Coronavirus cases in Pakistan surged past 25,000 on Friday, just hours before the government was due to lift lockdown measures, with the country reporting some of the biggest daily increases in new infections in the world.
Officials reported 1,764 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours on Friday, taking the total to 25,837. Deaths rose by 30 to 594.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced plans to begin lifting Pakistan’s poorly enforced lockdown from Saturday, amid fears for the country’s economy as it sinks into recession.
Khan said the easing of restrictions, aimed at helping the country’s most impoverished citizens, would be lifted in phases and warned people that the epidemic could get out of control if they did not take precautions. He added that restrictions could be restored if the outbreak worsens.
The government’s handling of the virus has been strongly criticized by scientists and doctors who fear the outbreak will gather pace among a population of around 210 million and overwhelm the country’s struggling health system.
After reporting just a handful of COVID-19 cases in late February, Pakistan’s numbers began to surge from mid-March. It has reported an average of just over 1,000 cases and around 27 deaths per day for the past week, according to a Reuters tally based on official data.
In the Middle East and Asia regions, only India, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey are reporting daily increases at a similar rate.
Pakistan officials have said small markets and shops would be the first to open, with restricted hours, while big malls and other spaces that attract large crowds will remain closed for now. Schools will stay shut until mid-July and a decision on reopening intercity transport would be made at a later, unspecified, date.
Pakistan coronavirus cases surge past 25,000, pace quickens
https://arab.news/2czhj
Pakistan coronavirus cases surge past 25,000, pace quickens
- Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced plans to begin lifting Pakistan’s poorly enforced lockdown from Saturday
- But restrictions could be restored if the outbreak worsens
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
