Sunday 14 June 2020

22 Shawwal - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8288

BUSINESS | 01 PENMAG | 03 SPORT | 08

Goretzka

keeps Bayern

on track

for title

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

UDC awards

QR1.5bn

contracts for

Gewan Island

MoPH: 55,252 total recoveries; 1,828 new casesQNA — DOHA

Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced 1,828 confirmed new cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), with 1,956 people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of people recovered in the State of Qatar to 55,252 cases.

The Ministry stated that in the last 24 hours, 13 new cases have been admitted to intensive care due to health complications resulting from infection with the virus, bringing the total number of cases currently in intensive care to 232.

The Ministry also said that there has been a small decrease in the number of acute COVID-19 positive patients being admitted to intensive care thanks to the measures taken by the Ministry of Public Health and the con-cerned authorities to limit the spread of the virus, the most important of which is the early detection of the virus which can contribute significantly to reducing the severity of infection.

The Ministry stated that the new cases are due to expatriate workers who were infected with the virus as a result of contact with individuals who were

previously infected, in addition to recording new cases of infection among groups of workers in different regions. The new cases have been identified through track and trace team at the MoPH.

Cases of infection have also increased significantly among citizens and residents as a result of contact with infected family members who had been infected in the workplace or through visits and family gatherings.

The new confirms cases of infection have been introduced to complete isolation in the various medical facilities in the

country, where they receive the necessary healthcare according to the health status of each case.

The Ministry confirmed that efforts to tackle the COVID-19 virus in the State of Qatar have succeeded in flattening the curve and reducing the impact of the virus by a large per-centage thanks to the decisions of the ban, the preventive measures taken and the awareness and cooperation of all members of society, and that there are relatively low average numbers in relation to the recorded cases of new hospital admissions. �P2

Minister congratulates students, school leaders and teachersQNA — DOHA

Minister of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulwahed Al Hammadi (pictured) congratulated yesterday the students of the secondary certificate on finishing their exams for the academic year 2019/2020 amid unprecedented health condition that affected the entire world.

His Excellency addressed the stu-dents on this occasion, stressing that they have given an example in resil-ience and responsibility.

“By taking the exams amid the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, you have demonstrated your firm belief in the importance of learning and steadily moving forward towards building your future,” H E the Minister said adding that they have gone through difficulties with their heads held high.

His Excellency the Minister extended thanks to the school leaders, teachers and administrative officials at the Ministry, noting that these exams would not have been given successfully

without their full commitment to their duties towards students and the edu-cational process.

A total of 11,500 students have com-pleted the final examination of the sec-ondary certificate for the academic year 2019/2020, which lasted for two weeks since June 1. Male and female students appeared for the tests at 149 centers, and were observed by about 6,100 employees, including committees employees.

It is worth noting that the sec-ondary school certificate control centers are at Sumaya and Hafsa schools for girls, where marking works are being carried out, besides moni-toring, estimating grades and reviewing them to ensure that each student gets the accurate degree. After the completion of all these works, the results will be announced through the Ministry’s website after the approval of H E the Minister of Education and Higher Education. Certificates will also be received in schools, and students will be informed of the date by a text message.

Qatar Rail receives new batch of trains, to raise network capacityTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Railways Company (Qatar Rail) announced that it received the new batch of trainsets at Hamad Port yesterday according to an agreement signed earlier with manufac-turer The Kinki Sharyo Co, Ltd.

The batch consists of two trains and comes alongside 35 additional trains set to arrive in the country over the coming months. According to the delivery schedule, the last batch will arrive by the end of the second quarter next year, increasing the total number of Doha metro trains serving the network from 75 trains to 110.

The new trains will be moved to the Qatar Rail Depot in Al Wakra for assembly and testing purposes to be inte-grated later on into the existing

rail system. All the necessary tests will be conducted to ensure the highest standards of safety are met.

The additional trains will contribute to increasing the capacity of the metro network, as the country gears towards the

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which is expected to attract over a 1.5 million visitors. The trains will also serve the future

expansion of the Doha Metro lines that Qatar Rail company intends to implement.

H E Eng. Abdullah Abdulaziz Al Subaie, Managing Director and CEO of Qatar Rail stated: “The Doha Metro network pro-vides a reliable and comfortable mean of transportation within the city as it extensively covers and connects the key destina-tions in Doha. The additional trainsets will undoubtedly boost the network’s capacity and decrease the headways on all the lines. Moreover, providing a comprehensive and seamless transport experience for visitors and crowds during the FIFA World Cup 2022. In addition, this strategic move will con-tribute to the achievement of the project’s long-term goals represented in the expansion of the current network.”

The Doha metro design embodies the Qatari heritage and culture combined with the state-of-the-art technology. It is designed and manufactured by Kinki Shario Co., Ltd. at its fac-tories located in Osaka, Japan.

The Doha metro is con-sidered one of the fastest driv-erless trains in the world and the fastest ever in the region, with a speed that reaches 100 km/h. Each train consists of three metro cars; one for the Gold and Family Class and two for the Standard Class. The gold class has 16 seats while the family car has 26 seats, and the two standard class cars have 88 seats, in total. The Doha Metro is distinguishable by its modern design that reflects the unique identity of Qatari heritage which is embodied through the exterior and interior designs.A view of the new batch of trainsets at Hamad Port yesterday.

Malls, shopping centres to open from 8am to 8pmTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) announced yesterday guidelines regarding the first phase of lifting of restrictions on malls and shopping centres. The guidelines, which will come into effect from tomorrow, outline conditions for work timings, operating capacity and measures relating to safety of customers of malls, shops and retail outlets operating inside them. The first phase of lifting of restrictions will begin on Monday.

The Ministry has allowed malls and shopping centres to operate during weekdays from 8am to 8pm while remaining closed on Fridays and Saturdays.

As per the decision, the partial opening of some shops in the com-mercial centres is allowed, provided that the outlet’s floor space is not less than 300 square metres, said the Ministry on its official twitter account yesterday.

The restaurants that do home delivery or hand over orders at the restaurant (take away) are also allowed to resume their businesses, while prohibiting customers from dining in.

Shops selling sweets, ice cream, cakes, pastries, honey and dates are allowed to resume their operation.

Malls and shopping centres shall adhere to the precautionary and pre-ventive measures outlined by the Min-istry of Public Health and the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs.

They are required to reduce the number of parking spaces available to visitors to 50 percent and operate at less than 30 percent of the mall’s regular capacity.

Gaming centres, amusement parks, skateboard arenas, prayer rooms and cinemas will remain

closed. This decision also prohibits any artistic, cultural or recreational activ-ities at malls and commercial centres.

Malls and shopping centres can allow shoppers in the premises only after checking the colour code iden-tifying the individual’s health con-dition in the Ehteraz app. Only green

code holders will be allowed to enter. They are also required to bar people for not wearing a medical mask and compelling visitors to wear one throughout their time at the mall. Individuals under the age of 12 and over 60 years will not be allowed to enter. �P2

Malls have taken necessary measures to ensure customers’ safety. PIC: ABDUL BASIT/THE PENINSULA

Malls and shopping centres shall adhere to the precautionary and preventive measures.

Number of parking spaces available to visitors should only be 50 percent and operate at less than 30 percent of the mall’s regular capacity.

Shopping centres shall encourage customers to pay using credit cards rather than using cash.

Shops selling sweets, ice cream, cakes, pastries, honey and dates are allowed to resume their operation.

Gaming centres, amusement parks, skateboard arenas, prayer rooms and cinemas will remain closed.

NEW DEATHS

TOTAL DEATHSTOTAL

DEATHS

TOTAL

RECOVERED

GLOBALLY

C VID-19

C VID-19

QATAR UPDATES ON 13 JUNE 2020

TOTTOTTOTTOTALALALAL

DEATHS

TOTTOTTOTTOTALALALAL

RECOVERED

7,719,770 427,798 3,663,251

NEW CASES ANNOUNCED

1,828

070

NEW RECOVERIES

1,956

ACTIVE CASES

23,094

TOTAL RECOVERIES

55,252

TOTAL

POSITIVE

NEW CASESANNOUNCED

NEWRECOVERIES

ACTIVECASES

TOTALRECOVERIES

The new batch consists of two trains and comes alongside 35 additional trains set to arrive in the coming months.

The last batch will arrive by the end of the second quarter next year, increasing the total number of trains from 75 to 110.

OFFICIAL NEWS

02 SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 03.14 am 04.43 am

W A L R U WA I S : 32o↗ 34o W A L K H O R : 31o↗ 41o W D U K H A N : 31o↗ 36o W WA K R A H : 27o↗ 43o W M E S A I E E D 27o↗ 43o W A B U S A M R A 30o↗ 36o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 22:56 – 00:00 LOW TIDE 07:17 – 00:00

Hot daytime with slight dust to blowing dust at some places

and relatively hot by night.

Minimum Maximum34oC 42oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.34 am06.27 pm

ASR ISHA

02.57 pm07.57 pm

Ministry of Justice sets up three administrative unitsQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Justice has established three administrative units, after the Cabinet’s approval, and within the framework of the Ministry’s commitment to national plans and strategies in support of the national development process, the goals of the Qatar National Vision 2030 and the require-ments of a comprehensive economic and social progress.

This also comes in the context of providing the nec-essary means to upgrade the legal, judicial and legislative system in the State, developing legal professions and working to issue the necessary legis-lation to encourage and protect national and foreign investment.

The new administrative units include the Real Estate Brokerage Department, the Experts Administration, and the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Unit.

The Real Estate Brokerage Department has started to perform its duties within the framework of the Ministry of Justice’s activation of Law No. (22) of 2017 regulating real estate brokerage works, and in

conjunction directly with its competencies to regulate the profession of real estate bro-kerage after Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani approving the Cabinet decision No. (29) of 2019 to form the committee and its work system.

The Ministry has called on the real estate brokers and the offices of the real estate brokers involved in the real estate sector to accelerate the registration to complete the licensing and accreditation procedures for practicing the real estate brokerage pro-fession, according to the law, and that registration is open to all companies and individuals who want to practice the real estate brokerage profession as per criteria followed in accordance with the provisions of the law.

The Ministry said that in order to facilitate the citizens who wish to practice the pro-fession, brokers and offices currently operating, a regis-tration page has been launched through the official website of the Ministry, and the Real Estate Mediation Affairs Department wishing to register is received at the adminis-tration headquarters located

in the main building of the Ministry.

The official website page for registering real estate brokers allows the registration of brokers in all their categories.

The page also includes an explanatory presentation of all the required data in a way that allows the broker to register all his data without the need to come to the administration, unless he wants to register in personally .

In developing the profession of real estate brokerage, the Ministry seeks to activate the controls mentioned in the law, including the obligations of the real estate broker, which stip-ulates that a broker must be of Qatari nationality, that he must be fully qualified and of good conduct and behaviour, and that he performs a legal oath, and that he will pass training courses and tests that will be developed for the profession for public interest.

These efforts will be strengthened by starting meetings of the Committee for Regulating Non-Qatari Own-ership of Real Estate and Uti-lizing it, which will encourage the investment climate in the country and boost the real estate sector in general.

The Experts Administration Affairs of the Ministry of Justice organises the work and pro-vides technical expertise in the fields of engineering, accounting and any other fields or specialisations to achieve the goals that the law seeks to achieve.

The new administration’s vision focuses on highlighting the Qatari expertise and quali-fying national experts to benefit from them in the various spe-cialisations that the judiciary needs.

The department relies in its procedures on Law No. 16 of 2017 regulating the work of experts, which specifies the

conditions and controls for the registration of experts and their guarantees and obligations during practicing their work, whether before the judicial authorities or other relevant authorities, and the rules of t h e i r d i s c i p l i n a r y accountability.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Unit in the Ministry of Justice reflects the Qatari pioneering in this field, and achieving the goals and strategies of national coop-eration and coordination between the supervisory authorities and the competent authorities in the area of com-bating money laundering and terrorist financing.

The new Unit keeps pace with the continuous updating of the international standards adopted by the major interna-tional organizations.

The Unit also highlights the advanced position of the State of Qatar regionally and globally in terms of setting standards and legal systems for combating money laundering and terrorist financing based on the provi-sions of Law No. (20) of 2019, issuing the Anti-Money Laun-dering Law Financing terrorism and its executive regulations.

Eight parks reopen tomorrow

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) yesterday announced the procedures and requirements for visiting eight public parks for physical exercise only during specific times from tomorrow (Monday) in the first stage.

This is part of state’s plan to gradually lift restrictions which were in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, said the Ministry in a statement. The ministry explained that the public access to parks will be from 4am till 9am and from 4pm till 10pm and only for exercise.

The parks, which will open in the first stage are Al Wakra Public Park, Al Khor Park, Park 66 - Al Qatifia, Al Shamal City Park, Al Sailiya Park - Abu Nakhleh, Al Dafna Park, MIA

Park and Al Rayan Park.The Ministry urged the vis-

itors of parks to comply fully with preventive measures and precautionary measures.

The visitors should show green colour in Ehteraz app when entering the park. They will undergo temperature check before entering the park.

They should follow the instructions and cooperate with park security personnel in maintaining safety and social distance.

The visitors will not be allowed to sit in the park. They should maintain public and per-sonal hygiene inside and outside the parks and safe disposal of waste. The Ministry asked the visitors to adhere to the pre-ventive and precautionary measures strictly for their safety and others.

Malls, shopping

centres to open

from 8am to 8pm

FROM PAGE 1

They will have to measure the body temperature of workers and visitors at all entrances and preventing those with temperatures above 38° C from entering the mall.

Malls and shopping centres shall provide hand sanitisers across mall facilities and educate visitors to maintain a safe distance of no less than two meters from other indi-viduals at all times.

The measures also include barring smoking at mall entrances and removing all containers designated for cig-arette waste (ashtrays), pre-venting the gathering of vis-itors and limousine or taxi drivers at the entrance to malls.

Shops and retail outlets operating inside the malls and shopping centres shall abide by the decision to allow employees aged 60 and above, in addition to pregnant women and staff with chronic dis-eases, to work remotely, place safe distancing stickers on the store’s floor and allow cus-tomers to enter retail outlets only according to the store’s capacity. Only one individual is allowed per nine square metres.

The outlets in the malls will encourage customers to pay using credit cards rather than using cash, continuously disinfect all of the outlet’s facilities, including adminis-trative offices, warehouses, employee housing, and affil-i a t e d t r a n s p o r t a t i o n facilities.

Any violation of the decision will subject perpe-trators to legal accountability and procedures.

HBKU Professor

wins Jean-Claude

Laprie Award

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Dr. Roberto Di Pietro (pictured above), a professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) College of Science and Engineering (CSE), has received the Jean-Claude Laprie Award.

Introduced in 2012, the award recognizes outstanding papers that have significantly influenced the theory and/or practice of dependable com-puting. The award honors Jean-Claude Laprie (1944-2010) who devoted his entire career to research on the dependability of computing systems. Dr. Di Pietro joined HBKU's College of Science and Engineering in 2017 as a professor of cybersecurity, leading the college’s efforts to establish a world-class cyber-security laboratory addressing both fundamental and applied challenges in the field, to have an impact and to drive innovation.

MoPH: 55,252 total recoveries; 1,828 new casesFROM PAGE 1

MoPH added that Qatar has now started to overcome the stage of the peak of the virus outbreak, thanks to the measures taken by the state to address it, in addition to the com-mitment of the community members to the recommendations and preventive instructions.

Anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19 should either quickly contact the 16000 helpline or go directly to one of the designated health centers for testing.

This is important as the earlier the disease is detected the easier it will be to receive the right treatment and recover from it.

The main screening centers

include Muaither Health Centre, Rawdat Al Khail Health Centre, Umm Slal Health Centre and Al Gharafa Health Centre.

The Ministry reaffirms the necessity for the elderly or those suffering from chronic diseases and their family members to follow strict methods and precautions to reduce the risk of infection with them and work to protect them from infection by refraining from social visits, wearing the mask and cleansing the hands when near them.

The Ministry states that, based on the extensive data and studies conducted by the concerned author-ities in the country, Qatar will begin, starting Monday, to lift the

restrictions imposed to combat the epidemic gradually in four stages that will last until September 1.

In this context, it is stressed that the application of preventive measures and measures must con-tinue to be implemented in the stages of gradually lifting the imposed restrictions that were applied in the country as a result of the spread of the COVID-19, as failure to adhere to precautionary measures during the next stage will lead to the return of the virus to the country.

The Ministry also pointed out that the measures applied by the state in the early stages, in February, contributed greatly and effectively

to controlling the extent of its spread. This also helped in expanding the capacity of the health system to deal with all cases.

The Ministry of Public Health stresses that the gradual lifting of restrictions came after a thorough study of the reality in Qatar and from similar experiences in many countries of the world that have suc-ceeded in limiting the spread of the virus after lifting the restrictions imposed in a gradual and gradual way. The Ministry warns that lifting the restrictions gradually does not mean the disappearance of the COVID-19. Each reopening stage will be subject to evaluation and review.

Amir holds telephone conversation with President of Angola

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin

Hamad Al Thani held via telephone

a conversation with President of

the Republic of Angola H E Joao

Manuel Lourenco, during which

they discussed bilateral relations

and means to bolster them. Dur-

ing the call, developments of the

COVID-19 pandemic were also

discussed. In this regard, H E the

Angolan President extended thanks

and appreciation to H H the Amir for

the Qatari support and assistance

to the Republic of Angola during

the pandemic. — QNA

The new administrative units include the Real Estate Brokerage Department, the Experts Administration, and the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Unit.

Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Center hosts talks, programs THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Center in Doha recently launched a program called “Rethinking, Reinter-preting” on social media and held interactive meetings with well known Turkish thinkers, authors, artists and specialists in Turkish culture.

The event was held as part of the center’s mission to introduce the Turkish culture and arts and was moderated by Professor Dr. Sharaf Hash, head of the centre.

The event attracted fol-lowers and tens of thousands of fans of Turkish culture around the world using several languages. A series of topics were covered during the dis-cussions including arts, culture, drama, diplomacy and health.

The live seminars also dis-cussed the role of art in the time of the pandemic, the COVID-19 Scope project, and the risks and opportunities brought by the epidemic, interspersed with the institute’s revival of musical evenings such as a concert “The Voice of Divine Love “ show-cased by the center.

A group of personalities from the media, literature, art, culture and cinema participated in these seminars. They included Dr. Kemal Sayar; author Elif Al Atli; Dr. Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for the Pres-idency of the Republic of Turkey; Junaid Ozdemir; Dr. Sinan Janan; Dr. Deniz Olky Arbogan, who specializes in political science and interna-tional relations; artist Derya Turkan; writer Sa`dat Oz; and Gurgun Taner, head of the

Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts.

Famous Turkish actor Engin Altan Duziatan, who is known worldwide, for his role in the famous series “The Resur-rection of Artgrel” also partici-pated in the program.

Yunus Emre Turkish Cul-tural Center launched the program “Rethinking ,

Reinterpreting” on April 30 this year, and hosted in its first epi-sodes Professor Dr. Kemal Sayar in a live broadcast via social media including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The episode was produced in various major lan-guages including English, French, Arabic as well as Turkish.

The speakers included Dr. Ibrahim Kalin (centre), spokesman for the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, and other renowned authors and artists.

First batch of additional coaches for Doha Metro are seen after their arrival at Hamad Port. New coaches for Doha Metro

03SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020 HOME

South Korea awards Gwanghwa Medal toQatar’s envoy for Excellent Diplomatic Service

QNA — BEIJING

Ambassador of the State of Qatar to China, H E Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Dehaimi, has been awarded the Gwanghwa Medal for Excellent Diplo-matic Service in appreciation of his great role in promoting cooperation between the State of Qatar and the Republic of Korea during his tenure as Ambassador of the State in Seoul from 2014 to 2019.

The Medal was awarded to H E Al Dehaimi by Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to China, Jang Ha-sung, on behalf of H E the President of the Republic, at a ceremony held at the premises of the Korean Embassy in Beijing, as H E Al Dehaimi was unable

to travel to Seoul due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This Medal is one of five first-class medals awarded to civilians who con-tribute to developing their countries’ relations with Korea.

H E Al Dehaimi said in a speech on this occasion that the Medal not only reflects the appreciation of the gov-ernment of the Republic of Korea for the efforts made to enhance cooperation between the two countries, but also reflects its appreciation for all the con-tributions made by his colleagues, the ambassadors of the State of Qatar, to boost the Qatari-Korean friendship over long decades.

Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to China, H E Jang Ha-sung, awarding the medal on behalf of H E The President of the Republic of Korea, to Ambassador of the State of Qatar to China H E Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Dehaimi, at a ceremony in Beijing.

Georgetown Student Club hosts talk on Black Lives MatterTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Black Student Association (BSA) at QF partner Geor-getown University in Qatar hosted a webinar titled “Black Lives Matter: Police Brutality and Racial Injustice in America.” The online event was moderated by the BSA’s student co-founders and featured GU-Q faculty — African American Studies expert, Professor Maurice Jackson and American; and C o m p a r a t i v e P o l i t i c s specialist, Professor Clyde Wilcox.

Attended by an audience of students, faculty, staff, and members of the QF com-munity, the panel took an unflinching look at the wave of protests that have swept across the US and around the world, and answered audience questions about race, police reform, and the divisive politics that surround issues of social justice.

Dr . Wilcox, whose research interest includes religion and politics, public opinion, and electoral behaviour, noted that the broad public reaction to the latest of many cases of racialised police brutality has been driven by many

intersecting factors. These include the ongoing pandemic which has decreased public trust in institutions and high-lighted the racial inequalities in healthcare.

Dr. Jackson, a prolific author on African-American history and culture and an inductee to the Washington, DC, Hall of Fame for his social activism, described the events as unprecedented in his lifetime. He highlighted pivotal moments in US civil rights history, noting that each successive effort builds on the previous generation’s struggle.

The BSA student club was launched in the fall of 2019 by third year students Tsedenya Girmay, an Inter-national Politics major, and Lina Hajo, a Culture and Pol-itics major. The club aims to encourage Black student unity, support, and cultural exchange in Doha, and to create awareness on issues faced by communities worldwide.

“It’s very important that we recognise that the Black Lives Matter movement may have started in the US, but these are global issues,” said Tsedenya.

The club, which has

already attracted over 60 members in its first year, has hosted several events, including a collaboration with Words and Strings, a Black-led initiative in Doha that

aims to enrich the local art scene.

The dean of GU-Q, Dr. Ahmad Dallal, said: “As a uni-versity with longstanding commitment to foundational

values of diversity and social justice, Georgetown is com-mitted to ensuring a safe campus environment where students, faculty, and staff can come together for critical conversations on issues of race and inequality. This moment in our history repre-sents a turning point, and demands that we not only bear witness to the systemic violence and inequality faced by Black community members, but requires us to step up and live up to the responsibilities afforded us as institutions of scholarship and service.”

Noting that conversations about race and inequality are often difficult for students to have, Tsedenya hopes insti-tutions of higher learning expand and increase oppor-tunities for positive and con-structive engagement on these issues.

She says the panel is the first of many discussions the club hopes to host, in a com-munity where “the nature of Georgetown’s liberal arts edu-cation attracts students who care about social awareness and community engagement.”

The panel discussion is available for viewing on the GU-Q BSA’s instagram page.

Faculty and students during the panel discussion.

Stronger immune

system vital for

protection from

diseases: Expert

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Clinical Dietitian Specialist at Hamad Medical Corporation, Zohair Ali Al Arabi has said that immunity is the ability of the body to resist various diseases, even chronic diseases, viruses, and cancers.

The immune system has a vital role in protecting the body from disease, he said.

Talking to Qatar TV about the importance of strength-ening the immune system in light of coronavirus, Al Arabi said, “There are many things that control the immune system of the body, the most important of which is proper nutrition. Proper nutrition is not only important for the immune system but for all the organs in the body.”

“Good nutrition means the body is obtaining important and complete nutrients through which a person can build his body, his brain and his ability to defend in case body is infected by any disease,” he said

Al Arabi further said that good nutrition includes the daily foods that exist in our lives, and it includes six important elements, including drinking enough water, rice and its derivatives and vege-tables. A person must obtain them to strength his immune system. The interest in strengthening the immune system has increased in light of the spread of the corona-virus, where specialists believe that proper food does not prevent infection with coro-navirus, but it strengthens the immune system so that it becomes more able to deal with viruses and overcome them.

The specialist from Hamad Medical Corporation advised people for proper nutrition and hydration that are vital in ensuring people stay healthy, adding that paying extra attention to what you eat and drink is particu-larly important for people who have chronic health con-ditions and anyone who has a history of an eating disorder or disordered eating.

People who eat a balanced diet, which includes a variety of fresh food items with a mixture of colourful fruits and vegetable that provide the required quantities of vitamins, minerals, omega 3 fatty acids, and other antioxi-dants, tend to be physically and emotionally healthier, have stronger immune systems, she added.

People need to follow the guidelines or recommenda-tions of credible organizations such as the WHO.

QRCS volunteers dedicated to protecting QatarTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has created an adhoc committee to supervise and regulate the work of volunteers in the fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19). It is a sub-committee of the larger COVID-19 Crisis Management Committee, created earlier in the crisis to respond to the pandemic.

Chaired by Muna Fadel Al Sulaiti, Exec-utive Director of QRCS’s Volunteering and Local Development Division, the new 12-member committee is closely watching the work done by QRCS’s dedicated volun-teers to protect the country against the virus.

It is assigned to plan and manage all volunteer-related programmes and activ-ities, keeping an eye on local and interna-tional updates, recommendations of rel-evant organizations, government decisions and schemes, and decisions of QRCS’s

COVID-19 Crisis Management Committee.

Also, the adhoc committee undertakes short-term and medium-term strategies, outlining of volunteer management con-tingency plans, budgeting, and resource mobilization. It coordinates with both the government and the private sector to on any community-oriented initiatives where QRCS’s volunteers can make significant contributions.

“Our responsibilities include directly administering the approved contingency plans and procedures; identifying risks and challenges; finding out solutions; and making the necessary amendments based on the situation on the ground, priorities of work, safety of our volunteers, and optimal effectiveness of intervention,” said Al Sulaiti.

Dr. Youssef Ali Al Kazim, Director of the Arab Federation for Voluntary Activities

and vice-chairman of the ad hoc committee, commended the results of the 'Help Me to Help You' initiative, launched by QRCS two months ago.

“Now, you can see QRCS volunteers sta-tioned around shopping centres, to help in the organisation of consumers, take tem-peratures, distribute masks and gloves, and advise social distancing,” he said.

He believes that this mechanism helped to avoid crowds and made shopping easier and safer. “In this initiative, diversity of vol-unteers is considered, in order to cater for visitors of different backgrounds and walks of life,”

Dr. Al Kazim commented. “Our vol-unteers are trained in how to deal with and guide the public. As per the gov-ernment instructions, everyone who wants to enter a shopping centre has to show up their green status on the Ehteraz application”.

Ahmed Ali Al Khulaifi, Head of QRCS Volunteers Section and member of the com-mittee, highlighted the exceptional success of the 'Volunteer for Qatar' campaign, with over 18,000 male and female volunteers registered within just a few weeks.

Among the areas in which the volun-teers actively engage are providing services at quarantine facilities (mainly the Mekaines Workers Quarantine Centre), working with teams of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) in street sanitisation and hygiene inspection, offering health information and masks to the public, and conducting field health screening in the most prone districts.

Ahmed Ismael Al Zyarah, the Head of 9th Disaster Management Camp and member of the committee, noted that spe-cialised training was crucial for those responding to such an unusual situation.

“QRCS adopts an annual training pro-gramme to build the capacity of its volun-teers in many fields, particularly disaster preparedness and response."QRCS top management officials visiting volunteers at a mall.

H E Ambassador Al Dehaimi says the Medal not only reflects the appreciation of the government of the Republic of Korea for the efforts made to enhance cooperation between the two countries, but also reflects its appreciation for all the contributions made by his colleagues, the ambassadors of the State of Qatar, to boost the Qatari-Korean friendship over long decades.

Attended by an audience of students, faculty, staff, and members of the QF community, the panel took an unflinching look at the wave of protests that have swept across the US and around the world, and answered audience questions about race, police reform, and the divisive politics that surround issues of social justice. The panel discussion is available for viewing on the GU-Q BSA’s instagram page.

SIFQ holds workshop on annular solar eclipse

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Science India Forum-Qatar (SIFQ) held an online hands-on-astronomy workshop on Friday for teachers on the Activities of Annular Solar Eclipse. This workshop was conducted with the aim to use the knowledge of astronomy to understand the upcoming solar eclipse on June 21. Resi-dents of Qatar would be able to witness this celestial event.

Dr. Arvind Ranade, the key speaker for the occasion, is a scientist with the Department of Science and Technology, India. He explained with an informative presentation the science behind the occurrence of a solar eclipse. He went on to elucidate the various types of solar eclipses such as total, annular, partial and hybrid. He informed the attendees that Qatar residents were to expe-rience a partial solar eclipse on June 21 starting around 7:15am that will end around 10am with a maximum eclipse of about 85 percent around 8.30am.

The workshop covered dem-onstration for making of various types of pinhole cameras, magic mirror, ball mirror and explained simple calculations for distance between sun and earth, magic number, and earth revolution time.

QU extends admission deadline to TuesdayQNA — DOHA

Qatar University (QU) yesterday announced it has extended the admission timeline for the Fall 2020 undergraduate class until Tuesday (June 16). The final admission results will announced on July 26, the university said.

T h e A d m i s s i o n Department of QU pointed out that undergraduate applicants to Qatar University are required to apply to their intended college of study using the QU online admission appli-cation, stressing that required documents need to be uploaded through the online application without physical presence, in implementation of the precautionary measures taken to limit the spread of the COVID-19.

The Department stressed that the required documents need to be uploaded through the online application by the admission deadline.

04 SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020HOME

ANNHRI, APT hold online seminar on coronavirus challenges QNA — DOHA

The Doha-based Arab Network for National Human Rights Institutions (ANNHRI) in partnership with the Asso-ciation for the Prevention of Torture (APT) — based in Geneva — organised an online seminar on “Control of places of deprivation of the principle of non-harm ... in theory to implemen-tation”, with the participation of 33 representatives of the national human rights institutions, members of the network.

The seminar aimed to identify the main challenges and good practices related to preventing and countering the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in places of deprivation of liberty, and to provide practical guidance to detention monitors on effective precautionary measures and health considerations that NHRIs and national preventive mechanisms should take during visiting places of detention. The seminar also explored how precautionary measures and health considerations for monitors affect the purpose and methodology of monitoring.

Participants discussed a number of topics, such as oversight of places of detention amid the (COVID-19) out-break, evaluations, accountability and promising practices, as well as ques-tions and guidelines on the special challenges facing the implementation of the oversight task in the context of the national institutions carrying out their tasks in the process of promoting human rights In correctional and penal institutions, and in places of depri-vation of other freedom in light of the spread of the pandemic, in addition to exchanging best practices through alternative methods of conducting remote monitoring activities without the need to visit places of detention.

Issam Younis, Head of the Arab Network for National Human Rights Institutions and Commissioner-General of the Independent Com-mission for Human Rights in Palestine, said that the exceptional circumstances the world is witnessing due to the spread of the corona pandemic, dictate that the national human rights institu-tions should work hard to ensure and protect these rights.

He noted that the coronavirus crisis

demonstrated the ability of national institutions to work with innovative mechanisms to accomplish their work, especially monitoring the places of detention, including places of quarantine.

For his part, Sultan bin Hassan Al Jamali, Executive Director of the Arab Network and Assistant Secretary General of the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC), stressed in a press statement following the seminar the importance of exchanging experiences between national human rights institutions in the event of health crises because of their prominent role in the process of protecting and promoting the right to Health and follow-up of precau-tionary measures and the resulting exceptions in restricting some freedoms, within the framework of curbing the spread of pandemic.

A number of participants reviewed the experiences of their national institutions in the area of supervision of places of detention and quarantine, the mechanisms used in achieving this and best practices during their cooperation with the

competent authorities on solving the problem of overcrowding in detention centres, as well as the success stories about persuading the authorities to temporarily and excep-tionally release some detainees who

do not pose a danger to society, and prioritise health and safety consid-erations according to legal standards and procedures aimed at safe-guarding the dignity and life of the persons.

Experts during the online seminar.

beIN Sports launches dedicated LaLiga filter in collaboration with InstagramTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

beIN Sports, the global sports channel, celebrates the return of the Spanish football league “LaLiga” with a dedicated filter in collaboration with Instagram. The filter has been launched across beIN Sports’ worldwide locations including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Asia Pacific (APAC), and the United States of America.

The fun filter, which includes the famous purple beIN Sports branding, is very popular on Instagram as it asks fans what team they dream to play for — allowing true LaLiga enthusiasts to showcase their passion and share posts with their friends and followers.

As Barcelona fans across MENA dream of playing with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez,

other fans will want to play with Eden Hazard and Toni Kroos’ Real Madrid or Joao Felix

and Diego Costa’s Atletico Madrid.

To find the LaLiga filter, fans can visit beIN Sports’ Instagram account (@beIN-SPORTS) and press on the filter tab. The filter name is “beIN LaLiga”.

beIN analysts and pre-senters will also join in with fans and post Instagram stories using the fun filter with the hashtags #beINTERACT and #beINLaLiga.

LaLiga made its return with a host of much-anticipated live games for viewers to enjoy exclusively across the Middle

East and North Africa (MENA) last Thursday — with world class players such as Barce-lona’s Lionel Messi and Real Madrid’s Eden Hazard ready to compete for the coveted LaLiga title.

beIN Sports’ main studio coverage for LaLiga is on beIN Sports HD1 and HD3 for Arabic; beIN Sports HD11 for English; and beIN Sports HD14 for French; as well as beIN Sports’ 4K channel — providing viewers with exhilarating tri-lingual coverage.

beIN guests and talent includes Egyptian legends

Mohamed Aboutrika and Wael Gomaa; Algerian expert Lakhdar Berriche; Tunisian football legend Tariq Dhiab; former Moroccan football star Yousef Chippo; and many others.

beIN Sports’ official Twitter and Instagram accounts also showcases live coverage of the much-anticipated LaLiga games with reactions and com-ments from legends such as Mohamed Aboutrika.

beIN entertains and operates in 43 countries glo-bally, including 24 countries across the MENA region. With broadcast on satellite in 4K and full HD, the beIN experience is also available on mobile, tablet, computer and other home devices through beIN Connect.

QF alumni help students learn while watching TVTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Osaama Shehzad and Haroon Yasin both work in the field of education in Pakistan, and, over the course of the last year, attempted new things in their respective occupations with the aim of benefiting a larger number of people.

Shehzad quit his job as a uni-versity instructor to join an edtech company, hoping to reach out beyond the 20 students that were in his classroom. Yasin, who runs a digital learning mobile app called Taleemabad, tried to tel-evise the app’s content on local television, but faced delays due to red tape and censorship guidelines.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, changing educational landscapes across the globe. As schools were shut and students asked to start learning from home, the government of Pakistan launched Teleschool, an initiative that broadcasts educa-tional content for K-12 students on national television daily.

For Shehzad and Yasin — both of whom are Qatar Foun-dation alumni, having graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) and Geor-getown University in Qatar (GU-Q) respectively — this was a unique opportunity to directly reach students without any middlemen.

The launch of the initiative allowed Taleemabad to fast-track its partnership with Paki-stan’s federal education ministry and screen its cartoon-style ani-mated videos on television. Knowledge Platform, the edtech company where Shehzad creates science content for students from Grade 6-12, was also onboarded as one of the several organiza-tions feeding content into the Tel-eschool channel. Content worked on by Yasin and Shehzad is now broadcast every day from 8am to 6pm, reaching an audience of 50 million on Pakistan’s national television.

The Teleschool initiative is effective in reaching out to com-munities that have a television but cannot afford an internet connection or a computer.

However, both Shehzad and Yasin agree that broadcasting lessons on TV is not without its challenges.

“It’s very different to engage a broadcast audience, compared to a digital or in-app audience,” explained Yasin. “The viewers can switch the channel at any moment, so you don’t want to be too obvious while you are teaching.” Since television is pri-marily used for entertainment, putting educational content on it pushes the content creators to make it more fun and engaging than they would for other platforms.

“If you (as a child on the receiving end) don’t like it, you get to walk out. That’s a dream come true for children because they get to pick what they want. And it puts the educators in their place,” said Yasin. “For far too long, we have built classrooms in which students have to stick to ‘dead’ sessions even if they don’t enjoy the lesson.” The one-way communication of tel-evision is also a challenge, as it doesn’t allow educators to test the skills and knowledge of its recipients, Shehzad points out, adding that Knowledge Platform

has created online assessments which they encourage Teleschool audience to take after tuning into lessons, although there is no way to enforce this.

Talking about virtual class-rooms in general, Yasin also warned against overusing the “golden word — e-learning” to ensure the boundaries between technology, fun, and learning are not so blurred that students either start resenting them collectively or not doing anything else, such as playing outdoors and spending quality time with the family.

“Edtech companies can be overbearing and we don’t want to develop an allergic reaction to e-learning that will be hard to recover from,” he said. “Let’s take our foot off the accelerator for some time, as too much learning is also something that can be a trap for children.” While Pakistan has some well-reputed private educational institutes, its public education system struggles due to the country’s overpopulated nature and large number of out-of-school children.

Shehzad’s employer Knowledge Platform has been working on designing new learning solutions for its clients

in the education sector by blending traditional methods of learning with technology.

According to Shehzad, prior to the pandemic, many schools in Pakistan still used conven-tional methods of teaching focusing on routine learning, instead of using visuals and tech-nology to explain the concept. However, that might be changing as schools push their teachers to rethink their teaching methods using technology, something Shehzad had been advocating for before the crisis began.

“Many communities were not open to technology. They thought of technology as something that is disrespectful and can bring shame — that it might take their children out of their hands because of what they see over the Internet,” said Shehzad.

“But now, schools are forced to make PowerPoint presenta-tions, join Zoom, create cloud files, or set up email accounts. All these things are breaking mental barriers to technologies, so half of my job is done. The circum-stances are already doing it for me, so I don’t have to break the mindsets.” Yasin and his co-founder Ahwaz Akhtar created Taleemabad in 2015 while they were still students at GU-Q. They were driven by a passion to improve the state of education in Pakistan by using interactive, play-based learning methods, and incubated their project through the World Innovation Summit for Education, a global initiative of QF aimed at transforming education through innovation.

As the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted traditional teaching methods, the engaging content of Taleemabad has come into the limelight. The app has witnessed an unprecedented surge in users over the past few months, with over 2,000 new users joining every day. The team expect to have about 1.3 million users on the platform by the end of 2020, exceeding their target of one million.

The app is now used not only by underserved or out-of-school children — Taleemabad’s initial target audience — but across the socio-economic spectrum in Pakistan.

Knowledge Platform has created online assessments which they encourage Teleschool audience to take after tuning into lessons, although there is no way to enforce this.

Osaama Shehzad

It’s very different to engage a broadcast audience, compared to a digital or in-app audience. The viewers can switch the channel at any moment, so you don’t want to be too obvious while you are teaching.

Haroon Yasin

Mall of Qatar delivers

prizes to winners of Eid

social media competitionsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Mall of Qatar delivered more than 100 prizes to the winners of Eid and Ramadan competi-tions that received positive engagement and interaction from followers on Mall of Qatar’s social media platforms.

The daily and weekly competitions were part of compre-hensive campaign competitions, and reflected the mall’s ongoing commitment towards the local com-munity, which is a top pri-ority for the Nation’s Mall at all times.

Catered to all age groups, the competitions were part of Mall of Qatar’s campaign to engage with the community and is in line with Mall’s strategy to enhance relations with cus-tomers especially during COVID-19, with the aim of educating them about Ramadan and Islam and entertaining them while at home.

The Eid campaign included a week-long com-petition on Mall of Qatar’s social media platforms, where followers shared their Eid moments while staying at home.

Appreciating their reaction and admiring their lovely pictures and videos, all participants received a variety of prizes ranging from iPhone 11, Apple watch series 5, Samsung watches and gift vouchers worth QR500 valid for two years.

In addition, several fol-lowers participated in another Eid dai ly

competition which included questions related to the Mall's different brands. More than 15 lucky winners received several valuable gifts from different stores ranging from perfume sets, gift sets, and outdoor BBQ grilling sets.

Emile Sarkis, General Manager, Mall of Qatar, said: “These competitions come as part of our commitment to our community in sharing their happiness during Eid and engaging with our com-munity of followers. We are thrilled to have received a great response and would like to thank all our fol-lowers for their participation and congratulate all the winners.”

Additionally, the Mall of Qatar launched a CSR initi-ative during Ramadan, dis-tributing iftar meals to labourers in collaboration with Wahab.

Besides, the nation’s Mall also supported its tenants with the “Stay Safe & Shop from home” cam-paign, allowing customers to shop for their favourite brands and products from the comfort of their own homes.

05SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020 GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Iran dismisses UNreport on ‘arms’used in Saudi attacksANATOLIA, AP — ANKARA

Iran rejected a UN report on Friday that claimed cruise missiles used in last year’s attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and international airport were of “Iranian origin.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejects the allegations of the UN Secre-tariat, which is clearly under political pressure from the US and Saudi regimes, and expresses its deep concern over the abuse of the UN Secretariat for political purposes,” Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a written statement.

Last year’s strikes targeted a Saudi oil facility in Afif in May, the international airport at Abha in June and August, and state oil giant Aramco’s processing facilities in Khurais and Abqaiq in September.

“The secretariat assesses that the cruise missiles and/or parts thereof used in the four attacks are of Iranian origin,” said the report by UN Sec-retary-General Antonio Guterres submitted on Thursday to the Security Council.

The Iranian ministry also added: “The Secretariat’s report coincides with the US destructive plan which is reflected within the dangerous draft resolution that paves the way for extension of arms restrictions on Iran in an illegal way; and yet more surprisingly,

the content of this report is used by the US two weeks prior to its official release.” It went on to say that the report was “pre-pared under direction” of the US and will be used in its efforts in the Security Council against Iran.

It “strongly” urged the UN chief “not to move in the pre-planned US scenario” to avert lifting of Iranian arms restric-tions, and not to assist a “vio-lating State in this illegal process” by circulation of the imposed reports.

Iran’s UN Mission responded to the report on Friday saying: “Iran categori-cally rejects the observations c o n t a i n e d i n t h e

report concerning the Iranian connection to the export of weapons or their components that are used in attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Iranian origin of alleged US seizures of armaments.”

Its statement said the UN “lacks the capacity, expertise, and knowledge to conduct such a sophisticated and sensitive investigation,” adding that the report reproduces exact claims by the United States. “In essence, the US is sitting in the driver’s seat to shape the so-called ‘assessment’ regarding the Iranian connection to the attacks,” Iran said.

Relations between the US and Iran have been at a fever pitch over the sanctions, a series of mysterious attacks in the region US President Donald Trump blames on Iran, as well as his decision to kill the former architect of Iran’s regional military activities earlier this year.

Tensions have escalated between the US and Iran since May 2018, when Trump withdrew from a nuclear pact world powers struck with Tehran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for bil-lions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions.

Trump has since embarked on a campaign to scuttle the agreement, including the reim-position of sanctions on Iranian crude oil that were lifted as part of the agreement.

Iran President Hassan Rouhani makes statements on recent developments regarding the pandemic process at National Combat Board Meeting with Coronavirus, in Tehran yesterday.

Rouhani hints at reimposing virus curbsif health regulations not observed

AGENCIES — TEHRAN

Iran will reimpose restrictions to stem a surge in coronavirus cases if health regulations are not observed, President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday.

After gradually relaxing its lockdown since mid-April, Iran has seen a sharp rise of new daily infections in recent weeks.

While compliance with health protocols was as high as 80 percent a month ago, it is now down to 20 percent, Rouhani said in a televised speech.

He blamed the surge on travellers spreading the

coronavirus to previously low risk provinces.

With 2,410 new cases yes-terday, the total has reached 184,955. With the death of 71 people in the past 24 hours, total fatalities stand at 8,730, the health ministry said.

Rouhani expressed concern about mass prayers at the recently opened Imam Reza shrine, Iran’s largest Shia Muslim religious complex in the northeast of the country.

“If there is no cooperation, we will have to reimpose the restrictions,” Rouhani said, adding that adherence to the health protocols were needed “in

order to keep businesses open”.Despite the rising number

of infections, government employees have resumed work, and mosques reopened across the Middle Eastern country.

Tehran faced stiff resistance from hard line clerics before it succeeded in closing holy shrines in mid-March. The closure sparked demonstra-tions with angry crowds storming the shrines of Imam Reza in Mashhad and Fatemeh Massoumeh in Qom.

Shia pilgrims from all over the world visit the shrines, which may have contributed to the initial spread of the virus.

Protests rage in Lebanon over spiralling economic crisisAFP — BEIRUT

Dozens of demonstrators angered by a deepening economic crisis rallied for a third consecutive day yesterday after a night of violent riots sparked condemnation from the political elite.

Rallying against the surging cost of living and the govern-ment’s apparent impotence in the face of the worst economic turmoil since the 1975-1990 civil war, protesters gathered in central Beirut, brandishing flags and chanting slogans.

In the northern city of Tripoli, young men scuffled with security forces who fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds.

The stand-off began after young men blocked a highway to prevent a number of trucks carrying produce destined for Syria from passing through, according to the official National News Agency.

The Lebanese Red Cross said it treated nine people wounded in Tripoli.

The rallies came ahead of a speech by Prime Minister Hassan Diab at 1500 GMT.

“We are here to demand the formation of a new transitional government” and early parlia-mentary elections, Nehmat Badreddine, an activist and demonstrator said in central Beirut.

Lebanon is caught in a spi-ralling economic crisis,

including a rapid devaluation of the Lebanese pound, which has triggered a fresh wave of demonstrations since Thursday.

Lebanese media reported that the exchange rate had tumbled to 6,000 per dollar on the black market early on Friday, compared to the official peg of 1,507 in place since 1997.

After a crisis meeting on Friday, President Michel Aoun announced that the central bank would implement measures from Monday including “feeding dollars into the market”, in a bid to support the Lebanese pound.

Despite the government’s pledges, roughly 200 young men gathered on mopeds in

central Beirut on Friday night. Some of them defaced shop fronts and set fire to stores, causing serious damage.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse them and some of the young men threw stones and fire crackers back. Tension petered out after midnight.

In Tripoli, demonstrators threw stones and Molotov cock-tails towards soldiers late on Friday and damaged the facades of several banks and shops. Soldiers responded with tear gas.

The next day, Diab called on officials to assess damage in central Beirut.

Former premier Saad Hariri toured the area, condemning vandalism and riots.

I n t e r i o r m i n i s t e r Mohammed Fahmi said security forces would find those respon-sible for damaging property in the capital.

Lebanon — one of the most indebted countries in the world with a sovereign debt of more than 170 percent of GDP — went into default in March.

It started talks with the International Monetary Fund last month in a bid to unlock bil-lions of dollars in financial aid. Dialogue is ongoing.

Unemployment has soared to 35 percent nationwide.

The country enforced a lockdown in mid-March to stem the spread of the novel corona-virus, dealing a further blow to businesses.

For a living

A fisherman casts his net at sunset in the Shatt Al Arab river, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejects the allegations of the UN Secretariat, which is clearly under political pressure from the US and Saudi regimes, and expresses its deep concern over the abuse of the UN Secretariat for political purposes,” Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

Iraq reports rise in deathsand infections from virusANATOLIA — BAGHDAD

Iraq yesterday confirmed 53 fatalities from the novel coronavirus pandemic, bringing the death toll to 549, which is the highest daily fatalities in the country since February.

The Health Ministry said 1,180 more cases have been recorded, taking the total infections to 18,950, while the number of recov-eries reached 7,515.

Also, the ministry announced that a new curfew will be imposed from 6pm to 5am (1500-0200GMT) for a week starting from Sunday.

In May, the Iraqi government reimposed a nationwide curfew to be valid until June 14 due to the recent spike in the infection rate.

Iraq imposed a curfew for the first time on March 17, before easing its restrictions on April 21, when it permitted the popu-lation to roam around during daylight hours, except for nationwide curfews on Fridays and Saturdays.

The pandemic has claimed more than 427,400 lives in 188 countries and regions since originating in China last December. The US, Brazil and Russia are currently the worst-hit countries.

Over 7.7 million cases have been reported worldwide, while more than 3.66 million people have recovered so far, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.

Russian foreign and defence ministers to arrive in Turkey

QNA — ANKARA

Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, and Minister of Defence, Sergei Shoigu, will arrive in Turkey for talks today, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

In a statement yesterday, the Ministry said: “A delegation from the Russian Federation consisting of Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu and Russian military and security authorities will pay a visit to Turkey on 14 June 2020.” The delegations are expected to “have consultations and discuss coordination on regional issues”, the statement added.

The Russian Foreign Min-istry also confirmed the visit, saying the ministers will lead “an interdepartmental Russian delegation” and that the visit is “in accordance with the agree-ments” between the Russian and Turkish presidents.

Yemen rebels ready for 'public dialogue'ANATOLIA — SANAA

Houthi rebels say they are ready to engage in a “public dialogue” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the 5-year conflict in Yemen.

“We are ready for public dialogue with the aggression countries to reach a cease-fire and lift the 5-year siege on Yemen,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the group’s Supreme Revolutionary Com-mittee, said in an interview with the BBC to be published today.

He said current contacts with the coalition did not yet mount to the level of negotia-tions. “We are ready to go to Riyadh provided that a public dialogue is held that will result in a comprehensive cease-fire in the country,” Al Houthi said.

There was no comment from the Saudi-led coalition on the statements.

Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sana'a.

Kuwait reports 514 new cases of coronavirus, four deathsAGENCIES — KUWAIT

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Health yesterday reported 514 more infections with the novel coro-navirus, taking the country’s count of confirmed cases to 35,466.

Four more people also died from the infectious respiratory illness over the past 24 hours, raising Kuwait’s death toll due to the virus to 289 so far, the ministry’s spokesman Dr.

Abdullah Al Sanad said in a statement to Kuwait news agency (KUNA).

The latest cases include 281 Kuwaiti citizens, 63 residents while the remaining patients belong to several other nation-alities, Al Sanad elaborated.

In addition, a total of 9,295 patients are still receiving med-ication at hospitals, while 176 others are languishing in intensive care units, the spokesman added.

Earlier yesterday, the Min-istry of Health confirmed the recovery of 834 additional COVID-19 patients, bringing the overall count of recoveries to 25,882 so far.

Meanwhile, health author-ities in Oman, Bahrain and Libya confirmed new fatalities due to the novel coronavirus, while Morocco reported fresh infections.

The Omani Health Ministry said three patients had died

from COVID-19, while 1,006 new cases were reported over the past 24 hours.

The country’s confirmed cases now stand at 22,077, including 99 deaths, and 7,530 recoveries.

In Bahrain, the Health Min-istry said the country’s death toll rose to 37 after two people had died from the disease, while a further 444 new cases were registered, taking the figure to 17,713.

Libya’s National Center for Disease Control said one patient had died and 16 others tested positive for the virus over the past 24 hours. Libya’s confirmed cases now stand at 409, including 6 deaths, and 59 recoveries.

Morocco’s Health Ministry said the country’s total infec-tions rose to 8,683 after 73 new cases were recorded.

Morocco has so far con-firmed 212 fatalities from the illness.

06 SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

UN chief shocked at Libya mass graves in recently freed townAP — UNITED NATIONS

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed deep shock late on Friday at the discovery of mass graves in Libyan territory recently recaptured from forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar, and called for a transparent investigation.

The UN chief also called on Libya’s UN-supported gov-ernment to secure the mass graves, identify the victims, establish the causes of death and return the bodies to next of kin. He offered UN support in carrying it out, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“The secretary-general once again reminds all parties to the conflict in Libya of their obligations under international humanitarian law and interna-tional human rights law,” Dujarric said.

The United Nations said earlier Friday that at least eight mass graves have been dis-covered, mostly in the town of Tarhuna, a key western town that served as a main stronghold for Khalifa’s east-based forces in their 14-month campaign to capture the capital Tripoli.

The discoveries have raised fears about the extent of human rights violations in territories controlled by Haftar’s forces, given the difficulties of docu-mentation in an active war zone.

Philippe Nassif, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said the group was working to verify the mass killings.

“We want to be able to go in, or have the UN go in, and collect evidence of potential war crimes and other atroc-ities... so eventually a process

takes place where justice can be served,” he said.

Last week, militias allied with the UN-supported gov-ernment in Tripoli recaptured Tarhuna, some 65km southeast of the Libyan capital, their latest in a string of battlefield suc-cesses that reversed most of Haftar’s gains. Earlier, the gov-ernment said it regained control of all of Tripoli’s entrance and exit points and Tripoli airport.

Fathi Bashagha, the interior minister in the UN-supported government, said earlier this week that authorities were doc-umenting evidence of alleged war crimes in Tarhuna, noting that preliminary reports indi-cated dozens of victims found in the city’s mass graves had been buried alive.

Bashagha also said that special investigative teams uncovered a shipping container in Tarhuna full of charred bodies, presumably of detainees, and blamed pow-erful militias loyal to Hifter for “heinous crimes.” A feared Hifter-allied militia called Al Kaniyat, notorious for its tar-

geting of dissenters, had con-trolled the town.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker told reporters on Thursday he was “troubled” by reports that Tripoli forces had discovered bodies of civilians, in addition to land mines and other explosive devices in territory retaken from Haftar’s forces.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011 when a civil war toppled long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival administra-tions in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Forces under Haftar launched an offensive trying to take Tripoli in April 2019, and the crisis in the oil-rich country had steadily worsened as foreign backers increasingly intervened despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

Haftar’s offensive is sup-ported by France, Russia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and other key Arab countries.

The UN political mission in Libya said it convened a meeting with a delegation from Hifter’s forces on June 3 and another meeting Tuesday with a delegation from the UN-sup-ported government. Guterres hopes that a cease-fire will be agreed soon, Dujarric said.

Schenker said he sees the escalating proxy war between Russia and Turkey in Libya as a challenge to regional stability, as well as a “tragedy for the Libyan people looking for peace and end to foreign intervention.”

Burundi President-elect condoles Nkurunziza's deathEvariste Ndayishimiye (centre), Burundi’s elected President from the ruling party, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy - Forces for the Defence of Democracy, signs the book of condolences with his wife Angelique Ndayubaha (front,right) at the state house in Bujumbura, yesterday. Burundi’s constitutional court ruled that the country’s newly elected leader Evariste Ndayishimiye be rapidly sworn in following the sudden death of President Pierre Nkurunziza earlier this week.

Zimbabwe opposition trio deny lying over abduction and tortureAFP — HARARE

A Zimbabwean opposition lawmaker and two activists have denied charges they lied to police about being abducted and tortured last month, their lawyer said, as the women were remanded in custody.

Movement for Democratic Change Alliance MP Joana Mamombe and party youth assembly activists Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova were arrested at their lawyer’s offices.

They had visited the lawyer to discuss another case in which they were charged over their participation in a protest last month.

The three women were admitted to hospital with various

injuries after they were arrested in that case and said they had been taken to a place out of town by unidentified men who allegedly assaulted one of them.

Their lawyer, Alec Mucha-dehama, said the three were charged with “making false statements prejudicial to the state.” “When they reported their abduction to the police, the police are now saying they were not telling the truth,” Muchadehama told journalists outside the Harare magistrate’s court on Friday.

He said they “are denying the charges.” MDC-Alliance spokeswoman Fadzai Mahere queried how the women could be said to have lied about their abduction and torture when

they had injuries to show for the assaults. On arrival at the court Marova was seen limping and using a crutch, and was helped by Mamombe.

The three were remanded in custody until the magistrate rules on a bail application on Monday.

On Wednesday, nine UN special rapporteurs called on Zimbabwe to drop the earlier charges against the women and stop the reported pattern of dis-appearances and torture.

“Targeting peaceful dissi-dents, including youth leaders, in direct retaliation for the exercise of their freedom of association, peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, is a serious violation of human rights law,” they said.

Four die in attack

on central Mali

village: Mayor

AFP — BAMAKO

Four people were killed yesterday in an attack on a village in central Mali, an area riven with intercommunal and terrorist violence, the mayor said.

The attackers arrived in the morning on about 100 motorcycles, said Ali Dolo, the mayor of the Sangha rural community of Dogons.

He said the attackers “spoke Fulani”.

Two other inhabitants were wounded in the attack and cattle was stolen.

“A person who was hit by a bullet has just arrived (at the health post) from Sangha,” a resident of the village said.

At least 12 people were killed and several head of cattle were stolen in April in an attack on several villages in the area 30km from Bandi-agara, one of the main towns in the area.

Central Mali has been the scene of a large amount of vio-lence since the Islamic preacher Amadou Koufa, who has recruited widely from the Fulani community, founded the Katiba Macina militia in 2015.

Koufa helped set up the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main ret-torist alliance in the Sahel affiliated with Al Qaeda, in 2017.

Darfur: Spike in deaths points to invisible spread of virusAP — CAIRO

In the sprawling refugee camps of Darfur, the war-scarred western region of Sudan, offi-cials say the elderly are falling sick and dying at astonishing rates.

In North Darfur’s provincial capital of El Fasher, some say they scroll through a dozen death announcements each day: Another old friend, relative, community leader lost with diz-zying speed.

Doctors in the region’s few functioning hospitals report an influx of patients with symptoms like a lost sense of taste, breathing troubles and fevers. The official causes of

their untimely deaths remain “unknown.” Humanitarian workers and medical personnel believe the coronavirus is spreading unchecked and untracked through Sudan’s most marginalized territory, where medical facilities are few and far between and where years of conflict have left some 1.6 million people crammed into refugee camps.

Nationwide, Sudan has reported 6,879 coronavirus infections and 433 deaths, according to the Health Min-istry. Of those, 193 cases and 54 fatalities have been confirmed across Darfur — a figure experts believe is a vast undercount.

Since the beginning of the

pandemic, public health offi-cials have sounded the alarm that the coronavirus will take a disastrous toll on the world’s most vulnerable regions, par-ticularly refugee camps, where social distancing, even hand-washing, prove impossible.

“People in the camps are suffocating, they can’t breathe,” said Mohamed Hassan Adam, director of Abushouk dis-placement camp in North Darfur. Just a corner of the camp saw 64 unexplained deaths in one month, he said. His four neighbors, all in their sixties, grew feeble and van-ished one by one.

“They get exhausted then they die. There is no way to tell

what happened,” he said.Authorities are scrambling

to curb the spread of contagion amid a fragile democratic tran-sition after massive protests last year toppled longtime autocrat Omar Al Bashir.

“We are in the eye of the storm,” said Ashraf Issa, spokesman for the UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, referring to the coun-try’s exponential surge in infections.

Sudan’s health care system is in disarray after years of war and sanctions. Dire shortages of protective equipment and staff nationwide prompted strikes by medical workers as infections rise in their ranks. A

drastic undersupply of drugs and hard currency forces the sick to purchase essential med-icine out of pocket. A lack of fuel has made it increasingly dif-ficult for doctors and patients to reach hospitals.

“These are the problems that Sudan faces everywhere, but in Darfur it is more severe,” said Dr. Babikir El Magboul, director of the Health Ministry’s Emergency and Epidemiology Department. “It’s like a separate continent.”

Many in Darfur’s camps are undernourished and weakened by infectious diseases like malaria and acute watery diarrhea. At Abushouk camp, each bathroom is shared by dozens of people.

Education in times of coronavirusA parent is handed over educational aids and a Term 1 report for his child during a drive-through, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease at Mondeor High School, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday.

In Zimbabwe, people with albinism struggle against prejudiceAP — HARARE

Each time Yvonne Gumbo, who has albinism, and her friends get together for a picture, she insists on being in the center.

“I tell them I make the picture beautiful because I am special,” she told The Associated Press at her home in Zimba-bwe’s capital, Harare, recently.

“I have two different colors while they have one. I am black. I am white,” she said, smiling.

“Who else can make the picture more beautiful?” It’s the 22-year old’s way of fighting back against the deeply rooted myths and prejudices faced by people with albinism in Zim-babwe, where they are often ostracized, laughed at and pejo-ratively referred to as “white people” among other names.

While much of the world is engrossed in the race-related outrage over the death of George Floyd in the United

States, Zimbabwe’s young people with albinism are fighting prejudices against the color of their skin.

In nearby Malawi and Tan-zania, many people with albinism are killed because their body parts are thought to bring good luck. No such killings have been reported in Zimbabwe, which has about 70,000 people with albinism out of a population of about 15 million. But prejudices remain

deep-rooted.Some people stare, whistle

or verbally abuse those with albinism when they walk along the streets. Some believe sleeping with them can cure HIV. Many others treat albinism as a curse.

But for Gumbo, none of that bothers her anymore. These days she carries an aura of con-fidence she admits was absent during the first two decades of her life.

‘Turkey leads innovative thinking for post-virus era’

ANATOLIA — NEW YORK

The international community will need to be able to adjust themselves and think outside the box in the post-coronavirus era, and Turkey set a good example for this, said a top Turkish presidential advisor yesterday.

Speaking at an online program organised by the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC), Gulnur Aybet said the bipolar world following the Second World War had been trans-formed into a Transatlantic-centred system.

She said the West took the leading role worldwide, thinking it could fix problems, which laid the foundations for its actions in the Balkans and Gulf war.

But this order began to look like a failure as the West was not able to fix problems else-where, she said, as its work in both Syria and Libya fell short.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to accelerate the shift in globalization trends, she said, calling it a unique incident which made states think outside the box to be successful.

Stressing the conflict in the West between those seeking to maintain the global liberal order and far-right elements balking at this, she said Turkey used an alternative model.

She said Turkey is working to be a self-sufficient country acting independently in line with a “win-win” perspective, adding that the country is active in global trade but is less dependent on it.

Calling the pandemic period “challenging,” Aybet said there would be many opportu-nities for countries that think outside the box and the concept of power would change once the pandemic ends.

Turkey quickly adapted to the Syrian refugee crisis and gained significant experience, learning many lessons that later helped it overcome the pan-demic crisis, she said.

Turkey hosts some 4 million Syria refugees, more than any other country in the world.

The rapid building of field hos-pitals near the Syrian border, for instance, was a valuable lesson for Turkey where virus-related death per million have been low com-pared to the countries with the most cases, Aybet said.

“We want to be able to go in, or have the UN go in, and collect evidence of potential war crimes and other atrocities... so eventually a process takes place where justice can be served,” Amnesty International said.

07SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020 ASIA

Nepal approves new map as land row with India escalatesAP — KATHMANDU

Nepal’s Parliament yesterday overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to change the nation’s political map to include territory claimed by both India and Nepal.

The voting follows the gov-ernment’s issuing of a new map last month that showed the dis-puted territory within its borders.

That move was strongly criticised by India and soured relations between the South Asian neighbours. The consti-tutional amendment is likely to further strain ties. House of

Representatives Speaker Agni Kharel said all 258 members who were present voted in favour of the proposal. To pass, it needed approval from two-thirds of the 275 lawmakers.

“This is in favour of the people and national interest. This was unanimous agreement with no opposition,” Prime Min-ister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli told reporters. “It is not just the Parliament, but the entire nation is behind this.”

Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said yesterday that India had already made its position clear on the matter.

“This artificial enlargement of claims is not based on his-torical fact or evidence and is not tenable,” he said. “It is also in violation of our current understanding to hold talks on

outstanding boundary issues.” The latest border dispute

between the countries began over India’s inauguration last month of a Himalayan link road built in a disputed region that

lies at a strategic three-way junction with Tibet and China.

The 80km road, inaugu-rated by Indian Defence Min-ister Rajnath Singh, cuts through the Lipu Lekh Hima-layan pass, considered one of the shortest and most feasible trade routes between India and China.

Nepal fiercely contested the inauguration of the road and viewed the alleged incursion as a stark example of bullying by its much larger neighbour, triggering a new dispute over the strategically important ter-ritory. Nepal, which was never under colonial rule, has long

claimed the areas of Limpiya-dhura, Kalapani and Lipu Lekh in accordance with the 1816 Sugauli treaty with the British Raj, although these areas have remained in control of Indian troops since India fought a war with China in 1962.

The dispute over the ter-ritory brought a new wedge in relations between the two nations, leading to an exchange of strong-worded statements and remarks from both sides.

Nepal has proposed resolving the border dispute through dialogue, but officials say they have not received any response from India.

Protesters maintaining social distancing hold placards during a demonstration against the government’s handling of the fight against COVID-19 outbreak, in Kathmandu, yesterday.

Protests rage in Kathmandu,7 foreigners among 10 heldREUTERS — KATHMANDU

Police in Nepal arrested 10 people, including seven foreigners, yesterday as demonstrations against the govern-ment’s handling of the coronavirus crisis continued with hundreds of protesters gathering in the capital city Kathmandu.

The Himalayan nation imposed a complete lockdown in March after reporting its second confirmed coro-navirus case. But the number of infec-tions have since increased to 5,062, with 16 deaths, and the government has come under fire for not doing enough to contain the outbreak.

Police officials said an estimated 1,000 people had gathered on a major thoroughfare in Kathmandu for the third day, where seven foreign nationals were arrested.

“The foreigners were arrested for interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs,”

police official Basant Lama said.Earlier this week, police used baton

charges, water cannons and tear gas to break up protests near the prime minister’s residence. No such clashes took place yesterday.

Protesters are demanding better quarantine facilities, more tests and transparency in the purchase of medical supplies to fight the crisis.

Nepal’s government says it has spent about $89m to fight the pan-demic, has conducted around 310,000 tests and quarantined some 158,000 people. But activists insist this is not enough in a country of 30 million people.

“The government is committed to increase tests, boost medical services and improve the quarantine facilities,” Deputy Prime Minister Ishwor Pokhrel, who is leading the country’s corona-virus response, said yesterday.

Thousands march for racial justice in AustraliaAFP — PERTH, AUSTRALIA

Thousands of protesters rallied for racial equality in cities across Australia yesterday despite official warnings the demonstrat ions could undermine the country’s success in suppressing the coro-navirus.

The biggest demonstration took place in the Western Aus-tralian capital Perth where several thousand people gathered in a park waving “Black Lives Matter” signs and Aboriginal flags.

Smaller protests for Abo-riginal rights were held in Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, and towns in neigh-bouring Queensland — both regions with numerous indig-enous communities.

“We are here to support our future as indigenous people and to walk against the injustices of... what happens to our people, with over 400 black deaths in custody,” one uniden-tified protester told public broadcaster ABC at the Darwin march.

With the exception of the Darwin demonstration, which had authorisation, the other protests violated official injunc-tions against mass gatherings instituted three months ago to curb the spread of the

coronavirus. But organisers made efforts to keep the pro-testers spread out and mostly wearing face masks, and police did not intervene.

It was the second straight weekend of large protests in Australia, initially organised in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States following the killing by a white policeman of African-American George Floyd.

Elsewhere in Asia, hundreds gathered in a Taipei park with some holding signs with slogans such as “This is a movement, not a moment”.

At one point the crowd went

down on one knee to mourn black people killed by police in the United States and held eight minutes of silence to remember Floyd.

Dozens also marched in Tokyo in the rain to raise awareness about racial discrimination.

The movement has reso-nated particularly strongly with many in Australia, a country also wrestling with the legacy of racial injustice towards the country’s indigenous peoples.

Aboriginal Australians are vastly over-represented in the prison population, and there have been more than 400

indigenous deaths in custody in the last three decades.

No prosecutions have been brought over the deaths, despite dozens of investigations, inquests and in some cases video evidence of abuse.

Many protesters carried signs reflecting the Aboriginal experience, including “Stop deaths in custody” and “White Australia stop lying to yourselves”.

In parallel with the Black Lives Matter rallies, dozens of people protested in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne against the prolonged detention of asylum-seekers under the gov-ernment’s tough refugee policies.

Police had banned all those protests for violating corona-virus health regulations, but they took place largely without incident.

Australia has been one of the most successful countries in containing the epidemic, with over 7,000 cases and 102 deaths for a population of 25 million.

Health officials said this week that the virus had been virtually eliminated in many regions of the country, though there continue to be a handful of new cases daily in the most populous states of New South Wales and Victoria.

Protesters participate in a Black Lives Matter rally to raise awareness of Aboriginal deaths in custody, in solidarity with those in the United States protesting the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Perth, Australia, yesterday.

India records over 11,400 new infectionsANATOLIA — NEW DELHI

India yesterday crossed the 300,000 mark by registering the highest single-day spike of 11,458 new coronavirus cases, while the death toll climbed to 8,884 with 386 new fatalities, according to the Health Ministry.

The total COVID-19 tally now stands at 308,993.

However, the government on Friday said the doubling time of coronavirus cases has improved from 15.4 days to 17.4 days.

The western state of Mahar-ashtra is the first to record over 100,000 cases.

It took just 10 days for India to reach the 300,000 mark from 200,000.

Mumbai, the country’s com-mercial capital, has crossed the 55,000 mark and the death toll has reached 2,044. According to official data, the COVID-19 tally in Mumbai showed 55,451 cases and 2,044 deaths.

Meanwhile, the daily count of COVID-19 in the capital New Delhi reached 36,824 cases on Saturday. The number of deaths due to coronavirus has climbed to 1,214.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) will today

make a decision on closing Delhi markets.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), out of a population of 1.35 billion, some 5.58 million samples in the country have been tested for COVID-19 so far.

Police personnel check travel passes of commuters after stricter lockdown for weekends and public holidays were imposed as a preventive measure against COVID-19, in Amritsar, yesterday.

Indian Army says standoff with China easing after talksBLOOMBERG — NEW DELHI

India and China have started to pull back their forces along the border in the Himalyan region after talks between senior military officials, according to India’s Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane.

“Our borders along with China are under control,” Nar-avane told reporters in the northern Indian city of Dehradun yesterday.

“We have had a series” of meetings with Chinese com-manders and “as a result of this a lot of disengagement has taken place.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen to avoid a confrontation with China at a time when his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has come under criticism at home. The nuclear-armed neighbours share a 3,488 kilometer (2,167 mile) unmarked border.

Troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers were on either side at multiple locations after the armies clashed several times in dis-puted areas.

The Asian countries have taken steps to de-escalate the six-week standoff after the countries’ senior army com-manders held talks this month.

“We are hopeful that through this continued dia-logue” all perceived differences will be set to rest,” Naravane said. “We are disengaging in a phased manner, we have started from the north from the Galwan river valley where a lot of disengagement has happened.”

The army chief did not comment on the standoff at Pangong Tso, a glacial lake in south-western Ladakh. The two armies clashed at Pangong Tso on May 5, leaving scores injured.

Australia’s NSW

state reports first

local coronavirus

case in weeks

AGENCIES — SYDNEY

Australia’s largest state of New South Wales yesterday reported its first locally trans-mitted COVID-19 case since late May, a sign the threat from the pandemic is far from over as social distancing restrictions continue to be eased.

The state recorded four new coronavirus cases over-night, taking the total number in Australia to nearly 7,300.

The local case was a man in his 20s, and according to health authorities he did not attend any of the recent Black Lives Matter protests in Sydney.

“The virus is likely still cir-culating in the community. People with mild symptoms or no obvious symptoms can unknowingly pass the infection on to other people,” NSW Health said.

Two of the four new cases were travellers who are already in hotel quarantine, while one was linked to a pre-viously reported infection at a public school.

Australia has so far been successful in curbing the spread of the coronavirus, with many parts of the country claiming to have eliminated the disease already. The country has reported 102 deaths and is on track to fully re-open its economy by next month.

A man in his 30s who attended the rally in Mel-bourne last weekend later tested positive for the corona-virus, heightening concerns about a potential second wave in Australia just as the federal and state governments are easing restrictions.

Western Austral ia COVID-19 regulations prohibit crowds of more than 300 from gathering.

On Friday local media reported that thousands of people will soon be able to attend sports and enter-tainment events across Aus-tralia, as the government moves to further relax coro-navirus restrictions.

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison said new rules would allow stadiums with capacity of 40,000 or over to host crowds of up to 10,000 people, ABC News reported.

Former health

minister of

Bangladesh dies

after getting virus

ANATOLIA — DHAKA

Bangladesh’s former Health Minister Mohammed Nasim died yesterday of massive cardiac arrest in the capital Dhaka, where he had tested positive for coronavirus.

Nasim, 72, and still a ruling party lawmaker, suffered a massive cardiac arrest and breathed his last yesterday, the hospital which treated him told the media.

The veteran politician tested positive for the virus and went into a deep coma after brain surgery and fought for his life for some two weeks in intensive care, the team that treated him said earlier.

He later tested negative during his treatment, it added.

A Foreign Ministry statement expressed deep mourning and condolences, and the President and Prime Minister also expressed grief at Nasim’s death.

He served as health min-ister for five years until 2019.

Total fatalities from the virus now stand at 1,095, while infections have topped 81,523.

49 new casesin South KoreaAP SEOUL — SOUTH KOREA

South Korea reported 49 new coronavirus cases yesterday.

Most most of them are in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where health authorities have been struggling to slow transmis-sions linked to entertainment and leisure activities, church gatherings and low-income workers who can’t afford to stay home. The figures released yesterday brought national totals to 12,051 cases and 277 deaths. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 44 of the new cases are in greater capital area, which is home to half the country’s 51 million people. Agency director Jung Eun-kyeong urged residents in the capital area to stay home over the weekend.

The latest border dispute between the countries began over India’s inauguration last month of a Himalayan link road built in a disputed region that lies at a strategic three-way junction with Tibet and China. The 80km road cuts through the Lipu Lekh Himalayan pass, considered one of the shortest and most feasible trade routes between India and China.

So when families lose income, they’re more likely to stretch the budget on schooling for boys, said Laila Gad, UNICEF’s representative in Liberia, a former Ebola hotspot.

08 SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

THE occupation authority of Israel has set up a plan for annexation of Palestinian lands which are part of the West Bank in July, despite strong rejection of the Palestinians and vast majority of the international community.

The Israeli plan is to annex 132 settlements illegally built undermining international law, UN decisions, Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, and agreements made with the Palestinians as part of the peace on the basis of two-state solution.

The League of Arab States warned that the Israeli annexation of any parts of the occupied Palestinian ter-ritories would represent a new brutal aggression against the Palestinian people and their sovereignty over their lands. A similar warning was also issued by EU members, and ignorance to these warnings may result in possible European sanctions on Israel.

The State of Qatar has repeatedly affirmed its com-pliance with the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, as a stra-tegic option that grants settlement of the Palestinian issue on the basis of a two-state solution that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian State on the borders of June 4, 1967. The Deputy Prime Minister and Min-ister of Foreign Affairs, H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdul-rahman Al Thani also reiterated the position of the State of Qatar that rejects the Israeli annexation plan, warning that it would end all efforts for establishing sustainable peace between the two parties and will destabilize the region.

“The annexation of these territories will bury any possibility of settling the conflict in the future.”

For her part, H E Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, stressed recently that the Palestinian issue lies at the core of the Security Council’s mandate to maintain international peace and security under the Charter of the United Nations, and it is necessary to implement the numerous Council resolutions related to the Palestinian issue. As most of Arab and Muslim officials have said the Israeli move would be hostile against the Arab and Islamic nations and will end all endeavours to find solutions to the conflict and undermine the chances of establishing peace in the region for decades to come.

It is also a blatant aggression on the international law and United Nations resolutions related to the decades-aged conflict. Therefore the international community should stand united against the intended Israeli aggression plan. Relying on the good intentions of Netanyahu not to go ahead with his annexation plan will be another disaster that would be a threat to the fragile peace of the region and total erosion of the national aspiration of the Palestinian people.

Threat to fragile peace process

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Quote of the day

It is a great pleasure to be here in Santorini... to

send a message: Greece is ready to welcome

tourists this summer by putting their safety and

their health as a number one priority.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece Prime Minister

A file picture of people standing outside a school in Conakry, Sierra Leone, as students resume classes after four months because of Ebola.

She was 13 when the Ebola virus struck her country, shuttering schools across Sierra Leone. The closures lasted nine months, but Mari Kalokoh could not return to the classroom for years.

“I felt like nobody,” she recalled of her time on the street, begging for food. Now, a radio has replaced her teacher in the era of coronavirus.

The previous epidemic in West Africa forced more girls than boys to halt their studies in the ensuing years, from 2014 to 2016, researchers say, dimming economic prospects for a gener-ation of young women. Edu-cators fear the coronavirus pan-demic could trigger another wave of dropouts.

Global shutdowns have pushed approximately 1.5 billion students out of school since March, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, including 111 million girls in the world’s least developed countries. The disruptions are projected to end or seriously delay the edu-cation of 10 million secondary-school age girls, according to an April report from the Malala Fund, which analyzed data from Sierra Leone’s Ebola crisis.

Girls in Nigeria and Liberia said in phone interviews that they are worried about falling behind or having to quit altogether, citing distractions at home and financial hits from the lockdowns. Parents in more traditionally conservative nations tend to prioritize the edu-cation of their sons, experts say. In West and Central Africa, 73% of

boys older than 15 can read, com-pared with 60% of girls in the same age group.

So when families lose income, they’re more likely to stretch the budget on schooling for boys, said Laila Gad, UNICEF’s representative in Liberia, a former Ebola hotspot.

Remote learning, she added, is especially burdensome for girls, who are frequently expected to shoulder more cooking, cleaning and babysitting. They’re also more vulnerable to sexual abuse, preg-nancy and child marriage during unsupervised downtime.

“Schools are much more than a learning environment,” Gad said. “They provide a protective environment for girls.”

Before the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, 8% of girls did not attend grade school, according to the Malala Fund report. That share nearly tripled in the aftermath.

In Guinea, another hotspot, girls were 25% less likely than boys to re-enroll when life settled back to normal.

And in Sierra Leone, teen pregnancy jumped as much as 65% in some areas. School attendance fell by 16% among 4,800 teenage girls tracked in another study. Kalokoh, who is now 18, didn’t plan to drop out during the Ebola crisis, but the closures removed a crucial structure from her days.

She passed the afternoons with her boyfriend and got pregnant. Her parents kicked her out of the house. “They said, ‘You’re a big girl. Go find money for yourself,’ “ she said.

At the time, Sierra Leone banned expectant mothers from school. Kalokoh survived on scraps from strangers. She lost her baby in childbirth.

“Four years like that - I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. “Just walking up and down, up

and down the street.”Grief clouded everything.

Then she found a charity that helped her enroll again. This lockdown, she’s learning English with the help of radio classes. Kalokoh aims to graduate in four years and eventually study law.

“I want to help other girls,” she said. Eric Tahé, a grade school teacher in northern Ivory Coast, shares that mission.

When his classroom reo-pened last month, one of his stu-dents, a 14-year-old girl, returned pregnant. He visited her parents at home, urging them: Keep her in school.

“Most of the time with the girls, their parents think their place is at home - doing chores, getting ready for a family,” Tahé said. “We worried they’d use the pandemic as an excuse not to send girls back to school.”

During two months of lockdown this spring, the teachers met with moms and dads, explaining the importance of remote homework. Too many chores could throw their daughters off the academic track.

The campaign seemed to work. “Seventy of seventy-four kids came back,” he said. Two boys and two girls are missing, he said, but only because their families moved to bigger cities.

Class has yet to resume in northeast Nigeria, where 14-year-old Halima Lado must sweep between lessons. It’s hard, she said, to juggle the responsibilities.

That vision collapsed when social distancing became law, the already struggling economy took another hit, and even her most loyal buyers ran out of cash.

School is supposed to reopen next week, she said, but it doesn’t seem like an option anymore.

Danielle Paquette is The Washington Post’s West Africa bureau chief.

JAPAN NEWS-YOMIURI

The decline of Japan’s birth rate is further accelerating. The government must analyze the factors causing the decline and take effective measures.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has released demographic statistics for 2019. The natural population decrease, calculated by sub-tracting the number of births from that of deaths, stood at 515,000, the largest decrease ever. This is about the same size as the population of Tottori Prefecture.

The rate of population decline is increasing year by year. If the situation remains unchanged, there will be a shortage of workers and downward pressure will be put on economic growth. The burden on the working

generations, who support the elderly, will also increase. The vitality of society will be damaged.

Last year, 865,000 babies were born. The figure was down by 50,000 from the previous year and the lowest since statistics began in 1899. As the number of women in their 20s to 30s, the leading generation for childbirth, has decreased, the decline in the number of births is expected to continue.

The serious problem is that the total fertility rate, which is the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime, has declined for four consecutive years to 1.36. The index recovered to 1.45 in 2015, but fell into a downward trend again.

In the background is the growing tendency for people

to get married later, or not marry at all. The average age of mothers who gave birth to their first child in 2019 was 30.7, or four years older than the average about 30 years ago. Even if they want to have a second or third child, the reality may be that it is dif-ficult to have one.

In its outline for measures to deal with the declining birth rate, which was decided in May, the government set a goal of raising the fertility rate to 1.8, helping people achieve their hopes for marriage and childbearing. It aims to realize the goal by 2025.

It is a matter of personal choice whether to have a child. With that in mind, the gov-ernment should take bold sup-portive steps to help those who want to get married or have children to fulfill their wishes.

The outline includes the expansion of child allowances for households with three or more children, and the pro-vision of subsidies for fertility treatments, among other things. Temporary benefits alone are not enough to raise the fertility rate. Why do young people hesitate to have children? It is necessary to clarify the challenges and come up with policies that reflect the realities of the situation.

It is hoped that measures will be taken steadily in a comprehensive manner. The measures include securing employment for young people and stabilizing the working conditions for non-regular workers even amid the coro-navirus disaster, increasing the number of childcare facil-ities and providing high-quality housing.

Kids around the world are out of school. Millions of girls might not go back

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09SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020 ASIA

Parts of Beijing locked down due to fresh virus clusterAFP — BEIJING

Dozens of people tested positive for the coronavirus in Beijing as parts of the city were locked down yesterday after the emergence of a new cluster linked to a wholesale food market.

People were ordered to stay home at 11 residential estates in south Beijing’s Fengtai district and the nearby Xinfadi market was closed as authorities raced to contain the outbreak that has fuelled fears of a resurgence in local transmission.

Most of the six new domestic infections reported yesterday were linked to the meat and vegetable market, health officials said, which provides much of the capital’s food supply.

Official news agency Xinhua reported at least one of the cases was “severe”.

But another 45 asympto-matic cases — which China counts separately — were detected after mass testing of nearly 2,000 workers at the market on Friday, city health official Pang Xinghuo later told reporters.

Another worker tested positive at a farmers’ market in the city’s northwestern dis-trict of Haidian — a close contact of one of the con-firmed cases linked to Xinfadi.

Beijing’s first COVID-19 case in two months, announced on Thursday, had visited Xinfadi market and had no recent travel history

outside the city.China’s domestic outbreak

had been brought largely under control through strict lockdowns that were imposed after the disease was first detected late last year.

These measures had mostly been lifted as the infection rate dropped, and the majority of recent cases were citizens living abroad who were tested as they returned home during the pandemic.

Among the six new domestic cases announced yesterday were three Xinfadi market workers, one market visitor and two employees at the China Meat Research Centre, 7km away. One of the employees had visited the market last week.

Authorities closed the market, along with another seafood market visited by one of the patients, for disinfection and sample collection on Friday.

Witnesses saw hundreds of police officers, many wearing masks and gloves, and dozens of paramilitary police deployed at the two markets, with no one allowed to leave Xinfadi.

An ambulance was seen

driving in yesterday afternoon. Officials in Fengtai —

which has more than two million residents — announced yesterday that the district has established a “wartime mech-anism” to deal with the fresh wave.

Police cars were patrolling the streets outside blocked-off neighbourhoods and witnesses saw one bus carrying workers in hazmat suits.

“Everyone’s very stressed right now,” an elderly driver said outside a fenced-off neighbourhood, refusing to give his name because of the heavy police presence.

“There are cases living in there, it’s real.” With many shops in the affected areas closed, residents worried how they would stock up on essentials.

“What do you want us to eat and drink?” a woman sur-named Wang said.

“I hope we can get suffi-cient supplies as soon as possible”.

Nine nearby schools and kindergartens have been closed. On Friday, Beijing delayed the return of students to primary schools across the city, and suspended all

sporting events and group dining.

Cross-provincial tour groups have also been stopped.

The chairman of the Xinfadi market told state-run Beijing News that the virus was detected on chopping boards used to handle imported salmon, stoking fears over the hygiene of the city’s food supply.

Beijing’s market super-vision authorities ordered a city-wide food safety inspection focusing on fresh and frozen meat, poultry and

fish in supermarkets, ware-houses and catering services.

In central Chaoyang dis-trict, officials said they would carry out screenings at all wet markets.

Major supermarket chains including Carrefour removed all stocks of salmon overnight in the capital, but said supplies of other products would not be affected, Beijing Daily reported yesterday.

Community volunteers — who became a common sight during the outbreak — were knocking on residents doors to ask if they had recently

visited Xinfadi market.Beijing authorities also

announced a mass COVID-19 testing campaign of anyone who has had “close contact” with Xinfadi since May 30, after they tested more than 5,000 environmental samples from farmers’ markets and large supermarkets across the city on Friday.

Of those, all 40 positive samples came from Xinfadi market.

Around 10,000 people working at the Xinfadi market will be tested, the market chairman told local media.

Police prepare to guard entrances to the closed Xinfadi market, in Beijing, yesterday.

Pakistan reports over 6,000 new cases for second dayANATOLIA — KARACHI

Amid a record-breaking surge in the coronavirus pandemic, Pakistan yesterday reported 6,472 new virus cases in the previous 24 hours, the highest single-day tally ever, the Health Ministry said.

With another single-day tally of over 6,000 — the second in the last two days — the coun-try’s total coronavirus cases have reached 132,399, of which nearly 50,000 were reported this month alone.

Another 88 patients lost their lives due to COVID-19 across the country, bringing the death toll from the deadly virus to 2,551, while 40,247 patients have successfully recovered and been discharged from hospitals, according to the Health Ministry.

Some 839,019 people have

so far been tested in the country of over 200 million people, with nearly 30,000 tests conducted over the past 24 hours.

The report showed that death ratio in confirmed cases also rose to 2 percent, from 1.7 percent earlier, while

recoveries also climbed from 20 percent to 32 percent.

The data show that most deaths occurred in patients between the age of 60 and 69, at a rate of nearly 30 percent.

Health experts see the ever-rising caseload as a result of the

lifting of a prolonged lockdown late last month, warning that the country’s already weak healthcare system could crash soon if the tally continues to surge at the current pace.

On May 9, the country’s total confirmed cases were

29,465, when Prime Minister Imran Khan announced an easing of the lockdown in phases, but just one month later it had reached nearly 126,000. The World Health Organisation has declared Pakistan the second-riskiest country after Afghanistan in terms of vulnerability to the pandemic.

In a letter to the gov-ernment on Tuesday, the UN health agency suggested a two-week strict lockdown to contain the surging outbreak. Responding to the suggestion, Zafar Mirza, the prime minis-ter’s health advisor, said the country took the decisions in the best interests of the people.

Even Khan has ruled out a strict shutdown, saying a “smart lockdown” is the only solution for developing economies.

Former PM Gilani tests positive for coronavirus

ANATOLAI — KARACHI

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has tested positive for COVID-19, his son confirmed yesterday.

Gilani, the country’s second ex-premier after Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to test positive in less than a week, joins a long and growing list of Pakistani politicians and

parliamentarians infected by the coronavirus.

His son, Ali Kasim Gilani, told reporters that his father had to appear before anti-cor-ruption authorities a few days ago, despite the ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases in the country.

He said the former premier was now in self-isolation.

“Thank you [Prime

Minister] Imran Khan’s govt and National Accountibilty [sic] Burearu [sic]! You have successfully put my father’s life in danger. His COVID-19 result came postive [sic],” he said in a tweet.

Gilani, a senior member of the centre-left Pakistan Peoples Party, served as prime minister from 2008 to 2012, when he was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court.

10 dead, 117 injured in China oil tanker blastAFP — BEIJING

At least 10 people were killed and more than a hundred injured after an oil tanker truck exploded on a highway in China yesterday, state media said.

The force of the blast caused nearby homes and fac-tories to collapse, the gov-ernment said on social media, and sent huge clouds of black smoke billowing into the air as flames engulfed several cars.

Dramatic video footage of the accident near Wenling city in the eastern province of Zhe-jiang published by state media showed a huge ball of fire shooting into the air as people screamed.

In one clip, a large piece of debris is seen flying into the air before crashing onto some nearby buildings.

Another video shows the remains of the tanker and several truck tyres smashed into a building which had been reduced to rubble.

The death toll had reached 10 by yesterday evening with another 117 injured taken to hospital, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Emergency responders were still battling to free trapped victims, it added.

Multiple highway exits were closed, according to local police statements.

Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or not enforced.

According to authorities 58,000 people were killed in accidents across the country in 2015 alone, the last available figures.

Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90 percent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year. Last year at least 36 people died and 36 others were injured in eastern China when a packed coach with a flat tyre collided with a truck.

North Korea warns South to drop ‘nonsensical’ denuclearisation talkAFP — SEOUL

North Korea yesterday issued another angry statement against Seoul, this time excoriating it for “nonsensical” statements on the stalled dialogue about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons.

South Korea has been the target of a wave of angry state-ments recently from the North, which has accused Seoul of allowing defectors to launch leaflets critical of leader Kim Jong Un into its territory.

The latest statement was in response to a South Korean foreign ministry official reportedly saying Seoul would continue “efforts for denuclear-isation”, referring to the long-stalled nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea.

“It is really preposterous to hear the balderdash of south Korean authorities... who do not have either any qualification to

discuss, or... poke their noses into the matters between” Pyongyang and Washington, Kwon Jong Gun, the North’s foreign affairs official in charge of negotiating with the US, said in a statement.

Kwon denounced Seoul for trying to “meddle” in the process in the statement, which was carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency and con-cluded with the warning: “It is better to stop a nonsensical t a l k i n g a b o u t denuclearisation.”

The broadside came a day after Pyongyang issued a stinging denunciation of the United States on the second anniversary of a landmark summit in Singapore where US President Donald Trump shook hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

It contained some of the harshest criticism Pyongyang has sent Washington’s way in

recent months and cast doubts over the future of the long-dead-locked nuclear talks process.

Kwon doubled down on that position in yesterday’s statement, saying North Korea

“will continue to build up our force in order to overpower the persistent threats from the United States”.

Inter-Korean ties have been at a standstill since the collapse

of the second US-North summit in Hanoi in February last year, with a deadlock over the con-cessions Washington was willing to offer in return for Pyongyang’s denuclearisation measures.

A file photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong attending a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (not seen in the picture) at the Peace House of Panmunjom inside the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas.

Philippines must pass anti-terrorism bill to stay off international ‘grey list’REUTERS — MANILA

The Philippines risks being included in an international “grey list” of nations falling short of global money-laundering rules if it fails to enact and effec-tively implement a new anti-terrorism bill, its anti-money laundering body warned

yesterday. The bill, opposed by human rights activists who fear it could be used to suppress free speech and harass those who challenge the government, is awaiting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature.

Though the country’s com-pliance with global rules had

improved, the Anti-Money Laun-dering Council said, it must pass and show it could implement tougher measures to combat ter-rorism before the observation period set by the intergovern-mental Financial Action Task Force expires in February.

Failure to do so, it said, could

lead to the Philippines being included in the global watch-dog’s grey list, which could hurt the economy, already reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Philippines’ inclusion in the grey list will result in an additional layer of scrutiny from

regulators and financial institu-tions,” the council said in a statement, adding it will also put at risk the country’s goal of getting an “A” credit rating.

Duterte, who has drawn international criticism for his war on drugs and his human rights record, had been criticised

for prioritising the passage of the anti-terrorism bill over an eco-nomic stimulus package to counter the impact of the pandemic.

But the council said, “Fighting terrorism is just as urgent because it also concerns protecting life”.

People were ordered to stay home at 11 residential estates in south Beijing’s Fengtai district and the nearby Xinfadi market was closed as authorities raced to contain the outbreak that has fuelled fears of a resurgence in local transmission.

10 SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020EUROPE

Anti-racism protesters clash with police in ParisREUTERS — PARIS

Riot police fired tear gas to prevent thousands of anti-racism protesters marching through central Paris yesterday, as a wave of anger continued to sweep the world following the death of African American George Floyd.

The protesters gathered in Place de la Republique, where the crowd chanted “No justice, no peace” and some climbed the statue of Marianne, who personifies the French Republic. Police refused organ-isers permission to proceed to the Opera House.

The protest was generally peaceful but after three hours skirmishes broke out. Organ-isers urged protesters with children to leave as riot police charged pockets of protesters and projectiles were thrown at police lines.

The outrage generated by Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last month has resonated in France, in particular in deprived city suburbs where rights groups say that accusa-tions of brutal treatment by French police of residents of often immigrant background remain largely unaddressed.

Assa Traore, sister of 24-year-old Adama Traore, who died near Paris in 2016 after police detained him, addressed yesterday’s protest.

“The death of George Floyd has a strong echo in the death in France of my little brother,” she said.

“What’s happening in the United States is happening in France. Our brothers are dying.” Traore’s family say he was asphyxiated when three

officers held him down with the weight of their bodies. Authorities say the cause of his death is unclear.

One banner carried by the crowd in the Place de la Republique read: “I hope I don’t get killed for being black today”.

Another carried a message for the government: “If you sow injustice, you reap a revolt.” Earlier this week, Interior Minister Christophe

Castaner acknowledged there were “proven suspicions of racism” within French law enforcement agencies.

His remarks drew condem-nation from police unions, which said officers were being scapegoated for deep-rooted social ills.

Police have held their own protests in cities across France this week.

Ahead of the protest, in the ethnically diverse Paris suburb

of Belleville, one man of Algerian descent said he had been the victim of police vio-lence but he doubted institu-tional racism ran through the force.

“I’ve been insulted, hit even. But the police aren’t all the same,” he said, identifying himself as Karim.

“Unfortunately, this minority is hurting the police.” Far-right activists unfurled a banner with the words “anti-white racism” from the rooftop of a building overlooking the protest. Residents emerged onto their balconies and ripped it up using with knives and scissors, to cheers from below.

Protests took place in other countries yesterday, including in several Australian cities, Taipei, Zurich and London.

Protesters raise their fists during a rally as part of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ worldwide protests against racism and police brutality, in Paris, yesterday.

Queen Elizabeth IImarks official birthdaywith subdued paradeAFP — LONDON

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II cele-brated her official birthday yesterday in subdued style, with a scaled down version of the traditional “Trooping the Colour” ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 94-year-old monarch watched a smaller military parade in the grounds of Windsor Castle, where she has been staying during the COVID-19 outbreak, in her first official public appearance since the country’s virus lockdown began in late March.

It was the first time the castle, west of London, has staged an event to mark a sov-ereign’s official birthday since 1895, when a ceremony was held in honour of Queen Victoria.

The parade featured soldiers from the Welsh Guards, who observed government virus guidelines to keep at least two metres apart, in a ceremony

dubbed “mini-Trooping”.The annual “Trooping”

event, which normally features hundreds of servicemen and women from Britain’s most pres-tigious regiments for a centuries-old spectacle of military pomp and pageantry in front of thou-sands of spectators, was can-celled because of the health crisis. Britain has been among the worst-hit countries in the world by COVID-19, with the number of suspected and con-firmed deaths passing the grim milestone of 50,000 this week.

The Queen observed yester-day’s pared back ceremony in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle from a dais and was given the royal salute by the troops.

Despite isolating at the castle for the last three months, the elderly monarch has tried to remain visible, making a rare tel-evised address to the nation in April and her debut on a digital platform this week in a video conference call.

Members of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards take part in a ceremony to mark Queen Elizabeth's official birthday at Windsor Castle, in Windsor, southeast England, yesterday.

Italy PM ‘totally calm’ after questioning over virus responseAFP — ROME

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he gave prosecutors a full account of how he handled the coronavirus pandemic that devastated Italy, adding he did not fear a judicial probe would be opened.

“I explained everything to prosecutors. I am totally calm,” Conte said in an interview pub-lished yesterday after he was grilled for about three hours on Friday over his handling of the emergency.

“I detailed all the stages in these terrible days during which we fought an invisible enemy. I have nothing to fear,” the premier told La Stampa newspaper.

Conte said he believes he “acted based on science and conscience,” adding: “I have the

serenity of one who always carried out each step with the scientific technical committee” offering advice.

“I am not expecting to receive a notice of an opening

of a judicial investigation. I have never feared one,” he added.

The epidemic has killed more than 34,000 people in Italy, one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, mostly in

the nation’s north. Chief prose-cutor Maria Cristina Rota and her team are trying to find out why a lockdown was not enforced early in the health emergency around the towns of Nembro and Alzano in the northern province of Bergamo.

Health experts say had the area been quarantined, many lives would have been saved.

The team has already met with senior officials in Lom-bardy, who say it was up to Rome to decide whether certain areas should be shut.

Conte has countered that regions had full discretion to close certain areas where the virus had begun to flare in late February and early March.

“As I have already told inves-tigating magistrates, the chro-nology of events is very clear,” the premier told La Stampa.

“In light of the epidemio-logical framework available to us during the first week of March, it would have made no sense to close only the towns of Alzano and Nembro,” he said.

“Our problem at that moment already was to study drastic and immediate solutions for all of Italy. And that’s what we did.”

The first town in Italy to be quarantined was Codogno, about an hour south of Nembro and Alzano, on February 21.

Another nine towns around Codogno were subsequently locked down before the entire region of Lombardy and 14 provinces in neighbouring regions of Veneto, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna were quarantined on March 8.

Conte imposed a nationwide quarantine on March 10.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

No nuclear

accident during

submarine fire,

says France

AFP — TOULON

A fire that raged for 14 hours on one of France’s nuclear-powered attack submarines did not lead to an atomic accident as steps were taken to protect its reactor, the defence minister said yesterday.

The submarine was under renovation in the southern base of Toulon when the blaze broke out at about 10.30am on Friday in a hard-to-access part of the lower bow section, the navy said.

It then took around 100 firefighters and 150 support crew to put out the blaze by around midnight, the navy said in a statement.

“There was a fire, but no, there was not a nuclear accident,” Defence Minister Florence Parly said.

Parly added that during the fire “measures were taken in the rear area to protect the n u c l e a r r e a c t o r compartment”.

The navy said earlier there were no casualties and no risk of radiation because the nuclear fuel had been removed during the reno-vation of La Perle (The Pearl), one of France’s six nuclear attack submarines.

The extent of the damage — and what started the fire — were not immediately clear but an official with the Naval Group repair centre called the incident “serious.” The regional authorities said that pollution and radioactivity tests carried out by inde-pendent experts had not found anything out of the ordinary.

But French nuclear watchdog association CRIIRAD said that a nearby measurement found that radi-oactivity levels had oscillated at low levels for a few hours in the days leading up to the fire.

The NGO said the “trou-bling” phenomenon “could have several explanations,” but that it did “raise questions”.

Uncertainty as Spain puts virus death toll ‘on hold’AFP — MADRID

For days now, Spain’s daily coronavirus death toll has been on hold, generating widespread uncertainty about the real state of the epidemic that has claimed more than 27,000 lives.

The health ministry’s emer-gencies coordinator Fernando Simon, who for months has given a daily briefing on the pandemic’s evolution, acknowledged the “astonishment” and “confusion” generated by the figures.

On May 25, the ministry changed its method of collecting data on confirmed cases and fatalities, initially giving a daily death toll of between 50 and 100.

But the figure then fell to fewer than five per day and on some days there were no deaths at all. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez even told parliament there had been “no deaths” for several days, prompting a backlash from the right and the far-right who have since accused him of hiding the real number of fatalities.

“(The) biggest danger is com-municating this idea that the epi-demic is over because the virus is still present in our country although at much lower levels,”

warned Salvador Macip, an expert in health sciences at Cata-lonia’s Open University.

Simon has said the new system was set up to facilitate the rapid detection and isolation of any new outbreak and that the regions must provide a detailed breakdown of cases, rather than lumping all figures together.

But last week he acknowl-edged that the overall number of deaths had remained “frozen” as a result of discrepancies in the figures, which he put down to delays in submitting data in certain regional areas.

Since June 7, the number of dead has stuck at 27,136 while the regional authorities “review the information on deaths.. (until) they can give a precise death date which will give a clearer sequence,” Simon said.

But some regions have hit back, insisting they have sub-mitted all the required data yet saying it wasn’t reflected in the overall balance.

Such was the case with Andalusia whose health minister Jesus Aguirre recently lashed out at the central government’s “total lack of respect for the dead” in publishing lower figures than those submitted by the southern

region itself.One problem with the new

system is that it puts “excessive emphasis on reporting the pre-vious day’s figures” because if the data arrive after the deadline, they’re not added to the daily total, explained Kiko Llaneras, a data analyst with El Pais newspaper.

It has turned into “a source of huge disinformation” and in terms of communication it has “tainted the entire debate”, he said. The situation became even more chaotic this week after the National Statistics Institute (INE) and the Carlos III Health Institute published figures showing that

Spain’s death toll has been between 43,000 and 44,000 higher than it has been on average in recent years.

And this “excess mortality” has further inflamed the oppo-sition who point to it as proof the government is playing down the death toll. But the government has rejected such claims, saying such figures include those who died of other causes or had COVID symptoms and never had a PCR test. Such testing kits, which were very scarce at the start of the outbreak, have since become essential for confirming a new case and adding it to the overall figures.

“It is normal that the death toll does not coincide with the excess mortality figures,” explained Ildefonso Hernández, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Public Health, saying similar situations occur during flu season and heatwaves.

“Is the government hiding deaths under the carpet? No it’s not. Is the government commu-nicating clearly? No, it’s not doing that either,” he complained.

“One of the fundamental issues is that the management of information and communicating figures in the epidemic has not been clear enough,” agreed Llaneras.

People line up in front of a shop after the Spanish government relaxed the novel coronavirus pandemic restrictions, in Madrid, on Friday.

The protest was generally peaceful but after three hours skirmishes broke out. Organisers urged protesters with children to leave as riot police charged pockets of protesters and projectiles were thrown at police lines.

11SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

Brazil now second in virus deaths after USAFP — RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazil on Friday claimed the unenviable position of having the second-highest corona-virus death toll worldwide behind the United States, where several states have posted record daily case totals, signaling the crisis is far from over.

Brazil’s health ministry recorded 909 deaths in the past 24 hours, putting the total at 41,828 — meaning the country of 212 million people has now surpassed Britain’s death toll.

Experts warn the actual number of cases in Latin America’s biggest economy could be many times higher than the confirmed figure of 828,810.

“Some areas are at a critical stage” in Brazil, with intensive

care unit occupancy levels of more than 90 percent, World Health Organisation emer-gencies director Mike Ryan told journalists in Geneva.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who threatened last week to quit the WHO over “ideological bias,” has dismissed the virus as a “little

flu,” and berated state officials for imposing lockdowns.

Latin America is the latest epicenter in the world’s battle with the novel coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year. The region has recorded more than 1.5 million infections and 76,000 deaths, with no signs the virus is slowing. In the US, which has confirmed the most COVID-19 deaths — over 114,000 — more than a dozen states, including two of the most populous, Texas and Florida, reported their highest-ever daily case totals this week.

“It’s important that we remember that this situation is unprecedented. And that the pandemic has not ended,” Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a media briefing on Friday.

Nevertheless, US President Donald Trump and many local officials remain determined to get the world’s biggest economy back on track.

The virus and resulting lockdowns have caused a spike in US unemployment -- 44.2 million people have filed claims for jobless benefits

since mid-March.Worldwide, the pandemic

has killed more than 425,000 people and infected more than 7.6 million.

People wait in line to enter Cidade Sao Paulo Shopping Mall, as malls reopen amid the coronavirus disease outbreak, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Brazil’s health ministry recorded 909 deaths in the past 24 hours, putting the total at 41,828 — meaning the country of 212 million people has now surpassed Britain’s death toll.

Coronavirus cases hover over 8,000 daily in RussiaANATOLIA — MOSCOW

With yesterday’s new figures, the daily growth in coronavirus cases in Russia continues to hover over 8,000 daily.

Starting on May 18, the country has reported about 8,000-plus new cases daily with periodic spikes to 9,000-10,000.

Yesterday, Russia’s emer-gency task force confirmed another 8,706 new COVID-19 cases registered over the last 24 hours, saying the total number

of people who contracted the virus rose to 520,129.

Over the same period, the infection claimed the lives of 114, raising the death toll to 6,829, it said in a daily report.

Recoveries reached 274,641 after 5,271 more people were successfully treated for the virus since yesterday, it added.

Russia’s chief sanitary officer Anna Popova explained the situation by saying there have been “two different epi-demiological processes” inside the country.

She said at the beginning of the pandemic, Moscow, which first faced the virus outbreak, accounted for 67 percent of new daily cases versus 33 percent in the rest of Russia.

Today only 23 percent of new cases are seen in the Moscow region, which has passed the peak of morbidity, while the other regions, where the outbreak came much later, are reporting 77 percent of new daily cases.

As for the relatively low death rate, she explained it by

the dominance of mild cases, revealed during proactive testing, deployed throughout Russia to find people at early stages of the disease.

In late May, the Russian government started to lift restrictions inside the country, saying the situation had stabi-lized and proceeded to eco-nomic recovery measures.

On Monday, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced a partial opening of the borders for international travel, while Moscow Mayor

Sergey Sobyanin lifted the lockdown on the capital.

Since originating in China last December, the pandemic has claimed over 426,000 lives in 188 countries and regions. The US, Brazil and Russia are currently the world’s worst-hit countries.

Some 7.66 million cases have been reported worldwide, while some 3.63 million patients have recovered so far, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.

Chile President

replaces health

minister amid

COVID-19 toll

controversy

REUTERS — SANTIAGO

Chile President Sebastian Pinera yesterday replaced Health Minister Jaime Manalich amid controversy over the country’s figures for deaths from the coronavirus outbreak.

Pinera said Manalich had spared “no effort” in carrying out his “difficult and noble duty” to protect Chileans` health. He replaced him with Oscar Enrique Paris, an aca-demic and medical doctor.

The sudden reshuffle comes as Chile faces its toughest month in the pan-demic so far, with spiraling active cases and deaths rates.

The country now has the highest number of confirmed cases per million people in Latin America, reporting 167,355 cases on Saturday and 3,101 deaths. Manalich, a tough-talking kidney specialist who once ran one of Chile´s top hospitals, has won praise for an aggressive campaign to keep hospitals supplied with venti-lators and protective equipment and leading detailed daily press conferences.

But there have been fre-quent reports of spats among health ministry officials, and Manalich has been criticised by opposition politicians, mayors, medical experts and social groups for refusing to release more detailed contagion data or apply lockdowns sooner and for successive changes in cri-teria for recording deaths and cases.

Yesterday, a Chilean inves-tigative website, Ciper, reported that the health ministry had told the World Health Organisation that as many as 5,000 deaths in the country were linked to coronavirus.

Coal mine closures stirunease in Poland’s rust beltAFP — JASTRZEBIE ZDRÓJ

A spike in reported coronavirus cases in Poland’s coal mines has put the country on edge but residents worried about jobs are playing down the health crisis.

The issue is particularly sensitive ahead of a hard-fought presidential election on June 28 in Poland, where miners are still a powerful voting bloc.

Dominik Kolorz, head of the Solidarity trade union for the Silesian coal basin, said he was concerned the increase in virus cases could serve as a pretext for the definitive closure of some mines.

“We hope the government will go on to restore the mining sector,” Kolorz said, speaking in Katowice in southern Poland, the regional capital of Silesia.

Miners and their families accounted for a high proportion of recent cases of coronavirus diagnosed in Poland, prompting the government to suspend work at 12 mines until the end of June.

All of them belong to the JSW mining group and the PGG conglomerate — Europe’s two biggest coal companies — and employ thousands of people.

Poland depends on coal for 80 percent of its power needs

but the closures are not expected to affect energy pro-duction as it has ample stockpiles.

Its reliance on the dirty fossil fuel is a thorny issue within the European Union, with Warsaw refusing to implement the bloc’s target of going carbon neutral by 2050.

It has demanded more time to switch to green energy -- perhaps up to 2070 according to some sources.

At JSW’s Knurow-Szczy-glowice mine, workers arriving for their shifts just before the suspension could be seen undergoing temperature checks and using hand sanitiser.

A large orange emergency tent stood nearby and signs instructed employees to wear masks at all times in a region that has become the epicentre of the coronavirus crisis in Poland.

The virus is “attacking in the mines” where cramped working conditions mean it can spread quickly, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday.

But Slawomir Starzynski, a spokesman for the JSW mining group, emphasised that the cases detected at his company have mostly been mild or asymptomatic.

“Of the 3,000-some employees from our mines who tested positive for coronavirus, only three or four had to be hos-pitalised,” he said.

Poland introduced anti-virus lockdown measures rel-atively early in March, which could account for its lower death toll from the disease than those of some western European countries.

It recorded 28,577 con-firmed coronavirus cases, including 1,222 deaths as of

Friday. The government began easing restrictions last month, reopening restaurants, upping the public gathering limit to 150 people and scrapping the face mask requirement for those abiding by social distancing rules.

Campaigning ahead of the rescheduled presidential election is also in full swing.

The ballot was originally scheduled for May 10 but was postponed at the last minute because of the pandemic.

But Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski has warned that the sharp rise in cases could mean restrictions being re-introduced nationwide to stop the spread.

But in Silesia, the prevailing concern among miners was the future of their jobs.

As he arrived for his shift at the Knurow mine, Krzysztof, 40, said: “I don’t know what to think.

“The mine is working fine. I don’t know why they’re closing it.”

Mine workers are seen at the Ruch Zofiowka coal mine, in Jastrzebie Zdroj, southern Poland.

Mexico City to begin gradual exit from lockdown tomorrowREUTERS — MEXICO CITY

The mayor of Mexico City said on Friday the Mexican capital will next week lift restrictions on car traffic and public transport, and allow 340,000 factory works to get back to work, even though new cases of coronavirus are still rising.

Mexico City and the adjacent urban sprawl are home to more than 21 million people, and the region accounts for more than 40 percent of some 139,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country. On Friday Mexico reported a record of more than 5,000 new cases.

“We think next week the city can begin a process of very orderly transition,” said Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, noting there had been a slight drop in hospital occupancy rates and that the city’s contagion alert level was close to coming down a notch.

Curbs on vehicle traffic and public transport are due to be eased on Monday and factories will start opening on Tuesday under strict sanitary protections, the city government said.

On Thursday, small shops will have permission to reopen, while professional services and scientific workers linked to “industry” can go back as of Friday, it added.

If conditions are deemed suitable, street markets and the his-toric center of the city will reopen the week of June 22-28.

Trudeau: Video of indigenous chief’s arrest ‘shocking’AFP — OTTAWA

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called for an independent investigation after a “shocking” video showing the arrest of an indigenous chief by federal police.

The video, filmed and released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, show an officer rushing at Chief Allan Adam on March 10 during an encounter over an expired license plate. The officer tackles Adam and punches him in the face.

“We’ve all now seen the shocking video of Chief Adam’s arrest and we must get to the bottom of this,” Trudeau told a daily briefing.

“Like many people I have serious questions about what happened,” he said. “The inde-pendent investigation must be transparent and be carried out so that we get answers.”

In the dashcam video, broadcast by several Canadian

media, Adam has a heated exchange with a police officer outside a casino in the province of Alberta.

The tense situation degen-erates quickly when the officer tries to handcuff Adam’s wife, and a second officer is seen

tackling Adam to the ground and punching him in the face.

Adam last weekend circu-lated images of his bruised and battered face following the arrest.

“We know that this is not an isolated incident,” Trudeau

said. “Far too many black Cana-dians and indigenous people do not feel safe around police. It’s unacceptable. And as govern-ments, we have to change that.”

Thousands of Canadians have marched in solidarity with US protesters against racism and police brutality, following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, during an arrest by Minneapolis police.

Trudeau himself took a knee, a popular protest gesture, last Friday at a demonstration outside his office in Ottawa.

On Thursday, the prime minister said systemic racism exists in all Canadian institu-tions including the RCMP, after the nation’s top cop balked at the notion.

After a week of denying it, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki on Friday reversed her position and acknowledged in a statement that “systemic racism is part of every insti-tution, the RCMP included.”

Security forces take measures during a march against police brutality and racism, in Montreal, Canada.

12 SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020AMERICAS

Trump to West Point graduates: ‘We are ending the era of endless wars’

REUTERS — WEST POINT

President Donald Trump, facing criticism in recent days for plans to withdraw thousands of US troops from Germany, told West Point’s graduating class yesterday that their job will be to defend “America’s vital interests” and not fight “endless wars” in faraway lands.

Trump’s reported plans to withdraw 9,500 troops from Germany, one of America’s strongest allies, and relocate them to Poland and elsewhere has drawn the ire of German officials and raised concerns in the US Congress about a retreat from the world stage.

In his commencement address to the US Military Academy at West Point, Trump told more than 1,000 gradu-ating cadets, arrayed in a social-distancing pattern, that the job of the American soldier is not to rebuild foreign nations but “defend, and defend strongly,

our nation from foreign enemies.”

“We are ending the era of endless wars,” Trump said. It is not the job of American forces “to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have not even heard of,” he said.

As president, Trump has pulled troops from Syria and pushed U.S. allies worldwide to pay more for the commitment of American forces to defend them.

In relatively rare criticism from his own party, 22 Repub-licans on the US House of Rep-resentatives Armed Services Committee wrote to Trump saying a troop cut in Germany would hurt national security and could encourage Russian aggression.

Trump came to West Point at a time of tension with US mil-itary leaders over whether the military should be used to quell nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, a black

man, by police on May 25.US Joint Chiefs of Staff

Chairman Mark Milley said on Thursday he should not have joined Trump as he walked from the White House to a nearby church for a photo opportunity after authorities cleared the way of protesters using tear gas and rubber bullets.

Defence Secretary Mark

Esper also split with Trump over whether active duty troops should be deployed to gain control of cities convulsed by protests.

Trump has since expressed confidence in Esper and brushed off Mil ley’s comments.

In his remarks yesterday, Trump only touched obliquely on the debate over racial

injustice in the United States, saying the cadets were examples of America’s diversity.

“You have come from the farms and the cities, from states big and small, and from every race, religion, colour, and creed. But when you entered these grounds, you became part of one team and one family, proudly serving one American nation,” he said.

President Donald Trump is presented with the cadet saber of the US Military Academy Class of 2020 at the West Point commencement ceremony, in West Point, New York, yesterday.

Pompeo to

meet China’s

top diplomat

in HawaiiREUTERS — WASHINGTON

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Hawaii, trying to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies over various issues, according to media reports.

Pompeo was planning the trip “quietly” and the arrange-ments were not yet finalised, Politico said.

Pompeo has been vocal in criticising China on a range of issues from the origins of the coronavirus pandemic to its Hong Kong policy to the treatment of its ethnic and religious minorities, The US State Department and the Chinese embassy in Wash-ington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper cited an unidentified source as saying that Yang, a state coun-cilor and member of the Com-munist Party Politburo, will represent the Chinese side for the meeting.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated in recent months, and US Pres-ident Donald Trump has said he could even sever relations.

Pompeo said last month that China could have pre-vented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the world by being more transparent about the coro-navirus and accused it of r e f u s i n g t o s h a r e information.

He also said Chinese plans to impose national security laws on Hong Kong would be the “death knell” for the former British colony’s autonomy.

Biden’s V-P list narrows to six serious contendersAP — WASHINGTON

Joe Biden’s search for a running mate is entering a second round of vetting for a dwindling list of potential vice presidential nominees, with several black women in strong contention.

Democrats with knowledge of the process said Biden’s search committee has narrowed the choices to as few as six serious contenders after initial interviews. Among the group still in contention: Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California, as well as Susan Rice, who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser.

Those with knowledge declined to name other con-tenders and said the process remains somewhat fluid. Addi-tional candidates may still be

asked to submit to the extensive document review process now underway for some top con-tenders. Those familiar with Biden’s search spoke on con-dition of anonymity because they were not authorized to pub-licly discuss the process.

The campaign dismissed the idea of a shortened list as early speculation. “Those who talk don’t know and those who know don’t talk,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden spokesperson.

Biden, who has already said he will pick a woman as his running mate, is facing increased calls from Democrats to put a woman of color on the ticket — both because of the outsize role that black voters played in Biden’s road to the nomination and because of the reckoning over racism and inequality roiling the nation following the

death of George Floyd. The black Minneapolis man died after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for several minutes, an episode that was captured on video.

Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and former Democratic National Committee chairman, said that while Biden’s choice was likely to be “all about personal chemistry,” it would be “exciting for the party” to have a black woman on a major party presidential ticket for the first time.

The campaign’s list includes several black women, including Harris and Rice. Advisers have also looked closely at Florida Rep. Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, both of whom are black, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Latina.

Biden’s vetting committee had conversations with a larger group of women earlier this spring; those continuing on in the process have been asked to turn over financial records, past writings and other documen-tation. Biden has had various public and private interactions with many of the women his vetting committee has con-sidered thus far, but has not yet had any formal one-on-one interviews expressly to discuss the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Those aren’t expected for several weeks.

Rice, who worked closely with Biden during his time as vice president, has emerged as a favourite among some former Obama administration officials and is personally close to the former president. She has never held elected office but has

extensive foreign policy expe-rience, including as US ambas-sador to the United Nations. She’s also been an outspoken critic of the Trump adminis-tration since leaving the White House and considered running for US Senate in Maine.

Rice has long been a target of Republicans, including for statements she made after the deadly 2012 attacks on Amer-icans in Benghazi, Libya. Repub-licans have also accused her of spying on Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, though records declas-sified by the Trump adminis-tration show no evidence of Rice improperly accessing any information.

Harris and Warren have been seen as top contenders for the No. 2 spot since ending their own presidential campaigns.

NY Governor signs police accountability legislationAP — ALBANY

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law on Friday a sweeping package of police accountability measures that received new backing following protests over George Floyd’s killing, including one allowing the release of officers’ long-withheld disciplinary records.

The measures were approved earlier this week by the state’s Democratic-led Legislature. Some of the bills had been proposed in years past and failed to win approval, but lawmakers moved with new urgency in the wake of massive, nationwide demonstrations over Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

“Police reform is long overdue, and Mr Floyd’s murder is only the most recent murder,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said.

Cuomo was joined at the signing ceremony by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell, who was killed by an officer in 2006, and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who was killed by police in New York in 2014.

“It was a long time coming, but it came,” Carr said.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins thanks Carr and Bell “for being brave and strong.”

“We are at a moment of reckoning. There is no doubt about it,” she said.

Meanwhile, members of the New York City Council said they would work to cut $1bn in New York Police Department spending for the next fiscal year. The cuts would include overtime, head-count through attrition and shifting the department’s responsibilities, according to a joint council statement.

The proposed cut to the NYPD is about 15 percent of the $6bn annual budget for department.

Fauci: Slight virus spikes may get out of control amid US reopeningREUTER S — WASHINGTON

The top US infectious disease official on Friday cautioned that the “blips” of rising coronavirus hospitalisations being reported by some states could get out of control if robust contact tracing regimes are not put in place.

As restrictions on economic activity are lifted, the United States was bound to see increased infections, Anthony Fauci told CNN.

“But when you start seeing more hospitalisations, that’s a sure fire sign that you’re in a sit-uation where you’re going in the wrong direction,” Fauci said.

So far, more than 114,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States, according to a Reuters tally. About half a dozen US states are grappling with a rising number of corona-virus patients filling hospital beds.

Texas and North Carolina on Friday reported their highest hospitalisation rates since the pandemic began. But officials in both states point out they also have among the lowest rates of deaths from COVID-19.

Fauci underscored that increased hospitalisations was a worrying trend, however, and a sign that “maybe we need to slow down a little” on reopenings.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on Friday that while his state’s rise in hospital-izations and new cases was

sobering, moving ahead with more reopenings was not off the table.

Texas has been at the fore-front of states’ efforts to reopen their economies and Governor Greg Abbott on Friday said in an interview with KYTX TV it would remain that way “because we have so many hospital beds available to anybody who gets ill.”

“For every person in a hos-pital bed, there are 10 open, available hospital beds available for them,” Abbott said.

“So there’s plenty of hospital capacity to be able to deal with COVID-19.” He added that there is “no real need to ratchet back the opening of businesses in the state.” A handful of states and cities have paused or slowed reopenings.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said she would put county applications to reopen on hold after the state reported a record daily rise in new coronavirus cases on Thursday.

“This is essentially a statewide ‘yellow light,’ it’s time to press pause for one week before any further reopening,” Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. Utah’s Republican Governor Gary Herbert on Friday ordered most of the state to halt reopening while it inves-tigated a ju mp in cases.

“I don’t want to go forward and then take a step backward,” Herbert said of the order that remains in effect until June 26.

Doctors visit a patient with COVID-19 in Comas, northern outskirts of Lima, in Peru. The Rapid Response Teams of the Ministry of Health are made up of Peruvian and Venezuelan doctors, who visit potential and recovering virus patients at their homes to take quick tests, make diagnoses and distribute medicines.

Peru’s rapid virus reponse teams

Venezuela’s opposition rejects new elections boardAP — CARACAS

Venezuela’s high court loyal to President Nicolás Maduro seated a new elections commission on Friday night in a move that was quickly called unconstitutional by political leaders opposed to the socialist government.

The swearing-in of the National Electoral Council by the Supreme Court promises to deepen the bitter political divide in Venezuela, which is

burdened with a shattered economy despite holding with the world’s largest oil reserves.

It comes ahead of a key election this year when Vene-zuelans will be asked to elect a new congress, a now oppo-sition-dominated body that is led by US-backed Juan Guaidó. It is the only branch of gov-ernment out of Maduro’s control.

“If we don’t recognise this farce of a Supreme Court, we don’t recognise anything it pro-duces,” Juan Pablo Guanipa, the

National Assembly’s first vice president, said on Twitter.

“As Venezuelans we make our demand to the world for a free vote!” Guanipa added, calling Maduro’s government a dictatorship.

The unilateral appoint-ments proved especially dis-heartening to some moderate opponents of Maduro who had been working in the past week to try to reach an accord on providing minimal guarantees for a free and fair vote.

In his commencement address to the US Military Academy at West Point, Trump told more than 1,000 graduating cadets, arrayed in a social-distancing pattern, that the job of the American soldier is not to rebuild foreign nations but ‘defend, and defend strongly, our nation from foreign enemies’.