosion, at funerals, or as people searched through the rubble.

Israel President invites UAE’s de facto leader to JerusalemREUTERS — JERUSALEM

Israel’s president yesterday invited the United Arab Emirates’ de facto leader to visit Jerusalem, praising his role in achieving a “noble and coura-geous” deal to normalise rela-tions between Israel and the UAE.

Both countries announced on Thursday they would forge formal ties under a US-spon-sored deal whose implemen-tation could recast Middle East politics ranging from the Pal-estinian issue to dealing with Iran, the common foe of Israel and Gulf Arabs.

The deal drew anger and dismay in much of the Arab world and Iran but a quiet welcome in the Gulf.

“In these fateful days, lead-ership is measured by its courage and ability to be groundbreaking and far-sighted,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin wrote in a letter to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

“I have no doubt that future generations will appreciate the way you, the brave and wise leaders, have restarted the dis-course on peace, trust, dialogue between peoples and religions, cooperation and a promising future,” Rivlin wrote.

“On behalf of the people of Israel and (me) personally, I take this opportunity to extend an invitation to Your Highness to visit Israel and Jerusalem and be our honoured guest,” Rivlin said in the letter, which his spokesman released publicly.

The Palestinians have called the deal a “betrayal” by an Arab country that they have long looked to for support in establishing a state in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

“I am hopeful,” Rivlin’s letter went on, “that this step will help build and strengthen the trust between us and the peoples of the region, a trust that will promote under-standing between us all.

Thirty people are still missing after the August 4 blast, which caused an estimated $10bn to $15bn in damage.

Israeli tanks pound

military posts in

Gaza Strip

AFP — JERUSALEM

Israeli tanks pounded Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip yesterday in what has become a daily response to Palestinian rockets and airborne fire-bombs launched into southern Israel and to clashes on the border.

“Tanks targeted a number of military observation posts belonging to the Hamas terror organisation in the Gaza Strip,” an army statement said in English, referring to the mil-itant group that rules the enclave.

The army said that in addition to cross-border attacks with explosives and incendiary devices suspended from balloons, dozens of people had also “instigated riots along the Gaza Strip security fence” on Sunday evening.

The latest incidents follow a week of heightened tensions, including border clashes, during which Israel has also closed its Kerem Shalom goods crossing with the Gaza Strip and Sunday shut down Gaza’s permitted coastal fishing zone.

Israeli fire services in the border areas reported 28 outdoor fires Sunday, and farmers said that extensive damage was caused to an avocado orchard.

A fires services statement on Sunday evening said that since August 6 its investigators had identified 149 fires in southern Israel caused by incendiary balloons from Gaza.

On Saturday evening, Pal-estinian “rioters burned tyres, hurled explosive devices and grenades towards the security fence and attempted to approach it,” an Israeli army statement said.

That was followed on Sunday by Israeli air strikes on Hamas, including what a mil-itary statement called “a mil-itary compound used to store rocket ammunition”.

Turkey imposesnew virus curbsin IstanbulANATOLIA — ANKARA

People, who are 65 years of age and above or those suffering from chronic diseases, in the Turkish capital Ankara have been restricted access to weddings, funerals, condolences, market places and social activities, where masses gather, the country’s authorities said yesterday.

The duration of the street wedding parties in Ankara has been limited to two hours, while the mass serving of food to wedding attendees has also been banned.

As part of measures to curb the spread of the virus, public transport and taxis will be required to place a fiberglass separator in vehicles between drivers and passengers.

As of Sunday, Turkey had registered a total of 5,974 deaths due to coronavirus. Currently, there are nearly 250,000 confirmed cases in the country.

Total confirmed COVID-19 cases in Oman reach 83,226

QNA — MUSCAT

The Omani Ministry of Health said yesterday that the total number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the country reached 83,226.

The Ministry added that the total number of COVID-19 related death cases stood at 588, while the number of recoveries stood at 77,812, comprising 93.5 percent.

The Ministry also pointed out that 54 cases were hos-pitalised over the past 24 hours.

On Sunday , the Ministry said that the total number of confirmed cases in the Sul-tanate was 83,086.

Iraq Prime Minister says country still needs US helpAP — BAGHDAD

Iraq’s Prime Minister said yesterday ahead of a much anticipated trip to Washington that his country still needs US assistance to counter the threat posed by the IS militant group and that his administration is committed to introducing security sector reforms as rogue militia groups stage near-daily attacks against the seat of his government.

“In the end, we will still need cooperation and assistance at levels that might require direct and military support, and support on the ground,” Mustafa Al Kadhimi (pictured) said, but the levels

depend on the changing nature of the threats posed by terrorist groups.

Al Kadhimi is slated to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington this week to con-clude a strategic dialogue

launched in June to reconfigure US-Iraq ties.

In an exclusive interview yesterday with the AP, he said Iraqi forces are capable of fighting IS without the need for foreign combat troops on the ground. But, he said, the next stage of cooperation with the US would require continued training and weapons support.

Sworn in as premier in May in the wake of historic mass anti-government protests, al-Kadhimi’s administration inherited a myriad of crises. State coffers in the crude-dependent country were slashed following a severe drop in oil prices, adding to the woes of an economy already

struggling with the aftershocks of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Despite this, his adminis-tration set a lofty agenda including economic reform, battling corruption, avenging protesters and bringing arms under the authority of the state.

The latter has pitted his gov-ernment against rogue Iran-backed militia groups.

The recent assassination of prominent Iraqi commentator Hisham al-Hashimi and the kid-napping of German art curator Hella Mewis have lead many to question the limits of his leadership.

But Al Kadhimi said these were perpetrated by those with

an interest in profiting from chaos.

“These criminal acts are the result of many years of conflict,” he said, blaming the poor pol-icies and improper man-agement of his predecessors which has undermined the authority of the state. “It is not surprising then that criminals work here and there to desta-bilize security.”

“We are committed to reforming the security estab-lishment and enhancing its ability to deal with these kinds of challenges and holding accountable those who fail to protect civilians and put an end to these outlawed groups,” he said.

One dead as US forces clash with Syrian troopsAP — DAMASCUS

US forces clashed with Syrian troops in the northeast yesterday, killing at least one soldier and wounding two others, state media said, while the US military said it responded to small arms fire near a Syrian checkpoint.

Tensions have been rising in northeastern Syria in recent months as the Syrian military has cut off American access to several areas.

State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed Syrian mil-itary official as saying a US hel-icopter gunship attacked an army checkpoint in the village of Tal Dahab, near the town of Qamishli, at around 9:45am (0645 GMT). The official said a Syrian soldier was killed and two others were wounded.

SANA said the Syrian army prevented an American convoy from passing through.

The US military said a joint force made up of US-led

coalition forces and allied Syrian Kurdish-led fighters encountered a Syrian army checkpoint after carrying out a patrol against the IS militant group. It said they were granted safe passage.

It said the patrol then came under small arms fire from the vicinity of the checkpoint and returned fire. There were no casualties among US-led coa-lition forces or the Kurdish-led fighters, the statement said.

It denied a helicopter gunship attacked the Syrian army checkpoint.

Hundreds of US troops are stationed in northeastern Syria, working with their local partners from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to combat the Islamic State group.

Elsewhere in Syria, a Turkish military vehicle was “slightly damaged” during an attack yesterday on Turkish troops who were on a joint patrol with Russian counter-parts in Syria’s northwestern

Idlib province, Turkey’s military said.

Turkey and Russia have been conducting joint patrols of the region as part of a cease-fire agreement they reached in

March. Russia is a close ally of the Syrian government, while Turkey supports the armed Syrian opposition.

The attack occurred during the 25th such patrol, the

military reported in a statement posted on Twitter.

The statement said Turkish troops had responded to the attack and that an operation was continuing.

US forces patrol the area of the town of Tal Tamr, in Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province, yesterday.

06 TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

German Minister warns of ‘deceptive calm’ in LibyaAFP — TRIPOLI

Libya faces a “deceptive calm” since fighting stalled around Sirte, the central hometown of fallen dictator Muammar Gaddafi, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned during a surprise visit yesterday.

Outside powers are “con-tinuing to massively arm the country,” said Maas, whose gov-ernment has tried to broker peace in the war-torn North African nation.

“In Libya at the moment we are observing a deceptive calm,” he told journalists in Tripoli, seat of the UN-recog-nised Government of National Accord (GNA).

Libya has been in chaos since a Western-backed uprising toppled Gaddafi in 2011, and has become a major departure point for desperate migrants trying to reach Europe with the help of traffickers.

Eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive in April 2019 to seize Tripoli.

After 14 months of fierce fighting, Turkish-backed

pro-GNA forces expelled Haftar’s troops from much of western Libya and pushed them eastwards to Sirte, a gateway to Libya’s rich oil fields and export terminals.

Now, said Maas, “both sides and their international allies are continuing to massively arm the country and holding firm to their preconditions for a ceasefire”.

Maas urged them to find ways out of “this very dan-gerous situation” and backed a UN proposal to establish a demilitarised zone around Sirte, some 450km east of Tripoli.

He said he had discussed this idea with Prime Minister

Fayez Al Sarraj and Interior Minister Fathi Bachagha.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and Qatar’s Min-ister of State for Defence, Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, were also in Tripoli yesterday.

In a joint meeting with Sarraj, they discussed “the latest developments in Libya and the military mobilisation east of Sirte and in the Al Jufra region”, according to the GNA media office.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Maas, his GNA counterpart Mohamad Taher Siala objected to the European Union’s naval mission Irini, which aims to enforce a UN arms embargo on Libya.

He said it deprives the GNA of military aid “to counter the aggression” of Haftar but “does not monitor the arrival of arms and mercenaries by air, sea and land via Egypt” in support of Haftar.

Germany’s top diplomat on his two-day trip was next due to visit the United Arab Emirates, one of Haftar’s main backers which last week agreed to normalise diplomatic rela-

tions with Israel.Maas said UAE had “shown

that it has the ability to make an important contribution to peace in the region” and added that now he also hoped “to see encouraging signs from Abu Dhabi on the issue of Libya”.

“The United Arab Emirates is in a position to influence General Haftar, and we expect

it to do so, in the spirit of the Berlin Process,” he said, referring to a January peace conference.

“Only those who participate in a political process will be part of Libya’s future,” Maas added.

Maas said he also wanted to discuss the fate of migrants stuck in Libyan detention centres, where human rights

groups have reported wide-s p r e a d a b u s e s a n d mistreatment.

“For a long time we have been calling for the closure of the detention centres and the establishment of alternatives in urban regions,” he said, calling for “effective measures to finally combat human traf-ficking networks”.

Libya’s internationally-recognised Prime Minister Fayez Al Sarraj meets with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Tripoli, yesterday.

Tehran says ships targeted by US were holding Iranian fuelBLOOMBERG — TEHRAN

Four tankers whose cargoes were seized by the US over the past month were heading to Venezuela with gasoline loaded in Iran, according to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh.

His comments are the first acknowledgment by Tehran that the vessels were trans-porting shipments from the Islamic Republic when the US confiscated them. Iran’s Pres-ident Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday it was a “lie” that the tankers were Iranian, though he didn’t comment on what

they held.James Malloy, commander

of the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said yesterday that Washington used contracted vessels to seize the Iranian fuel and transfer it to other ships. Two of the transfers took place in the Gulf of Oman, and the other two occurred off the coast of Mozambique, he said on a call with reporters.

The seizure was an unprec-edented step by Washington, which said the ships contained 1.1 million barrels of gasoline, and it could destabilise global oil markets if Iran retaliates. The US Navy is in contact with

commercial shipping amid per-ceived Iranian threats, Malloy said.

Iran has the means to disrupt the flow of international tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical choke point for oil ship-ments. However, the impact that such interference might have on oil prices would probably be limited, given that pandemic-driven lockdowns have battered demand for energy.

“The cargoes were loaded from Iran, but neither the ships nor the cargoes belonged to Iran, and the US declared

victory for itself in the middle of this,” Zanganeh said yes-terday at a briefing in Tehran. “The fuel was Iranian, but it had been sold to Venezuela and its payment had been cleared.”

Malloy drew a sharp dis-tinction between what he described as non-military sei-zures ordered by the US and Iran’s forcible boarding of a smaller tanker, the Liberian-flagged Wila, on August 12 in the Gulf of Oman.

Molloy said Iranian per-sonnel beat up crew members of the Wila and stole equipment. “We don’t know when Iran

might commit a provocation, whether they’re going to do what they did last week, where they signaled their anger by seizing a vessel.”

While Iran regularly inter-cepts ships it alleges have entered its waters or are ille-gally smuggling fuel, last week’s boarding evoked memories of a spate of attacks on vessels in 2019 that even saw Britain and Iran engage in tit-for-tat seizures.

Iran has been exporting gasoline to Venezuela in defiance of US sanctions that are intended to choke off both nations’ oil revenue.

SADC summit backs Mozambique in ‘terrorism’ fightAFP — MAPUTO

Countries around southern Africa yesterday voiced support for Mozambique as it grapples with jihadist insur-gents who have seized a key port in its gas-rich north.

A statement issued by leaders of the 16-nation Southern African Devel-opment Community (SADC) declared their “commitment to support Mozambique in addressing the terrorism and violent attacks.”

Leaders, conferring in an annual summit that was held by video conference, also praised Maputo for its “con-tinued efforts.”

At least 1,500 people have died and around a quarter of a million have fled their homes since a shadowy jihadist group began attacks on remote loca-tions in northern Mozambique in October 2017.

The low-key insurgency has become increasingly brazen, and last week fighters seized the port of Mocimboa da Praia, the cornerstone of a plan to develop the region’s gas riches.

The port has been under the militants control for six days now, despite deployment by the Mozambican army.

Analysts said the SADC’s commitment fell far short of concrete plans of collective action.

“They could have appointed special envoys... a fact-finding mission, they could have talked about the human-itarian crisis — but there is nothing of that sort,” said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS). “It is disap-pointing. You get a sense it still being treated as Mozambique is handling (the conflict) alone”.

Heiko Maas urged Libya to find ways out of “this very dangerous situation” and backed a UN proposal to establish a demilitarised zone around Sirte, some 450km east of Tripoli.

Sudan protests mark one year since post-Bashir dealAFP — KHARTOUM

Sudanese protesters in the capital Khartoum yesterday called for “justice” and “peace” as they marked the one-year anniversary of a transitional government following the ouster of long-time autocrat Omar Al Bashir.

Large crowds marched through the government district of the capital Khartoum, some burning tyres, before police fired tear gas to break them up, a journalist said.

Clashes erupted at the end of the rally when an adviser to Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok came out to collect a letter written by the demon-strators, who demanded that the head of the government receive it personally.

Bashir, currently on trial over the military coup that brought him to power, was overthrown by the army on April 11, 2019 after a wave of mass protests against his three-decade, iron-fisted rule.

On August 17, 2019, after weeks of intense negotiations, the military rulers and protest leaders signed a “constitutional declaration” under which a sov-ereign council of six civilians and five military figures will govern for a transitional period.

However, demonstrators said the government had not fulfilled its promises.

“I am here to protest because we want to see the goals of our revolution achieved,” said 22-year-old Sawsan Mohammad.

Protesters called for justice for those killed during the dem-onstrations against Bashir and military rule, and several carried flags and banners bearings slogans including “Justice”, “Peace”, “Reform the security sector” and “The people are still suffering”.

Sudan’s transitional gov-ernment has been pursuing a string of reforms, seeking to rebuild ties with the US, boost its international standing and rescue its ailing economy.

But demonstrators say action has been too slow.

Prime Minister Hamdok outlined in a statement yes-terday his transitional govern-ment’s achievements over the past year, including negotia-tions with multiple rebel forces.

However, he also acknowl-edged the challenges.

“Issues of justice... remain one of the most important tasks we face,” Hamdok said in the statement.

“The state apparatus must be rebuilt, and civil service

must... be modernised to be in the service of citizens”.

Hamdok has made finding a peace deal with rebel groups a priority, in order to bring sta-bility to the restive regions of Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Demonstrators gather to stage a protest, demanding fulfilling of December 2018 revolution’s goals, outside Prime Ministry building in Khartoum, Sudan, yesterday.

Officials: Niger troops free 11 Boko Haram hostagesAFP — NIAMEY

Troops from Niger have freed 11 villagers, four of them children, who had been seized by Boko Haram jihadists and taken across the border into Nigeria, local officials said yesterday.

“The hostages were freed by our troops on the Nigerian side of Lake Chad, near a Boko Haram base,” Yahaya Godi, secretary of the Diffa region governorate in southeast Niger, added.

“There are 11 people, including three women and four children, two of them babies, who were seized by the Boko Haram terrorist group.”

The abductions took place on August 11 and 12 in

two villages in Gueskerou, a district on the Niger side of Lake Chad.

The marshy shoreline of the lake, shared by Chad, Niger and Nigeria, has become a hunting ground for cross-border jihadists, who attack remote communities and often carry out ransom kidnappings.

According to Niger’s state TV, the troops tracked the kid-nappers and freed the hostages just as their families were about to pay a ransom of $3,600.

It showed guns and ammu-nition that had been recovered from the abductors.

“The army has delivered a heavy blow to the enemy,” said Godi, who welcomed the group of hostages after their ordeal.

Italy has no more room for illegal migrants, minister tells TunisiaAFP — TUNIS

Italy has no more room for illegal migrants, its foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said yesterday on a visit to Tunisia, from where many of them cross the Mediterranean Sea.

After a meeting with the Tunisian President Kais Saied, Italy’s top diplomat said Rome “is ready to present all the nec-essary aid to Tunisia” to combat illegal immigration.

But he stressed that “there is no question of leaving in Italy those who arrive illegally,” according to a statement by the Tunisian presidency.

Italy has been struggling in recent months to deal with daily arrivals of hundreds of migrants to its southern shores, a task complicated by security measures imposed by the

ongoing coronavirus crisis. Tunisia meanwhile is bat-

tling high unemployment and political instability, pushing more so-called economic migrants to cross to Italy.

Migrant arrivals to Italy rose by nearly 150 percent over the past year, with the majority coming by boat from Tunisia, Italy’s interior ministry said on Saturday.

Italy’s Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese joined Di Maio along with the European Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson.

Negotiations between Italy and Tunisia will continue “to find formulas for bilateral coop-eration,” the Italian foreign minister said, according to the Tunisian presidency.

The Italian delegation had expressed its “political and economic support” to strengthen Tunisia’s efforts ... to encourage investment and job creation, especially in the interior regions,” the statement added.

Tunisia’s Saied said that “security solutions alone do not make it possible to fight against irregular immigration”.

Tunisian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Salma Ennaiefer (left), welcomes Italian Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, upon his arrival in Tunis, yesterday.

07TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

Coronavirus deaths surpass 50,000 in IndiaAFP — NEW DELHI

India’s official coronavirus death toll soared past 50,000 yesterday as the pandemic rages through smaller cities and rural areas where health care is feeble and stigmatisation rife.

Many experts say the real numbers may be far higher due to low testing rates and because deaths are often not properly recorded in the vast and impov-erished nation of 1.3 billion people.

India last week overtook Britain with the world’s fourth-highest number of fatalities, behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico, and as of yesterday had recorded 50,921 deaths, according to the Health Ministry.

With some of the world’s biggest megacities and slums, India is already the third-most infected nation behind the US and Brazil with 2.65 million infections.

Despite the rising death toll, the health ministry said on Sunday that India’s virus mor-tality rate of 1.92 percent was “one of the lowest globally”.

“Successful implementation of testing aggressively, tracking comprehensively and treating efficiently through a plethora of measures have contributed to the existing high level of

recoveries,” the ministry said.According to tracking

website Worldometer, the United States, with 170,000 deaths, has a death rate of 3.11 percent while Brazil, with almost 110,000 fatalities, sees 3.22 percent of those who test positive die.

According to the Indian health ministry, the US “crossed 50,000 deaths in 23 days, Brazil in 95 days and Mexico in 141 days. India took 156 days to reach this national figure.” Pos-sible reasons that have been suggested include India’s rela-tively young population, its climate and greater exposure to pathogens that cause tuber-culosis than elsewhere.

But experts say India’s testing rates per million inhab-itants are far lower than other countries, and that too few deaths are properly recorded — even in normal times.

“(A) couple of studies have indicated that... only one in four deaths is certified and a cause of death is established,” Lalit Kant, former head of epidemi-ology and communicable dis-eases at the Indian Council of Medical Research, said.

In addition, many of the tests being done — up to 30 percent nationally — are the less reliable rapid antigen tests where “false negatives” can be reported in up to half of cases, according to media reports.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government imposed in March one of the world’s strictest lockdowns.

It dealt a heavy blow to Asia’s third-biggest economy and caused misery for the coun-try’s poor, with tens of millions of migrant workers left jobless almost overnight.

Vast numbers trudged back penniless to their home villages from cities including New Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, many of them on foot. Some died on the way.

The lockdown has since been steadily eased but many sectors complain that they are

severely short of workers.State and local governments

across the country have mean-while reimposed lockdown measures as the virus has spread to smaller cities and rural areas, where around 70 percent of Indians live.

In many rural regions however, anecdotal evidence

suggests that measures to stop the spread such as masks and distancing are widely ignored.

In addition, a lack of public awareness has contributed to those with the virus being ostra-cised, making people more reluctant to get tested.

Health care facilities outside the major cities are also

severely stretched.“In smaller cities and towns

and rural areas tests of COVID-19 may not be available,” Lalit said.

“Patients with COVID-like symptoms are often turned away from heath care facilities, some may die without a test being done.”

Muslim devotees wearing face masks pray inside the Sheikh Abdul Qadir Geelani shrine in downtown Srinagar, yesterday. Authorities reopened religious places in Kashmir nearly five months after they were closed as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19.

Australian state premier apologises for cruise ship failuresREUTERS — SYDNEY

The leader of Australia’s New South Wales state apologised yesterday for failing to stop people carrying the novel coro-navirus from disembarking from a cruise ship in Sydney in March, triggering what was at the time Australia’s worst outbreak.

The apology from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian for her government’s poor handling of the outbreak aboard the Ruby Princess came as the number of deaths from a second wave of infection in Victoria state hit a record 25.

Australia has reported 23,500 COVID-19 cases and 421 deaths, far fewer than many other developed nations, but missteps in the handling of the Ruby Princess and possibly also with hotel quarantine in Vic-

toria have proven costly.“The lessons weren’t learnt

soon enough and again I apol-ogise unreservedly on behalf all of those individuals and agencies who made those mis-takes,” Berejiklian told reporters in Sydney.

A public inquiry in the Ruby Princess outbreak concluded last week that NSW health offi-cials made “inexcusable” mis-takes when they allowed about 2,700 passengers, 120 of whom were feeling unwell, to leave the Carnival Corp-owned ship on March 19.

The inquiry found 914 infec-tions could be traced back to the Ruby Princess, mostly among passengers. The outbreak led to 28 deaths.

Berejiklian apologised par-ticularly to the 62 people who contracted the virus from a passenger.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like having a loved one or being someone yourself who continues to suffer and experience trauma as a result,” she said.

The inquiry commissioned by Berejiklian’s government found that NSW health officials failed to ensure the ship knew of heightened screening for the virus, or ensure that sick pas-sengers were isolated in their cabins.

They also failed get quick test results for unwell pas-sengers before they disembarked.

Victoria state, where a second wave of infection erupted in the capital of Mel-bourne in June, said the number of new infections were steady over the past 24 hours. The daily death toll of 25 surpassed the previous record of 21 set on August 12.

Authorities in the south-eastern state said 282 new COVID-19 cases had been detected, about the same as the 279 cases reported on Sunday.

Those numbers are well below the peak of more than 700 daily cases in Victoria earlier this month and officials are confident a strict lockdown in Melbourne is working.

NSW was the only other state on Monday to report new COVID-19 cases, with seven detected in the past 24 hours.

Australia is in talks with vaccine manufacturers to secure supplies, Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday.

He declined to comment on media reports that Canberra will reach a deal with British drugmaker AstraZeneca to secure the University of Oxford’s vaccine as soon as the first half of next year.

Sri Lankan Minister formally begins work

Sri Lanka’s Irrigation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa (centre) formally begins work on his second portfolio as the State Minister of Internal Security at his office in Colombo, yesterday.

India ruling party denies preferential treatment by FacebookAP — NEW DELHI

Members of India’s governing party yesterday rejected alle-gations that Facebook had chosen to turn a blind eye to partisan hate speech on its platform to protect its growing business interests in India.

As usage has spread across India, Facebook and its sub-sidiary WhatsApp have become fierce battlegrounds for India’s political parties, but spokesmen for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party denied a newspaper report that asserted Facebook officials chose not to take action against party members whose posts vio-lated rules against hate speech.

The party members instead accused Facebook of censoring pro-India content.

Opposition Congress party lawmaker Shashi Tharoor said the information technology committee he heads in Par-liament will take up the findings of the August 14 report in The Wall Street Journal. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of “controlling” Facebook and demanded a joint probe by Parliament’s two houses.

The Wall Street Journal report said Facebook India’s head of public policy, Anhki Das, “opposed applying hate-speech rules” to at least four individuals and groups linked with the BJP even though they

were “flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence.” Tejasvi Surya, a BJP lawmaker and a member of the parliamentary committee on IT, rejected the idea that Facebook was showing favoritism to the governing party, and instead charged it was “censoring pro-India and pro-Hindu voices.”

“There are millions of posts mocking Hindu deities and abusing right-of-center leaders. But Facebook’s advanced algo-rithms and community standards fail to catch them. However, unsuspecting common people running pro-right-of-center pages are sus-pended with no right to appeal,” fellow BJP lawmaker

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore wrote in an op-ed in the Indian Express newspaper.

Facebook said in a statement yesterday that it prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence and enforces these rules globally “without regard to anyone’s political position or party affiliation.”

Modi’s party leaders have come under scrutiny for running online campaigns laced with false claims or with vitriolic attacks on India’s minority Muslim popu-lation, posting videos or images that range from accusing Muslims of converting Hindu girls to Islam to intentionally spreading the coronavirus.

A 2019 analysis by Equality

Labs, a South Asia research organisation, showed that groups sharing anti-Muslim content on Facebook were sup-porters of Modi’s party or were linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist paramilitary vol-unteer organization and the ideological parent of the BJP.

The controversy comes as Facebook and Jio, India’s cheapest and most popular phone service provider, await a green light from India’s Supreme Court to roll out WhatsApp Pay, an e-commerce and digital pay-ments platform poised to help the social media behemoth further penetrate India’s trillion-dollar digital market.

New Zealand’s Ardern postpones election as COVID-19 flares upREUTERS — WELLINGTON

New Zealand’s prime minister postponed the country’s general election yesterday by a month to October 17 as the city of Auckland remains in lockdown due to a growing coronavirus outbreak.

Jacinda Ardern bowed to pressure to delay the polls after parties complained they could not campaign with nearly a third of New Zealand’s five million people under lockdown in Auckland.

“Ultimately, the 17th of October... provides sufficient time for parties to plan around the range of circumstances we will be campaigning under,” Ardern said at a news conference.

The prime minister ruled out delaying the polls any further, as her Labour Party maintains a strong lead over the conservative National Party in opinion polls.

“We are all in the same boat. We are all campaigning in the same environment,” Ardern said.

New Zealand on Monday recorded nine new cases of COVID-19, taking the number of active cases to 78. There have now been a total of 1,280 cases in the country, and 22 deaths.

An earlier election would have worked in Ardern’s favour, as her success in stifling COVID-19 and keeping the country virus-free for 102 days until the latest outbreak had boosted her popularity.

The election was scheduled for September 19 and New Zealand law requires it to be held by November 21. Advance voting will now start on October. 3.

Deputy Prime Minister

Winston Peters, who had called for a delay, said “common sense has prevailed”.

The leader of the populist New Zealand First party delivered government to Labour through a coalition deal after no party won a majority at the 2017 election.

The Election Commission said it was ready to hold a vote with health measures including hand sanitiser and physical dis-tancing in voting centres, pro-tective gear for staff and contact-tracing systems.

“These are challenging times for everyone, but we will have measures in place so that people can vote in person at a voting place this October,” Chief Electoral Officer Alicia Wright said.

Ardern’s opponents accuse her of using the pandemic to shore up support as she appears on television nearly every day to reassure New Zealanders, while other party leaders struggle to get attention.

Her rivals are hoping Ardern loses some of her appeal once economic hardships caused by the lockdown begin to bite.

New Zealand has fared far better than most countries during the pandemic but an abrupt resurgence of COVID-19 last week in Auckland prompted Ardern to extend a lockdown for the city’s 1.7 million residents until Aug. 26, while social distancing rules are in place in other towns and cities.

The origin of the new out-break is still unknown. Author-ities said previously that it could have been through an Americold cold-storage facility where one of the infected indi-viduals worked.

“Successful implementation of testing aggressively, tracking comprehensively and treating efficiently through a plethora of measures have contributed to the existing high level of recoveries,” the Health Ministry said.

Sri Lanka plunges into darkness as power outage hits entire nation

AFP — COLOMBO

The entire nation of Sri Lanka was left without power yesterday in a seven-hour outage following a failure at a key electricity facility, officials said.

Minister of Power Dullas Alahapperuma said an unspecified “technical issue” at the Kerawalapitiya power complex just outside the capital Colombo was the cause of the blackout, which hit the entire nation of 21 million people at about midday.

Power was restored in Colombo after seven hours, but some other parts of the island nation were yet to be reconnected.

It was the worst disruption since March 2016, when the whole country was without electricity for more than eight hours following a massive system breakdown.

The public utilities regulator said there would be a probe into the failure and gave the state-run electricity monopoly, the Ceylon Electricity Board, three days to explain the massive disruption.

The power cut caused chaos on already congested roads in Colombo, with traffic lights not operating and police struggling to man key intersections.

Water supply was also affected as there was no elec-tricity to operate the pumps.

Hospitals and other critical infrastructure in the country had power generators. The main airport has remained mostly shut because of the coronavirus pandemic.

08 TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

QATAR is extending all help to Lebanon. The State is at the forefront and leading global efforts in providing medical and relief aid and help in reconstruction efforts for people affected in the aftermath of Beirut port explosion.

In implementation of the directives of the Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, a shipment of urgent assistance provided by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS), arrived in Beirut on board two Amiri Air Force aircraft, accompanied by a relief team com-prising of members and volunteers of QRCS.

Qatar has sent two field hospitals to Lebanon. Last week, the second Qatari field hospital was inau-gurated at Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui in Beirut, as part of the medical aid and supplies provided by Qatar to support Lebanon. The 500-bed hospital includes a pharmacy equipped with medicines, an operating room, an intensive care room, and a cancer treatment department. The first Qatari field hospital was inau-gurated in Beirut on August 11 at Al Roum Hospital.

Qatar, with all its institutions, continues to provide relief and support to Lebanon. QRCS and Qatar Charity have started distributing aid and begun relief cam-paigns in Lebanon. QRCS repaired 25 homes damaged by the explosion as part of 500 homes planned to be repaired for immediate return of families to their homes. The aid from Qatar will not be limited to food and med-icine, but will include other aspects in coordination with relevant authorities in Lebanon. The Qatari search and rescue team from Lekhwiya are also actively involved in rescue efforts in Beirut.

These efforts have been praised by Lebanon at all official levels. The Health Minister in the Lebanese caretaker government Dr. Hamad Hassan thanked Qatar for its aid and constant support for Lebanon, praising the depth of Qatari-Lebanese relations. He stressed the importance of the field hospitals in light of the difficult conditions faced by the health sector in Lebanon due to the Beirut port explosion and the full or partial closure of several hospitals in addition to confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qatar was the first to send an airlift loaded with field hospital, medical, food and relief supplies, which is still ongoing. The moral and material support by Qatar shows the spirit of brotherhood, cooperation and solidarity in crises, and reflects Qatar’s human-itarian duty towards Lebanon and other friendly countries. These humanitarian initiatives reflect the positive role that Qatar plays at the regional and international level, especially in times of crisis and ordeals.

Supporting Lebanon

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Quote of the day

It's terrible. That's a terrible situation, Belarus.

We'll be following it very closely.

Donald Trump, US President

PARESH DAVE — REUTERS

Alphabet Inc’s Google has a better chance than Apple Inc at defeating Fortnite video game maker Epic Games in court over its allegations the two companies breached anti-trust laws.

Epic sued Google and Apple separately in US district court on Thursday, accusing the companies of using their dominance to charge app developers an “exorbitant” 30% fee on sales and impose other restrictions that benefit their own businesses. Nearly all of the world’s smartphones outside restricted markets such as China come with either Google’s Play store or Apple’s App Store.

But proving Play store rules violate antitrust laws may be more difficult than with the App Store.

While Apple requires all apps

be installed through the App Store, Google allows such instal-lation through several different app stores, in one of several key policy differences that could help it beat the allegations of anti-competitive conduct.

Google encourages phone makers to set the Play store as the default, and it erects security roadblocks when users try to download from some other options.

Those practices are drawing scrutiny from US state attorneys general, people familiar with the matter have said. But in the end, alterna-tives exist, said Nicholas Economides, a New York Uni-versity economics professor who studies online market-places. “Having other options definitely makes it a bit harder to say something is anticom-petitive,” Economides said, speaking generally about app stores.

“With Apple, things are extreme because there’s no alternative whatsoever. That makes for a stronger potential case.” Google spokesman Dan Jackson said that most Android phones were sold with mul-tiple app stores installed.

He added that the Play store, in contrast to the App Store, allowed users to access apps paid for elsewhere, without requiring developers to include an in-app pur-chase option for potential new customers that is subject to the 30% fee. Google also allows apps to encourage customers to make purchases outside of the app to avoid the fee.

Its greater flexibility last year enabled dating apps maker Match Group, for instance, to start offering its own payment tools in Tinder on the Play store - a tactic barred on the App Store.

Match spokeswoman Vidhya Murugesan expressed support for Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple, but declined to comment on Epic’s Google filing.

The Netherlands’ compe-tition regulator last year found as part of an investigation of app stores that Apple’s enforcement of its rules “is stricter” than Google’s, “and, as such, the complaints of app providers focus mostly on Apple.” Developers are more reliant on Apple, with roughly 70% of US app revenue coming from App Store users.

Epic did fine financially when it removed Fortnite from the Play Store for a recent 18-month period and directed users to alternative stores, said Shili Shao, who researched app stores over the last year at Yale Univer-sity’s Thurman Arnold Project for antitrust studies.

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Apple’s ‘extreme’ app policies give Google defence in Fortnite antitrust suit

Established in 1996

In fact, people search for happiness here and there, and some people may continuously try to look for that strange formula to make their life happier. Perhaps it is the fact that a person always aspires to be better and to be happy.

A happy girl holds a parrot in Gundonovia at the National Park Isiboro Secure, known by its Spanish acronym TIPNIS, some 132 miles east of La Paz.

We realize that happiness can predict health and longevity at times and it can be used as a standard to measure the social progress as well. Everyone seeks happiness, but what kind of happiness does people want? Is it the experience of happiness at its moment or when we look back on the past remem-bering our happy times? With a remarkable start, I could say here that happiness is like a butterfly when you follow it, it is always out of your grip but if it sits still and quietly it may burn!

In fact, people search for happiness here and there, and some people may continu-ously try to look for that strange formula to make their life happier. Perhaps it is the fact that a person always aspires to be better and to be happy. However by looking around you, people might question their happiness when something important happens in their lives! Inter-estingly man’s life experience releases him to discover himself , is it the loss of a loved one, the loss of his job, his retirement or a change of the place?.....Of course, they are experiences, nevertheless for many of us the key to hap-piness often lies in ourselves, hidden in our subconscious.

Probably happiness like

other emotions is not some-thing you get but rather something you live. When you get confused and angry while you are driving your car, for instance as a result of traffic jam, you do not feel self-con-scious about the state of anger, in fact here you do not think of yourself (is what I am doing right!), you just live the anger and adopt it! That is why it is important to realize that finding happiness is not achieved by itself, but rather is a side effect of a certain set of continuous life experiences.

What I would like to point out is that most people set certain goals in their life and when that goal is achieved, they are definitely filled with joy and happiness. Therefore at this stage if I am right, it has removed the previous emo-tional and mental burden and began to approach the next phase of his or their life with a lighter approach, from finding a job or getting ready for mar-riage for example, the person feels happy and prepares to pursue his next goal of happiness.

Of course, another aspect that must be taken into account is the science of hap-piness. Neurochemicals such as dopamine and serotonin may differ from person to person. Interestingly, they are not the only thing you need to be happy as there are other reasons that have been studied and good concepts have evolved over the past 20 years and possibly one of them is the concept of positive psychology, which really

came to draw the attention of psychology towards positive elements that will help people create a happier life.

Moreover, to simplify an easy way to boost your hap-piness scale, you can try to stay in a place with good weather for half an hour, for example every day. Just by staying in the good and beau-tiful weather, it becomes clear to you how it can significantly enhance your positive mood and it can also help in improving your memory. This leads us all to realize the importance of weather and its effect on happiness and likely the relationship of self-hap-piness to temperature.

One of the studies showed that the temperature at 13.9 degrees Celsius may increase and even maximize the measure of happiness! Not to mention that exercise and eating a healthy diet also have important roles in raising the happiness level, as studies also confirmed that physically active people have a lower risk in view of psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression.

In addition, exercising daily releases of endorphins that make you feel better and eating foods such as poultry, fish, milk and bananas help to sort out dopamine, which in turn regulates the reward and joy centers in the brain.

In any case, I believe that happiness is an option and not only as a result of current cir-cumstances, so do not fall into the trap of thinking that your circumstances must change before you are happy because

you will never arrive. When I mention the experience of happiness in life, we should not always think about short-term emotions at all, but rather about the quality of life that we live and a long-term view of the meaning of the word happiness!

Actually, the experience of being satisfied with long-term life is originally made up of feelings of joy and pleasure in the short term. If you are waiting for enough money to be generous, you will never get there. Rather, you should choose to be generous with your time and money, with a little discipline in your life to be happy today and tomorrow. On other hand, it is important to recall that close relationships with your friends and family are more important than fortune and fame and I believe it does make people happy throughout their lives and even help them delay mental and physical deterioration over time.

At end, I should remind you that the most effective way to achieve lasting hap-piness is not only by looking at your own interests, but also at the interests of others. When we shift our focus away from ourselves, we are living a life of greater and deeper meaning, thus it is not easy for many to seek happiness.

The writer is Physician, medical innovator & writer. For any queries regarding the content of the article, he can be contacted at dryusufal-mulla@gmail.com

Perpetual search for happiness

DR YOUSUF ALI AL MULLA

09TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

South Korea battles worst virus outbreak in months, warns of crisisREUTERS — SEOUL

South Korea warned yesterday of a looming novel coronavirus crisis as new outbreaks flared, including one linked to a church where more than 300 members of the congregation have been infected but hundreds more are reluctant to get tested.

The outbreak linked to the Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul is the country’s biggest in nearly six months and led to a tight-ening of social distancing rules on Sunday.

The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 197 new cases as of midnight on Saturday, mostly in the Seoul metro-politan area, marking the fourth day of a three-digit tally.

South Korea has been one of the world’s coronavirus mit-igation success stories but it has nevertheless battled per-sistent spikes in infections. The latest cases brought its total infections to 15,515 including 305 deaths.

“We’re seeing the current situation as an initial stage of a large-scale transmission,” KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a briefing.

“We’re facing a crisis where if the current spread isn’t con-trolled, it would bring an expo-nential rise in cases, which could in turn lead to the col-lapse of our medical system and enormous economic damage.” The outbreak at the Seoul church has revived fears seen in February when author-ities struggled to contain an outbreak that emerged in a secretive Christian sect in the city of Daegu and became the country’s deadliest cluster.

As in the earlier case, authorities are facing some reluctance to cooperate and difficulty in tracking some of the members of the

congregation.Vice Health Minister Kim

Gang-lip told reporters earlier the Presbyterian church had provided inaccurate lists of its 4,000 members. While nearly 320 of them had tested pos-itive, including Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon, more than 600 who authorities want to see in isolation were unaccounted for.

“We’re very concerned,” Kim said, dismissing rumours that authorities wanted to round up church members and would record every test as pos-itive regardless of the truth.

“That’s impossible. We can’t fabricate test results,” he said.

Jun, leader of the church, is a conservative activist who has also been organising anti-gov-ernment rallies calling for the

ouster of liberal President Moon Jae-in, raising concern that the virus has been spreading at his protests too.

Jun, 64, took part in a protest on Saturday in defiance of a government order that all church members self-isolate and get tested.

His lawyers said at a news conference yesterday that Jun did not violate quarantine rules nor intentionally offer incom-plete lists. Jun said in an interview with a Christian media outlet that his church

was a victim of “virus terror”.A ban on church services

was lifted in April though attendees are required to reg-ister and sit apart.

Kim said if the rate of new infections did not stabilise this week the government would tighten distancing, shut high-risk facilities and ban indoor meetings of 50 people or more and outdoor gatherings of 100 or more.

The health ministry has filed a complaint against Jun for violating quarantine rules

and “obstructing” contact tracing by holding the Saturday rally and failing to provide a full list of members.

Jun faces earlier charges of violating election laws and had been banned from joining pro-tests as a bail condition. A pros-ecutors’ office said on Sunday it wanted his bail revoked.

Among smaller clusters of cases, 131 infections have been traced to a Christian church in the city of Yongin and about 42 linked to a coffee outlet in the city of Paju.

Government officials wearing protective clothing stand at a temporary check point to restrict access to the Sarang Jeil Church, in Seoul, yesterday.

Japan PM’s hospital trip sparks health speculationAFP — TOKYO

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose first term in office ended in part for health reasons, sparked fresh specu-lation yesterday about his well-being with an unexpected, hours-long hospital visit.

Abe emerged from the Tokyo hospital where he was previously treated for ulcerative colitis more than seven hours after he entered, and left by car without saying anything, according to TV footage of local media.

His previously unan-nounced arrival yesterday morning prompted a local media frenzy and comes after weeks of speculation about his health.

A weekly magazine report in July claimed Abe had been vomiting blood, but gov-ernment spokesman Yoshihide Suga insisted the prime minister was healthy.

More recently, questions have been raised about the prime minister’s decision to avoid holding any press con-ferences, despite rising criticism

over the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak domestically, where infections are increasing.

Analysts have suggested the prime minister has struggled to answer questions in public appearances, and one television even analysed the speed with which Abe walked a route in the prime minister’s office, con-cluding he was moving slower of late.

Local media said yesterday that Abe completed his regular

annual health check-up in June but cited an aide as saying he was now undergoing an addi-tional “one-day regular health check-up”.

Over the weekend, a senior member of Abe’s Liberal Dem-ocratic Party appeared to suggest the prime minister needed to take a break.

“We need to force him to get rest, even just for a few days,” Akira Amari told a local tele-vision station.

Abe is now Japan’s

longest-serving prime minister, but his first term ended abruptly with his resignation just one year into office in 2007, when he cited his health among other factors.

His illness came after a series of scandals surrounding his government that drove down his approval ratings and resulted in a massive election loss.

Abe was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, but upon returning to power in 2012 said he had overcome the condition with new medication.

While Japan has seen a com-paratively small coronavirus outbreak compared to the world’s worst-hit countries, Abe has been criticised for several policy flubs in handling the crisis.

His programme to distribute cloth masks to each household was widely mocked, and he was forced into an embarrassing U-turn on distribution of stimulus funds.

His approval ratings have sunk during the crisis, though the country’s divided opposition have regularly failed to capi-talise on falls in Abe’s ratings.

Remittances to Pakistanhit record high for asingle month in JulyREUTERS — KARACHI

Remittances from Pakistani workers employed abroad hit the highest level for a single month in July, officials said yesterday, increasing 36.5 percent year on year, mostly thanks to less spending on Haj pilgrimages because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The global economic slowdown had raised fears that remittances, key to Pakistan’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves, would decline given falling employment in countries from where most of the money is sent — particularly Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

But July remittances rose to $2.768bn, the State Bank of Pakistan said, adding the increase was up 12.2 percent from June, when remittance numbers were also high.

“More good news for Pakistan economy,” Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted. “Remittances from overseas Pakistanis reached $2,768m in July 2020, highest ever amount in one month in the history of Pakistan.”

Remittances from Saudi Arabia in July amounted to $821.6m, the United Arab Emirates $538.2m, the United Kingdom $393.9m and the United States, $250.6m.

“Given the impact of COVID-19 globally, this increase in workers remit-tance is encouraging,” Paki-stan’s central bank said in a statement.

It added that the growth rate compared to the same month in 2019 was around twice as high because of decreased spending over the Muslim Eid Al Adha season.

“Not much cash movement on flights or Haj and Umrah pilgrimages has taken place this year. This trend can con-tinue for some months, which is a positive development for the economy,” Saad Hashemy, Executive Director BMA Capital Management, said.

Pakistan has opened all sectors of the economy in a bid to revive its hard-hit economy.

The country has reported 289,215 positive COVID-19 cases of which 269,087 have recovered, with 6,175 deaths.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (centre) arrives at his residence after returning from Keio University Hospital, in Tokyo yesterday.

Australia, France object to release of final Taliban prisoners: OfficialsREUTERS — KABUL

Some Western nations including France and Australia have urged Afghanistan not to free all of a final batch of prisoners demanded by Taliban militants, officials said, posing a further possible complication to long-awaited peace talks.

The Afghan government, under pressure from the United States as it withdraws its troops from a war which started in 2001, agreed last week to begin releasing the final 400 prisoners demanded by the Taliban as a pre-condition to start peace talks.

It was not immediately clear whether the Western objections were delaying the talks, which are set to begin in Doha soon after the remaining 320 pris-oners are freed. Eighty have already been released.

Two Western diplomats in Kabul said the full list of pris-oners had not been shared with many nations until last week and that France and Australia were strongly opposed to a few pris-oners on the list going free.

French and Australian offi-cials confirmed in recent days

they were opposed to certain prisoners being released, without specifying how many.

“France asks the Afghan gov-ernment not to proceed with the release of several terrorists con-victed of killing French citizens in Afghanistan,” the French Embassy in Kabul said on Twitter.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne told media last week the Australian government had been in touch with Wash-ington and the Afghan gov-ernment asking them not to free one of the prisoners, Hekmat-ullah, a former Afghan army ser-geant who killed three Australian solders.

One solution proposed, the sources said, was “house arrest” under which the prisoners would be placed under supervision outside the prison system. .

Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar said on Sunday the gov-ernment was working to achieve “consensus” among the interna-tional community.

“The world has protested... Our work will be to create con-sensus on it with the world,” he told journalists.

Children participate in a sack racing competition using helmets as face shields in anticipation of the spread of the novel coronavirus during celebration of Indonesia’s 75th Independence Day in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, Indonesia, yesterday. Various activities were held while applying health protocols to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Indonesia Independence Day activities

Hong Kong records 44 new virus casesREUTERS — HONG KONG

Hong Kong reported 44 new coronavirus cases yesterday as the government announced an extension to social distancing measures aimed at controlling further spreading of the virus, which has seen a resurgence in the Asian financial hub since early July.

While the number of daily cases have come down from triple digits in recent weeks, authorities have cautioned residents from becoming com-placent, warning that the sit-uation remained “severe”. Restrictions including a ban on dining at restaurants from 6pm and the mandating of masks in all outdoor public areas are set to remain in force for a further seven days until August 25.

Malaysia’s Penang halts medical tourists after arrivals from IndonesiaREUTERS — KUALA LUMPUR

Malaysia’s northern state of Penang has barred entry by overseas visitors seeking medical treatment until it finalises new health and safety procedures in light of the coronavirus crisis, the chief minister said yesterday.

Authorities toughened curbs on movement in some parts of the island over the weekend, as new infections emerged after more than three

months with no cases.In a statement, the gov-

ernment said three Indonesian patients had arrived by special flights last Friday to be treated at private hospitals, two victims of cancer and one in need of imme-diate treatment.

“The state government deeply regrets that it was not informed of the ‘sudden’ arrival of the patients,” Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said, announcing the ban.

The state did not say if the three had tested positive for the virus. But Penang authorities were told the patients had fol-lowed all the standard operating procedures, the chief minister said.

The ban will stay until the healthcare ministry finalises pro-cedures to deal with healthcare tourism, he added.

AirAsia.com, the digital platform of budget airline AirAsia Group Bhd, said it flew its first

medical charter flight to Penang from the Indonesian city of Medan on Friday, with another charter from Jakarta scheduled for next Monday.

Penang authorities have also ordered all agencies related to health tourism to provide notifi-cations and information.

The southeast Asian nation has detected a highly infectious mutation of the virus, it said on Sunday, when the tally of cases stood at 9,200.

The outbreak linked to the Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul is the country’s biggest in nearly six months and led to a tightening of social distancing rules on Sunday.

10 TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020EUROPE

Lukashenko offers to hand over power after referendumREUTERS — MINSK

Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, said yesterday that he would be ready to hold new elections and hand over power after a constitutional referendum, an attempt to pacify mass protests and strikes that pose the biggest challenge yet to his rule.

He made the offer, which he insisted would not be delivered on while he was under pressure from protesters, after exiled opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she was willing to lead the country.

In a sign of his growing vul-nerability, Lukashenko faced heckling and chants of “step down” during a speech to workers at one of the large state-run factories that are the pride of his Soviet-style economic model and core support base.

He faces the threat of European Union sanctions after a bloody crackdown on protests following what demonstrators say was his rigged re-election victory last week. He denies losing, citing official results that gave him just over 80 percent of the vote.

The EU is also preparing to send a message to Russia not to meddle, after Moscow told Lukashenko it was ready to

provide military help in the event of an external threat.

Russia is watching closely as Belarus hosts pipelines that carry Russian energy exports to the West and is viewed by Moscow as a buffer zone against Nato. Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke twice this weekend.

A burly former Soviet col-lective farm manager, Lukashenko used blunt lan-guage while speaking to workers yesterday.

“We’ve held elections,” he said. “Until you’ve killed me there won’t be any new elections.”

But he offered to change the constitution, an apparent con-cession that seems unlikely to satisfy protesters who say it’s something he has spoken about before.

“We’ll put the changes to a referendum, and I’ll hand over my constitutional powers. But

not under pressure or because of the street,” Lukashenko said, in remarks quoted by the official Belta news agency.

You know my harsh side. I’m not eternal. But if you drag down the first president you’ll drag down neighbouring coun-tries and all the rest.”

He also said people could hold parliamentary and presi-dential elections after the

referendum if that was what they wanted.

Speaking in a video address from Lithuania, opposition pol-itician Tsikhanouskaya urged security and law enforcement officers to switch sides.

“I am ready to take respon-sibility and act as a national leader during this period,” Tsikhanouskaya said.

Her video was released as hundreds of employees from the state broadcaster BT went on strike, as several presenters and staff publicly resigned in solidarity with the protesters.

The strike came as protests spread to those normally seen

as loyal to the 65-year-old pres-ident. Some police, a sitting ambassador, prominent athletes and a former prime minister have also voiced solidarity with the protesters.

The state broadcaster showed re-runs yesterday morning before issuing a fresh news bulletin. Videos on social media suggested BT had at one point aired footage of an empty studio with white sofas, and music playing.

Reuters could not inde-pendently confirm that and the broadcaster could not immedi-ately be reached for comment.

Factory workers waving

flags and posters joined pro-testers to rally outside the building, which was being guarded by security forces.

“We want to work honestly, we do not want to be forced to lie,” TV host Oleg Titkov said.

Thousands of protesters had earlier marched to a factory where Lukashenko flew by hel-icopter to speak to striking workers. He got a rough reception.

“Thanks, I’ve said every-thing. You can (continue to) shout ‘step down,’” he said, struggling to be heard.

He then walked away as the crowd chanted “Step down”.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko addressing workers as he visits the plant of the heavy off-road vehicles manufacturer MZKT in Minsk, yesterday.

Spain’s former Kingconfirmed to be in UAEamid financial probesAP — MADRID

Former monarch Juan Carlos I of Spain has been in the United Arab Emirates since he left his country amid a growing financial scandal, the Spanish royal household said yesterday, resolving a two-week mystery and reining in speculation over the ex-king’s whereabouts.

The Spanish government and Royal House officials have been tight-lipped about Juan Carlos’ location since August 3, when he published a letter to his son, King Felipe VI, that said he was moving outside Spain due to the “public repercus-sions of certain episodes of my past private life.”

At 82, the former king is the target of official investigations in Spain and Switzerland into p o s s i b l e f i n a n c i a l wrongdoing.

Conservative Spanish newspaper ABC had published a photo of Juan Carlos stepping out of a plane at an airport in Abu Dhabi.

But without any official confirmation, Spanish media had placed him in places as far afield as the Dominican Republic, Portugal, Switzerland or New Zealand.

Ending the swirl of specu-lation, a Royal House spokesman said yesterday that Juan Carlos had asked to convey that he had traveled to UAE on August 3.

“That’s where he currently remains,” the official, who wasn’t authorised to be quoted in media reports, said.

The spokesman declined to say if the UAE would be Juan Carlos’ permanent residence.

Juan Carlos facilitated Spain’s transition to democratic rule in the 1970’s, when the heir of the Bourbon dynasty replaced former Gen Francisco Franco as the country’s head of state. He reigned for nearly four decades while Spain mod-ernised and joined the European Union.

But criticism grew as his luxurious life and corruption scandals tarnishing members of the royal family offered a striking contrast with the suf-fering of Spaniards during the global financial crisis.

In 2014, Juan Carlos abdi-cated the throne that then went to Felipe, who has taken steps to shield the monarchy from the scandals.

Felipe VI has not publicly spoken about his father’s departure earlier this month.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose mon-archy-supporting Socialist Party is in a coalition gov-ernment with the pro-republic, far-left Unidas Podemos (United We Can), has praised the Royal House’s decision to take distance from the former king.

Spain’s king has a mostly ceremonial role. Executive power lies with the elected par-liamentary government.

Despite relocating outside of Spain, Juan Carlos has pledged via his lawyer to make himself available to prosecutors in Spain.

Russia summons

Dutch diplomat

over spying

AFP — MOSCOW

Russia’s foreign ministry yesterday said it had summoned the Dutch charge d’affaires in Moscow to protest over what it said was spying on Russia’s military attache in the Netherlands.

Russia “strongly protested” to the Dutch diplomat after the discovery of “spy equipment” in the official car of the Russian military attache in the Netherlands, the ministry said in a statement.

“These unfriendly actions further complicate the already difficult relations between the two countries,” the statement said.

Moscow called for imme-diate measures to prevent similar incidents in the future, according to the ministry.

According to Dutch public television, Prime Minister Mark Rutte declined to comment.

Espionage cases have mul-tiplied in recent years between Russia and Western govern-ments, with relations at their lowest since the Ukrainian crisis and Moscow’s annex-ation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Also yesterday, Norway's intelligence service said that its agents had arrested a Nor-wegian man suspected of passing sensitive information to Russia.

“The man is formally sus-pected of providing information to a foreign country that could damage fundamental national interests,” the PST intelligence agency wrote on Twitter.

Ukraine recalls

ambassador to

BelarusREUTERS — KIEV

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that he had recalled the ambassador to Belarus for consultations to assess the prospects of further bilateral relations between the two neighbours “in the new reality”.

“The development of events in Belarus, whose society has expressed a vote of no confidence in the official results of the presidential elections in Belarus, is funda-mentally changing the situ-ation in Belarusian-Ukrainian relations,” Kuleba said in a statement.

Concerns mount over rising COVID-19 infections in GermanyANATOLIA — BERLIN

Germany is concerned over the increasing numbers of novel corona-virus (COVID-19) infections in the country, local media reported yesterday.

Speaking at a video conference of the presiding board of her Christian Democratic (CDU) party, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that while she was worried over the rise in infections, the country-wide virus situation was still under control, according to the weekly Focus news magazine.

German news agency dpa reported that Merkel currently ruled out any further easing of restrictions meant to stem the spread of the coro-navirus, including professional football games.

The number of confirmed corona-virus cases in Germany rose to 223,453, up 625 from the previous day, with

9,231 deaths, according to figures released by the Berlin-based disease control centre, Robert Koch Institute.

Last week, German Health Min-ister Jens Spahn called on people to adhere to hygiene measures after the country reported its highest daily rise in COVID-19 infections since May 9.

“This obviously — if we don’t watch out now — can lead to a certain dynamic,” Spahn said, pointing out that nearly all regions across the country had now been affected by outbreaks of varying severity.

As part of the German govern-ment’s strategy to curb the spread of COVID-19, areas with localised coro-navirus outbreaks will be cordoned off more fully, with residents banned from traveling beyond their borders.

The Merkel government is worried over a second possible outbreak wave this fall, plunging the country into an even deeper economic crisis.

Greenland ice melting past ‘tipping point’: StudyAFP — COPENHAGEN

The melting of Greenland’s ice cap has gone so far that it is now irreversible, with snowfall no longer able to compensate for the loss of ice even if global warming were to end today, according to researchers.

“Greenland’s glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts, where the snowfall that replen-ishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers,” said a statement from Ohio State University, where several authors of a study pub-lished on August 13 in Commu-nications Earth and Envi-ronment are based.

Climate change is having a devastating effect on the world’s glaciers, with the ice

melt posing a threat to millions of people around the world.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the ice cap lost around 450 billion tonnes of ice per year, which was compensated by snowfall, the scientists said after ana-lysing 40 years of data.

But the ice melt has accel-erated this century, climbing to 500 billion tonnes and no longer sufficiently replenished with snow.

“The Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at accelerated rates in the 21st century, making it the largest single contributor to rising sea levels,” the study said.

While researchers are in agreement that the Greenland ice melt is worrying, not all agree that it has reached a ‘tipping point’.

“We don’t know how much

greenhouse gas concentrations will rise,” Ruth Mottram, a cli-matologist at Denmark’s Mete-orological Institute said.

The published results show that “even if we stabilised tem-peratures (and greenhouse gas emissions) at the present level, the ice sheet would still con-tinue to melt, but only until the size of the ice sheet is once more in balance with the climate,” Mottram said.

Another recent study from Britain’s University of Lincoln concluded that Greenland’s ice melt alone is expected to con-tribute 10 to 12 centimetres to the world’s rising sea levels by 2100.

The UN’s IPCC climate science advisory panel said in 2013 that it expected sea levels to rise by 60 centimetres by the end of the century.

A file photo shows an iceberg calving with a mass of ice breaking away from the Apusiajik glacier, near Kulusuk (also spelled Qulusuk), a settlement in the Sermersooq municipality located on the island of the same name on the southeastern shore of Greenland.

“I am ready to take responsibility and act as a national leader during this period,” opposition politician, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said.

Director Juergen Scheuermann welcomes students as schools re-open after summer holidays and the lockdown due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 at the Karl-Rehbein high school in Hanau, Germany, yesterday.

New virus crackdown extended to more Spanish regionsAFP — MADRID

Clubs closed their doors yesterday in four more regions of Spain as new measures to curb a rise in COVID-19 infections came into effect, a day after a noisy Madrid protest against virus restrictions.

Spain’s most populous region, Andalusia, along with Galicia and Cantabria in the north and Castilla and Leon in the centre were the latest Spanish regions to begin enforcing 11 measures the government unveiled Friday to curb one of the fastest virus growth rates in Europe. Two other regions, La Rioja and Murcia, began applying the measures on Sunday.

They include the closure of all discos, clubs and dancing halls while restaurants are required to close by 1:00am, with no new guests allowed in from midnight in a country known for late-night partying.

England’s exam regulator said it would accept at face value assessments made by teachers in lieu of high school exams, abandoning a moderation process intended to avoid widespread grade inflation.

11TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Angry students force UK government U-turn over virus-hit examsAFP — LONDON

The British government was forced yesterday to abandon its policy for grading exams that were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic after protests by students and warnings that it threatened the career prospects of the most disadvantaged pupils.

England’s exam regulator said it would accept at face value assessments made by teachers in lieu of high school exams, abandoning a moder-ation process intended to avoid widespread grade inflation.

The publication of A-level results last week sparked outrage when it emerged that 39 percent of teachers’ assess-ments had been downgraded under an algorithm based on a school’s past performance.

A-levels are key school-leaving exams for 18-year-olds. Pupils took to the streets and threatened legal action, com-plaining the system made it harder for bright children in disadvantaged areas to do well, while rewarding mediocre stu-dents in private schools.

“To a lot of young people

this really does feel like the gov-ernment is saying ‘we don’t care about you’,” 18-year-old Curtis Parfitt-Ford, who launched a petition and a legal challenge against the policy, said.

As angry parents lobbied their MPs, opposition parties scented an opportunity, and increasing numbers of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Con-servative party called for a rethink.

The devolved governments in Scotland and Wales had already reverted to teachers’ assessments, putting pressure on England to follow suit

— particularly with another key set of results, for GCSEs taken by 16-year-olds, due on Thursday.

Teachers had also raised concerns that schools would be tied up lodging appeals against results when they were trying to prepare to reopen fully in early September for the first time since the March lockdown.

Johnson’s Education Sec-retary Gavin Williamson apol-ogised for the handling of the process, saying he had decided to act after “unfairnesses” became clear.

“I am sorry for the distress this has caused young people and their parents but hope this announcement will now provide the certainty and reas-surance they deserve.”

The devolved government in Northern Ireland later announced it would also change its policy.

Former Tory leader Ruth Davidson noted the exams chaos “is not just one of these bubble issues. This is something that cuts through everything” — and many MPs agreed.

More than 250,000 people had also signed a petition

Students hold placards as they protest outside Codsall Community High School near Wolverhampton, central England yesterday to demonstrate against the downgrading of A-level results.

demanding a change, and two legal groups representing stu-dents threatened to take the government to court.

The director of one of them, Good Law Project’s Jolyon Maugham, said pupils had missed out on places at uni-versity, medical school and employer training, which all rely on final A-level grades.

“It’s also affecting those stu-dents who are leaving school to enter the jobs market, the most difficult jobs market in the UK for many generations,” he said.

He added: “That’s

desperately, desperately unfair.” - ‘Complete fiasco’ - The leader of the main opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer, welcomed the “screeching U-turn”. “This is a victory for the thousands of young people who have powerfully made their voices heard this past week,” he said.

“However, the Tories’ han-dling of this situation has been a complete fiasco. Incompe-tence has become this govern-ment’s watchword.”

Like in many countries hit by COVID-19, exams in Britain

in April, May and June had to be abandoned because of the pan-demic. Teachers were asked instead to make an assessment of their students’ grades, which were then modified based on a school’s past performance.

Despite the high percentage of results downgraded, the number of pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland receiving the highest A-level grades increased.

Under the new policy, stu-dents whose results were mod-erated upwards will be able to keep those grades.

Britons dine out on govt-backed restaurant scheme

AFP — LONDON

A British government scheme to encourage people to visit restaurants, by paying a slice of the bill, has boosted a sector devastated by the coronavirus, according to a study published yesterday.

The incentive — “Eat Out to Help Out” — valid Monday to Wednesday through August sees the government contribute 50 percent of the cost of a cafe, restaurant or club meal, up to £10 ($13, €11) per person.

In the first two weeks of August, the number of people who ate out on the scheme’s active days leapt 26.9 percent, analysis from the Centre for Eco-nomics and Business Research showed. It noted the month-long scheme, crafted by Finance Min-ister Rishi Sunak, would give Britain “a much-needed boost towards normality”.

In contrast to the healthy restaurant figures for Monday to Wednesday, diner numbers fell 21.3 percent on Thursday to Sunday, it said, citing figures from OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service.

The government has set aside £500m to fund the “Eat Out to Help Out” policy, which is aimed at aiding the strug-gling hospitality sector.

More than 22,000 res-taurant jobs have been cut since the start of the year, twice as many as for 2019 as a whole.

Outcry in France over mass show at theme parkAFP — PARIS

The French government has defended a decision to allow a theme park to stage a show attended by up to 9,000 people, after critics blasted the move as wildly irresponsible and hypo-critical due to the coronavirus epidemic.

The Puy du Fou historical theme park in western France was given an exemption by local authorities to allow the show with up to 9,000 spec-tators, even though the number of people permitted to gather in France is limited to 5,000 due to social distancing rules.

The controversy is even more acute given that the park’s founder Philippe de Villiers, a

former culture minister and ex-MP, is according to French media on friendly terms with President Emmanuel Macron.

Participants in France’s cul-tural scene, ravaged by the coronavirus and ensuing restrictions, have expressed outrage that the weekend event was allowed to go ahead when major summer festivals were cancelled.

Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot, however, denied that the Puy du Fou, which attracts millions each year with its mediaeval and history-themed attractions, had received special treatment. Local authorities have the power to grant excep-tional permission for gatherings of more than 5,000 people.

“I understand the emotion and the anger of the profes-sionals and the artists who had to cancel their activities and it is a real heartbreak,” said Bachelot, quoted by Le Parisien website late on Sunday. But, “the park of Puy du Fou did not benefit from any special priv-ilege,” she insisted.

Prime Minister Jean Castex last week extended a corona-virus-busting ban on gatherings of more than 5,000 people until October 30. The measure has already cost France some of its top summer cultural festivals including Avignon for theatre and Vieilles Charrues for music.

On Friday, the local author-ities in the Vendee region of western France issued a decree

allowing the Puy du Fou to welcome up to 9,000 people for its Cinescenie theatrical show on Saturday. The Cinescenie is the park’s summer showpiece, a spectacular historical show with fireworks and hundreds of actors and horses.

“These are double standards! In these times of major crisis for events, concerts, sports and clubs it is even more unbearable to witness!!", tweeted prominent French show business promoter Pascal Negre, a former president of Universal Music France and former vice-president of Uni-versal Music International.

“It’s incomprehensible”, Jean-Michel Ribes, director of the Parisian Rond Point theatre, told Europe 1 radio. “I think that there

will be a real question for the government and it will need to answer it and explain,” he added.

Bachelot said that in the coming days she would receive representatives of the cultural sectors most impacted by the virus and resultant lockdown.

“We have a feeling of being abandoned,” said Aurelie Han-nedouche, of the SMA union of modern music. “Irritated, alone, fed up, that’s what we feel: we are the only sector that has not got back to business,” she added.

The Puy du Fou, France’s second-most popular theme park after Disneyland, wel-comed over 2.3 million visitors in 2019. It reopened its doors on June 11 following the coro-navirus lockdown.

An aerial view of a burning area of Amazon rainforest reserve, south of Novo Progresso in Para state, on Sunday.

Amazon blazes burn forest, farmland and threaten homesREUTERS — PORTO VELHO, BRAZIL

Residents and firefighters in northwestern Brazil are battling fires that are raging in the Amazon, destroying farmland and threatening their homes.

The blazes, that occur every year in the dry season, sent clouds of smokes billowing into the sky that could be seen and smelt from the capital of Ron-donia state 38km away.

Experts say the fires that threaten the world’s largest rainforest are rarely a natural phenomenon and are mostly set deliberately by speculators to clear land for pasture.

“Every year I suffer from

this. Nobody knows who does this. They come and burn eve-rything and run away,” said bricklayer Rosalino de Oliveira as he watched a firefighter hose flames that came dangerously close to his clap-board home.

“We are poor. I can barely feed my family on my salary. The fire comes to destroy everything in a matter of seconds,” he said, shielding his face from the suf-focating smoke. His sister Miraceli said she feared losing the few possessions they had.

Last week, Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro denied there were any fires in the Amazon, calling it a “lie” and blaming the media for spreading

it. According to government data, the first 15 days of August have seen about a 17% decrease in the number of fires as this time last year, when a sharp increase in blazes across the Amazon attracted international condemnation amid alarm over the deforestation of a region crucial to the fight against global warming.

Deforestation rose 34.5% in the 12 months through July, compared to a year earlier. Bol-sonaro has dispatched the mil-itary to fight fires and deforest-ation since May, but environ-mental experts question whether these deployments are working.

Attacks on aid workersat record high in 2019REUTERS — LONDON

Aid workers suffered a record 277 major attacks around the world last year, an independent humanitarian research organ-isation said yesterday, with healthcare workers responding to crises facing a spike in deadly violence.

A total of 483 aid workers were killed, kidnapped, or wounded in 2019, showed data from Humanitarian Outcomes, the highest number since the start of its records in 1997.

“The ability to help

vulnerable civilians in their hour of greatest need is a sign of civilisation; it’s a right under international law,” Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Nor-wegian Refugee Council, said in response to the figures.

Although casualties were up overall, the number of aid worker who were killed dropped slightly to 125, from 131 a year previously, according to the data, which draws on public reports, security organ-isations and aid groups. Health workers made up more than 40% of the fatalities.

Bolivia surpasses 100,000virus cases; deaths at 4,058REUTERS — LA PAZ

Bolivia surpassed 100,000 coronavirus cases on Sunday, the country’s Ministry of Health reported, predicting that the virus would reach its peak there in September.

Bolivia’s confirmed coro-navirus infections reached 100,344, the ministry said, and there have been 4,058 deaths since the virus first emerged in the country in early March.

“Cases are climbing steadily, at least in the western side of the country. By the end of the month, we will reach... 130,000 to 150,000,” Rene Sahonero, the ministry’s director general of hospitals, told state television.

Sahonero said cases had accelerated among Bolivia’s population of 11.6 million after recent protests linked to the postponement of general

elections. The Electoral Court decided in July to postpone the vote until October 18.

In recent weeks, thousands of people including supporters of unseated former leftist leader Evo Morales have taken part in demonstrations and blocked roads around the country to demand that the polls take place as planned on September 6.

The election is being fought between Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party and a frag-mented conservative opposition, including interim President Jeanine Anez, who took over in a power vacuum last year prom-ising swift new elections.

Bolivia’s government has ordered police and military onto the streets to protect key instal-lations and the transport of medical supplies after more than 30 virus patients died during the protests due to lack of oxygen.

Pilot dies in hot air balloon crash in Germany

AFP — FRANKFURT

The pilot of a hot air balloon died and two passengers were severely injured after it crashed near the banks of the River Rhine in Germany, police said yesterday.

The balloon was caught by a gust of wind as it came into land at about 8pm (1800 GMT) on Sunday near Urbar, south of Koblenz in western Germany. The balloon hit the ground several times, throwing four passengers out of the basket, before being dragged down a hill and getting caught in a tree, police said.

The pilot, who was stuck in the basket, died from his injuries. The two injured are in a serious condition but out of danger. Over 100 people assisted in rescue operation.

“We may be physically apart, but this week Democrats are coming together from across the nation to put forth our vision for a better America,” the Democratic veteran Joe Biden tweeted as he encouraged voters to tune in.

12 TUESDAY 18 AUGUST 2020AMERICAS

Washington not pressuring other Gulf states to recognise Israel, says Kushner

REUTERS — JERUSALEM/DUBAI

The United States will not consent to Israeli annexations in the occupied West Bank for “some time,” preferring to focus on the Israel-UAE nor-malisation deal and wider regional peacemaking, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said yesterday.

“Israel has agreed with us that they will not move forward without our consent. We do not plan to give our consent for some time,” Kushner told reporters in a tel-ephone briefing. “Right now the focus has to be on, you know, getting this new peace agreement implemented.

“We really want to get as much interchange between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as possible and we want Israel to focus on cre-ating new relationships and new alliances.” The US-UAE-Israel joint statement on the normalisation deal said Israel had agreed to “suspend” the annexation plan.

Kushner said the onus was on the Palestinians to come around to a new peace pro-posal it unveiled in January.

Kushner said Washington was not pressuring other Gulf Arab states to recognise Israel. Kuwait, he said, was “out there taking a very radical view on the conflict to date in favour of the Palestinians and obvi-ously that hasn’t been very constructive”.

Michelle Obama opens Democratic conventionAFP — MILWAUKEE

American voters will be offered competing political visions when former first lady Michelle Obama addresses the now-virtual Democratic National Convention set to anoint Joe Biden, and President Donald Trump delivers a speech in bat-tleground Wisconsin.

Barack Obama’s wife, widely respected in her own right, anchors the primetime slot on the opening night of this year’s anything-but-normal convention.

The four-day jamboree was to be held in Milwaukee in a sign of eagerness to win back Wisconsin, one of a handful of Democratic strongholds which flipped to Trump in 2016.

But the deadly coronavirus pandemic upended all aspects of life including presidential campaigning and the con-vention now is occurring almost entirely online — as is the Republican event, which begins on August 24.

Biden sought to downplay the awkwardness of an American political ritual being held without the usual roaring crowds, in-person delegate count and falling confetti.

“We may be physically apart, but this week Democrats are coming together from across the nation to put forth our vision for a better America,” the Demo-cratic veteran tweeted as he encouraged voters to tune in.

Trump, not to be outdone — and essentially ignoring the pandemic’s threat — flew yes-terday to the Midwest for two speeches including one in Oshkosh, Wisconsin about a 90-minute drive north of the

Milwaukee arena where Dem-ocrats had intended to gather.

“I know all of these people very well, I beat them all last time,” Trump told Fox News about the Democrats addressing the convention, including both Obamas, 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton and erstwhile Biden rival Bernie Sanders. “They can’t unite,” Trump said.

The declaration was a clear dig at Democratic Party factions aiming to project a unified front behind Biden and a common determination to oust Trump in the November 3 election.

The convention takes place amid a furore over Trump’s efforts to limit mail-in voting.

The President, insisting without proof that mail-in voting fosters fraud, has threatened to block extra funding that Demo-crats say is urgently needed to allow the US Postal Service to process millions of ballots.

Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez said the convention will push back against the pres-ident’s “assault on our

democracy” by highlighting efforts to protect voting by mail.

“This president can’t win on the merits and so he has to cheat. And it’s shameful,” Perez told a Washington Post webcast.

Planners, meanwhile, have been struggling to find virtual replacements for the usual circus-like atmosphere of a convention. The experimental format will allow speakers to address American voters unfil-tered — largely shorn of the usual overwrought stagecraft and screaming delegates.

Perez insisted the “sober moment” in US history meant Democrats need to show the election is about leadership and “trust” during the pandemic that has killed 170,000 Americans and outrage over police bru-tality and racism. “We need a

steady hand at the tiller. That’s Joe Biden, and that’s Kamala Harris,” Perez said.

Biden enters the convention with significant but tightening poll leads over Trump, and hoping his pick of Harris — the first woman of color on a major party’s presidential ticket — is widely popular among Demo-crats. Harris, a senator, former prosecutor and the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immi-grants, is 55 and brings rela-tively youthful energy to bolster the 77-year-old Biden.

The opening day's top speakers will be Sanders, a leader of the party’s progressive wing, and Michelle Obama.

At the 2016 convention that nominated Clinton, she mem-orably told Democrats: “Our motto is, when they go low, we

go high.” Four years later, amid a steadily coarsening political culture led by Trump’s take-no-prisoners style, Obama’s speech will be carefully watched.

Tuesday will see speeches from former president Bill Clinton and Jill Biden, the nom-inee’s wife. On Wednesday, Barack Obama will speak, and Harris will have her spotlight moment before the convention culminates on Thursday when Biden formally accepts the Democratic nomination and delivers his acceptance speech via videolink.

Trump’s efforts to steal the show include delivering a speech near Scranton, Pennsylvania — the blue-collar town where Biden grew up — to coincide with the biggest moment in Biden’s political life.

Men pass in front of the Chase Center, where Democratic US presidential candidate Joe Biden will make his acceptance speech later this week to the Democratic National Convention, in Wilmington, Delaware, US, yesterday.

Congressional Democrats plan vote on Postal Service as Trump defends cutsREUTERS — WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump yes-terday denied trying to undermine the Postal Service’s ability to handle a flood of mail-in ballots ahead of the November election, as Demo-crats in Congress set a Saturday vote on legislation to halt his policy changes.

“No, we’re not tampering,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News amid an outcry from Democrats and other critics who accuse him of trying to hamstring the Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting as he trails Dem-ocratic presidential challenger Joe Biden in opinion polls.

“We want to make it run effi-ciently, run good. We want to make it run for less money, much better, always taking care of our postal workers,” the Republican President said, describing the Postal Service “one of the dis-asters of the world”.

Trump, who himself plans to cast an absentee ballot by mail in Florida, and many other Republicans have opposed an expansion of mail-in voting to accommodate people con-cerned about going to the polls to vote in-person due to fears amid coronavirus pandemic.

He also expressed support for expanded in-person voting including more voting booths, early voting and other efforts, while he reiterated his attacks on mail-in voting. Trump has claimed repeatedly and without evidence that a surge in mail-in voting would lead to fraud in the November 3 election.

Voting by mail is nothing new in the United States, and one in four voters cast ballots that way in 2016.

Democrats in Congress, alarmed at Postal Service changes put in motion under Trump with the election looming, stepped up pressure on the president and his Post-master General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump political donor.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives will meet on Saturday to consider legislation prohibiting changes to Postal Service levels that were in place on January 1, 2020, the cham-ber’s No. 2 Democrat, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, said.

Senate Democrats led by Senator Chuck Schumer urged the Postal Service board of gov-ernors to reverse a series of changes adopted by DeJoy that they said have led to mail service delays.

Concerned by the cuts coming in a year when up to half of US voters could cast ballots by mail, Democrats have pointed to reductions in

overtime, restrictions on extra mail transportation trips and new mail sorting and delivery policies as changes that threaten to slow mail delivery.

House Democratic Con-ference Chairman Hakeem Jef-fries and Representative Ted Lieu also called on the FBI to open a criminal probe into DeJoy. “There is evidence that making mail-in balloting more difficult may be one of the motivations for the changes instituted at the Post Office,” Jeffries and Lieu wrote in a letter yesterday to FBI Director Christopher Wray .

Several Democratic state attorneys general also consid-ering potential legal action to stop Postal Service changes that could affect the election outcome. Top Democrats in Congress called on DeJoy and another top postal official to testify next week at a hearing on Postal Service policy changes.

Cardi B gets real withJoe Biden on policebrutality, health careAFP — NEW YORK

In a wide-ranging interview published yes-terday, superstar rapper Cardi B candidly quizzed Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden on issues including police brutality, health care reform and higher education.

Speaking via Zoom for Elle Magazine, the Grammy winner and the former vice- president kicked off by agreeing on their mutual goal of removing Repub-lican Donald Trump from the White House, which Cardi B said was particularly vital considering the tumultuous federal pan-demic response.

The rapper also reiterated her support for Medicare for All along with free higher edu-cation. “And I want Black people to stop getting killed and no justice for it,” said the 27-year-old, born Belcalis Almanzar to a Dominican father and Trinidadian mother. “There’s no reason why we can’t have all of that,” Biden answered. “Presidents have to take responsibility.”

Biden encouraged Cardi B’s young fanbase to stay politically engaged and vote, telling her “the reason I’m so optimistic is because of your generation”. “You’re the smartest, the best educated, the least prejudiced, and the most engaged gener-ation in history,” Biden said.

Saying that Trump “appeals to... prejudice,” Biden vowed to work towards repairing stark

social divisions in the United States, which Cardi B warned “could be the start of a civil war”. “Nobody wants to feel targeted. Nobody wants animosity. Eve-rybody just wants the best for themselves, their future, their kids’ future,” she said.

The mother of a two-year-old, Cardi B also brought up the issue of childcare so parents can work, a need that has become particularly acute with schools closed due to COVID-19. Biden agreed, pointing to his struggles as a single father when his wife and one of his children died in a car accident, with two of his boys surviving.

Cardi B emphasized the need for bolstering initiatives in underserved communities, also saying some of those policies must extend beyond K-12 schooling and that as a college student she couldn’t always afford meals. Cardi B, whose hits include “Bodak Yellow” and “Money,” once floated the notion of running for office herself, saying she could “shake the table” as a member of US Congress.

Cardi B (left) and Joe Biden

A sign thanking US Postal Service workers is seen at an employee entrance to a mail sorting facility in New York.

COVID-19 forces some US schools to close; new cases remain high in most statesREUTERS — NEW YORK

Almost as quickly as they wel-comed students back, some US schools are closing again due to outbreaks of COVID-19, the latest challenge as the nation tries to reopen while the level of new cases per day remains high in most states.

Schools in the United States are set to reopen for the start of the academic year either this month or early September. Some — particularly in urban

centers — have opted for online-only learning, while others have chosen in-person learning, or a hybrid of the two.

But outbreaks or staffing shortages have forced some schools to halt in-person learning already.

A third high school in Geor-gia’s Cherokee County has closed for in-person classes, the county’s school district said, citing an increase in the number of positive cases at Creekview High School to 25, with nearly

a third of students under quarantine.

“As we have said since we announced our reopening, we will not hesitate to quarantine students and close classrooms in an effort to continue operating school in-person for as long as possible,” the district said in a statement, postponing the planned start to in-person classes from yesterday to August 31.

Cherokee County schools were featured in the national media earlier this month after

students posted images on social media, showing pupils massed together in hallways, many of them not wearing masks.

Georgia’s new cases are down slightly from their peak but the state reported over 20,000 new infections last week and a 12% positivity rate, which suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered.

The problems in Georgia follow an Arizona school district having to cancel classes after staff

said it was unsafe to return and called in sick. Greater Phoenix’s J.O. Combs Unified School Dis-trict had been set to begin in-person learning, contravening state safety guidelines.

A Nebraska school district said on Saturday it had can-celled classes after three staff members tested positive and 24 more were in quarantine for exposure in the Broken Bow School District, about 300km west of Omaha.

Nationwide, new cases of

COVID-19 fell for a fourth week in a row but infections remain at high levels in most states and deaths continue to average 1,000 people a day. Over 30 states have test positivity rates over 5% and Mississippi, Nevada, Florida and Idaho are over 16%.

New York has an infection rate below 1%, along with Con-necticut, Maine and Vermont. New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday that gyms could reopen from next week.

New global temperature record set in Death ValleyREUTERS — CALIFORNIA

The hottest air temperature recorded anywhere on the planet in at least a century, and possibly ever, was reached in Death Valley in California’s Mojave Desert on Sunday afternoon where it soared to 130 Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius).

An automated observation system run by the US National Weather Service at Furnace Creek reported the record at 3:41pm. local time. It was a dry heat: humidity fell to 7%. But it felt “insanely hot” all the same, according to meteorol-ogist Daniel Berc, who is based in the NWS Las Vegas bureau and forecast that the heat wave would continue all week.

“It’s literally like being in an oven,” he said. “Today is another day we could take another run at 130F.” A tem-perature of 134F (56.7C) was recorded in Death Valley in July 1913. Some meteorologists dispute the older record, however, with recent research pointing to the likelihood it was the result of observer error.

“That’s an official record until it’s debunked through the scientific process and accepted by the World Meteorological Organization,” Berc said.

The record comes as climate scientists warn of the dangers of a warming planet. Last month was the world’s third-hottest July on record, and three of the hottest ever Julys all occurred within the last five years.