Wednesday 5 August 2020

15 Dhul Hijja - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8340

Wishing you a warm and blessed Eid

BUSINESS | 13 PENMAG | 15 SPORT | 20

QSL: Al Duhail,

Al Sadd

gear up for

crunch battle

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

Morocco to

reform state

bodies in virus

response

QNTC to host virtual fashion show tomorrowTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC), in partnership with United Development Company (UDC), will bring together leading Qatari designers and luxury fashion brands for the country’s first virtual fashion show, inspiring audiences with stunning original designs from Qatar-based creatives and leading retail stores while deliv-ering an unforgettable expe-rience to viewers from the comfort of their homes.

Staged at The Pearl-Qatar, one of the country’s most emblematic locations, the virtual fashion show will be broadcast live from QNTC social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook and

YouTube Live tomorrow at 9pm.

It will highlight the original creations of five brands –The

Project, Per Lei Couture, Ashwa Fashion and Youssef Al Jasmi – in the ready-to-wear, menswear and eveningwear

categories, along with the abaya brand Shades.

Jawaher Al Khuzaei, Director of Public Relations and Communication at QNTC, com-mented: “We are pleased to introduce this innovative concept to Qatar’s summer cal-endar this year. Developing such offerings is part of QNTC’s wider strategy to work with stakeholders across the private and public sectors and bring residents a host of exciting events which promote Qatar as a destination that embraces modernity while remaining rooted in tradition.”

With its architecturally dis-tinct precincts, the Pearl-Qatar is home to luxury accommoda-tions, diverse leisure and enter-tainment facilities, an

award-winning marina, pristine beaches, and a selection of world-class restaurants and high-end retail shops.

The fashion show is part of the Qatar Summer Programme, a vibrant line-up of offers and activations arranged by QNTC for residents to enjoy during the summer holidays. The show will incorporate the latest in virtual technology, giving viewers the feel of a live expe-rience, and will reflect the wealth of creativity Qatar has to offer.

It complements QNTC’s continuous efforts to support the burgeoning fashion industry in Qatar through events such as the Heya Arabian Fashion Exhi-bition, and Design District at Shop Qatar.

HMC to continue Urgent Consultation ServiceFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

Though number of COVID-19 cases have started to drop, Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Urgent Consultation Service will continue to provide telephonic consultation with physicians to patients with medical queries related to non-life threatening conditions.

“The Urgent Consultation Service centre has seen a large number of referrals during the last four months. We will con-tinue with the virtual clinic for some time,” Dr. Yousef Al Maslamani, Medical Director, Hamad General Hospital told The Peninsula.

The service offers patients access to 13 specialities and designed to be more convenient for patients and reduce unnec-essary patients’ visits to the hos-pitals. “In the past months it has benefit many patients and ensured their safety,” said Dr. Al Maslamani.

The Urgent Consultation Service operates from 7am to 10pm, seven days a week and offers patients access to special-ities, include urology, orthopedics surgery, internal medicine, general surgery, dermatology, cardiology, ENT, obstetrics and gynecology, dental, pediatrics, neurology, mental health, hema-tology and oncology.

“Depending on the patients’

condition we decide if it’s nec-essary to see them. For example, if the patient has a hernia related problem, we will have to call him to the clinic and examine. But in case of derma-tology cases, doctors can see them through the camera and decide on their condition,” said Dr Al Maslamani.

Patients can call 16000 hotline and chose option 3 where their call will be triaged by a doctor to determine which speciality they should be referred to. The call will then be put through to one of the senior consultants who can access patients’ medical files and consult with them about their case. And get their medicine

delivered to their doorstep. Dr. Al Maslamani, also the

Director of the Qatar Center for Organ Transplantation, said that a separate patient pathway has been implemented for patients who have undergone organ transplant. “The immune system of those undergone transplant can be weak. We have a strict policy for such patients, who come to the hospital for any consultation,” he said.

For early stage kidney patients or transplant recipients, it is thought that they are at increased risk of severe illness if they contract COVID-19 and it is very important that they particularly stringent in following the physical distancing measures. �P2

Qatar supports

Morocco in fight

against virus

pandemic

QNA — RABAT

The Embassy of the State of Qatar in the Kingdom of Morocco handed over a support from Qatar Charity to the special fund for the management of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Morocco to confront the repercussions of the coronavirus crisis.

This support to the Moroccan fund comes within the framework of the endeavour of Qatar Charity, in coordination with the official authorities, to support the efforts of a number of countries to confront the Coronavirus and limit its spread.

NMoQ gift shops win prestigious Architizer A+ AwardsRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

The National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) gift shops were declared Jury Winner in the Commercial-Retail category of the prestigious 2020 Architizer A+Awards.

The winners were announced yesterday at the Architizer A+Awards’ official website and social media accounts.

Founded on the premise of democratising architecture, the A+Awards is considered the industry’s largest and most international awards pro-gramme and honours the best architecture, spaces, and

products from across the globe. With the theme “The Future

of Architecture”, the eighth season of the awards elevates those designs that are trans-forming society and the built environment for generations to come.

The breathtaking design of NMoQ’s gifts shops was inspired by Dahl Al Misfir (Qatar’s “Cave of Light”) which is a beautiful underground sanctuary formed largely from fibrous gypsum crystals that give off a faint, moon-like, phosphorescent glow.

Their organic architecture, designed by Koichi Takada Architects, reflects his vision of bringing nature back into archi-tecture, establishing relationships

that connect people and nature through design.

The main gift shop stocks a large collection of well designed, exclusive gifts, many of which draw their inspiration from the history, heritage, and culture of Qatar.

The children’s gift shop offers a diverse range of locally designed souvenirs and gift items, including educational toys, books, puzzles and games. Both gift shops are located on the first floor of NMoQ.

Architizer A+Awards is organised by Architizer, the world’s leading online platform for architecture and building-products.

This year’s edition of the

annual A+Awards received over 5,000 entries from more than 100 countries, with a special emphasis on honouring projects that respond to imminent global challenges such as climate change, urbanisation and migration, rising inequity, and pandemic.

A Jury-selected Winner and a Popular Choice Winner were awarded in each of the 115 cat-egories, with over 400,000 votes cast by the voting public.

Since their opening last year, the gift shops have already won a string of international awards in various categories including retail and interior design in countries such as the US, the UK and Australia.An inside view of one of the gift shops at National Museum of Qatar.

Amir condoles with Lebanon PresidentQNA – DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held yesterday via telephone a conversation with President of the Republic of Lebanon H E General Michel Aoun, during which His Highness expressed his condolences to H E the President and the brotherly Lebanese people on the victims of the explosion in the Beirut port, wishing a speedy recovery for the injured.

HH the Amir expressed the State of Qatar's solidarity with Lebanon and its willingness to provide all kinds of assistance necessary to mitigate the effects of the explosion. H E the Lebanese President expressed his thanks and appreciation to H H the Amir for his stance and the State of Qatar's permanent standing and continuous support to Lebanon.

The Urgent Consultation Service centre has seen a large number of referrals during the last four months.

The service, designed to be more convenient for patients and reduce unnecessary visits to the hospitals, offers access to 13 specialities.

The Urgent Consultation Service operates from 7am to 10pm, seven days a week.

Patients can call 16000 hotline and chose option 3 and the call will be triaged by a doctor.

Separate patient pathway has been implemented for patients who have undergone organ transplant.

The virtual fashion show, to be staged at The Pearl-Qatar, will be broadcast live from QNTC social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube tomorrow at 9pm.

It will highlight the original creations of five brands – The Project, Per Lei Couture, Ashwa Fashion, Youssef Al Jasmi and Shades.

The show will incorporate the latest in virtual technology, giving viewers the feel of a live experience.

I held telephonic conversation with H E President

Michel Aoun to express that Qatar stands with brothers

in Lebanon and its readiness to provide immediate

support following the explosion that took place at the

port of Beirut today. Our condolences to the Lebanese

people, and we pray to Allah that the victims be

blessed with the mercy and wounded be recovered.

With great sorrow and grief, we received the news about the tragic explosion that took place in the Lebanese capital, Beirut today. As we extend a helping hand to brothers in Lebanon following the directive of H H the Amir, we express our sincere condolences to them and we wish the injured a speedy recovery and mercy and forgiveness to the victims and patience to their families.

02 WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 03.39 am 05.03 am

W A L R U WA I S : 33o↗ 38o W A L K H O R : 33o↗ 4 4o W D U K H A N : 34o↗ 40o W WA K R A H : 30o↗ 46o W M E S A I E E D 30o↗ 46o W A B U S A M R A 30o↗ 41o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 04:32 – 17:56 LOW TIDE 01:19–12:00

Very hot daytime with slight dust to blowing dust at places at times.

Minimum Maximum35oC 45oC

ZUHR

MAGHRIB

11.40 am06.19 pm

ASR

ISHA

03.08 pm07.49 pm

GAC, MME hold virtual training on ozone-depleting substancesQNA — DOHA

The General Authority of Customs (GAC) held the second phase of training courses on the handling of ozone-depleting substances via the training and distance education platform of the Customs Training Center.

The course was organised in cooperation with the Min-istry of Municipality and Envi-ronment (MME), represented by the Department of Radi-ation and Chemicals Pro-tection, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Office for West Asia.

The workshop, in which 70

participants took part, aimed at implementing the phasing out of ozone-depleting sub-stances in the State of Qatar, by highlighting a number of key themes related to the Vienna Convention, the Mon-treal Protocol for ozone-depleting substances, the licensing system and the iden-tification of risks to combat illegal trade in these substances and customs procedures.

The UNEP had praised the initiative of the GAC for holding the online training program (the role of customs in the phasing out of ozone depleting substances), which was held on April 21 to 23.

The GAC Customs Training Center organised the pro-gramme, which is the first of its kind with the UN, aiming at starting the implementation of the phasing out of ozone depleting substances in the State of Qatar.

The training programme focused on several major axes related to the protection of the ozone layer, the most important of which are the Vienna Con-vention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the licensing system and the identification of risks to combat illegal trade in these substances, and customs procedures for ozone depleting substances.

Shura Council participates in parliamentary seminar on COVID-19 and climate changeQNA — DOHA

The Shura Council participated yesterday in a parliamentary seminar on coronavirus (COVID-19) and climate change’. The seminar was organised by the Inter-Parlia-mentary Union (IPU); the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), and Parlia-mentarians for the Global Goals (PFGG) and held via video conference technology.

During the seminar, in which a number of experts in various fields took part, dis-cussions focused on how to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, which could have long-term effects, in support of the Paris Climate Agreement and the sustainable development goals.

H E Nasser bin Khalil Al Jaidah, member of the Council,

represented the Shura Council at the seminar.

9,637 sacrificial animalsinspected at Al Wakra AbattoirTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Health Monitoring Section of Al Wakra Municipality inspected 9,637 slaughtered sacrificial animals at Souq Al Wakra Abattoir during the Eid Al Adha.

A total of 130 slaughtered animals completely and 1,120 partially were destroyed when they were found unfit for human consumption, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment said in a statement.

The veterinary doctors inspected 88 slaughtered cows two cattle out of them completely and 50kg meat were destroyed. As much as 79 slaughtered camels were also inspected out of them 200kg meat were destroyed. The inspectors also inspected 46 tonnes of fish at Al Wakra Souq.

MME to take legal action against hygiene law violatorsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) is encouraging the beachgoers to not burn coal directly on sand at the beach because it damage marine environment.

The Ministry urged visitors to dispose the waste of coal after barbeque following the environmental rules in garbage containers which are placed across the beaches.

Legal actions will be taken against the violators of the pro-visions of hygiene law, therefore it is the responsibility to everyone to keep the beaches clean and hygienic, the Ministry has tweeted.

The MME, represented by the General Cleanliness Department, intensified its campaign to keep the beaches

clean so the visitors can enjoy their Eid Al Adha holidays in a

healthy environment.The cleaning team of the

Department removed over 124 tonnes of waste from beaches in a day during Eid Al Adha, said the Ministry in a statement.

The vehicles were assigned to collect wastes three times a day. The Department also pro-vided additional garbage con-tainers at the beaches to cover the growing number of visitors during vacation.

Meanwhile, General Clean-liness Department in cooper-ation with Al Khor and Al Zakhira Municipality and Pro-tection and Wildlife Department launched campaigns to clean beaches and create awareness on hygiene and environmental protection among the visitors.

The visitors were reminded to dispose waste and garbage properly and to maintain social distancing to curb the spread of COVID-19.

GU-Q scholar pens debut novel on complexity of Palestinian memoryTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Author and scholar Omar Khalifah (pictured), an associate professor of Arabic literature and culture at Geor-getown University in Qatar (GU-Q), a QF partner, published his debut novel titled “The Sand Catcher”, which compels the reader to view the tragedy of Palestine through a new lens, and to consider the significance of having Palestinians tell their own stories.

Set in modern day Jordan and cen-tered around a group of journalists hoping to interview an elderly Pales-tinian man about his experiences during the “Nakba”, the ethnic cleansing of Pal-estine and the devastation of Palestinian society in 1948, the novel takes a com-pletely different path that surprises both the journalists and the man’s family.

A scholar in Arabic and world liter-ature, cinema, and nationalism in the Arab world, Dr. Khalifah weaves together interlocking stories that touch on issues of memory, tragedy, and human connections, told through various perspectives and narrators. “Narratives are strewn through the story that raise questions about memory, tragedy and love, and present characters who question the meaning of Palestine for them. The novel is a mixture of tragedy and comedy, and an invitation

to reflect on the relationship of the Pal-estinians to their past and present.”

Published by the Al-Ahliya Pub-lishing House in Amman- Jordan, the novel is 200 pages long and has been issued in paperback edition.

Previous publications of Dr. Khalifah include a collection of Arabic short stories titled “As If I Were Myself” and an academic book in English titled “Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary.” Dr. Khalifah received his Ph.D. from Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia Uni-versity. At GU-Q, he teaches courses on Arabic literature, cinema, theater, as well as contemporary Arab culture.

Traffic department clarifies news on speed limit changeTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The General Directorate of Traffic has clarified that news about the change in the speed limit on certain roads being circulated on social media is incorrect.

“We bring to the notice of the people that what is being

circulated about the change or modification of speed on some roads and tunnels is incorrect,” the Department has tweeted.

The General Directorate of Traffic also called on motorists to adhere to the specified speed limit on the road to ensure their safety.

Positive mindset can help virus recovery: PHCCTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

A positive mindset can help improve the health and well-being of corona-virus patients, advises Sarah Belouidiane, a Senior Psychologist at Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC).

Belouidiane has said that corona-virus patients are inclined to suffer from depression once they learn they are infected, as they expect to be socially isolated and deprived of their regular lifestyle routines.

“Mental disorders can negatively affect a patient’s immunity and lead to increased stress when following daily news and updates of increased infec-tions and deaths due to the virus. There is a need to create a positive mindset for coronavirus patients through con-stant reinforcement of their improving health condition and by stating examples of those who were infected but defeated the virus. This improves their emotional status and, thus, strengthens their immune system,” she said.

Belouidiane explains that there are external and internal sources that drive your thinking. “That which comes from the external source, such as your five senses — the ability to hear, touch, see, taste, and smell — is what activates ideas in your mind,” she said.

“For example, following news about

the impact of COVID-19 can be a source of negative thinking, similar to how watching horror or emotional movies can activate thoughts of fear or despair. The olfactory senses can produce the opposite — a pleasant aroma or fra-grance can activate happy memories and positive thinking, thus leading to positive feelings.

The internal source includes mem-ories of the past and the desires and dreams for the future. According to Bel-ouidiane, the secret behind controlling negative thoughts is to ask “how?” rather than “why?”

For instance, she says you should avoid asking questions such as: “Why am I sad, poor, afraid or a loser?” Rather, every morning, ask yourself: “How can I be rich, cheerful, calm and happy?”

The “how” question shifts your

mind’s focus from the problem to the solution. Be careful what you focus on. These thoughts will expand and grow according to the ‘Law of Focus’, one of the most important laws of the subcon-scious mind which covers all aspects of our life — health, money, relationships, work, etc.”

Belouidiane adds: “When you focus on your weaknesses — insomnia, cold, numbness, muscle pain, or back pain — and if you’re always complaining about these symptoms, what you focus on and speak about will increase. In contrast, if you focus on the healthy and strong parts of your body and feel grateful for it, your health will improve, and you will feel energised and at peace.”

Belouidiane says that PHCC is equipped to assist patients overcome their mental challenges. “There are modern non-pharmacological psycho-therapy treatments that help patients at PHCC’s psychiatric support clinics to be aware of their mental patterns that cause and heal mental disorders,” she said.

“For example, if a child loves his mother very much, and she dies while he is still young, he may develop a mental pattern that if you love someone, you will be abandoned, and concludes that it’s not a good idea to love.”

“Psychotherapy raises one’s awareness of his mental patterns — only then, negativity and suffering stemming from them will break apart,” she added.

H E Nasser bin Khalil Al Jaidah, member of the Shura Council at the webinar on COVID-19 and climate change.

Cleaning staff from the General Cleanliness Department collecting wastes at a beach.

Participants of virtual training on ozone-depleting substances

216 new COVID-19 cases and 252 recoveries recordedTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced the registration of 216 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country. Another 252 people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recovered cases in Qatar to 108,254.

All new cases have been introduced to isolation and are receiving necessary healthcare according to their health status.

The Ministry further said that measures to tackle COVID-19 in Qatar have suc-ceeded in flattening the curve and limiting the spread of the virus. The number of daily new cases and hospital admis-sions have gradually declined over the past few weeks.

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

Urgent Consultation Service to continueFROM PAGE 1

“They should contact the healthcare professional or neph-rologist with any questions or concerns,” said Dr. Al Maslamani.

He also said that due to COVID-19 HMC has delayed surgeries for patients who require transplant.

In advice to the public, Dr. Al Maslamani emphasised that it is everyone’s responsibility to follow COVID-19 precau-tionary measures.

“Now more than ever, we must be careful, follow the instructions and keep safe.” he said.

FM condoles with Lebanese peopleTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has expressed his solidarity with people of Lebanon on the explosion at the Beirut port.

‘’We stand in solidarity and sympathetic with

the brotherly leadership and people of Lebanon at this difficult time, and we extend our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of the explosion of the port of Beirut, and we pray for the speedy recovery of the injured and wounded,’’ H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani tweeted yesterday.

Sarah Belouidiane has said that coronavirus patients are inclined to suffer from depression once they learn they are infected, as they expect to be socially isolated and deprived of their regular lifestyle routines.

03WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020 HOME

QRCS-EAA Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital in Mauritania announces biannual resultsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital in Boutilimit, Mauritania, recently issued its semiannual report of the medical activities and services offered during the first half of 2020 to improve the health conditions of the local communities of Boutilimit and neighboring regions.

Operated and managed by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS), under an MoU with Education Above All (EAA), the hos-pital relies on its own resources and infrastructure, with a workforce of 79 specialist physicians, nurses, assistants, social workers, and administrative staff.

The overall budget of the hospital for 2020 is nearly $1.3m. It has four medical divisions: outpatient, inpatient, technical, and emergency. There are six outpatient clinics of internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, dermatology, general surgery, orthopedics, and dental medicine.

From January 1 to June 30, 2020, the 8-bed emergency department received 7,297 patients, including 5,799 multiple

emergencies, 1,424 Ob-Gyn emergencies, 74 road traffic injuries. Performance indicators show that the hospital managed to achieve a main goal of reducing referrals to major hospitals in Nouakchott – no more than 24 referrals.

With its six rooms, the outpatient department offers GP services during

weekdays, while other specialties are available on a basis of three clinics per week. Year-to-date, the department has served 20,833 patients, including 8,853 children, 4,177 male adults, and 7,803 female adults.

They are divided as follows: GP (11,504), general surgery (418),

paediatrics (1,561), Ob-Gyn (538), dental (433), orthopedics (661), pregnancy care (1,414), dermatology (2,121), internal med-icine (1,188), and ophthalmology (985).

Currently, the hospital has a capacity of 62 beds in four recovery departments (internal, pediatrics, Ob-Gyn, and general surgery). The reported period saw 2,466 inpatients with a total of 5,980 stay days. The bed occupancy rate was 60.6 percent, with an average of 2.4 stay days per patient.

As the hospital pays great attention to maternal and child health, the Ob-Gyn department supervised 753 births, including 118 C-sections, with a surgical intervention percentage of 15 percent, which is much less than national figures, reflecting the improved performance of the department.

In the department of biotechnology, which consists of three fully equipped operating rooms, lab, and medical imaging unit, it has conducted 353 sur-geries in the specialties of Ob-Gyn, orthopedics, and general surgery. Also, there were made 19,488 lab tests (average: 100 per day) and 2,881 medical

images (average: 20 per day).The hospital continued to provide

training for the students of public health schools, such as the schools of public health in Nouakchott, Rosso, and Kiffa. Over the past few months, a new batch of 36 trainees was received. To ensure sustainability of professional capacity-building, the hospital took part in many training courses with other organiza-tions and organized internship and field training programs for nurses.

In relation to social care, the Social Affairs Department assisted 129 poor patients to get access to vital health services. Under a partnership agreement with the National Reproductive Health Program, health care was given to 780 pregnant women across Boutilimit.

Since the beginning of 2019, the hos-pital has been engaged under the national health initiative to combat viral inflammations, by developing an auto-matic mechanism to vaccinate all new-borns prior to discharge. Over six months, the new mechanism had a cov-erage rate of 100 percent.

A patient getting treatment at Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital in Boutilimit, Mauritania.

Hyundai Motor wins 2020 Future Mobility of the Year AwardsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Hyundai Motor Company yesterday won two 2020 Future Mobility of the Year (FMOTY) Awards for HDC-6 NEPTUNE and the company’s built-in e-scooter.

Established by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Graduate School for Green Transportation in 2019, the awards recognize concept vehicles that make out-standing contributions to the future of mobility.

FMOTY awarded the

hydrogen-powered fuel cell heavy-duty truck HDC-6 NEPTUNE in the ‘Public & Com-mercial’ category and the built-in e-scooter in the ‘Personal’ cat-egory. Sixteen judges, including top automotive journalists from 11 countries, selected Hyundai Motor’s submissions from a total of 71 concepts that have debuted at international motor shows for consideration in three categories: Private, Public & Commercial, and Personal. The judges lauded Hyundai Motor’s concepts for introducing innovative transport

technologies and services for the future of mobility.

HDC-6 NEPTUNE, which debuted at the North American Commercial Vehicle Show last November, took inspiration from the iconic Art Deco streamliner railway trains of the 1930s. The concept embodies Hyundai Motor’s vision for a zero-carbon

emission future as the company leads a paradigm shift to eco-friendly commercial vehicles. As the demand for zero-carbon and eco-friendly commercial vehicles is expected to increase gradually, FMOTY judges showed support for the first concept vehicle to incorporate hydrogen fuel cell power into commercial delivery.

“HDC-6 NEPTUNE is like an ambassador concept vehicle that illuminates Hyundai Motor’s top status and prowess in next-gen-eration fuel-cell electric vehicles and fuel-cell technology,” said SangYup Lee, Senior Vice Pres-ident and head of the Hyundai Global Design Center. “It embodies Hyundai Motor’s vision

and customer value as the leader of global hydrogen mobility industry in its futuristic design.”

Dong Jin Hyun, Head of Robotics Lab at Hyundai Motor Group, added: “The built-in e-scooter delivers both mobility and usability, and sets a new standard for the individual last-mile mobility market.”

Built-in scooter HDC-6 NEPTUNE

QCS raises awareness of liver cancer in different languagesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Cancer Society (QCS) has concluded “Protect Yourself” campaign to raise awareness of liver cancer that is the 7th highest cancer among both genders in Qatar. Also liver cancer is the 2nd highest cancer among both genders, according to Qatar National Cancer registry 2016 - the Ministry of Public Health.

The electronic campaign targeted workers who are among the groups most exposed to the risk factors causing this type of cancer by broadcasting educational videos in different languages — “Arabic, English, Urdu and Malayalam” — to target the largest possible number of audiences make them aware of disease, signs, warning symptoms, methods of pre-vention and early detection.

Khalifa Haroun, social media influencer, participated in the campaign, who con-tributed to the campaign’s awareness role through his accounts on social media.

Heba Nassar, Head of the Health Education Department at QCS, said the charity has launched this campaign via its electronic platforms Within the framework of the pre-ventive measures to limit the spread of Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) , with

the participation of a number of entities, including the Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar Red Crescent, Syrian American Medical Center, Mowasalat

She said: “There are many risk factors that can increase the chances of developing liver cancer. The most important is gender and it is more common among males than female. Also most people diagnosed are 55 and above, Chronic viral hep-atitis B&C these infections can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer (Cirrhosis ,alcohol con-sumption , obesity , tobacco use.”

About the others risk factors she said, “ People with type 2 diabetes tend to be overweight or obese, which can lead to health problems in the liver in addition to occu-pational exposure to chemicals . Nassar definite liver cancer as a growth uncontrolled

growth of abnormal cells in the tissue of the liver (primary liver cancer) or abnormal cells that spread to the liver from the other organs (metastatic liver cancer).

About signs and symptoms Nassar said, “Weight loss (with unknown reason), loss of appetite, feeling very full after a small meal, nausea or vomiting, general weakness and fatigue, pain in the abdomen or near the right shoulder blade, itching, white, chalky stools, yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice) enlarged liver and spleen,” she added.

She stressed the impor-tance of early detection of the disease and it is often hard to find liver cancer early because signs and symptoms often do not appear at an early stage. So, you should check with the doctor in a regular manner.

Workers listening to a lecture to raise awareness of liver cancer in line with “Protect Yourself” campaign organised by Qatar Cancer Society.

WCM-Q faculty continues to share their research with the worldTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

With the coronavirus pandemic causing lockdowns across the world, conference venues have been closed, but many of the conferences themselves have migrated online and Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar faculty and staff have been keen to embrace virtual learning.

Dr. Ameed Raoof, associate professor of anatomy in radi-ology, and Dr. Mange Manyama, assistant professor of anatomy in radiology, were both scheduled to present their research to the American Asso-ciation of Clinical Anatomists on June 15.

Dr. Manyama presented two posters about – ironically – online learning; ‘Teaching Func-tional Neuroanatomy Using Computer-Aided Learning at Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar’ and ‘Origin of the Deep Femoral and Circumflex Femoral Arteries: A Case Report’. For him the biggest challenge was recording an audio narrative of the poster, that was capped at just five minutes.

He said: “It was a challenge to include all the important infor-mation and the fact that we’re limited to recording our narra-tives on our posters in a limited time, it eliminated the ‘live’ inter-action with conference attendees that usually occurs as the inter-action is an opportunity to provide more description of the work.

“The positive aspect, though, was the decision by the organ-izers to proceed with the virtual conference instead of cancelling it altogether. This provided the opportunity for more people to attend, since no travelling was required.”

Dr. Raoof also submitted two research posters about e-learning — and said the main problem with the experience was the lack of interaction with other delegates, but that otherwise it was an excellent event.

Deema Al Sheikhly, director of medical education and con-tinuing professional devel-opment, was invited to deliver an online presentation to the Accreditation Council for Con-tinuing Medical Education’s annual conference. Presenting as part of a panel discussion, Al

Sheikhly spoke on the subject ‘Achieving Accreditation with Commendation: Embracing Life-long Learning Together’.

Addressing an online global audience that is sitting at home in front of a computer screen, she had to adapt her presentation skills, ensuring the presentation was short and concise, and pro-viding targeted, relevant infor-mation that held the online del-egates’ attention.

But the presentation was very well-received, as she dis-cussed how WCM-Q had received accreditation with com-mendation as a provider of con-tinuing medical education and answered questions on the subject through an online moderator.

Al Sheikhly said: “The main limitation of an on-line con-ference is the need to reduce the number and the length of ses-sions to ensure engagement of the audience and reduce the level of fatigue from sitting in front of the screen for too long. Fur-thermore, the opportunity to network as per the normal practice in conferences is limited.

“However, going online created opportunities for inno-vation in medical education and alternative strategies for engagement with the participants.”

Dr. Amal Khidir, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at WCM-Q, was due to deliver two workshops at the Ottawa 2020 conference in Malaysia: ‘Cultural Challenges in Clinical Teaching, Learning and Assessment’ and ‘Motivational Design To Discuss and Assess Professionalism Dilemmas for Pre-Clerkships Students: An Innovative Approach’, but instead had to deliver them virtually. This is a

collaborative effort and presen-tation with Dr Mai Mahmoud, Dr. Aicha Hind Rifai, Dr. Magda Wagdy, Dr Ahmed Alhammadi, Dr. Marcellina Mian, and Sa’ad Laws.

She said the greatest chal-lenges were technological ones, ensuring that the audio/visual equipment was correctly installed and working, but that the presentation and post-event discussion were actually easier to moderate online and the workshops, too, were a great success.

“The main limitation was that you don’t get the same one-to-one interactions as you do when you are physically at the venue but the whole event triggered a great discussion and we were thankful that we were able to dis-seminate our scholarly work.”

With large gatherings pro-hibited in most countries around the world, online conferences are likely to continue into 2021. While having some disadvantages, they are proving to be a viable and successful alternative, offering opportunities for innovation, and ensuring that professionals from all fields can continue embracing the concept of life-long learning.

Dr. Thurayya Arayssi, senior associate dean for medical edu-cation and continuing profes-sional development, said: “School, college and university are only the first stages of our education and if we are to grow as professionals and as indi-viduals it is imperative that we remain inquisitive and take responsibility for self-improvement. It is therefore heartening to see faculty and staff at WCM-Q continue to strive for knowledge acquisition and dis-semination, even during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Dr. Thurayya Arayssi, Dr. Amal Khidir, Dr. Mange Manyama, Dr. Ameed Raoof, Sa’ad Laws, Dr. Aicha Hind Rifai, Dr. Mai Mahmoud and Deema Al Sheikhly

HDC-6 NEPTUNE is like an ambas-sador concept vehicle that illu-minates Hyundai Motor’s top status and prowess in next-generation fuel-cell electric vehicles and fuel-cell technology.

The electronic campaign targeted workers who are among the groups most exposed to the risk factors causing this type of cancer by broadcasting educational videos in different languages — “Arabic, English, Urdu and Malayalam” — to target the largest possible number of audiences make them aware of disease, signs, warning symptoms, methods of prevention and early detection.

AP — BEIRUT

A massive explosion rocked Beirut yesterday, flattening much of the port, damaging buildings across the capital and sending a giant mushroom cloud into the sky. At least 50 people were killed and 2,700 injured, with bodies buried in the rubble, officials said.

Hours later, ambulances still carried away the wounded as army helicopters helped battle fires raging at the port.

The sudden devastation overwhelmed a country already struggling with both the corona-virus pandemic and an economic crisis. Beirut hospitals quickly filled beyond capacity, pleading for blood supplies and generators to keep their lights on.

The cause of the blast, which sparked fires, overturned cars and blew out windows and doors, was not immediately known.

Abbas Ibrahim, chief of Leb-anese General Security, said it might have been caused by highly explosive material that was confiscated from a ship some time ago and stored at the port.

Local television channel LBC said the material was sodium nitrate.

Witnesses reported seeing a strange orange-coloured cloud over the site after the explosion. Orange clouds of toxic nitrogen dioxide gas often accompany an explosion involving nitrates.

An Israeli government official said Israel “had nothing to do” with the blast. He spoke on

condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the matter with the media. Israeli officials usually do not comment on “foreign reports.”

The blast was stunning even for a city that has seen civil war, suicide bombings and bom-bardment by Israel. It could be heard and felt as far away as Cyprus, more than 200

kilometers (180 miles) across the Mediterranean.

“It was a real horror show. I haven’t seen anything like that since the days of the (civil) war,” said Marwan Ramadan, who was about 500 meters (yards) from the port and was knocked off his feet by the force of the explosion.

Health Minister Hassan Hamad said the preliminary toll was at least 50 dead and 2,700 wounded. Emergency teams streamed in from across Lebanon to help, and the injured had to be taken to hospitals outside the

capital. Hamad added that hos-pitals were barely coping and offers of aid were pouring in from Arab states and friends of Lebanon. Some of those injured lay on the ground at the port. A civil defence official said there were still bodies inside the port, many under debris.

Beirut’s governor, Marwan Abboud, broke into tears as he toured the site, saying, “Beirut is a devastated city.”

Initially, video taken by res-idents showed a fire raging at the port, sending up a giant column

of smoke, illuminated by flashes of what appear to be fireworks. Local TV stations reported that a fireworks warehouse was involved.

The fire then appeared to catch at a nearby building, trig-gering a more massive explosion, sending up a mushroom cloud and a shock wave. Charbel Haj, who works at the port, said it started as small explosions like fire-crackers. Then, he said, he was thrown off his feet by the huge blast. His clothes were torn.

AFP — BEIRUT

Lebanon security forces scuffled yesterday with dozens of demonstrators who tried to storm into the energy ministry in protest at power cuts that have plunged entire areas into darkness. The demonstrators pushed past a barbed-wire fence towards the energy ministry’s Beirut headquarters but were dispersed by baton-wielding security forces.

One protester, speaking on the behalf of the group, said they would block the entrance to the ministry for 24 hours.

“Your continued presence will plunge Lebanon into total darkness,” he said, urging Energy Minister Raymond Ghajar to step down. The crisis-hit country’s ailing power sector receives one of the largest slices of the government’s budget after debt servicing and public sector salaries.

04 WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Iran records highest COVID-19 cases in over monthAFP — TEHRAN

Iran confirmed yesterday over 2,700 new COVID-19 infections, its highest single-day count in more than a month, as the health ministry called for those without masks to be fined.

Deaths and infections from the novel coronavirus have been on a rising trajectory in the Islamic republic since hitting a months-long low in May.

This has prompted Iran to make wearing masks mandatory in enclosed spaces and reimpose restrictions lifted gradually since April to reopen the economy.

Despite the rule, people without masks can still be seen inside the capitals’ shops and banks, and state television often criticises them for doing so.

“In the past 24 hours, new confirmed cases were reported to be 2,751,” health ministry

spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in televised remarks.

The number is the highest since June 5, when the ministry reported 2,886 infections in one day. The latest count takes the total cases identified in Iran since late February to 314,786, Lari added. Another 212 people died from the virus during the past 24 hours, bringing the overall toll to 17,617. Iran’s deputy health min-ister called for those who fail to

obey the mask rules to be fined, as the only penalty currently in place is the refusal of service in public places.

“Deterrent methods must naturally be used, one of which is fining those not wearing masks,” ISNA news agency quoted Iraj Harirchi as saying.

But those “financially unable to buy masks must be exempted,” he added, without elaborating how that could be determined.

Iran has suffered a sharp eco-nomic downturn since US Pres-ident Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark nuclear agreement in 2018 and reim-posed crippling sanctions. The COVID-19 pandemic has exac-erbated the situation. Masks in Iran cost from about 15 US cents for simple surgical ones to 68 cents for multilayered ones with respirators, while the minimum wage is currently $2.60 per day.

Nigeria’s virus tally passes 44,000; deaths near 900ANATOLIA — ABUJA

Nigeria’s coronavirus case count is now over 44,000, with the death toll just shy of 900, author-ities said yesterday.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), 288 more infections and eight fatalities were recorded in the country over the past 24 hours.

“Till date, 44,129 cases have been confirmed, 20,663 cases have been discharged and 896 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),” the NCDC said in its latest update.

With more than 15,300 infec-tions, commercial capital Lagos remains the area hit hardest in

Nigeria, the data showed. It is followed by the FCT, which includes the capital Abuja, where almost 4,000 cases have been confirmed to date, and the south-western Oyo state with over 2,770 cases. At least 192 COVID-19 patients have died in Lagos, 42 in FCT, and 28 in Oyo, according to the NCDC figures.

Nigeria is among the three worst-hit countries in Africa, where the total case count is now over 968,000, including more than 20,600 fatalities.

Across the world, COVID-19 has claimed nearly 694,000 lives in at least 188 countries and regions since last December.

More than 18.28 million cases have been reported worldwide, with the highest number of

infections in the US, Brazil, India, and Russia, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University. The data shows more than half of all patients in the world — over 10.91 million — have recovered so far.

Despite recent progress on several vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization has said there may never be a “silver bullet” for COVID-19.

“A number of vaccines are now in phase three clinical trials and we all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghe-breyesus said on Monday.

“However, there’s no silver bullet at the moment - and there might never be.”

A health worker checks the temperature with an infrared thermometer of a student on resumption of studies, in Magboro, Ogun State, southwest Nigeria, yesterday

COVID-19 deaths

in Yemen hit 500 REUTERS — DUBAI

The number of people who have died in Yemen after contracting the new coronavirus has reached 500, according to a tally, although aid organisations say the death toll is probably much higher.

About 80 percent of the population rely on humani-tarian assistance in Yemen after years of war. The country is divided between the Saudi-backed government based in Aden in the south and the Houthi movement based in the capital Sanaa in the north The Saudi-backed government has declared 1,740 coronavirus cases, including 499 deaths, the Reuters tally shows.

The Houthis, who control most big urban centres, have not provided figures since May 16 when authorities said there were four cases, and one death.

The United Nations says the virus is circulating rapidly and undetected throughout the country and infections and deaths are probably much higher. According to World Health Organisation data, there have been 1,738 COVID-19 infections, with 500 deaths, but the count does not include figures from Houthi authorities. A government health ministry spokesman has said it reports figures daily and that “nothing was hidden”. Houthi authorities have not responded to requests for comment on coronavirus numbers.

Zimbabwe President vows to ‘flush out’ opponentsAFP — HARARE

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday warned he would “flush out” opponents as rights groups reported dozens of activists had been arrested in a crackdown on dissent.

Mnangagwa, who took over from longtime ruler Robert Mugabe after a coup in November 2017, said his admin-istration was facing “many hurdles and attacks” including “divisive politics of some opposition elements”.

“The bad apples who have attempted to divide our people and to weaken our systems will be flushed out,” he warned in an impromptu nationwide address.

“We will overcome attempts at desta-bilisation of our society by a few rogue Zimbabweans acting in league with foreign detractors.” The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said yesterday it had represented more than 20 people

arrested since last week when author-ities thwarted anti-government protests that had been scheduled for last Friday.

The protests had been called by oppo-sition politician Jacob Ngarivhume, the head of a small party called Transform Zimbabwe, against alleged state cor-ruption and the country’s slumping economy.

The police banned the protests, which the government described as an “insurrection”.

“We make no apologies for fixing our systems across the socio-economic and political spectrum,” Mnangagwa said from the State House in the capital Harare.

Among those arrested was top Zim-babwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga and Fadzayi Mahere, a lawyer and spokes-woman for the main opposition party Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-Alliance).

Lebanese protestors try to storm energy ministry

17 dead inYemen floodsAFP — DUBAI

Seventeen people, including eight children, have been killed in flash floods and by lightning in Yemen’s northern Marib region, health authorities said yesterday.

The fierce storms have added to the woes of the war-torn country, which the UN has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Five years of conflict has left swathes of the country in ruins.

“Sixteen people drowned and another person was killed after being struck by lightning,” local health authorities said in a statement.

Recent storms have hit other provinces, including the capital Sanaa, Amran, Hodeida, Taez, Saada and Hadramaut.

Dozens of homes and hun-dreds of tents for the displaced have been destroyed, according to authorities.

Meanwhile, the official Saba news agency reported that floodwaters swelling the reservoir of the Marib dam, built in 1986, raised concerns it might collapse.

Somalia sets up disaster warning centreREUTERS — MOGADISHU

At a government building in a former United Nations compound in Mogadishu, Khadar Sheikh Mohamed stares at a bank of giant screens displaying weather conditions across the country. Mohamed is the director of the new national disaster early warning centre designed to help Somalia predict disasters. This year it has already suffered from flooding and a locust invasion. “Finding the accurate data which may save lives is... important for us,” he said.

The centre opened in June. It was conceived after cycles of floods and drought caused widespread food shortages, including a famine in 2011 that killed more than a quarter of a million people. Out of Somalia’s 15 million people, 5.2 million currently need aid, the United Nations says, and more than 2.6 million are dis-placed due to fighting and natural disasters.

Massive Beirut blast kills at least 50, injures 2,700

Smoke rises from the site of an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, yesterday.

05WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

Hefty fines in Victoria to enforce isolationREUTERS — SYDNEY

Australia’s second-most populous state Victoria said yesterday that anyone breaking COVID-19 isolation orders will face hefty fines, as high as A$20,000 ($14,250), and that more military personnel will be deployed to fight the spread of the virus.

Australia, once heralded as a global leader in containing COVID-19, is desperately trying to slow the spread of the virus in Victoria to prevent a national second wave of infections.

Victoria earlier this week imposed a night curfew, tightened restrictions on peo-ple’s daily movements and ordered large parts of the local economy to close to slow the spread of coronavirus.

But nearly a third of those who contracted COVID-19 were not home isolating when checked on by officials, requiring tough new penalties, Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews said yesterday.

Fines of nearly A$5,000 ($3,559.00) will be issued to anyone breaching stay at home orders. Repeat offenders face a fine of up to A$20,000.

“There is literally no reason for you to leave your home and if you were to leave your home and not be found there, you will have a very difficult time con-vincing Victoria police that you have a lawful reason,” Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.

The only exemption will be for urgent medical care, said Andrews, adding anyone under

a self-isolation order will no longer be allowed to leave their homes for outdoor exercise.

“Fresh air at the front door. Fresh air in your front yard or backyard or opening a window,” he said.

Andrews said an additional 500 unarmed military per-sonnel will this week deploy to Victoria to assist police in ensuring self-isolation orders are being complied with.

The latest military deployment will join about 1,500 troops already in Victoria

and engaged in contact tracing, testing and assisting police at check points. Australia has deployed almost 3,000 troops to help in virus logistical oper-ations. Australia has recorded nearly 19,000 COVID-19 cases and 232 fatalities, far few than many other developed nations after closing its international borders early, imposing social distancing restrictions and mass virus testing.

But as the country began to reopen, community transmis-sions rose significantly in Victoria which has recorded triple digit new cases for weeks. It now has the bulk of infections in the country, with nearly 12,000 reported cases. Yesterday, Vic-toria reported 439 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.

Andrews said 11 people had died from the virus since Monday, bringing the state’s death toll to 136. The virus has spread significantly throughout Victoria’s aged care facilities, with many of the deaths among the elderly.

Victoria state officials said the latest wave of COVID-19 infec-tions has been driven by residents refusing to adhere to restrictions on their movements.

“There are a number of people who have knowingly breached the curfew — so somebody who decided they were bored and they were going to go out for a drive, somebody who decided that they needed to buy a car after 8:00pm last night,” Victoria Minister for Police Lisa Neville told reporters in Melbourne. With concerns that many people feel they have no choice but to continue working after a COVID-19 diagnosis, Australia said on Monday it would pay people in the state A$1,500 to stay home if they were ordered to and they do not have leave entitlements.

Many internal state borders have been closed which has so far seen the new wave of infec-tions predominately limited to Victoria, with neighbouring New South Wales (NSW) state reporting the next highest number of cases.

Another Indian

Minister tests

positive for

COVID-19

IANS — NEW DELHI

Soon after Home Minister Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh BJP Chief Swatantra Dev Singh were tested positive for COVID-19, another senior BJP leader has been detected with the virus.

Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dhar-mendra Pradhan announced yesterday that he had initial symptoms of COVID-19 fol-lowing which he got himself tested and the result has come positive. “According to the advice of doctors, I have got myself admitted into a hos-pital. I am fine,” said Pradhan.

Just a couple of days back Union Home Minister Amit Shah was detected with the virus following which he was admitted to Medanta hospital in Gurugram. Shah was present in the last cabinet meeting, after which many of his cabinet colleagues like Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had to go into self quarantine.

Earlier, Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa, BJP MLA from Agra, Yogendra Upadhyay, and MLC from Gorakhpur, Devendra Pratap Singh, had also tested positive for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court yesterday directed the Centre and state governments to ensure timely pensions to the elderly, besides ensuring availability of sanitisers, masks and PPE kits to them, wherever required, during the coronavirus pandemic.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan and comprising Justice R Subhash Reddy said the requests from the elderly should be immediately attended to, and emphasised that old-age pension should be disbursed in a timely manner.

“We, in this application, which is specially confined to the Covid-19 crisis, direct that all old aged people who are eligible for pension should be regularly paid pension and those identified older people should be provided necessary medicines, masks, sanitisers and other essential goods by respective states,” said the bench.

The top court asked the Centre to ensure that all COVID-19 safety precautions are followed and caregivers in old-age homes were well equipped with masks, PPE kits and sanitisers.

A motorist pushes his stalled bike while a lady walks on a road divider during a heavy monsoon rainfall in Mumbai, India, yesterday.

Heavy rain batters Mumbai disrupting trafficREUTERS — MUMBAI

Authorities in the Indian city of Mumbai issued a red alert yesterday and warned people not to venture out after heavy overnight rain in the financial hub brought flooding and travel chaos.

Some suburbs have seen more than 300mm of rain in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning and more heavy rain is expected over the next two

days, said India Meteorological Department (IMD) official KS Hosalikar.

The department issued a red alert for the city for the next two days and civic authorities advised people not to venture out unless absolutely necessary.

Trains, already running skeleton services due to the novel coronavirus lockdown, were suspended in several places because of flooding and traffic was disrupted on some

of the city’s main roads.A landslide swept down a

slope onto a main road in a northern suburb, media reported.

There was no impact on operations at Mumbai’s airport apart from reduced visibility, a representative said.

The city struggles with the monsoon rains every year as widespread construction and rubbish-clogged drains and waterways make it increasingly vulnerable to flooding.

India’s PM to lay templefoundation at AyodhyaAFP — AYODHYA

The flashpoint Indian town of Ayodhya geared up yesterday for a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lay the foundations for a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque destroyed by a mob in 1992.

The building of the temple in northern India, starting today with a colourful rite broadcast live on TV, has long been a pledge of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

A mosque stood on the site for almost 500 years until it was demolished by Hindu zealots in 1992.

That sparked riots across the country in which 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, died — some of independent India’s worst sectarian violence.

Devout Hindus believe that Ram, the warrior deity, was born in Ayodhya some 7,000 years ago but that a mosque was constructed on top of his birthplace in the 16th century.

In November, India’a top court after a legal battle lasting decades awarded the site to Hindus, giving Muslims another location to build a new mosque.

It was a stunning victory for the BJP, but for critics, it marked another step in Modi’s agenda to turn officially secular India

into a Hindu nation, marginal-ising its 200 million Muslims — something he denies.

Today also marks one year since Modi’s government imposed direct rule on Muslim-majority Kashmir, another long-standing BJP pledge.

The Ayodhya ceremony, held at a time recommended by astrologers, has been cur-tailed because of the corona-virus, with at least two priests as well as Modi’s right-hand-man and Home Minister Amit Shah testing positive.

But it will still be a grand affair beamed onto large screens around India and even on the huge displays at Times Square in New York, reports said. Hindus around India have also been asked to light earth-enware lamps.

Those attending include 135 “revered saints” and Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the BJP’s hardline parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), who will share the stage with Modi.

Soil from almost 2,000 holy sites around India and water of around 100 holy rivers will be used in the foundations, as well as silver bricks and a “time capsule” with information written in Sanskrit on copper plates, reports said.

Bangladesh sees

rising number of

virus deaths

after four days

ANATOLIA — DHAKA

After a low trend for the four consecutive days amid the Eid Al Adha holiday, Bangladesh yesterday marked a rise in fatalities from COVID-19, according to a regular update report of the Health Ministry.

The country recorded 50 more deaths in the last 24 hours, raising the toll to 3,234, the report said.

In the past four days, the South Asian country of above 165 million people reported a total of 101 deaths with the lowest 21 on August 1 over the last two months.

In the said period, however, the lowest number of samples were tested due to the eid holiday and prevailing floods that have already covered more than half of the country.

As of Monday night, as many as 33 districts of the country out of a total of 64 have been marooned by the devastating floods, according to the government’s health emergency operation center and control room.

At least 135 people have been killed while more than 21,000 injured by the floods, the report added.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 infections in Bangladesh topped 244,000 mark with 1,918 new cases, pushing the figure to 244,020.

Australian Army soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, deliver food and supplies to stranded mariners from the Federated States of Micronesia following a search and rescue mission, on Pikelot Island, on Monday.

Writing SOS in sand saves 3 men on Pacific islandAP — WELLINGTON

Three men have been rescued from a tiny Pacific island after writing a giant SOS sign in the sand that was spotted from above, authorities say.

The men had been missing in the Micronesia archipelago for nearly three days when their distress signal was spotted Sunday on uninhabited Pikelot Island by searchers on Aus-tralian and US aircraft, the Aus-tralian defence department said on Monday.

The men had apparently set

out from Pulawat atoll in a 7-metre boat on July 30 and had intended to travel about 43km to Pulap atoll when they sailed off course and ran out of fuel, the department said.

Searchers in Guam asked for Australian help. The military ship, Canberra, which was returning to Australia from exercises in Hawaii, diverted to the area and joined forces with US searchers from Guam.

The men were found about 190km from where they had set out.

“I am proud of the response

and professionalism of all on board as we fulfil our obligation to contribute to the safety of life at sea wherever we are in the world,” said the Canberra’s commanding officer, Capt. Terry Morrison, in a statement.

The men were found in good condition, and an Aus-tralian military helicopter was able to land on the beach and give them food and water. A Micronesian patrol vessel was due to pick them up.

SOS is an internationally recognized distress signal that originates from Morse code.

Teen election candidate urges NZ to lead world in green virus recoveryRUTERS — KUALA LUMPUR

New Zealand won global praise for its coronavirus response but needs to show the same vigour in pursuing climate goals and a green recovery from the pandemic, said a young activist standing against Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in elections next month.

Luke Wijohn will represent the Green Party in Ardern’s Mount Albert constituency in Auckland in the September 19 poll, hoping to build on his rep-utation as organiser of the Pacific nation’s “School Strike 4 Climate” marches last year.

“The world is already looking to us because of our COVID response and how successful that has been,” said Wijohn, who turned 18 in February.

“Now we need to show the world how to do the post-COVID green recovery,” he said in a phone interview. “We can create thousands of jobs in conservation, green energy and in tackling climate change.” Climate change is a major issue in the upcoming election, with many New Zea-landers becoming more aware of the threat early this year as ash from bushfires in neighbouring Australia turned its skies red and its glaciers brown.

Proud of being one of the world’s most pristine, naturally beautiful countries, New

Zealand has introduced climate change into its school cur-riculum, while parliament approved a bill to cut carbon emissions to zero by 2050.

With the support of its coa-lition partner, the Green Party, Ardern’s government also passed legislation including a target to cut emissions of methane — a powerful green-house gas — from livestock.

In addition to climate action, Ardern, who is well-placed to win a second term in September’s election, has received international plaudits for her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Wijohn said New Zealand should do more to cut its planet-warming emissions by halting fossil fuel extraction, becoming completely powered by renewables in the next decade, and funding greener agriculture practices.

“We can lead the world in having efficient, clean farming but we’re not,” said Wijohn, whose one-year ban from par-liament — imposed after a protest in the public gallery in support of ethnic Maori land rights — will be lifted shortly.

“From an international stand, we do better than many other countries but instead of comparing ourselves to other nations, we need to be comparing ourselves to the scale of the climate crisis.”

Nearly a third of those who

contracted COVID-19 were not home

isolating when checked on by officials,

requiring tough new penalties,

Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews

said yesterday. The state yesterday

said that anyone breaking COVID-19

isolation orders will face hefty fines,

as high as A$20,000.

06 WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020ASIA

IS militants on the run after Afghan prison raidAFP — JALALABAD

Afghan authorities were searching for about 270 inmates — most of them Islamic State (IS) fighters — who remained on the loose after escaping during a deadly prison raid.

At least 29 people were killed when IS gunmen attacked the facility in Jalalabad on Sunday, with fierce fighting lasting until Monday afternoon.

More than 1,300 inmates tried to escape, a senior Afghan security official said on con-dition of anonymity, but most were either swiftly re-arrested or surrendered when sur-rounded by security forces.

But some 270 prisoners are “still on the loose”.

“Most of those who escaped are from ISKP,” he said, referring to IS’s Afghan branch, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province.

They included militants responsible for several bloody attacks, a second security official said.

Nangarhar provincial gov-ernor’s spokesman Attaullah Khogyani confirmed many pris-oners were still missing, but couldn’t say how many were IS members.

The brazen prison raid came a day after Afghanistan’s intelligence agency announced the killing of a top IS com-mander near Jalalabad.

Nangarhar province, where IS got its first foothold in

Afghanistan, has seen repeated attacks by the group, including a suicide bomb that killed 32 mourners at a funeral in May.

The attacks have continued even though officials last year claimed IS had been defeated in Nangarhar.

“A large number of their leadership was arrested or killed ... so it (the prison raid) was some sort of revenge to free some of their comrades,” a senior Afghan security official said.

The prison raid shattered the relative calm of the final day of a three-day ceasefire between the Taliban and Afghan forces.

IS group was not part of the truce.

Inmates watch from behind a closed gate after a raid at the prison, in Jalalabad, on Monday.

Indonesia eyes production of 250 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine per yearREUTERS — JAKARTA

Indonesia will have capacity to produce 250 million doses a year of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020 pending trials on humans, a minister said yesterday, as the country seeks to halt a wave of infec-tions that has shown no sign of relent.

Indonesia has confirmed 115,056 cases of COVID-19 and 5,388 deaths since its first infec-tions in March. It has been

reporting more than 1,000 new cases on most days since the start of June.

State-run pharmaceutical firm Bio Farma will begin phase

three of clinical trials in humans this week using a vaccine pro-duced by China’s Sinovac. If those are successful, Bio Farma has said would produce the vaccine itself.

The global pandemic has sparked a scramble to create a vaccine, with more than 100 in development and about a dozen already being tested on humans. There are concerns, however, about demand and developing countries’ access to a future jab.

Erick Thohir, Indonesia’s minister for state-owned enter-prises, said Bio Farma would raise capacity in the coming months and by year-end would be ready to produce 250 million doses a year.

“Let’s trust the capability of our country. Don’t doubt Bio Farma which has been proven, either to produce vaccines that are produced with international partners or vaccines produced solely by (them),” Thohir said in a statement.

The Indonesian trials will be conducted in West Java involving about 1,600 volun-teers, according to the website o f t h e W e s t J a v a government.

Bambang Heriyanto, cor-porate secretary at Bio Farma, said the targeted production capacity to 250 million doses was contingent on the vaccine passing the trial.

Millions under lockdown in Philippines as infections peakANATOLIA — ANKARA

More than 6,300 new corona-virus cases were reported in the Philippines yesterday, a record daily spike for the archipelagic country that has now ordered millions of people to stay at home.

According to the Philippine News Agency (PNA), 6,352 more infections were recorded over the past 24 hours, raising the total to 112,593.

The death toll increased by 11 to reach 2,115, while the number of recovered patients is now up to 66,049.

The surge in infections comes as the capital Manila and

its surrounding areas entered a lockdown from yesterday.

Authorities have reimposed strict restrictions, including shutting down public transport and businesses, on the main island of Luzon until at least August 18.

Under the lockdown rules, only one person will be authorised to go out to buy essential goods for a household, according to the PNA report.

Authorities have set up checkpoints that cannot be crossed by anyone without a quarantine pass.

“Recent data shows that there is a significant increase in COVID cases, with record-high

numbers reported consecutively in the last four days, from the areas recently placed under MECQ [modified enhanced com-munity quarantine],” the Health Department said in a statement.

It said the aim was to “address the rise in cases at the root through stricter enforcement of localised lock-downs and the implementation of the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE).”

According to the statement, the key components of the CODE strategy include com-munity engagement, house-to-house symptom checks, and testing for symptomatic patients.

A security officer (left) walks past empty check-in counters after all domestic flights were cancelled following new restrictions to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, at the airport in Manila, yesterday.

PIA terminatesfive pilots with dubious licencesINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

The Pakistan International Airline (PIA) has sacked 63 employees, including five captains with “dubious” licences, in the process of reform and accountability.

The national carrier’s Human Resources Division released a list of actions taken against 63 employees.

According to the PIA spokesperson, 28 employees with fake academic creden-tials have been sacked while 27 employees who have been absent for a long time without notice, two employees involved in embezzlement, and one employee on grounds of incompetence have been sacked.

The PIA has sacked five captains with suspected licenses, demoted four employees for refusing to work and cut the increment minutes of three employees. According to the PIA spokes-person, all the actions have been taken in accordance with the law and regulations.

Last month, Information Minister Shibli Faraz said that 28 pilots of Pakistan Interna-tional Airlines possessing “dubious” licenses have been dismissed from service. On June 26, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan tran-spired the number of pilots who possess “dubious licenses” is around 262 which include 141 of the national flag carrier.

Cases in SE Asia surpass 294,000ANATOLIA — JAKARTA

Health authorities in Southeast Asian countries confirmed new coronavirus cases and fatalities.

The total number of coro-navirus cases in Southeast Asian countries has reached 294,727 as of yesterday, including 7,730 fatalities and 198,137 recoveries.

The latest figures showed 8,605 new cases and 99 deaths over the last 24 hours,.

Indonesia reported 1,922 new infections, bringing the total to 115,056. The country’s death toll rose to 5,388 with 86 more fatalities, while recoveries rose by 1,813 to reach 72,050.

In the Philippines, the number of cases climbed to 112,593, after the country

reported 6,532 new cases over the past 24 hours.

At least 2,115 people have died in the Philippines, while 66,049 recovered.

In Thailand, one new case took the total to 3,321, of which 3,142 patients have recovered. Singapore has recorded 295 new cases, taking the count to 53,346.

In Malaysia, one more case pushed the total to 9,002. The recoveries in the country reached 8,684, while the death toll stood at 125.

Vietnam saw a rise in coronavirus cases, with 31 new infections, taking the tally to 652. Also, two more deaths were confirmed, taking the toll to eight. Cambodia confirmed one new case, bringing the tally to 241.

Bio Farma will begin phase three of clinical trials in humans this week using a vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac.

Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to seek second termREUTERS — YANGON

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday formally declared her intention to seek a second term in an election in November that is seen as a test of the Southeast Asian nation’s tentative democratic reforms.

After decades of military rule, Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for democracy, took the reins in 2016 after an electoral landslide, but has been forced to share power with the generals.

Her international reputation slumped over Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims but she remains popular at home, where her image is undented by accusations of complicity in atrocities against the minority.

Yesterday, Suu Kyi, 75, waved to a crowd of around 50 supporters on the outskirts of the former capital Yangon to submit an application to run as a candidate.

Some of her supporters wore red-coloured face masks denoting their backing for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party and shouted: “Mother Suu, be healthy.”

In 2017, a military-led crackdown in Myanmar resulted in more than 730,000 Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, where they took shelter in refugee camps. UN investi-gators concluded that the military campaign had been executed with “genocidal intent”.

In January, Suu Kyi admitted that war crimes may have been committed

against Rohingya, but denied gen-ocide, saying refugees had exag-gerated the extent of abuses against them

Mainly-Muslim Gambia had filed a suit in November at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of “ongoing genocide” against the Rohingya. Myanmar has filed a report on its adherence to measures to protect Rohingya, but details of the document have not been published.

On the domestic front, Suu Kyi’s adminstration has had faltering peace talks with ethnic armed groups in various parts of the country, while a struggling economy faces new pressure from the cororavirus pandemic.

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi leaves the Yangon southern district court after she submitted her application to run as a candidate in 2020 general election in Yangon, yesterday.

Osaka governor saysgargling formula cancontrol coronavirusBLOOMBERG — OSAKA

The Governor of Japan’s Osaka prefecture touted the powers of gargling medicine to control the coronavirus and recom-mended at-risk residents use it — sending related shares jumping and clearing shelves of the medicine, even as some questioned the findings.

Based on limited trial on a group of 41 patients with mild symptoms, gargling with diluted povidone-iodine four times a day reduced the number of those testing pos-itive to 9.5 percent after four days, compared with 40 percent for a group who gargled with just water, Gov-ernor Hirofumi Yoshimura said at a press briefing yesterday.

Povidone-iodine is an anti-septic more commonly known as betadine. In Japan, it’s sold as gargles by Shionogi & Co., using the name Isojin under license from Mundipharma, as well as by Meiji Holdings Co. Meiji saw its shares surging as much as 7.7 percent in Tokyo following the news. Shionogi rose as much as 3.6 percent.

“It’s worth giving a try,” Yoshimura said, recom-mending its use to residents with symptoms and those working in high-risk industries such as hotels, restaurants and health-care. “It’s a drug that everyone can buy at a drug store and it doesn’t do any harm.”

The finding isn’t based on data from a large, randomised, controlled trial — the gold standard for assessing the safety and efficacy of any potential therapy. When asked by a reporter if it was appro-priate to be touting the med-icine at such an early stage in its research, Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui, who was also speaking at the briefing, ques-tioned back if he was supposed to ignore the findings.

“We’ve always been asking people to gargle, in addition to washing their hands, wearing a mask and social distancing,” said Matsui. “Now we’re just saying there were better results when they gargled with this instead of gargling with nothing.”

At a Matsumotokiyoshi Holdings Co. drug store in central Tokyo’s Chiyoda ward, the shelves were stripped clean of gargle medicines containing povidone-iodine, including Meiji’s brand. Three nearby stores were also empty. Ama-zon’s Japanese website listed most related products as being sold out.

“We hadn’t heard anything prior to the governor’s press conference,” said Meiji Holdings spokesman Hirosaki Oode. “Our product is effective at disin-fecting the mouth and throat, as well as combatting bad breath. We have no plans to study its effectiveness against corona-virus at this time.”

07WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

China accuses US of ‘outright bullying’ over TikTokAFP — BEIJING

China accused the United States yesterday of “bullying” over popular video app TikTok, after President Donald Trump ramped up pressure for its US operations to be sold to an American company.

In the latest diplomatic spat between the world’s two biggest economies, Beijing hit back after Trump gave TikTok six weeks to arrange a sale of its US operations — and said that his government wanted a financial benefit from the deal.

“This goes against the prin-ciples of the market economy and the (World Trade Organi-zation’s) principles of openness, transparency and non-discrim-ination,” said foreign ministry

spokesman Wang Wenbin. “It’s outright bullying.”The app has been under

formal investigation on US national security grounds, and Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok.

He has given ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal, a tactic that is almost unheard of.

“It’s got to be an American company... it’s got to be owned here,” Trump said on Monday. “We don’t want to have any

problem with security.”The US and China have

clashed over various fronts recently, essentially barring Chinese telecoms company Huawei from the US market and waging a global campaign to isolate the company over national security concerns.

Beijing slammed the latest m o v e a s “ p o l i t i c a l manipulation”.

Wang told a regular press briefing yesterday: “The US, without providing any evidence,

has been using an abused concept of national security... unjustifiably suppressing certain non-US companies.”

He said the national security grounds for the US’s clampdown on Chinese firms “does not hold water”, adding that the com-panies conduct their business activities in accordance with international rules and US laws.

“But the US is cracking down on them on trumped-up charges,” said Wang, who warned the US not to “open Pandora’s box”.

TikTok has as many as one billion worldwide users, who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.

But the pressure for a sale of its US and international business, based in Los Angeles,

has left the company and its Chinese parent ByteDance facing tough decisions.

In an internal letter to employees yesterday, the com-pany’s founder Zhang Yiming suggested the US’s aim was to ban the app rather than force a sale of its US operations.

He told staff to “anticipate more difficulties in the future” and said anti-China sentiment has recently “risen significantly in many countries”.

“Regarding public opinion, we must be able to accept mis-understandings for a period of time,” he said. “I hope that eve-ryone does not take to heart the short-term reputational damage, and does the right thing with patience.”

In an earlier statement on

Monday, ByteDance said it has always been committed to becoming a global company and was considering “re-estab-lishing TikTok headquarters in major markets outside the United States”.

UK media reported that it was considering a relocation to London.

Zhang had earlier said that the company had “always been committed to ensuring user data security, as well as the platform neutrality and transparency”.

Meanwhile, Wang urged the US yesterday to “refrain from politicising economic issues” and to provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory envi-ronment for foreign market players.

Landslides and floods leave 14 dead in S KoreaREUTERS — SEOUL

Fourteen people were killed and more than 1,000 people forced from their homes as 42 consecutive days of rain — South Korea’s longest monsoon in seven years — triggered floods and landslides, authorities said yesterday.

Heavy rain, which has also battered China, Thailand, Myanmar and India in recent days, inundated farmland and flooded parts of major highways and bridges in the capital, Seoul.

The victims included three New Zea-landers from the same family, who were found dead on Monday after a landslide hit vacation cottages in Gapyeong country, northeast of Seoul.

They were a woman believed to be 65, her 36-year-old daughter and her three-year-old grandson, a Gapyeong police official said.

The New Zealand foreign ministry said it was aware of the deaths and was providing consular assistance. It did not elaborate.

President Moon Jae-In expressed concern for the impact of 42 days of rain, which weather officials said was the longest such stretch since 2013, on public sector emergency workers already bat-tling the coronavirus pandemic.

He urged “all-out efforts to prevent further loss of life”, such as action to avert

landslides and evacuate people, even in cases of little apparent danger.

Most of the flooded roads and bridges along the Han River in Seoul that had backed up traffic and damaged infra-structure were back in operation on Tuesday, the Yonhap news agency said.

In neighbouring North Korea, state media warned of possible flooding.

“All the sectors of the national

economy... are taking steps to prevent damage from the downpour,” state news agency KCNA said, saying that some areas were predicted to receive as much as half a metre (20 inches) of rain.

Citing unidentified South Korean gov-ernment officials, Yonhap said North Korea opened the floodgates of a border dam on Monday without advance notice to its neighbour.

An aerial view shows a damaged village following a landslide amid heavy rain in Juksan-myeon, near Anseong, in South Korea, yesterday.

Hanoi short of test kits as virus cases in Vietnam climbREUTERS — HANOI

Vietnam reported 28 new COVID-19 infections and two deaths yesterday, bringing total cases to 670, with eight dead, as the capital Hanoi said it lacked the rapid testing kits it needs to continue mass screening for cases amid a new outbreak.

Targeted testing and strict quarantining had helped Vietnam contain earlier out-breaks, but it is now battling new infections after going more than three months without domestic transmission.

The new outbreak has infected more than 220 people since July 25, the majority in Danang, but it has spread to at least eight other cities and prov-inces, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, where enter-tainment venues are closed and gatherings restricted to prevent infections.

Danang and Buon Ma Thuot in the coffee-growing Central Highlands are on lockdowns. A government spokesman on Monday there was no plan for a nationwide lockdown.

Most of yesterday’s new cases are linked to Danang, the health ministry said, adding there were over 133,000 people undergoing quarantine, about 80 percent of those in their homes.

More than 88,000 people have returned to Hanoi from Danang since July 8, but only 70,689 were tested, authorities said, with two positive cases.

The gap is due to a shortage of rapid testing kits used to screen thousands of residents at a time, according to state media.

Hanoi medical institutions and hospitals have been assigned to boost testing capacity.

Rapid tests can diagnose a

blood sample in minutes but are prone to inaccuracies. They are used to identify potentially pos-itive cases that are confirmed using the more accurate, swab-based Polymerase Chain

Reaction (PCR) test.Phan Quoc Viet, chairman

of PCR test kit manufacturer Viet A Corp, said he was not concerned about stocks.

“Vietnam is not short of

COVID-19 test kits,” Viet said. “We have enough for two million PCR tests and are willing to provide enough kits for the country to conduct a wide-spread testing programme”.

Healthcare workers move a patient from an ambulance to the Gia Dinh hospital amid the spread of the coronavirus disease, in Danang city, Vietnam, yesterday.

WHO team interviews scientists in Wuhan over virus originsREUTERS — GENEVA

A World Health Organization team in China to probe the origins of COVID-19 had “extensive discussions” and exchanges with scientists in Wuhan where the outbreak was first detected, a spokesman said yesterday.

The talks included updates on animal health research, he said. China shut down a wildlife market in Wuhan at the start of the outbreak, a day after dis-covering some patients were vendors or dealers.

The WHO says the virus

most likely came from bats and probably had another, interme-diary animal “host”.

The results of the WHO investigation are keenly awaited by scientists and gov-ernments around the world, none more so than Washington, which lobbied hard for the mission.

The Trump administration accuses the WHO of being China-centric and plans to leave the agency over its han-dling of the pandemic.

“The team had extensive discussions with Chinese coun-terparts and received updates

on epidemiological studies, bio-logic and genetic analysis and animal health research,” Christian Lindmeier told reporters, saying these included video discussions with Wuhan virologists and scientists.

The three-week advance mission comprising two spe-cialists in animal health and epidemiology was tasked with laying the groundwork for a broader team of Chinese and international experts that will seek to discover how the virus that causes COVID-19 jumped the species barrier from animals to humans.

Lindmeier did not provide any details on the timing or composition of the broader mission.

Terms of reference for the broader mission have been pro-duced together with Chinese authorities in draft form, he said, and were not yet publicly available.

The team’s composition is bound to be sensitive since any exclusion of US experts would be controversial.

Another question will be the degree of access granted by Beijing.

US President Donald Trump

and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said the pathogen may have originated in a labo-ratory in Wuhan, although they have presented no evidence for this and China has denied it. Scientists and US intelligence agencies have said it emerged in nature.

WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan said on Monday that surprises were possible.

“The fact that that fire alarm was triggered (in Wuhan) doesn’t necessarily mean that that is where the disease crossed from animals to human,” he said.

Thai prosecutors suggest drug charge against Red Bull scionAP — BANGKOK

Facing renewed public outrage, prosecutors in Thailand said yesterday that police should file drug charges against a scion of the Red Bull energy drink fortune in connection with the 2012 hit-and-run death of a police officer.

An Office of the Attorney General committee also suggested that the charge of causing death by reckless driving against Vorayuth Yoovidhya might be restored after a re-examination of the evidence. Prosecutors dropped that charge late last month, igniting a fresh uproar over a a case that critics say high-lights the impunity wealthy Thais enjoy.

The committee is one of several that were set up to inves-tigate how and why charges had been dropped against Vorayuth, whose family is listed by Forbes magazine as the second richest in Thailand, with an estimated wealth of $20.2bn.

“The committee can assure you that the case hasn’t ended,” a spokesman for the attorney gen-eral’s office, Prayuth Bejraguna, said at a news conference.

Vorayuth had been accused of roaring down a Bangkok street in his Ferrari at speeds of up to

177km per hour when he struck a police officer patrolling on a motorcycle.

The officer and his mangled motorcycle were dragged for several dozen metres before his body fell to the road.

Police followed a trail of fluid to the Yoovidhya family’s nearby property. The car, which they found there, had a shattered windshield and its bumper was dangling.

At first, a chauffeur was blamed for the accident, but Vorayuth later admitted to being the driver. He turned himself in and was released on bail the same day.

His lawyers managed to repeatedly put off any court appearances until April 2017, when a warrant was issued for his arrest a few days after he had left the country. His Thai passports were later revoked.

Officials at yesterday’s news conference said they would ask for a re-investigation of whether Vorayuth was speeding.

“I can assure you that the Office of the Attorney General is seeking the truth and is neither abandoning this case nor consid-ering it closed,” said Chanchai Chalanonniwat, a member of the attorney general’s committee.

“The US, without providing any evidence, has been using an abused concept of national security... unjustifiably suppressing certain non-US companies,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

Malaysia scrapslaw to combatforest fire smogAFP — KUALA LUMPUR

Malaysia was criticised yesterday for abandoning plans to introduce legislation that would have punished its firms operating in neigh-bouring Indonesia if they are found to have caused smog-belching forest fires.

Massive blazes, often started to clear land for palm oil plantations, burn out of control in Indonesia every year, blanketing the region in toxic smoke.

Last year’s were the worst since 2015 due to dry weather, with the haze forcing many schools in Indonesia and Malaysia to close and putting the health of millions at risk.

Indonesia claimed that fires had blazed out of control on some plantations owned by several Malaysian firms.

This prompted the Malaysian government to look at drafting a law that would have punished companies from the country found to have con-tributed to causing smog-pro-ducing fires overseas.

But a new administration that took office in March announced on Monday that it was scrapping the plan.

Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said officials would instead work with other countries in the region to tackle the problem and pointed to a similar law in Singapore, which has been criticised as ineffective.

But Greenpeace Malaysia campaigner Heng Kiah Chun criticised the “premature shelving” of the law. “Taking action against Malaysian-owned companies operating abroad that contribute to the haze is a good step to ensure that the companies operate responsibly,” he said.

08 WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

THE Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) has recently been designated as World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Center for Infectious Disease Epidemi-ology Analytics. It is the first of its kind in the Medi-terranean region, which consists of 22 countries with a combined population of nearly 583 million people.

It is a milestone in the journey of WCM-Q, one of Qatar Foundation’s partner universities. The institution, established in Qatar on April 9, 2001, can be really proud of the excellent achievement as it has been elevated to the elite group of medical establishments of the world and the WCM-Q. The IDEG at WCM-Q, led by Dr. Laith Abu Raddad, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemi-ology, has carried out over 100 studies on the epidemi-ology of viral hepatitis, HIV/Aids and sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) in the region. The researches, most of which were funded by Qatar National Research Fund, have been instrumental in improving the understanding of the epidemiology of the diseases, with several of them being resulted in helping WHO formulate its public health policy and programmes for the region.

“Achieving WHO collaborating centre status is the fruit of relentless work done by the IDEG over the past decade,” said Professor Abu Raddad, adding: “This designation allows us to become a formal partner of an international collaborative network carrying out activ-ities in support of WHO’s public health mission and pro-grammes, and allows us to make a real tangible impact in the region’s fight against infectious diseases.”

Epidemiology, or in other words, the study and analysis of the distribution, patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined popu-lation, plays a vital role in managing public health as its helps in making policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors and targets for preventive healthcare. Epidemiology plays a part in controlling transmission, outbreak and surveillance of an illness, which are crucial factors in the protection of general population from any infectious disease.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is a proof of the importance of epidemiology, as experts are still strug-gling to fully understand the nature of the highly conta-gious infection. The way a pathogen affects people in different regions can be varied depending on lifestyle factors, environment and genetics of a certain popu-lation in a particular region. Hence, the analysis of a disease in a particular area is vital in identifying specific protocols and treatment methods for tackling it. The collaboration will offer WCM-Q students an invaluable opportunity to take part in practice-based projects and possibly be involved with WHO in implementing some of their programmes. The WHO designation is a shot in the arm for the students and the region.

Another step in research sector

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Quote of the day

We are at a defining moment for the world’s children

and young people. Once local transmission of

COVID-19 is under control, getting students back

into schools and learning institutions as safely as

possible must be a top priority.

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General

Ministry of Municipality and Environment has organised a campaign to sanitize and disinfect public places, as part of precautionary and preventive measures to counter COVID-19 and prevent its spread.

Epidemics and pandemics are neither normal nor usual natural occurrences. Seldom it happens that a disastrous happening of that kind takes given nations, countries or the like by surprise. Bewil-derment provides good grounds for monitors to give explanations and at times excuses for the phenomenon.

In some cases suggestions have initially won the ground for the way out or even for the attainable cure. This was usually achieved by those who are loud speakers or even by those who are supposedly have the expertise.

Different countries have reacted in dif-ferent ways to the pandemic. Some were reasonable and purely scientific, where others have not given the case the due care nor have taken the necessary precau-tionary measure to face such serious matter. It was only when the case got out of reach and out of control that they began to sound the alarm. It is true that the causal-ities were so alarming to the point of regret in some places.

Some countries, few they are, were on the right track and have managed to take the due necessities to safeguard their peoples. Of those, Qatar has taken the lead. It is true that COVID-19 pandemic is not explicitly new in the medical field; however it was/is a new threat that has brought about havoc in almost every facet of life, not only in Qatar, but worldwide at large.

The measures that were taken by the Qatari government were of tremendous success. “In a crisis, leaders serve as a repository for people’s fears,” Sapriel C. writes in the article “Effective crisis man-agement: Tools and best practice for the new millennium”, in Journal of Communi-cation Management further writing at another place: “Leaders say in effect - I hear you.”

On 6th of January 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) published the first disease outbreak news on coronavirus COVID-19. Since then, Qatar has stood up and set up a clear path to control and min-imise the extent of the crisis to the

minimum possible. In his speech on 24th of April, the leader of the country, Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, pro-vided an effective vision and mission that allowed for a practical strategy of handling the crisis. Such vision drives and rallies the whole nation towards successful campaign of fighting COVID-19.

From this standpoint, the formation of the Supreme Committee for Crisis Man-agement came to confront the coronavirus crisis by setting effective measures to protect individuals, public and private property. To start with, an efficient and knowledgeable leadership took the right initiatives with regard to the areas that are or even supposed to spread the virus, from the media sector to the different concerned ministries and agencies and even to the Qatari public at large. The leadership was keen to address their responsibilities step by step towards all that were concerned.

At the airport and at all other entrances, no one was supposed to get in or to leave without being carefully tested. It became mandatory to wear a face masks for eve-ryone. Universities and schools resorted to instruction online at own place depending on various technological means where teachers and instructors were trained to handle the task successfully. All other sectors were also looked into and nec-essary managements were applied.

As for the healthcare system, a robust health system provides reliable medical services to all residents in an effective manner. The health system in Qatar has showed the ability to handle the crisis with high level of professionalism. This was

observed through successful process of communication with all the callers through 24 hours dedicated call centre, specialized medical cadres of doctors and nurses available all the time and over duty hours, and advanced facilities with the latest labo-ratory devices and equipment.

Dr. Ahmad AlMandari, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, praised the status of the healthcare system of Qatar and the way the crisis has been handled. He said in a an interview with a Al Lusail Newspapers on 30th of March 2020 that (as translated) “Qatar has a very advanced and established health system and provides high-quality healthcare services.”

Dr. Al Mandari also mentioned: “Qatar has taken care of patient safety through the use of highly trained cadres and the availa-bility of health institutions with the nec-essary equipment to deal with various levels of this disease among people with moderate or severe injuries or between those who need isolation places and provide appropriate treatment for them, and also in terms of dealing with the spread of a healthy culture among individuals of society for permanent protection.”

The media sector played the role suc-cessfully where they actually informed the people with the true picture of the spread of the pandemic. Awareness programs and broadcasts were daily on air and in news-papers to enlighten the public with regard to all that concerns the pandemic.

In addition, using Ehteraz application in mobile phones was mandatory by the gov-ernment. It was a leading venture in the field of high tech to provide an updated personal health picture to the whole public. No one was allowed to get into any place without showing that he/she was declared infection free using Ehteraz application.

These are the steps undertaken by the Qatari leadership, the Qatari government, the Qatari healthcare system, and the media. The way advanced technology was put into practice was certainly fundamental and crucial. Other cooperative role contributed to the aforementioned successes, on top of which, was the good and sound response from the people themselves and the way in which everybody reacted.

That has paved a good path to the suc-cesses that have been achieved so far. It is true that the one thousand miles path starts with the first step, and the march is still ongoing to reach the absolute goal ahead, which is to complete elimination of the virus.

JAPAN NEWS-YOMIURI

US economic growth has marked a historic plunge due to the spread of infections with the novel coronavirus. The US Congress should come up with additional economic measures as soon as possible to prop up the economy.

The advance estimate of US real gross domestic product for the April-June quarter decreased at an annualized rate of 32.9% from the previous quarter. This was a significantly larger decline than the one

posted in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, and the worst quar-terly drop-off since records began to be kept in 1947.

The United States is the world’s largest economic power. The damage to the global economy from its worsened economy is tre-mendous. The impact of the downturn will have to be mon-itored closely.

The novel coronavirus pan-demic has led to widespread restrictions in the United States

on going out, forcing restau-rants and retail stores to suspend their businesses. The drop of over 30% on an annual basis in US consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of US GDP, had a great impact. Capital expenditures and exports also fell sharply.

Many people expect the US economy to return to positive growth in the July-September quarter, but the infections have been slow to subside and are again spreading in many places. The V-shaped recovery envisioned by the

administration of US President Donald Trump will be difficult to achieve.

The economy may stall again if restrictions on going out are tightened further and economic activities stagnate.

The US government has already implemented an eco-nomic stimulus package of $3 trillion (about 310 trillion yen). Additional unemployment insurance benefits, one of the main pillars of the package, expired at the end of July. Addi-tional measures will have to be taken.

Qatar achieves success in handlingCOVID-19 pandemic crisis

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Worst US GDP on record has awful impact on global economy

Established in 1996

OTHMAN ALYAFEI WRITER AND GRADUATE RESEARCHER

The health system in Qatar has showed the ability to handle the crisis with high level of professionalism. This was observed through successful process of communication with all the callers through 24 hours dedicated call centre, specialized medical cadres of doctors and nurses available all the time and over duty hours, and advanced facilities with the latest laboratory devices and equipment.

09WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE

UK risks second virus wave if it reopensschools without more testing: StudyREUTERS — LONDON

Britain risks a second wave of COVID-19 this winter twice as large as the initial outbreak if it reopens schools full-time without improving its test-and-trace system, according to a study published yesterday.

Schools in Britain closed in March during a national lockdown, except for the children of key workers, and reopened in June for a small number of pupils. All children are now on their summer breaks.

The government wants all pupils to return to school by early September, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling this a national priority.

Researchers from Uni-versity College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modelled the impact of reopening schools, combined with continuing to gradually ease social-distancing measures, under a range of scenarios.

If schools reopened full-time, 75 percent of people with COVID-19 symptoms would need to be diagnosed and iso-lated and 68 percent of their contacts would need to be traced, according to their study published in the Lancet Child

and Adolescent Health journal.The test-and-trace system

in England is currently reaching about 50% of contacts of those testing positive, according to the study’s lead author Jasmina Panovska-Griffiths.

If levels of diagnoses and contact tracing were below those identified by the mod-elling while schools were open full-time, the study said, the virus’s effective reproduction number, known as R, would rise above 1, triggering a second wave.

The second spike of the coronavirus would peak in December 2020 under that sce-nario, and be 2.0 to 2.3 times the size of the original COVID-19 wave.

More than 46,000 people have died of the virus in Britain.

The study should not be taken as a reason to keep

schools shut but rather as “a loud call to action” to improve the test-and-trace system, said Chris Bonell, one of its authors.

Junior local government minister Simon Clarke said the system was constantly being tweaked to make it more effective, adding that officials were looking at whether there

should be a physical follow-up if some people could not be reached by phone.

“I think we all accept that test-and-trace is a programme which needs to continue to improve. There is total humility in government about that,” Clarke told BBC Radio 4 in answer to a question about

the study.The latest official data, for

the period July 16-22, showed that the test-and-trace system reached 81 percent of people who tested positive, and that 81% of those it reached pro-vided details for contacts. The system reached 75 percent of those contacts.

Officials deliver and collect testing kits through car windows at a mobile drive-through coronavirus disease testing centre, in Richmond, London, yesterday.

Spain’s scandal-hit former king flees into exileAP — MADRID

Spain’s former king Juan Carlos, at the centre of an alleged $100m corruption scandal, has reportedly fled to the Dominican Republic or Portugal after his shock announcement he was going into exile.

The 82-year-old revealed on Monday that he had taken the decision to leave Spain to help his son, the current King Felipe VI, “exercise his responsibilities”.

The letter, published on the royal pal-ace’s website, did not mention where the former king would go, nor when exactly he would leave the country.

But yesterday, daily newspaper ABC reported that he left Spain on Sunday and flew to the Dominican Republic via Por-tugal. The La Vanguardia and El Mundo dailies similarly said he planned to stay with friends in the Caribbean country, but online newspaper El Confidencial said he

could be in Portugal, where he spent part of his youth, or in France or Italy. A royal palace spokesman refused to give any information about Juan Carlos’s whereabouts.

“The only information we have is the information which was published on the website of the royal palace yesterday. It is

the only information which we have,” he said. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he did not know where the former head of state had gone and sug-gested that King Felipe VI had pressured his father to go abroad.

“The government and I completely respect the decision of the royal palace to distance itself from the questionable and reprehensible conduct” of a member of the royal family, he added during a press conference.

The former head of state has been under a cloud since various media reported that he allegedly received funds from Saudi Arabia and probes are now under way in both Switzerland and Spain.

Spain’s Supreme Court announced in June an investigation to determine the legal responsibility of the ex-monarch — but only for acts committed after his abdi-cation in 2014, because of the immunity he holds.

The suspicions centre on $100m allegedly paid secretly into a Swiss bank account in 2008.

An inquiry opened in Spain in Sep-tember 2018 following the publication of records attributed to German business-woman Corinna Larsen, a former mistress of Juan Carlos.

She claimed he had received a com-mission when a consortium of Spanish companies were awarded a high-speed railway contract to link the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia.

Larsen told Swiss investigators he had transferred to her nearly 65m euros in the Bahamas, “not to get rid of the money”, but “out of gratitude and out of love”, according to El Pais daily.

Swiss media reported last March that Juan Carlos was paid $100m into a Pana-manian foundation’s Swiss bank account by late Saudi king Abdullah in 2008.

Spain’s former king Juan Carlos

UK lawmakers urge sanctions over Hong Kong police violence

AP — LONDON

British lawmakers urged the UK government yesterday to sanction Hong Kong’s leader for allowing “excessive police violence” against humani-tarian workers who tried to help people injured during pro-democracy protests.

A report by members of the bipartisan All Party Parlia-mentary Group on Hong Kong said first aid workers, doctors and nurses, have been sub-jected to intimidation, threats, physical violence and arrests during months of clashes between police and protesters that began in the semi-auton-omous Chinese city last year.

“The Hong Kong Police Force’s treatment of humani-tarian aid workers and their interference within hospitals have resulted in injured pro-testers not receiving the required medical care in time or at all,” the report said.

Lawmaker Alistair Car-michael, who co-chairs the parliamentary group, said the violence was “not the actions of a few rogue officers” but instead was “clearly a sys-tematic and quite deliberate” policy change that aligned more with policing in mainland China.

The report’s authors said they drew their conclusions after receiving over 1,000 pieces of written evidence and hearing many firsthand witness accounts.

They called for Britain to urgently impose sanctions on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and the city’s police commissioner.

Hong Kong saw violence at anti-government protests in the past year, as demonstrations against a proposed law that would allow suspects to be extradited to China grew into a much wider protest movement for democratic reform and against alleged police brutality. Although the extradition bill was later withdrawn, the demon-strations continued for months. Police using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to dis-perse protesters became common occurrences.

Second epidemic wavelikely to hit France thisyear, say scientistsREUTERS — PARIS

A second wave of the corona-virus epidemic is highly likely to hit France in the autumn or winter, the government’s top scientific body warned yesterday as authorities seek to contain an increase in new cases over the past two weeks.

The warning came as an increasing number of French cities decided to make mask-wearing mandatory in crowded outdoor areas - including, soon, the capital Paris.

Since lifting strict lockdowns that reduced infection rates, many European countries are now watching numbers creep back up as restrictions have been eased to limit the economic damage and social mixing has resurged during the holiday season,.

“The situation is precarious and we could at any moment tip into a scenario that is less under control, like in Spain,” the

French scientific committee said in a statement published by the health ministry.

“It is highly likely that we will experience a second epi-demic wave this autumn or winter,” it said, adding that if people failed to respect social-distancing rules, it could not rule out a renewed spread of COVID-19 as soon as late summer.

In neighbouring Germany, the doctors’ union said it was already contending with a second wave amid a disregard for social-distancing guidelines that risked squandering the country’s early success in con-taining the virus.

French authorities have already started to tighten public hygiene rules, with cities such as Lille, Nice and Toulouse ordering people to wear masks in busy pedestrian streets.

Paris is next, with City Hall in talks with state authorities to draw up a list of neighbourhoods

where a mask rule should be enforced, the deputy mayor in charge of public health said on Twitter.

City officials want that to include shopping streets, the banks of the river Seine and parks and gardens, Le Monde reported. A list of affected streets will be decided by each of Paris’ 17 districts, deputy mayor Anne Souyris said.

France has reported 3,376 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the last three days and the number of people being treated in intensive care wards for the disease has started to edge upwards. President Emmanuel Macron, now on holiday at his summer residence of Bregançon on the Mediterranean coast, trav-elled to the nearby port city of Toulon to meet social workers

looking after older people, for whom he announced a 500-euro bonus.

“It’s important to continue to respect guidelines against kissing and shaking hands, to wear masks, wash your hands with antibacterial gel, and be careful when the grandchildren come to visit, because the virus is still cir-culating in our country,” Macron said.

People wearing protective face masks walk at the Trocadero Square near the Eiffel Tower in Paris as France reinforces mask-wearing as part of efforts to curb a resurgence of the coronavirus disease across the country.

Germany lifts

travel warning for

4 Turkish regionsAFP — BERLIN

Germany lifted its travel warning for several coastal regions of Turkey yesterday, ceding partially to weeks of campaigning by Ankara, whose tourism industry relies heavily on German visitors.

The warning will be lifted with immediate effect for the four coastal provinces of Antalya, Izmir, Aydin and Mugla, government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said in Berlin.

“Turkey has developed a special tourism and hygiene concept for these four regions in order to realise safe tourism under the conditions of the pan-demic,” Demmer said.

Turkey will require anyone travelling back to Germany to present a negative coronavirus test within 48 hours before departure.

Turkey had been one of 160 countries outside the European Union and the Schengen area for which a travel warning was in place until August 31.

In July, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had demanded a review of the travel warning while visiting his German counterpart Heiko Maas in Berlin.

Anyone currently arriving in Germany from areas con-sidered to be at high risk must produce a negative coronavirus test or go into quarantine for 14 days.

Germany, which is home to a large Turkish community, makes up the biggest group of tourists by nationality in Turkey.

In a blow to tourism in Spain, Germany last week added three northern Spanish regions to its list of high-risk destinations.

Interpol warns of ‘alarming’ cybercrime rate during pandemicAFP — LYON

Global police body Interpol warned on Monday of an “alarming” rate of cybercrime during the coronavirus pandemic, with criminals taking advantage of people working from home to target major insti-tutions.

An assessment by the Lyon-based organisation found a “sig-nificant target shift” by criminals from individuals and small busi-nesses to major corporations,

governments and critical infrastructure.

“Cybercriminals are devel-oping and boosting their attacks at an alarming pace, exploiting the fear and uncertainty caused by the unstable social and eco-nomic situation created by COVID-19,” said Interpol Sec-retary General Juergen Stock.

“The increased online dependency for people around the world is also creating new opportunities, with many busi-nesses and individuals not

ensuring their cyberdefences are up to date,” he added.

The report said cybercrim-inals were sending COVID-19 themed phishing emails — which seek to obtain confidential data from users — often imperson-ating government and health authorities. Cybercriminals are increasingly using disruptive malware against critical infra-structure and healthcare institu-tions, it added.

In the first two weeks of April 2020, there was a rise in

ramsomware attacks, in which users have to pay money to get their computer to work again.

There was also an increase in the spread of fake news and misinformation which some-times itself conceals malware, said Interpol. From January to April, some 907,000 spam mes-sages, 737 incidents related to malware and 48,000 malicious URLs — all related to COVID-19 were detected by one of Inter-pol’s private sector partners, it said.

The agency warned the trend was set to continue and a “further increase in cybercrime is highly likely in the near future.”

“Vulnerabilities related to working from home and the potential for increased financial benefit will see cybercriminals continue to ramp up their activ-ities and develop more advanced and sophisticated” methods, it said. Once a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, Interpol said, “it is highly probable that there will be another spike in phishing.”

The government wants all pupils to return to school by early September, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling this a national priority.

10 WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020EUROPE

Belarus leader claims ‘massacre’ plot before voteAFP — MINSK

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko yesterday vowed to protect his country from the opposition and Russia which he said were coordinating violent protests ahead of pres-idential elections this week.

The 65-year-old has ruled over the ex-Soviet country wedged between Russia and Europe with an authoritarian grip for 26 years and has cracked down on the country’s emboldened opposition in the lead-up to Sunday’s election.

During a televised address to the nation, Lukashenko slammed what he said were attempts by his opponents to organise “a massacre” on the streets of the capital Minsk, claiming his critics were being backed by “billion-dollar resources” to create unrest.

“Will Belarus survive? Will it survive this hybrid war?” he said, sweating profusely and repeatedly mopping his brow.

“We will not give the country to you. Independence is expensive, but it is worth it,” he said during his speech which lasted more than an hour and a half.

The former collective farm director turned Europe’s longest-serving ruler is seeking a sixth term in the upcoming ballot after barring his main rivals from contesting the vote and jailing some of

them.He has accused European

countries and Russia of med-dling in the elections and last week the Belarusian security service, the KGB, arrested 33 Russian “militants” that the authorities said were plotting mass r iots with the opposition.

Minsk says the detained men are members of the Wagner private military company that promotes Mos-cow’s interests in Syria, Libya and Ukraine and is reportedly controlled by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lukashenko said during his address that yesterday he had received information about “another unit sent to the south,” without giving details.

During the animated speech, he also accused an “army of internet trolls and provocateurs” of working day and night to destabilise the country before the vote.

The president’s leading rival, 37-year-old Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, is running in place of her jailed husband and has drawn massive crowds at rallies across

Belarus in an unprecedented display of frustration with Lukashenko’s rule.

Tikhanovskaya has teamed up the with the wife and cam-paign chief of two other oppo-sition activists who have been barred from running.

Flanked by large Belarus flags in an auditorium packed with government officials, church leaders in religious wear and military personnel in uniform, Lukashenko described the trio of women as “these three poor girls”.

“They don’t understand what they are saying or what they are doing,” Lukashenko said.

Early voting began yes-terday and the election com-mission said that almost seven million eligible voters could cast ballots at more than 5,700 polling stations set up in public spaces including medical facil-ities and army barracks and at over 40 polling stations abroad.

Independent observers claim the authorities put pressure on public-sector employees to vote for Lukashenko or Lukashenko-friendly candidates during the

early voting period and carry out widespread falsifications before the main election day.

Dmitry, a 33-year-old builder who declined to give his last name, said that Bela-rusians want “to move forward, develop”.

“People are tired of living in this time of stagnation,” he said in central Minsk.

Tikhanovskaya has called on her supporters to vote on

Sunday, the last day of polling, to avoid manipulation before the count and to wear a white bracelet so independent mon-itors can easily identify them.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which carries out international election moni-toring, has not recognised any elections in Belarus as free and fair since 1995.

The OSCE said it will not send

observers to the vote after Belarus failed to issue an invi-tation in time. The organisation also raised concerns over intim-idation and arrests of the opposition.

The election commission has said that no more than three observers can be present at each polling station during early voting “due to the epidemic situation” and only five will be permitted to oversee ballot boxes on Sunday.

People take part in the early voting ahead of the August 9 presidential election at a polling station in Minsk, Belarus, yesterday.

WHO urges Russia to follow guidelines on virus vaccineAFP — GENEVA

The World Health Organisation yesterday urged Russia to follow the established guide-lines for producing safe and effective vaccines after Moscow announced plans to start swiftly producing COVID-19 jabs.

Russia said on Monday it aims to launch mass pro-duction of a coronavirus vaccine in September and turn out “several million” doses per month by next year.

Russia is pushing ahead with several vaccine proto-types. Officials claimed that one trialled by the Gamaleya institute in Moscow has

reached advanced stages of development and is about to pass state registration.

“We are very much counting on starting mass pro-duction in September,” Industry Minister Denis Man-turov said in an interview pub-lished by state news agency TASS.

Asked about the develop-ments in Russia, the WHO stressed that all vaccine can-didates should go through the full stages of testing before being rolled out.

“There are established practices and there are guide-lines out,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters at the United

Nations in Geneva.“Any vaccine...(or med-

icine) for this purpose should be, of course, going through all the various trials and tests before being licenced for roll-out,” he said.

“Sometimes individual researchers claim they have found something, which is of course, as such, great news.

“But between finding or having a clue of maybe having a vaccine that works, and having gone through all the stages, is a big difference.”

The pandemic has seen an unprecedented mobilisation of funding and research to rush through a vaccine that can protect billions of people

worldwide.Scientists in the West have

raised concerns about the speed of development of Russian vaccines, suggesting that researchers might be cutting corners after coming under pressure from the authorities to deliver.

The WHO’s overview of COVID-19 candidate vaccines, published on Friday, lists 26 candidates in clinical evalu-ation — of which six have pro-gressed as far as wider Phase 3 levels of testing.

The Gamaleya candidate, which is among the 26 being tested on humans, is listed as being in Phase 1.

A further 139 candidates

worldwide were listed as being in pre-clinical evaluation.

Lindmeier said the WHO had not been officially notified of any Russian vaccine on the verge of being deployed.

“If there was anything official, then our colleagues in the European office would def-initely look into this,” the spokesman said.

“In general terms, there are a set of guidances and regula-tions, rules, how to deal with safe development of a vaccine.

“These should be definitely followed in order to make sure that we know what the vaccine is working against, who it can help and, of course, also if it has any negative side effects.”

Greece PM reshufflescabinetAFP — ATHENS

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday announced a limited government reshuffle to improve performance on health and EU fund management.

The move was an “opera-tional improvement” to the government, the premier’s spokesman Stelios Petsas said on television.

Among the goals of the revamp was the “management of increased EU funds” and the “organisat ional rein-forcement” of the health min-istry, Petsas said.

Greece has seen COVID-19 infections increase this month to levels last seen in April, with officials blaming over-crowding in clubs and social events.

Since July 1 there have been over 340 confirmed infections among nearly 1.3 million incoming travellers, according to the civil pro-tection agency.

Greece has so far recorded 209 COVID-19 deaths and over 4,700 infections.

Mitsotakis appointed new deputy ministers for health, social insurance, and environ-mental protection, and upgraded two other officials to junior minister.

A dozen people overall were either brought into the government, or had their posts upgraded.

Two officials were upgraded to oversee EU funding, and another to handle tourism.

Greece stands to receive 32 billion euros from the 750-billion-euro ($884-billion) recovery package agreed by EU leaders last month.

Mitsotakis also had to fill the post of the deputy envi-ronment minister who recently resigned to take up an EU position.

A reshuffle had been expected since June, when Mitsotakis dropped a hint about “corrective moves” in the government during a visit to Israel. Just over a year after coming to power, Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party leads in opinion polls by at least 14 percent.

The economy is expected to contract by 5.8 percent this year according to the Bank of Greece, partly because of the impact of the coronavirus pan-demic on tourism revenue.

Belgium surpasses 70,000 COVID-19 casesANATOLIA — BRUSSELS

Coronavirus cases in Belgium, which unveiled new social distancing measures last week amid a surge in infections, have surpassed 70,000, health authorities said yesterday.

According to the latest figures by national public health institute Sciensano, as many as 70,317 people have been infected with the novel virus since the outbreak in the country of 11.5 million people.

On a daily average, 517 new cases were diagnosed between July 25 and 31 - a 60% increase compared to the previous week.

The number of infections has been continuously rising since the beginning of July. The week before, an average of 370 new patients was registered, representing another 60% increase in comparison with the previous seven days.

In the second half of July, an

average of 51.2 new daily cases per 100,000 inhabitants were confirmed - 198% rise from the first two weeks of the month.

Last week, the federal gov-ernment imposed new restric-tions on public life in order to prevent a second outbreak.

The numbers allowed to attend public events was halved to 100 for inside and 200 for outside, while masks became compulsory in crowded outdoor spaces. In addition, people were urged to work from home as much as possible, and shoppers asked to run errands alone.

Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes said the measures were aimed at avoiding a new general lockdown.

Belgium, where the European Union has its head-quarters, imposed a lockdown on March 18. Restrictions started to be lifted in early May.

The measures hit particu-larly hard the hospitality sector.

According to the estimates by the Federation of the Brussels Food Service Industry, around 1,200, or 30 percent of the res-taurants and bars in the capital Brussels could close down by September.

The virus that first appeared in Wuhan, China last December has spread to 188 countries and regions, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins Univer-sity’s Coronavirus Resource Centre. More than 18.2 million

virus cases have been confirmed worldwide, with over 694,000 deaths, and nearly 11 million recoveries. Some 9,850 people have also died of the virus in the Western European country, with 17,598 having recovered.

A health worker takes a swab sample from a woman to test for the COVID-19 at the triage centre ‘Centrum’, in Antwerp, Belgium.

Poland reports record rise in virus casesREUTERS — WARSAW

Poland reported yesterday a record daily increase in coro-navirus cases for the fourth time in a week, with more than a third of them found in the southern Silesia region, which has been grappling with another outbreak among coal miners.

The latest tally of 680 new infections and six deaths comes as Poland considers introducing stricter restrictions, including mandatory testing for travellers returning to Poland and quar-antine for those coming from certain countries.

More than 220 cases were

reported in Silesia, where a rapid spread of infections led to a temporary reduction of coal output and work in 12 mines in June. The situation then stabilised, but has now deteriorated again.

Last week new cases were detected in three mines, including Chwalowice, which was among those where work was cut back to a minimum in June. The state assets ministry said all 2,700 miners in Chwalowice would be tested on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Sanitary services said last week the resurgence of COVID-19 among miners was a result of easing restrictions

and of the working conditions in the mines, where it is dif-ficult to enforce social distancing.

Currently 1,043 coal miners are infected, mostly from Poland’s biggest coal producer PGG, data cited by state-run news agency PAP showed yes-terday. The pandemic has added to numerous problems faced by the coal industry. The government, PGG represent-atives and trade unions have agreed to work out a restruc-turing plan by the end of September.

Poland now has a total of 48,149 recorded coronavirus cases and 1,738 deaths.

Denmark urged not to reopenclubs, venues as infections riseREUTERS — COPENHAGEN

Denmark should not allow clubs and music venues to reopen given a recent increase in COVID-19 infections and should pause a planned fourth phase of relaxing its lockdown measures, its state epidemi-ologist said yesterday.

“It is not something that I can recommend from a healthcare perspective that you go ahead with,” Kare Molbak, a director at the State Serum Institute, told the Danish technology journal Ingen-ioeren. Denmark, which has had 616 coronavirus-related deaths, was the first country in Europe to relax its lockdown in April after seeing infection rates steadily decline, but the number of infec-tions has risen in the past couple of weeks.

In an email, Molbak, who said in May a second wave of coro-navirus was “very unlikely”, confirmed the Ingenioeren report and said it was “because the infection pressure is as it is now”.

Last week 494 Danes tested positive, up from 246 the week before, according to data from the Institute. “There is a great deal of risk associated with it,,” he told Ingenioeren.

During the animated speech, Lukashenko also accused an “army of internet trolls and provocateurs” of working day and night to destabilise the country before the vote.

Latin America has now topped 200,000 deaths. Brazil’s total approached 96,000 on Monday and Mexico surpassed 48,000. The two countries have the world’s second and third highest death tolls, after the US.

11WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020 AMERICAS

TitTok lovers rage against Trump threat of US banAFP — SAN FRANCISCO

A TikTok star pounds a beat as she weaves lyrics mocking the idea of US President Donald Trump banning the short-form video sharing app.

The “Trump Freestyle” post on Monday by @maya2960 quickly racked up more than a million views and 500,000 “likes” on the popular platform owned by China-based ByteDance. “Didn’t think this through, little Donny, did you? Not much of a businessman,” she rapped.

“You can ban this app, there’ll be a new one. There’s supply where there’s demand.” The lyrics included a promise that TikTok users would not go down without a fight, citing First Amendment protections against government censorship of free speech.

Another video snippet racking up views was captioned “Me trying to convince Trump to let us keep TikTok” and showed a woman colouring her face orange and building a brick wall.

American comedian Elijah Daniels used Twitter to bid farewell to his TikTok followers, giving “a big shout out to Donald Trump for mishandling the entire pandemic” but then taking away an app raising people’s spirits.

Twenty TikTok stars, whose combined followings top 100 million people, posted an open

letter to Trump on Medium arguing against banning the app. “A virtual world dominated by hate on Twitter is nothing compared to the snapshots of joy and comedy on TikTok,” read the open letter.

“So instead of eliminating TikTok, why not use this oppor-tunity to spin off TikTok US in an IPO or sell it to a US company — let capitalism solve this issue, not the state.”

Trump gave TikTok six weeks to sell its US operations to an American company, saying on Monday that it would be “out of business” otherwise, and that the government wanted a financial benefit from the deal. “It’s got to be an American company... it’s got to be owned here,” Trump said.

“We don’t want to have any problem with security.” Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok, which has as many as one billion worldwide users who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.

But US officials say the app constitutes a national security risk because it could share mil-lions of Americans’ personal data with Chinese intelligence. Trump gave ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal.

Whatever the price is, he said, “the United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we’re

making it possible.” Trump compared the

demand for a piece of the pie to a landlord demanding under-the-table “key money” from a new tenant, a practice widely illegal including in New York, where the billionaire president built his real estate empire.

Trump also said the sale of TikTok’s US business would have to result in a significant payout to the US Treasury for initiating it. Some on TikTok suspect that the president’s threat is connected to the plat-form’s popularity among activists, such as those pro-testing racial discrimination.

Legions of K-pop fans and TikTok users took credit for upending a Trump rally in June by block-reserving tickets with no intention of attending the event — which wound up with an embarrass-ingly low turnout.

Prior to the event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump’s campaign chairman tweeted that more than a million tickets had been requested. But according to the local fire department, just 6,200 people turned up.

TikTok appeals to a gener-ation that spent their child-hoods on the internet, seeing it evolve from a cornucopia of online platforms to a virtual world dominated by titans such as Facebook and Google, according to the open letter.

LatAm exceeds 5 million virus infectionsREUTERS — ASUNCION

Latin America broke through 5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a Reuters tally showed, underscoring that the region is the area of the world hardest hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The coronavirus was initially slower to reach Latin America — home to about 640 million people — than much of the world. But health experts say it has been hard to control the virus due to the region’s poverty and densely packed cities.

The more than 10,000 new cases reported by Colombia’s health ministry on Monday pushed the region past the 5 million mark, a day after the Andean nation reported a record 11,470 cases.

Latin America has now topped 200,000 deaths. Bra-zil’s total approached 96,000 on Monday and Mexico sur-passed 48,000. The two coun-tries have the world’s second and third highest death tolls, after the United States.

North America is the region with the second highest number of cases, with 4.8 million infec-tions, according to a Reuters tally, followed by Europe and Asia, which have around 3 million infections each.

Latin America is particu-larly vulnerable to the virus due to high levels of poverty, urban-ization and labor informality, according to a July 30 report by

the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Pan American Health Organization.

More than 100 million people across Latin America and the Caribbean live in slums, according to the United Nations Human Settlements Pro-gramme. Many have jobs in the informal sector with little in the way of a social safety net and have continued to work throughout the pandemic.

“The pandemic has become an precedented economic and social crisis and, if urgent measures are not taken, it could transform into a food, human-itarian, and political crisis,” the report warned.

Latin America has also a high death rate from the virus, likely due to a number of factors, including high levels of underlying conditions such as diabetes and obesity.

Diesel truck soot likely sparked raging California wildfireREUTERS — LOS ANGELES

A California wildfire raging through dry brush and timber east of Los Angeles, forcing thousands of people from their homes, was likely sparked by burning soot from the exhaust of a diesel truck, investigators said.

The blaze, dubbed the Apple Fire, has scorched more than 26,000 acres since erupting last Friday in the Riverside County community of Cherry Valley, about 120km east of Los Angeles, and was only 5% con-tained as of Monday, fire offi-cials said.

The fire posed an imme-diate threat to some 2,400 homes, prompting mandatory weekend evacuations of some

7,800 residents, said Fernando Herrera, a Riverside County Fire Department captain and spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire). One house and two out-buildings were destroyed, CalFire said.

By Monday, the flames had spread primarily to the east and north into rugged wilderness of the San Bernardino National Forest, and away from densely populated areas, US Forest Service spokesman David Cruz said. But all evacuation orders remained in effect, he said.

The fire resulted from a “vehicle malfunction, specifi-cally, a diesel-fueled vehicle emitting burning carbon from the exhaust system,” based on physical evidence and multiple

eyewitnesses, CalFire and county fire officials said.

Herrera said particles of soot from the unidentified vehicle ignited dry grass along a roadside that grew into the larger fire. Nearly 2,300 fire-fighters were battling the Apple Fire, which was burning in an area with no recent fire history. The blaze was being driven chiefly by record-low moisture content in the burning vege-tation, fire officials said.

The Apple was the most serious of at least 18 active blazes across California on Monday. Year to date, California wildfires have charred some 204,000 acres, compared with 46,000 acres blackened during the same period in 2019, state records show.

US to keep backing Guaido after December election: EnvoyREUTERS — WASHINGTON

The Trump administration will maintain support for oppo-sition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate pres-ident and expects dozens of other countries to continue recognizing him following December 6 legislative elec-tions that opposition parties plan to boycott, a US envoy said yesterday.

Elliott Abrams, the US special representative on Ven-ezuela, made the formal com-mitment to Guaido just two days after 27 opposition parties announced they would not par-ticipate in the elections, saying they would be rigged by Pres-ident Nicolas Maduro’s ruling socialist party. But the ballot, nonetheless, could pave the way toward a loss of opposition control of Venezuela’s National Assembly, which could com-plicate Guaido’s political standing based on his position as the Speaker of the congress.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Abrams insisted the United States “will not recognize this fraudulent election” and said it was in discussions with most of the roughly 60 countries that have backed Guaido and was confident they would stick with him.

The United States and about 60 other countries have recog-nized Guaido, regarding Maduro’s 2018 re-election as a sham. But Maduro has remained in power, backed by the Opec nation’s military as well as Russia, China, Cuba and Iran.

US officials say privately that Maduro’s continued rule despite heavy US sanctions has been a source of frustration for US President Donald Trump.

In an interview with the Axios news site in June, Trump played down his decision in January 2019 to recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader. Asked whether he regretted having thrown his weight behind Guaido, Trump was quoted as initially saying: “Not particularly,” but then went on to say: “I could have lived with it or without it, but I was very firmly against what’s going on in Venezuela.”

Trump’s aides, however, see his tough approach on Vene-zuela as a way of appealing to the large Cuban American com-munity in Florida, a key swing state as he seeks re-election in November.

Harvard researchers want more ‘crappy’ tests for COVID-19AFP — WASHINGTON

The aphorism “perfect is the enemy of good enough” has been played out to tragic effect in the US’s inadequate testing for the coronavirus, according to researchers calling for quick tests that cost only about a dollar each, and which may not be as accurate but can be carried out several times a week by the whole population.

Michael Mina, assistant pro-fessor of epidemiology at Harvard University, has for weeks been pushing for what he calls “crappy” tests.

His idea is to move away from the current high-precision molecular tests, known as PCR

tests, which are still scarce in large swathes of the country and which people often have to wait hours to get done, and then have to wait days — or up to a week — for the results.

He has called for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize the sale of rapid tests which can be done out at home using a strip of paper that changes color in a quarter of an hour to give a result, similar to a pregnancy test.

These tests have a low sen-sitivity, which means they miss a lot of positive results, and hence give a lot of “false posi-tives,” But for Mina and other experts, such a strategy would be more effective in terms of

public health because across the whole population, the number of cases identified would be higher than under the current system.

The quick tests tend to be good at detecting people who emit a large amount of virus, which is when they are more contagious, right at the beginning, while the PCR tests are very sensitive and can detect even small concentra-tions of the virus, when people are no longer as contagious.

“We’re so focused on high-end expensive tests that we’re not testing anyone,” said Mina in the podcast “This Week in Virology”. “Maybe we only need a really crappy test,’ he said.

“If it’s cheap enough to use it very frequently, then if it doesn’t detect less than five percent of people when they’re transmitting, maybe it detects 85 percent of people when they’re transmitting. And that’s a huge win over what we have right now.” The head of Har-vard’s Global Health Institute, Ashish Jha, touched on the subject on Monday.

“They’re not actually crappy tests,” he told reporters. “In certain circumstances they are not so sensitive when you have very low amounts of virus, and you’re not doing much spreading. But when you’re actually really infectious, you have large amounts of virus in your throat

elsewhere and the test becomes much, much better,” he said.

“From an epidemiologic point of view, that’s when you want to capture people. You want to get them when they’re infec-tious,” he said. Even if rapid tests miss half the cases, it is likely that with two tests a week, they will end up detecting them.

It must also be noted that the current system is thought to be missing nine cases out of ten because so few people are being tested, according to estimates by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The FDA has still not authorized the sale of any of the paper strip tests, which would cost between one and five dollars.

Peru Premier loses confidence voteREUTERS — LIMA

Peru's Congress yesterday rejected a vote of confidence for President Martín Vizcarra´s cabinet chief, forcing yet another reshuffle of his top advisors in the middle of an economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Cabinet chief and Prime Minister Pedro Cateriano lost a confidence vote 54-37 after a marathon parliamentary session that began on Monday morning.

The upheaval throws the

government’s plan to kickstart the Andean nation’s ailing economy into disarray. The 19 cabinet ministers must now present their resignation to Viz-carra, who has no political party or representation in Congress. A new cabinet must be appointed within 48 hours.

Vizcarra had already been forced to replace more than half of his cabinet in mid-July as his popularity plunged due to the harsh economic impact of the pandemic and a lengthy lockdown.

The ousted Cateriano, an

experienced independent pol-itician, had presented an ambi-tious economic recovery plan in Congress the day before.

Peru, the world’s second biggest copper producer, has been battered by the COVID-19 outbreak. It has the third most cases in Latin America. The economy has crashed as mining output sank.

“This is the answer to arro-gance, to the lack of proposals. People are dying in the country,” said José Luna, leader of the Union for Peru party, fol-lowing the vote.

The 747 Supertanker makes a retardant drop on a ridge as firefighters continue to battle the Apple fire near Banning, California on August 1, 2020.

Bolivia eases virus curbsA placard displays the health protocol for clients of a restaurant as a waitress disinfects a table in Santa Cruz, as the Bolivian city began easing restrictions in the fight against cororavirus disease, yesterday. Bolivia has recorded more than 81,000 cases and over 3,200 deaths from COVID-19 among its population of 11 million.

Without evidence, Trump has repeatedly claimed increased mail voting would be rife with fraud, remarks that have deepened Democrats’ fears that he will refuse to accept the election outcome should he lose.

12 WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST 2020AMERICAS

Great American Outdoors ActUS President Donald Trump holds up HR 1957, the Great American Outdoors Act, after signing it, as US Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ), US Rep Jeff Fortenberry (R-LA), an unidentified young girl, US Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Rep Don Young (R-AK) look on in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, yesterday.

Biden assails Trump for ‘bald-faced lies’ about voting by mailREUTERS — WASHINGTON

Democratic presidential can-didate Joe Biden said that Pres-ident Donald Trump was telling “bald-faced lies” about voting by mail to distract from his own failures, after Trump last week suggested it could be cause to delay the election.

Biden’s remarks were his strongest on the issue since Trump, who trails the pre-sumptive Democratic nominee in opinion polls, tweeted on Thursday that he would not trust the results of an election that included widespread mail voting — a measure many observers see as critical during the ongoing virus pandemic.

Trump then suggested the November 3 vote could be post-poned, an idea immediately rejected by Democrats and his fellow Republicans in Congress — the sole branch of gov-ernment with the authority to make such a change.

Speaking during a virtual campaign fundraiser on Monday, Biden said he believed Trump would do everything in his power to “argue this election is fraudulent”. “He suggested we should postpone the election, full of just bald-faced lies about how mail-in votes were fraud, and how it was so terrible,” Biden said.

“Well look, he’s calling out any effort to exploit this pan-demic for political purposes. It distracts from his complete failure,” he said. Trump cam-paign communications director

Tim Murtaugh said the President was “rightfully calling attention to the clear fact” that universal mail-in voting creates “nightmare election scenarios”.

“Joe Biden and the radical left are fearmongering as they capitalize on the coronavirus crisis in an effort to scare voters into staying home on Election Day,” Murtaugh said.

The United States is enduring a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 155,000 lives — the most of any country in the world — a crippling recession sparked by the outbreak, and nationwide protests against police violence and racism.

Without evidence, Trump has repeatedly claimed increased mail voting would be rife with fraud, remarks that have deepened Democrats’ fears that he will refuse to accept the election outcome should he lose.

Trump, meanwhile, vowed that he would sue Nevada after

the state’s Democratic law-makers passed a bill to send mail-in ballots to every voter ahead of November’s presi-dential election in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We will be suing in Nevada. And that’s already been taken care of, we’ll probably file something tomorrow,” he said during a White House briefing.

The state’s Democratic gov-ernor, Steve Sisolak, signed the bill, making Nevada the eighth state to send ballots to all regis-tered voters for the November 3 election between Trump and Biden. Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington already conduct their elections entirely by mail, while California and Vermont have decided to do so this year due to the pandemic.

Trump told reporters he had a right to issue an executive order regarding mail-in ballots but did not elaborate on what that would involve. “We haven’t gotten there yet,” he said.

Most states have sought to expand mail-in voting to avoid spreading the coronavirus at polling places on Election Day. The ongoing public health crisis has prompted litigation in dozens of states between Dem-ocrats and Republicans over issues like absentee ballots, postmark deadlines and sig-nature requirements.

“I don’t think the Post Office is prepared for a thing like this,” Trump told reporters, referring to an expected increase in mail-in voting in the 2020 election.

Stacey Abrams warns not to expect presidential winner on Election NightREUTERS — WASHINGTON

Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams (pictured) warned Americans yesterday not to expect to learn the winner of the White House on Election Night November 3, as problems delivering and counting an expected flood of mail-in ballots prompted by the coro-navirus pandemic could delay the result and draw a flurry of legal challenges.

“The sheer volume of people who will be voting by mail is going to preclude the ability to count those ballots and adjudicate the outcome of the election by 11pm on Election Night,” Abrams, a Democrat

and former leader in Georgia’s state legislature, said in a virtual Reuters Newsmaker event.

The public health crisis has drawn litigation in dozens of states from both major parties. Democrats and voting rights groups have pushed voting by mail as a safer option to cast ballots during the pandemic, while President Donald Trump

and his allies have proclaimed without evidence that expanded voting by mail will lead to wide-spread fraud.

Abrams, once considered a possible running mate for Dem-ocratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said cuts in Postal Service overtime imposed by Louis DeJoy, a new Trump-appointed postmaster general, may cause delays in service as voting by mail ramps up. “And so my admonition is that we have to approach November 3 with patience,” Abrams said.

A Postal Service spokesman said last week the agency was taking steps to increase opera-tional efficiency and ensure prompt and reliable service.

US nears 5 million coronavirus casesAP — BOSTON

Big house parties and weddings, summer camps, concerts, crowded clubs and restaurants, shopping trips without masks — Americans’ resistance to curbs on everyday life is seen as a key reason the US has racked up more confirmed coronavirus deaths and infections by far than any other country.

The nation has recorded more than 155,000 dead in a little more than six months and is fast approaching an almost off-the-charts 5 million COVID-19 infections.

Some Americans have resisted wearing masks and

social distancing, calling such precautions an over-the-top response or an infringement on their liberty. Public health experts say such behavior has been compounded by confusing and inconsistent guidance from politicians and a patchwork quilt of approaches to containing the scourge by county, state and federal governments.

The number of confirmed infections in the US has topped 4.7 million, with new cases running at over 60,000 a day. While that’s down from a peak of well over 70,000 in the second half of July, cases are on the rise in 26 states, many of them in the South and West,

and deaths are climbing in 35 states. On average, the number of COVID-19 deaths per day in the US over the past two weeks has gone from about 780 to 1,056, according to an Asso-ciated Press analysis.

In Massachusetts, leading physicians, including the pres-ident of the Massachusetts Medical Society, have been calling on Republican Gov-Charlie Baker to consider scaling back the state’s phased reopening because of an uptick in cases. Massachusetts health officials said they are investi-gating at least a half-dozen new clusters of cases connected to such events as a lifeguard party,

a high school graduation party, a prom party, an unsanctioned football camp and a packed harbor cruise trip.

Hotspots around the US are cropping up in what once seemed like ideal places to ride out the outbreak: Rural, less populated and with lots of outdoor space. In South Dakota, a spike erupted at a Christian youth summer camp in the Black Hills, with cases growing to 96 among 328 people who attended.

In Virginia, cases have surged so much in cites like Norfolk and Virginia Beach that Democratic Gov Ralph Northam placed limits last week on gath-erings of more than 50 people.

This US Air Force photo shows an Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launching during an operational test at 12:21am Pacific Daylight Time, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

US successfully testsintercontinentalballistic missileAFP — WASHINGTON

The United States yesterday successfully tested an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a launch directed from an air-borne command center, the Air Force said.

The missile was launched at 12:21am (0721 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, travelling 6,700km over the Pacific Ocean before landing in the sea near the Mar-shall Islands.

“The test demonstrates that the United States’ nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable and effective,” the Air Force said in a statement.

“Airmen... were aboard the US Navy E-6 aircraft to dem-onstrate the reliability and effectiveness” of the airborne

launch control system, it said.Colonel Omar Colbert,

commander of 576th Flight Test Squadron, said “the Minuteman III is 50 years old, and continued test launches are essential”. “This visible message of national security serves to assure our allies and dissuade potential aggressors,” he said.

The Air Force added that test launches were “not a response or reaction to world events or regional tensions.” The Minuteman III has been the only surface-to-air missile in the US nuclear arsenal since 2005. It is installed at bases in Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana.

Trident nuclear missiles are deployed on US submarines, and US strategic bombers also carry nuclear devices.

Biden will not announce V-P pick this week: CampaignAFP — WASHINGTON

US presidential candidate Joe Biden will not reveal his long-awaited choice of running mate this week despite pre-vious expectations he would, his campaign said yesterday.

“I’m going to have a choice in the first week in August,” Biden told reporters on July 28. “And I promise, I’ll let you know when I do.” His selection will “not be made during this current week,” a member of his campaign team said, though it must be done before the Democratic party con-vention opens on August 17.

Biden has promised that he would choose a woman to join his ticket challenging Pres-ident Donald Trump in the election. About a dozen names have been raised, with one favorite appearing to be US Senator Kamala Harris of Cali-fornia. The choice of a running mate has added significance this year because of Biden’s age.

He turns 78 on November 20 and would be the oldest man ever to assume the office if he defeats Trump, as polls predict. Besides Harris, three other sen-ators are believed to be under consideration — Tammy Duck-worth, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin.

New York takes flood measuresas storm pounds US East CoastAFP — WILMINGTON

Tropical storm Isaias pounded the US eastern seaboard with driving rain and strong winds yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and prompting flood precautions in New York City.

Isaias slammed into the coast of North Carolina over-night with hurricane strength before being downgraded to a tropical storm.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said there had been at least one death in the southern state and an unspec-ified number of people injured.

“Overall,” Cooper told ABC, “the damage was not any ways as great as it could have been.” “We have a lot of trees down,” the governor said. “We have some storm surge flooding. We have about 355,000 people without power.” The storm is expected to hit New York soon with wind gusts of up to 75 miles per hour, several inches of rain and possible flash flooding.

The authorities set up tem-porary flood barriers in Lower Manhattan in case of storm surge. The orange flexible tubes known as “Tiger Dams” have been put up in low-lying areas.

Authorities anticipate a pos-sible storm surge of around one to two feet. Superstorm Sandy in 2012 caused surges of up to

14 feet (4.2 meters). New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency ahead of Isaias’s arrival.

“We urge all residents to stay off the roads and stay at home today,” Murphy said.

“Given the expected winds, we should not be surprised to experience power outages across the state,” he said.

The National Hurricane Center issued tornado watches for stretches of the East Coast and warned of further power outages. The fast-moving storm is tracking northeast according to the NHC and is expected to sweep through the northeastern United States and into southern Canada overnight. Washington,

Baltimore and other cities on or near the Atlantic coast were experiencing heavy rainfall.

Residents in flood-prone areas “should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions,” the NHC said.

President Donald Trump issued emergency declarations on Monday for Florida and both Carolinas, freeing up federal funds. “Everyone needs to remain vigilant,” he warned.

The storm earlier dumped torrential rain on the Bahamas. At least one person died in Puerto Rico and the storm also lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

A tree branch rests on a car after Hurricane Isaias made landfall near the town the night before in Wilmington, North Carolina.