Search form

You are here

  • Home
  • Middle East coronavirus - first death in Egypt and Bahrain F1 to take place without spectators


Opinion

Andrew Hammond

Virus threat adds further twist to UK’s fiscal puzzle

Author
Read article

Middle East coronavirus - first death in Egypt and Bahrain F1 to take place without spectators

Medical staff in protective gear distribute information sheets to Iraqi passengers returning from Iran at Najaf International Airport. (AFP)
Short Url

https://arab.news/64475

Updated 09 March 2020
Arab News
Follow

Middle East coronavirus - first death in Egypt and Bahrain F1 to take place without spectators

  • The UAE's health ministry said over 620 school buildings and 6,000 buses were sterilised
  • Kuwait’s Health Ministry has denied rumors on social media about the death of an elderly woman from coronavirus
Updated 09 March 2020
Arab News

DUBAI: Countries across the Middle East were on high alert as the disease continues to spread around the world. Governments have asked people to follow precautionary measures to help prevent the spread of the virus, including avoiding crowded public spaces.

Sunday, March 08 (All times in GMT)

21:45 – A third person in the UK infected with coronavirus has died. The patient was over 60 years old and had significant underlying health conditions.

 

 

21:40 – Riyadh Boulevard and Winter Wonderland in the Saudi capital have been closed over coronavirus fears.

20:20 – Qatar bans arrival from 14 countries in an attempt to stop coronavirus spreading to the country.

20:10 – France bans all gatherings of more than 1,000 people in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Health Minister Olivier Veran said.

19:55 – Saudi Arabia announces the suspension of all educational and Quranic activities inside the Kingdom's mosques, Al Ekhbariya reported.

18:30 – Saudi Arabia has closed all schools and universities from Monday in response to the coronavirus. The education ministry said teachers would have to use distance learning techniques to continue lessons.

17:50 – Israel is considering measures that would require anyone arriving in the country to go into home quarantine for 14 days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

17:30 – Italy coronavirus death toll shoots up to 366 from 233 the day before.

17:10 – France says it has has recorded 1,126 confirmed coronavirus cases and 19 deaths in total.

16:55 – Thirteen Americans quarantined in a West Bank hotel on suspicion of having caught the coronavirus have tested negative.

*********

READ MORE: OPINION: Iran’s epidemic of lies and disinformation

*********

16:50 – Egypt announces its first death from the coronavirus epidemic - a 60-year-old German tourist.

16:40 – Alitalia said on Sunday it was suspending national and international flights to and from Milan's Malpensa airport from March 9 after the government ordered a lockdown of large areas of northern Italy to stem coronavirus contagion.

16:20 – Egyptian crew and foreign passengers on a Nile cruise ship on which 45 suspected novel coronavirus cases had been detected disembarked Sunday in the southern city of Luxor.
The health ministry has said the 45 would be quarantined even though 11 of them had tested negative in follow-up tests.




prepare to transport suspected coronavirus cases that were detected on a Nile cruise ship in Luxor. (AFP)

15:43 – Iraq confirmed two further deaths due to the coronavirus, taking the total number to six, the state news agency reported on Sunday.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases climbed to 54 so far, according to health officials.

13:45 – Anthony Fauci, the US's head of the infectious diseases unit at the National Institutes of Health, says signs of coronavirus spreading through communities were "not encouraging" and warned that Americans may need to think carefully about attending large gatherings if it continues.
"I think we're getting a better sense (of the scope of the outbreak) as the days go by," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

13:35 – The US Army said on Sunday it has decided to restrict travel to and from Italy and South Korea due to coronavirus outbreaks, and will also prohibit foreign troops from participating in US exercises, exchanges and visits in the most affected nations.

13:04 – Morocco has suspended flights to Italy's Milan and Venice over coronavirus concerns.

12:25 – Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday that it will suspend movement to and from Qatif as a precaution to the spread of coronavirus.

The ministry has also temporarily shut down government and private sector work premises in the governorate.

11:52 – Kuwait has announced two new coronavirus cases, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the country to 64.

11:50 – Italy’s Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora called Sunday for an immediate suspension of the Serie A season due to the coronavirus outbreak that has killed 233 people in the country.
“It makes no sense right now, as we ask citizens to make enormous sacrifices to prevent the spread of the virus, to endanger the lives of players, referees, coaching staff and fans who will surely gather to watch the matches, by not temporarily suspending football,” he wrote in a statement on his Facebook page.

11:44 – The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Algeria increased to 20.

11:16 – Qatar has announced three new coronavirus cases in the country, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 15.

10:38 – Iran reports 49 new coronavirus fatalities, bringing death toll to 194 people amid 6,566 confirmed cases.

10:35 – Bangladesh confirmed its first three cases of coronavirus in the country, said the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).
The affected people are aged between 20 and 35 and two of them returned from Italy recently, IEDCR Director Meerjady Sabrina told reporters. 

10:03 – Indonesia confirmed on Sunday that two more people had tested positive for the coronavirus, taking the total of confirmed cases in the country to six.
One of the Indonesians is a 36-year-old male, a crew member on the Japan-docked Diamond Princess cruise ship where he contracted the virus, Health Ministry official Achmad Yurianto told a news briefing.

09:10 – Saudi Arabia’s health ministry announces  four new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total to 11. Three of them were in contact with a previous case who had traveled from Iran.

08:30 - Bahrain says its Formula One race this month will be for ‘participants only’ without spectators over coronavirus fears.

07:43 - Kuwait announced a new coronavirus case, bringing the total number to 62.

05:12 - Italy has closed cinemas, theatres, museums nationwide in virus lockdown, a government official said.

04:42 - More than 15 million people were placed under forced quarantine in northern Italy early Sunday as the government approved drastic measures in an attempt to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus that is sweeping the globe.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Twitter he had signed off on plans to strictly limit movement in and out of large areas including Venice and the financial capital Milan for nearly a month.

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

03:50 - In Oman, chartered flights between the country and Egypt have been suspended for a month, the Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA) announced.

"After coordination with the competent authorities, the Public Authority suspended irregular (chartered) flights between the Sultanate and the Arab Republic of Egypt, starting Sunday, for a period of one month,” PACA said in a statement.

Saturday, March 07 (All times in GMT)

19:41 - The UAE’s Ministry of Health and Prevention held a press conference on Saturday to discuss the preventive measures it took against the spread of coronavirus in the country.

The ministry explained the procedures taken with regards to the UAE Tour’s participants. The quarantined contacts included 26 hotel visitors, 56 athletes and 236 hotel staff, the ministry said.

The ministry added that over 620 school buildings and 6,000 buses were sterilised.

Meanwhile, more than 168,000 students started to benefit from the pilot programme across the country, the ministry said.

This video explaining how COVID-19 transmits person to person was produced by the World Health Organisation

17:51 - Kuwait’s health ministry has denied rumors on social media about the death of an elderly woman from the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.

15:32 - Kuwait's health ministry called on people arriving from seven countries to observe a mandatory 14-day home quarantine from the date of departure.

The seven countries are: India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.

11:50 - Oman's Ministry of Health said it had decided to postpone all international conferences and events.

"Within the framework of the efforts exerted by the Ministry to tackle the Coronavirus disease, the Ministry has recommended the suspension of all gatherings, events, and international conferences in the Sultanate, which hosts participants from outside the Sultanate until further notice," Ministry of Health said.

Topics: Coronavirus

Related

photos
World
Coronavirus spreading fast outside China, airports to increase screenings
World
China coronavirus death toll rises to 170, transmission a concern

Egyptians held nearly a year over deadly shipwreck are released from Greek jail after case dismissed

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

Egyptians held nearly a year over deadly shipwreck are released from Greek jail after case dismissed

Updated 5 sec ago
The Egyptians’ defense team had argued that the nine were not crew members of the ill-fated trawler
Eight of the nine were released from a jail outside the southern city of Nafplio on Wednesday evening

NAFPLIO, Greece: A group of Egyptians jailed for nearly a year pending trial for a deadly shipwreck were released from jail Wednesday, a day after a Greek court threw out the case against them on grounds that it had no jurisdiction to try it.
Nine Egyptians had been charged with being part of the crew of the Adriana, a massively overcrowded trawler that capsized and sank near Greece last June with an estimated 700 people on board while sailing from Libya to Italy. Only 104 people survived – all men, mostly from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan — and 82 bodies were recovered.
The nine, who have been in pretrial custody since their rescue last year, had been charged with being members of a migrant smuggling ring and were accused of having caused the shipwreck. They had faced several life sentences if convicted.
But a court in the southern Greek city of Kalamata on Tuesday ruled it had no jurisdiction to try the case, as the shipwreck occurred in international waters, none of those involved had been trying to enter Greece, the ship was not Greek flagged and no Greek citizens were on board.
The Egyptians’ defense team had argued that the nine were not crew members of the ill-fated trawler but had been paying passengers who were mistakenly identified as crew by nine other survivors, and that they were being used as scapegoats by authorities eager to put all the blame for the tragedy on the trawler’s crew.
Eight of the nine were released from a jail outside the southern city of Nafplio on Wednesday evening. They were transferred to a police station in the city, where they were to remain in custody overnight pending further procedures. It was not immediately clear when they would be fully released from custody.
The ninth defendant was to be released from a different jail.
The massive loss of life in the sinking of the Adriana in the early hours of June 14, 2023, renewed pressure on European governments to protect the lives of migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach the continent. The European border protection agency Frontex says illegal border detections at EU frontiers increased for three consecutive years through 2023, reaching the highest level since the 2015-2016 migration crisis, driven largely by arrivals by sea.
The exact circumstances of how the Adriana sank remain unclear. The trawler was sailing in international waters but within Greece’s search and rescue area of operations, and a coast guard patrol boat and passing merchant ships were near the vessel for several hours. Greek authorities have said the trawler’s crew repeatedly refused offers of help, insisting it wanted to continue to Italy.
Several survivors have said the boat capsized after the Greek coast guard attempted to tow it, an accusation Greek authorities have vehemently denied. A Naval Court investigation into the sinking is still underway.
Speaking at the courthouse after the case was dismissed on Tuesday, Dimitris Choulis, one of the lawyers in the defense team for the nine Egyptians, said attention should turn to how the Adriana sank.
“The court today had to be very brave to issue this decision, and to say that these people are not the smugglers,” Choulis said.
The lawyer blamed the tragedy on the Greek coast guard and Europe’s migration policies, and said it was essential to “make sure that nothing like that would happen again.”

From wedding photographer to water queue: Gaza mother mourns lost dream life

Updated 23 min 50 sec ago
Reuters
Follow

From wedding photographer to water queue: Gaza mother mourns lost dream life

  • The mother of seven is one of over two million Gazans who struggle to survive in the eighth month of an Israeli siege
  • "I'm a wedding photographer. Someone like me should be going out and living well and spending money on their children," Abdulati said
Updated 23 min 50 sec ago
Reuters

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Falasteen Abdulati mourns her vanished good life as a wedding photographer as she wearily queues day after day for scarce drinking water in a rubble-strewn street in south Gaza, fearing for the future of her children.
The mother of seven is one of over two million Gazans who struggle to survive in the eighth month of an Israeli siege and invasion triggered by a cross-border Hamas attack, with food, drinking water, medical care and safe shelter hard to find.
"I'm a wedding photographer. Someone like me should be going out and living well and spending money on their children," Abdulati, 35, said, laboriously filling a few buckets with water from a battered barrel in the city of Khan Younis.
"Our life has (been reduced) to the simplest needs. It is work and exhaustion. Nothing else. The dream that I had as a wedding photographer to open a studio and to get cameras and to make people happy, is lost. My dream is lost."
She continued: "Every morning we wake up at 7 o’clock and of course the first thing we think about is water," she said. "We come here and wait in the long queue, just to fill up four buckets with water. Other than that, our shoulders hurt. There are no men to carry it for us. There is no one but us. Women are the ones working these days."
Israel's assault on the tiny, heavily urbanised coastal enclave has displaced over three-quarters of the 2.3 million Palestinian population and demolished its infrastructure.
"The future of my children that I worked tirelessly for is lost. There are no schools (functioning), no education. There is no more comfort in life," said Abdulati.
"No safety," she added, referring to the threat of shelling or raids that Israel says target Hamas militants holed up in densely-packed residential neighbourhoods.
Abdulati, dressed in a body-length robe and head-covering, said the upheaval of war had turned the lives of Gaza women upside down. "Women are now like men. They work hard just like men. They're no longer comfortable at home."
Her husband is hospitalised with war injuries.
Breathing heavily, she lugged her buckets along a shattered, sand-covered street and up a dingy flight of cement stairs into the family flat. There she heated up the fresh water over a makeshift fire stove in a cluttered, cramped room dark for lack of electricity, watched intently by her young children.
"We are suffering due to a lack of gas because the border crossings are shut," she said, referring to Israel's siege that has severely restricted humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza.
"The water that I filled up must be rationed. I heat it up so I can wash the children, in addition to doing the dishes and washing clothes. The four buckets I can get per day are just not enough. I have to go back again and again."

Topics: War on Gaza photographer Israel Hamas

Related

Middle-East
Israel launches deadly Gaza strikes, says ready for new truce talks
World
Pentagon chief tells Israel of need to coordinate humanitarian, military Gaza operations

Poverty in Lebanon tripled over a decade, World Bank says

Updated 23 May 2024
AP
Follow

Poverty in Lebanon tripled over a decade, World Bank says

  • The findings showed stark differences in poverty levels between different areas of the country
  • Among Lebanese surveyed, the poverty rate in 2022 was 33 percent, while among Syrians it reached 87 percent
Updated 23 May 2024
AP

BEIRUT: Poverty in Lebanon tripled over the course of a decade during which the small Mediterranean country slid into a protracted financial crisis, the World Bank said Thursday.
The percentage of people in Lebanon living below the poverty line rose from 12 percent in 2012 to 44 percent in 2022, the bank said in a report based on surveys conducted in five of the country’s eight governorates.
The data provided the most detailed snapshot to date on the economic circumstances of the country’s population since the crisis that began in late 2019, although World Bank officials acknowledged it was incomplete as surveyors were not given access to three governates in the south and east of the country.
The findings showed stark differences in poverty levels between different areas of the country and between Lebanese citizens and the country’s large population of Syrian refugees.
In the Beirut governate, in contrast to the rest of the country, poverty actually declined from 4 percent to 2 percent of the population during the decade surveyed, while in the largely neglected Akkar region in the north, the rate increased from 22 percent to 62 percent.
Among Lebanese surveyed, the poverty rate in 2022 was 33 percent, while among Syrians it reached 87 percent. While the survey found an increase in the percentage of Lebanese citizens working in unskilled jobs like agriculture and construction, it found that most Lebanese still work in skilled jobs while the majority of Syrians do unskilled labor.
The report also measured “multidimensional poverty,” which takes into account access to services like electricity and education as well as income, finding that some 73 percent of Lebanese and 100 percent of non-Lebanese residents of the country qualify as poor under this metric.
Beginning in late 2019, Lebanon’s currency collapsed, while inflation skyrocketed and the country’s GDP plummeted. Many Lebanese found that the value of their life savings had evaporated.
Initially, many saw an International Monetary Fund bailout as the only path out of the crisis, but since reaching a preliminary agreement with the IMF in 2022, Lebanese officials have made limited progress on reforms required to clinch the deal, including restructuring the ailing banking sector.
An IMF delegation visiting Beirut this week found that “some progress has been made on monetary and fiscal reforms,” the international financial institution said in a statement, including on “lowering inflation and stabilizing the exchange rate,” but it added that the measures “fall short of what is needed to enable a recovery from the crisis.”
It noted that reforms to “governance, transparency and accountability” remain “limited” and that without an overhaul of the banking sector, the “cash and informal economy will continue to grow, raising significant regulatory and supervisory concerns.”
The World Bank has estimated that the cash economy makes up 46 percent of the country’s GDP, as Lebanese distrustful of banks in the wake of the crisis have sought to deal in hard currency.
The flourishing cash economy has created fertile ground for money laundering and led to concerns that Lebanon could be placed on the Paris-based watchdog Financial Action Task Force’s “grey list” of countries with a high risk of money laundering and terrorism financing.

Topics: Lebanon poverty World Bank

Related

Business & Economy
Lebanon’s reforms insufficient for recovery, IMF says 
Middle-East
Drone war continues in southern Lebanon, Burkan missiles target Israeli sites

Two-day Israeli raid on West Bank city leaves 12 Palestinians dead

Updated 23 May 2024
AFP
Follow

Two-day Israeli raid on West Bank city leaves 12 Palestinians dead

  • Israeli troops withdrew from the city after carrying out raids in the city’s refugee camp and exchanging fire with masked gunmen
  • Four children among the dead, and 25 wounded during the fighting
Updated 23 May 2024
AFP

JeNIN: A two-day Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin killed at least 12 Palestinians, health authorities and an AFP correspondent said Thursday.
Israeli troops withdrew from the city early Thursday, the correspondent said, after carrying out raids in the city’s refugee camp and exchanging fire with masked gunmen in a nearby neighborhood in the city center.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said Israeli forces had killed 12 people including four children, and wounded 25 during the fighting which began on Tuesday morning.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa and medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported that surgeon Usaeed Jabareen, from Jenin’s Khalil Suleiman government hospital, was among those killed on Tuesday.
An AFP correspondent on Thursday saw five bodies at the hospital morgue, including Jabareen’s.
A schoolteacher and a student were also among the dead, Wafa reported, quoting hospital director Wissam Bakr.
Several of the bodies were draped in flags and carried among crowds of Palestinians, including armed militants, through the streets as gunfire rang out.
Both Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Palestinian militant group Hamas condemned the raid.
Israel’s army said on Wednesday troops had “exchanged fire with armed men and killed a number of terrorists, including two terrorists who threw explosives at the forces.”
The army said it had raided the house of Ahmed Barakat, who was suspected of involvement in an attack on an Israeli civilian last year.
Meir Tamari, 32, was killed in May 2023 at the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, medics and military officials said at the time.
Jenin has long been a stronghold of Palestinian militant groups, and the Israeli army routinely carries out raids in the city and adjacent camp.
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has seen a surge in violence for more than a year, but especially so since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7.
At least 518 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war broke out, according to Palestinian officials.
Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 12 Israelis in the West Bank over the same period, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The Gaza Strip has been gripped by more than seven months of war since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,709 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Topics: West Bank Israel

Related

Middle-East
Israel allows return to three evacuated West Bank settlements
photos
Middle-East
Palestinian ministry says Israel troops kill 8 in West Bank raid

Lebanese children narrowly escape deadly strike on Hezbollah fighter

Updated 59 min 52 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Lebanese children narrowly escape deadly strike on Hezbollah fighter

  • The injured children were hospitalized with cuts from flying glass after the aerial attack
  • “At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, and there was panic among the children,” said Ahmad Qubaisi who was driving the bus
Updated 59 min 52 sec ago
AFP

NABATIEH, Lebanon: Lebanese school children on a minibus had a narrow escape Thursday when a drone strike killed a Hezbollah fighter in the car ahead, blowing out the windscreen of their vehicle and wounding three pupils.
The injured children were hospitalized with cuts from flying glass after the aerial attack, which state media and a source close to the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel.
“At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, and there was panic among the children,” said Ahmad Qubaisi, 57, who was driving the bus with 18 children on board.
“Suddenly a strike hit the car in front of us” near the town of Nabatiyeh, about 13 kilometers (eight miles) from the Israeli border, he said.
“The bus’s windshield shattered... I backed up and that’s when the second strike hit the car” in front of him, Qubaisi added.
The source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Israel was behind the strike, which killed a Hezbollah member who was named as Mohammad Ali Nasser Farran.
The attack was the latest in months of violence that has upended lives on both sides of the Lebanon-Israel frontier as the Israel-Hamas war has raged in Gaza.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israel since the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
In the more than seven months since then, at least 429 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 82 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Despite the fatalities, both sides have so far calibrated the intensity and range of their strikes in efforts to avoid an all-out war between the two countries.
At the site of Thursday’s strike, an AFP photographer saw the charred car and blood stains on the road.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “an enemy drone attack in the morning on the Kfardjal-Nabatiyeh road.”
The attack “killed a car driver” and “wounded three pupils” who were in a bus heading to school, it said.
One of the children, 11-year-old Mohammed Nasser, was lying on a bed in the Nabatiyeh government hospital, a bandage on his bruised forehead.
“The glass shattered... and the car in front of us was burning,” the boy recalled.
Fearing more strikes, he said, “we put our schoolbags on our heads.”
Standing beside him, his aunt showed AFP his blood-stained school uniform.
The boy’s father, Ali Nasser, said that “I was working in my field when my brother-in-law called telling me my son had been injured.”
“Fortunately, his injuries are not serious,” he added.
A Nabatiyeh school later said that the man killed, Farran, was also a physics teacher at the school and that it mourned his death.
Later Thursday, Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of rockets at a base in northern Israel.
It said its katyusha barrage was “in response to the assassination carried out by the enemy in Kafardjal, and the injuring and terrorizing of children.”

Topics: War on Gaza Lebanon Hezbollah Israeli air strike

Related

Business & Economy
Lebanon’s reforms insufficient for recovery, IMF says 
Middle-East
Drone war continues in southern Lebanon, Burkan missiles target Israeli sites

Latest updates

Heat wave cancels lessons for half Pakistan’s schoolchildren
Egyptians held nearly a year over deadly shipwreck are released from Greek jail after case dismissed
US will announce $275 million more in artillery and ammunition for Ukraine, officials say
French Open: Nadal faces Zverev in first round
Pakistani exporters confident of increasing sales in Kingdom after encouraging response at ‘Saudi Food Show’

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.