Thursday 13 August 2020

23 Dhul-Hijja - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8348

Choose the network of heroes Enjoy the Internet

BUSINESS | 13 PENMAG | 15 SPORT | 20

QSL: Xavi aware

of Qatar SC

threat in ‘very

important’ clash

Classifieds

and Services

section

included

UK suffers

record

recession on

virus fallout

Ministries and govt agencies directed to simplify proceduresQNA — DOHA

Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, in the Cabinet meeting held yesterday, directed that Minis-tries and other government agencies should simplify procedures and remove bureaucratic obstacles so that distinguished services are provided to the public.

H E the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior also directed Ministries and other government agencies to work to speed up the completion of the conversion of all services provided to the public into electronic services to be part of the e-gov-ernment services platform.

H E the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior chaired the Cabinet regular meeting held at its seat at the Amiri Diwan.

His Excellency also directed the necessity of strengthening coordination between Ministries and

government agencies that participate in implementing programs and projects ema-nating from the strategic plans.

Based on the directives of H E the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior on pro-viding the Council of Ministers with plans related to the com-petencies of Ministries and other government agencies,

public bodies and institu-tions, including all imple-mentation programs and projects, the specified time-table for completion as well as standards and indicators for measuring performance progress in line with the comprehensive development vision, Qatar National Vision 2030, in addition to high-lighting any partnership

projects between the public and private sectors, if any.

H E the Minister of Com-merce and Industry made a presentation on the detailed plan for the strategy of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

His Excellency stated that the strategy of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has four intermediate outcomes, 12 main goals, 22 programs and 178 projects. Within this plan, responsibilities for the implementation of initiatives and projects were defined in accordance with the compe-tencies of the main sectors and departments of the Min-istry, which include: business development and investment attraction, export support and development, protection of competition and prevention of monopolistic practices, establishment of business, protection and development of intellectual property, con-sumer protection and com-bating commercial fraud. �P4

Amir’s directives to help Lebanon reflect depth of firm fraternal ties: CabinetQNA — DOHA

The Cabinet affirmed yesterday that Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s sublime directives to help brothers in Lebanon reflect the depth of the firm fraternal relations between the two countries and two peoples.

Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani chaired the Cabinet regular meeting held at its seat at the Amiri Diwan yesterday.

Following the meeting, Minister of Justice and Acting Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs H E Dr. Issa bin Saad Al Jafali Al Nuaimi issued the statement.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Cabinet renewed the position of the State of Qatar in solidarity with the brotherly Republic of Lebanon in facing the disaster of the explosion that occurred in the Beirut port and its repercussions and mit-igating its effects.

The Cabinet affirmed that Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s sublime directives to help brothers in Lebanon people

immediately after the explosion and the subsequent broad public inter-action to contribute to providing aid to Lebanon reflect the depth of the firm fraternal relations between the two countries and two peoples, and are an extension of Qatar’s positions in support of Lebanon and its sta-bility. �P2

Health Ministry conducts COVID-19 environmental testing pilotQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has launched a COVID-19 environmental testing pilot, in partnership with a number of governmental, educational and research insti-tutions in Qatar, to support and enhance surveillance and contact tracing efforts.

During the pilot phase,

innovative technology was used to collect surface, air, and wastewater samples and test for the presence of COVID-19. Results will allow the author-ities to detect the presence of the virus and monitor any potential spread earlier through its concentration in wastewater. It will also help assess the efficacy of cleaning protocols to remove viral contamination in different environments.

“The immediate need is clearly to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and support Qatar’s efforts with additional data to track viral spread. However, on the longer-term setting up such a national environmental screening infrastructure would go a long way toward screening the supply chain into Qatar and supporting screening efforts during the FIFA 2022 World Cup,” said Sheikh Dr. Mohamed bin Hamad Al Thani, Director of the Department of Public Health at the Ministry of Public Health.

Environmental testing pro-vides significant support for the epidemiological and contact tracing teams on the ground. It extends the reach of the contact tracing team beyond indi-viduals who have been in contact with positive COVID-19 cases to areas and environ-ments that the positive indi-vidual may have visited and as such present a risk.

The environmental testing research is one example of the innovative, evidence-based approach Qatar is taking in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results will inform the response and strategic planning moving forward.

“This pilot study highlights the established scientific base with diverse and comple-mentary expertise in Qatar that has been built over the years through the efforts of the Qatari leadership, in particularly Qatar Foundation and Qatar National Research Fund. �P2

QUARTER-FINALS

TODAY'S FIXTURERB Leipzig vs Atletico Madrid

Kick off at 10:00pm Qatar time

YESTERDAY'S RESULTPSG 2-1 Atalanta

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Qatari International Search and Rescue Group of the Internal Security Force ‘Lekhwiya’ recovered the first dead body of a Lebanese soldier from under the rubble of the Beirut port, which witnessed a huge explosion that left dozens dead and wounded.

The body was of a security officer working in the port and died as a result of the explosion. A fully equipped team from ‘Lekhwiya’ arrived a few days ago at the site of the explosion to participate in search and rescue operations, the Embassy of Qatar in Lebanon retweeted the report.

Search and rescue oper-ations are continuing in the explosion site of the Beirut port, searching for survivors or dead bodies under the rubble.

Lekhwiya team

recovers first

body from Beirut

port debris

Qatar participates in

Friends of Sudan meetingQNA — DOHA

The State of Qatar took part in the ministerial meeting of the Friends of Sudan Group, which was hosted by Riyadh yesterday via video.

Special Envoy of the Min-ister of Foreign Affairs for Coun-terterrorism and Mediation in Conflict Resolution H E Dr. Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani represented the State of Qatar at the meeting.

The participation of the State of Qatar in the meeting came in support of the sus-tainable peace paths in Sudan and achieving economic sta-bility and prosperity during this critical period, within the framework of regional and international coordination.

In its statement to the meeting, the State of Qatar affirmed the respect for Sudan’s sovereignty, its political independence, unity and the integrity of its region, and the non-interference in its

internal affairs, and the respect for the aspirations of the Sudanese people to live in a democratic country that enjoys security, stability and prosperity.

The State of Qatar indicated that there is no military solution for conflicts, rather they can resolved through dialogue and negotiation and addressing the root causes for the conflict.

The State of Qatar stressed the importance of not competing over Sudan, and called for unity, cooperation and coordination of regional and international efforts in order to achieve sustainable peace in Sudan.

In conclusion of its statement, the State of Qatar reiterated its support for the mediation efforts currently undergoing in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, which aim at achieving peace in Sudan, and hailed the progress made by the mediation, expressing readiness for further cooperation.

Amir receives credentials of new Ambassadors

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received at the Amiri Diwan office yesterday morning the credentials of six new ambassadors to the State of Qatar. H H the Amir received the credentials of Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina, H E Haris Lukovac; Ambassador of the United Kingdom, H E Jonathan Paul Wilks (above left); Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria, H E Plamen Stankov Delev; Ambassador of the Republic of India, H E Deepak Mittal; Ambassador of the Republic of Sudan, H E Abd Al Rahim Al Siddig Mohammed; and Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey H E Mehmet Mustafa Goksu (above right). H H the Amir welcomed the new Ambassadors, wishing them success in their missions and the relations between the State of Qatar and their respective countries further progress and prosperity. Their Excellencies the Ambassadors conveyed to H H the Amir greetings of their countries’ leaders and wishes of further progress and prosperity to the Qatari people. Their Excellencies the Ambassadors were accorded earlier official reception ceremonies at the Amiri Diwan.

Ministries and other government agencies

urged to speed up the completion of the

conversion of all services provided to the

public electronic services.

Ministry of Commerce and Industry strategy

includes business development and

investment attraction, export support and

development, protection of competition and

prevention of monopolistic practices.

Plans to develop a package of incentives and

a legislative and regulatory framework that

attracts foreign investors to invest in Qatar.

The Cabinet renewed the

position of the State of

Qatar in solidarity with the

brotherly Republic of

Lebanon in facing the

disaster of the explosion

that occurred in the Beirut

port and its repercussions

and mitigating its effects.

02 THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 03.45 am 05.06 am

W A L R U WA I S : 35o↗ 38o W A L K H O R : 30o↗ 42o W D U K H A N : 34o↗ 41o W WA K R A H : 30o↗ 4 4o W M E S A I E E D 30o↗ 4 4o W A B U S A M R A 30o↗ 40o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 13:46 – 00:00 LOW TIDE 05:16–00:00

Very hot daytime with scattered clouds and slight dust at some places at times.

Minimum Maximum34oC 44oC

ZUHR

MAGHRIB

11.39 am06.13 pm

ASR

ISHA

03.08 pm07.43 pm

Amir receives credentials of new Ambassadors

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received at the Amiri Diwan office yesterday credentials of Ambassador of the Republic of India H E Deepak Mittal, and Ambassador of the Republic of Sudan H E Abd Al Rahim Al Siddig Mohammed. H H the Amir welcomed the new Ambassadors, wishing them success in their missions and the relations between the State of Qatar and their respective countries further progress and prosperity.

QNA — DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received yesterday a written message from President of the Republic of Panama H E Laurentino Cortizo, pertaining to bilateral relations between the two countries and ways of enhancing them.

The message was received by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi during a meeting with Ambassador of Panama to Qatar H E Mousa Asvat.

Amir receives written message from President of Panama

Amir’s directives to help Lebanon reflect depth of ties: Cabinet

FROM PAGE 1

The Cabinet expressed its sincere condolences to the fam-ilies of the victims of the explosion and to the government and people of Lebanon, wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

The Cabinet was briefed by H E the Minister of Public Health on the latest developments of efforts to curb coronavirus (COVID-19). The Cabinet affirmed the continuation of work with the precautionary measures taken to combat the pandemic.

Health Ministry conducts COVID-19

environmental testing pilotFROM PAGE 1

“It further shows an effective collaborative effort in support of national needs and the ability of innovative scientific approach to advance the management of the epidemic in Qatar,” said Dr. Khaled Machaca, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, Senior Associate Dean for Research, Innovations and Commercialization, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. The pilot study has been launched as part of the in itiative taken by the Scientific Reference and Research task Force established as part of the response to COVID-19 in Qatar to provide the available scientific evidence to policymakers for their decision making.

03THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020 HOME

Ashghal starts works on Post Office Plaza ProjectTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has started works on Post Office Plaza Project that includes open green areas, including over 200 trees and it extends over an area of 13,600 square meters, with dedicated areas for family leisure and sport areas.

The project also includes construction of 900 meters of jogging tracks, 1.5km of cycling paths, as well as a walkway designated for hiking, said Ashghal in a statement.

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has allocated land for construction of a new plaza in Doha Munic-ipality, to serve as enter-tainment area for the residents in the neighbourhoods and visitors.

The Supervisory Committee of Beautification of Roads and Public Places in Qatar at Ashghal has started implemen-tation of construction works at the plaza project. It is scheduled to be completed and opened for public in the fourth quarter of 2020.

On this occasion, Mohamed Ali Al Khouri, Director of Public Parks Department at the MME, said that the Department is implementing a comprehensive plan aiming to increase the green areas in Qatar and planting more trees.

He further clarified that various entities are coordi-nating with concerned author-ities to allocate lands for con-struction of parks and plaza in all municipalities in Qatar to meet leisure needs of the people residing in different areas of the State.

He also added that a land area of around 13,000 square meters is allocated for con-struction of a new green plaza in the West Bay area within Doha municipality.

Jassem Bin Najem Ali Al Khulaifi, a member of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) – First Constituency, indicated that Qatar attaches great importance to increasing green areas and establishing parks and plazas.

He added that this plaza will serve the people of the constituency, as it includes areas for walking and family seating areas, it will also encourage people to practice sports and have a healthy life-style, especially as it is located in a vital area near the Corniche.

Eng. Maryam Al Kuwari, Project Design Manager at the

Supervisory Committee of Beautification of Roads and Public Places in Qatar at Ashghal, said that the salient feature of the plaza’s design is inspired by Qatari postage stamps, which will create the first impression among the visitor as a spatial and func-tional extension of the Q-Post building because of its important place in the hearts of the people of Qatar over the past years.

“The project includes open green areas that include over 200 trees and extends over an area of 13,600 square meters, with dedicated areas for family leisure and sport areas. The project also includes con-struction of 900 meters of jogging tracks, 1.5km of cycling paths, as well as a walkway designated for hiking,” said Eng Maryam Al Kuwari.

Kahramaa launches pilot project to store electrical energy using batteriesQNA — DOHA

The Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) launched the first pilot project to store electrical energy using batteries in the State of Qatar, in cooperation with Al Attiyah Group and Tesla Incorporation.

The batteries were con-nected to a substation related to the local Nuaija station on a voltage of 11 kV, which is con-trolled by the control centre of the electrical distribution network.

This project, the first of its kind in the State of Qatar to store energy using batteries, aims to secure production capacity at peak times, in order to raise energy efficiency and enhance sustainability.

Energy storage units with a capacity of 1 MW / 4 MWh have been installed in the Nuaija station with the aim of storing energy outside peak times and using it at the maximum load of the station and it can also be used to improve the network voltage.

The implementation of the project took nearly a year, as Kahramaa succeeded in com-pleting the project ahead of schedule and operating the project to benefit from it during the summer period, which is one of the highest periods of energy consumption in Qatar compared to the rest of the year.

This project was imple-mented with high specifications, as Al Attiyah Group built and prepared the civil work and installed the equipment in the station in coordination with Kahramaa, while Tesla Inc. pro-vided the energy storage system (batteries), and the total cost of the project reached about

QR10m. Kahramaa is proud that its

young Qatari cadres have managed the project in all its stages, starting with designing and planning to implemen-tation and operation. The work team has succeeded in over-coming many challenges it faced during the implemen-tation, the most important of which is the operation and training of its cadres during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The use of energy storage systems in electricity grids (bat-teries) is one of the global systems to raise energy effi-ciency and enhance sustaina-bility, as the importance of the success of this pilot project lies in opening the horizons for engaging in larger projects in the future by connecting them to some high-load stations in the network, and integrating them with the strategic projects of Kahramaa related to renewable energy projects, such as Al Kharsaah Solar Power Project.

Education Excellence Award Development Committee reviews progress of its workQNA — DOHA

The CEO of the Education Excellence Award and Secretary-General of the Qatar National Committee for Education, Culture and Science at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Dr. Hamda Hassan Al Sulaiti has revealed that the Education Excellence Award Devel-opment Committee in its 14th session of 2021 is responsible for reviewing the award criteria for all its nine cate-gories

She said that the com-mittee is working on sub-mitting proposals to include new categories, as well as pre-paring all the award’s publi-cations, and submitting the final report of the committee’s work.

Dr. Al Sulaiti said that the Development Committee for this year’s award held nearly five meetings, during which the award categories were dis-tributed to the members of the committee to review the

standards and booklets for each category, and to discuss and study the feedback from the arbitration committees.

She added that the com-mittee has discussed all the comments and recommenda-tions received from the award’s arbitration com-mittees, and found that most of them are general recom-mendations related to imple-mentation and follow-up mechanisms.

Dr. Al Sulaiti said that the recommendations and feedback from the arbitration committees for the primary, preparatory and secondary stages, the recommendations and proposals for the teacher category, and the arbitration committee’s proposal for the scientific research category regarding the amendment in the participation and compe-tition’s requirements for this category were discussed, and the proposal submitted by the Executive Committee of the Award’s Ambassadors Pro-gramme was studied.

A Kahramaa official in front of the first pilot project to store electrical energy using batteries.

Speaker of Shura Council meets envoys of Austria, Kazakhstan

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, met separately yesterday with Ambassador of the Republic of Austria, H E Dr. Willy Kempel; and Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan, H E Askar Shokybayev, on the occasion of the end of their tenure in the State. H E the Speaker of the Shura Council wished the Ambassadors success in their future duties, and the parliamentary relations between the State of Qatar and each of the Republic of Austria and the Republic of Kazakhstan further development and growth.

Administrative Development Ministry launches new online servicesQNA—DOHA

The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs announced the launch of two new online services, as of Sunday, on its website.

The two new services are requesting a work permit (issuance of a work card) for those who are on the residency of their relatives, and changing the profession, which benefits residents who wish to issue a new work permit or renew, cancel and extract a replacement for a lost one. This step comes within the framework of the Ministry’s keenness to provide its services online to facilitate processing and following up the services remotely.

The importance of offering a work permit application

service (issuing a work card) is providing a digital alter-native that facilitates the application process electron-ically, especially if the person concerned is not brought by the employer and wants to contract with it for regular and main professions with the attachment of supporting doc-uments, especially for sub-professions in accordance with the terms and conditions.

The applicant for changing the profession (or changing the job title) in the resident’s ID card can also do so either from the party concerned or the authorised signatory with attaching the required documents.

T h e R e c r u i t m e n t Department provides other online services through the Ministry’s website and the Amrani application available

through smart devices. The introduction of two services is considered to be a continu-ation of the Ministry’s plan to provide various online services to individuals and companies to facilitate the use of various services, in the implementation of the Minis-try’s plan to provide digital alternatives to the public without the need to review government services com-plexes, including the service (digital certification of multi-lingual work contract) announced in June.

The Ministry has prepared an online directory that the concerned person or the employer can refer to via the website or through the minis-try’s social media platforms to learn about service require-ments, terms, conditions, and procedure steps.

GCO announces updated list of low-risk countries

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Government Communi-cation Office (GCO) has announced the updated list of low-risk countries which will come to effect from August 15, 2020

“As the State of Qatar con-tinues to implement its travel policies, the list of low-risk countries has been updated based on public health indi-cators in Qatar and around the world. Changes will come into effect on Saturday, August 15,” GCO tweeted yesterday.

The updated low-risk countries are Brunei , Thailand, China, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Cuba, Hungary, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Slovakia, Ireland, Germany, Slovenia, Japan, Denmark, Cyprus, UK, Canada, Turkey, Poland, Austria, Algeria, Netherlands, Iceland, France, Croatia, Switzerland, Morocco, Aus-tralia, Malta, Portugal, Czech Republic and Sweden.

For travellers to be con-sidered for the low-risk country exemption, they are required to stay in the low-risk country for a minimum of one week, said GCO in another tweet.

In the event that a trav-eller stays for less than a week in the low-risk country, they must follow the policies to arrivals coming from coun-tries outside the low-risk cat-egory, the GCO added.

For travellers to be considered for the low-risk country exemption, they are required to stay in the low-risk country for a minimum of one week, said GCO in a tweet.

04 THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020HOME

Al Hammadi meets envoy of Bangladesh

The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H E Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, met yesterday with Ambassador of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to the State of Qatar, H E Ashud Ahmed, on the occasion of the end of his tenure in the country. H E the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs extended thanks to H E the Ambassador of Bangladesh for his efforts in promoting bilateral relations, wishing him success in his future duties.

Fifty One East & Sony Middle East & Africa unveil 2020 line-up of new 4K and 8K TVs THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Fifty One East, Qatar’s favorite department store, and Sony Middle East & Africa have unveiled the latter’s 2020 line up of televisions to offer consumers in Qatar premium entertainment by delivering the most immersive viewing experience in the region.

The new Z8H 8K LED, X95H, X90H and X80H4K LED televisions are running

on the Android 9 Pie Smart TV platform and powered by Sony’s proprietary and game changing Picture Processor X1TM. The line-up includes Z8H in 75-inch and 85-inch, as well as a newly added 49-inch in 4K TVs to meet consumer demand for smaller, high quality viewing options.

The new TV lineup is now available at Modern Home on Salwa Road, Fnac in Lagoona Mall and Doha Festival City,

Virgin Megastore in Villaggio Mall, Landmark, Doha Festival City and Mall of Qatar and other major retailers around Doha.

With evolving technologies and premium large screens, Sony’s new TV line-up optimises consumer experience by delivering creative visuals and images in 4K and 8K resolutions. The next generation TVs are defined by delivering a personalised, immersive and true-to-life viewing experience, the ele-ments that Sony has kept at the core of this development process.

Shuichi Mugitani, Head of Marketing, Sony Middle East and Africa commented: “Delivering the ultimate viewing expe-rience to our customers in Qatar is our top priority. Our 2020 TV line-up is fitted with Sony’s innovative Voice Search in 23 languages including Arabic, high-lighting our commitment to the region by providing optimised solutions to meet our consumers needs. The range of LED Bravia TVs delivers stunning picture quality thanks to Sony’s new Picture Processor X1™ Ultimate, ‘Full Array local

dimming’ technology and X-Motion Clarity for faster motion.”

By utilising Sony’s best-in-class Picture Processor X1 Ultimate, clear and precise picture quality is achieved, offering customers a highly realistic viewing experience. Addi-tionally, with TRILUMINOS Display, Sony reproduces the subtle nuances of colour, light and gradation from video lens to living room, offering more shades of red, green and blue than ever before.

Ministries and govt agencies directed to simplify procedures

FROM PAGE 1

It also includes, regulation and control of markets, supply, international trade, general policy for industrialization and development of national indus-tries, and development and exploitation of industrial zones.

His Excellency also said that the Ministry seeks to develop a strategy for professional activ-ities in the country and to activate regional and international net-works in order to establish more competitive supply chains and supplies, in addition to con-cluding international and regional trade agreements, which can enhance Qatar’s position in the main markets.

It also seeks to develop a package of incentives and a leg-islative and regulatory framework that attracts foreign investors to invest in Qatar, in addition to

sponsoring and motivating local investors and directing them to the opportunities available in selected sectors, and coordinating brand building, marketing and promotion efforts at the level of key sectors.

The Ministry works to improve industrial services, support the competitiveness of the national product, develop industrial studies and strategies, develop a small and medium-sized industries area, develop industrial lands, improve the industrial business envi-ronment and encourage the com-petitiveness of Qatari exports, depending on infrastructure and logistical services.

The Ministry seeks to con-tinue to encourage an ideal ena-bling business environment, to encourage value-added chains, and to encourage entrepreneurs and SMEs. The Ministry also

seeks to increase the national focus on developing patents and converting them into competitive commercial goods, in addition to institutional development, awareness and media commu-nication and the development of the strategic plan for information systems and technology.

The Ministry works on con-sumer protection, market mon-itoring, strategic supply and stock, promoting competition and breaking monopoly.

The Cabinet also considered approval of the Cabinet’s draft decision to amend some provi-sions of Decision No 33 of 2017.

Approval of the Minister of Public Health’s draft decision to issue the executive regulations for Law No 3 of 2016. The Cabinet reviewed a draft Amiri decision to organize the Development Planning and Statistics Authority.

Ministry cautions passengers arriving in Qatar to follow home-quarantine rulesFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

The Ministry of Public Health has stressed that any passenger arriving to Qatar, will be required to adhere to quarantine requirements. It has advised passengers to follow all guidelines to ensure a safe and effective home quarantine period.

“When arriving to Qatar, you will be required to quar-antine at home for a period of time. It is extremely important that you follow the rules of home-quarantine. You have a

responsibility and duty to protect yourself, your family, your friends, and the com-munity as a whole,” the Min-istry said in a social media campaign.

According to the Ministry, passengers arriving from one of the countries identified by the government as low risk, will be required to quarantine at home for a period of one week. If passengers arriving from any other country, they will be required to quarantine at one of the government approved quarantine hotels for a period of one week,

followed by another week of home quarantine.

If the passenger is tested in one of the Ministry’s approved COVID-19 testing centers abroad and had a COVID-19 free certificate (48hrs), they will be exempted from testing at the airport and eligible for home quarantine for one week.

The Ministry has advised to avoid any form of physical contact with the family members, upon arrival.

“Stay at home in a separate room to other family members, preferably one with an

en-suite bathroom, and ensure proper and regular ventilation. You should not leave the room during the quarantine period. Do not allow visitors to your house during quarantine period,” cautioned the Ministry.

It is essential to download the Ehteraz contact tracing app and the health code colour during quarantine will be yellow it will be turned to green once the quarantine period is completed and your COVID-19 tests result is negative.

A quarantined person will

be obliged to answer the phone calls from the public health team, agree to receive a visit from the public health team every 2-3 days and inform the public health team if any symptoms developed (fever, cough, body aches, change in taste or smell).

People in home quarantine are also advised to ensure that they follow all precautions including maintaining hand hygiene and keep distance from others.

“Cover your mouth with a tissue while coughing or sneezing and dispose of the

tissue immediately in a lined trash bin. Wash your hands immediately after. Wash your hand regularly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or use alcohol based hand san-itizer,” said the Ministry.

Only one member of the family should be allowed to provide care to the person in home quarantine. The car-egiver should wear a facemask and gloves every time he or she enters the room and should dispose of the mask and gloves and wash their hands immediately after leaving the room.

Ministry of Education announces dates for second-round examsQNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education has announced dates for the second-round examinations for all grades from (first to twelfth — day and adult education) for the academic year 2019-2020. The exam-inations will start on August 23 and end on August 31, 2020.

The full schedule of exams can be accessed on the Ministry of Education and Higher Education website: https://www.edu.gov.qa/Doc-uments/ExamSchedules/E x a m S c h e d u l e s .pdfcsf=1&e=V1bfYB.

Qatar takes part in

Arab Permanent

Human Rights

Committee meeting

QNA — DOHA

The State of Qatar participated in the special meeting of the Arab Permanent Human Rights Committee of the General Secretariat of the Arab League, which was held via video conference.

Qatar was represented in the meeting by the Acting Director of Department of Human Rights at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dr. Turki bin Abdullah Al Mahmoud.

The meeting discussed the coronavirus pandemic and the efforts of Arab countries to promote and protect human rights in time of crisis and beyond.

292 new virus

cases: MoPHTHE PENINSULA—DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced the registration of 292 new COVID-19 cases in the country. The ministry said another 303 people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total recovered cases to 110,627.

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

05THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020 HOME

NU-Q’s Class of 2024 aspire for a better worldTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Northwestern University in Qatar’s class of 2024 represents nearly 40 countries and they have one thing in common – they want to use their voices to make the world a better place. The students have started their orientation in preparation for the start of classes on August 23.

Fardous Ali, an aspiring jour-nalist from Somaliland, said that a degree from Northwestern Qatar will help her realise her dream of raising awareness about her country by bringing the voices of her fellow citizens to the global stage.

From a young age, Ali felt that she had an important role to play in raising awareness about Soma-liland. “I was born and raised in a country that is not visible in the eyes of the world, and when it is the media doesn’t do them justice. I want to change that,” she said.

“The programmes, facilities, and opportunities I have seen at Northwestern Qatar will equip me

with the skills I need to change my country for the better,” she added.

Basir Talayee, a student from Afghanistan who describes himself as “a future storyteller and change-maker,” says that he decided to attend Northwestern Qatar because of its location in the heart of the Middle East, the diversity of its student body, and the richness of its media and communication programmes. “In addition to receiving an American education from one of the highest-ranked schools in the world, I get to know

more about the culture and anthropology in the Middle East. I love this combination,” he said.

Diversity was also an important factor for Ali, who said she feels most comfortable when surrounded by people from dif-ferent backgrounds who have an appreciation for each other’s values and differences, “and where I will be able to learn about theirs in return,” Talayee said.

The incoming students will be officially inducted to Northwestern Qatar during a virtual Convocation ceremony on August 23.

Students at the Northwestern Qatar Library.

Sidra announces specialised approach in treatment of endometriosisTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Experts at Sidra Medicine, a Qatar Foundation entity, offers a specialised approach in the treatment of endometriosis as part of its Women’s Services programme.

Endometriosis is estimated to affect 1 in 10 women during their reproductive years, which is approx-imately 176 million women around the world. Symptoms include chronic pelvic pain, fatigue, and infertility, and can impact general physical, mental and social wellbeing.

Experts advise early diagnosis and referral for symptoms that may suggest the presence of endome-triosis. Early detection and inter-vention correlates with improved outcomes and improvements in quality of life as well as future fertility.

Dr. Caitlin Huckell, Senior Attending Physician at Sidra Med-icine said, “Symptoms such as painful periods and pelvic pain can be the classic forms of endometriosis. However, other subtle presentations can cause a delay in initial diagnosis. Women in pain or bleeding with

bowel movements during menses or those who experience pain during intercourse, are recommended to see a gynaecologist for a potential diag-nosis of endometriosis.”

“At Sidra Medicine, we provide a multidisciplinary approach in the treatment of endometriosis, which has been developed to address the variable symptoms that can impact a woman’s quality of life. Differing treatment options allow for individ-ualised patient care programmes based on their speci f ic

circumstances and healthcare needs. For some women, medical man-agement is the best approach, while for others, surgical intervention would be the mainstay of treatment,” said Dr. Huckell.

Since opening its main hospital in January 2018, Sidra Medicine has proven itself as a pioneer in its field by using the latest technology and techniques to provide the highest levels of healthcare for women and children in Qatar.

It is one of the few hospitals in

the region to offer minimally invasive robotic surgery for both its paediatric and women’s services.

Dr. Aisha Yousuf, Medical Director of Reproductive Surgery at Sidra Medicine said, “Some women with endometriosis are given the recom-mendation to have a hysterectomy. We believe this is not the last surgical option. Today’s technology has sig-nificantly evolved. The option of using a minimally invasive surgical approach, including robotic surgery, to assess and treat endometriosis

improves patient recovery and reduces risk.”

“Using small key-hole incisions reduces postoperative pain and allows for early discharge from the hospital with rapid recovery for most women. In addition there are other non-surgical options and medications to manage endometriosis symptoms related to pelvic pain, infertility, or heavy uterine bleeding.”

One of the most common chronic pain areas diagnosed in women are in the pelvic region and one of the major reasons for pelvic pain is endometriosis. However, as not all pelvic pain is endometriosis, Sidra Medicine’s Adult Pain Clinic for women, allows for diagnosis and care of alternate etiologies including pelvic inflammatory disease, pelvic adhesions, adeno-myosis and pain syndromes such as myofascial pain syndrome or neuropathic pain.

The Adult Pain Clinic’s treatment programme includes options such as injection by guided X-rays, cognitive behavioural therapy, physiotherapy, ultrasound and advanced pain inter-ruption techniques.

Dr. Aisha Ahmad Yousuf, Medical Director of Reproductive Surgery at Sidra Medicine

Dr. Caitlin Huckell, Senior Attending Physician at Sidra Medicine

Qatar’s first Artbeat Digital NationalChild Art competition beginsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

With COVID-19 is taking a toll on population everywhere, children and youth have been affected in different ways. From missing schools and graduation to absence of gath-erings and sports activities, it has been an unprecedented scenario for them to deal with.

In order to give children and youth an opportunity to creatively express their thoughts and imagination, Little Art Pakistan in collabo-ration with IONEXT Qatar and International Artists Doha (IAD) is organising the first Artbeat Digital National Child Art Competition.

The two-month digital only competition focuses on partic-ipatory approach for children to take part in activities and share their views on COVID-19 through artmaking.

“We are inviting children and youth to express their ideas, fear and hopes through different creative expressions by participating in the compe-tition and submitting their

artworks online. The artworks will be preserved in Google Cultural Institute,” said Shoaib Iqbal, Founder of Little Art Pakistan.

Theme-based painting, drawing and/or digital art can be submitted online at qa.thelittleart.org

“The COVID1-9 pandemic has resulted in a paradigm shift in the favour of digital trans-formation. Artbeat Digital gives an opportunity for children to experience art, education and community digitally,” said Amjad Afridi, General Manager of IONEXT Qatar.

Supported by a large number of prominent local artists as jury members, the event brings with it an oppor-tunity for children and youth not only to showcase their art-works but also to hone their creative skills.

“International Artists Doha (IAD) is delighted to be part of Qatar’s first national child art competition ArtBeat as jury. In these difficult times of COVID- 19, it is so crucial to guide

Qatar’s children and youth towards creativity and to provide innovative competi-tions as an outlet to excite and engage them,” said IAD.

A prestigious jury com-prising renowned artists will evaluate the submission and decide on the winners and runner ups in different age groups and categories. The jury includes Suzana Joumaa, multidisciplinary artist and Founder and Director of ORB; Nourbanu Feras Hijazi, artist, designer, and educator; Shazia Bhanji, paper sculpture artist and Vice-Chairperson of IAD; Khalifa Al Marri, visual Artist; Hessa Kalla, visual Artist and member of the Waqif Centre for the Arts; Behnaz Larsen, visual artist, instructor at VCUarts Qatar and member of IAD; Dr. Shetha Faraj Abbo Al Numan, visual artist and member of IAD; Michael Perrone, Assistant Professor of Painting at VCUarts Qatar; and Muna Al-Bader, Qatari contemporary artist and entrepreneur.

QRCS provided medical services to 28,416 workers during Eid Al AdhaTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

During Eid Al Adha, Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has continued to undertake its medical mandate for the public, with a medical workforce of 639 physicians, nurses, technicians, first responders, and ambulance drivers.

Over the period from July 29 to August 8, 2020, the Workers’ Health Centres serviced as many as 28,416 patients in different specialisations.

Under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), QRCS operates four Workers’ Health Centres in Mesaimeer, Fereej Abdul Aziz, Al Hemailah, and Zekreet.

These health facilities provide services of general and specialised clinics, dental clinics, urgent cases, dressing and minor surgeries, X-ray and ultrasound,

medical lab and pharmacy.QRCS’s emergency medical

services operate a fleet of 46 fully equipped ambulance vehicles, run by highly trained paramedics and drivers. They transport injured to the different depart-ments of Hamad Medical Cor-poration (HMC) and provide medical coverage at sports and public events.

The most cases received by the health facilities during the reported period were fever and flu, totalling 3,252 patients as Al Hemailah received 1,878 patients, Mesaimeer 736 patients, Fereej Abdul Aziz 616 patients, and Zekreet 22 patients.

Other cases totalled 17,684, of which 6,916 were received at Al Hemailah Health Centre, 5,146 at Mesaimeer Health Centre, 5,223 at Fereej Abdul-Aziz Health Centre, and 399 at Zekreet Health Centre.

A patient getting treatment at Mesaimeer Health Center.

Experts advise early diagnosis and referral for symptoms that may suggest the presence of endometriosis. Early detection and intervention correlates with improved outcomes and improvements in quality of life as well as future fertility.

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) have helped to shine a light on traits that are associated with various degrees of consan-guineous marriage.

With funding from the Bio-medical Research Programme at WCM-Q, Dr. Steven C Hunt, professor of genetic medicine, and Dr. Noha A Yousri, adjunct assistant professor of research in genetic medicine, partici-pated in a large meta-analysis with hundreds of scientists from across the globe, studying genetic variations in more than 1.4 million individuals.

Dr. Yousri said: “Very large numbers of samples are required to study the impact of marriage between men and women from the same extended families. This study conducted a meta-analysis of results from 119 independent cohorts to quantify the effect of consan-guineous marriages on 45 com-monly measured complex traits of biomedical or evolutionary importance, and an additional 55 more rarely measured traits included in the UK Biobank. the complex traits were arranged into 16 groups covering major organ systems and disease risk factors were analysed.”

Genetic associations with 32 of 100 studied traits and condi-tions in humans were identified by using runs of homozygosity (ROH). ROH refers to long con-tinuous segments of identical alleles (homozygosity) along both inherited chromosomes.

Scientists at WCM-Q examine implications of consanguineous marriage

06 THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020GULF / MIDDLE EAST

Rouhani hopeful US arms embargo push will failAFP — TEHRAN

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani expressed “great hopes” yesterday that a US bid to extend an arms embargo on his country will fail, warning of consequences if the UN Security Council backs it.

Rouhani’s remarks came after Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said the US would have to redraft its pro-posed resolution on the issue after being “rebuffed” by Security Council members.

The ban on selling weapons to Iran is set to be progressively eased from October under the terms of Resolution 2231, which blessed the Iran nuclear deal that world powers agreed in July 2015.

But a UN embargo on mate-rials and technology that Iran could use for its ballistic missile programme is to remain in place until 2023.

The European Union has said it will continue to enforce its own embargo against Iran after the lifting of the first UN embargo.

Under the accord officially known as the Joint Compre-hensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran committed to limiting its

nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

The JCPOA has been on life-support since the US withdrew from it and reimposed uni-lateral sanctions in 2018.

Iran has since taken small but escalatory steps away from compliance with the agreement as it presses for the sanctions relief it was promised.

“We have great hopes that America will fail,” Rouhani told a televised meeting of his Cabinet yesterday.

“We have great hopes that America will realise its failure and see its isolation,” the Iranian president said.

“But our stance in any case is clear. If such a resolution comes to pass... it means a blatant violation of the JCPOA,”

he added, warning the “conse-quences will rest with the per-petrators of this act”.

Iran’s envoy to the UN, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said yes-terday that the US “was forced to retreat” from its draft reso-lution after being “rebuffed by UNSC members” and had to propose a fresh version.

“The new draft is similar —in its NATURE and GOAL — to the previous. Confident that the Council will — again — reject this move,” he tweeted.

F o r e i g n M i n i s t e r Mohammad Javad Zarif also accused the US of “using a Security Council mechanism to destroy” the UN.

Zarif said the new draft was a “five-page resolution reduced to five sentences”, and added that by presenting it as new, the US was disrespecting Security Council members.

The UN and US have yet to confirm this, however.

The original US text, seen by AFP, effectively called for an indefinite extension of the embargo on Iran and used hawkish rhetoric.

European allies of the United States — Britain, Germany and France, who along with Russia and China,

are parties to the JCPOA —have voiced support for extending the conventional arms embargo but their priority is to preserve the nuclear deal.

Washington has threatened to use a contested argument

that it remains a “participant” in the JCPOA — despite its with-drawal — and if UN sanctions are not extended, it can force their return if it sees Iran as being in violation of the accord’s terms.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani making statements on current events after a Cabinet meeting in Tehran, yesterday.

Over 170 people dead in Yemen floodsAFP — SANA'A Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 172 people across Yemen over the past month, damaging homes and Unesco-listed world heritage sites, officials said.

The destruction has dealt a new blow to a country already in grips of what the UN describes as the world’s worst humani-tarian crisis after years of war between a Saudi-backed gov-ernment and Iran-allied rebels.

In the mainly government-held province of Maarib east of

the capital, 19 children were among 30 people killed by the floods, a government official said.

In the province’s displaced persons camps, 1,340 families saw their tents and belongings swept away, the agency in charge of them said.

In Lahij province in the gov-ernment-held south, seven people were drowned when their vehicle was swept down-stream, a government official said.

Another four people were killed on the road connecting

the southern provinces of Hadramawt and Shabwa, the official added.

In the rebel-held north, the floods killed 131 people and injured 124 between mid-July and August 7, the rebel health ministry said.

They destroyed 106 homes and buildings and heavily damaged another 156, the rebel ministry added.

Unesco expressed sadness at the flood damage to historic buildings in the cities of Sanaa, Zabid and Shibam that are on its world heritage list.

Labourers arrive to remove the rubble ahead of the restoration works on the site of a collapsed Unesco-listed building following heavy rains, in the old city of Sana'a, yesterday.

Israel strikes Hamas positions in Gaza over fire balloonsAFP — JERUSALEM

The Israeli military said yesterday that it carried out overnight strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip after incendiary balloons were launched across the border from the Palestinian enclave.

The army said the strikes were “retaliation” for the launching of multiple balloons from the Hamas-run enclave in

the recent days.Jets, attack helicopters and

tanks struck a number of Hamas targets including “underground infrastructure and observation posts,” a statement said.

Fire services in southern Israel said the balloons caused 60 fires on Tuesday alone but reported no casualties.

Explosives tied to balloons and kites first emerged as a weapon in Gaza during intense

protests in 2018, when the makeshift devices drifted across the border daily, causing thou-sands of fires in Israeli farms and communities.

Israel has closed its Kerem Shalom goods crossing with the Gaza Strip in response to the recent balloon launches.

Hamas denounced the closure as an “aggressive” move that showed Israel’s “insistence on laying siege” to Gaza, and

warned it could cause further worsening of the humanitarian situation in the territory.

As the Kerem Shalom crossing closed, the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened Tuesday for the first time since April.

Traffic in both directions was to be permitted for three days, allowing Gazans to leave the enclave for the first time since the start of pandemic.

The Rafah crossing provides Gaza’s sole access to the outside world not controlled by Israel.

The Palestinian territory has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.

Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.

Despite a truce last year, backed by the UN, the two sides clash sporadically with rockets, mortar fire or incendiary balloons.

Iran’s envoy to the UN, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said that the US “was forced to retreat” from its draft resolution after being “rebuffed by UNSC members” and had to propose a fresh version.

COVID-19 deaths rise to almost 19,000 in IranANATOLIA — ANKARA

As many as 188 new corona-virus-related fatalities have raised the death toll in Iran to 18,988, the Health Ministry said yesterday.

A total of 2,510 people tested positive for COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, pushing the tally to 333,699, according to ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari.

She said more than 290,244 patients have recovered so far, while 3,940 are hospitalised in critical condition.

Since appearing in China last December, the virus has spread to at least 188 countries and regions, according to figures compiled by the US-based Johns Hopkins Univer-sity’s Coronavirus Resource Center.

42 historical

artefacts seized

in Istanbul raidANATOLIA — ISTANBUL

At least 42 historical artefacts were seized and a suspect arrested in an operation in Istanbul, a security source said.

Anti-smuggling teams raided a warehouse in the Arnavutkoy district of the metropolis on Tuesday, the source said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

They had been tipped off that a criminal group was attempting to smuggle his-torical artefacts overseas, the source said.

They include 39 amphoras used in the ancient Greek cities for storing olive oil, a T-shaped cast iron anchor, and two wooden anchors. The arte-facts, which had been found from wreckages of sunken ships, will be handed over to the Istanbul Archeology Museum.

Syrian Presidentstops speech due to low blood pressureREUTERS — AMMAN

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad suffered low blood pressure for a few minutes while delivering a speech to parliament before resuming normally, state television said yesterday.

The channel gave no further details.

“This was a result of a small drop in blood pressure that Mr President suffered before he resumed his speech normally,” state televisions said.

State media had earlier in the day flashed that the pres-ident’s speech was due to be delivered to deputies after a parliamentary election last month that the opposition and independent observers denounced as a farce in a country under one party Baath rule.

State media makes few references to the health of the 55-year-old authoritarian ruler of a country that is mired in an economic collapse and has gone through a nearly decade of war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and made millions refugees.

Jordan to close border with Syria after spike in COVID-19 casesREUTERS — AMMAN

Jordan will close its land trade border crossing with Syria for a week after a rise in corona-virus (COVID-19) cases coming from its northern neighbour, officials said yesterday.

The interior minister’s decision to close the Jaber crossing, a main gateway of goods from Lebanon and Syria to the Gulf, will come into effect

on Thursday morning (today).The move, which also puts

officials working at the crossing under quarantine, comes after 12 cases were reported yes-terday in addition to 13 on Tuesday in the first such surge for several weeks.

Jordan’s other land crossings, with Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian terri-tories, are only open for com-mercial goods since the

lockdown in March to stem the pandemic.

Prime Minister Omar Al Razzaz said yesterday that the rise was a “source of concern” and officials have said most cases came from truck drivers arriving from Syria, where NGOs say a significant rise in cases has been recorded by humanitarian workers.

The government said this week it will make wearing a face

mask compulsory as of Saturday after widespread floating of rules, and it will impose hefty fines on violators.

With the new surge, closing hours for shops and movement were again restricted to 11pm under a curfew that was curtailed with the country’s return to nor-mality in the last two months

Jordan has withstood the COVID-19 pandemic better than most of its neighhours, taking

early steps to restrict the mobility of its 10 million people, sealing its borders, and imposing a state of emergency and a night curfew.

The government in June lifted remaining restrictions on most activities, including reo-pening hotels and cafes. Schools remain closed however, and weddings and conferences not permitted.

Earlier this month the

kingdom also postponed a resumption of international flight services with fears an influx of passengers would bring with it many cases.

Fears of a surge are delaying reopening the crossing with Saudi Arabia to allow tens of thousands of Jordanians res-ident in the Gulf who have lost jobs to return home by car.

Jordan has recorded 1,308 cases with eleven deaths.

Iraq fumes against Turkey over deadly drone strikeAFP — BAGHDAD

Iraq cancelled a ministerial visit and summoned Turkey’s ambassador as it blamed Ankara for a drone strike that killed two high-ranking Iraqi officers on Tuesday.

Iraqi officials labelled the strike a “blatant Turkish drone attack” in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, where Ankara has for weeks been raiding militant positions.

Two border guard battalion commanders and the driver of their vehicle were killed, the army said in a statement, marking the first Iraqi troop deaths since Turkey launched the cross-border operation in mid-June against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels.

Iraq’s foreign ministry — which had already summoned the Turkish envoy twice over the military action on its soil — said the ambassador would this time be given “a letter of protest with strong words” rejecting such aggression.

The ministry also con-firmed the Turkish defence minister would no longer be welcomed today.

Ihsan Chalabi, the mayor of nearby Sidakan in the north of Arbil province, said that the drone strike in the Pradost region targeted “Iraqi border guard commanders while they were in meetings with PKK fighters”.

Witnesses had reported

clashes earlier in the day between PKK and Iraqi forces, and local sources said the drone strike targeted an emer-gency meeting called to try to calm the tension.

The Iraqi presidency earlier denounced “a dangerous vio-lation of Iraqi sovereignty” and called on Ankara to “stop all its military operations” in the region.

At least five civilians have been killed since the start of the Turkish campaign.

Ankara has announced the death of two of its soldiers, and the PKK and its allies have reported the deaths of 10 fighters and supporters.

The PKK, which is black-listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

It has long used the rugged terrain of northern Iraq as a rear base to wage attacks on Turkey, which in turn had set up military positions inside Iraqi territory to fight them.

The Kurdish authorities, dominated by the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), see the PKK as rivals but have never been able to uproot them from their northern Iraqi bases.

Iraq sees Turkey’s military presence in the Kurdish region as a violation of its sovereignty, but does not want to alienate Turkey, a major trading partner and regional heavyweight.

07THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Mozambique ordered Beirut cargo, but not to blame for blast: GovtAFP — MAPUTO

A week after the catastrophic blast at Beirut’s port, the government of Mozambique, where the ammonium nitrate that exploded was destined, has said it bears no responsibility for the disaster.

At least 171 people died and more than 5,000 were injured when some 2,750 tonnes of the compound blew up after lan-guishing for years in a Beirut port warehouse.

A privately owned Mozam-bican company, Fabrica de Explosivos de Mocambique (FEM), said it had ordered the ammonium nitrate from Georgia in 2013, but never took delivery.

“The issue is not to be fixated on the ammonium nitrate as such but on the storage process and to under-stand why it would have stayed so long in that port,” Mozam-bique goverment spokesman Filimao Suaze told journalists following a weekly Cabinet meeting late Tuesday.

“We would like to reassure you that the way the Mozam-bican port officials and com-panies linked to explosive

areas... have been working is in line with the regulations.”

Athough only FEM is believed to have ordered the substance, Suaze referred to “national com-panies” that have said they had intended to procure the chemical — also in 2013.

“And it is not up to these

companies to explain why the ship was detained in Beirut and why the explosion would have happened,” Suaze said, in the southern African country’s first comment on the disaster.

Ammonium nitrate has a dual use as fertiliser or in explo-sives, where in Mozambique it

is used by the mining industry.A source at FEM said the

company ordered the ammonium nitrate from a Georgia-based company called Savaro in 2013 for delivery to the Mozambican port of Beira.

“However, the order was never delivered,” said the source who asked not be named and gave no reasons for the

non-delivery.He said FEM had no rela-

tionship with shippers or freight forwarders who may have been involved.

After the cargo was detained in Beirut, the source said Savaro “ended up sending a new cargo of ammonium nitrate, via another vessel,” to FEM.

T h e M a p u t o - b a s e d

company, founded in 1955, manufactures explosives for commercial purposes , according to its website.

Ports along Mozambique’s 2,470km coastline regularly handle ammonium nitrate, much of it destined for other countries in the region such as Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

They have handled at least four million tonnes of the chemical over the past five years, according to the gov-ernment, with “no record of accidents,” Suaze noted.

“Everything will be done so that we do not have situations like that in Beirut,” he said.

France issues travel warning for Niger after attack

“The issue is not to be fixated on the ammonium nitrate as such but on the storage process and to understand why it would have stayed so long in that port,” Mozambique goverment spokesman said.

AFP — PARIS

The French foreign ministry yesterday issued a firm warning against travelling to Niger after six French nationals were among eight people killed by suspected militants at the weekend.

The ministry website said people were “strongly advised” not to travel anywhere in the country, the exception being the capital Niamey, for which travel was “not advised unless for compelling reasons.”

The new advice means that the southern part of Niger, roughly a quarter of the country, has been added to the so-called red zone, for which there is a strong recommen-dation to avoid.

“The terrorist threat against Niger, especially outside the capital and near the borders, is very high,” the ministry said.

The impoverished country

lies in the heart of the Sahel, which has become badly desta-bilised by an insurgency that began in northeastern Nigeria in 2010 and in Mali in 2012.

Six French aid workers, their Nigerien guide and a driver were murdered on Sunday in the Koure National Park, a wildlife haven60km from the capital Niamey.

The killings were the first by militants in that area, a des-tination for weekend leisure trips by Niamey residents, including foreigners.

Previously, Niamey and the town of Koure were marked as yellow under France’s colour-coded security advice — a cat-egory that calls for additional vigilance but says the risk is “compatible with tourism.”

Niamey is now classified as orange (travel “not advised unless for compelling reasons”) while Koure, like the rest of the country, is in the red zone.

Volunteers distribute aid supplies to those affected by the explosion in Beirut’s port area, yesterday.

German diplomat: Lebanon needs ‘reboot’ to regain trustAP — BEIRUT

Lebanon needs a “strong reboot” and far-reaching economic reforms to rebuild trust with its citizens, Germany’s foreign minister said yesterday ahead of his trip to Beirut, following last week’s massive explosion at the city’s port that killed at least 171 people and wounded thousands.

Heiko Maas said he was traveling to the Lebanese capital to “find out about the situation and consequences of the explosion and express our condolences and support.”

Germany has pledged about $23m in immediate help

after the catastrophic August 4 explosion that tore through the Lebanese capital with such intensity that it created a tremor felt in neighbouring Cyprus.

Maas said he would hold talks in Beirut to see how the money can quickly get to the people who need it. He said he would also talk to the nation’s political leaders and repre-sentatives of civil society about the future of Lebanon.

“The country now needs a strong reboot and far-reaching economic reforms. It’s the only way Lebanon can create a good future for its youth. It’s the only way to build the needed trust,” he said.

More tribal clashes in Sudanese port city; toll at 25AP — CAIRO

Tribal clashes that have gripped a Sudanese port city over the past three days have killed at least 25 people and wounded scores, a doctors’ association said yesterday.

The fighting in Port Sudan in the eastern province of Red Sea erupted earlier this week between the Beni Amer tribe and the displaced Nuba tribe. It wasn’t the first time the two tribes clashed in Port Sudan or elsewhere in the county.

The clashes prompted local authorities on Tuesday to impose a round-the-clock curfew across the city. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said yesterday that troops have been deployed to Port Sudan to help contain the fighting.

He urged political parties in eastern Sudan to cooperate with local authorities to “protect security and social peace.”

The Sudan Doctors’ Com-mittee said the clashes con-tinued until late Tuesday. The death toll climbed to 25, after

13 people were initially reported killed on Tuesday, it said. At least 87 others were wounded.

The committee is part of the Sudanese Professionals’ Asso-ciation that spearheaded nationwide protests against longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir. The military ousted al-Bashir amid the protests in April last year.

Local media reported that several houses and shops were set on fire amid the violence in Port Sudan.

The tensions between the

two tribes date back to May 2019 in the eastern city of Qadarif, mainly over water and other resources. The clashes flared up in August last year in Port Sudan, when at least three dozen people from both sides were killed. They also clashed in January in the port city, when nine people were killed.

The tribal violence poses a significant challenge to efforts of Sudan’s transitional author-ities to stabilise the country amid a fragile transition to democracy.

Elephant numbers in Kenya ‘doubled in 1980-2018’REUTERS — AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK, KENYA

Numbers of elephant in Kenya is more than doubled between 1989 and 2018, thanks to increased anti-poaching efforts, the tourism minister said yesterday.

Kenya had just 16,000 ele-phants in 1989, and this rose to more than 34,000 in 2018, Min-ister Najib Balala said.

“In the last couple of years, we have managed to tame poaching in this country,” he told reporters during a visit to the Amboseli National Park.

The number of elephants poached so far this year stood at seven, down from 34 in all of 2019, and 80 in 2018.

While at the park, Balala participated in attaching a tracking collar to a bull ele-phant and naming of a pair of twin calves, as part of a naming campaign for elephants to be done next August.

Poaching had surged in past years in Kenya and other sub-Saharan African countries, where gangs killed elephants and rhinos to feed Asian demand for ivory and horns for use in folk medicines.

In 2016, President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire to thousands of elephant tusks and rhino horns, destroying a stockpile that would have been worth a fortune to smugglers and sending a message that trade in the animal parts must be stopped.

The government has put in place stiffer penalties — longer jail terms and bigger fines — on anyone convicted of poaching or trafficking in wildlife trophies, saying poaching was harming tourism, a major foreign exchange earner.

Elephants graze near one of the seasonal lakes on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park near Oloitiktok in Kajiado, yesterday.

Yemen President to visit US for medical check-ups

ANATOLIA — SANA’A

Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi will travel to the United States to undergo medical check-ups in Cleveland, a senior government official said.

“Hadi is in good health,” the source said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

He said the Yemeni leader, who had undergone a heart surgery in May, was scheduled to visit the US a few months ago, but the trip was post-poned due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Hadi had made several trips to the US for medical examinations due to his heart condition.

Algeria to vote on constitutional reformsANATOLIA — ALGIERS

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune yesterday called for preparing to hold a popular referendum on constitutional amendments.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting in the capital Algiers, Tebboune said: “I call on you from now to prepare for the constitutional referendum stage, in order to provide the

best conditions for the citizens to say their word on the future of their homeland”.

The Algerian president accused members of the former regime of launching a counter-revolution by using cash to trigger protests. He, however, did not give names.

“The door for repentance is still open for those who have wronged in order to serve their country in the future,” he said.

Tebboune said public opinion surveys showed that 80 percent of the Algerians are sat-isfied with the current security situation and stability in the country.

In January, Tebboune assigned a 17-member com-mittee of experts, led by inter-national constitutional expert Ahmed Laaraba, to prepare a draft of a new constitution, within 3 months.

Nigeria’s FM recovers from COVID-19ANATOLIA – ANKARA

Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama has recovered after testing positive for COVID-19, he said yesterday.

Onyeama took to Twitter to announce that his latest COVID-19 test result came back negative after three weeks of isolation ‘’by the very special grace of God”.

‘’I am eternally grateful to my family, the C-in-C and VP,

the medical team, relations, friends, colleagues, religious leaders and numerous well-wishers, who through their care, prayers, fasting, messages of support and encouragement never let me walk alone,’’ he added.

Onyeama tested positive for COVID-19 in July.

Nigeria has confirmed 423 more cases of the novel coro-navirus, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 47,290.

Killing of woman in Cameroon by alleged separatists sparks outcryREUTERS — DOUALA

Human rights activists yesterday condemned the killing of a young woman in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions after a video of alleged separatist rebels slitting her throat drew outrage on social media.

The conflict between sepa-ratists demanding independence from the mostly Francophone state and government forces has killed more than 3,000 people since 2017, with both sides reg-ularly accused of committing atrocities.

In the video, a young

woman is seen with her hand behind her back being accosted by several young men, who then slit her throat with a machete and dump her body in the middle of the road.

The Cameroon-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA)

said in a report that the victim was a 35-year-old mother of four. It said she was killed on Tuesday in the town of Muyuka by separatist fighters who accused her of spying for the government after she spent the weekend with a soldier.

CHRDA director Felix Agbor

Nkongho said the incident spoke to a deteriorating security situation in the Southwest and Northwest Regions.

“There is an escalation of crimes against civilians, espe-cially women,” he said.

Ilaria Allegrozzi, a senior researcher for Human Rights

Watch, said she was investi-gating the incident and called on separatist leaders and their sup-porters to “stop these atrocities and attacks against civilians”.

The leader of the main armed separatist faction, Julius Ayuk Tabe, could not be imme-diately reached for comment.

The first nation to develop a way to defeat the novel coronavirus will achieve a kind of moonshot victory and the global status that goes along with it.

08 THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

UNDER a number of initiatives particularly through Qatar Digital Government programme, Qatar government has introduced a set of innovative reforms in governance making the process of delivering services to the people more easy and smooth.

The world-class infrastructure and availability of digital services placed Qatar in a position to maintain business continuity during crisis situations as well.

Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, in the Cabinet meeting held yesterday, also directed all ministries and other government agencies to simplify procedures and remove bureaucratic obstacles so that distinguished services are provided to the public.

H E the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior also directed ministries and other government agencies for working to speed up the completion of the conversion of all services provided to the public into electronic services to be part of the e-government services platform.

His Excellency also directed the necessity of strengthening coordination between ministries and gov-ernment agencies that participate in implementing pro-grams and projects emanating from the strategic plans.

Qatar in recent years has achieved many successes in implementing e-governance projects and it was due to these electronic services that remote working system worked smoothly during COVID-19 restrictions phase.

Crisis Management and Business Continuity Plan in the State of Qatar supports remote work system thanks to government shared services and infrastructure readiness to providing electronic services to individuals and businesses, said a recent tweet of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The government shared services which ensure smooth sailing of remote working and continuity in business include Government Network, Government e-Correspondence System, Government Data Exchange, Government Data Center, Government Contact Center ‘109’, and SMS Gateway among others.

There is availability of over 1,000 digital services and 40 smartphone apps by government entities as well as regular update of all services via Hukoomi.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Administrative Devel-opment, Labor and Social Affairs has announced the launch of two new online services, as of Sunday, on its website.

The two new services are requesting a work permit (issuance of a work card) for those who are on the res-idency of their relatives, and changing the profession, which benefits residents who wish to issue a new work permit or renew, cancel and extract a replacement for a lost one.

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Quote of the day

We are concerned about the return of COVID-19 in Lebanon. We have launched an appeal for $76m, and ask the international community to support the Lebanese people and show solidarity with them in every way possible.

Rana Hajjeh, WHO Regional Programme Director

A view of the pharmaceutical factory Binnofarm in the town of Zelenograd outside Moscow yesterday, where Russia is starting to produce the anti-coronavirus vaccine.

No, Russia is not having a Sputnik moment.

The announcement on Tuesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country was the first to approve a coronavirus vaccine did not provoke the awe and wonder of the Soviet Union’s launch of the first sat-ellite into orbit in 1957. Instead it was met by doubts about the science and safety.

But it also underscored how, like the space race, the compe-tition to have the first vaccine is about international rivalries as well as science. The first nation to develop a way to defeat the novel coronavirus will achieve a kind of moonshot victory and the global status that goes along with it.

That’s valuable to Putin, whose popularity at home has declined amid a stagnant economy and the ravages of the virus outbreak.

“To be the first one out of

the block with a coronavirus vaccine would be a real - pardon the pun - shot in the arm for the Kremlin,” said Timothy Frye, a political science professor at Columbia University who specializes in post-Soviet politics.

Certainly, Russia is not alone in viewing a vaccine in this light. China, where the virus first emerged, has also raced to make progress on a vaccine. A state-owned Chinese company is boasting that its employees, including top executives, received experimental shots even before the government approved testing in people.

And President Donald Trump, whose handling of the coronavirus pandemic has put his political fate in grave jeopardy, is hoping to get credit for his administration’s aggressive push for a vaccine, ideally one that arrives before Election Day in November.

It’s far from clear at this point whether Putin has beaten Trump to this medical mile-stone. Putin said the Health Ministry gave its approval after the vaccine underwent the necessary tests and said one of his two adult daughters had been inoculated. “We should be grateful to those who have taken this first step, which is very important for our country and the whole world,” he said.

No proof was offered and scientists in Russia warned that more testing would be necessary to prove it is safe and effective. Nonetheless, officials said vaccination of doctors could start as early as

this month and mass vacci-nation may begin as early as October.

Scientists around the world have been cautioning that even if vaccine candidates are proven to work, it will take even more time to tell how long the protection will last.

“It’s a too early stage to truly assess whether it’s going to be effective, whether it’s going to work or not,” Dr. Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton.

It was also too soon to dismiss the Russian claim out of hand. The country, though economically dependent on the export of natural resources, does have a history of achievement in science, med-icine and aerospace - including becoming the first to put a person into space, in 1961.

“It is possible that they concentrated and could do this,” said Daniel Fried, a retired senior US diplomat. “I’m not scoffing at it, but it doesn’t mean that the Russian economy is advanced.”

A vaccine would be the kind of significant achievement that would elevate Putin at home and in the international community.

“They would love to be able to claim credit because the first country to develop the vaccine will gain enormous prestige,” said Fried, a former assistant sec-retary of state for European and Eurasian affairs who is now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

It’s also possible Russia

had help. The US, Britain and Canada l ast month accused hackers working for Russian intelligence of trying to steal information about a corona-virus vaccine from academic and pharmaceutical research institutions.

In any case, the public is eager for a vaccine as global deaths from the virus surpass 730,000. Some say they would even welcome one from Russia, provided it passes muster with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

“I can’t take it anymore. I’m getting crazy,” said Fernanda Henderson, as she strapped her infant into a car seat at a park in the Maryland suburbs of Washington for a break from quarantining at home. “I don’t think the CDC or the FDA would approve something that is not going to work.”

But to Vesna Jezic, a 79-year-old native of Croatia and immunologist who was taking her grandchildren to the same park, the suspi-ciously fast progress on the vaccine announced by Putin was reason to be doubtful. “You can imagine we don’t trust anything that comes from Russia,” she said.

The Russian president may face similar doubts at home. Frye noted a 2018 Gallup Poll that showed the former Soviet countries have some of the highest rates of anti-vacci-nation sentiment in the world.

“If it turns out not to work, it would be a real black eye,” he said.

BLOOMBERG

The global economic crisis has caused historic job losses in the developed world. For workers in poor countries, the consequences are even more dire. In places where the virus is surging, swaths of the economy remain closed and millions have seen their liveli-hoods vanish. The World Bank estimates the pandemic will push 71 million into extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day; other forecasts predict the number will be even higher.

Governments are strug-gling to respond. The world’s lowest-income countries have spent, on average, just $1 per capita on direct social assistance to their citizens, compared with $121 in the richest countries. To avert further calamity, govern-ments in the developing

world must do more to assist the worst-off, and rich coun-tries should be prepared to help. They can best do so by harnessing technology to put money directly in the hands of the poor.

Research suggests that making direct payments to poor households can con-tribute to higher savings and better health and education outcomes than other forms of social assistance. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1 billion people have received direct government money transfers of some kind, including some 140 million informal workers.

In many cases, aid has been delivered through digital payment systems, such as mobile “wallets” that allow people to access money through their phones. When properly designed and imple-mented, electronic payments

are faster, less costly and more secure than traditional cash handouts. By reducing the need for in-person trans-actions, they also help to contain the spread of the virus.

Responding to the pan-demic, creative governments have used digital payments to reach workers outside the formal economy, many of whom face financial ruin. Togo distributed emergency funds over mobile devices to 500,000 people in two weeks. Since April, the Colombian government has used mobile wallets to provide monthly small pay-ments to 1 million households without bank accounts. At the start of the crisis, Namibia, a country of 2.5 million, created a mobile-payment system for workers without formal jobs. Out of 739,000 eligible workers, more than 579,000

signed up within a week to receive government vouchers through their phones.

To improve the prospects of the world’s poor, initiatives like these should be scaled up. Developing countries should expand mobile-phone cov-erage to underserved areas and promote universal phone ownership, particularly among women. They should invest in building compre-hensive national ID registries, as India has done, to better target payments to indi-viduals and reduce the potential for fraud and abuse. Regulatory obstacles should be eased to encourage private-sector innovation. Expanding financial literacy programs and providing incentives for merchants to accept mobile payments would build confidence in digital services and encourage wider use.

Science and politics tied up in global race for a vaccine

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09THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

New Zealand considers freight as source of virus clusterREUTERS — WELLINGTON

New Zealand officials are inves-tigating the possibility that its first COVID-19 cases in more than three months were imported by freight, as the country’s biggest city plunged back into lockdown yesterday.

The discovery of four infected family members in Auckland led Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to swiftly reimpose tight restrictions in the city and social distancing measures across the entire country.

The source of the outbreak has baffled health officials, who said they were confident there was no local transmission of the virus in New Zealand for 102 days.

“We are working hard to put together pieces of the puzzle on how this family got infected,” said Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.

Investigations were zeroing in on the potential the virus was

imported by freight. Bloomfield said surface testing was underway at an Auckland cool store where a man from the infected family worked.

“We know the virus can survive within refrigerated environments for quite some time,” Bloomfield said during a televised media conference.

The New Zealand unit of Atlanta, US-based, Americold Realty Trust, a refrigerated storage specialist with operations in the United States, Canada, Argentina and Australia as well as New Zealand, identified itself

as the owner of the cool store.Americold NZ Managing

Director Richard Winnall told the NZ Herald newspaper the infected man had been on sick leave for several days and all employees had been sent home for tests.

China has reported several instances of the coronavirus being detected on the packaging of imported frozen seafood in recent weeks.

The World Health Organi-zation website states there is cur-rently no confirmed case of COVID-19 transmitted through food or food packaging. However,

it also notes that studies have shown that the virus can survive for up to 72 hours on plastic.

Residents of Auckland, home to around 1.7 million people, were given just hours to prepare for the return to level 3 restrictions yesterday, requiring people to stay at home unless for essential trips.

“Going hard, going early with lockdown is still the best response,” Ardern said. “Our response to the virus so far has worked... we know how to beat this.” The rest of the country was placed back into slightly looser level 2 restrictions. The restrictions will initially remain in place until Friday.

Police set up roadblocks to discourage a mass exodus from Auckland, while supermarkets rationed the sale of some staple products amid a rush to the shelves. Long queues formed at COVID-19 testing centres in the city.

Ardern said her cabinet will decide on Friday on the next steps with regards to restrictions.

Two members of the infected family had visited tourist sites in the town of Rotorua, about three hours drive south of Auckland, while symptomatic, and a third had gone to work at a finance company in Auckland, also while symptomatic.

Bloomfield said four people who had contact with the family were considered likely cases. More than 200 people have been identified as contacts of the family and health officials were prepared to test tens of thousands of people in the coming days, he added.

Ardern also delayed a key step toward a September 19 general election, suspending the dissolution of parliament, which usually kicks off campaigning, until Monday.

A decision on whether the

actual poll would be delayed would be announced before Monday, Ardern said, as the country’s major opposition party cancelled its weekend campaign launch and called for the election to be pushed back to November.

I n a s c h e d u l e d announcement that coincided with the return to lockdown, the central bank surprised markets by expanding its bond buying programme and held out the prospect of negative interest rates in a bid to revive the virus-battered economy.

“Given the ongoing health uncertainty, there remains a downside risk to our baseline economic scenario,” the Reserve Bank of New Zealand said.

With around 1,500 con-firmed cases and 22 deaths, New Zealand’s exposure to the virus remains well below many other developed nations.

Sri Lanka President strengthens Rajapaksa dynasty in new govtAFP — COLOMBO

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named two more relatives to a new government unveiled yesterday, further consolidating his family’s grip on power.

His brother Mahinda will lead the government, formed after their nationalist party’s landslide win in a parlia-mentary election last week.

Gotabaya and Mahinda will control the key defence and finance portfolios, respec-tively, in the new 26-member cabinet.

Their elder brother Chamal kept his place in the cabinet and was joined by Mahinda’s eldest son, Namal, who was named sports minister.

The growing dynastic imprint was strengthened by one of their nephews, Shash-eendra Rajapaksa, who joined the government as a state agri-culture minister though he will not be in the cabinet.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 71, became president in November last year and named Mahinda, a 74-year-old former president, as prime minister.

Pursuing a nationalist agenda, their party has won a two-thirds majority in par-liament, which allows them to change the constitution and tighten their hold on power.

The brothers want to scrap a 2015 constitutional amendment which transferred some executive powers from the president to the prime minister, along with inde-pendent institutions to run public services and the judiciary.

In the new cabinet, Mahinda was given three portfolios —finance, culture and housing — while their eldest brother Chamal, 77, was given irri-gation, a powerful position in largely rural Sri Lanka.

Chamal was also made the state minister for defence, a n o n - c a b i n e t p o s i t i o n

responsible for internal security and disaster management.

The swearing-in of min-isters was carried out at the Temple of the Tooth, the holiest Buddhist shrine, in the presence of saffron-robed monks and other guests in Kandy, 115km east of Colombo.

The venue was carefully chosen to reinforce the Rajapaksa family’s appeal to their majority Sinhala-Buddhist constituency.

The president took his oath after his November landslide in front of a pagoda built by a leg-endary Sinhala king known to

have vanquished a rival from the m inor i ty Tam i l community.

Mahinda was sworn in as Prime Minister on Sunday at the Kelaniya temple which Bud-dhists in Sri Lanka believe to have been visited by the Buddha himself.

Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (second right) and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (second left) along with new cabinet ministers stand for the national anthem during the cabinet swearing-in ceremony at the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth, in Kandy, yesterday.

Australian sailor

honoured 77 years

after he died

saving crew

AP — WELLINGTON

An Australian war hero will be awarded the nation’s top military honour more than 77 years after he was killed while saving some of his shipmates.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has approved awarding the Victoria Cross to sailor Edward “Teddy” Sheean, Australia’s Governor-General David Hurley announced yesterday.

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison said Sheean, who was just 18 when he died, sacrificed his life for his shipmates during the Second World War.

“After the order was given for the crew of the HMAS Armidale to abandon ship, Japanese aircraft strafed the Australian sailors who were overboard,” Morrison said in a statement. “Sheean then turned back, made for the gun, strapped himself in, and returned fire to the Japanese. He fought to the very end.”

A week after the ship was sunk near East Timor in December 1942, 49 crew members were rescued, Morrison said. Many of them owed their lives to the actions of Sheean.

Sheean’s family have spent decades trying to get him the recognition they believe he deserves. He was given a lower award after his death, but two inquiries in recent years were divided on whether he should be awarded the Victoria Cross.

An expert panel convened to settle the case found com-pelling new evidence in favor of giving Sheean the top honor and that he had been the victim of substantial injustice due to government missteps and rigid policies in the pre-vious handling of the case.

Myanmar ‘under-reported’ 2017 Rohingya killing: WatchdogANATOLIA — DHAKA

A Rohingya rights body on Tuesday disagreed with an “underreported” report of Myanmar government on the number of killed Muslims in a brutal military crackdown on a Rohingya village in 2017.

Strongly rejecting a recent government report on the mas-sacre at the Gu Dar Pyin village in Rakhine state, home to hun-dreds of thousands of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar,

which recorded a total of “19 terrorists” were killed in the operation, the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights claimed the operation was ended with the killing of nearly 250 civilians.

The watchdog said it has been “monitoring, collecting and compiling data sourced directly from the families of victims and survivors in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, Bangladesh.” “The actual number of civilian deaths

stands at 243,” and the number of injured is 18, it added.

The statement came days after Myanmar military and a government sanctioned inquiry commission proclaimed that a total of 19 people were killed, whom they called “terrorist” in a crackdown on August 27-28, 2017 that led to the killing of thousands of Rohingya and forced nearly one million to flee their homeland and take refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The investigation report by

the Myanmar government and the country’s military is “grossly underreported,” according to the rights body.

Following the brutal crackdown, Myanmar is facing genocide charges in several international courts as a UN fact-finding body called it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing and slow-burning genocide.”

In a July 2020 report, the Human Rights Watch also said the massive crackdown on the

village — in which “hundreds of heavily armed soldiers and police” took part — killed an estimated 300 to 400 Rohingya civilians.

“The soldiers abducted women and girls from the village and gang raped them at a nearby military compound. Soldiers piled the bodies in at least five mass graves before burning their faces off with acid,” the global rights watchdog added, citing the UN-backed Fact-Finding Mission’s report.

Police patrol deserted Bengaluru streets after Facebook post sparks clashesREUTERS — BENGALURU

Baton-wielding police patrolled barricaded and deserted streets in parts of the southern Indian tech hub of Bengaluru yesterday, after three people were killed in overnight clashes triggered by a Facebook post offensive to Muslims.

The violence began late on Tuesday, with mobs pelting stones, burning vehicles and setting a police station on fire, and lasted until the early hours of yesterday. Dozens of people were wounded.

“Seeing that much fire, smoke and the violence was really scary. I was really frightened. We’ve only seen such things on TV,” said Ahan Khan, a college student who lives near the police station in northeast Bengaluru.

Police said the person responsible for the offensive post, which has since been deleted, had been arrested. A spokesman for Facebook said it was investigating, adding its standards prohibit hate speech and incitement to violence.

B e n g a l u r u P o l i c e

Commissioner Kamal Pant said his officers had initially tried to hold back around 1,000 protesters using batons and tear gas, but then opened fire.

“The police had no escape and they had to resort to firing and three people died,” Pant said, adding that 110 people had been arrested for alleged vandalism and attacking the police.

A medical officer at the gov-ernment-run Bowring hospital said they had treated at least 27 injured policemen and 12 pro-testers, including three who had suffered gunshot wounds.

A police official said an emergency law prohibiting gatherings had been imposed in Bengaluru, a city of 12 million people known as India’s Silicon Valley.

Police gave the first name of the accused man as Naveen, and said he was the nephew of a Congress politician, whose house was attacked and burnt in the violence.

The politician, R Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy, appealed for calm in a video message

carried by media.“We’re all brothers.

Whatever crime has been com-mitted, let the law teach them a lesson,” Murthy said. “I appeal to our Muslim brothers and everyone else to maintain peace.”

Television channels on Tuesday night showed a group of people gathered outside a police station, clashing with officers and burning several police vehicles.

Yesterday afternoon, charred remains of several cars and motorcycles were strewn across the basement parking lot of D J Halli police station, the facade of which was also scarred by fire.

Nearby streets were lined with burnt vehicles, with all shops shuttered along the nearly two-km stretch where the police station is located.

“We are investigating the issue and will make use of the CCTV footage to see who is behind these violent acts, and will take stringent actions,” said Basavraj Bommai, home min-ister of Karnataka state, where Bengaluru is located.

A medical worker administers a test for the coronavirus disease on a member of the public at a pop-up testing centre in Sydney, Australia, yesterday.

Australia suffers deadliest day of virus, cases rise

REUTERS — SYDNEY

Australia recorded its deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic yesterday and the biggest daily rise in infections in three days, denting hopes that a second wave gripping the state of Victoria may be stabilising.

Victoria reported 21 deaths — two more than the previous deadliest days earlier this week — and 410 new cases in the past 24 hours, ending a run of three consecutive days with new infections below 400.

A cluster of infections in Melbourne, the Victorian capital and Australia’s second-largest city, forced authorities last week to impose a night curfew, tighten restrictions on people’s daily movements and order large parts of state economy to close.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that while the number of cases were trending down, the impact of the strict new lockdown measures was yet to show up in the case numbers.

Prime Minister delayed a key step toward a September 19 general election, suspending the dissolution of parliament, which usually kicks off campaigning, until Monday. A decision on whether the actual poll would be delayed would be announced before Monday, Ardern said.

REUTERS — KUALA LUMPUR

Malaysia’s majority Malay ethnic group must secure a dominant position in new national elec-tions to ensure political stability in the country, an Islamist party leader who is also a senior figure within the ruling coalition said yesterday.

Malaysia has faced political uncertainty since then-premier Mahathir Mohamad resigned in February and a new government was formed with a razor-thin majority in parliament.

Mahathir was replaced by Muhyiddin Yassin,

once his close associate, with the backing of the Bersatu party and two others representing Malays – the scandal-tainted United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).

PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang said fresh polls were needed to increase Malay represen-tation in parliament and legitimise the ruling Perikatan Nasional coalition’s claim to power.

“To ensure political stability, it is important to have the race that dominates society to lead the government,” Abdul Hadi said in an interview.

Ethnic Malays, who are predominantly Muslim, make up about 60 percent of Malay-sia’s population of 32 million, with the rest mostly ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians.

PAS has for decades pushed to establish an Islamic state in Malaysia, at times seeking harsher penalties on Muslims for crimes such as adultery and consuming alcohol under Islamic law.

“Areas that are majority Muslim should be represented by Muslims, and likewise areas that are majority non-Muslim should be represented by non-Muslims,” said Abdul Hadi.

10 THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020ASIA

Vietnam PM says next 10 days ‘critical’ in virus fightREUTERS — HANOI

Vietnam’s Prime Minister said yesterday that the next 10 days would be critical in the Southeast Asian country’s fight against a new coronavirus outbreak, which resurfaced late last month after three months of no domestic cases.

Vietnam was lauded for suppressing an earlier con-tagion through aggressive testing, contact-tracing and quarantining, but it is now racing to control infections in multiple locations linked to the popular holiday city of Danang, where a new outbreak was detected on July 25.

“Note that the period from this week to the middle of next week is critical,” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said yes-terday, according to a gov-ernment statement.

“Which measures should we

continue to implement to win against the virus? Which lessons have we learnt from this current outbreak?”, said Phuc.

Vietnam reported 17 new coronavirus infections yes-terday, taking its total cases to 880, with 17 deaths. All fatal-ities stemmed from the new outbreak.

One of the new infections was in the capital Hanoi and had no clear link to Danang, the health ministry said, in a devel-opment that could complicate efforts to track and control the spread.

Phuc had on Friday warned the risk of a wider spread was “very high” and called for a more determined containment fight.

The majority of recent cases were in Danang, home to 1.1 million people, where a city-wide lockdown was extended indefinitely on Tuesday.

A sports stadium converted into a 1,000-bed field hospital received its first COVID-19 patients yesterday, many from three hospitals central to Dan-ang’s outbreak. Phuc yesterday characterised actions taken by

the authorities to combat the current infection wave as better than previous outbreaks.

People had also reacted more calmly, despite the sudden re-emergence of the virus, he said.

Phuc had previously said that early August would be the decisive period to prevent a large-scale spread.

A medical professional wearing protective hazmat suit takes a swab sample to test for the coronavirus disease from a woman repatriated from Singapore at a military base in southern Mekong delta Dong Thap province, in Vietnam.

Vietnam was lauded for suppressing an earlier contagion through aggressive testing, contact-tracing and quarantining, but it is now racing to control infections in multiple locations linked to the popular holiday city of Danang, where a new outbreak was detected on July 25.

Coronavirus found on Ecuador shrimps in China, says state mediaREUTERS — BEIJING

A city in China’s eastern Anhui province found the novel coro-navirus on the packaging of shrimps from Ecuador, state media reported yesterday, in the latest instance of the virus being detected on imported products.

The coronavirus was found on the outer packaging of frozen shrimps bought by a restaurant in Wuhu city when local

authorities carried out a routine inspection, CCTV, China’s state television, said.

The news broke a day after a port city in eastern Shandong province said it found the virus on the packaging of imported frozen seafood, although it did not say where it originated.

Since July, several other Chinese cities have also reported cases, including the port cities of Xiamen and Dalian,

prompting China to suspend imports from three Ecuadorean shrimp producers.

CCTV said yesterday the Wuhu restaurant had stored the contaminated products in a freezer since purchase and that all related products in the city had been sealed off.

Nucleic acid tests for the virus on workers, food and inside the restaurant, as well as for staff at a shrimp wholesale

company and their family members showed negative results, as did tests carried out on staff, food and the envi-ronment at other restaurants in the city that bought shrimps from the wholesale company.

The novel coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, is believed to have emerged in a seafood and wildlife market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

China embarked on intensive screening of meat and seafood containers at major ports after a fresh outbreak of the disease was linked to a wholesale food market in Beijing in June. An Ecuadorian official on yesterday said China had given approval for one of three companies subject to restrictions to resume exports after Ecuador agreed to improve shipping protocols.

Uzbekistan to start lifting lockdown from Saturday

REUTERS — TASHKENT

Uzbekistan will lift its second lockdown starting from Saturday, the government said yesterday, promising to restore most services in the central Asian country within days in order to revive the economy.

The government reintro-duced a lockdown last month after lifting restrictions in June led to a surge in new COVID-19 cases, leaving hospitals strug-gling to cope.

On Saturday, people will be allowed to drive their cars again and hold ceremonies such as weddings for up to 30 guests at their homes. Busi-nesses such as hotels, barber-shops and outdoor cafes will also be able to reopen and air and rail traffic will resume, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s office said in a statement.

On Monday, the former Soviet republic plans to restart bus services and on August 20 large shops, markets and gyms will be able to reopen.

Uzbekistan, a country of 34 million, has reported 32,215 COVID-19 cases and 208 deaths from the disease.

It has yet to announce its plans with regards to schools which usually open on Sep-tember 2. However, the gov-ernment has said that uni-versity and college entrance exams will be held at stadiums across the country.

Bus stop newest front in S Korea’s virus battleAFP — SEOUL

South Korea has opened a high-tech new front in the battle against coronavirus, fortifying bus shelters with temperature-checking doors and ultraviolet disinfection lamps.

Ten advanced facilities have been installed in a northeastern district of Seoul, offering pro-tection from monsoon rains, summer heat, and the novel coronavirus.

To enter, passengers must stand in front of an automated thermal-imaging camera, and the door will only slide open if their temperature is below 37.5 degrees Celsius.

A separate camera is

installed lower down to test children. Inside the glass-walled booths — which cost about $84,000 each — the air-condi-tioning systems have ultraviolet lamps installed to kill viruses at the same time as cooling the air.

A dispenser provides hand sanitiser, and users are advised to wear face masks at all times, while keeping at least one metre apart from others.

“We have installed all the available anti-coronavirus measures we can think of into this booth,” Kim Hwang-yun, a district official in charge of the Smart Shelter project, said

Free Wi-Fi is also included.Since they were installed last

week each booth has been used

by about 300 to 400 people a day, Kim said.

To ensure passengers do not miss their bus, a panel displays estimated arrival times while a screen live-streams the traffic outside. South Korea endured one of the worst early corona-virus outbreaks outside China but brought it broadly under control with an extensive “trace, test and treat” programme while never imposing a compulsory lockdown.

Kim Ju-li, a 49-year-old housewife using the new bus stop for the first time, said.

“I feel really safe in here because I know others around me had their temperatures checked as well as me.”

People wait for buses in a shelter booth designed to protect passengers from monsoon rains, summer heat and the coronavirus, in Seoul, yesterday.

Malaysian party says snap poll needed for stability

COVID-19 wards closed in three Pakistan hospitals as cases slideINTERNEWS — RAWALPINDI

The Punjab government has closed down COVID-19 wards in three government-run hospitals in the city, leaving the Rawalpindi Institute of Urology (RIU) the dedicated facility for patients of the disease following a reported decrease in cases.

All the filter clinics and wards for COVID-19 patients at Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), Holy Family Hospital (HFH) and the District Head-quarters (DHQ) Hospital have been closed and patients will be referred to RIU from now on.

The three hospitals have restarted routine activities and are treating all kinds of p a t i e n t s i n v a r i o u s departments.

The Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare department had established a 196-bed facility for COVID-19 patients at BBH. This included 140 beds in wards, 70 beds attached to oxygen and 30 ventilators in the intensive care unit (ICU).

HFH had a 100-bed facility, including a 41-bed isolation ward, 16 ventilators and 43 oxygen-attached beds in the ICU. A 14-bed facility with four beds in the isolation

ward, five ventilators and five oxygen-attached beds in the ICU was set up at the DHQ Hospital.

The provincial gov-ernment also set up two 120-bed field hospitals in the Shehbaz Sharif Sports Complex in Shamsabad and the Red Crescent Hospital.

BBH medical superin-tendent Dr Raffique Ahmed said that the hospital closed its wards on the Punjab gov-ernment’s directives, as RIU was made the dedicated hos-pital for COVID-19 treatment.

“All the patients will be tested there and admitted in its wards,” Dr. Ahmed said.

He said all the patients were moved to RIU soon after the government’s directives were received.

However, BBH has not closed the ICU, as there are no gynaecology or surgery facilities at RIU to treat pregnant women with COVID-19 or other patients who need critical care.

Patients with other condi-tions who need dialysis or who have other diseases will be treated at BBH in the coming days, he said, but no such patients have been admitted to the hospital yet since the number of patients has decreased.

Kazakh rights activist freed

AFP — ALMATY

A rights activist imprisoned after knocking a police officer’s hat off his head in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty has been freed from jail, her lawyer said yesterday.

Asya Tulesova was found guilty of insulting and using vio-lence against the police but the judge ordered her released from jail but with a 1.5-year custodial sentence that prohibits her from leaving the city, lawyer Johar Utebekov said.

She spent over two months in jail after being arrested over a clash with police that took place during a rally in June.

Utebekov said that Tulesova, 35, planned to appeal the sen-tence and gain a full acquittal.

“We are appealing even though we know what there are no objective courts in this country and fully understand that we have no chance of winning,” Utebekov said.

The trial was held via video conference and was widely watched online.

Tulesova, a longtime envi-ronmental activist, made head-lines last year when she held up a banner at a marathon calling for free elections with the slogan: “You can’t run from the truth”.

Philippines talking to Russian vaccine maker on trialsREUTERS — MANILA

Philippine scientists were set yesterday to meet representa-tives of the Russian state research facility that developed a coronavirus vaccine, to discuss participation in clinical trials and access to its research data.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has lauded the Russian vaccine and offered to be “injected in public”, to allay public fears about its safety.

Russia on Tuesday became the world’s first country to grant regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine, to be named “Sputnik V” in homage to the Soviet Union’s launch of the world’s first satellite.

Russia’s decision to grant approval before completing trials has raised concerns among some

experts, who fear it may be putting national prestige before safety.

Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire said Philippine experts would meet represent-atives of research facility Gamaleya to discuss trials and would request a “complete dossier” on the vaccine.

“We will see if the allegations are true,” she said, referring to concern that it was hastily approved.

“That is why were talking with them to understand this vaccine,” Vergeire said, adding that local regulatory approval for conducting trials was needed.

The Philippines has among Asia’s highest virus case numbers, which rose to 143,749 yesterday, two days after hitting a record of 6,958 infections.

The coronavirus pandemic closed schools across Europe and meant that in some countries almost no examinations took place, leaving educators with a dilemma over how to award grades that affect students’ job prospects and university places.

COVID-19 UPDATE

11THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE

More than 5,000 wiped off UK toll following reviewAFP — LONDON

Britain revised down its death toll from the coronavirus pandemic by more than 5,000 to 41,329 yesterdayfollowing a review into the way fatalities are recorded. In England, a person who died at any point following a positive test would previously have been counted in the toll, regardless of the cause of death. But only those dying within 28 days of a positive test will now be included in the figures, bringing England into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. The official number of people who have died from the virus in Britain has fallen from 46,706 to 41,329 under the new system, a 12 percent fall. The new figure means that Britain now has fewer deaths than India, but is still one of the worst affected countries in the world, and the worst in Europe.

Germany records biggest jump in new cases since early MayREUTERS — BERLIN

Germany recorded the biggest daily increase in new coronavirus cases in more than three months, data showed yesterday, with the health minister warning of outbreaks in nearly all parts of the country due to holiday returnees and party-goers. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 1,226 to 218,519, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) showed. That was the biggest daily increase since May 9. The number of coronavirus deaths remained relatively low, edging up by six to a total of 9,207.

Infections in France set new recordREUTERS — PARIS

The French health ministry reported 2,524 new coronavirus infec-tions over the past 24 hours, a new post-lockdown daily record, which took the country’s cumulative total of cases to 206,696. The seven-day moving average of new infections, which smoothes out daily data-reporting irregularities, increased to 1,810, the highest level since April 24, when the epidemic was still in full swing and France was under a strict lockdown. A government spokesman said that France will gradually ramp up police checks to ensure people wear face masks where it is mandatory and respect social distancing amidst a new surge of COVID-19 infections.

Norway to quarantine more travellersREUTERS — OSLO

Norway said it would reimpose quarantine measures on trav-ellers from more foreign countries amid a jump in the number of new coronavirus cases. Norway diagnosed 357 people with COVID-19 last week, the highest since April, but still well below the record 1,733 cases found in a single week in late March, data from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) showed. “We’re doing this now so that everyone as soon as possible will be able to live their lives as freely as possible,” Prime Minister Erna Solberg said. It will now reimpose 10-day quarantines from Saturday for all travellers from Poland, Malta, Iceland, Cyprus and the Neth-erlands, as well as the Faroe Islands and some Danish and Swedish regions. The recommendation not to go abroad will remain in place until October 1. Norway had reported a total of 9,750 cases as of yesterday, with 256 deaths.

A still image taken from video footage shows smoke billowing from the scene of a train crash near Stonehaven in northeast Scotland, yesterday.

Three people die in Scottish train derailment, carriages piled upREUTERS — STONEHAVEN

Three people died in a train derailment in eastern Scotland yesterday that left carriages overturned and piled on top of each other on a steep wooded slope, making it hard for emergency services to access the scene.

Dark smoke billowed from the site of the accident for most of the day after the ScotRail train derailed in the morning in a narrow valley near Stone-haven, south of the city of Aberdeen.

Aerial footage showed one carriage detached from the rail tracks and lying on its side some distance down the slope. Another was completely over-turned and had two carriages resting on it, one of which was also overturned.

Two air ambulances and

about 30 emergency service vehicles could be seen in a field just above the site. With rescue workers hampered by the steep terrain and dense woodland, it took many hours for casualty numbers to be confirmed.

“My deepest condolences are with the loved ones of those who lost their lives in this tragic incident,” said Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government.

The British Transport Police said the driver was believed to have been among the dead. Six people were taken to hospital with injuries not thought to be serious, and officers believed everyone who had been on board was accounted for.

The force gave no indi-cation on the causes of the derailment, saying only that it was investigating. Stonehaven and the surrounding area had

been hit by floods in recent days following heavy rain and some reports suggested a landslide may have played a part in the derailment, although that was not confirmed by authorities.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was saddened to learn of the “very serious incident” and his thoughts were with all those affected. The train appeared to have been car-rying very few passengers. The government has been advising Britons to avoid public transport wherever possible as part of efforts to reduce transmission of the coronavirus.

Britain has one of Europe’s lowest rates of fatal rail acci-dents, with a stronger safety record than Germany or France in recent years, according to Eurostat data that includes unauthorised people on railway tracks and at level crossings.

Majority of Scots for independence from UK, says YouGov pollREUTERS — LONDON

A majority of Scots support independence from the United Kingdom, a YouGov poll found yesterday, with support for nationalists bolstered by a much more positive view of how they have responded to COVID-19 compared with London.

The poll for the Times newspaper found that 53% of people would vote for Scottish independence in a referendum, up 2 percentage points from January and the highest level of support for independence recorded by YouGov.

It is the latest poll to suggest rising support for Scottish independence and could strengthen calls for another vote on the matter, after Scots rejected it in a 2014 referendum by 55%-45%.

The Scottish National Party, who run the devolved administration in the nation, insist they have the right to call another vote. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the 2014 referendum was decisive and should be respected.

The poll also suggested the SNP were on course for an unprecedented majority in the Scottish Parliament in elec-tions next year, setting up a possible constitutional clash with Westminster.

Much of the increase in support appeared to be linked to diverging views of the lead-ership in Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole. Some 72% of respondents agreed Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon was doing very or fairly well, while only 20% said that for Johnson.

England scrambles to avoid criticism over exam gradesREUTERS — LONDON

England sought to defuse a looming row over the awarding of school qualifications during the pandemic by allowing stu-dents to use results of their earlier practice tests — a last-minute change designed to avoid a repeat of mistakes made in Scotland.

The coronavirus pandemic closed schools across Europe and meant that in some coun-tries almost no examinations took place, leaving educators with a dilemma over how to award grades that affect stu-dents’ job prospects and uni-versity places.

Scotland’s devolved gov-ernment was forced to reverse downgraded results on Tuesday after a moderation process led to 75,000 young people having their grades revised down, sparking dismay and protests.

Pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive today the results of their A-levels — exams taken generally by 18-year-olds.

The results in England were due to be based on the predic-tions of a student’s school and then moderated by exam boards.

But Education Minister Gavin Williamson said yes-terday that students would now have the “safety net” option of choosing between using their calculated grade, going with the result of ‘mock’ practice tests taken earlier this year, or sitting a new exam in the autumn.

“We are creating a triple-lock process to ensure confi-dence and fairness in the system,” Williamson said.

While students in Germany were able to sit their exams this year, other countries across Europe have had to improvise.

France cancelled its school-leaving ‘baccalaureat’ exam but published methodology for awarding grades months in advance of results day. Stu-dents in Italy swapped written exams for hour-long oral tests, with past performance also taken into account.

The British approach was greeted with dismay by teaching unions, who said it was rushed and did not take into account that mock exams were not standardised across schools.

“The idea of introducing at the 11h hour a system in which mock exam results trump calcu-lated grades beggars belief,” said Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. “This immedi-ately creates the potential for massive inconsistency.”

Belarus unrestWomen dressed in white clothes protest against police violence during recent rallies of opposition supporters, in Minsk, yesterday.

‘Baby’ Milky Way discovered 12 billion light years awayAFP — PARIS

A golden halo glinting 12 billion light years away is the farthest galaxy resembling our Milky Way yet spotted, astronomers said yesterday, adding the “sur-prisingly unchaotic” infant star system challenges our under-standing of the early years of the Universe.

The galaxy, called SPT0418-47, is so far away that it took billions of years for its light to reach Earth and so our image of it is from deep in the past, said the European Southern

Observatory (ESO), which was involved in the discovery.

This was when the Universe was 1.4 billion years old — just 10 percent of its current age — and galaxies were still forming.

The “baby” SPT0418-47 was picked up by the powerful Alma radio telescope in Chile using a technique called gravitational lensing, where a nearby galaxy acts as a powerful magnifying glass, the ESO said in a statement.

It has features similar to our Milky Way — a rotating disc and a bulge, which is the high density of stars packed tightly

around the galactic centre. “This is the first time a bulge has been seen this early in the history of the Universe, making SPT0418-47 the most distant Milky Way look-alike,” the ESO said.

Researchers expect these young star systems to be chaotic and without the distinct struc-tures typical of mature galaxies like the Milky Way.

But SPT0418-47 appeared “surprisingly unchaotic, contra-dicting theories that all galaxies in the early Universe were tur-bulent and unstable”, it said.

“This unexpected discovery

suggests the early Universe may not be as chaotic as once believed and raises many questions on how a well-ordered galaxy could have formed so soon after the Big Bang,” the ESO said.

Simona Vegetti, from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, said the discovery was “quite puzzling”. “Despite forming stars at a high rate, and therefore being the site of highly energetic proc-esses, SPT0418-47 is the most well-ordered galaxy disc ever observed in the early Universe,” said Vegetti, who co-authored the research published in Nature.

Brussels region makes face masks compulsoryAFP — BRUSSELS

The wearing of face masks in public is compulsory in the Brussels region from yesterday, regional authorities announced, as Belgium battles one of the most serious coronavirus out-breaks in Europe.

Face masks were already required in most closed public spaces since July 11 for people aged 12 and over. The measure was extended in the 19 munic-ipalities of the Brussels region

after the threshold of 50 daily cases per 100,000 people was crossed, the regional gov-ernment said in a statement.

Belgium has one of the highest per capita death rates from COVID-19 in the world and infections are again rising after earlier success in bringing the epidemic under control.

The number of cases in the country of around 11.5 million people topped 75,000 yes-terday. Nearly 10,000 deaths have been registered.

“Wearing a mask covering the nose and mouth is therefore now compulsory for anyone aged 12 and over in public places and in private places accessible to the public throughout the Brussels-Capital Region.” The measure does not apply to Bel-gium’s two other regions, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia.

However, there were some exceptions to the ruling in Brussels, such as when playing sports or for people with certain disabilities.

German airport dog sniffs out big cash stashes

AFP — FRANKFURT

Money talks, they say, but for some, money also smells.

Aki, a nine-year old Belgian Shepherd dog based at Frankfurt’s international airport in Germany, sniffed out almost a quarter of million euros in cash from travellers in a few days. Between the end of June and the start of July,

Aki caught 12 passengers carrying a total of €247,280 ($290,540), according to the air-port’s customs office.

In one incident, the nosy mutt sniffed out almost €52,000 in the belt bag of a passenger. Other cash was found in handbags, shoulder bags and inside jacket pockets.

“With her keen nose, Aki supports the custom officers... in the fight against tax evasion, money laundering and interna-tional terrorism,” said Isabell Gillmann, spokeswoman at the customs office in Frankfurt.

All 12 travellers could face fines. People journeying into or out of the EU must declare cash valued at €10,000 or more. In 2019, customs offi-cials in Frankfurt caught pas-sengers carrying a total of around €23.6m in undeclared cash.

German sniffer dogs may also be put to use in the battle a g a i n s t c o r o n a v i r u s . Researchers found in July that man’s best friend could detect COVID-19 in human samples.

“If @KamalaHarris and I are elected, we’re going to inherit multiple crises, a nation divided, and a world in disarray,” Biden tweeted yesterday. “We won’t have a minute to waste. That’s exactly why I picked her: She’s ready to lead on day one.”

12 THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2020AMERICAS

Biden, new running mate Harrisbegin White House campaignAFP — WILMINGTON

White House hopeful Joe Biden yesterday held his highly-anticipated joint cam-paign debut with running mate Kamala Harris, who hopes to make history as the nation’s first female and first black vice-president.

The Democratic duo, unveiled on Tuesday by Biden after a months-long search for his partner on the ticket, now launch the 83-day sprint to the election face-off against Pres-ident Donald Trump.

The choice of Harris, a 55-year-old US senator from California and daughter of Indian and Jamaican immi-grants, was kept secret until the last moment, even though she was widely perceived as the wire-to-wire frontrunner.

In footage released yes-terday, Biden is seen speaking with her by video chat, appar-ently at the moment he told her of his decision. “You ready to go to work?” he asks. “Oh my God. I am so ready to go to work,” Harris replies.

Biden’s V-P reveal marks a crucial moment as he aims to build a broad coalition of voters to defeat Trump.

It also offers a chance to capture momentum in a cam-paign turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, which has largely confined the 77-year-old Biden to his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

Harris, a former California attorney general, is the first woman of colour and first Indian American to be a presi-dential running mate, and per-sonifies the diversity seen as key to building enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket.

Harris will be perceived by many voters as a safe pick, a known quantity vetted during her time as a presidential can-didate and tested on the cam-paign trail. She is also a fierce defender of efforts to end eco-nomic inequality and racial injustice — in an election year marked by a historic reckoning on race.

She has valuable Capitol Hill experience and has shown her tenacity in holding Trump administration officials to account. And as California attorney general for six years Harris has run the largest statewide legal agency in America.

Biden has made clear he believes Harris has the policy proficiency and the governing experience needed for the White House.

“If @KamalaHarris and I are elected, we’re going to inherit multiple crises, a nation divided, and a world in disarray,” Biden tweeted yesterday. “We won’t have a minute to waste. That’s exactly why I picked her: She’s ready to lead on day one.”

Trump, who last month acknowledged Harris would be a “fine choice” for Biden, attacked her following the announcement as “nasty” and a radical leftist who would implement “socialized med-icine” and confiscate Amer-icans’ guns.

But he and his campaign have appeared to struggle to for-mulate effective attack lines against a Democrat they long knew was a top V-P contender.

Harris, who is two decades younger than Biden and Trump, could appeal to younger voters and women, particularly those in the suburbs who have been fleeing the Republican pres-ident, according to polling.

Trump sought to stake out his ground early Wednesday, insisting that “the ‘suburban

housewife’ will be voting for me.” The next 11 weeks will see Harris pushing back against Trump, something she eagerly did on the Democratic debate stage when she branded him a “predator” of vulnerable Americans.

She has already attacked him over what she and Biden call Trump’s failure to address the coronavirus crisis. “In the middle of a pandemic, the pres-ident is trying to rip away health care. While small businesses close, he’s giving breaks to his wealthy donors,” Harris said in a video yesterday.

“And when the people cried out for support, he teargassed them,” she said, referring to June operations against demonstrators.

For Harris, being elevated onto a presidential ticket is the

political moment of a lifetime. And if they win, the telegenic but tough politician would almost certainly become the 2024 or 2028 Democratic pres-idential frontrunner.

Biden would be the oldest person to take the office, and there is broad speculation that should Biden win, he would serve one four-year term and prepare his deputy to succeed him.

Biden has remained mod-erate in his political views for decades, while Harris is more progressive on issues like health care and climate policy.

Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester argued that Biden and Harris are both pragmatic and progressive. “Those are not mutually exclusive,” she told MSNBC.

Democratic US presidential candidate and former Vice-President Joe Biden and US Senator Kamala Harris hold hands during a campaign stop in Detroit, Michigan, in this March 9, 2020 picture.

'Squad' sweep as Ilhan Omar holds off primary election challengerREUTERS — WASHINGTON

US Representative Ilhan Omar held off a well-funded challenger Tuesday and won the Democratic primary in her congressional district, putting her on track for re-election in November along with other members of the “Squad” of four liberal freshmen.

Omar defeated attorney Antone Melton-Meaux, who had accused her of prioritizing her celebrity over her constituents, and several other chal-lengers, the New York Times said.

One of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress in 2018, Omar won 57.2% of the vote on Tuesday com-pared with 39.4% for Melton-Meaux in Minnesota’s 5th district, the Times said. She is likely to win again in November in the solidly Democratic district.

“In Minnesota, we know that organized people will always beat

organized money,” Omar, 37, said in a statement. “Despite outside efforts to defeat us, we once again broke turnout records.” Progressive Democrats have generally done well this primary cycle. With Omar’s victory, all four members of the liberal group of congresswomen nicknamed the “Squad” are expected to be re-elected in the autumn.

The best-known “Squad” member, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, dispatched a primary challenger in June. Last week Representative Rashida Tlaib won her primary, and the fourth Squad member, Representative Ayanna Pressley, is running unopposed in her primary in Massachusetts next month.

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Vermont and Georgia all held primary elections for Congress. The outcome will help set the stage for November elections to the House of Representa-tives and Senate that will determine

the balance of power in Washington.Melton-Meaux, an attorney, criti-

cized Omar for her comments on Israel, some of which have been seen as anti-Semitic, as well as her failure to show up for some House votes. His campaign raised over $4m and received support from pro-Israel groups.

Omar has apologized for some of her statements about Israeli lobbying power, and her campaign said she had good reasons for missing some votes.

Police reforms were a top cam-paign issue in Omar’s district, where George Floyd, a Black man, was killed in police custody in May, touching off nationwide protests.

Omar called for restructuring the police department, while Melton-Meaux said the police function should be “more narrowly focused.”

A refugee from Somalia, Omar quickly became a target of conserv-ative critics after she was elected in

2018. Republicans rebuked her left-wing politics, and President Donald Trump has falsely accused her of sup-porting Al Qaeda. Members of both parties chided her for her comments on Israel.

In Georgia, a Republican business-woman who has made inflammatory comments about Muslims like Omar and expressed support for QAnon, Mar-jorie Taylor Greene, defeated neuro-surgeon John Cowan in a primary runoff for an open House seat.

QAnon is a fringe belief propagated online that claims “deep-state” traitors are plotting against Trump. In videos released in June by Politico, Greene suggested that Omar’s election in 2018 was part of “an Islamic invasion of our government”.

Republican leaders denounced the comments. The Republican in the con-servative district will likely be elected in November.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) campaigns at the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Central Avenue on Tuesday in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

How people reacted to V-P nod for Kamala HarrisAFP — WASHINGTON

Here is how US politicians and celebrities have reacted to nomination of Kamala Harris:

BARACK OBAMAFormer president Barack

Obama said that Biden had “nailed this decision” in a lengthy statement. “Now Joe has an ideal partner to help him tackle the very real chal-lenges America faces right now and in the years ahead,” Obama said, calling Harris “more than prepared for the job.” He highlighted her per-sonal and professional back-ground, saying: “She’s spent her career defending our Con-stitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake.”

BERNIE SANDERSVermont senator Bernie

Sanders, who ran against Harris and Biden for the 2020 Demo-cratic presidential nomination, congratulated his former opponent. “She understands what it takes to stand up for working people, fight for health care for all, and take down the most corrupt administration in history,” he tweeted. “Let’s get to work and win.”

HILLARY CLINTONFormer Democratic pres-

idential nominee Hillary Clinton said she was “thrilled to welcome @KamalaHarris to a historic Democratic ticket.” “She’s already proven herself to be an incredible public servant and leader. And I know she’ll be a strong partner to @JoeBiden,” Clinton tweeted.

LEBRON JAMESNBA star LeBron James

also could not contain his excitement, tweeting a series of clapping emojis. “Love to see and support it!” the Los Angeles Lakers forward said.

Amazon fires a ‘lie’, says BolsonaroAFP — RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilian President Jair Bol-sonaro has said it is a “lie” that fires are ravaging the Amazon rainforest, despite data from his own government showing the number of blazes is rising.

The far-right leader has faced international condem-nation for presiding over huge fires and rising deforestation in the Amazon — criticism he took issue with in a speech to a video

conference of countries that share the world’s biggest rainforest.

“Tropical rainforest doesn’t catch fire. So this story that the Amazon is burning is a lie, and we have to fight it with real numbers,” he said.

Yet satellite data from Bra-zil’s national space agency, INPE, show the number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon last month rose 28 percent from July 2019, to

6,803. Experts say the fires are typically not sparked naturally, but set by humans to clear land illegally for farming and ranching.

Last year, huge fires devas-tated the Amazon from May to October, sending a thick haze of black smoke all the way to Sao Paulo, thousands of kilom-eters away. The fires triggered worldwide alarm over a forest seen as vital to curbing climate change.

A Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) fire brigade member attempts to control a fire in a tract of the Amazon jungle in Apui, Amazonas State, Brazil.

Colombia arrests two US men for selling fake COVID-19 cure AP — BOGOTA

Colombian officials say they have arrested two Florida men wanted in the United States on charges they illegally sold a bleachlike chemical as a miracle cure for the new coro-navirus and other diseases.

The Colombian prosecu-tor’s office said that Mark and Joseph Grennon were arrested in the beach town of Santa Marta, and were shipping their “Miracle Mineral Solution” — chlorine dioxide — from there to clients in the United States, Colombia and Africa. It said seven Americans had died from using the substance.

Mark Grenon is the arch-bishop of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, based in Bradenton, Florida, which is centered on use of the toxic chemical as a supposed sac-rament it claims can cure a vast variety of illnesses ranging from cancer to autism to malaria and now COVID-19..

A Miami federal judge in April ordered the self-styled church to stop selling the sub-stance, but it was ignored.

The organization also has

operated in Mexico, Australia and other countries.

A federal criminal com-plaint filed in July charged Mark Grenon, 62, and his sons, Jonathan, 34, Jordan, 26, and Joseph, 32, with conspiracy to defraud the United States, con-spiracy to violate the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and criminal contempt.

Records in Miami federal court last month did not list attorneys for any of the Grenons. They face a maximum of between 14 and more than 17 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, the solution sold by the Grenons becomes a bleach when ingested that is typically used for such things as treating tex-tiles, industrial water, pulp and paper. Authorities said drinking that bleach can be fatal.

The FDA said last August that “ingesting these products is the same as drinking bleach. Consumers should not use these products, and parents should not give these products to their children for any reason.”

Deaths from virus

in Argentina

surpass 5,000

AFP — BUENOS AIRES

Argentina surpassed 5,000 deaths from the novel corona-virus yesterday after regis-tering a record 325 new fatal-ities over the last 24 hours, the health ministry said.

The South American country of 44 million has also recorded more than 260,000 infections. More than 90 percent of those have been in the greater Buenos Aires area, where intensive care units (ITC) are running at more than 68 percent occupancy.

Other focal points are in Jujuy in the north and Tierra del Fuego in the far south.

ITC beds throughout the country are running at 58 percent occupancy.

“No-one is in a position to handle an increase in cases,” warned Nicolas Kreplak, the deputy health minister for Buenos Aires province.

“We need to reduce the number of cases and we have to take measures for this. There’s been no other measure to reduce cases than a strict lockdown,” Kreplak said.