LONDON: Political opponents, scientists and even usually supportive newspapers lambasted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday over his government’s broken promises on wider testing for the COVID-19 virus.
Johnson’s Conservative government vowed weeks ago to rapidly increase the number of tests for the new coronavirus to 10,000 a day, then 25,000 a day by mid-April. But progress has been slow. The government says 10,412 tests were performed Tuesday, the first time the daily target was met.
Like some other countries, the UK has limited virus testing to hospitalized patients, leaving people with milder symptoms unsure whether they were infected. Many scientists say wider testing — especially of health care workers — would allow medics who are off work with symptoms to return if their results are negative, and would give a better picture of how the virus spreads.
Johnson tested positive for the virus a week ago and revealed last Friday that he had mild symptoms of COVID-19 disease. He has continued working while in self-isolation and promised in a video message that the government was “massively increasing testing.”
Testing “is how we will unlock the coronavirus puzzle. This is how we will defeat it in the end,” Johnson said.
Opinion polls suggest Britons have been largely supportive of the government’s efforts to contain the new coronavirus. Johnson ordered residents to stay home except for a handful of permitted circumstances and ordered the closure of schools, bars, restaurants and non-essential shops.
But as the number of virus-related deaths in the UK accelerated in recent days, the unity behind the government’s response is shattering. The country had more than 29,800 cases and more than 2,350 deaths as of Thursday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
The right-leaning Daily Mail newspaper slammed the “testing fiasco” on its front page Thursday. “Questions without Answers,” said the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph, accusing the government of being unable to say why Britain lagged behind its European neighbors on testing.
Critics compare Britain’s approach to testing unfavorably to the one in Germany, which has the ability to test 500,000 people a week and has reported fewer deaths among people with the virus
The government says testing front-line health care workers is a priority, and it set up five drive-through test centers to do it. But they had tested only 2,800 people by Thursday, from a National Health Service workforce of more than 1 million.
Paul Cosford, emeritus medical director of Public Health England, acknowledged that “everybody involved is frustrated that we haven’t got to the place where we’ve got to get to.”
Part of the problem is Britain’s centralized state-funded health system, which is fairly efficient at organizing hospital treatment but poor at rapidly boosting testing capacity. All coronavirus tests were initially processed at a single Public Health England laboratory, though several other public labs are now also handling the tests.
British officials also blame shortages of swabs to take samples and of chemicals known as reagents, which are needed to perform the tests, for the delay in ramping up testing.
But private-sector firms and academic institutes say their offers of help have so far been ignored.
Paul Nurse, chief executive of the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research, said its laboratory had been repurposed so it could carry out 500 tests a day by next week, rising to 2,000 a day in future.
He compared the effort required to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of British troops from the French port of Dunkirk as it was overrun by German forces in 1940 — a rescue that saw hundreds of small private boats join the navy in plucking soldiers from the beaches.
“We are a lot of little boats. and the little boats can be effective,” Nurse said. “The government has put some big boats, destroyers in place. That’s a bit more cumbersome to get working and we wish them all the luck to do that, but we little boats can contribute as well.”
UK vows to ‘massively’ increase virus testing amid criticism
https://arab.news/8awwg
UK vows to ‘massively’ increase virus testing amid criticism
- Johnson’s Conservative government vowed weeks ago to rapidly increase the number of tests for the new coronavirus to 10,000 a day, then 25,000 a day by mid-April
- Like some other countries, the UK has limited virus testing to hospitalized patients, leaving people with milder symptoms unsure whether they were infected
New humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as Pakistan forces refugees to return
- Mass deportation coincides with huge foreign aid cuts under new US policies
- Deadline for hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave Pakistan was March 31
KABUL: Pakistan’s plan to expel most of its Afghan refugees this year will trigger a new humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, aid groups warn, as foreign funding has been slashed and existing infrastructure is inadequate to support returnees.
Pakistan is home to about 3 million Afghans, many of whom fled their country during decades of war. This number includes Afghans born in Pakistan, as well as those who sought shelter after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
They are the main group facing deportation under the Pakistani government’s nationwide crackdown to force out foreigners living in the country illegally. The drive also includes Afghan Citizen Card holders, who were given a deadline to leave by March 31. Pakistani authorities confirmed last week they were not extending the deadline.
According to UN data, 800,000 people with Afghan Citizen Cards and 1 million undocumented Afghans are currently set to be expelled. Since the launch of the crackdown in 2023, more than 843,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland.
“If they come in hundreds of thousands or millions, it will create another crisis in the country,” Abdul Fatah Jawad, director of Ehsas Welfare and Social Services Organization, told Arab News.
“Finding houses, jobs, and educational opportunities will be very difficult for this huge number of returnees. Health is another challenge.”
Over the past two months, more than 200 health facilities across Afghanistan have been either suspended or closed, and another 200 will shut by June due to external funding shortfalls, which come amid massive US aid cuts under the Donald Trump administration.
The US, which invaded Afghanistan in 2001, was its largest aid donor. It has been cutting its support since 2021. Washington withdrew its troops from Afghanistan after the collapse of its Western-backed regime and imposed sanctions on the country’s new rulers. It also froze all projects after spending billions on two decades of military and development operations.
The moves led to Afghanistan’s economic collapse and the disruption of basic services such as healthcare, education, and food distribution. Millions of people were left without essential support due to the collapse of institutions and infrastructure.
As the economy continues to reel and new aid cuts are implemented, the return of refugees will place an additional strain on a system that may not be able to bear it.
“With the overall shortage of donors’ financial aid, especially after the recent US funding cuts, Afghanistan is not prepared to receive large numbers of returnees at once and provide them with housing and livelihood facilities. This is a significant challenge and will certainly exacerbate the ongoing crisis in the country,” said Fareed-ud-Din Noori, country director of Women for Afghan Women, a US-based organization that has been providing shelter, protection and food services to returnees.
“Several international and national organizations that provided critical services to returnees in resettlement and reintegration areas in the country were forced to either close their offices or suspend their projects due to unavailability of funds.”
The prospect of immediately finding jobs for hundreds of thousands of families is unlikely.
“With unemployment levels skyrocketing across the country and livelihood prospects looking grim, these returnees will face significant challenges in starting a new life in the country. Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy will come under increasing pressure,” Noori said.
“The international community’s financial support is compulsory to enable a proper response to the influx of returnees.”
The Afghan government, too, does not have a clear plan of how to handle the number of returning nationals and integrate them with the rest of the society. Its Refugee and Repatriation Minister Mawlawi Abdul Kabir said last month that Afghanistan would encourage its nationals to come back to the country, but they should be given time and return “according to an organized and gradual mechanism instead of forced deportation.”
Dr. Tayeb Khan, economist and lecturer at Kateb University in Kabul, warned that refugee children in particular will be affected by the forced migration.
“All of this is putting increasing pressure on the country’s fragile economy, leading to greater dependence on humanitarian aid and deepening the poverty situation. The government alone will not be able to integrate children of these returnees into schools and provide them with essential health services,” he said.
“Most of these refugees have established their own lives and businesses over the years they have lived abroad … When they are forced to return to Afghanistan against their will, they will struggle with finding a job or work at first. Tens of thousands of people in the country are already finding it very difficult to get employed, especially after development projects were suspended following the withdrawal of international funding from Afghanistan.”
Police summon US scholar in Thailand after army alleges he insulted the monarchy
- A copy of the police summons says the regional army command filed charges against Chambers, including violating the law against defaming the monarchy
- The 3rd Army Area, covering Thailand’s northern region, was named as the plaintiff in the document
BANGKOK: The Thai army has filed a criminal complaint against an American scholar working in Thailand, alleging that he insulted the country’s monarchy, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Paul Chambers, a political science lecturer, said police came to his workplace at Naresuan University in the northern province of Phitsanulok on Friday morning to serve him with an arrest warrant and summoning him to the local police station to formally hear the charges.
Chambers said he will report himself on Tuesday and hopes to get released on bail.
“I’m basically in limbo because I can’t go anywhere. I’m not supposed to,” he told The Associated Press. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m kind of nervous.”
A copy of the police summons, seen by the AP, says the regional army command filed charges against Chambers, including violating the law against defaming the monarchy and the Computer Crime Act.
The letter, signed by Phitsanulok City police chief Watcharapong Sitthirungroj, said the warrant was approved by the Phitsanulok Provincial Court on March 31. Watcharapong denied any knowledge of the charges against Chambers when first reached by the AP, but when asked about his signature on the document, said he couldn’t immediately comment and asked a reporter to call back.
The 3rd Army Area, covering Thailand’s northern region, was named as the plaintiff in the document, but could not be reached for comment. Army spokesperson Winthai Suvaree could not immediately be reached.
The summons did not explain the details of the offense that Chambers was accused of. Chambers said he believes it was related to a webinar last October in which he discussed the influence of the military in Thai politics.
Thailand’s lese majeste law calls for three to 15 years’ imprisonment for anyone who defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir apparent or the regent.
Critics say it is among the harshest such laws anywhere and has been used in Thailand to punish critics of the government and institutions such as the military. The army plays a major role in politics and has staged 13 successful coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, most recently just 11 years ago.
It is rare for a foreigner to be charged under the law, which has been applied frequently in the past decade during a period of political polarization.
Public criticism of the monarchy, a linchpin of Thai identity, used to be rare, but student-led pro-democracy protests began to challenge that taboo in 2020, openly criticizing the institution. That led to vigorous prosecutions under what was previously a little-used law.
The advocacy group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people — many of them student activists — have been charged with violating the lese majeste law, often referred to as Article 112.
Everything I did was for my country, Duterte says via daughter
- “Everything I did, I did for my country. (I don’t know) whether that statement is acceptable or not, but I want it out to the world,” said Sara, relaying her father’s words
- The vice president would not be drawn as to whether this amounted to an admission of responsibility for the crimes her father is facing at the ICC
THE HAGUE: Philippine ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, facing International Criminal Court charges over his deadly narcotics crackdown, said “everything I did, I did for my country,” his daughter told reporters Friday.
Sara Duterte, who is also her country’s vice president, was briefing journalists at the detention center in The Hague after a long conversation with her father interned inside.
She also relayed that her father wants proceedings against him to move as quickly as possible, with the 80-year-old fearful of dying in custody.
“Everything I did, I did for my country. (I don’t know) whether that statement is acceptable or not, but I want it out to the world,” said Sara, relaying her father’s words.
The vice president would not be drawn as to whether this amounted to an admission of responsibility for the crimes her father is facing at the ICC.
It was the first reported comments from Rodrigo Duterte since he appeared tired and dazed at an initial appearance at the ICC, which he attended by videolink and barely spoke.
In a video posted when Duterte arrived in the Netherlands last month to face the charges, he had said “I will be responsible for all of this.”
Duterte stands accused of the crime against humanity of murder over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups said killed thousands.
In the prosecutor’s application for his arrest, he said Duterte’s alleged crimes were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in the Philippines.”
“Potentially tens of thousands of killings were perpetrated,” the prosecutor alleged of the campaign that targeted mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
In an interview with AFP earlier Friday, a lawyer for victims, Gilbert Andres, said loved-ones of those affected were seeking “truth and justice” from a potential trial.
The next hearing is scheduled for September 23, where the charges against him will be laid out, but Sara Duterte said her father was eager to get proceedings underway.
“He wants to go back to the Philippines. He said, ‘I am an old man. I can die anytime. But I want to die in my country’,” said Sara Duterte.
Turkiye says any Ukraine peace deal hard to digest — but better than more death
- Fidan said Turkiye supported a US initiative to seek an end to the war in Ukraine
- The sides remained a “little bit far away” from reaching a deal
BRUSSELS: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Friday that any potential peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia would be “difficult to digest” but would still be better than the alternative of more death and destruction.
Turkiye, a NATO member, has maintained cordial ties with both Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It has voiced support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and provided it with military help, while opposing sanctions on Russia.
In an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Fidan said Turkiye supported a US initiative to seek an end to the war in Ukraine, but that the sides remained a “little bit far away” from reaching a deal.
“It will be extremely difficult to digest any proposal,” Fidan said. “But when we look at the other option, which is more death and destruction, I think whatever the conditions that we have... will be more reasonable” than the alternative.
US President Donald Trump “is finally following an agenda to stop the war,” he added.
Asked about potential security guarantees for Ukraine, Fidan said Europe could not provide them on its own without US support, but added that a deterrence factor was needed for the fighting not to restart.
“There is a huge effort to get the American side again to engage in security support to Ukraine,” he said, referring to recent talks among European states.
He added that “we should expect” that all sides including Russia would honor any ultimate agreement.
The prospect of ending the war has heightened Turkiye’s role in regional security, making it a key potential partner in the restructuring of Europe’s security architecture, as European powers scramble to bolster their own defenses and seek guarantees for Ukraine under any forthcoming peace deal.
Kyiv has said Turkiye, with the second largest army in NATO, would be an important guarantor for security. Ankara has said it would consider joining a peace initiative on the ground, though it has said details of such a mission remain unclear.
Fidan repeated Turkiye’s offer to host Russia and Ukraine for possible peace talks, after having hosted initial talks in 2022.
US SANCTIONS
Asked about Trump’s dramatic shift in US transatlantic security policies, including closer ties with Russia, Fidan said this could be an opportunity for Europe to be more independent after its “huge dependency” on the United States since the Cold War.
“If we see that the main actors are not hostile anymore (and are) having some kind of cooperation, I think the mentality that we have inherited from the Cold War, which was based on the hostility between mainly the United States and Russia will create a huge change,” he said.
Fidan, who met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the NATO summit after having visited him in Washington last month, also said he was hopeful that Trump would find a solution to end years-long US sanctions on Turkiye’s defense industry.
The so-called CAATSA sanctions were applied after Turkiye acquired Russian S-400 defense systems in 2019, also resulting in the country’s removal from an F-35 fighter jet development and procurement system.
The sanctions “should be corrected,” Fidan said. “I think Mr. Trump, with his problem-solving techniques and his team, will be able to come up with some sort of solution.”
China imposes a 34 percent tariff on imports of all US products starting April 10
- The new tariff matches the rate of the US “reciprocal” tariff of 34 percent on Chinese exports that Trump ordered this week
- China’s customs administration said it had suspended imports of chicken from some US suppliers after detected furazolidone
BANGKOK: China announced Friday that it will impose a 34 percent tariff on imports of all US products beginning April 10, part of a flurry of retaliatory measures following US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” slate of double-digit tariffs.
The new tariff matches the rate of the US “reciprocal” tariff of 34 percent on Chinese exports that Trump ordered this week.
The Commerce Ministry in Beijing also said in a notice that it will impose more export controls on rare earths, which are materials used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries.
Included in the list of minerals subject to controls was samarium and its compounds, which are used in aerospace manufacturing and the defense sector. Another element called gadolinium is used in MRI scans.
China’s customs administration said it had suspended imports of chicken from some US suppliers after detected furazolidone, a drug banned in China, in shipments from those companies.
Separately, it said had found high levels of mold in the sorghum and salmonella in poultry meat from some of the companies. The announcements affect one company exporting sorghum, C&D Inc., and four poultry companies.
Additionally, the Chinese government said it had added 27 firms to lists of companies subject to trade sanctions or export controls.
Among them, 16 are subject to a ban on the export of “dual-use” goods. High Point Aerotechnologies, a defense tech company, and Universal Logistics Holding, a publicly traded transportation and logistics company, were among those listed.
Beijing also announced it filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization over the tariffs issue.
“The United States’ imposition of so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ seriously violates WTO rules, seriously damages the legitimate rights and interests of WTO members, and seriously undermines the rules-based multilateral trading system and international economic and trade order,” the Commerce Ministry said.
“It is a typical unilateral bullying practice that endangers the stability of the global economic and trade order. China firmly opposes this,” it said.
Other actions include the launch of an anti-monopoly investigation into DuPont China Group Co., a subsidiary of the multinational chemical giant, and an anti-dumping probe into X-ray tube and CT tubes for CT scanners imported from the US and India.
In February, China announced a 15 percent tariff on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas products from the US It separately added a 10 percent tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars.
Dozens of US companies are subject to controls on trade and investment, while many more Chinese companies face similar limits on dealings with US firms.
The latest tariffs apply to all products made in the US, according to a statement from the Ministry of Finance’s State Council Tariff Commission.
While friction on the trade front has been heating up, overall relations are somewhat less fractious.
US and Chinese military officials met this week for the first time Trump took office in January to shared concerns about military safety on the seas. The talks held Wednesday and Thursday in Shanghai were aimed at minimizing the risk of trouble, both sides said.
