Sunday 28 June 2020

7 Dhul-Qa'da - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8302

BUSINESS | 01 PENMAG | 05 SPORT | 10

Bayern demolish

Wolfsburg

4-0 to end

season on high

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

Qatar-France

trade volume

at a record

high of QR18bn

Qatar pledges $10m for WHO to combat COVID-19

QNA — DOHA

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announced yesterday that the State of Qatar pledged $10m to the World Health Organization (WHO) to support the finding of testing equipment, treatment, and vaccine for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), in addition to its $20m contribution to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

His Excellency the Deputy Prime Min-ister said, during his participation in a COVID-19 commitments campaign held through video conference by non-profit organisation Global Citizen, that the State

of Qatar was proud to support ‘Global Goal: Unite for Our Future’ campaign. His Excel-lency expressed the State of Qatar’s thanks to the European Commission and to Global Citizen for partnering on the campaign.

H E the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs said that the novel coronavirus pandemic was not just testing the healthcare systems, edu-cational systems, and economies around the world, but also testing human prin-ciples and the ability to respond quickly by show solidarity across borders.

His Excellency added that the scaling up of international support and political commitment was needed now, more than ever, to ensure access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines for all.

Ports in Qatar register significant increase in cargo handling in MaySACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

Cargo handling at Qatari ports continues to rise, despite chal-lenges posed by COVID-19 outbreak. Hamad Port, Ruwais Port and Doha Port have regis-tered strong growth in cargo handling in May, showing robustness of Qatar’s maritime sector.

The ports handled 41,428 livestock heads in May, regis-tering a growth of around 62 percent compared to previous month, said Mwani Qatar in a tweet.

The ports handled 154,314 tonnes of general cargo, reflecting an increase of 12 percent compared to April. The ports handled 21,521 tonnes of building material, showing a growth of 8 percent compared to April, while 110,874 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) containers were handled last month by these ports.

A total of 246 ships docked at the ports last month which was around 10 percent more than the number of ships docked in April. Hamad Port, Ruwais Port and Doha Port had

handled 110,341 TEUs con-tainers; 25,435 livestock heads; 19,870 tonnes building mate-rials and 4,705 units of vehicles in April this year. Total 224 ships had docked at these ports during April.

The strong monthly numbers by these ports comes after an impressive per-formance during the first quarter of this year.

The ports handled 110,938 tonnes of building materials during the first quarter, reflecting 37 percent growth, compared to the same quarter last year.

The ports received 321,345 containers during the first quarter of 2019, registering 3 percent increase over the same period of 2018. The number of cruise passengers also surged

as Doha Port witnessed the arrival of 89,188 passengers during the quarter, showing a massive growth of 99 percent compared to the first quarter of last year.

Strong momentum in cargo handling is the result of proactive steps taken by con-cerned authorities to ensure regular supply of goods, despite COVID-19 outbreak. �P2

MoPH: 1,153 more patients recover; 879 new cases reportedTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday recorded 879 new confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), and 1,153 people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of people recovered from the disease in the State of Qatar to 77,225 cases. It also announced one death.

The MoPH pointed to the decrease in the number of daily cases that require intensive care, as the number of daily cases that require hospitali-sation is decreasing, but warned that infections may rise again if the com-munity’s commitment to precautions and preventive measures decreases.

The MoPH explained that the new cases were diagnosed through the emergency departments or different health centers. The infection trans-mitted to them from people who had been previously infected, as the Min-istry of Public Health continues to

conduct investigative and proactive investigations, which contributes to early detection of cases.

The new confirmed cases have been completely isolated in the various medical facilities in the country, where they are receiving the necessary health care according to the health status of each case.

The Ministry said that the coro-navirus epidemic is gradually

declining in the State of Qatar due to the precautions and preventive measures implemented by the state and the commitment to them it by members of the community with a recent decrease in the number of infections.

This is considered a reassuring indicator, but it does not mean the end of the epidemic as the virus is still present in the community.

The Ministry indicated that the number of daily infections among cit-izens and residents (other than expa-triate workers) has increased com-pared to what it was in May, despite the overall decrease in the total daily infections in Qatar.

The Ministry cautioned that most of the infections in these two cate-gories belong to members of the same family, and that the source of the infections is often due to social mixing with friends or other relatives.

Care must be taken not to transmit the virus, especially to the elderly and those with chronic diseases.

In this context, the Ministry has advised the community to be more careful than before and to continue physical distancing, hand washing and wear a protective face mask as well as being careful when the person is near a family member of the elderly or with chronic diseases. Also, reduce the number of necessary social visits and keep a safe distance.

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Government Communi-cations Office yesterday issued a statement in response to the false allegations by the Saudi Authority for Intel-lectual Property (SAIP) on the ruling issued by the World Trade Organisation.

“In a statement issued by the Saudi Authority for Intel-lectual Property (SAIP) on June 23, 2020, Saudi Arabia makes a number of blatantly false assertions about the findings of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Panel Report concerning the dispute,” the statement said.

The GCO statement on its website added: “These false assertions are regrettably part of an orchestrated attempt by Saudi Arabia to spread disin-formation and obscure the truth about the WTO Panel’s findings. Yet again, Saudi Arabia has reverted to tactics of deception and deceit, rather than taking the necessary cor-rective action to combat intel-lectual property theft.”

Fortunately, the Report, which includes a clear statement of the Panel’s con-clusions, is publicly available for all to see: Saudi Arabia failed to

protect intellectual property rights and their deficiencies must be remedied, it added.

To counter the disinfor-mation published by Saudi Arabia, the State of Qatar presents the following true statements:

The WTO Panel found that Saudi Arabia’s attempted recourse to the national security exception did not excuse the violation of its obli-gations under the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement. In par-ticular, the Panel found that “the non-application of criminal procedures and pen-alties to beoutQ does not ‘meet a minimum requirement of plausibility in relation to the proffered essential security interests, ie that they are not implausible as measures pro-tective of these interests’” (Panel Report, para. 7.293).

Although the Panel found that one of the prerequisites for invoking the TRIPS national security defence – an “emergency” – was present, this was due to Saudi Arabia’s own conduct, specifically its decision to sever relations with Qatar and its repeated false allegations about “ter-rorism and extremism”. �P2

Qatar to providecash grant to poor families in GazaQNA — GAZA

Chairman of Qatar’s Gaza Recon-struction Committee H E Ambassador Mohammed Al Emadi stressed yesterday that the committee in cooperation with Qatar Fund for Development, will begin providing the cash grant to poor families in Gaza at the start of next week.

H E Ambassador Al Emadi said that more than 100,000 families will receive $100 dollars each through post offices in Gaza.

He said that the grant will be pro-vided in cooperation with the desig-nated governmental authorities, while ensuring the beneficiaries follow the safety standards and keep enough dis-tance between one another, as part of the precautionary measures taken to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

NEW RECOVERIES

ACTIVE CASES

TOTAL RECOVERIES

TOTAL DEATHS

1153 16,328

77,225110

NEW CASES ANNOUNCED

879

COVID-19QATAR UPDATES ON 27 JUNE 2020

9,882,496

495,993

4,991,913

TOTAL POSITIVE

TOTAL DEATHS

TOTAL RECOVERED

GLOBALLY

These false assertions

are regrettably part of an

orchestrated attempt by

Saudi Arabia to spread

disinformation and

obscure the truth about

the WTO Panel’s findings.

The WTO Panel found that Saudi Arabia’s

attempted recourse to the national security

exception did not excuse the violation of its

obligations under the WTO’s TRIPS

Agreement.

Saudi Arabia is the only WTO Member ever to

have had its invocation of a national security

defence rejected

The WTO Panel found that Saudi Arabia has

taken measures that, directly or indirectly,

have had the result of preventing beIN from

obtaining Saudi legal counsel to enforce its

IP rights through civil enforcement proce-

dures before Saudi courts and tribunals

Hamad Port, Ruwais Port and Doha Port have registered strong growth in cargo handling in May, showing robustness of Qatar’s maritime sector.

GCO responds to false allegations by Saudi Arabia on WTO ruling

H E the Deputy Prime Minister said that the scaling up of international support and political commitment was needed now, more than ever, to ensure access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines for all.

OFFICIAL NEWS

02 SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020HOME

Qatar condemns Kabul bombingDOHA: The State of Qatar has

expressed its strong condemnation

and denunciation of the bombing

that occurred in the Afghan capi-

tal, Kabul, killing two people. In a

statement issued yesterday, the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs reit-

erated the State of Qatar’s firm

position rejecting violence and ter-

rorism, whatever the motives and

reasons. The statement expressed

the condolences of the State of

Qatar to the families of the two vic-

tims, the government and people

of Afghanistan. — QNA

Ooredoo offers WallPost ERP on 60-day free trialTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Ooredoo, the region’s leading enabler of digital business inno-vation, announced yesterday that core modules of its WallPost Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) service will be available on a 60-day free trial.

The telco leader is offering business customers a 60-day free trial of the service’s core modules, to support enterprises with their workforces operating remotely.

Businesses can use Ooredoo WallPost ERP to remotely manage key operations such as human resources, sales and customer relationship management and much more through the solution. The trial includes one week of service implementation, and can be requested until the end of July 2020. Ooredoo WallPost ERP combines Ooredoo’s communi-cations expertise with software development from Smart Man-agement IT Solutions and the accounting and business acumen of Moore Stephens.

Real-time data can be accessed

from any device, anywhere in the world, using the solution’s central dashboard tool through intuitive apps available for both iOS and Android devices.

Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer of Ooredoo Qatar, said: “We recognise we are operating in unprecedented times, with the coronavirus outbreak and the resulting effect on the ways businesses must adjust in order to ensure continuity, and we’re com-mitted to doing all we can to support our business customers as they adapt to the changing envi-ronment. Being able to trial the Ooredoo WallPost ERP will mean businesses can see just how effi-ciently they can continue to manage their operations, even with remote workforces, and can experience the many advantages on offer that will continue beyond the eventual conclusion of the out-break situation. We’re sure this free trial will be of huge benefit to many businesses, and we look forward to providing many more such solutions in the coming months.”

Retail Mart Hypermarket & New Indian Supermarket importing fruits, vegetables from India 6 days a weekTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Retail Mart Hypermarket and New Indian Supermarket, one of the oldest food stores in Qatar and which has been serving the people for the last 48 years, is importing fresh fruits and vegetables six days a week by air to increase the availability of agricultural

produce in the local market.The Retail Mart man-

agement said they uninter-ruptedly imported 50,000kg of fruits and vegetables from Kerala, Mumbai and Bengaluru during the month of June 2020 alone.

They have also put on sale a wide variety of locally-pro-duced agricultural supplies as

well as imports from countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, to name a few.

The new 25,000 square feet (sq-ft) outlet of New Indian Supermarket in Matar Qadeem (Old Airport) has a dedicated 4,000 sq-ft spacious fruits and vegetables section for a hassle-free and safe shopping expe-rience for their customers.

Retail Mart management are also launching their web-store and delivery services soon.

Residents of Qatar can now procure daily groceries and household items round the clock all days of the week at all the four branches of Retail Mart Hypermarket and New Indian Supermarket.

The four branches are Retail

Mart - Al Wakra, Retail Mart - Messaied, Retail Mart - Al Ghanim, Retail Mart - Madinath Khalifa and New Indian Super-market - Old Airport.

All the branches, open to customers for 24 hours, are equipped with thermometers, gloves and hand sanitizer at the entrance and exit for the safety of customers.

Fresh leaves from local farms and the fruits and vegetables section (right) at the New Indian Supermarket in Doha, yesterday. PICS: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA

News about next

academic year

shared on social

media incorrect,

says Ministry

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education has clarified that what is being circulated on social media platforms about the various scenarios of next academic year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic is incorrect.

“The Ministry of Education and Higher Education con-firms that this news is incorrect and does not relate to the Ministry, and we ask people to take information only from its official sources,” the Ministry said in a tweet yesterday.

In light of the COVID-19 crisis, some people on social media started posting infor-mation that education, in the next academic year, will con-tinue to be online, while some others said students will go back to schools.

The Ministry stressed that they have not issued any news regarding this and information should be obtained from official sources.

Positive results for study on use of recycled, local materials in constructionTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Studies have shown encouraging results for use of recycled and local materials in construction projects.

A research project was awarded by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) to the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) on the imple-mentation of recycled materials in construction.

The project commenced in 2018 for a three years duration and was led by Dr. Eng. Muhammad bin Saif Al Kuwari, from MME; Dr. Khaled Hassan, Managing Director of Infrastructure Research and Development (IRD) at the Qatar Science and Technology Park; Dr. Ian Sims, an international expert in geology from the UK; Dr. Murray Reid, an expert in geo-technical and ground engineering from the UK, and in partnership with the Public Works Authority (Ashghal).

The project aims to promote use of recycled and local materials in gov-ernment projects in line with the Ashghal Recycling Roadmap and the government strategy of sustainable development.

The project identified main solid waste streams in Qatar for potential use in construction and investigated advanced technologies for recycling that could be effectively applied to Qatar.

Wadi gravel is one of the main resources identified for use as aggregate in construction.

The material is produced as a by-product from the sand washing plants, as over-size materials that could provide high quality aggregate provided appro-priate processing procedures are applied. The project demonstrated that processing Wadi gravel using advanced crushing, screening and washing is essential to minimise the gypsum deposits adhering to the particles to acceptable levels for use in construction.

Wadi gravel is available in various sand deposits in the southern region of Qatar; mainly the areas of Al Kharaij, Al Kharara and Mekaines, with the latter deposit containing 4.5 million tonnes alone. Advanced testing of physical, chemical, mechanical and petrographic analysis was conducted of the processed Wadi gravel in specialised laboratories in the UK, the Road Department and the Ashghal Research & Development Centre within the Ashghal Quality and Safety Department.

The results showed excellent per-formance and compliance with national and international specifications for use in concrete and drainage applications as a replacement to imported gabbro

with positive impacts on cost and environment.

As part of the project implemen-tation, the team worked closely with Ashghal's Road Department in imple-menting Wadi gravel as a pipe bedding material in trench soakaways, with esti-mated quantity of 27 tons in one of the infrastructure projects in Umm Salal. Monitoring performance of Wadi gravel after 18 months in service showed encouraging results for wider use in infrastructure projects.

The project team also worked with experts and consultants from Ashghal on investigating the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in road con-struction. The technique is based on milling old roads and recycling the RAP materials in new asphalt mixtures, with

conservative use of gabbro and bitumen. RAP recycling has positive impacts

on cost and the environment, with the potential use of 100 percent materials to improve aggregate supply chain and accelerate project completion. The per-formance of RAP asphalt was monitored in five Ashghal projects in Doha, Al Wakra, Old Airport, and Izghawa areas, with positive and encouraging results after exposure to traffic and weather conditions.

The project team is delighted with the outcomes of the recycling implemen-tation project that supports the Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Qatar Second National Development Strategy 2018-2022 of achieving environmental sustainability and optimising the use of local resources towards self-reliance.

The Al Wakra Metro Car Park, where reclaimed asphalt pavement has been used.

Qatar Airways to

operate 26

weekly flights to

European cities

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Airways will operate 26 weekly flights to several desti-nations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, said the airline yesterday.

“By August, we will operate over 26 weekly flights to destinations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. We’re looking at you Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, and Geneva,” said Qatar Airways on its official twitter account.

The airline is smoothly moving ahead on its earlier announced decision to grad-ually expand its network.

GCO responds to false allegations by SaudiFROM PAGE 1

The WTO Panel was careful not to endorse Saudi Arabia’s allegations, stating that: “[t]he Panel expresses or implies no position concerning any of these allegations, and recalls that Qatar strongly denied the various accusations made by Saudi Arabia” (Panel Report, paras. 7.262 and 7.263).

Saudi Arabia is the only WTO Member ever to have had its invocation of a national security defence rejected (Panel Report, paras. 7.294 and 8.1(c)(ii)).

The WTO Panel found no exception to justify Saudi Ara-bia’s failure to take criminal action against beoutQ (Panel Report, paras. 7.286 and 7.288). The WTO Panel found that “Saudi Arabia has taken measures that, directly or indi-rectly, have had the result of preventing beIN from obtaining Saudi legal counsel to enforce its IP rights through civil enforcement procedures before Saudi courts and tribunals, and thus Saudi Arabia has acted in a manner inconsistent with Article 42 and Article 41.1 of the

TRIPS Agreement” (Panel Report, para. 8.1(b)(i)).

The WTO Panel found that “Saudi Arabia has not provided for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied to beoutQ despite the evidence establishing prima facie that beoutQ is operated by indi-viduals or entities under the jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia, and thus Saudi Arabia has acted inconsistently with Article 61 of the TRIPS Agreement” (Panel Report, para. 8.1(b)(i)).

In fact, the WTO Panel found that “while taking no action to apply criminal pro-cedures and penalties to beoutQ, Saudi authorities engaged in the promotion of public gatherings with screenings of beoutQ’s unau-thorized broadcasts of 2018 World Cup matches” (see Panel Report, para. 7.219).

The WTO Panel found that “beIN and other foreign right holders repeatedly sent detailed information to the Saudi authorities to inform them of beoutQ’s alleged p i r a c y , a n d t h e

extensive evidentiary basis for concluding that beoutQ is operated by individuals or entities subject to the criminal jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia” (Panel Report, para. 7.219).

The WTO Panel found that this information was sent to the Saudi Ministry of Media and the Saudi General Com-mission of Audio and Visual Media or (GCAM) from 2018 onwards, when the beoutQ piracy started. SAIP was not operational until 2019.

At no point did beIN or other foreign rights holders receive any communication from GCAM that their com-plaints should be sent to SAIP, or any other Saudi authority.

In a statement, Saudi Arabia makes a commitment to “do its part” to stop copyright piracy. If true, Saudi Arabia should accept the WTO Panel Report and take immediate remedial action. Regrettably, Saudi Ara-bia’s statement suggests that it has not yet drawn the necessary lessons from the Panel’s dev-astating findings and will follow similar steps to what beoutQ has done in the past.

Ports register

increase in cargo

handling in MayFROM PAGE 1

Qatar Ports Management Company (Mwani Qatar), in coordination with the Ministry of Public Health and relevant authorities, has implemented series of measures to limit the spread of coronavirus in the ports. The measures include sanitisation of containers, installing thermal cameras, submission of COVID-19 dis-closures and making work-force at the port aware about how to limit spread of the virus. The steps were taken months before to ensure that the maritime sector remains safe. In January, all ship agents were notified of the necessity of submitting COVID-19 dis-closure and IMO accredited medical declaration.

FAJR SUNRISE 03.16 am 04.46 am

W A L R U WA I S : 31o↗ 37o W A L K H O R : 30o↗ 42o W D U K H A N : 27o↗ 38o W WA K R A H : 27o↗ 41o W M E S A I E E D 27o↗ 41o W A B U S A M R A 32o↗ 38o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 10:53 – 21:56 LOW TIDE 05:17– 16:03

Hot daytime with slight dust at some places daytime,

relatively hot by night.

Minimum Maximum31oC 43oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.37 am06.30 pm

ASR ISHA

03.00 pm08.00 pm

03SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020 HOME

45 years of Qatar-Mexico diplomatic ties commemorated in virtual meetTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

In line with the commemoration of 45 years of diplomatic rela-tions between Qatar and Mexico, the Qatari embassy in Mexico and the Mexican embassy in Qatar in coordi-nation with the Mexican University “Iberoamericana” organised a virtual meeting on Thursday.

During the event ambas-sadors of the two countries dis-cussed the current state of dip-lomatic relations between Qatar and Mexico, and the challenges and developments in bilateral relations.

Diplomatic relations between two nations were established on June 30, 1975. Qatar, since joining the UN in 1971, has managed to achieve an important position at the international level, not only for its geographical and strategic situation in the Arab region, but also for its pragmatic and inde-pendent foreign policy; which contributed in a very active international agenda for Qatar i n v a r i o u s s e c t o r s . In this regard, Ambassador

of the State of Qatar to Mexico, H E Mohammed bin Jassim Al Kuwari recalled that through the “Qatar National Vision 2030” promoted by the lead-ership of Father Amir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar has already achieved great results in all areas of the plan, which will serve as a framework for long-term national strategies. This plan aims to position Qatar by 2030 on the forefront in social, edu-cational, economic and envi-ronmental matters.

In this framework, the ambassador spoke about the importance of human devel-opment in Qatar, to promote fair education for all, for which

he gave as an example creation and operation of the “Education City of Qatar”, a very prominent education center in the region based on innovative devel-opment focused on education, research and innovation in the country.

He also highlighted that Qatar has a specialised Sov-ereign Investment Fund that invests in local and interna-tional projects. Founded in 2005 as a result of the proposed strategy of minimising the risks derived from Qatar’s dependence on energy, the fund predominantly invested in international markets (USA, Europe and Asia), but also in different sectors than energy.

In this area, the Qatari Ambassador discussed the oil

exploration contracts won by the Qatar Petroleum company in Mexico in recent years.

He invited Mexican com-panies to invest in Qatar not only because it is a very safe country but also for its very modern infrastructure and facilities for foreign investors.

With regard to World Cup 2022 to be hosted by Qatar, the Qatari Ambassador invited Mexicans to visit the country and learn about its traditions, a relaxed and friendly tourist environment, and in general its culture that is made up of dif-ferent ethnic groups and cul-tures that live in the country.

Mexican Ambassador to Qatar, H E Graciela Gomez Garcia said that there are around 600 Mexicans living in Qatar.

She also discussed the issue of trade, as she reaffirmed that trade between the two coun-tries is increasing, and according to official statistics for 2019, the trade exchange between the two countries reached $111m, a growth of 60% over the previous year.

Already since 2018 there

had been a significant increase in trade between the two coun-tries, as there was an increase of 30% from 2017.

She also explained that Mexican exports to Qatar have grown considerably in 2019, reaching $70m. Despite the global economic situation from January to April this year, there was an increase of 25% in bilateral trade. “Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the trade situation a bit, but we have managed to con-tinue strengthening ourselves with joint efforts,” the Ambas-sador pointed out.

Both the Ambassadors

invited Mexicans to really get to know Qatar, and to enjoy what Qatar has to offer to eve-ryone and to the fans in World Cup 2022.

They also highlighted the friendly relationship between the two countries, which was evident in the Club World Cup in 2019 hosted by Qatar.

The Mexican Ambassador to Qatar concluded by saying that the Mexican fans in the Club World Cup 2019 fell in love with Qatar.

¨It is a society not so dif-ferent from ours in some aspects which makes it a very pleasant experience,” she said.

Qatar, since joining the UN in 1971, has managed to achieve an important position at the international level, not only for its geographical and strategic situation in the Arab region, but also for its pragmatic and independent foreign policy.

HMC urges public to follow water safety guidelines to avoid drowning accidentsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

As summer months begin and temper-atures continue to rise, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has urged all families to take necessary precautions when going to beaches or swimming pools to avoid the risk of drowning.

Dr. Khalid Abdel-Nour, Senior Con-sultant Emergency Medicine and Director of Hamad International Training Center (HITC), said drowning is the third leading cause of death resulting from unintentional injuries worldwide, accounting for 7% of these deaths.

Drowning is thought to be the cause of thousands of deaths around the world every year, with children and individuals with increased access to water at most risk of drowning.

The number of deaths resulting from drowning among children continues to

increase annually. Drowning is con-sidered one of the leading causes of death and severe disability among children in Qatar.

Commenting on the recent reopening of beaches in Qatar, Dr. Abdel-Nour explained that 90 percent of all drowning cases involve children aged 10 years or younger, with 70 percent of these cases involving children under the age of four.

Most incidents of drowning occur in the sea because families often go to the beach for picnics and leisure activities at this time of the year.

Many drowning incidents also occur in swimming pools when parents or car-egivers are not present, and their children are left unattended.

“Parents are advised to adhere to safety measures to prevent drowning accidents in swimming pools at homes, such as installing a secure gate or other

barrier to prevent children from gaining access to the swimming pool when there is no adult supervising them,” said Dr. Abdel-Nour.

Dr. Mahmoud Younis, Assistant Director of Health Promotion and Com-munity Engagement with HMC’s Hamad International Training Center, offered the following safety tips for families when going to the beach or when allowing their children to use swimming pools:

Check the weather forecast before going to the beach to avoid inclement weather and the risks associated with strong winds and high waves. Follow all safety guidelines when going to the beach or swimming pool for swimming. Ensure children are constantly super-vised to prevent any unintended access to water sources and remember that drowning can take seconds to happen.

The Qatari Embassy in Mexico and the Mexican Embassy in Qatar holding a virtual meeting to commemorate 45 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Azym Technologies charters flight for Indian expatsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Founder and CEO of Azym Technol-ogies, a Qatar-based company, Shafeek Kabeer charted a Qatar Airways flight with 175 expatriate passengers suffering from various circumstances.

The flight with deprived passengers departed from Qatar at 3:30am Doha time on June 26 and landed at 11am Indian time.

This is the first time in the Middle East that a private company has char-tered a flight exclusively free for the passengers.

Azym Technologies has accom-plished this CSR activity of repatriation programme by chartering a full flight for Indian citizens and expatriates free of cost in the current situation due to COVID-19. They have successfully

sustained this unique CSR operation to ever take place in GCC by bringing home the most deserved passengers who are suffering from diabetics, serious illness,

the elderly, pregnant women and those who have lost their jobs and needed support, said a statement by the company. All the passengers conveyed their words of gratitude towards Azym Technologies’ initiative to take them home. This is the first time a chartered flight flew to Kerala with non-staff pas-sengers from the Gulf. “We are planning to take more passengers to the country for free,” said the Founder and CEO, Shafeek Kabeer.

Kabeer, an entrepreneur with a leading enterprise in the cloud tech-nology industry, has received numerous awards including South Indian Business Icon and Cloud Guru.

Azym Technologies is one of the leading and largest cloud technology providers in the Gulf region with more than 6,000 customers.

Shafeek Kabeer, CEO of Azym Technologies

Teach your children to swim or sign them up for swim classes with a certified trainer.

Children should wear lifejackets or a personal flotation aid when in or near water. It important for the parents to learn how to perform car-diopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

It is also important to be aware of potential sources of risk other than swimming pools, such as bathtubs. Always close the doors to bathrooms and swimming pools immediately after use.

“We hope we don’t reach the point where we need CPR.

Unfortunately, even if we manage to successfully resuscitate a child, children can end up with severe dis-ability,” said Dr. Younis.

“Learning how to perform CPR could be very useful as the first few minutes after an accident in water are critical. Always keep your first aid kit by the pool. In case of a drowning incident, it is important to remain calm and follow the CPR instructions. I would like to mention that HITC’s Kulluna campaign offers specialised first aid and CPR training courses to anyone interested,” Dr. Younis concluded.

Over 6,000 take part in competitions organised by Ministry of AwqafTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs held a series of educational and recreational competitions, attracting more than 6,000 students.

The aim of the competitions was to educate children about the Prophet’s Sunnah (Peace be upon him). The students’ ages were between four years to 12 years and includes both boys and girls.

The Ministry said that one of the most important goals of establishing such competitions is to link boys and girls of children with the Prophet’s Sunnah and instilling love of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in their hearts, and also to engage children in learning activities during the summer vacation.

Mal Allah Abdulrahman Al Jaber, Director of the Department of Dawah and Religious Guidance, praised the great interest of the children in

participating in the three com-petitions, as it attracted more than six thousand participants from boys and girls between the ages of four and twelve years.

The interaction with com-petition on social media reached more than 36,000 like and views.

Abdulrahman Al Jaber said that the Ministry has allocated financial prizes for 95 winners and their prizes will be sent to their bank accounts after com-pleting the required documents from them.

He also congratulated the winners and wished them and all the participants good luck and happiness, hoping they had a good time during the competition.

He also thanked the parents who were keen and interested in the interaction of their children with the competitions, indicating that the Ministry has many summer programmes designed for children.

MME ready to cooperate for conservation of biodiversityTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Director of the Department of Protection and Wildlife at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), Talib Khaled Al Shahwani, has said the Ministry is ready to cooperate with research institutions and private sector companies in all fields that serve conservation of biodi-versity. Al Shahwani was speaking in a webinar titled ‘Wildlife Conservation Efforts after Corona; Challenges and Opportunities in the Arabian Peninsula', organised by the Qur’anic Botanic Garden (QBG) of Qatar Foun-dation, in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature Regional Office for West Asia (IUCN-ROWA). Director of the Department of Protection and Wildlife thanked QGB and IUCN ROWA for their efforts for biological diversity, MME said in a statement.

The symposium dealt with the efforts made and chal-lenges faced by institutions working in the protection and conservation of nature, practical steps, aspirations and opportunities available to those institutions, especially after the COVID-19. Dr. Mohamed Al Sayed Ahmed, an expert on plant environment in the Department of Pro-tection and Wildlife, gave a presentation on the protection of plant and wildlife in Qatar, highlighting the Ministry's efforts in the field of biodiversity focusing on the most important projects for protection of endangered sea turtle hawksbill, rehabilitation of the land, protection of the endangered Qatari wild trees ‘Ghaf’ and ‘Bamber’.

The symposium came out with important recommen-dations like forging partnership between international institutions and public and private institutions in the filed of biodiversity in the country, and diversifying the pol-icies as per the latest developments to enhance environ-mental sustainability.

04 SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020HOME

HBKU’s CIS concludes Mena region’sfirst virtual summer schoolTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) has concluded ‘Design Post-COVID Normal’, the region’s first virtual summer school. The design-centred program, which took place from May 31 to June 25, aimed to seek novel solutions to a range of issues brought on by the pandemic, specifically those relating to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Hosted in collaboration with

SOGLAB (Turkey), NOBOX Lab (Morocco), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP - Lebanon office), and the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (Turkey), the virtual summer school attracted the interest of more than 1,000 applicants from the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Dr. Evren Tok, associate professor and dean of inno-vation and community engagement at HBKU’s College of Islamic Studies (CIS), said: “COVID-19 has exposed some

of the shortcomings of the current systems in supporting human needs and sustaining future generations. Over the last few months, we have seen the displacement of people, a dis-ruption in food supply, lack of access to sanitation, and a plethora of other basic human rights placed in jeopardy.

“The United Nations Global Goals act as a framework for achieving peace and prosperity by 2030. HBKU, together with the UNDP, has identified 12 of the goals that need to be

reassessed urgently to ensure a sustainable future. These goals explore issues relating to the biosphere, the economy, and societal needs.”

The virtual school saw the participation of 111 students, comprising 57 females and 54 males, from over 20 countries, who were carefully selected based on their interests, pre-vious experience, and knowledge of the SDGs.

Participating students were split into groups of 20 and were then tasked with developing design solution-based projects based on a chosen SDG using the creative framework pro-vided by the UNDP.

Throughout the process, students received direct support from SOGLAB and NOBOX Lab, who designed and led the pro-gramme, respectively. The month-long program featured webinars with high-level guest speakers, online workshops, and one-on-one facilitation days with each partner.

Speakers included: His Excellency Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari, Minister of State; Taha Ayhan, President of ICYF; Shaikha Ghalia Al Thani, UN Goodwill Ambas-sadors Michael Haddad and Ray Bassil; Rana El Chmaitelly, CEO and founder of The Little

Engineer; Adnane Addoui, Ashoka fellow from Morocco; Noora and AlDana Al Hedfa, Friendship Ambassador’s Foun-dation; Zubair Abid, Global Shapers; Mariam Mohammed, a Young Leaders Programme alumna; Eddy Bitar, co-founder of Live Love Lebanon; Robert Garita, operation manager of ibTECHar; Asmaa Serhan, co-founder and producer of Salamati; Hany Anan, co-founder of ToRed; and Louy Ghazawi, co-founder of Infrastic.

Each week, students worked through a series of carefully executed stages – ‘inspiration’, ‘ideation’, ‘implementation’, and ‘share’ – to enhance their cre-ativity and engagement using

an abundance of resources available to them. During each of these stages, students had the opportunity to engage in open-discussion and breakout groups to develop key skills needed to create a successful design-based response.

“While learning and engagement were at the heart of ‘Design Post-COVID Normal’, the program aimed to cultivate leadership and agency among youth who will go on to create a better tomorrow. Students were encouraged to propose changes to the current system, allowing them to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship between sus-tainable development and inno-vation,” Dr. Tok added. The participants during the ‘Design Post-COVID Normal’ virtual summer school.

The virtual school saw the participation of 111 students, comprising 57 females and 54 males, from over 20 countries, who were carefully selected based on their interests, previous experience, and knowledge of the SDGs.

H E Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari, Minister of State during the event.

MG HS is now available at Auto Class Cars showroomTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Auto Class Cars, the authorized distributer of MG in Qatar, presents the MG HS in Qatar, which is the sportiest SUV ever made by the British-born brand. With its powerful turbo engine, dynamic styling and wide range of great features, the MG HS has been designed to put the ‘sport’

back into SUV.The MG HS and wide range

of MG vehicles are available Auto Class Cars showroom at Salwa road in Doha. MG HS offers a 231hp 2.0L Turbo engine mated to a 6-speed dual clutch gearbox, Super Sport button, bucket racing seats and red racing cal-ipers, the all-new HS brings MG’s celebrated sporting heritage to

a state-of-the-art SUV.

Key to the sporty nature of the HS is its 231HP 2.0 Litre Turbo petrol engine, which is more powerful than any of the p o w e r p l a n t s offered by the c o m p e t i t o r s . D e v e l o p i n g maximum torque of 360Nm and capable of hitting a top speed of 210 km/h, with paddle shift gear change also available a Super Sport drive mode

button on LUX versions.Featuring the brand’s latest

design language, the MG HS takes its styling cues from the acclaimed X-Motion concept car that was unveiled in 2015. The centrepiece of the front-end design is an attractive Star grille that incorporates the iconic MG badge. It is complemented by the smart use of chrome to frame the grille, foglamps and lower air intake, while two-tone head-lights embedded with nine crystal LEDs are available.

The sporty look of the MG HS combines soft curves with the sleek lines that flow from the

bonnet and down the side before rising at the rear to sweep over the rear lights, which consist of 21 individual LEDs that light up sequentially. While chrome mouldings feature both on the side and below the rear bumper. A choice of five paint colours is available.

The cabin of the all-new MG HS simply oozes class, reinforcing the brand’s reputation for deliv-ering premium finishes at non-premium prices. Some 85% of the interior is covered with soft material, while customers can opt from three attractive interior colour schemes.

The sporty nature of the car is emphasised by the racing-style bucket seats that are fitted in top-of-the-range trims. Designed for optimum comfort, these stylish seats are made from high-quality leather sourced from German company Bader, one of the world’s leading man-ufacturers of premium leather for the automotive industry. A three-spoke leather steering wheel features sports stitching and multi-function buttons.

MG’s current range of cars is recognised for the extremely high levels of equipment and technology it offers, and the HS

is no different. The impressive list of equipment provided on all COM trims includes driver aids such as a rear-view camera, rear parking sensors, cruise control and an ECO cruising driving reminder.

With a premium audio sound system, on the inside the MG HS is quieter than the other vehicles in its class. Sound-proofing material covers 95% of the car, the thickness of the sound insulation has been increased to 25mm, and the front windshield is made of a soundproof PVB film normally found in luxury cars.

DPS-MIS marks yoga day with online sessionsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Following all the norms of social distancing, DPS-Modern Indian School virtually celebrated the 6th International Day of Yoga on June 21 and 22. The celebration, conducted, through the Zoom platform, was in tune with this year’s theme ‘Yoga For Health and Yoga at Home’ and educated the students and parents

about the benefits of Yoga in enhancing not only the physical health but also the mental health during this tough period.

The session witnessed an enthu-siastic participation of the parents and the students. The parents of the stu-dents of class Nursery and Prepar-atory were invited for the online cel-ebration apart from that students of

Grade IX who participated in it.A few asanas, suggested in the

Common Yoga Protocol by the Gov-ernment of India, were demonstrated by the P E teachers, and the attendees, following the instructions, performed them. A power point presentation highlighting the importance of Yoga was shown to educate the people on the role of yoga in maintaining a

perfect equi-librium between body and mind.

A total of five sessions were con-ducted and around 300 students and 220 parents par-ticipated in it. Each session went on for about 40 minutes to an hour. The same presentation is uploaded on our school official website imparting knowledge to approximately 5300 students and 500 staff of the school.

To mark the day, many videos and presentations are uploaded on DPS-MIS official ‘Facebook’ page during the Yoga week (June 14 to 22 ) by the stu-dents of Nursery to Grade XII.

05SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020 GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Palestine urges Gantz to halt annexation of West BankANATOLIA — RAMALLAH

The Palestinian Authority (PA) yesterday called on Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz to end the occupation of Pales-tinian lands and halt the annex-ation of the occupied West Bank before demanding nego-tiations.

“Gantz must think of ending the occupation instead of mobi-lising his army to annex [the West Bank] and consolidate the occupation,” Hussein Al Sheikh, the head of the PA General Authority of Civil Affairs, said on Twitter.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Gantz expressed his intention to directly nego-tiate with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Israeli government plans to hold a Cabinet vote

next week to annex parts of the West Bank, which was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war.

Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he would annex all set-tlement blocs and the Jordan Valley as of July 1 under an agreement with Gantz, the head of the Blue and White coalition.

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is seen as occupied territory under inter-national law, thus making all Jewish settlements there — as well as the planned annexation — illegal.

Palestinian officials have threatened to abolish bilateral agreements with Israel if it goes ahead with the annexation, which will further undermine the two-state solution.

The annexation stems from US President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century”, which was announced on January 28.

It refers to Jerusalem as “Israel’s undivided capital” and recognises Israeli sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank.

The plan states the

establishment of a Palestinian state in the form of an archi-pelago connected through

bridges and tunnels.Palestinian officials say that

under the US plan, Israel will

annex 30-40% of the West Bank, including all of East Jerusalem.

Hundreds of Palestinians holding anti-annexation banners gather to protest against the Israel’s annexation plan of the Jordan Valley, located in the occupied West Bank, in Rafah, Gaza, yesterday.

Palestinian officials have threatened to abolish bilateral agreements with Israel if it goes ahead with the annexation, which will further undermine the two-state solution.

Israeli warplane, artillery attack Gaza StripQNA — GAZA/ OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

Israeli occupation warplane and artillery shelled vacant land east of Deir Al Balah city in the central Gaza Strip as well as a site to east of Gaza City.

Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported that an Israeli warplane bombed vacant land east of Deir Al Balah city with at least one missile.

The occupation artillery also bombarded a site northeast of Gaza City near the martyrs cem-etery with at least two shells, which led to its destruction and caused fire. No injuries were reported.

A drone reconnaissance aircraft targeted a site west of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, with at least one missile.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation forces arrested yesterday a Palestinian youth at the Qalandia military checkpoint, north of occupied Jerusalem.

The occupation forces arrested the young man, whose identity has not been known yet, on the pretext that he possessed a knife, witnesses told Palestine’s WAFA.

They added that the occupation forces closed the aforementioned checkpoint leaving a long line of cars waiting to move between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Khamenei warns economy will worsen if virus spreads as death toll hits 10,364 AFP — TEHRAN

Iran’s supreme leader warned yesterday that the country’s economic problems would worsen if the novel coronavirus spreads unchecked, saying the initial momentum to contain it had since “waned”.

The country has struggled to curb the COVID-19 outbreak since it reported its first cases in the city of Qom in February.

It shut down non-essential busi-nesses, closed schools and cancelled public events in March, but the gov-ernment gradually lifted restrictions from April to try to reopen the coun-try’s sanctions-hit economy.

“It is correct to say that something must be done to prevent economic problems caused by the coronavirus,” said Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“But in the case of negligence and significant spread of the disease,

economic problems will increase, too,” he said in a meeting with judi-ciary officials, according to his official website. The Iranian rial has plunged to new lows against the US dollar in recent days due to the temporary economy shutdown, border closures and halt in non-oil exports, according to analysts.

Iran’s economic problems have worsened since 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the US from a landmark nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on the country, targeting vital oil sales and banking ties.

Iran’s health ministry spokes-woman said there had been 2,456 new cases of COVID-19 infection in

the past 24 hours, raising the coun-try’s caseload to 220,180.

Sima Sadat Lari added in tele-vised remarks that 125 of those infected had died during the same period, with overall fatalities reaching 10,364. “The sacrifice of health workers, efforts by volunteer groups and overall cooperation by the people made Iran one of the world’s suc-cessful countries” in controlling the outbreak, Khamenei said.

“But that was early in the (out-break), and now unfortunately that momentum and effort has waned among some of the people and authorities,” he added.

Official figures have shown a rising trajectory in new confirmed cases since early May, when Iran hit a near two-month low in daily recorded infections. Iran has refrained from imposing a mandatory lockdown on people to stop the virus’ spread, but has called for mask-wearing to be made compulsory.

Kuwait reports 688 new cases of coronavirusQNA — KUWAIT

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Health announced yesterday that 688 new cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) were recorded during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases recorded in the country to 44,391 cases, while 3 deaths were recorded as a result of infection, bringing the total death toll to date to 344.

The Ministry’s spokesman, Dr. Abdullah Al Sanad, said in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), the confirmed cases included patients who had contracted the virus due to mingling with infected persons. Others remained under examination to determine source of the contamination.

The latest infections include 444 Kuwaiti citizens and 244 non Kuwaiti residents of the country, he said.

Dr. Al Sanad revealed that more than 3,240 swab tests for the virus were conducted during past 24 hours, thus the tally of these examination exceeded 375,524 since breakout of the contagion in the country, months ago.

The Ministry said that the number of recoveries from the disease reached 34,586 cases after 617 cases recovered during the past 24 hours.

Oman logs 919 new virus cases

QNA — MUSCAT

The Omani Ministry of Health registered yesterday 919 new cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), including 517 Omanis and 402 from other nationalities, to take the tally to 36,953 cases.

The Ministry added that a total of 20,363 people have recovered from the infection, and the total number of deaths due to COVID-19 has reached 159 people, Oman’s ONA reported.

It explained that the total tests conducted during the past 24 hours amounted to 2,508, while the number of cases in intensive care reached 113 cases.

A long-exposure picture taken early yesterday shows a man using a mobile phone while walking past buildings destroyed by prior bombardment in the town of Ariha in Syria’s rebel-held northwestern Idlib province, as the Milky Way galaxy is seen in the night sky above.

Milky Way shines over sea of rubble in SyriaAFP — ARIHA, SYRIA

Years of violence in Syria’s last major opposition bastion has created a landscape of ruin, eerily lit in the early hours yesterday by the Milky Way in the night sky.

Over the bombed-out town of Ariha in Idlib province, the stars looked like specks of dust shining over the town’s pul-verised buildings.

Ten long-exposure pictures taken by an AFP photographer on an unusually clear night with no moon show the stark con-trast between the grim devas-tation on the ground and the Milky Way.

A Russian-backed gov-ernment offensive between December and March ravaged Ariha and other parts of northwest Syria, displacing nearly a million people.

A truce reached on March 6 had largely reduced the fighting but Russia resumed air strikes this month for the first time in an alarming uptick.

Some 780,000 of the nearly 1 million displaced are esti-mated to remain in dis-placement, according to the United Nations.

Perched on a mountainous region in Idlib, Ariha is held by the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham alliance (HTS), and its rebel

allies. It was home to almost 70,000 people before the regime’s latest offensive but it is now nearly deserted.

Its streets are dotted with the skeletons of buildings damaged by previous rounds of bombardment.

Barely any lights emanate from the ground, except the dim glow of mobile phones carried by passersby. Nearly half of Idlib’s population of three million has been displaced from other parts of Syria that have come under regime control.

The war in Syria has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population.

The Iranian rial has plunged to new lows against the US dollar in recent days.

06 SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020HOME

07SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020 AFRICA

Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt to agree Nile dam deal in weeksREUTERS — ADDIS ABABA

Leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt said they were hopeful that the African Union could help them broker a deal to end a decade-long dispute over water supplies within two or three weeks.

Ethiopia, which is building the Grand Ethiopian Renais-sance Dam (GERD) which worries its downstream neigh-bours Egypt and Sudan, said it would fill the reservoir in a few weeks, as planned, providing enough time for talks to be concluded.

Tortuous negotiations over the years have left the two nations and their neighbour Sudan short of an agreement to regulate how Ethiopia will operate the dam and fill its res-ervoir, while protecting Egypt’s scarce water supplies from the Nile river.

Ethiopia’s water minister,

Seleshi Bekele, said that con-sensus had been reached to finalise a deal within two to three weeks, a day after leaders from the three countries and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who chairs the African Union, held an online summit.

Billene Seyoum, a spokes-woman for Ethiopia’s prime minister, said that in Friday’s agreement there was “no diver-gence from Ethiopia’s original position of filling the dam.” The Egyptian presidency said in a statement after the summit that Ethiopia will not fill the dam unilaterally.

The Grand Ethiopian Ren-aissance Dam (GERD) is being built about 15 km (9 miles) from the border with Sudan on the Blue Nile, the source of most of the Nile’s waters.

Ethiopia says the $4bn hydropower project, which will have an installed capacity of 6,450 megawatts, is essential to its economic development.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister’s Office said that the three coun-tries agreed that the Nile and the Grand Renaissance Dam “are African issues that must be given African solutions.”

Friday’s round of talks bro-kered by the African Union, is

the latest attempt to move forward negotiations which have repeatedly stalled due to technical and political disagree-ments. They also signal an intention to solve the issue without foreign intervention.

Ethiopia’s statement said the African Union, and not the UN Security Council, will assist the countries in the negotia-tions and provide technical support.

Cairo had appealed to the

Council in a last-ditch diplo-matic move aimed at stopping Ethiopia from filling the dam.

The Council was expected to hold a public meeting on Monday to discuss the issue.

Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam is seen as it undergoes construction on the river Nile in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia, on September 26, 2019.

Malawi President says election re-run marred by ‘irregularities’AFP — BLANTYRE, MALAWI

Malawi’s President Peter Muth-arika yesterday said this week’s general election re-run was marred by “irregularities”, as unofficial tallies showed him losing to the opposition leader.

Voters in the southern African country went to the polls on Tuesday after the Con-stitutional Court scrapped the initial May 2019 presidential poll due to mass fraud.

Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has called on Malawi’s Electoral Commission (MEC) to annul the

results of the second vote and declare a third election.

“We expected an election without irregularities,” Muth-arika told reporters in the second city of Blantyre yesterday.

“Sadly, as all Malawians have seen, this election is the worst in Malawi’s history of our elections.” The President said DPP monitors were “hacked, abducted and intimidated” and therefore unable to verify tally sheets. “We believe most of the results that were sent to MEC are not a true reflection of the people,” Mutharika added.

However, he did not echo his party’s calls for another re-run.

The MEC has until July 3 to unveil the outcome, although the announcement is thought likely to come later on Saturday. Results from 80 percent of Malawi’s 28 districts have been tallied and verified so far.

Unofficial tallies compiled by public broadcaster MBC gave opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera a dominant 60 percent lead, with the Muth-arika trailing on 39 percent.

Mutharika did not mention whether he would concede

defeat, although his party has threatened to reject the outcome of the vote.

MEC spokesman Sangwani Mwafulirwa did not immedi-ately respond to the DPP's accusations.

"The commission is looking into the complaint and will give a determination soon," Mwafu-lirwa told reporters at a briefing yesterday.

Mutharika, in power since 2014, won 38.5 percent of last year's discredited vote in which Chakwera garnered 35.4 percent. In February, Malawi's top court found the election was

marred by widespread irregu-larities, including the use of cor-rection fluid to tamper with result sheets.

The landmark ruling made Malawi just the second country south of the Sahara to have presidential poll results set aside, after Kenya in 2017.

Victory in the rerun will be determined by whoever garners more than 50 percent of the votes — a new threshold set by the court. Some 6.8 million people were asked to vote between Mutharika, Chakwera and an underdog candidate, Peter Dominico Kuwani.

Passengers check-in their luggage before boarding flights at Tunis-Carthage International Airport in the Tunisian capital, yesterday, as the North African country reopens its land, sea, and air borders following a four-month closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Virus cases in Africa near360,000; deaths at 9,283ANATOLIA — ADDIS ABABA

The number of coronavirus cases in Africa has reached 359,408, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday.

The death toll has risen to 9,283. The number of patients who have recovered hit 173,057.

South Africa is the worst affected in terms of cases with a whopping 124,600, while Egypt follows with 62,800.

Nigeria in West Africa recorded 23,300 cases, Cam-eroon in Central Africa 12,600 and Sudan in East Africa 9,300.

Egypt leads in terms of

deaths losing 2,600 people to the virus, South Africa 2,300, Sudan 572, Nigeria 554 and Cameroon 313.

Southern Africa registered 129,700 cases, 2,400 fatalities and 66,500 recoveries; while North Africa recorded 92,700 cases, 3,900 deaths and 36,800 recoveries.

After originating in China last December, the novel virus has spread to 188 countries and territories.

More than 9.81 million people have been infected worldwide with the virus, over 494,500 killed and an upward of 4.94 million recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University.

UN says six migrantsdead, 93 rescuedoff Libya coastAFP — TRIPOLI

A woman who gave birth at sea was among 93 migrants rescued off Libyan shores as they tried to reach Europe, but six others died along the way, the UN’s migration agency said yesterday.

The survivors were brought back overnight to the port city of Khoms, 120 km west of the capital Tripoli, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Twitter.

“Among them was a woman who gave birth on the rubber dinghy” that had undertaken the perilous Mediterranean crossing, it said.

“Migrants reported to IOM staff that 6 people have died along the journey,” it added.

Libya was thrown into chaos after the overthrow and killing of veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

Traffickers have exploited the unrest to turn the North African country into a key route for illicit migration towards Europe. The situation of ref-ugees and asylum seekers in Libya worsened after eastern L i b y a - b a s e d m i l i t a r y strongman Khalifa Haftar

launched an assault on Tripoli in 2019 and the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticised the sys-tematic return of migrants intercepted in the Mediter-ranean to Libya, where they are held in crowded detention centres. The IOM said those rescued overnight were released after disembarking in Khoms. The latest operation came just days after French charity boat Ocean Viking, picked up dozens of migrants, including 31 Pakistanis, off the Italian island of Lampedusa after they had drifted from Libya.

Nicholas Romaniuk, who coordinated the mission aboard that vessel, said rescue ships are often out-run by the Libyan coast guard who beat them to intercept migrants and return them to Libya.

Such was the case, he said, with the overnight rescue oper-ation, deploring the lack of coordination. “We were about an hour and a half from being nearby” when the Libyan coast guard intervened, said Romaniuk. More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Med-iterranean last year.

Cameroon’s President Biya under pressure over human rightsAFP — YAOUNDE, CAMEROON

Buffeted by security and political crises and embarrassed by military blunders, Cameroon’s government has been forced to give ground on human rights under intense pressure from campaigners and the UN and from allies who once chose to overlook its flaws. NGOs have long denounced abuses in the central African country, from the detention of journalists and arrests of opponents to the killings of civilians by soldiers.

But after a massacre by security forces and the death of a detained journalist, the inter-national outcry has been so loud that President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, has been forced to make U-turns.

Three soldiers were charged this month with murder over the February killing of 10 children and three women in western Cameroon. The UN says at least 23 civilians had died. The military had denied the killings for two months, blaming the deaths on fuel con-tainers that had accidentally exploded during a firefight between security forces and anglophone separatists.

The investigation and pros-ecution of the soldiers mark an unprecedented step by a regime

deaf to such accusations for decades.

From now on, “it will be dif-ficult for the regime to resist international pressure,” said Cameroonian political scientist Ambroise Louison Essomba.

The government “has every interest, for its own survival, to closely study this question of human rights”, said another analyst, Jacques Ebwea.

The pressure is mounting as Cameroon is battered by vio-lence: in the north, where attacks by Boko Haram mili-tants are on the rise, and in the west where a three-year sepa-ratist revolt rages on, rooted in resentment among the English-speaking minority in the fran-cophone-majority country.

Violence between anglo-phone separatists and security forces has claimed more than 3,000 lives and at least 700,000 have fled their homes.

Although rights monitors emphasise that abuses have been committed by both sides, the armed forces have become mired in a series of high-profile atrocities.

Under pressure from NGOs, the United Nations, the United States and France — the coun-try’s former colonial ruler and a close ally — Biya announced an investigation into the Feb-ruary killings, which found that

the “uncontrolled” soldiers had tried to hide their crime and fal-sified their reports.

The United Nations wel-comed the “positive step”, but demanded that “all those responsible” for the killing be brought to justice.

In another high-profile case, seven soldiers are on trial for the execution-style killing of two women and their babies in the Far North, a region abutting Nigeria where Boko Haram jihadists fighters have carried out brutal attacks on civilians. The atrocity was filmed and shared on social media. The government had initially dismissed the images as fake before — under inter-national pressure — changing position and arresting the seven.

On top of those conflicts, Cameroon has been experi-encing an unprecedented political crisis since Biya — who is 87 years old and has ruled Cameroon since 1982 — was re-elected in 2018.

His challenger and main opponent, Maurice Kamto, and hundreds of his supporters were arrested shortly after the elections. They spent nine months in prison without trial before being released in October 2019, again after strong international mobilisation.

Morocco denies

using spyware to

monitor critics

AP — RABAT, MOROCCO

Moroccan authorities said they “categorically reject” an Amnesty International report claiming the government used surveillance software to spy on the phone of a prominent journalist and human rights activist.

In a report published this week, Amnesty said forensic analysis it carried out on the cellphone of Omar Radi indi-cated that his communications were monitored from January 2019 using technology developed by Israeli hacker-for-hire company NSO Group.

In a statement released late on Friday, Moroccan authorities rejected Amnesty’s “baseless allegations,” saying that the report serves agendas motivated by hostility against Morocco and competitors in the intelligence market.

Amnesty’s local director, Mohamed Sektaoui, was sum-moned by authorities on Friday and asked to provide evidence “as soon as possible,” the statement said.

Radi was questioned by police on Thursday on suspi-cions of receiving funds linked to foreign intelligence services. He dismissed the allegations as “ridiculous.” Radi was arrested last year after a tweet that defended anti-gov-ernment protesters. He was subsequently put on trial in March this year, accused of insulting a judge with his tweet that slammed the prison sen-tences handed down to protest leaders.

He received a four-month suspended jail sentence and a $50 fine.

Nigerian military

says ‘scores’ of

militants killed in

air raids

BLOOMBERG

Nigerian forces attacked militant group Boko Haram's bases in the Tongule and Bukar Meram communities in the northeastern Borno State and killed “scores of their fighters,” the West African nation’s military said.

The air strikes went ahead on June 25 after about 35 mil-itants were spotted at a set-tlement shielding the insur-gency in Tongule, John Enenche, a military spokesman, said in emailed statement yesterday.

Others were spotted at Bukar Meram, where “several” insurgents were killed, he said.

Boko Haram has waged a violent campaign since 2009 to impose its version of Islamic law in Africa’s most populous country.

Nigeria is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.

Ethiopia said the African Union, and not the UN Security Council, will assist the countries in the negotiations and provide technical support. Cairo had appealed to the Council in a move aimed at stopping Ethiopia from filling the dam.

What can we do to convince people that a mask-laden society, while it will feel weird and indeed be weird, can be made stable and beneficial through our own self-awareness? While there is no simple answer to that question, mask advocates should recognize that they have been treading into unusual cultural territory, and should not be surprised by unusual public responses.

08 SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

ON JUNE 16, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) issued its ruling on the Saudi Arabia-based piracy oper-ation known as ‘beoutQ’ and since then the Saudi authority did not stop attempts to spread disinformation and obscure the truth about the WTO Panel’s findings.

The tactics of deception being followed by the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) are continued instead of taking the necessary corrective measure to protect intellectual property rights.

These attempts prompted the Government Com-munications Office (GCO) to issue a statement yes-terday in response to the false allegations on the ruling issued by WTO.

In order to counter the disinformation published by SAIP, the GCO highlighted several points in reference to the WTO panel findings, stressing that Saudi’s attempts to cover the crime of violating the IP under the pretext of national security is not acceptable and instead it must take necessary actions to meet its obli-gations under the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement.

The WTO Panel found no exception to justify Saudi Arabia’s failure to take criminal action against beoutQ and this has made all Saudi’s claims implausible and found violating provisions of the TRIPS Agreement.

The Saudi authorities prevented beIN from obtaining Saudi legal counsel to enforce its IP rights through civil enforcement procedures before Saudi courts and tri-bunals. Thus it did prevented criminal procedures and penalties to be applied to beoutQ despite the evidence establishing prima facie that beoutQ is operated by individuals or entities under the jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia, and thus Saudi Arabia has acted inconsistently with Article 61 of the TRIPS Agreement, according to the GCO statement.

The WTO Panel found that “while taking no action to apply criminal procedures and penalties to beoutQ, Saudi authorities engaged in the promotion of public gatherings with screenings of beoutQ’s unauthorised broadcasts of 2018 World Cup matches”.

According to the WTO Panel findings information about the unauthorised broadcast by beoutQ was sent to the Saudi Ministry of Media and the Saudi General Commission of Audio and Visual Media or (GCAM) from 2018 onwards, when the beoutQ piracy started.

“beIN and other foreign right holders repeatedly sent detailed information to the Saudi authorities to inform them of beoutQ’s alleged piracy, but there was no action taken to end the illegal action and blatant vio-lation to the IP rights, as the WTO Panel findings stressed. GCO has called on Saudi authority to accept the WTO Panel Report and take immediate remedial action and pay necessary attention to the WTO Panel’s devastating findings and learn to respect the IP rights.

Violating international laws

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Quote of the day

Gantz must think of ending the occupation

instead of mobilizing his army to annex [the

West Bank] and consolidate the occupation.

Hussein Al Sheikh, Head of the Palestinian Authority's Civil Affairs Commission

US President Donald Trump holds up a protective face shield during a tour of a Ford plant that is manufacturing ventilators, masks and other medical supplies, in Michigan.

While Americans still have not adopted mask-wearing as a general norm, we’re wearing masks more than ever before. Mask-wearing is mandated in California, and in many counties masks are near-universal in public spaces. So I have started wondering: Does wearing a mask change our social behavior and our emotional inclinations? And if mask-wearing does indeed

change the fabric of our inter-actions, is that one reason why the masks are not more popular in the US?

When no one can see our countenances, we may behave differently. One study found that children wearing Halloween masks were more likely to break the rules and take more candy. The anonymity con-ferred by masks may be making it easier for protestors to knock down so many statues.

And indeed, people have long used masks to achieve a kind of plausible deniability. At Carnival festivities around the world people wear masks, and this seems to encourage greater revelry, drunkenness, and lewd behavior, traits also associated with masked balls. The mask creates another persona. You can act a little more outrageously, knowing that your town or village, a few days later, will regard that as “a different you.”

If we look to popular culture, mask-wearing is again associated with a kind of transgression. Batman, Robin and the Lone Ranger wear masks, not just to keep their true identities a secret, but to enable their “ordinary selves” to step into these larger-than-life roles.

But if we examine mask-wearing in the context of Covid-19, a different picture emerges. The mask is now a symbol of a particular kind of conformity, and a ritual of collective responsibility and discipline against the virus. The masks themselves might encourage this norm adherence by boosting the sense of group membership among the wearers.

The public health benefits of mask-wearing far exceed the social costs, but still if we

want mask-wearing to be a stable norm we may need to protect against or at least rec-ognize some of its secondary consequences, including the disorientations that masks can produce. Because mask-wearing norms seem weakest in many of the most open soci-eties, such as the United States and United Kingdom, perhaps it is time to come to terms how masks rewrite how we react and respond to each other.

If nothing else, our smiles cannot be seen under our masks, and that makes social interactions feel more hostile and alienating, and it may lower immediate levels of trust in casual interactions. There are plenty of negative, hostile claims about masks circulating, to the point of seeming crazy, but rather than just mocking them perhaps we need to recognize what has long been called “the paranoid style in American politics.” If we admit that mask-wearing has a psychologically strange side, we might do better than simply to lecture the mis-creants about their failings.

Just ask yourself a simple question: If someone tells you there is a new movie or TV show out, and everyone in the drama is wearing masks, do you tend to think that’s a feel-good romantic comedy, or a scary movie? In essence, we are asking Americans to live in that scenario, but not quite giving them the psychological armor to do so successfully.

On the brighter side, I wonder if mask-wearing might diminish some expressions of intolerance. People who might feel that others are “looking at them funny” might find them-selves with less to be offended by as masks obscure those

micro-reactions. Common mask-wearing is already reportedly easing the public judgment experienced by Muslim women who wear face coverings in Western society; some Muslim women who wear the niqab report that they are no longer being given dirty looks, if only because they no longer stick out so much.

Women who cover their faces for religious reasons may now be ahead of the rest of us when it comes to effective communication - because they cannot rely as much their faces to convey emotion in public conversa-tions, they report relying on more visible body language like waving and gesturing.

The tension of current mask policy is that it reflects a desire for a more obedient, ordered society, for public health purposes above all, but at the same time it creates incentives and inclinations for non-conformity. That is true at least within the context of American culture, admittedly an outlier, both for its par-anoia and for its infatuation with popular culture. As a society, our public mask-wearing is thus at war with its own emotional leanings, because it is packaging together a message based on both discipline and deviance.

What can we do to con-vince people that a mask-laden society, while it will feel weird and indeed be weird, can be made stable and bene-ficial through our own self-awareness? While there is no simple answer to that question, mask advocates should recognize that they have been treading into unusual cultural territory, and should not be surprised by unusual public responses.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Shortly after 1am on April 21, the grandmother of Carlos Ingram-Lopez called Tucson, Ariz., police for help. Her 27-year-old grandson seemed drunk and was yelling and running around the house naked. Officers responded. Within a half-hour, the young man was dead in an incident that has become another flash point in the national debate over policing.

Ingram-Lopez’s death in police custody more than two months ago was - to the dis-credit of the Tucson Police Department - only recently revealed, along with the dis-closure that three officers had resigned under threat of being

fired and that the police chief had offered to step down. The release of body-camera video capturing the young man’s agonizing death drew inevi-table comparisons with George Floyd, whose death a month later under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has sparked nationwide pro-tests against police brutality and racial injustice. Neither man appeared to be a threat to police. Both gasped - over a span of many long minutes - that they couldn’t breathe and pleaded for help. Ingram-Lopez called out for his grandmother; Floyd for his mother. Autopsies cited physical restraint as factors in both deaths.

But there are differences in

the two cases that are relevant to any thoughtful debate about policing and the reforms that are needed. The officers in Ingram-Lopez’s case did not use a chokehold or put a knee on his neck. Instead of obvious malicious intent, there seemed to be sheer incompetence, complete confusion and utter disregard for dealing with a person who was clearly in a mental health crisis. Instead of following best practices - trying to engage him in con-versation, putting him in a safe recovery position, summoning medical assistance - they kept him prone on the ground, threatened to shock him and covered him with blankets. The officers, the internal police investigation concluded,

“showed complete disregard for the training provided to each, disregard for established policy, but most importantly an apparent indifference or inability to recognize an indi-vidual in medical distress and take the appropriate action to mitigate the distress.” The medical examiner attributed his death to sudden cardiac arrest with acute cocaine intoxication, physical restraint and an enlarged heart as con-tributing factors.

Ingram-Lopez’s case is no less tragic - no more acceptable - than Floyd’s or those of countless other people of color who have been ill-treated by a police culture that too often doesn’t recognize their humanity.

Why Americans are having an emotional reaction to masks

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Another agonizing death in police custody

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09SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020 ASIA

New Delhi struggles to cope with COVID-19 surgeAFP — NEW DELHI

Staff at the luxury Suryaa hotel used to wear bright saris as they welcomed guests. Now they must don medical suits and handle gurneys as New Delhi desperately prepares for a predicted surge in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks.

The pandemic is still raging in India with more than half a million cases. The capital, home to 25 million people, is the country’s worst-hit city — its hospitals at breaking point and authorities reaching deep to confront the crisis.

“For doctors and nurses it is a part of their lives. For us this is a totally new experience and a very difficult one at that,” said Ritu Yadav, operations manager at the five-star Suryaa, as staff in masks rush to deep clean the building.

“We have got training from the hospital on how to wear the PPE and then take it off but this is something I never thought I would have to do when I chose hospitality as my career.”

Delhi, home to some of India’s most crowded slums, has around 75,000 cases so far, but the city government predicts this will soar to half a million by the end of July.

With newspapers full of reports about patients being turned away from overflowing hospitals, Delhi told the city’s hotels earlier this month they

would be roped in to provide hospital care.

It is also converting wedding halls, and has several hundred re-purposed railway coaches standing by -- without air con-ditioning despite outside tem-peratures over 40 degrees Celsius.

The Delhi authorities have even started converting a spir-itual centre or ashram into a coronavirus isolation facility and hospital with 10,000 beds, many made of cardboard.

But for hotels, the move triggered outrage in an industry already reeling under losses because of travel restrictions.

The owners of Suryaa and four others approached the court, arguing many staff were over 50 and therefore were

high-risk themselves, with no experience of hospital care or handling bio-medical waste.

“It came as a shock because we were not spoken to about it, we got to know through the press,” Greesh Bindra, a top executive at the hotel, said.

“It’s like you are sleeping in a hotel and the next morning when you wake up you are told your hotel has become a hos-pital. Your first reaction will be how is this possible. We are hospitality, not a hospital.”

The hotel won a reprieve from the court — of sorts.

Instead of becoming a hos-pital, it could act as a covid care centre, housing patients on their way to recovery with mild to moderate symptoms.

It and around 30 other hotels in Delhi are set to be attached to hospitals which will provide staff to deal with any emergency.

The hotels can charge a maximum $66 a day, including meals. But they and their employees, used just to changing bedsheets and pro-viding room service, have had to improvise and innovate.

From using disposable plates and drawing red lines to ensure social distancing, they have minimum contact with their special guests. “You have to keep your staff safe as after all they are your people,” said Bindra, whose hotel will be

offering 200 beds. But whether the efforts of

the Delhi government -- which is squabbling with the federal government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi — will be enough is unclear.

Delhi has just over 13,000 beds for coronavirus patients in state-run hospitals with another 10,000 in private ones. The city government forecasts it will need 80,000

beds by the end of July. The government has can-

celled leave of all healthcare staff and plans to rope in vol-unteers to fight the crisis.

It has refused to reimpose a lockdown, as the southern city of Chennai has done.

Many in Delhi are worried and are taking matters into their own hands.

Some resident welfare associations are buying oxygen

cylinders and other equipment, while using vacant flats as iso-lation wards -- exposing the lack of trust in authorities.

“One of our residents lost his life just because he couldn’t get a bed in time. Then we thought we should do some-thing at our level,” said Lokesh Munjal, the head of a west Delhi housing society. “We don’t want to be at the mercy of gov-ernment and hospitals.”

Healthcare workers wearing personal protective equipment walk towards different localities before the start of a check-up camp for the coronavirus disease in Mumbai, India, yesterday.

4 Rohingya men

killed in gunfight

with police in

Bangladesh

AP — DHAKA

Four suspected members of a Rohingya group allegedly involved in kidnapping for ransom were killed in a gunfight with Bangladeshi police near the sprawling refugee camps where refugees from Myanmar live, officials said.

The gunfight took place on Friday when a team of security officials was searching for the gang leader in a forest near the Rohingya camps at Cox’s Bazar, said police Inspector Pradeep Kumar Das.

Another inspector, Morzina Akhter, said the suspects opened fire at police, sparking the gunfight that led to their deaths. Police also recovered about 40,000 drug pills and locally made guns, he said.

According to authorities and local media reports, the gang led by Abdul Hakim has kidnapped many locals for ransom and killed those whose families failed to pay. It had allegedly abducted at least seven Bang-ladeshis over the last two months and killed three hos-tages. Hakim remains at large.

While human rights groups acknowledge there are criminal elements among some of the Rohingya ref-ugees, they have urged author-ities to thoroughly investigate such cases.

In March, police fatally shot seven suspected members of a Rohingya gang allegedly involved in drug dealing and human trafficking.

More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar into Bangladesh after the Buddhist-majority country’s military launched a crackdown against them in August 2017 in response to an attack by insurgents.

SC accepts CBSE notification cancelling Class 10, 12 examsIANS — NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Friday accepted the draft notification issued by the CBSE in connection with the assessment scheme for the Board exami-nation cancelled for Class 10 and Class 12.

The Central Board of Sec-ondary Education filed an affi-davit in the top court detailing the assessment scheme. According to the notification, for students who have appeared in the examinations in more than three subjects, the average of the marks obtained in the best three performing subjects will be awarded in the subjects whose examinations have not been conducted.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre

in the matter, also said: “For students who have appeared in the examinations in only three subjects, the average of the marks obtained in the best two performing subjects will be awarded in the subjects whose examinations have not been conducted.”

The CBSE said that there are very few students of Class 12, mainly from Delhi, who have appeared in the examinations in only one or two subjects.

“Their results will be declared based on performance in the appeared subjects and performance in internal/prac-tical/project assessment. These students will also be allowed to appear in the optional exami-nations conducted by CBSE to improve their performance, if they desire to do so.

“Results of these students will also be declared along with other students,” said the draft notification submitted in the apex court.

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examina-tions, which holds the Class 10 ICSE and the Class 12 ISC exams, also told the bench its exams have also been cancelled and they will publish the assessment soon.

Taking note of these con-tentions on record, a bench comprising Justices AM K h a n w i l k a r , D i n e s h Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna disposed of the petitions, along with other similar pending cases in the High Courts.

“After perusing the same and taking into account the suggestions given by the

counsel appearing for the con-cerned parties, we see no dif-ficulty in permitting the CBSE to issue the said notification forthwith... all these petitions pertaining to CBSE examina-tions pending in this Court or any other Court shall be deemed to be disposed of in terms of the proposed notifi-cation to be issued by the CBSE,” said the top court.

The response from the CBSE came on petitions filed by a group of parents who moved the top court against its decision to conduct the remaining Board examination in July. The apex court was informed that both the CICSE and the CBSE will declare results together by mid-July.

The CBSE told the apex court that its decision is pro-students.

The CICSE told the apex court that they may give option to Class 10 students to give exams at a later stage, and their aver-aging marks formula is different from the CBSE.

For the CICSE, the top court noted that two aspects have been highlighted during the hearing by its counsel.

First, the board may con-sider conducting optional examinations for Class 10 as well and abide by the same terms as regards the optional examination regarding Class 12 referred to in the draft notifi-cation of the CBSE, reproduced above.

Secondly, that the assessment scheme of the CICSE is different, which would be notified within one week from today on its website.

Medical oxygen business in BangladeshA worker refills medical oxygen cylinders at a refill plant in Narayanganj, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday.

Sri Lanka's Telugu community fears decline of traditional ways

AP — KUDAGAMA, SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka’s Telugu community, whose nomadic lifestyle has increasingly clashed with the modern world, is facing another threat that could hasten its decline: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of the smallest ethnic community in the country who speak Telugu language of South Indian origin did not have permanent addresses until 1981, when the government built them villages from where they travelled to make money by staging snake and monkey performances and offering palm reading.

Such shows attract foreign tourists, who take pictures with pythons and cobras. “Now we can’t practice our job. Police and public health inspectors have told us not to get out of the village,” said Engatennage Podi Mahattaya, the village headman.

“Even if we get out, people are not attracted to us as they used to be,” he said. “They fear contracting the disease from us. Our movements are completely ceased as people do not allow us to get into their villages.” These days, the younger generation spurns the old ways. Many young men prefer manual labour to snake charming that typically earns a person 3,000 rupees, or about $16, a day.

The older members of the community say the pause in the traditional livelihoods due to COVID-19 will only accelerate their decline.

Australia’s Victoria struggles to contain coronavirusREUTERS — MELBOURNE

Australia’s state of Victoria recorded 41 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday, double the daily rate seen a week ago, struggling to gain control over the pandemic while the rest of the country continues easing social distancing restrictions.

Victoria, the country’s second-most-populated state, has now seen 11 straight days of double digit new cases, most linked to known outbreaks in Melbourne’s suburbs, health officials said. Victoria has 204 of Australia’s total of about 270 active cases. “We are very concerned,” deputy chief health officer of Victoria, Annaliese van Diemen, said at a press conference.

One of the new cases was a returned traveller. Australia requires all locals who return to quarantine in hotels for two weeks. But about 30% of people in Victoria have declined a COVID-19 test before leaving quarantine, health officials said.

New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, recorded six new cases on Saturday and officials said that returned trav-ellers who declined to be tested will have to stay in a mandatory quarantine 10 days longer. Despite the spike in cases in Victoria, Australia’s infections numbers of around 7,600 and 104 deaths have remained well below that of many other nations.

Australian outback station turned into national parkAFP — SYDNEY

A slice of the Australian outback almost the size of greater London will be turned into a national park to help protect threatened species, authorities said yesterday, in a move welcomed by green groups.

Narriearra Station, a 1,534km property in northwest New South Wales, is the biggest purchase of private land for national parks ever made by the state government, Environment Minister Matt Kean said.

It stretches across flood-plains, wetlands and landscapes

“currently not found anywhere in NSW national parks”, he added. Kean did not disclose the price tag for the property.

“Narriearra is an important refuge for threatened wildlife, with more than 25 threatened animal species, including nearly 90 per cent of NSW’s critical habitat and breeding areas for the nationally endangered Grey Grasswren,” said Kean.

Indigenous artefacts, tools and stone arrangements are also found across the property and the local Abo-riginal Land Council has been invited to suggest a name for

the park, he added.The World Wildlife Fund

(WWF) welcomed the new park.“This new National Park is

an example of the ambitious action required to slow and reverse the biodiversity extinction crisis,” WWF

Australia’s Stuart Blanch said, but added NSW needed to do more.

Blanch also called on the government to employ people from the local indigenous com-munity to help protect important sites and manage the land.

Conservation organisation Pew Charitable Trusts also hailed the move.

“The Outback landscapes in western New South Wales have not been highly protected and the scale of this historic pur-chase is exciting,” the group’s Australian director Barry Traill said.

Narriearra Station is the biggest purchase of private land for national parks ever made by the state government.

The pandemic is still raging in India with more than half a million cases. The capital, home to 25 million people, is the country’s worst-hit city — its hospitals at breaking point and authorities reaching deep to confront the crisis.

10 SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020ASIA

Asean leaders cite 1982 UN treaty in sea disputeAP — MANILA

Southeast Asian leaders said a 1982 UN oceans treaty should be the basis of sovereign rights and entitlements in the South China Sea, in one of their strongest remarks opposing China’s claim to virtually the entire disputed waters on historical grounds.

The leaders of the Associ-ation of Southeast Asian Nations took the position in a statement issued by Vietnam yesterday on behalf of the 10-nation bloc. Asean leaders held their annual summit by video on Friday, with the coro-navirus pandemic and the long-raging territorial disputes high on the agenda.

“We reaffirmed that the 1982 UNCLOS is the basis for determining maritime entitle-ments, sovereign rights,

jurisdiction and legitimate interests over maritime zones,” the Asean statement said.

The leaders were referring to the United Nations Con-vention on the Law of the Sea, a 1982 internat ional agreement that defines the rights of nations to the world’s oceans and demarcates stretches of waters called exclusive economic zones where coastal states are given the right to exclusively tap fishery and fuel resources.

They said in their statement that “UNCLOS sets out the legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out.”

Chinese officials did not immediately comment on the statement, but three Southeast Asian diplomats said that it

marked a significant strength-ening of the regional bloc’s assertion of the rule of law in a disputed region that has long been regarded as an Asian flash point. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authority to speak publicly.

“This is a rebuke of the basis of China’s claims,” said Carl Thayer, a prominent South China Sea analyst. He said the statement represented “a significant shift in Asean’s

rhetoric.” While it has criti-cised aggressive behaviour in the disputed waters, Asean, which relies heavily on China for trade and investment, has never castigated China by name in its post-summit communiques.

As Asean’s leader this year, Vietnam oversaw the drafting of the “chairman’s statement,” which was not a negotiated document but was circulated among other member states for consultation. Vietnam has

been one of the most vocal critics of China’s assertive actions in the disputed waters.

China has taken increas-ingly aggressive steps in recent years to bolster its claims to the strategic waters, which it vaguely marks with a so-called nine-dash line that overlaps with the coastal waters and territorial claims of Asean member states Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. Taiwan has also staked a claim in vast stretches of the disputed waters.

In July 2016, an interna-tional arbitration tribunal invalidated China’s vast his-torical claims to the waters based on UNCLOS. China refused to participate in the case and dismissed the ruling as a sham.

China in recent years transformed seven disputed

reefs into missile-protected island bases, including three with military-grade runways, and continues to develop them in actions that have set off pro-tests and alarmed rival claimant states, as well as the United States and its Asian and Western allies.

In recent months, China has come under fire for what rival claimants say were aggressive actions in the dis-puted waters as countries were scrambling to deal with the coronavirus.

Vietnam protested in April after a Chinese coast guard ship rammed and sank a boat with eight fishermen off the Paracel Islands.

The Philippines backed Vietnam and protested new territorial districts announced by China in large swaths of the sea.

Hong Kong police ban major protest over China security lawAFP — HONG KONG

Hong Kong police yesterday banned a major demonstration against China’s planned national security law for the city that critics fear would smother the financial hub’s treasured freedoms, organ-isers said.

The Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) said the force had rejected its applications for rallies on July 1 — the 23rd anniversary of the former British colony’s handover to China.

It is the first time the annual march has been banned since the CHRF began them in 2003, when half a million people came out to protest against the local gov-ernment’s attempt to introduce a national security law.

That bill was shelved, but Beijing has decided to impose a new security law in the city, claiming Hong Kong protesters were involved in separatism.

Police cited a risk of vio-lence for the decision and said the gatherings and march would “pose a severe threat to public health” due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pro-democracy CHRF, which was responsible for some of last year’s unprece-dented million-people dem-onstrations, said it would appeal the decision.

Hong Kong has recently relaxed social distancing measures, allowing public gatherings of up to 50 people. Theme parks and swimming pools have also reopened.

The semi-autonomous city has been convulsed by a year of huge and often violent rallies that began with an eventually aborted criminal extradition bill but morphed into a popular call for democracy and police accountability.

In May, Beijing announced a draft national security law —which will bypass Hong Kong’s legislature — to tackle

“terrorism” and “separatism” in a restless city it now regards as a direct national security threat.

The law would enforce punishment for subversion and other offences in Hong Kong, but critics see it as potential knock-out blow for freedoms and autonomy enjoyed by the city.

US President Donald Trump’s administration said Friday it was restricting visas for a number of Chinese offi-cials for infringing on the autonomy of Hong Kong, as Congress seeks tougher sanctions.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said “no one has any legal grounds or right to

make irresponsible comments on Hong Kong affairs”.

The EU also warned China it would face “very negative consequences” if it pressed ahead with the new bill.

The law is expected to be voted on during a National People’s Congress Standing Committee meeting to be held from tomorrow to Tuesday.

A group of pro-China activists hold placards and flags outside the US Consulate General in Hong Kong, on Friday, a day after the US Senate approved a bill that would lay out sanctions on Chinese officials who undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy as Beijing pushes forward with a controversial security law.

Mahathir backs

new candidate for

prime ministerREUTERS — KUALA LUMPUR

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad (pictured) has thrown his support behind the chief minister of the Borneon state of Sabah as candidate to lead the country, a statement from Mahathir said yesterday.

Mahathir said supporters and allies had unanimously agreed at a meeting on Thursday to nominate Shafie Apdal, among the early leaders who opposed the government of Najib Razak which Mahathir ousted in 2018, as next prime minister.

“I fully support this pro-posal,” Mahathir said. “The important thing is that we have a solid stand for the people to know our position.” Malaysia’s next national elections are due by September 2023 but there has been speculation of an earlier snap poll.

Thursday’s meeting also agreed to propose Mahathir’s former deputy-turned-rival Anwar Ibrahim, and his son Mukhriz Mahathir, as deputy prime ministers.

Malaysia’s opposition has been scrambling in recent weeks to muster a credible candidate to spearhead its challenge to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s adminis-tration, but was unable to decide between Mahathir or Anwar.

Pakistan to reopen Kartarpur Corridor for all Sikh pilgrimsINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

Pakistan has decided to reopen Kartarpur Corridor for all the Sikh pilgrims.

In a tweet yesterday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan has conveyed its read-iness to the Indian side to

reopen Kartarpur corridor on Monday on the occasion of the death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh.

The Kartarpur Corridor was inaugurated on November 9 last year by Prime Minister Imran Khan. The opening of the Cor-ridor on the eve of the 550th birth anniversary of Baba Guru

Nanak fulfilled the long awaited desire of Sikh devotees of the international community.

The Kartarpur Corridor is a true symbol of peace and reli-gious harmony.

This landmark initiative by the Government of Pakistan has been immensely appreciated by the Sikh community all over the

world including India. The first Guru of Sikhism, Baba Guru Nanak Saheb, had spent the last 18 years of his life in Kartarpur.

The Corridor was tempo-rarily closed on March 16 this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the religious places are

gradually opening up around the world, Pakistan has also made necessary arrangements to reopen Kartarpur Sahib Cor-ridor for Sikh pilgrims.

To ensure adherence to the health guidelines, Pakistan has invited India to work out nec-essary SOPs for reopening of the Corridor.

South Korean war veterans salute during a reception commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, at the Korean War Memorial, in Seoul. North Korea and South Korea separately marked the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a conflict that killed millions of people.

70th anniversary of the Korean War

Pakistan to speed uppace of CPEC projectsINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

Pakistan is taking several insti-tutional steps to further speed up implementation of projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework, adviser to PM on Finance and Revenue Hafeez Shaikh said.

“CPEC is the culmination and anchor of the great friendship and deep-rooted collaboration of the people and governments of China and Pakistan to realise their joint destiny, achieve their common objectives, and ensure a more prosperous future for both nations,” Shaikh said during a meeting with Chinese Ambas-sador to Pakistan Yao Jing.

The $60bn CPEC kick-started five years ago, concen-trating mainly on construction of roads and motorways and power plants to ensure energy security in the wake of a massive power shortfall.

Within the last couple of years, a series of power projects transformed the country into an energy-surplus destination from a power-defi-cient one. The CPEC framework envisaged 10,000 megawatts of production capacity.

In the first phase, a total of

1,544km of roads have been constructed and 1,456km are under construction. In the energy sector, 5,320MW of electricity has been added to the national grid, while work on seven projects with 4,170MW power projects is nearing completion.

Under the CPEC, additional projects of 2,844MW are planned. Also, a cross border optical fiber project, which stretches over 820km linking Khunjrab to Rawalpindi, has already been completed.

Special economic zones (SEZs) are the next phase of development after early harvest projects under the CPEC. Initially, 27 zones were expected to be set up. The number was now reduced to nine. Government is expecting $1.3bn worth of exports revenue from industrial chem-icals through SEZs dedicated to biotechnology.

However, the second phase of industrial and agriculture cooperation has yet to be oper-ationalised and its debt burden on Pakistan’s economy is fre-quently being questioned.

Shaikh appreciated the continuous and unwavering support that China has been providing to Pakistan.

Storms leave 3 dead, 12 missing in southwest ChinaAP — BEIJING

Three people died and 12 are missing after overnight rain-storms in southwestern China, authorities said yesterday.

Two vehicles fell into a river, killing two people and leaving three others

unaccounted for, according to the Mianning county gov-ernment in Sichuan province.

Another person was killed and nine more are missing in Yihai township, the county said in a post on its social media account. Mianning is about 280km southwest of Chengdu,

the capital of Sichuan.About 7,500 people have

been evacuated from their homes.

More than 20 people have died this year in seasonal rains in southern China that swell rivers and flood towns and agri-cultural fields.

2 rights group

staffers killed

in Kabul blast

ANATOLIA — KABUL

Two officials of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) were killed in a blast in the capital Kabul yesterday, officials confirmed.

In a statement, the group said Fatima Khalil, a donor liaison officer, and Ahmad Jawed Folad, a driver, were in an AIHRC shuttle that was tar-geted with an improvised explosive device near Butkhak Square in Kabul’s District 12.

Khalil, 24, started working with the AIHRC in September last year, after graduating from the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Folad, aged 41, was one of the commis-sion’s longest-serving employees, working there since June 2003. He is survived by his wife and three children, according to the statement.

“This forms a pattern of attacks on a constitutionally mandated national human rights institution that is unpar-alleled,” the AIHRC said.

The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations took the position in a statement issued by Vietnam yesterday on behalf of the 10-nation bloc. Asean leaders held their annual summit by video on Friday, with the coronavirus pandemic and the long-raging territorial disputes high on the agenda.

11SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020 EUROPE

Martin named IrelandPrime Minister afterhistoric coalition dealREUTERS — DUBLIN

Ireland’s parliament picked veteran opposition leader Micheál Martin as Prime Minister yesterday to head the first ever coalition uniting the two parties that have battled each other for power since a civil war nearly a century ago.

He pledged to rescue Ireland from the “the fastest-moving recession ever to hit”, brought on by the coronavirus crisis.

Martin’s Fianna Fail party was forced to join forces with its foes Fine Gael, after a surprise election surge for leftist Irish nationalists Sinn Fein left neither of the traditional centrist parties with enough support to govern on its own. They and are joined in coalition by the environmen-talist Greens.

Under a novel agreement, Martin is expected to step aside half way through the five-year term to allow Fine Gael’s leader, outgoing Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, to return to the post.

“There is no question what our most urgent work is. There is no community, no part of our country which has escaped untouched” by coronavirus), Martin told a special sitting of lawmakers, held in Dublin’s large Convention Centre as the houses of parliament are too small for social distancing.

To overcome the recession “we must act with urgency and ambition,” said Martin, close to tears as he thanked his family who were unable to travel from his native Cork due to corona-virus restrictions due to be eased on Monday.

He was elected by 93 votes

to 63 after also securing support from some independent members of parliament.

The appointment repre-sented a turnaround for Fianna Fail and Martin, who was a member of the government that signed up to an EU/IMF bailout a decade ago and led to an unprecedented 2011 electoral collapse just after he took over as leader.

The 59-year-old former history teacher, who has held several senior ministries including health, trade, foreign affairs and education, faces another economic crisis with 26 percent of the country either

temporarily or permanently unemployed.

The jobless rate was just 4.8 percent when the election was fought in very different circum-stances in February. The main issue then was over how to allot the spoils of what was Europe’s fastest growing economy.

Instead Martin will oversee a stimulus package next month for the sectors hardest hit by the coronavirus lockdown.

The new coalition will also split Irish politics along more explicitly ideological lines than in the past, with Sinn Fein taking over as the main opposition. Though Fianna Fail and Fine Gael emerged from opposite sides in civil war in the 1920s, they have mainly pushed similar centrist agendas for decades.

Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Repub-lican Army that fought an

insurgency against British rule of Northern Ireland, shocked the political establishment in Feb-ruary by securing the most votes with a call for more generous social programmes. It has 37 seats in the 160-seat parliament, the same number as Fianna Fail and two more than Fine Gael.

“You will no longer get it all your own way,” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told the two parties.

Ireland’s new Prime Minister Micheal Martin (right) attends a meeting with President Michael D Higgins (left) to be formally appointed at Aras an Uachtarain, in Dublin, yesterday.

Iceland President set for landslide election winAFP — REYKJAVIK

Iceland began voting in a presi-dential election yesterday, the second European country to hold polls since coronavirus lock-downs were lifted, with incumbent Gudni Johannesson widely expected to win a second four-year mandate.

The polling stations opened at 9am for the country’s 252,217 voters. They will close at 10pm when the first exit polls will be announced.

President Johannesson was an early voter, arriving at his polling station in an Alftanes school, not far from the capital Reykjavik, by bicycle.

“If I get the support of my compatriots, I will continue on the same path,” he said.

In Iceland’s parliamentary republic, the role of the president is largely symbolic, but he or she does have the power to veto leg-islation and submit it to a referendum.

Opinion polls suggest Johan-nesson’s rightwing challenger, former Wall Street broker Gud-mundur Franklin Jonsson, has almost no chance of winning.

Voter surveys have since early June predicted a landslide victory for Johannesson, a 52-year-old independent and former history professor. The last Gallup poll on Friday evening suggested he had an over-whelming 93.4 percent support.

“The (opinion) polls are not elections... But the gap is too big for it to really be bridgeable,” University of Iceland history pro-fessor Gudmundur Halfdanarson said.

The coronavirus pandemic is not expected to have any impact on the election, as the country of 365,000 has been only mildly affected. It has reported 10 deaths, and currently has around 10 active cases.

Voters, however, are being provided with hand sanitiser and gloves and told to stay two metres apart at polling stations.

Iceland is only the second country in Europe to hold an election since lockdowns ended. Serbia held elections last week and Poland and France will do so tomorrow. Johannesson, who in 2016 became the country’s youngest president since inde-pendence in 1944, has enjoyed robust support throughout most of his first term, ranging from 76

to 86 percent, according to the MMR polling institute.

That is 25 points higher on average than his predecessor.

“He has been seen as a man of the people, not pompous, not very formal. So Icelanders seem to like him and want to keep him as president,” said Olafur Hard-arson, a political science pro-fessor at the University of Iceland.

Contrary to his predecessor Olafur Grimsson, who never hes-itated to wade into controversy, Johannesson, the nation’s sixth president, has spent the past four years focusing on unifying the country. Iceland’s presidents are usually unopposed after their first terms. But according to experts, the fact that a candidate is chal-lenging the incumbent this time

should not be seen as sign of political tensions.

“The major threat that Gudni faces is the lack of enthusiasm for this election, and that his sup-porters might think that he is completely secure in his office and therefore might not turn out for the election,” Bifrost Uni-versity professor Eirikur Bergmann said.

Johannesson’s rival, Gud-mundur Franklin Jonsson, has struggled to make inroads with voters. The 56-year-old, who has run a hotel in Denmark since 2013 and is a fan of US President Donald Trump, first entered pol-itics in 2010 when he founded the rightwing populist movement Haegri graenir, which he led for three years.

President Gudni Th Johannesson casts his vote at the polling station in Gardabaer, Iceland, yesterday.

UK to ease coronavirus quarantine rules for ‘low risk’ countriesAFP — LONDON Britain said on Friday it will lift its two-week coronavirus quar-antine rule for visitors arriving from some “low risk” countries, after pressure from airlines and the tourism sector.

The government said it will publish a list next week of the countries from where people will be allowed to enter Britain without needing to self-isolate for 14 days, as currently required.

The announcement will follow discussions with countries including France, Greece and Spain in “the coming days”, with the changes set to take effect in the week beginning July 6.

“Our new risk-assessment system will enable us to carefully open a number of safe travel routes around the world,” a UK government spokesman said.

The foreign office will also be updating its travel guidance, which currently advises against all non-essential travel outside Britain, to permit trips on travel corridors. All passengers will be required by law to wear face coverings on planes and ferries, it added. Britain introduced its quarantine regime for most trav-ellers arriving into the country on June 8, vowing to review the measures every three weeks.

The rules also applied to any Britons who had left the country and were returning.

It has faced criticism — and legal challenges — from airlines

hard-hit by the pandemic, as well as from others in the travel industry who have argued it will devastate the domestic tourism sector. Ministers have insisted for weeks they were looking at cre-ating so-called air bridges with countries with low rates of virus transmission.

But they have yet to provide any clear details of the plan.

The government now says it has created a categorisation system for countries based on public health criteria, to determine if they are safe enough to be exempted. Countries have been classified as either green, amber and red, depending on their risk assessment.

The list has been informed by factors including the preva-lence of the virus, the reliability of data, and “the trajectory of the disease in the country”.

Countries in the green and amber categories are deemed low risk enough to receive exemptions.

The government maintains the new measures will be kept under constant review and quar-antine rules could be reintro-duced for individual countries if their situation changes.

“But we will not hesitate to put on the brakes if any risks re-emerge, and this system will enable us to take swift action to re-introduce self-isolation measures if new outbreaks occur overseas,” the spokesman added.

EU narrows down border list, US unlikely to make the cutAP — BRUSSELS

European Union envoys are close to finalising a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter Europe again, possibly from late next week, EU diplomats confirmed yesterday. Americans are almost certain to be excluded in the short-term due to the number of US coronavirus cases.

The envoys were expected to have narrowed down later yes-terday the exact criteria for coun-tries to make the list, which include the way the spread of the virus is being managed. Another key condition is whether the country has a ban on citizens from European nations.

The number of cases in the United States has surged over the past week, with an all-time high of 45,300 confirmed new daily infections just reached. President Donald Trump also suspended the entry of all people from Europe’s ID check-free travel zone in a decree in March.

The EU diplomats confirmed that an official agreement on the criteria — likely to include a limit on the infection rate per 100,000 citizens — is expected late on Monday or early Tuesday. The

diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the pro-cedure is ongoing and politically very sensitive.

Infection rates are high in Brazil, India and Russia, and it’s unlikely the EU will let their cit-izens in, either. The list would be updated every 14 days, with new countries added and some pos-sibly being left off based on how they manage the spread of the virus. More than 15 million Amer-icans are estimated to travel to Europe annually, and any delay would be a further blow to

virus-ravaged economies and tourism sectors, both in Europe and the United States. Around 10 million Europeans are thought to cross the Atlantic for vacations and business each year.

The 27 EU nations and four other countries that are part of Europe’s “Schengen area” — a 26-nation bloc where goods and people move freely without doc-ument checks - appear on track to reopen their borders between each other by July 1.

Once that happens, restric-tions on non-essential travel to

Europe, which were imposed in March to halt new virus cases from entering, would gradually be lifted.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo played down concerns that the EU might refuse to allow Americans in.

“We’ve denied travel to Europe and vice versa. That’s the posture that we all sit in now, and I think we’re all taking seriously the need to figure out how to get this up,” Pompeo said. “We’ll work to get this right. We want to make sure that it’s health-based, science-based.We need to get our global economy back going again,” he said.

The European Commission, which monitors the bloc’s laws, believes that “travel restrictions should not be lifted as regards third countries where the situ-ation is worse” than the average in the 27 EU member countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

The commission insists that it’s not trying to target any country or that the list might be politicised as tourism-reliant countries around Europe push to get their borders back open again.

A file photo of tourists posing for pictures outside the Rijksmuseum in central Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Martin’s Fianna Fail party was forced to join forces with its foes Fine Gael, after a surprise election surge for leftist Irish nationalists Sinn Fein left neither of the traditional centrist parties with enough support to govern on its own. They and are joined in coalition by the environmentalist Greens.

COVID-19 infections in Spain continue to climbANATOLIA — OVIEDO

For the fifth day in a row, Spain saw a rising number of COVID-19 cases yesterday as the Health Ministry reported 564 new infections, raising the tally to 248,469.

Yesterday, another four active outbreaks were detected in Granada, Murcia, Cantabria, and Lleida. In total, there are currently 23 active outbreaks across the country, Spanish media reported.

In the past week, 1,862 people in Spain tested positive for the disease. Last Saturday, the number of weekly diag-noses was significantly lower, standing at 1,450.

Most of the new cases reg-istered yesterday were in Catalonia (72), Madrid (36), and Aragon (28). The Huesca province in Aragon already moved to tighten restrictions earlier this week.

The rest of the country has

been in the so-called new normal since last Sunday, which means people can cir-culate freely with fewer restrictions on activity.

Masks are obligatory, however, and some regions have said they are stepping up enforcement in the days to come.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the Spanish government decreed the extension of a temporary layoff mechanism that is cur-rently supporting millions of workers.

Earlier this week the International Monetary Fund predicted that Spain’s GDP this year will plummet 12.8 percent, the worst forecast out of all countries analysed in the latest World Economic Outlook.

Yesterday, the Health Ministry also registered three more COVID-19 deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities in Spain to 28,341.

12 SUNDAY 28 JUNE 2020AMERICAS

Trump signs ‘strong’ executive order to protect monuments

AP — WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to protect monuments, memorials and statues facing new scrutiny amid fresh debate over the nation’s racist beginnings.

Trump had promised to take action earlier this week after police thwarted an attempt by protesters to pull down a statue of Andrew Jackson in a park across from the White House.

The order calls on the attorney general to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any person or group that destroys or vandalises a mon-ument, memorial or statue. Federal law authorises a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for the “willful injury” of federal property.

The order also calls for maximum prosecution for anyone who incites violence and illegal activity, and it threatens state and local law enforcement agencies that fail to protect monuments with the loss of federal funding.

Trump announced earlier on Friday on Twitter that he had signed the order and called it “strong.” Earlier in the day, the

president used Twitter to call for the arrest of protesters involved with the attempt to bring down the Jackson statue from Lafayette Park.

He retweeted an FBI wanted poster showing pictures of 15 protesters who are wanted for “vandalisation of federal property.” Trump wrote, “Many people in custody, with many others being sought for vandal-isation of federal property in Lafayette Park. 10 year prison sentences!”

He also said on Twitter that he had scrapped plans to spend the weekend at his central New Jersey home to stay in Wash-ington “to make sure law & order is enforced.”

“These arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped,” Trump tweeted.

“I am doing what is nec-essary to keep our communities safe — and these people will be brought to Justice!” Protesters on Monday night attempted to drag the Jackson statue down with ropes and chains. Police repelled the protesters and sealed off Lafayette Park, which had been reopened to the public for more than a week after

protests against the death of George Floyd at police hands in Minnesota.

On Tuesday, police cleared out the entire area around the corner of 16th and H streets — and pushed demonstrators away from the intersection, which had recently been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza by the city.

Statistics released by the Metropolitan Police Department show that nine people were arrested on Tuesday night and a total of 12 arrested between Monday and Wednesday. There were no protest-related arrests

on Thursday, according to the MPD data.

Demonstrators have grown increasingly emboldened about targeting statues deemed offensive or inappropriate. On June 19, or Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the United States, cheering crowds pulled down a statue of Confederate Gen Albert Pike. The statue stood on federal land and had withstood previous attempts by the Washington, DC, government to remove it. According to participants, police officers were on the scene but did not attempt to interfere.

The targeting of the statues has become a rallying cry for Trump and other conservatives. Immediately after the Pike statute was toppled and set ablaze, Trump called the incident a “disgrace to our country!” on Twitter.

On Tuesday he tweeted, “I have authorised the federal government to arrest anyone who vandalises or destroys any monument, statue or other such federal property in the US with up to 10 years in prison, as per the Veteran’s Memorial Preser-vation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.”

Demonstrators hold their fists up as they stand near the Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park, in Washington, DC, on Friday.

US must free

migrant children

from detention,

says courtAFP — LOS ANGELES

A court in Los Angeles has ordered the release of more than 100 children held in United States family immi-gration detention because of the risk they could catch coro-navirus in the facilities.

Two of the country’s three family detention centres have confirmed cases of the infection, district judge Dolly Gee said in her Friday ruling.

The facilities risked spilling into a massive health crisis despite efforts by the Immi-gration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to lower the number of migrants in its custody, she added.

“The (Family Residential Centers) are ‘on fire’ and there is no more time for half measures,” Gee wrote.

Her ruling noted 124 children were currently in ICE detention facilities and ordered them released by July 17, either with their parents or into the custody of “suitable sponsors” with parental consent.

President Donald Trump campaigned on cracking down on illegal migration, and has pressured Mexico into deploying troops along its southern border to stop the migrants.

A Trump administration “zero tolerance” policy launched in 2018 saw thou-sands of children separated from their parents at the border, a tactic apparently meant to frighten the families, before the government backed down.

Last week the US Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s cancellation of a programme protecting 700,000 “Dreamers” — undocumented migrants brought to the United States as children. More than 2,500 people in ICE custody have confirmed coronavirus infec-tions, CNN reported on Friday.

Florida, Arizona hit daily highs for COVID-19 casesREUTERS — HOUSTON

Florida and Arizona recorded daily highs for cases of COVID-19 yesterday, high-lighting the worsening spread of the virus in several southern and western states, some of which are taking steps to roll back their reopening plans.

Florida yesterday morning reported 9,585 new infections in the last 24 hours, a record for a second day, while Arizona

recorded 3,591 new cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, matching its prior record on June 23.

The United States recorded more than 45,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, the largest single-day increase of the pan-demic, according to a tally. More than 2.5 million Amer-icans now have tested positive.

The surge in cases has been most pronounced in southern

and western states like Florida and Texas, which are now taking steps to reinstate restric-tions on businesses, threatening a hoped-for economic recovery and jobs.

The mayor of Galena Park, a community of 10,000 people east of Houston, said she was heeding a warning from Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who on Friday raised the public threat level to its most severe, a sign people should shelter at home.

“It is crucial to continue to practice good hygiene, stay home as much as possible, avoid unnecessary trips, gath-erings, and wear a face-cov-ering at all times when you leave your home,” Mayor Esmeralda Moya said in a statement late on Friday.

Galena Park’s curfew will run from 10pm to 5am daily.

In a reversal of his early moves to relax restrictions, Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday

ordered clubs across the state to close and required restaurants to limit indoor seating capacity to 50 percent. Florida, another state that reopened its economy relatively quickly, told club owners in the state to immedi-ately stop serving beverages on their premises. Earlier this week New York joined New Jersey and Connecticut in imposing a 14-day mandatory quarantines on trav-ellers from states with high infection rates.

COVID-19 soars in Latin America despite tight measuresANATOLIA — BOGOTA

After months of confinement and social distancing, most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are facing an increase in COVID-19 cases, economic crisis, and fatigue due to extensive quarantines.

Social unrest has been reflected in several demonstra-tions against quarantine measures and pots and pans have been heard in protest in Argentina and Colombia.

Argentina It is set to complete 100

days of confinement today and with an exponential growth in COVID-19 cases in recent days, the government decided to tighten measures starting from Monday until July 17 in the capital of Buenos Aires, the epicentre of the pandemic.

Measures are aimed at restricting movement and pre-venting people from using public transportation to stop the spread of the virus, which has increased due to a lack of control.

D o c t o r s p r e d i c t

coronavirus cases will peak in July as winter progresses, which could push hospital capacity to the limit as infec-tions accelerate to more than 50,000 cases.

Peru Authorities reported

43,000 indigenous people are exposed to the virus in the Amazon region.

“The rapid spread of COVID-19 in the Amazon department puts at serious risk the health and lives of approx-imately 43,000 citizens who identify themselves as part of the Awajún, Quechua and Wampis indigenous peoples, who live in 389 communities,” said a statement from the Peruvian Ombudsman’s Office, which reported 63 indigenous deaths.

Peru, the first country in Latin America to impose a national and mandatory quar-antine to stop the COVID-19 outbreak, completed 100 days of confinement this week. However, it is the sixth country in the world for confirmed cases, with more than 270,000

and almost 9,000 deaths.Mexico President Andres Manuel

Lopez Obrador said on Thursday that although fem-inism has a just cause to change the role of women, the tradition of women staying at home to take care of older family members was important in battling the pandemic. Those comments sparked criticism as being sexist.

Mexico has surpassed 25,000 COVID-19 deaths and 200,000 cases, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.

Brazil The second worst-hit

country by the virus confirmed 990 additional deaths in the last 24 hours, according to health authorities.

Officials said the death toll hit 55,961.

The number of cases increased to 1,274,974 with 46,860 more infections.

The country’s commercial center, Sao Paulo, with a pop-ulation of 46 million, is the most affected region by the pandemic, with 258,508 cases and 13,966 deaths.

Brazil, with a population exceeding 211 million, is the epicenter of the outbreak in the region.

Healthcare workers talk to people before collecting swab samples to be tested for the coronavirus disease at a drive-through testing site, in Monterrey, Mexico.

After good start on virus response, California loses groundAFP — LOS ANGELES

When the coronavirus pandemic first snowballed in the United States, California was hailed for its handling of the crisis.

But now, the Golden State — like many others across the nation — is facing a worrying

uptick in the number of cases, especially among young people.

California was the first state to order a sweeping lockdown in mid-March and moved quickly to ramp up its testing capabilities — a key to keeping the virus in check, experts say.

Since the start of the crisis, some 3.7 million Californians

out of a total of about 40 million have been tested for the new coronavirus. This week, the state did about 100,000 tests a day. Is that significant increase in testing the explanation for the virus’s seeming resurgence? Experts say it only paints part of the picture.

“The fact that there’s also an

increase in the number of hos-pitalisations suggests that it’s not just because of the testing,” said Lee Riley, an epidemiol-ogist at the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley.

“That means that there are more transmissions occurring.” Governor Gavin Newsom says the number of patients

hospitalised with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, jumped 32 percent in the last two weeks, to more than 4,200.

The specific reasons are hard to pinpoint, but experts say the likely culprit is quarantine fatigue and a relaxing of behav-iours meant to curb the spread, among young people.

Pentagon to give

Trump options

to reduce troops

in Germany

AFP — WASHINGTON

Defence Secretary Mark Esper will present President Donald Trump with a series of options on Monday to withdraw thou-sands of US troops from Germany, with many moving to eastern Europe, the Pentagon said yesterday.

“Secretary Esper met with President Trump on Wednesday to discuss our presence in Europe,” said Pen-tagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman.

“On Monday the Secretary will brief the President at the White House on options for our force posture in Germany.” According to two senior Pentagon officials, the plan calls for cutting the per-manent US troop presence in Germany to 25,000, as Trump announced June 15, for a reduction of 9,500 troops.

Some of the 9,500 will return to the US, while others will be transferred to former Soviet-bloc countries, the two officials said, speaking on grounds of anonymity.

That shift, they added, would be meant as a clear warning to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, whose mil-itary ambitions were under-scored by the 2014 annexation of the Crimea. The two offi-cials did not say to which European country the troops might be moved, as that is among the options to be pre-sented to the US president.

But Trump, meeting at the White House on Wednesday with Polish president Andrzej Duda, said that Poland would be one of the European coun-tries receiving US troops.

The two men said some of those troops would be perma-nently based there, but that most would be rotated through the country.

The order calls on the Attorney-General to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any person or group that destroys or vandalises a monument, memorial or statue. Federal law authorises a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for the ‘willful injury’ of federal property.