Amir, Deputy Amirsend new Hijri year greetings to leaders

Qatar condemns attack in Chad

Beirut blast bereaved hold symbolic funeral

Smoke from landfi ll fi reengulfs Belgrade

Senate trudges towardpassing $1tn US bill

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday exchanged cables of congratulations with leaders of fraternal Arab and Muslim countries on the occasion of the new Hijri year. His Highness the Deputy Amir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani also exchanged new Hijri year congratulations with crown princes and deputy heads of state of the Arab and Islamic countries. HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz al-Thani exchanged similar cables of congratulations with prime ministers of the fraternal Arab and Islamic countries. (QNA)

Qatar expressed its strong condemnation of the attack that targeted a patrol near Lake Chad in the west of the country, which led to the deaths and injuries of soldiers. In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs reiterated Qatar’s firm position on rejecting violence and terrorism, regardless of the motives and reasons. The ministry expressed Qatar’s condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Chad, wishing the injured a speedy recovery. (QNA)

Lebanese protesters carried imitation coffins in a symbolic funeral procession from Beirut port yesterday to demand justice, days after the first anniversary of a vast dockside explosion that killed more than 200 people. Families of the victims were joined by dozens of supporters, some wearing black and carrying burning torches, at an entrance to the port where a warehouse fire on August 4 last year ignited a vast stash of ammonium nitrate, causing one of the biggest peacetime blasts in history. Wives, sisters and mothers of those killed held portraits of their loved ones and marched ahead of three symbolic coffins covered in flowers.

Acrid smoke and haze engulfed Serbia’s capital Belgrade yesterday after a fire broke out at the city’s main garbage landfill site. Authorities prompted people to stay indoors as firefighters struggled to extinguish flames at the Vinca landfill, located around 17km from downtown Belgrade near the Danube river. Much of the fire was doused by late yesterday but authorities said the site will continue to smoulder in the coming days. Belgrade’s mayor, Zoran Radojcic, warned people to close windows and stay indoors if they smell the smoke.

The US Senate moved slowly yesterday toward passing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, held back by one Republican lawmaker who opposed speeding up a vote on the nation’s biggest investment in roads and bridges in decades. The Senate convened at noon and was expected to hold two procedural votes , unless Republicans and Democrats can reach an agreement on amendments to the package that was the result of months of bipartisan talks. The legislation is a top priority for President Joe Biden and its passage, which remains likely after an large majority has repeatedly voted to advance, would represent a major victory for him and the group of bipartisan lawmakers who crafted it.

GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978MONDAY Vol. XXXXII No. 12000

August 9, 2021Muharram 1, 1443 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

Football: Teary Messi exits Barcelona, in talks with PSG

SPORT | Page 4BUSINESS | Page 1

Qatar Insurance Company’s H1 net profi t jumps 277% to QR351mn

In Implementation of the directives of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, an equipped team from the Qatar International Search and Rescue Group of the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya) and a team from the Civil Defence of the Ministry of Interior headed yesterday to participate in search and rescue operations in Greece that has been badly hit by wildfires. Page 11

Qatari rescue team leaves for Greece

EAA, Gavi launch 2 education and immunisation projects in AfricaEducation Above All Foundation

(EAA) and Gavi, the Vaccine Al-liance, have extended their part-

nership to launch integrated immuni-sation projects in Ethiopia and Kenya, supported by Qatar Fund For Develop-ment (QFFD).

In conjunction with EAA’s Educate A Child (EAC) programme and its on-going education project with Save the Children Korea (SCK), the initiative in Ethiopia aims to support the country’s overarching target of 90% immunisa-tion coverage at the national level and at least 80% in each of the 11 targeted districts in the host community and three refugee camps in the Gambella Regional State of Ethiopia. It aims to increase uptake of human papilloma-virus (HPV) vaccination amongst girls aged 14 and child vaccination amongst children under one-year-old, reaching 108,183 children with immunisations and 995 adults, who will receive related training over a period of 12 months.

Meanwhile, the immunisation project in Kenya, which intersects with EAA’s ongoing education project with Unicef, will be implemented in 16 arid and semi-arid land (ASAL) counties in three zonal areas of Garissa, Kisumu and Lodwar as well as urban informal settlements in Nairobi with high num-bers of out of school children. Over the next two years, the project aims to reach 257,400 girls who are both in school and out of school in Kenya.

Unicef’s immunisation and educa-tion projects will work closely together to ensure that communities are mo-bilised to increase school enrolment

and that girls receive the HPV vaccine when they reach 10 years of age. The education project will benefi t from the network of community health volun-teers and facility-based health work-ers to advocate for school enrolment, while the immunisation programme in the targeted counties will benefi t from the network of schools and teachers to reach communities with messages on cervical cancer and HPV vaccine.

Both projects come as an extension of EAA and Gavi’s partnership aimed at supporting health, development and education access in some of the world’s most marginalised communities.

Khalifa Jassim al-Kuwari, director general QFFD, said: “ We are pleased that the recent contribution by Qatar Fund to Gavi has paved the way for a new strategic partnership between our long-lasting strategic partners Educa-tion Above All and Gavi”. To Page 12

Taliban seize 3 more state capitals in northern blitzAFPKunduz

The Taliban tightened the noose around northern Afghanistan yesterday, capturing three more

provincial capitals as they take their fi ght to the cities after seizing much of the countryside in recent months.

The insurgents have snatched up fi ve provincial capitals in Afghanistan since Friday in a lightning off ensive that appears to have overwhelmed government forces.

Kunduz, Sar-e-Pul and Taloqan in the north fell within hours of each other yes-terday, lawmakers, security sources and residents in the cities confi rmed.

In Kunduz, one resident described the city as being enveloped in “total chaos”.

“After some fi erce fi ghting, the mu-jahideen, with the grace of God, cap-

tured the capital of Kunduz,” the Tali-ban said in a statement.

“The mujahideen also captured Sar-e-Pul city, the government buildings and all the installations there.”

The insurgents said on Twitter that they had also taken Taloqan, the capi-tal of Takhar province.

Parwina Azimi, a women’s rights ac-tivist in Sar-e-Pul, told AFP by phone that government offi cials and the re-maining forces had retreated to an army barracks about three kilometres from the city.

The Taliban had the compound “surrounded”, said Mohamed Hussein Mujahidzada, a member of the provin-cial council.

Taloqan was the next to go, with res-ident Zabihullah Hamidi telling AFP by phone that he saw security forces and offi cials leave the city in a convoy of vehicles.

“We retreated from the city this af-

ternoon, after the government failed to send help,” a security source told AFP.

“The city is unfortunately fully in Taliban hands.”

Kunduz is the most signifi cant Taliban gain since the insurgents launched an off ensive in May as foreign forces began the fi nal stages of their withdrawal.

It has been a perennial target for the Taliban, who briefl y overran the city in 2015 and again in 2016 but never man-aged to hold it for long.

The ministry of defence said gov-ernment forces were fi ghting to retake key installations.

“The commando forces have launched a clearing operation. Some areas, including the national radio and TV buildings, have been cleared of the terrorist Taliban,” it said.

Spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said later that reinforcements including special forces had been deployed to Sar-e-Pul and Sheberghan.

An army soldier patrols as stranded people wait for the reopening of the border crossing point which was closed by the authorities, in Chaman recently, after the Taliban took control of the border town.

Evacuations, despair as fi resravage Greek island EviaAFPGouves, Greece

Firefi ghters and desperate locals yesterday battled raging wild-fi res on the Greek island of Evia

that have charred vast areas of pine forest and forced hundreds of people to fl ee their homes.

“We have ahead of us another diffi -

cult evening, another diffi cult night,” civil protection deputy minister Nikos Hardalias said.

“On Evia we have two major fi re fronts, one in the north and one in the south,” Hardalias said, adding that strong winds were pushing the north-ern fi re front towards beach villages.

Greece and Turkey have been bat-tling devastating fi res for nearly two weeks as the region suff ered its worst

heatwave in decades, which experts have linked to climate change.

So far, the fi res have killed two peo-ple in Greece and eight in neighbouring Turkey, with dozens more hospitalised.

While rain brought some respite from the blazes in Turkey over the weekend, Greece continues to endure soaring temperatures.

In all, 17 fi refi ghting aircraft — planes and helicopters — were fi ght-ing the fi res on Evia, Greece’s second largest island, Hardalias said.

Evia lies just northeast of the capi-tal Athens. To the southwest is the Peloponnese region where Hardalias said the situation was stable. Fires in a northern suburb of Athens have subsided, he added. “The situation in Attica (which encompasses Athens) is better but we are afraid of the danger of fl are-ups,” Hardalias said.

Late yesterday, a Pezetel fi refi ght-ing aircraft crashed at Zakynthos is-land in western Greece. The pilot is safe and sound, the ANA news agency reported.

The rugged landscape and dense pine forests on Evia that so appeal to tourists are a nightmare for fi refi ght-ers. The inferno has destroyed homes and reduced thousands of hectares of land to ash. Page 11

A local resident uses a megaphone as others observe a large forest fire approaching the village of Pefki on Evia (Euboea) island, Greece’s second largest island, yesterday.

EAA launches projects in Ethiopia and Kenya, supported by Qatar Fund For Development (QFFD).

2 Gulf TimesMonday, August 9, 2021

QATAR

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi met yesterday with the outgoing Tunisian ambassador to Qatar Sami Saidi. HE al-Muraikhi thanked the ambassador for his efforts in supporting and strengthening bilateral relations, and wished him success in his new missions. (QNA)

Al-Muraikhi meets Tunisianand Hungarian ambassadors

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi met yesterday with the outgoing Hungarian ambassador to Qatar Fodor Barnabas. HE al-Muraikhi thanked the ambassador for his eff orts in supporting and strengthening bilateral relations, and wished him success in his new missions. (QNA)

Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad Ramtane Lamamra met yesterday with the outgoing Qatari ambassador in Algiers Hassan bin Ibrahim al-Malki. During the meeting, bilateral relations were reviewed. The Algerian minister thanked the ambassador for his efforts to develop bilateral relations. (QNA)

Algerian FM meets Qatar’s envoy

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi met yesterday with the visiting Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs of Bangladesh, Mohamed Shahriar Alam. During the meeting, bilateral relations were reviewed. (QNA)

Qatar-Bangladesh ties reviewed

QC builds health centre in SomaliaSomalia’s First Lady

Saynab Abdi Moallim lauded the Qatari support

for the Somali people, which are extended to implement devel-opmental projects and alleviate the suff ering of the vulnerable in times of adversities.

This came in a speech Moallim delivered during the inaugural ceremony of the health centre built by Qatar Charity (QC) in the Galmudug State of Somalia, where she expressed her grati-tude for the immediate response of QC to this centre. It is consid-ered to be an integrated hospital for the people in the area, noting the donations of philanthropists in Qatar for implementing de-velopmental projects in several fi elds.

Ali Dahir Eid, Vice President of Galmudug, said QC plays a well-known and appreciated role in supporting the Somali people in various fi elds, espe-cially in the health sector, as the people need support in this sec-tor due to the diffi cult humani-tarian conditions over the past two decades.

Abdiweli Abdullahi Jama, Minister of Health of the Gal-mudug state, indicated that his ministry has been search-ing for a donor over the past few months to deliver health services to more than 38% of the state’s population who lack healthcare facilities.

He emphasised that this cen-tre built by QC will contribute to lessening the burdens on the

Ministry in terms of providing high-quality health services to the residents of Hobyo City and surrounding areas.

He added that this is the third centre constructed by QC in the cities of the state, noting that two centres were already built in the cities of Galkayo and Abud Wak.

Dr Abdullah Abdul-Qader Rafi , a doctor at the centre, ex-plained that this centre would reduce the risks that residents were exposed to due to the ab-sence of a health centre in the city.

He noted that the nearest health centre was about 256km from the city, which exposes patients and pregnant women to dangers due to its proximity,

rugged roads, and lack of facili-ties.

The centre includes a repro-ductive health department, an emergency department, a laboratory, a vaccination room, a feeding room, a pharmacy, in addition to doctors’ rooms and administrative offi ces.

The centre is expected to provide integrated health services, such as first aid for emergency cases, maternal and child care, feeding and vaccination services for chil-dren and pregnant women, health awareness and educa-tion, medicines, and treat-ment. Nearly 20,000 people from the city and its neigh-bouring areas benefit from the services of the centre.

The health centre built by Qatar Charity will contribute in providing high-quality health services to the residents of Hobyo City and surrounding areas in Somalia.

Ooredoo VIP team enjoys culturalexperience at NMoQA delegation of senior rep-

resentatives from Oore-doo visited the National

Museum of Qatar recently to experience Mal Lawal 3, a tempo-rary exhibition celebrating local collectors.

Mal Lawal 3, of which Ooredoo is the Offi cial Sponsor, is a unique platform designed to off er a vital contribution to Qatar’s cultural landscape by preserving and pro-moting its heritage, culture, and traditions.

The delegation of senior Oore-doo representatives attending the museum to experience the exhibition included Sheikh Nass-

er bin Hamad bin Nasser al-Tha-ni, chief commercial offi cer, and several other senior executives.

Mal Lawal 3 sheds light on the collecting community around Qatar, bringing local collectors together to network, collaborate, showcase their collectibles and engage in thought-provoking discussion and debate.

Reinterpreted to fi t a museum setting, the platform serves as a launchpad for the art of collect-ing – addressing how to become a collector, what objects should be collected, and how they should be preserved and/or displayed.

Sheikh Nasser said: “We were

delighted to visit Mal Lawal 3 and experience fi rst-hand the contri-bution Ooredoo is making to the Qatari cultural scene as part of our corporate social responsibil-ity strategy.

“Qatari culture and heritage is rich, varied, and fascinating, and we take pride in supporting Qatar Museums in this initiative that both preserves our culture and heritage for future genera-tions and showcases them for all to enjoy.”

Collectibles are now on display to the public at the National Mu-seum of Qatar until September 15, 2021.

Members of the VIP delegation during the tour.

QU faculty gets new patent to remove carbon monoxide from car exhaust

Prof Siham Yousuf A Alqaradawi, a professor of Organic Chemistry at Qatar University’s (QU) Col-

lege of Arts and Sciences has got a new patent on how to remove toxic carbon monoxide emitted through car exhaust by its catalytic conversion into less toxic carbon dioxide.

“The catalyst reported herein may have potential application as a com-ponent of the three-way catalytic con-verters,” she has explained in a state-ment from QU. Indirect application may include purifi cation of hydrogen gas in the methane reforming process for fuel cells systems or removal of CO poisoning in carbon dioxide laser sys-tems.

The tailored CuO/TiO2 NT (cupric oxide/titanium dioxide nanotubes)

composition constitutes an active and stable catalyst to convert the highly toxic carbon monoxide in exhaust or fl ue gas to less toxic carbon dioxide without the need to utilise the high cost precious metals such as platinum, gold or palladium that are well-known for their superior catalytic activity.

“Our catalyst provides comparable activity and higher stability compared to plasmonic metals-based catalysts and suff ers much less from the ther-mally-induced sintering, typically observed for gold or platinum-based conversion catalysts,” Prof Alqaradawi said.

“Our catalysts can be produced at large scale in a scalable fashion through environmentally and economically-friendly approach,” she added. Prof Siham Yousuf A Alqaradawi

Qatar Youth Hostels launches ‘GoogleLocal Guide’

Qatar Youth Hostels has been interactive with youth groups during the coronavirus pandemic through a variety of activities to support the domestic tourism and promote youth skills, in light of the limited events and options.In this context, Qatar Youth Hostels launched the “Google Local Guide” programme under the auspices of some private companies.The programme for the age group of 16 years and above highlights the importance of tourism digital content, to expand the circle of participants and raise the level of participation, making it an integrated and suitable option for local and international tourists and for visitors to Qatar to attend events and visit tourist sites.It is one of Google’s recent programmes that enables people to add content on the Google Maps, allowing them to write reviews, share photos, answer questions, add or edit places which is an important tool because there are known places that do not appear on the map. (QNA)

QATARGulf Times Monday, August 9, 20214

Recall of Infi niti and

Nissan Patrol models

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), in co-operation with Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Com-pany, has issued recalls of the Infi niti QX80 and

Nissan Patrol 2020, due to a possible defect in the fuel pump which could potentially stop the engine.

The recall campaign comes within the framework of the MoCI’s continuous eff orts to protect consumers and en-sure that dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.

The MoCI said it will co-ordinate with the dealer to fol-low up on the maintenance and repair works.

The MoCI urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department, which processes complaints, inquires and suggestions through the following channels:

Call centre: 16001, e-mail: info@moci.gov.qa, Twitter: @MOCIQATAR, Instagram: MOCIQATAR, MoCI mobile app for android and iOS: MOCIQATAR.

Leading healthcare offi cials have cau-tioned Qatar residents about the Delta variant of the coronavirus (Covid-19)

and urged those who are not yet vaccinated to get it done at the earliest.

In a video message shared on the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) social media chan-nels, Dr Yousef al-Maslamani, medical di-rector of Hamad General Hospital, reiterated that the Delta variant is now in Qatar, like most countries around the world.

“This variant is very contagious and spreads fast. We have vaccines which are very safe and highly eff ective against such variants,” he warned. “Therefore, it is more important than ever to get vaccinated. Your support is important, and it makes us all safe if everyone gets vaccinated at the earliest.”

Dr Jameela al-Ajmi, executive director of Corporate Infection Control and Prevention at Hamad Medical Corporation, has high-lighted the importance of continuing to fol-low Covid-19 precautionary measures.

“Though several Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted gradually in the country, we must not be complacent against the virus,” she said. “Everyone should follow all the Covid protocols, as Covid-19 is still a threat to our life and prevalent across the world.”

“I urge everyone to adhere to the precau-tionary measures against the pandemic,” she added.

Meanwhile, the MoPH has reported 148 new confi rmed cases of the coronavirus (Covid-19) among the community and 69 among travellers, according to QNA.

The MoPH recorded 135 recoveries from the virus during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases recovered to 224,838.

As per National Covid-19 Vaccination Pro-gramme Data:

3,951,518 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered since the start of the pro-gramme. 9,247 Covid-19 vaccine doses have been

administered in the past 24 hours. 88.5% of the eligible population has now

received at least one dose of the vaccine. 98.6% of those aged over 60 (the most

vulnerable population group) have been vac-cinated with at least one dose, while 93.9% have received both doses.

In recent weeks the combined impact of Covid-19 restrictions and increasing vacci-nation rates, and the overwhelming support of the community, has resulted in a consistent reduction in the number of new daily infec-tions in the country.

However, it is still important to be cautious as the second wave is not yet over and there are still two highly contagious and highly virulent strains of the virus that are actively circulating in the community.

The third phase of the gradual lifting of precautionary restrictions began on July 9, and is part of a four-stage plan to be imple-mented over the coming months.

One may visit the MoPH website for regu-lar updates and new information on the Cov-id-19 situation.

Offi cials caution against Delta Covid variant, urge people to get vaccinatedMoPH reports total Covid recoveries increase to 224,838

Dr Yousef al-Maslamani Dr Jameela al-Ajmi

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) has announced the launch of a new service to separate supply cards from fod-

der disbursement cards, through the supply serv-ices platform on its website.

This initiative is part of the ministry’s eff orts to develop its electronic services and procedures, as well as facilitate the services being provided to citizens.

Hence it has separated the ration supply service for citizens, and that of disbursing fodder to car-riers of a certifi cate of livestock possession, issued by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), given their diff erent purposes and dis-bursement sites.

The new service allows citizens to issue a fod-der card, without aff ecting the rations available in the supply card, a MoCI statement explained yesterday.

To benefi t from the new service, citizens can

apply by submitting the request form through the ministry’s website, or by visiting the offi ces of the Department of Supply and Strategic Inventory, which are located in Lusail, Al Khor, Al Shamal, Al Sheehaniya, Umm Slal, and in the Industrial Area.

As per the MoCI, it is also possible to apply to obtain a Fodder Disbursement Card by attaching a certifi cate of livestock possession, issued by the Livestock Department at the MME.

The MoCI recently announced that new servic-es have been added to the electronic supply serv-ices programme.

The new package of e-services includes the distributor supply programme, Smart Card Read-er System application, distributor licence renew-al, and distributor information update.

This step comes as a continuation of the serv-ices previously launched, bringing to 24 the total number of electronic supply services provided by the MoCI.

MoCI introduces new service for supply cards on online platform

Toro Toro Doha, located at the Marsa Malaz Kempinski, is launching tomorrow its fi rst special “Taco Tuesday”, from 6pm-11pm.

Toro Toro Doha operations manager Raimun-do Frazão and the new head chef Arturo Mendez (pictured on the right) will follow the popular much-loved Taco Tuesday trend, ensuring guests would be able to enjoy Toro Toro’s signatures for a special price in an exceptional ambiance.

Chef Arturo has over 13 years’ experience in the gastronomic scene, especially in Mexican, Peru-vian, and Japanese cuisine.

The Taco Tuesday menu is very diversifi ed.Varying between QR25 to QR35 per taco dish,

guests can choose from the Taco Nikkei, which is the spicy tuna tataki, or the Short Rib Taco, to the Peruvian Taco, which includes thinly-sliced sea bass and the Picanha taco for the meat lovers.

Guests can mix and match between six diff erent taco dishes, of diff erent fl avours and styles or opt for a combination plate for QR180.

For an additional QR25 guests can enjoy a re-

freshing shaken traditional Latin American clas-sics with plenty of fresh lime, strawberry or even passion fruit.

Toro Toro Doha, which overlooks the Arabian Gulf, also off ers scenic views, a statement added.

Taco Tuesday launched at Toro Toro Doha

A combination plate of taco dishes at Toro Toro Doha.

88 referred to prosecution for violations of Covid protocols

The designated authorities referred 88 people to the prosecution for non-compliance with the preventative and precautionary measures in place in the country to limit the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19).Among them, 77 people were referred to the prosecution for not wearing masks in places where they are mandatory, and 11 for not adhering to safe distance.The measures are in line with the Cabinet decision and Decree Law No 17 of 1990 on infectious diseases, and the precautionary measures in force in the country to contain the spread of Covid-19.The authorities called on the public to adhere to the precautionary measures in place to ensure their safety and the safety of others. – QNA

QATAR5Gulf Times

Monday, August 9, 2021

Alwadi Hotel MGallery’s Souq Suite delivers ultimate hotel experienceBlending Qatari hospitality with high-end luxury, Alwadi Hotel MGallery’s Souq Suite is described as the perfect place to escape the heat this summer.With soaring views of Doha’s iconic skyline as well as the cultural heart of the city, Souq Waqif, the 71sqm Souq Suite is the ultimate private hideaway for you and your family, a statement said yesterday.The Souq Suite comes with a separate living area and can be interconnected to other rooms, which makes it ideal for families, as well as a lavishly appointed bathroom, and king-size MyBed will guarantee cocoon-like comfort and peaceful night’s sleep.Within the suite, traditional Qatari and Arabic-inspired features can be seen everywhere, including the inspired décor that takes inspiration from the desert sand and dunes colour schemes and the plush yet understated furnishings.Rounding out the luxurious experience, the hotel has four popular restaurants and lounges on-site, a rooftop pool area, and their award-winning, luxurious MSpa. Alwadi Hotel MGallery general manager Hani Akkari said the Souq Suite elevates a guest’s stay to “another level.” “The Souq Suite is perfect for a staycation or guests visiting Doha – it off ers the best of both worlds in terms of luxury and proximity to one of the most vibrant and exciting parts of Doha,” Akkari said. “All of the Souq Suites have terraces that overlook Souq Waqif, which comes alive each night so you can feel immersed in the culture and history of the area – you can almost smell the spices from the Spice Souq on your private terrace! Double reward points are an attraction on stays and dining experience at Alwadi Hotel Doha MGallery Hotel Collection before September 15, 2021,” the statement added.

beIN launches off ers packed with sports, entertainmentGlobal sports and entertainment

broadcaster, beIN Media Group, has launched off ers to celebrate the start

of a new season of sports, coupled with new entertainment content for the entire family.

The various promotions provide pro-spective and existing subscribers across all 24 countries in Mena a chance to enjoy up to four months of free subscription, or a free box and free delivery for new subscriptions.

The group’s fl agship channel, beIN Sports will exclusively broadcast sports tourna-ments this summer and beyond, including the European Leagues - Ligue 1 (August 8 until May 21), Premier League (August 13 until May 22), La Liga (August 15 until May 22) and the UEFA Champions League (Sep-tember 14 until May 28).

The channel will also be broadcasting the US Open tennis (August 30 until Septem-ber 12), the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations at the start of 2022, and the FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar (November 21 until December 18, 2022).

The group’s entertainment channels promise viewers the best in movies, series, kids’ content and more through its beIN Movies, beIN Series, beIN Drama, JeemTV, Baraem, and beJunior channels amongst others.

The movies include family-friendly movie Space Jam: A New Legacy, featuring NBA star LeBron James, action thriller and beIN Media Group’s Miramax hit Wrath of Man, featuring actor Jason Statham, and Angelina Jolie’s Those Who Wish Me Dead.

America’s Got Talent Season 16 on beIN Series 1, Homestead Rescue Raney Ranch

(on Discovery), and The Walking Dead Sea-son 11 on Fox are among the other high-lights.

“We hope our viewers in Mena continue to enjoy our world-class content through-out the remainder of the summer season and beyond”, beIN Mena acting CEO Mo-hamed al-Subaie said in a statement.

Science India Forum - Qatar (SIFQ) is organising a virtual event on August 12 to mark the occasion of the birth anniversary of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme under the theme of ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, to commemorate 75 years of independence of India. Dr Essam Heggy, chief scientist, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute and the research director, Earth Science Programme will present a paper on space programmes in Arab Regions.Angeline Premalatha, counsellor (political & commerce), embassy of India, will be the chief guest. Sudheer Kumar, director Capacity Building Programme Off ice, Indian Space Research Organisation

headquarters, will talk on India’s space mission and facilities. Guest of honour, Jayant Sahasrabuddhe, will speak on Sarabhai’s contribution to the space programme.Professionals, researchers, principals, teachers, students and parents can participate in the event from 6.30pm-8pm on SIFQ YouTube channel. For students, there will be an online quiz and certificates will be awarded.SIFQ has also announced a Qatar Children Science Congress (QCSC), a unique hands-on activity where students get an opportunity to apply their knowledge of science to address the real-life impediments to community development. This is based on the guidelines of

National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC) held in India annually by the National Council of Science and Technology Communication. Participating students carry out a science project under a guide, based on the NCSC’s theme and validated by established scientific methodologies. SIFQ will endorse top two projects from Qatar and qualifiers get direct participation for NCSC in India. For the benefit of participating students, an online orientation programme is organised on August13 from 4pm-5.30pm by Dr Lalit Sharma, chairman of the National Academic Committee, NCSC, India. Applications for QCSC are open on www.sifq.org for students aged 10-17.

SIFQ to honour space scientist, hold Qatar Children Science Congress

6 Gulf TimesMonday, August 9, 2021

WORLD

Qatar-based fi rm sues two Trump backers for orchestrating anti-Qatar campaignPRNewswireLos Angeles

A lawsuit has been fi led by Mosaf-er, Inc., in the United States District Court in Los Ange-

les against Elliott Broidy and George Nader for “illegally orchestrating and executing a sophisticated — and se-cret — assault against Qatar and Qa-tari businesses on behalf of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).”

According to the lawsuit, this as-sault, which included a widespread disinformation campaign that targeted Qatar and Qatari-American business-es, was “in violation of numerous re-porting and labeling obligations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), 22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq., and other federal and state laws.”

Mosafer, Inc. is a destination man-agement company for foreign tourists from Asia, the European Union, the US, and the Middle East and North Africa (“MENA”) region. Prior to 2015, Mosafer was a recognised global brand synonymous with luxury. The Mosafer brand had a presence in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jor-dan, Turkey, and South Africa. It has long been one of Qatar’s leading tour-ism companies and recognised as the market leader on innovation.

Broidy was the former fi nance chair-man of the Republican National Com-mittee (RNC), vice chairman of the Trump Victory Committee, and top fund-raiser for Donald Trump. Nad-er was the former adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential transition team. Broidy pleaded guilty in 2020 to con-spiring to violate foreign lobbying laws as part of a covert campaign to infl u-

ence the Trump administration on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian inter-ests. He was later pardoned by Presi-dent Trump. Nader is currently, serv-ing a 10-year sentence in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release.

The lawsuit states, “As confi rmed by prosecutors, Broidy’s unregistered foreign lobbying eff orts extended far beyond those that he pled guilty to. In March and April 2018, hundreds of pages of documents, which included emails, business proposals and con-tracts between Broidy and Nader were provided to various news sources, such as to the New York Times and the As-sociated Press (AP). Upon information and belief, these documents show that Broidy and Nader acted as unregis-tered agents of the UAE in violation of FARA.”

“In exchange for hundreds of mil-lions of dollars, the lawsuit states, “Broidy and Nader yielded their tre-mendous political infl uence to lobby United States government offi cials to take anti-Qatari positions. Broidy and Nader’s eff orts did not stop at mere lobbying, however…Broidy and Nader’s eff orts went far beyond lob-bying the White House on behalf of the UAE….Instead, they spearheaded a widespread disinformation campaign (the “Disinformation Conspiracy”) which targeted Qatar and Qatari-American businesses — with the goal of infl icting catastrophic fi nancial loss — using tactics remarkably similar to those employed by the Russians during the 2016 Presidential Election inter-ference.”

“… They hired American companies (including Broidy’s BCM and Circinus) and American actors to use conven-tional print media and social media to

disseminate disinformation aimed at crippling Qatar businesses, including Qatar’s then-thriving tourism busi-nesses — and, principally, Mosafer. In essence, Defendants engaged in infor-mation warfare, intentionally deceiv-ing the media and consumers through the use of Internet trolls, fake websites and infl uencers to manipulate the US public into falsely thinking Qatari businesses were sponsors of terrorist groups, thereby rendering it impos-sible for Qatari businesses, including Mosafer, to maintain a customer base.

“Through the Disinformation Con-spiracy, Broidy and Nader conspired to represent to the public that: (1) Qatar and Qatari businesses were unstable and untrustworthy; (2) the political state of Qatar was extremely unstable, rendering travel to and through Qatar unsafe; and (3) boycotting Qatar busi-nesses was necessary to counteract their terrorism funding activities.

“…As part of the Disinformation Conspiracy, on September 21, 2017, upon information and belief, Broidy orchestrated – through proxies – a full page advertisement run in the Washington Post. This advertise-ment, which used the same burgundy color found in both Qatar’s fl ag and Mosafer’s branding, stated in big bold letters “QATAR IS A SAFE HAVEN FOR TERRORISTS.” The advertise-ment went on to claim that: “It is a well-known fact that Qatar has be-come a favored safe-haven for terror-ists from around the world. Over 60 terrorist organizations, individuals or NGOs . . . are currently either based out of or supported by the govern-ment of Qatar.” This advertisement was intentionally false and misleading — Qatar did not support terrorists or

provide them with safe-haven.”“…As a direct result of the Disin-

formation Conspiracy, the Mosafer entities — which were branded to be synonymous with Qatar, and included an integrated network of retail, e-com-merce, distribution, and travel compa-nies — lost existing and prospective customers, including many in Califor-nia. Revenue declined precipitously — by hundreds of millions of dollars on a global scale, at least 20% of which is attributed to Mosafer’s US entities.”

The lawsuit goes on, “To execute their Disinformation Conspiracy with these intended catastrophic eff ects, Broidy and Nader enlisted Broidy’s two companies, Broidy Capital Manage-ment, LLC (“BCM”) and Circinus, LLC (“Circinus”) — as well as a network of contractors and mercenaries: The Iron Group Inc., doing business as Ironistic.com, (“Ironistic”), SCL Social Lim-ited (“SCL”), Project Associates UK Ltd (“Project Associates”), Matthew Atkinson (“Atkinson”), and numerous others contractors, including a public aff airs, advocacy, and strategic advi-sory groups (including, for example, Bullpen Strategy Group, Inc. doing business as, and formerly known as, Defi ners Corp. (“Defi ners”)), as well as John Does 1-100 (collectively, “De-fendants”).

“Hidden behind aliases, companies, contractors, mercenaries, and agents — and in violation of numerous reporting and labeling obligations under the For-eign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), 22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq., and other fed-eral and state laws — Broidy and Nader orchestrated and implemented a vast, sophisticated campaign against Qatar and Qatari-based businesses.

“The goal of the Disinformation

Conspiracy was simple — drive gov-ernmental and private actors away from doing business with Qatar and Qatari-related businesses in an ef-fort to cripple the Qatari economy and usurp its business and political oppor-tunities for the UAE and UAE-related businesses. To do so, their campaign employed conventional print media, internet websites, and social media ac-counts to publish false and misleading information regarding the safety, sta-bility and nature of Qatar and Qatari-based businesses. Using these me-diums, Defendants, along with their co-conspirators, created an ecosystem that funneled American consumers into a vortex designed to drive them away from Qatar and any business that was affi liated with it. The goal was to strangle and starve these businesses of consumers, so that in the end, they would crumble.

“To accomplish this goal, Defend-ants ensured that, at each step on the path toward consuming information about Mosafer entities and like busi-nesses, the individual seeking informa-tion would be steered directly out the door. Defendants implemented a series of steps to achieve this eff ect.

“First, Defendants directly, aggres-sively and illegally lobbied members of the United States Government to sever all ties with anything Qatar and eff ec-tively boycott its economy.

“Second, Defendants paid infl uenc-ers to create conferences to further en-grain falsehoods among infl uential US consumers. At the same time, Defend-ants directed infl uencers take to print media to toe the false narrative they had created in order to ensure that Califor-nia residents and other consumers were again, misinformed.

“And, third, Defendants relied on a vast internet network that utilized con-cocted maligning “hashtags” to ensure that, when a consumer in California, for example, decided to search the in-ternet for information about Plaintiff s and like businesses, merely includ-ing the word “Qatar” in a search bul-lion would fast track that searcher into universe of fake news websites, Twitter accounts, YouTube accounts, and other social-media planted information — all of which were creatures of manipula-tion.

“Through these coordinated means, Defendants’ Disinformation Conspira-cy achieved an extraordinary degree of success — creating, at the behest of the UAE, a toxic ecosystem of pervasive, infl ammatory, false and misleading information about Qatar and Qatari-based businesses and in turn ensuring that this information was widely dis-seminated in conventional print and broadcast media, internet websites, and social media.

“As a direct and intended conse-quence of this unlawful campaign, devised and executed by Defendants Broidy and Nader on behalf of their cli-ent UAE, innocent Qatari-related busi-nesses — including Plaintiff s Mosafer entities — suff ered catastrophic loss. Through this lawsuit, the Mosafer en-tities seek to hold Defendants account-able for their anticompetitive, decep-tive, unfair, and unlawful conduct and to permanently enjoin them from con-tinuing to perpetrate this conduct.”

Also named in the suit are Capital Management LLC, Circinus LLC, The Iron Group, Inc., Ironistic.com, SCL Social Limited, Project Associates UK Ltd., Matthew Atkinson and John Does 1-100.

Saudi to reopen borders for vaccinated Umrah pilgrimsAFPRiyadh

Saudi Arabia will begin ac-cepting vaccinated for-eigners wanting to make

the Umrah pilgrimage, authori-ties said yesterday, a move that will boost an economy hit by the Covid pandemic.

Nearly 18 months after it closed its borders to battle coronavirus, Saudi Arabia will from today begin “gradually receiving umrah requests from various countries”, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The Umrah can be under-taken at any time and usually draws millions from around the globe, unlike the annual Haj, which abled-bodied Muslims who have the means must per-form at least once in their life-time.

The Covid-19 pandemic hugely disrupted both Muslim pilgrimages, which are usu-ally key revenue earners for the kingdom that rake in a com-bined $12bn annually.

Before yesterday’s an-nouncement, only immu-nised pilgrims residing in Saudi Arabia were eligible for

Umrah permits.And last month only around

60,000 inoculated residents were allowed to take part in a scaled down form of the annual Haj.

But the kingdom is slowly opening up, and has started welcoming vaccinated foreign tourists since August 1.

Foreign pilgrims must be im-munised with a Saudi-recog-nised vaccine — Pfi zer-BioN-Tech, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — and agree to undergo quarantine if necessary, the SPA said quoting deputy Haj minister Abdulfat-tah bin Sulaiman Mashat.

He added that the kingdom was working on determining the destinations from which pilgrims can come and their numbers on a “periodic basis according to the classifi cation of preventive measures” in those countries.

“I feel relieved about the resumption of the Umrah pil-grimage,” Ahmed Hamadna, 33, a sales manager in Egypt, told AFP.

According to the SPA report, Saudi Arabia will allow 60,000 pilgrims to perform Umrah each month, and gradually in-

crease that to reach two million worshippers per month.

Riyadh has spent billions trying to build a tourism indus-try from scratch, as part of ef-forts to diversify its oil-reliant economy.

The kingdom began issuing tourist visas for the fi rst time in 2019 as part of an ambitious push to revamp its global image and draw visitors.

Between September 2019 and March 2020, it issued 400,000 of them — only for the pandemic to crush that momentum as borders were closed.

The government has acceler-ated a nationwide vaccination drive as it moves to revive tour-ism and other pandemic-hit sectors, such as sport compe-titions and entertainment ex-travaganzas.

Vaccination is mandatory for anyone seeking to enter government and private estab-lishments, including education institutions and entertainment venues, as well as to use public transport.

Saudi Arabia has registered nearly 532,000 coronavirus cases and more than 8,300 deaths.

Tunisian president’s feud with party elites drove him to seize powerAs he was driven to an urgently scheduled national security meeting with the president, Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi was unable to reach the phones of senior off icers to discuss the coming conversation.Only when he arrived at the presidential palace in Carthage did Mechichi learn the truth: President Kais Saied was invoking emergency powers to dismiss him, freeze parliament and claim executive authority. The off icers he had tried to reach were already there.His moves, labelled a coup by opponents, have left Tunisians and foreign states wondering about the future of the country whose 2011 revolution inspired the Arab Spring and then followed a democratic path unmatched by its peers.“This is the first time in a long time that I don’t see things moving in a positive direction,” said Safwan al-Misri of Columbia University and the author of a book on Tunisia.Interviews with Tunisian off icials and others close to major players in the crisis show how feuding over the political system culminated in Saied’s intervention.The crisis was set in train by a 2019 election in which voters rejected the establishment by choosing Saied, an anti-corruption independent, and returning a deeply fragmented parliament.Saied feuded with Mechichi and Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi. As their quarrel encompassed control of the security forces — the moment, one political source said, that the president realised he had to act.“Saied was sure the army would stand with him,” said a source close to the president.Saied has provided no clear roadmap but he is widely expected to enshrine a presidential system in a new constitution, ending years of tussling between rival branches of state. However, except for taking over security institutions and other key ministries, Saied did not appear well prepared, said political scientist Mohammed Dhia-Hammami.

“He is a strongman in a weak position,” he said.As the 2019 election approached after years of economic stagnation, established players such as Ghannouchi’s moderate Islamist Ennahda party were unpopular. The unstable government that finally emerged from it collapsed within months and Saied nominated Mechichi as premier. They quickly fell out over Mechichi’s choice of coalition partners.“The president told us he hated treachery. And treachery had come from those closest to him,” a senior politician close to Saied said.Mechichi did not respond to eff orts by Reuters to contact him by phone and text message. In January, after a dispute over a reshuff le, Mechichi said he would serve as interior minister — putting himself at the centre of the security apparatus. It meant reconciliation with the president was impossible, two sources close to Saied said, and the pair did not meet for two months.In April, Saied said Interior Ministry forces belonged under his authority. Mechichi responded by appointing an Ennahda ally to head intelligence. At a meeting with two political parties, Saied said it showed “Mechichi was there only to serve the interests of his allies”, one of those present said.“It seems that Saied then decided to remove Mechichi and bring down his

government,” the source said.Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic was worsening and the government response faltered. Both Mechichi and Ghannouchi, who is 80, fell sick.On Sunday July 25, Ghannouchi’s first day at work after two weeks of illness, protests in several cities involved attacks on Ennahda off ices — violence Saied later cited in declaring emergency powers.The president called Ghannouchi at about 5pm, a source close to the Ennahda leader said. The constitution required consultation with the parliament speaker and prime minister. Saied said he did this. But Ennahda sources said he merely told Ghannouchi he would roll over a state of emergency in place since 2015.Mechichi was at his off ice. He had met Saied the previous day to discuss the pandemic and was surprised to receive a call at 7pm summoning him to the palace. “He went off in a hurry without knowing any details,” said an aide.Told he had been dismissed, Mechichi could only accept, the source close to him said, and after the announcement he was driven home by a security detail.Saied’s announcement surprised Ghannouchi too. Reached by Reuters shortly afterwards, he denounced it as a coup.Ghannouchi had already spoken with Mechichi about the protests. After Saied’s declaration, he tried to call him again but could not reach him until 11pm.He asked Mechichi if he still regarded himself as prime minister and asked him to publicly reject Saied’s moves, but the ousted premier gave no clear response, an Ennahda source said.Already, the streets were filling with the president’s supporters, jubilant that he seemed to be cracking down on systemic disarray and stagnation.Over the next hours, Saied assigned an ally to supervise the interior ministry while the army surrounded the Tunis parliament, television station and the Government Off ice.Saied had outmanoeuvred his opponents.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: President Kais Saied.

A man takes pictures of shrimps at a fish market in Kuwait City during auction as auctioning resumes in the country after six months of closure amid the coronavirus pandemic. (AFP)

Business as usual, againSaudi begins compensating families of Covid-19 health worker victimsAFPRiyadh

Saudi Arabia has begun compensating the families of health workers who died because of the coronavirus, state media reported yesterday, after announcing

last year that each will receive $133,000.The kingdom said in October it would distribute

“SR500,000 to the families of those who died as a result of Covid-19 working in the health sectors, be it government or private, civilian or military, Saudi or non-Saudi”.

The country said the decision applies from “the date of the fi rst recorded infection” in the country on March 2,

2020. The offi cial Saudi Press Agency announced the start of the distribution of funds to the families of those who have died as a result of the pandemic.

They “gave their lives in the fi ght against the pandemic to preserve the health and safety of citizens and residents in the kingdom”, SPA said.

It is unclear how many health workers have died because of Covid-19 in Saudi Arabia, where thousands of foreign-ers are employed as medical staff .

More than 29mn does of vaccine have been adminis-tered in the country of 35mn people, the health ministry announced on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia has registered nearly 533,000 coronavirus cases and more than 8,300 deaths.

Tunisia yesterday launched a Covid-19 vaccination drive for the over-40s, after receiving more than six million doses from abroad to combat surging infections. More than 300 centres across the country held an “open day” for vaccinations, drawing large crowds, AFP correspondents said.Tunisia, in the thick of political and economic crises, has received more than six million doses from Western and Arab countries, and the same number of additional vaccines are on the way, President Kais Saied said on Thursday.Saied, who last month dismissed the government — in part due to its alleged bungling of the Covid crisis — and suspended parliament, has announced the establishment of a coronavirus crisis unit supervised by a high-level military off icial. Tunisian authorities now aim to have vaccinated 50% of the country’s 12-million population with a first jab by mid-October.

Tunisia’s vaccine ‘open day’against Delta-driven spike

Australia’seast coaststruggles with Delta outbreaksReutersMelbourne

Australia’s three most populous states of New South Wales, Victoria

and Queensland reported a total of 282 Covid-19 new locally ac-quired infections yesterday, with authorities struggling to quell outbreaks of the Delta variant.

NSW reported 262 fresh cases, down from the pandemic high of 319 seen on Saturday, with more than 5mn people in Sydney re-gions along the coastline under a lockdown for six weeks already.

“I urge everybody to please stick to the rules, the health ad-vice, and only leave home if you absolutely have to,” NSW Pre-mier Gladys Berejiklian said.

One woman in her 80s has died overnight bringing the total number of deaths in the current outbreak to 28.

There are 362 people in hospi-tal in NSW, with 58 in intensive care.

Of the people in intensive care, 54 were unvaccinated.

Neighbouring Victoria re-ported 11 new locally acquired coronavirus cases, as the state remains under a seven-day strict lockdown imposed earlier this week. Queensland recorded nine new local cases.

With the highly transmissi-ble Delta variant plaguing Aus-tralia’s east coast, states have applied the “go hard, go early” snap lockdown approach, sug-gested by the federal government last week until at least 70% of the population gets vaccinated.

Only about a fi fth of peo-ple aged over 16 have been fully vaccinated so far, mainly due to scarce supply of Pfi zer shots and public unease about the Astra-Zeneca vaccine.

The government yesterday said the Moderna vaccine will be available in Australia from mid-September adding to the country’s use of AstraZeneca and Pfi zer.

The announcement came as the Victorian government re-vealed it would make AstraZene-

ca available to people aged 18-39 at nine of its state-run clinics and set up Australia’s fi rst drive-through vaccination hub.

The federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, told the ABC the gov-ernment’s “expectation” was the fi rst million doses of the Moder-na vaccine would be available in the middle of September, assum-ing approval from the Therapeu-tic Goods Administration.

The number of all vaccine dos-es available in Australia is sched-uled to peak in November, with almost 19mn doses on off er that month, comprising 10mn Pfi zer, 5mn AstraZeneca and 4mn Mod-erna, an updated campaign plan states.

Australia’s chief medical of-fi cer, Prof Paul Kelly, said Mod-erna had been approved around the world and was essentially an mRNA vaccine similar to Pfi zer. Approval here was just “a matter of time”, he said yesterday.

Hunt said TGA approval of Sotrovimab – a treatment used for some Covid patients – was also expected in the next fort-night.

The federal government has bought 7,700 doses of the anti-body treatment.

Kelly said the treatment would be administered predominantly to Covid patients who were not vaccinated.

“It will be mostly for people who are at highest risk of severe disease, and it needs to be given early in the treatment course,” he said.“So it will be very useful in certain circumstances, but it’s not for everyone.”

Hunt also confi rmed yesterday that the Morrison government would allocate an additional $17.7mn in mental health support for people battling through pro-tracted lockdowns.

The health minister encour-aged Australians to remain hope-ful and to seek help if they were fi nding conditions diffi cult.

In Melbourne, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, con-fi rmed another 11 cases in the state with all of the new infec-tions linked to the Hobsons Bay cluster.

Alibaba suspends several staff after assault claimsReutersShanghai

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding yesterday said it has sus-

pended several staff following an employee’s allegations on the company’s intranet that she was sexually assaulted by her boss and a client.

The woman’s account, pub-lished via an eleven-page PDF that went on to circulate widely online, prompted a social media storm on China’s Twitter-like microblogging website Weibo.

Police in the city of Jinan said yesterday morning that they

were investigating the incident.“Alibaba Group has a zero-

tolerance policy against sexual misconduct, and ensuring a safe workplace for all our employ-ees is Alibaba’s top priority,” a spokesperson said in a state-ment.

“We have suspended relevant parties suspected of violating our policies and values, and have established a special internal task force to investigate the issue and support the ongoing police investigation.”

Late on Saturday, a female Al-ibaba staff er’s account of an in-cident she said took place while on a business trip went viral on Chinese social media, with re-

sponses to her account fi guring among the top-trending items on Weibo as yesterday morning.

The woman, who did not re-veal her identity, alleged that her boss coerced her into going on a business trip with him to meet one of her team’s clients in the city of Jinan, about 900kms from Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou.

According to the woman, on the evening of July 27, the client assaulted her.

After consuming alcohol, she woke up in a hotel room the fol-lowing day and no memory of what happened the evening be-fore.

CCTV footage she obtained

from the hotel showed that her boss entered the room four times over the course of the evening, she added.

Upon returning to Hangzhou, she said she reported the inci-dent to human resources and upper management on August 2, asking her boss be fi red and for time off .

While human resources ini-tially agreed, ultimately they did not follow through, she said.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang responded to the uproar late on Saturday on the company’s in-ternal message board, according to a person who saw the post, though the company did not offi cially disclose the material

posted on its intranet.“It is not just human resourc-

es who should apologise. The related business department managers also hold responsibili-ty and should apologise for their silence and failure to respond in a timely manner,” Zhang wrote.

“Starting from me, start-ing from management, starting from human resources, every-one at Alibaba must empathise, refl ect, and take action.”

Alibaba announced on its in-tranet that the woman’s super-visor, her contact at human re-sources, and direct management of those individuals had been placed on suspension, according to the person who saw the posts.

Myanmar protesters mark1988 uprising anniversaryAFPYangon

Myanmar protesters yes-terday marked the an-niversary of a 1988 pro-

democracy uprising that brought Aung San Suu Kyi to prominence, with fl ash mobs and marches of defi ance against the ruling junta.

The country has been in tur-moil since the military coup in February - more than 900 peo-ple have been killed and thou-sands arrested in the subsequent crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

But protesters remain un-deterred, taking to the streets daily in lightning-quick rallies to demand the end to the State Administration Council - as the junta’s so-called “caretaker” government has dubbed itself.

Flash mobs yesterday popped up across Yangon and second city Mandalay to commemorate the 1988 uprising — a massive

pro-democracy movement that the military violently quelled by opening fi re on protesters and jailing thousands.

Following the calls of an online campaign, red-clad protesters yesterday fl ashed an eight-fi nger salute and carried banners that read: “Let’s return the old blood debt of 1988 in 2021.”

“In 1988, our country sac-rifi ced a lot - many people lost their lives. But the dictatorship is still alive,” said Ko Sai Win, who joined a morning protest in Man-dalay.

“It is like a black shadow on our country.”

The 1988 uprising heralded the rise of Suu Kyi, who had returned to Myanmar just before protests kicked off to care for her ailing mother.

Thanks to her stature as the daughter of General Aung San, who fought for independence against the British, and her rous-ing speeches, Suu Kyi emerged as a pro-democracy icon, later

receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.A shadow “National Unity

Government” — formed largely of MPs from her ousted party — vowed in a statement yesterday to continue the fi ght for democ-racy.

British ambassador to Myan-mar Peter Vowles also expressed support for the anti-junta move-ment.

“The UK stood by the people of Myanmar in 1988 and we stand by them today in 2021,” he said in a video posted on the British em-bassy’s offi cial Twitter account.

The 1988 uprising was argu-ably the most signifi cant chal-lenge to junta rule at the time.

Security measures were stepped up for the anniversary, said a statement from the junta’s information team yesterday.

Authorities said they arrested two men and seized a cache of weapons in Mandalay, which in-cluded scores of guns, more than 10,000 bullets and more than 160 bombs and grenades.

Kim calls for relief work in fl ood-hit areas

Firefighters work to douse a fire at a Nebico Biscuit Factory inside Balaju Industrial area in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Factory blaze

ReutersSeoul

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has mobilised the military to carry out relief

work in areas recently hit by heavy rains, state media said yesterday, amid concerns over an economic crisis and food shortage.

The ruling Worker’s Party’s Central Military Commission held a meeting of its chapter in the eastern province of South Hamgyong to discuss damage and recovery from the down-pour, the offi cial KCNA news agency said. An early monsoon season arrived on the Korean pe-ninsula last month, with torren-tial rains also infl icting damage in some southern regions.

North Korean state TV re-leased footage this week show-ing submerged houses and de-stroyed bridges and railroads in Hamgyong, saying some 1,170 homes were devastated and 5,000 people evacuated.

Kim did not attend the meet-

ing but party offi cials conveyed his message that the military should kick off a relief campaign and provide necessary supplies in the region, KCNA said.

“It was also emphasised that he called for awakening and arousing the (party) offi cials...into waging the recovery cam-paign skilfully and unyieldingly,” KCNA said.

KCNA said the military com-mission explored emergency measures to rebuild the disaster-stricken areas, stabilise people’s living, prevent the coronavirus and minimise crop injuries.

The meeting came amid con-cerns over a crisis in a reclusive economy that has already been dogged by international sanc-tions, aimed at curbing its nu-clear and weapons programmes.

Kim said in June the country faced a “tense” food situation, citing the coronavirus pandemic and last year’s typhoons, and recently South Korea’s central bank said North Korea’s econo-my suff ered its biggest contrac-tion in 23 years in 2020.

A Thai man was charged with the murder of a Swiss woman whose body was found near a wa-terfall on the tourist island of Phuket, police said yesterday. The body of Nicole Sauvain-Weisskopf, 57, was found covered with a sheet on Thursday. She had travelled to Phuket under a “sandbox” pilot scheme that allows vaccinated tourists into Phuket without a two-week quarantine. Thai national Theerawut Tortip, 27, was arrested and charged with murder and robbery causing death, deputy national police spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen said during a press conference. Theerawut said he had taken roughly 300 baht ($9) after strangling Sauvain-Weisskopf.

Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan yesterday said they had completed citywide testing of more than 11mn people for Covid-19 after a resurgence of cases more than a year after the coronavirus first emerged there. The tests - which began on Tuesday - provide “basically full coverage” of all residents in the city except for children under the age of six and students on their summer break, senior Wuhan off icial Li Tao told a press conference, according to the state-run Xinhua. By Saturday, the city had recorded 37 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases and found 41 local asymptomatic carriers in the latest round of mass testing, Xinhua reported.

The Singapore government will adjust foreign work-er policies to address concerns among locals over competition for jobs, even as the global business hub remains open to talent from overseas, its prime minister said yesterday. “We have to adjust our poli-cies to manage the quality, numbers and concentra-tions of foreigners in Singapore,” Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day Message. “If we do this well, we can continue to welcome foreign workers and new immigrants, as we must.” Foreign labour has long been a hot button issue in Singapore, but uncertainties due to the Covid-19 pandemic have increased employment worries among locals as the city-state recovers from last year’s record recession.

Brunei imposed strict curbs to halt the spread of Covid-19, after finding its first locally transmitted cases in the country in over a year. Seven com-munity infections were found, the health ministry said, leading the government to close all places of worship and postpone social events for two weeks. Mass events were also limited to groups of 30 peo-ple over this period as school classes were moved online and restaurants barred from serving dine-in. The sultanate has largely remained coronavirus free, logging only three deaths since the pandemic be-gan. More than half of its 347 infections so far were imported, with tight border controls and quarantine measures keeping the virus’s spread in check.

Vietnam’s health ministry reported 9,690 coronavirus infections yesterday, a record daily increase and up from 7,334 cases on Saturday. Most of the new infec-tions were detected in the epicentre Ho Chi Minh City and the neighbouring provinces of Binh Duong and Dong Nai, the ministry said. Vietnam success-fully contained the virus for much of last year but has since late April been faced with a surge in cases fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant. The country has recorded 210,405 Covid-19 infections since the pandemic began, with at least 3,397 deaths, according to the ministry’s data. Vietnam, with a population of 98mn, has so far administered nearly 8.9mn vaccine doses.

Thai man charged withmurder of Swiss tourist

Wuhan completes Covidtests on 11mn residents

Singapore to tweak foreign worker policies

Brunei clamps downafter local virus cases

Vietnam reports record 9,690 virus infections

CRIME HEALTHDECISION PANDEMIC DATA

Queueing up for Covid vaccine

People queue up to get inoculated with the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination camp at Kholamora in Keraniganj district, Bangladesh.

WORLD7Gulf Times

Monday, August 9, 2021

WORLD

Gulf Times Monday, August 9, 20218

Coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccinations should be required for US teachers

to protect students who are too young to be inoculated, the head of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union said yesterday, shifting course to back mandated shots as more children fall ill.

“The circumstances have changed,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Fed-eration of Teachers, told NBC News’ Meet the Press programme. “It weighs really heavily on me that kids under 12 can’t get vac-cinated.”

“I felt the need ... to stand up and say this as a matter of per-

sonal conscience,” she said.The number of children hos-

pitalised with Covid-19 is ris-ing across the country, a trend health experts attribute to the Delta variant being more likely to infect children than the original Alpha strain.

Almost 90% of educators and school staff are vaccinated, ac-cording to a White House state-ment echoed by Weingarten in other television interviews last week.

A growing number of compa-nies and state governments are mandating Covid-19 vaccina-tions.

United Airlines, meatpacker Tyson Foods Incorporated, and Microsoft are requiring employ-ees get vaccinated, moves that experts said were legal but could

raise labour tensions in unionised workplaces.

California, New York and Vir-ginia are also requiring all state employees to get inoculated, and New Jersey is requiring some workers in healthcare to take the vaccine.

Becky Pringle, president of the largest US teachers’ union, the National Education Association, told the New York Times last week that any Covid-19 vaccine man-date should be negotiated at the local level.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease offi cial, said it is critical to surround chil-dren with vaccinated and masked people in schools and elsewhere until shots are approved for them.

“You surround them with those who can be vaccinated, whoever they are – teachers, per-

sonnel in the schools, anyone – get them vaccinated. Protect the kids with a shield of vaccinated people,” he said in a separate interview on NBC, noting that paediatric hospitals are fi lling up with Covid-19 cases.

The United States has reported more than 100,000 new cases a day on average for the past two days, a six-month high, accord-ing to a Reuters tally.

About 400 people a day on av-erage are dying.

Hospitalisations are the high-est since last February.

The US South remains the epicentre of the latest outbreak, with Florida reporting a record of nearly 24,000 new cases on Sat-urday, according to data from the Centres for Disease Control and Protection (CDC).

The number of Covid-19 pa-tients fi lling the state’s hospitals

has set records nearly every day for the past week.

“Things in Florida aren’t just bad – they’re epically bad,” car-diologist Dr Jonathan Reiner, a George Washington University professor, told CNN yesterday, noting that its case rate was be-hind only Louisiana and Bot-swana. “If Florida was another country, the United States would consider banning travel from Florida... it’s going to get much worse there.”

Despite the surge, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has re-fused to mandate masks and has blocked school districts from requiring them, despite the state leading the nation in paediat-ric hospitalisations based on its population.

Former Food and Drug Admin-istration (FDA) commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb said that not

requiring masks for students as they return to full-day, in-per-son learning was reckless, telling CBS News’ Face the Nation pro-gramme: “No business would do that responsibly, and yet that’s what we’re going to be doing in some schools.”

He also urged schools and families to utilise higher-quality masks such as N95s to protect against the more contagious Del-ta variant, noting that Utah was providing KN95 masks for every student.

A top public health offi cial warned yesterday that the coun-try is “failing”.

“We should not really have ever got to the place we are,” Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on ABC’s This Week. “In that regard, yes, we are failing.”

Millions, especially in con-

servative areas, remain sceptical about the vaccines and refuse to be inoculated or wear face masks.

“We would not be in the place we are right now with this Delta surge if we had been more eff ec-tive in getting everybody” vac-cinated, Collins said. “Now we’re paying a terrible price.”

He expressed exasperation that the debates over vaccine and mask-wearing had become po-liticised.

“We don’t really need to be po-larised about a virus that’s kill-ing people. We ought to be doing everything we can to save lives. And that means get the vaccine. And that means wear the mask when you’re indoors in a crowded space.”

He added: “This is not a po-litical statement or an invasion of your liberties. This is a life-saving medical device.”

US teachers union backs vaccine mandateTop health off icial says US ‘failing’ on Covid-19 response

Reuters/AFPWashington

Right: California Governor Gavin Newsom steps over fallen power lines while surveying downtown Greenville. With him is Assistant Region Chief for Cal Fire Curtis Brown.

Taking stepsNurses and healthcare workers distribute backpacks to children during a back-to-school event off ering school supplies, coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccinations, face masks, and other resources for children and their families at the Weingart East Los Angeles YMCA in Los Angeles.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro (in front, wearing a white helmet) leads a motorcade rally in Brasilia yesterday.

A local government employee shares hands sanitiser with a pedestrian while holding up a sign promoting the use of the face mask, as the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak continues in Mexico City.

When Diego started go-ing out again to meet friends he never ex-

pected to be among a growing number of young Mexicans hos-pitalised by a highly-contagious coronavirus (Covid-19) variant driving another wave of infec-tions.

“I let my guard down, think-ing that I wasn’t going to catch it, but in the end I did,” the 20-year-old student told AFP at a private clinic in a suburb north of Mexico City.

“This is no joke. It’s a pretty cruel disease,” said Diego, who

did not want to give his full name.

He is one of 16 coronavirus patients being treated in the same hospital in Coacalco.

Unlike during the fi rst two waves of the pandemic, most of the sick are in their 20s and 30s.

Mexico’s offi cial Cov-id-19 death toll, of more than 244,000, is the fourth highest in the world, and the actual fi g-ure is believed to be signifi cantly higher.

The government says that is partly a refl ection of the coun-try’s large population, but is also due to the prevalence of under-lying health problems, includ-ing obesity, hypertension and diabetes.

The country has registered nearly 3mn confi rmed cases since the pandemic began, of which around 138,000 are ac-tive.

Experts say the latest wave of infections is due to the arrival of the Delta variant of the virus, as well as reduced social distanc-ing, particularly among younger Mexicans.

The Mexico City authorities on Friday ruled out imposing any new lockdown measures, despite the health ministry rais-ing the capital’s alert status to the highest level.

“Right now it seems that nei-ther the government nor anyone is interested in making people stay at home again,” said Jesus

Victoria, the head of nursing at the hospital in Coacalco.

Although people aged be-tween 18 and 29 began to be vac-cinated in late July, it was too late for some of the patients at the clinic, he said.

“We’ve been able to discharge most of them, but we have also had many deaths of young peo-ple,” Victoria said. “I don’t know if as a society we are failing, if the government is failing. Shop-ping centres are open, cinemas, sports centres. It complicates things.”

Thanks to vaccinations, hos-pitalisations remain far below a peak seen in January when oc-cupancy rose above 90%.

Now around half of general

beds and 58% of those equipped with ventilators are available, according to the government.

Almost 50mn people in the country of 126mn have received at least one dose of a coronavi-rus vaccine, and 27mn of them are fully vaccinated, the health ministry says.

Hector Lopez, a 26-year-old computer programmer who is also hospitalised for Covid-19, said that in hindsight his family was not careful enough: “Usu-ally I don’t go out. The problem is, my relatives do.”

“I had been taking care of myself. I hadn’t gone out un-less it was necessary,” he added, as machines monitored his vital signs.

Lopez, who is expected to be discharged soon, said he had seen on social media that friends were going out more, despite the risks.

“It was very easy to see that they were in a (nightspot) or at a party as if nothing was happen-ing,” he said.

Mayra Jimenez, another pa-tient, believes the Delta variant is so infectious that anyone who has avoided catching it without taking extra care is very lucky.

“We didn’t go to parties or gatherings,” said the 39-year-old, who is using a medical de-vice to help her lungs recover. “Fortunately, I came through it okay, but there are people who are in a really bad way.”

Covid-19 variant is ‘no joke’: young Mexicans warn from hospitalAFPCoacalco, Mexico

Donald Trump mounted an intense pressure cam-paign on the US Justice

Department to overturn his election defeat in his fi nal weeks in offi ce, the department’s head during that time testifi ed to law-makers, a senior Senate Demo-crat said yesterday.

Former acting attorney-general Jeff rey Rosen provided “invaluable” testimony during seven hours of closed-door tes-timony on Saturday, in which he implicated Trump in an attempt to subvert the election result, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin told CNN’s State of the Union.

According to Durbin, Rosen testifi ed that Trump directly pressured him to falsely assert that continuing election fraud investigations cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s victory.

“It was real. Very real. And it was very specifi c,” Durbin said of Trump’s pressure on Rosen. “The former president is not subtle when he wants some-thing.”

Durbin, a Democrat from Illi-nois who chairs the Senate Judi-ciary Committee, praised Rosen, a conservative lawyer, for his voluntary co-operation with the committee’s ongoing investiga-tion into Trump’s actions after the election.

“I have to say history is going to very kind to Mr. Rosen when this is all over. When he was ini-tially appointed, I didn’t think that was the case. I was wrong,” Durbin said, adding: “It’s a good thing for America we had some-one like Rosen in that position.”

Rosen’s testimony came a week after a House of Repre-sentatives committee released Justice Department documents showing Trump had urged top offi cials last year to falsely claim his election defeat was “cor-rupt”.

“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Trump told Rosen, referring to Republicans, in a December 27 phone call, according to hand-written notes taken by a Rosen aide.

The notes showed that Rosen told Trump the department could not and would not “change the outcome of the election”.

Durbin said in the CNN in-terview that his committee also wants testimony from former attorney-general Bill Barr, who Rosen replaced during the fi nal weeks of Trump’s presidency.

Barr stepped down in Decem-ber, shortly after the Electoral College confi rmed Trump’s loss to Biden.

Barr had angered Trump by not supporting his false claims that the November 3 election result had been tainted by wide-spread fraud.

Multiple courts, state elec-tion offi cials and members of Trump’s administration rejected those claims as unfounded.

Ex-Justice Dept head ‘reveals Trump’s election pressure’ReutersWashington

California wildfi re spreadsAFP/ReutersWashington

The monstrous Dixie Fire in northern California con-tinued to grow overnight,

making it the second-largest wildfi re in state history as thou-sands of people continued to fl ee advancing fl ames, authorities said yesterday.

As of early yesterday it had destroyed 463,477 acres (187,562 hectares), up from the previous day’s 447,723 acres.

It now covers an area larger than Los Angeles, and roughly the size of the Hawaiian island of Maui.

The Dixie blaze is the larg-est active wildfi re in the United States, but one of only 11 major wildfi res in California.

Over the weekend it surpassed the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire to make it the second-worst fi re in state history, the authori-ties said.

The blaze, which on Saturday left three fi refi ghters injured, remained 21 % contained yes-terday, unchanged from the day before, the CalFire website re-ported.

Crews estimate the fi re, which began July 13, will not fi nally be extinguished before August 20.

Weak winds and higher hu-midity were providing some suc-cour to fi refi ghters, but they are bracing for higher temperatures expected to exceed 100° Fahren-heit (38 Celsius) by midweek.

On Saturday, the Plumas County sheriff ’s offi ce said it had received descriptions of fi ve people considered missing in Greenville and was searching for them.

Five other missing people were confi rmed found on Sat-urday.

The Dixie Fire has already de-stroyed 404 structures – gutting the historic town of Greenville, about 160 miles north of Sacra-mento – and CalFire said work-ers are being deployed in an ef-fort to save homes in the towns of Crescent Mills and Hunt val-ley.

By late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250% from 2020 – itself the worst year of wildfi res in the state’s modern history.

The state’s eight largest wild-fi res have all come since Decem-ber 2017.

WORLD9Gulf Times

Monday, August 9, 2021

‘Lost generation’fears as Covid locks out India’spoor studentsAFPKodagu

C S Satheesha spells out “A-P-P-L-E” into his phone as he teaches re-

motely from the only place he can get a signal – a treehouse in his back garden in southern India.

In the Kodagu district of Kar-nataka state, eight-year-old Shreeshma listens to Sathee-sha’s WhatsApp voice notes on her mother’s phone on her porch and repeats sentences such as: “This is a cat.”

According to a report earlier this year by Unicef, only one in four children in India has access to digital devices and the In-ternet. Many families have sold their belongings or taken out loans to buy smartphones for their children to continue their education.

In some rural areas, children have been trekking miles up hills and through snake-infested jungles to try and connect to their teachers.

Jean Dreze, a welfare econo-mist, said the situation is bound to exacerbate the already “ex-treme inequalities” in access to education that reinforce India’s class, caste and gender divi-sions.

“By and large, privileged chil-dren are able to continue learn-ing through online education. For poor children, however, on-line education is a fi ction, and no other arrangements have been made for them in most states,” Dreze said.

Even before the pandemic, more than 6mn Indian girls and boys were already not going to school, according to Unicef.

Almost 30 % of those who did go dropped out, with rates for girls and for children from the most marginalised communities higher still.

The pandemic and the heavy blow to the Indian economy – and to the poor who have suf-fered most of all – have only made things worse.

With breadwinners out of

work, many families have had little choice but to make chil-dren drop their books to help make ends meet.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that there has been an increase in child marriage – meaning one less mouth to feed – and traf-fi cking too.

The fear is that many children will not return to education even when schools eventually reo-pen, creating a “lost generation” of unqualifi ed young people.

“If they feel they cannot catch up, they’re less likely to go back to school,” said Terry Durnnian, chief of education, Unicef India.

At 60 weeks and counting, only fi ve other countries have seen schools shut for longer than India, aff ecting 320mn children, according to Unesco.

The continued closures con-trast with restrictions easing on most other areas of activity in India.

Bablu Baghel in Agra – home to the Taj Mahal – saw his monthly income of Rs20,000 ($270) all but dry up along with visitors to India’s top tourist at-traction.

The taxi driver’s three chil-dren have to share his mobile phone to remotely attend their classes.

He cannot aff ord to buy an-other device.

“This is all we have,” Baghel said, adding that mobile data charges – once the world’s cheapest – have soared, hiking the price of streaming lessons.

Imran Salmani, a barber in Agra, saw his earnings shrink 80% and now cannot aff ord to re-enrol his two daughters in the new school year.

“I want to go back to school,” said Salmani’s nine-year-old daughter Aliya.

Their school sends WhatsApp images in lieu of lessons, with parents expected to teach their children and submit videos of their classwork, a task both have struggled with.

“I want to give my daughters all the opportunities I never got,” Salmani said. “We are not managing to keep up.”

Guardian News and MediaLondon

The Home Offi ce has record-ed 70 racist incidents by far-right supporters against

asylum seekers in barracks and ho-tel accommodation, according to a freedom of information response obtained by the Guardian.

However, campaigners sup-

porting asylum seekers in such accommodation say the fi gure is a signifi cant underestimation of the true picture. The data, which covers January 1, 2020, until July 13 this year, involves incidents in the much-maligned Napier and Pe-nally barracks – which have been under intense scrutiny by MPs after their untenable conditions were revealed, as well as a large-scale Covid outbreak in the former.

Penally barracks in Pembroke-shire, Wales, was closed in March – despite only being opened in September 2020 – along with Napier, in Folkestone, Kent.

Hotels have been used throughout the period but their use for asylum seekers increased sharply after the start of the Cov-id pandemic in March 2020.

In Napier barracks, four in-cidents were recorded between

September and December 2020 – with 12 occurring so far this year.

This is despite the barracks be-ing temporarily emptied in April after the coronavirus outbreak.

There are now thought to be 176 asylum seekers living there.

Just one incident at Penally bar-racks was reported to the Home Offi ce last year and none in 2021.

However, witness statements from legal challenges by asylum

seekers living there reveal a cata-logue of disturbing episodes, in-cluding an attempt to ram a refu-gee with a car.

Others include: stones and bottles being thrown, rape threats, attempts to start fi ghts, fi reworks shot through the gate, and eggings.

According to witness state-ments, a farm shop in the area said some of the far-right supporters

had asked to buy pigeon scarers to mimic the sound of gun fi re and frighten the asylum seekers.

The number of incidents re-corded in hotels has tripled this year, with 40 examples reported, up from 13 last year.

On Saturday, the far-right or-ganisation Britain First posted a video on its website headlined ‘Britain First exposes an illegal immigrant hotel in Hull’ in which

members of the organisation say they posed as journalists to con-front asylum seekers.

One asylum seeker from Yem-en experienced two incidents in-volving far-right protesters at his Home Offi ce-provided hotel on the outskirts of London.

“They were driving around the hotel recording us on video,” he said. “They were insulting us, swearing at us,” he added.

70 racist incidents recorded at UK asylum accommodation

India showers cash on Olympic hero ChopraAFPNew Delhi

Indian companies and gov-ernments promised cash and gifts worth more than $2mn

to javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra after he won India’s fi rst ever Ol-ympic athletics gold medal.

The 23-year-old farmer’s son, who two years ago underwent surgery on a career-threatening elbow injury, threw 87.58 metres in the Tokyo Olympic stadium on Saturday to send his country into raptures.

Chopra led India’s most suc-cessful Olympics ever with a gold, two silver medals and four bronze.

He will lead a cash bonanza for the winning athletes - the government in his home state of Haryana said it would give

Chopra a Rs60mn ($800,000) bonus.

Other state governments of-fered another $400,000 be-tween them and a leading education company promised $270,000.

Chopra said he hoped the Olympic gold would be a turn-ing point for his country’s ath-letes.

“In athletics, I feel we have missed medals by fi ne margins over the years. So this medal was important,” he said.

“Now that I have won, I feel we can do anything.”

Chopra was up against the previously in-form Johannes Vetter of Germany who had thrown a season’s best of 96.29 metres before the Olympics, but had an off day and failed to qualify for the throw-off as one of the top eight.

“If the fi rst throw is good, then you grow in confi dence. My second throw was also sta-ble,” Chopra told reporters of the throw in the second round that won the title.

“I wasn’t sure of the gold (af-ter that eff ort), but knew I had thrown my best.

“We can’t bring thoughts of gold into our minds (during the competition). Such thoughts are dangerous, then there is a risk that we may not put the required eff ort.

“Now I want to achieve the 90-metre mark as soon as possible,” he added.

Byju Raveendran, owner of the Byju’s edu-cation tech c o m p a n y that is c h i p p i n g

in for a bonus, said India had to make its athletes “heroes so that we transform ourselves from a sport loving nation to a sport-playing nation”.

The Indian cricket board, the BCCI, and the Chennai Super Kings Indian Premier League team vowed to give $135,000 each and Chopra will also get $100,000 from the Indian Ol-

ympic Association.Other firms offered

free air travel, luxury cars and cash gifts that took Chopra’s bonus over $2mn and more was expected

before he re-turns to In-

dia.All of

the In-d i a n medal

winners can expect big cash re-wards for their return, with the IOA off ering $53,750 for a silver, and $33,500 for a bronze.

India’s cricket board said they would give $168,000 to the men’s hockey team for its bronze medal — the fi rst in four dec-ades.

And state governments also promised hundreds of thou-sands to the team.

After wrestler Mirabai Chanu gave India a silver on day one of the competition and said she craved pizza, a well-known chain said it would give her pizza for life.

India’s other medallists were male wrestler Ravi Dahiya, who won silver, while badminton ace P V Sindhu, wrestler Bajrang Punia, boxer Lovlina Borgohain and the men’s hockey team won bronzes.

Hammond accused ofbreaking ministerial codeGuardian News and MediaLondon

The former chancellor Philip Hammond has been accused by Labour

of breaking the ministerial code, after reportedly writing to the Treasury to advocate for a bank he is a paid adviser for.

The former MP, who is now a Conservative peer, became the latest fi gure embroiled in ques-tions over lobbying, following a government-commissioned review which found the rules re-garding access and infl uence of politicians and senior civil serv-ants “worked well”.

Since leaving the Commons, Lord Hammond has taken on several roles, including as a non-executive director of OakNorth International bank.

In an e-mail sent during the fi rst few months of the Covid crisis, the Sunday Telegraph said Hammond contacted Charles

Roxburgh – the Treasury’s sec-ond most senior civil servant – to tell him of a “toolkit” OakNorth had developed to assess possible borrowers.

An attachment to the mes-sage contained OakNorth’s pitch, and Hammond asked Roxburgh to “pass it on to anyone else who might be appropriate”, the news-paper said. The communication came under scrutiny because Labour claimed it violated an ex-plicit ban imposed on Hammond after he left the government in July 2019 when Theresa May stepped down and was replaced as prime minister by Boris Johnson.

A letter from the Advisory Committee on Business Ap-pointments – which advises frontbenchers and those who have recently stepped down on what activities they can and can-not use their positions for – re-portedly told Hammond that for two years after quitting he should not make use of his “government and/or ministerial contacts to

infl uence policy or secure busi-ness on behalf of OakNorth”.

The ministerial code also says former ministers “must abide by the advice of the committee”.

Labour’s deputy leader, An-gela Rayner, said Hammond had broken the ministerial code and called for an investigation by the cabinet secretary.

“Hammond has entirely disre-garded the conditions that were made clear to him when he took the job with OakNorth Bank,” she said. “If the rules are treated with such derision by the former chancellor then the whole system is rotten.”

A spokesperson for OakNorth said the bank was off ering help for free to the UK govern-ment during the height of the pandemic.“There was absolutely no reference of payment in the presentation that was sent and it was made explicit in the discus-sions we had with the Treasury that this would be pro bono,” they added.

Halifax launchesmortgage at 0.83%Guardian News and MediaLondon

Halifax has fi red the lat-est salvo in the price war between mortgage lend-

ers with the launch of a two-year fi xed-rate deal priced at 0.83%.

The announcement of the ul-tra-low rate, which is available via mortgage brokers from to-day to those wishing to take out a loan worth up to 60% of the value of their home, comes amid a fl urry of rate cutting by some of the UK’s biggest lenders.

Last month, HSBC and TSB both announced two-year mort-gages at 0.94% and Nationwide building society became the fi rst to off er a fi ve-year deal below 1%.

Halifax’s mortgage comes with a fee of £1,499 and is available for purchases between £250,000 to £1mn.

It joins a rising number of sub-1% deals for borrowers with large deposits.

Rhys Schofi eld, managing di-rector at broker Peak Mortgages

and Protection, said: “Where the UK’s largest mortgage lender goes, others will surely follow.”

But he cautioned: “These headline grabbers often come with signifi cant setup fees and Halifax are about the only high street lender still charging for a basic valuation, which means that for many people the cheap-est deal overall often lies else-where.”

Lewis Shaw, the founder of broker Shaw Financial Services, said Halifax’s rate was “stupen-dously low”.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been broking,” he said.“What this re-ally tells us isn’t that lenders are wanting a rate war, more that lenders are as keen as mustard to get super low risk business on their books, probably to bal-ance out the higher loan to value lending they’ve had their hands forced into.”

The competition to attract borrowers comes amid signs that Britain’s house price boom is cooling.

The Clock Tower is seen illuminated for the first time in Indian tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, ahead of India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations.

All lit up

People attend a candlelight vigil to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in New Delhi, India, yesterday.

Anger grows

G20’s biggest limitation – leaving out 96% of Africa’s population – can be easily remedied by including the African Union

By Jeff rey D SachsNew York

The Group of Twenty has become a pillar of multilateralism. Although the world has many high-level talk

shops, the G20 represents the best kind, actively supporting global dialogue, debate, and – most importantly – economic problem solving. Fortunately, its biggest limitation – that it leaves out 96% of Africa’s population – can be easily remedied by including the African Union (AU).

To be sure, since the early post-World War II era, multilateralism has worked mainly through the United Nations system. With 193 member states, the UN offers the singular, indispensable venue for creating and implementing international law. Though the UN is frequently undermined by the unilateralism of the United States and other major powers, it remains essential for global survival. At around $3bn per year, its paltry core budget is perhaps one-tenth what it should be, and it is chronically underfunded. Still, it manages to make enormous and indispensable contributions to peace, human rights, and sustainable development.

But the G20, too, has come to fill a critical role. Representing the world’s 20 largest economies, it enables more flexible and quicker problem solving. When the UN grants each of its members ten minutes to speak on an issue, the remarks take 32 hours; when the G20 goes around the table, it takes just over three. And while the G20’s decisions do not have the force of international law, they can and do support corresponding UN processes, such as on climate change and development finance.

Another talking shop is the G7, which was launched in 1975 to bring together the world’s highest-income economies. In 1998, I recommended doubling the group’s size (by then it had become the G8, with the addition of Russia) to include eight major developing economies. A G16, I argued, “would not seek to dictate to the world, but to establish the parameters for a renewed and honest dialogue” among developed and developing countries.

Soon thereafter, the G20 was created to play that role. It emerged first in 1999 as a gathering of finance ministers, and then evolved into a meeting of heads of state and government in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, the G7 has become increasingly unrepresentative and incapable of decisive action (leading me to argue earlier this year that it should be scrapped altogether).

The current G20 comprises 19 national governments plus the European Union. (Since France, Germany, and Italy are G20 members in the EU, they are in

effect represented twice.) The EU’s inclusion in the group was a masterstroke. Because the EU coordinates economic policies across its 27 member states, the European Commission, its executive arm, can credibly speak for the bloc on economic issues of global concern. Moreover, the G20 process in turn strengthens the EU’s internal co-ordination efforts, ultimately redounding to the benefit of its 27 members. The G20 therefore represents 43 countries (27 EU members plus 16 non-EU countries) with just 20 leaders at the table.

While those 43 countries constitute just 22% of UN members states (by a raw count), they nonetheless include about 63% of the world’s population and 87% of gross world output. Though the 43 countries represented at the G20 table don’t speak for the other 150 UN member states, they account for enough of the world’s people and economic activity to have a solid basis for deliberating on global challenges.

But by excluding almost all of Africa, the group vastly under represents Africa and the world’s low-income countries. The AU’s 55 countries (more than one-quarter of UN members) are home to 1.4bn people (17.5% of the global total) and $2.6tn in annual output at market exchange rates (almost 3% of world GDP). All told, Africa currently has roughly the same population as China or India, and an economy that would come in eighth – just behind France and ahead of Italy – in a country ranking. Africa’s share of the world’s

population and output will grow in future years.

The G20’s sole African member, South Africa, has the 39th largest economy in the world, the smallest among the G20 member states. The GDPs of Nigeria and Egypt are actually larger than South Africa’s, but they still are not in the world’s top 20. As a result, African leaders outside of South Africa have been invited to the G20 only as observers. Africa’s very limited representation drastically limits Africa’s input in G20 deliberations on major global economic issues, not only at the annual G20 summits but also in the year-round ministerial and technical meetings.

The key to the G20’s effectiveness is that it achieves a very high and representative coverage of the global population and economy with a modest enough number of leaders at the table to enable speed and flexibility in deliberation and decision-making. Including the AU would satisfy both criteria: vastly increased representation with just one added seat at the table. The group suddenly would represent 54 more countries, 1.3bn more people, and $2.3tn more output, with just ten minutes added to a round-of-table discussion.

Moreover, admitting the AU to an expanded G21 would have the same galvanising effect within Africa that the EU’s participation in the G20 has within Europe: it would strengthen policy co-ordination and coherence across the 55 African economies.

With multiple urgent challenges on its plate this year, the G20

would benefit enormously from the AU’s immediate membership. Key priorities include achieving universal vaccine coverage to prevent more Covid-19 deaths and the spread of new variants; introducing new measures to mitigate the long-term economic damage inflicted by the pandemic; and securing mid-century decarbonisation commitments from all countries and regions to avoid a climate disaster.

Since the G20 is such an important venue, other aspiring members doubtless will be knocking on its door. The group will have to balance the benefits of wider representation against the benefits of a smaller, more agile membership. When it comes to the AU, the choice is obvious. A new G21 could then tell other aspirants to seek representation through similar regional delegations – such as Asean for the 661mn people in those ten southeast Asian countries, or a similar grouping for Latin America.

This year, the G20 is in the highly capable hands of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Italy can use its presidency to leave a lasting legacy. By inviting the AU to join the upcoming summit in Rome in late October, it could make a significant contribution to building a more prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable world. — Project Syndicate

Jeffrey D Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University, is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Gulf Times Monday, August 9, 2021

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CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing Editor

K T Chacko

Imperative not to rush with all the gains made by a vigilant policy

The next three weeks are critical in the fi ght against the Covid-19 pandemic in Qatar, given that many people are returning to the country after travelling abroad, particularly with the highly infectious Delta strain circulating in Qatar and many countries around the world. As pointed out by Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, chair of National Strategic Group on Covid-19, late last week, it was only because of Qatar’s strict travel and return policy that helped delay the entry of the Delta strain into the country. “But it has recently begun circulating in our community,” he cautioned while underlining the reasons for delaying the launch of the Phase 4 of lifting the Covid-19 restrictions. Instead of starting Phase 4 on July 30, the government decided to continue the ongoing Phase 3 throughout August but introduced some minor relaxations.

Dr al-Khal has urged community members to adhere to the preventive measures and the restrictions to help control the spread of the virus and to prevent any further rise in cases. Though all are eager to return to normalcy as soon as possible, what is most important is that the process is not rushed and thereby jeopardise all the achievements Qatar made so far in the battle against the pandemic, as he pointed out. Over the past three or four months, the Delta strain has become the most dominant strain of Covid-19 in many countries around the world.

The top healthcare offi cial asserted that the Delta strain is a much more contagious strain of the virus than the strains previously seen in Qatar and causes more severe infection. It is important to realise that

more than one third of those infected will suff er from long lasting complications of the disease such as fatigue, chronic headache, diffi culty with memory or diffi culty breathing even if they get a mild infection.

Precisely for this reason, it is more important than ever before for people to get vaccinated and get protected. Vaccination not only protects the person being vaccinated from getting sick; it also helps to protect other peoples as the

vaccine reduces the ability to transmit the virus to other people. Dr al-Khal, also head of the Infectious Diseases Division at Hamad Medical Corporation, cited clinical evidence that the Covid-19 vaccines being administered in Qatar are highly eff ective at preventing infection and severe disease due to the Delta strain.

There have been very few incidences in recent months where fully vaccinated patients have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19. Almost all patients admitted to hospital wards or the intensive care, are either not vaccinated or have only had one dose. As pointed out by Dr al-Khal, it was due to the community’s adherence to the phased lifting of restrictions and their overwhelming response to the vaccination programme that contributed to relatively low number of cases in Qatar in recent weeks. There has been a slight increase in Covid-19 cases following the recent Eid holiday, but this minimal increase was expected.

It is heartening that 85% of Qatar’s eligible population — 12 years and over — have received at least one dose. More than 20,000 doses a day on average are being administered. This is a very encouraging vaccination rate and the more people that are vaccinated and protected from the virus, the safer the community will be and the faster we will return towards normal life. As Dr al-Khal exhorted, the small minority of eligible people who have not yet accepted their invitations to get vaccinated should take the matter seriously.

The next three weeks are critical in the fi ght against the Covid-19 pandemic in Qatar

The case for a G21

A CASE FOR AFRICA: The AU’s 55 countries (more than one-quarter of UN members) are home to 1.4bn people (17.5% of the global total) and $2.6tn in annual output at market exchange rates (almost 3% of world GDP).

WORLD11Gulf Times

Monday, August 9, 2021

Blaze ravages Evia island ‘like a horror movie’ReutersPefki, Greece

Thousands of people have fl ed their homes on the Greek is-land of Evia as wildfi res burned

uncontrolled for a sixth day yesterday, and ferries were on standby for more evacuations after taking many to safety by sea.

The blaze on Evia, Greece’s second-biggest island, quickly burgeoned into several fronts, ripping through thou-sands of hectares of pristine forest across its northern part, and forcing the evacuation of dozens of villages.

The fl ames engulfed homes in fi ve villages but the full extent of the dam-age was not immediately known.

“(It’s) like a horror movie,” said a 38-year-old pregnant evacuee who gave her name as Mina, after she boarded a rescue ferry at the town of Pefki, where falling ash covered the port.

“But now this is not the movie, this is real life, this is the horror that we have lived with for the last week,” she said.

Wildfi res have broken out in many parts of the country during a week-long heatwave, Greece’s worst in three decades, with searing temperatures and hot winds creating tinder-box conditions.

Across the country, forest land has burned and dozens of homes and busi-nesses have been destroyed.

Since Tuesday, the coastguard has evacuated more than 2,000 people, including many elderly residents, from diff erent parts of Evia, which is linked

to the mainland by bridge, in dramatic sea rescues as the night sky turned red.

Others fl ed their villages on foot overnight, walking along roads dotted with trees in fl ames.

“A house is burning over here,” one woman told emergency crews on the ground in the settlement of Vasilika, pointing to a searing fi re in the dis-tance.

“Everywhere, everywhere, every-where, everywhere,” one of the fi re-fi ghters replied.

The governor for central Greece,

Fanis Spanos, said the situation in the north of the island had been “very dif-fi cult” for nearly a week.

“The fronts are huge, the area of burned land is huge,” he told Skai TV.

More than 2,500 people have been accommodated in hotels and other shelters, he said.

Greece has deployed the army to help battle the fi res and several coun-tries including Qatar, France, Egypt, Switzerland and Spain have also sent help including fi refi ghting aircraft.

More than 570 fi refi ghters are bat-

tling the blaze in Evia, where two ac-tive fronts were burning in the north and south of the island.

In the village of Psaropouli, evacu-ated residents said they were angry.

“I lost my home...nothing will be the same the next day,” one woman who gave her name as Vasilikia said.

“It’s a disaster. It’s huge. Our villag-es are destroyed, there is nothing left

from our homes, our properties, noth-ing, nothing,” she said.

Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said emer-gency crews were undertaking “super-human eff orts” against multiple fronts.

“The night ahead will be diffi cult,” he said during an emergency briefi ng late yesterday.

Earlier, he said water-bombing air-

craft in the region faced several hurdles including low visibility caused by the thick plumes of smoke rising over the mountains and turbulence.

A fi re in the foothills of Mount Par-nitha that swept through suburbs north of Athens had been contained but weather conditions meant there was still a high threat it could fl are up again.

The humble Alpine dirndl: a dress for past and present

The humble Alpine “dirndl” dress, with its distinctive white blouse, full skirt and apron, has won new fans among Austrians and foreign fashionistas alike in recent years.Its folksy appeal has now made the historic dirndl and other traditional outfits a key part of Austria’s clothing industry, about 70% of which is exported, according to the Chamber of Commerce.Even British style icon Vivienne Westwood, better known for her provocative punk designs, has been charmed by the dirndl, which also features a close-fitting bodice.Now the enduring garment is the star of a new exhibition which traces its journey through the years from the countryside to the catwalk.The show is being held in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl, the former summer residence of Emperor Franz Josef and his wife Elisabeth, known popularly as Sissi.It lies in the Salzkammergut, a spectacular region of mountains and lakes which was one of the original homes of the dirndl, along with neighbouring Tyrol and Bavaria in southern Germany.Thekla Weissengruber, the exhibition’s curator, says the dirndl “is to Austria

what the kilt is to Scotland or the kimono is to Japan”.It was women living on the land who initially adopted the cheap, practical dress, whose name derives from a dialect term that can also mean “girl”.But by the end of the 19th century, it was also being worn by women at the imperial court when they flocked to the countryside in summer.“Everything was much corseted in Vienna,” Weissengruber told AFP.“On holiday they were able to free themselves, with these lighter, brighter styles,” she added. Hosted in the Marmorschloessl, the “cottage” given to Sissi by her husband, the exhibition shows how the dirndl has evolved through some 50 examples.The early, no-frills versions quickly give way to more elaborate outfits fit for those seeking an audience at the imperial villa. Angelika Schauer runs a family dirndl-makers in Bad Ischl that traces its history back to 1895.She recalls that her grandfather counted visitors at court among his clients. “When he was taking measurements he was under close watch” from the bodyguards who came with the well-heeled clients, she said.“He had to refrain from making certain movements”.

During the Nazi period, while women were encouraged to wear similar traditional dress, the word “dirndl” itself was banned.But the dirndl never disappeared, with the patrons of the prestigious Salzburg Festival having sported it from the 1920s onwards.Abroad it was popularised by “White Horse Inn”, a musical set in the Salzkammergut that reached Broadway in 1936.It also had a fan in screen icon Marlene Dietrich, according to Weissengruber.Along with other traditional Austrian clothing, the dirndl has experienced a revival in recent years, especially at beer festivals. Women today “wear the dirndl at any occasion”, said Schauer, with men donning the famous “lederhosen” leather breeches.Despite often cheaper dirndl being produced in Asia, Schauer’s husband Johannes Topizopoulos says that many dirndl fans prefer to buy local, especially in an age where people want long-lasting, environmentally sustainable clothing. “The fact that it’s hard-wearing fits in with the times very well,” he said.High-end versions are certainly a pricey investment: a made-to-measure dirndl can cost between €650 and €1,000 ($767 and $1,180).

A local resident gestures as he holds an empty water hose during an attempt to extinguish forest fires approaching the village of Pefki on Evia (Euboea) island, Greece’s second largest, yesterday.

Dirndl is to Austria what the kilt is to Scotland or the kimono is to Japan, says exhibition curator Thekla Weissengruber

Dirndl dresses on display at the exhibition “Dirndl – Tradition goes fashion” at the Mamorschloessl palace in Bad Ischl, Upper Austria. (AFP)

Health passes spread around the worldAFPParis

Passes and vaccine pass-ports are increasingly be-ing used across the world

to limit entry to public places to those who have been vaccinat-ed, recovered from Covid-19 or tested negative.

Here’s an overview:From March, Denmark, Aus-

tria and Hungary were among the fi rst countries to introduce health passes, either on paper or in digital form.

You still need a pass to go into restaurants, hotels and sports centres in Austria. In Denmark it now only applies to hairdressers and sports centres.

In Hungary immunity certifi -cates delivered from the fi rst vac-cine shot were required to stay in hotels, go to restaurants, thea-tres, sports or music events. Now they are limited to health centres and gatherings of more than 500 people.

A European Union pass, con-taining a QR code allowing to check if the bearer is vaccinated or had a recent negative test, came into force on July 1.

It allows travellers to cross

borders of 33 European countries — the 27 EU states and neigh-bouring Andorra, Iceland, Liech-tenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland.

In Portugal a pass is needed to stay in a hotel or play team sport. It is also required to eat inside restaurants, but only at week-ends.

Ireland demands the pass all week long to eat or drink inside pubs and restaurants, while in Luxembourg you need it to go into a shop.

In France the pass has been mandatory since July 21 for cin-emas, museums and sports cen-tres which take more than 50 people, despite street protests.

From today it is required for cafes and restaurants, fairs and trade shows, planes, long dis-tance trains and buses and medi-cal establishments.

A similar green pass came into force in Italy on Friday which will be extended to domestic fl ights, trains and some ferry services from September 1. Teachers and university students will also need it from that date.

In Germany, where regions de-cide health policy, some require a pass to enter hotels, cinemas and sport halls.

In Spain, which has a similar system, the northern region of Galicia recently became the fi rst to demand the pass to enter bars and restaurants and nightclubs in the hardest-hit places.

Andalusia in the south will ex-tend the pass to nightclubs once courts give it the green light.

New York became the fi rst major US city to introduce a vac-cine pass earlier this month when mayor Bill de Blasio said it would be needed for restaurants, gyms and shows.

The law will come into eff ect on August 16, but the fi rst checks will not be carried out until Sep-tember 13.

On Thursday, Quebec an-nounced it will introduce a vac-cine passport, the fi rst in Canada, for all non-essential activities.

Israel re-instated its green pass programme at the beginning of August, restricting access to gatherings of more than 100 to people who have been vaccinat-ed, cured or tested negative less than 72 hours previously.

From August 8 unvaccinated people will have to present a test carried out less than 24 hours before, with a pass required for children younger than 12 from August 20.

Navalny close ally leaves Russia amid crackdownReutersMoscow

Lyubov Sobol, a promi-nent ally of jailed Krem-lin critic Alexei Navalny,

has left Russia days after be-ing sentenced to parole-like restrictions amid a crackdown on the opposition, Russia’s RT and REN TV channels cited sources as saying yesterday.

Sobol could not be reached for comment. Her allies de-clined to speak on her behalf. The outlets said she had fl own to Turkey on Saturday evening. The chief editor of the Ekho Moskvy radio station also said she had left the country.

The 33-year-old is one of the most well-known faces of Navalny’s entourage. She stayed behind in Moscow this year as other close political

allies fl ed fearing prosecution ahead of September’s par-liamentary elections. Sobol was sentenced to 1-1/2 years of parole-like restrictions on Tuesday for fl outing Covid-19

curbs on protests, a charge she called politically-motivated nonsense. The restrictions in-cluded not being allowed to leave home at night.

After the ruling, she said on Ekho Moskvy radio station that the sentence had not yet come into force and that the restric-tions were not eff ective. “Es-sentially, you can interpret this as the possibility of leaving the country,” she said.

Navalny’s allies have faced mounting pressure. This week a June court ruling formally came into force outlawing the nationwide activist network built up by Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fi ercest do-mestic opponent, as “extrem-ist”.

Navalny himself is serving 2-1/2 years in jail for parole violations in an embezzlement case he says was trumped up.

Neanderthals may have been closer to our species of prehistoric modern human than previously believed after cave paintings found in Spain proved they had a fondness for creating art, one of the authors of a new scientific report said yesterday.Red ochre pigment discovered on stalagmites in the Caves of Ardales, near Malaga in southern Spain, were created by Neanderthals about 65,000 years ago, making them possibly the first artists on earth, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.Modern humans were not inhabiting the world at the time the cave images were made. The new findings add to increasing evidence that Neanderthals, whose lineage became extinct about 40,000 years ago, were not the unsophisticated relatives of Homo sapiens they been long been portrayed as.Pigments were made in the caves at diff erent times up to 15,000 and 20,000 years apart, the study found, and dispel an earlier suggestion that they were the result of a natural oxide flow rather than being man-made.

Prehistoric cave paintings in Spain show Neanderthals were artists

EXIT: Lyubov Sobol.

Russia reported 22,866 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, including 2,761 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 6,447,750 since the pandemic began. The government coronavirus task force also said 787 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours. It has

confirmed a death toll of 164,881 people.Russia registered around 463,000 excess deaths from April 2020 to June this year during the pandemic, according to Reuters calculations based on data released by the state statistics service on Friday.

Russia reports 22,866 new Covid cases, 787 deaths

An equipped team from the Qatar International Search and Rescue Group of the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya) and a team from the Civil Defence of the Ministry of Interior headed yesterday to participate in search and rescue operations in Greece that has been badly hit by wildfires.

QATARGulf Times Monday, August 9, 202112

Prominent Qatar resident and leading ENT special-ist Dr Mohan Thomas was

presented the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award 2021 at a glitter-ing function yesterday.

India’s ambassador to Qatar Dr Deepak Mittal, along with Qatar’s former prime minister and interior minister HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, presented Dr Thomas with the award at a ceremony at the Indian Cultural Centre (ICC).

Former deputy prime minister and minister of energy HE Ab-dullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah and Qatar Airways Group Chief Ex-ecutive HE Akbar al-Baker con-gratulated Dr Thomas through video messages screened at the function.

The event was attended by a number of Qatari dignitaries, who included former minister of municipality and environment HE Mohamed al-Rumaihi, ad-viser in the Amiri Diwan Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali al-Thani, direc-tor of Public Health at the Min-istry of Public Health Sheikh Dr Mohamed bin Hamad al-Thani,

former deputy director of the Traffi c Department Sheikh Ab-dullah bin Nasser al-Thani, Traf-fi c Department Major Sheikh Nasser bin Abdullah al-Thani, and former ambassador to South Africa Salem al-Jaber.

The Pravasi Bharatiya Sam-man Award is the highest civil-ian award given to non-resident Indians who have made signifi -cant contribution towards better understanding of India abroad, philanthropic and charitable work, eminence in one’s fi eld of work, and welfare of local Indian community, among others.

The award is generally pre-

sented by the president of India on the occasion of Pravasi Divas.

However, due to the current coronavirus (Covid-19) pandem-ic situation, the award ceremony this year was held virtually on January 9.

Accepting the award, Dr Tho-mas said: “I am deeply honoured and humbled by this award. I dedicate this award to the Indian community in Qatar as well as to my Qatari friends, who were in-strumental in helping me carry out several activities here in Qa-tar and back in India.”

“While this award recognises my activities, it would not have

been possible without the great support I received from the In-dian community, Indian embassy as well as the Qatari leadership and I am immensely indebted to all of them,” he added.

Several Indian community leaders were also present on the occasion, including some of the recipients of the Pravasi Bharati-ya Samman Award in the previ-ous years.

Dr Thomas is the 6th recipient of the award from Qatar.

Speaking at the event, ambas-sador Dr Mittal highlighted Dr Thomas’s distinguished career in Qatar, spanning over 38 years.

“He has worked tirelessly and selfl essly for the community here in Qatar and in India,” the envoy said. “He has also worked on furthering the relations between Qatar and India, and the presence of several dignitaries today from the Qatari fraternity is a proof of his service for both Indian and Qatari communities.”

“It is also recognition for the Indian community in Qatar as well as a recognition of the sup-port he has received from the leadership of Qatar,” he added.

HE al-Rumaihi said: “We congratulate Dr Thomas for this award, and we consider him as

one of us here in Qatar.”“He has served the commu-

nity with high quality of medical treatment and he is a well-known person for the members of the community,” he added.

HE al-Attiyah, in his video message, recollected his long as-sociation with Dr Thomas and highlighted how the community and the country benefi tted from his services.

ICC president P N Babura-jan, while delivering the vote of thanks, highlighted the services of Dr Thomas, especially during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic situation in Qatar.

Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award presented to pillar of communityBy Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Indian ambassador Dr Deepak Mittal and Qatar’s former prime minister and interior minister HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani present the award citation to Dr Mohan Thomas.

Dr Thomas being honoured by HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Education Above All Foundation and Gavi alliance launch projects in AfricaFrom Page 1

“Through this strategic part-nership, an integrated immunisa-tion programme will be launched in Nigeria targeting more than 100,000 children and women,” al-Kuwari said. “Furthermore, we are looking forward to the upcoming signing of projects in both, Ethiopia and Kenya.”

EAA chief executive Fahad al-Sulaiti said: “We recognise that children are more likely to enrol

and remain in education if they are healthy.”

“The EAA is committed to working with local communities to advocate for school enrolment and ensure access to quality pri-mary education for the most marginalised,” the offi cial added.

“Together, through our exist-ing education project, we will engage local and regional stake-holders to generate a marked improvement in health practices and mobilise resources at a time

when they are most needed,” al-Sulaiti said.

“When education and health come together, sustainable change happens. We entered into our partnership with the EAA last year in order to enhance aware-ness around health challenges and shape health-seeking be-haviours”, said Anuradha Gupta, the deputy chief executive of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “To-day, with the support of the Qa-tar Fund For Development, we are

launching two integrated educa-tion and immunisation projects in Ethiopia and Kenya that will aim to reach over half a million of the most marginalised people over the next two years.”

“Children in Ethiopia face a high risk of exposure to polio and cervical cancer, and lack access to essential vaccination support due to the coronavirus (Cov-id-19) pandemic,” said Gabriel Taeyoung Jung, the chief execu-tive of Save the Children Korea.

“Through this immunisation ini-tiative, the project has enormous scope to reach hundreds of thou-sands of children with life-saving vaccines that will protect them from preventable diseases and thereby improve their chances of regular school attendance and healthy cognitive development.”

“Girls in the ASAL counties of Kenya were already among the most disadvantaged children in the country, and they have been hard hit by the Covid-19 pan-

demic, including school closures and reduced uptake of vaccina-tion,” Unicef representative to Kenya, Maniza Zaman, said.

“Every child has the right to an education and to healthcare. In Kenya, this new partnership will improve learning and immunisa-tion for an additional quarter of a million girls,” the offi cial said. “The immunisation project will identify children living in the ar-eas where the EAC and Save the Children’s education project is

being implemented, and engage teachers and Parent-Teacher As-sociation members of supported schools.”

It will address some of the key barriers to vaccination in the region, including lack of immu-nisation service availability and cold chain equipment, lack of service providers and training, data inconsistency and short-age of reporting, low community awareness, and inadequate sup-port.

The cordial relations between Qatar and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) was high-

lighted at the 54th anniversary celebration of the establishment of Asean yesterday.

The Asean Committee in Doha (ACD), chaired by Indonesia’s ambassador to Qa-tar Ridwan Hassan, marked the Asean Day commemoration with a fl ag-raising cere-mony and reception at the Indonesian em-bassy in Doha.

The ACD hopes that such ties will further improve in the future, especially in politics, economic, and socio-cultural co-opera-tion.

“The ACD welcomes the progress on the accession of Qatar to the Asean’s Treaty of Amity and Co-operation (TAC), which has already been reiterated by 54th Asean For-eign Ministers’ Meeting on August 2, 2021,” the envoy said in his remarks. “This will pave the way to establish Asean’s offi cial partnership with Qatar and foster collabo-ration on the basis of mutual respect and co-operation.”

The ACD Chair underscored Qatar’s key role in handling the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, inoculating a majority of the population, and taking good care of aff ected people.

He thanked “His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, other leaders of Qa-tar and the Qatari people who provided a comfortable, happy and good life for more than 300,000 Asean nationalities residing in Qatar, who also play an important role in contributing to the development of Qatar”.

Hassan noted that Asean members, which comprises Indonesia, Malaysia, Sin-gapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, have been struggling with the pandemic, like many other countries across the globe.

“There is no other way to deal with this global pandemic, other than through global

co-operation,” he stressed.“While this global health crisis is a chal-

lenge for all, Asean has taken proactive steps in tackling the pandemic through col-lective regional eff orts,” the ambassador said. “Further, as stated during the Asean Leaders’ Meeting on April 24, 2021 in Jakar-ta, Asean countries have agreed to use the Covid-19 Asean Response Fund to tackle the pandemic in the region.”

“In the upcoming future, Asean will also establish the Asean Centre for Public Health and Emerging Diseases,” he added. “Through these existing mechanisms, Asean will continue to work closely togeth-er to better tackle the pandemic regionally and ensure sustainable recovery measures.”

Hassan said that the chairmanship of Asean is held by Brunei Darussalam from January 1 to December 31, 2021, with the theme We Care, We Prepare, We Prosper.

This theme portrays Asean’s collective commitment to care for its people and pre-pare for future opportunities and challeng-es, with the goal of ensuring that the whole Asean community can sustainably prosper.

“Cambodia will take over the chairman-ship in 2022,” he said.

All Asean members, except for Cambo-dia, Laos and Myanmar, have resident em-bassies in Qatar, which form the ACD, with Indonesia its chairman this year.

Asean was formed on August 8, 1967 in Bangkok.

“Since its establishment, Asean has be-come a model of regional association which has successfully maintained the peace and stability in the South East Asia region,” Hassan stressed. “In this regard, we put aside our diff erences and work together to-wards the future of a more prosperous re-gion of South East Asia.”

“We recognise this as the Asean Way,” the envoy stated.

The Asean Day in Doha was attended by ambassadors Hassan (Indonesia), Moham-ed Bahrin Abu Bakar (Brunei Darussalam), Zamshari Shaharan (Malaysia), Alan L Tim-bayan (the Philippines), Jai S Sohan (Singa-pore), Nathapol Khantahiran (Thailand), and Tran Duc Hung (Vietnam), as well as members of the ACD Working Group.

Ambassadors highlight warm ties with Qatar on Asean Day

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Left: Asean ambassadors, led by Indonesia’s Ridwan Hassan as the chair of the Asean Committee in Doha (ACD), at the Asean Day cake-cutting ceremony yesterday.

Below: The ambassadors of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, and Vietnam at the Asean Day event in Doha yesterday.