Saturday 15 August 2020

25 Dhul-Hijja - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 25 | Number 8350

Choose the network of heroes Enjoy the Internet

SPORT | 14BUSINESS | 11

US and China to

discuss trade

deal amid COVID-19

disruption

Rizwan

frustrates

England with fine

fifty on 2nd day

Included withtoday’s edition is a

special supplement

QUARTER-FINALS

TODAY'S FIXTUREManchester City vs Lyon

Kick off at 10:00pm Qatar time

YESTERDAY'S RESULTBayern Munich 8 - 2 Barcelona

Amir, President

of Tunisia

discuss boosting

bilateral ties

QNA — DOHA

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani held yesterday via telephone a conversation with President of the Republic of Tunisia H E Kais Saied.

During the call, they dis-cussed the close bilateral rela-tions between the two brotherly countries and the prospects for strengthening them, in addition to discussing regional and international developments of common concern.

MADLSA gives

approval for

reopening of 19

nurseries

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs (MADLSA) has announced that it approved 19 nurseries for reopening following the preventive and precautionary measures which are in place in the country.

“The Ministry would like to inform you of the list of nurseries that have been approved to reopen after they have fulfilled all the conditions and precautionary and pre-ventive measures,” the Min-istry has tweeted with the list of the nurseries.

The Ministry said that the lists of the rest of the nurseries will be published, which will be reopened as soon as the conditions and precautionary measures are met.

The names of the nurseries which were approved by the Ministry for reopen are Wood-berry Nursery, Honeypot Nursery – Aziziya, Muaither Modern Nursery, Little Leaders Nursery – Abu Hamour, Cre-ative Kids Nursery, Sussex for Early Education, Dreamers Nursery, Grandma Nursery – Al Waab, Pink and Blue Nursery, Busy Hands Nursery, Babyland Nursery, Baby Star Nursery, Primrose Nursery, PreScholars Nursery, Smurf Nursery, Al Reem Nursery, Bright Beginnings Nursery, Erin Mills Nursery and Apple Tree Nursery.

Massage services remain suspended until further notice, says MOCI

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI) has reminded that massage services remain suspend until further notice as part of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“We would like to inform that the decision No. (4) of 2020 regarding suspension of massage activities in salons, massage parlours, Moroccan bath services and home services for these activities is effective until further notice,” t h e M O C I t w e e t e d yesterday.

The Ministry called all people to abide by the deci-sions and circulars issued in this regards in order to avoid accountability and legal action.

Second Qatari field hospital in Beirut opens

QNA — BEIRUT

In the implementation of the directives of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the second Qatari field hospital was inaugurated yesterday at Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui in Beirut, as part of the medical aid and supplies provided by the State of Qatar to support Lebanon.

Health Minister in the Leb-anese caretaker government H E Dr. Hamad Hassan, Ambas-sador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Lebanon H E Mohammed Hassan Jaber Al Jaber, representative of the Leb-anese Army Commander General Elias Shamiya, Director Manager of the Lebanese

Hospital Geitaoui Dr. Pierre Yared, the Qatari logistical and medical delegation that con-structed the hospital, and several diplomats attended the inauguration.

Health Minister in the Leb-anese caretaker government thanked the State of Qatar for its aid and constant support for Lebanon, praising the depth of Qatari-Lebanese relations.

He pointed out that the second Qatari field hospital, which was inaugurated yes-terday, is both a “field and emergency” and contains an operating room, stressing the importance of this hospital in light of the difficult conditions faced by the health sector in Lebanon due to the Beirut Port

explosion and the full or partial closure of several hospitals in addition to comforting COVID-19 pandemic.

Director Manager at the Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui Dr. Pierre Yared thanked the State of Qatar for providing the second field hospital, praising the Qatari aid to Lebanon in light of the difficulties it faces on the health front.

H E Qatar’s Ambassador to Lebanon affirmed that the State

of Qatar, with all its official, people, and residents, stands by Lebanon.

His excellency pointed out that the Qatar Red Crescent Society and Qatar Charity have begun distributing aid and relief campaigns in Lebanon, stressing that the Qatari aid will not be limited to food and medical aid, but will include other aspects in coordination with the relevant authorities in Lebanon.

The 500-bed hospital includes pharmacy equipped with medicines, an operating room, an intensive care room, and a cancer treatment department, upon the hospital’s request.

The first Qatari field hos-pital was inaugurated in Beirut on August 11 at Al Roum Hos-pital, as part of the aid and medical supplies provided by Qatar to relieve victims of the Beirut Port explosion.

Health Minister in the Lebanese caretaker government H E Dr. Hamad Hassan, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Lebanon H E Mohammed Hassan Jaber Al Jaber and other officials attending the inauguration of second Qatari field hospital in Beirut yesterday.

Ashghal starts Roads and Infrastructure Project in Al Ebb and LeabaibTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced the commencement of the Roads and Infrastructure Project in Al Ebb and Leabaib (Package 4) which is located East of Al Shamal Road at Al Kheesa Inter-change and West of Street 245.

The project’s geographical scope covers part of Al Ebb and Leabaib Area South of Al Kheesa Road as well as a part of Jeryan Jenaihat Area to its North, said Ashghal in a statement.

This newly launched project aims at developing internal and main streets in the area such as Al Kheesa Road, and provide paths dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists. In addition, the project aims at developing infrastructure facilities in the area including stormwater and foul sewer drainage net-works to respond to residents’ needs.

Eng. Ali Mohamed Al Kaabi, Al Ebb and Leabaib Area Projects Manager at the Northern Areas Section in Ashghal’s Roads Projects Department, said that the project provides services for 1,049 residential plots in Al Ebb and Leabaib areas, including infrastructure services and enhanced local

streets to provide connectivity to the main network of road, as well as public facil-ities in the vicinity such as schools, mosques, commercial complexes.

“The project’s scope of works involves developing a roads network with a total length of 32km equipped with road safety features and street lighting as well as road signs and marking. The project also features a 64km pedestrian and cycle lanes and will provide approximately 5750 parking slots,” said Eng. Al Kaabi.

The project scope includes a 29-km-long foul sewer network, 28km surface and groundwater drainage network along with a 17km Treated Sewerage Effluent (TSE) network. In addition, new sewage pipelines along with a new system to ensure the flow distribution will be pro-vided and connected with Qatar’s main sewage network with increased capacity, to provide proper protection for the entire area against flooding and excess rainfall.

The implementation of upgrading works is divided into four geographical zones which will be carried out succes-sively. The duration of each phase will

be one year while the full completion of the project is scheduled for Q3, 2024.

In line with Ashghal’s support to local manufacturers and in line with Ta’heel

initiative which was launched by the Authority in 2017, local materials and manufacturers will be relied on for most of the project’s work. �P2

Qatar Airways to resume London Gatwick flightsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar Airways continues to maintain its position as the leading international carrier providing global connectivity to the UK with the resumption of daily flights to London Gatwick starting August 20, 2020.

The flights will be operated by the air-line’s modern fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner offering 22 seats in Business Class and 232 seats in Economy Class. The resumption of London Gatwick services will

see the airline’s UK operations expand to 45 weekly flights to four gateways in the UK with the following weekly operations: Edinburgh (three weekly flights), London Gatwick (daily flights), London Heathrow (three daily flights), Manchester (two daily flights).

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker, said: “We are very pleased to resume flights to London Gatwick, further cementing our position as the leading international carrier providing

connectivity to the UK. UK passengers can connect seamlessly and safely via the Best Airport in the Middle East to more than 40 destinations across Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and South Asia.

“The UK is a very important strategic market for Qatar Airways, and we are proud of our repatriation efforts to-date including never stopping services between the UK and Doha that have helped bring over 200,000 passengers home. The resumption of London Gatwick services is a significant indicator of the resilience of the UK travel market, and we look forward to resuming more of our UK destinations to support the recovery of tourism and trade in the region.”

Gatwick Airport CEO, Stewart Wingate, said: “We are delighted to welcome Qatar Airways back to Gatwick after what has been a challenging time for the whole industry. To be able to offer Gatwick passengers the opportunity to fly to Doha — a fantastic city in its own right and a gateway to destinations across Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand — is another pos-itive step in the recovery process. �P3

The facility inaugurated at Lebanese Hospital

Geitaoui in Beirut is part of the medical aid and

supplies provided by Qatar to support Lebanon.

The 500-bed hospital includes pharmacy

equipped with medicines, an operating room, an

intensive care room, and a cancer treatment

department.

Health Minister in the Lebanese caretaker gov-

ernment thanks the State of Qatar for its aid and

constant support for Lebanon.

Qatar Red Crescent Society and Qatar Charity

have begun distributing aid and relief materials

in Lebanon.

We are very pleased to resume

flights to London Gatwick, further

cementing our position as the

leading international carrier

providing connectivity to the UK."

H E Akbar Al Baker

Roads and Infrastructure Project in Al Ebb and Leabaib (Package 4)

OFFICIAL NEWS

02 SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020HOME

FAJR SUNRISE 03.46 am 05.07 am

W A L R U WA I S : 32o↗ 36o W A L K H O R : 29o↗ 42o W D U K H A N : 34o↗ 40o W WA K R A H : 28o↗ 4 4o W M E S A I E E D 28o↗ 4 4o W A B U S A M R A 30o↗ 39o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 14:58 – 00:00 LOW TIDE 06:44–00:00

Very hot daytime with scattered clouds and slight dust to

blowing dust at some places at times.

Minimum Maximum34oC 44oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.38 am06.11 pm

ASR ISHA

03.07 pm07.41 pm

Amir congratulates President of PakistanDOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin

Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Amir

H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad

Al Thani sent yesterday cables of

congratulations to President of the

Islamic Republic of Pakistan H E

Dr. Arif Alvi on the anniversary of

his country’s Independence Day.

Prime Minister and Minister of Inte-

rior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa

bin Abdulaziz Al Thani also sent

a cable of congratulations to H E

Prime Minister of the Islamic Repub-

lic of Pakistan Imran Khan on the

anniversary of his country’s Inde-

pendence Day. -QNA

The Health Minister in the Lebanese caretaker government, H E Dr. Hamad Hassan; Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Lebanon, H E Mohammed Hassan Jaber Al Jaber, and other officials attending the inauguration of the second Qatari field hospital, in Beirut, yesterday.

Qatar opens second field hospital in Beirut

MoI reminds motorists not to have more than 4 passengers in car

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has asked motorists to make sure not to have more than four persons in their car unless the passengers are families. The measure was implemented under the gradual lifting of COVID-19 restriction.

“All citizens and residents are obligated while going out not to have more than four persons in a vehicle including the drive. Families are exempted. It is man-datory to wear a mask,” the Min-istry tweeted yesterday.

The Ministry urged people to please stay away from gatherings and follow COVID-19 control measures to protect the com-munity from coronavirus.

Brigadier Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah, Director of the Public Relations Department at the

Ministry of Interior said Ehteraz app must remain on at all times and with all its operational fea-tures because it does not perform its protective role when it is not connected properly.

“The declining of the infection rates of COVID-19 and the high recovery of the cases does not mean that the pan-demic has ended, and more care must be taken in adhering to the precautionary measures,” said Brigadier Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah while talking to a programme of Qatar TV on Thursday.

He said that the Ministry of Interior helps those involved in

implementing COVID-19 measures in closed spaces and complexes to perform their work and to ensure that the public adheres to the required measures.

“The Ministry of Interior patrols ensures people comply to precautionary measures on roads, such as wearing masks and the specified number on vehicles in addition to carrying Ehteraz app,” said Al Muftah.

He said that the citizens and residents’ keenness to adhere to the precautionary measures played a major role in the decline of the spread of the epi-demic of coronavirus.

Brigadier Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah, Director of the Public Relations Department at the Ministry of Interiorspeaking during a Qatar TV programme.

Qatari teams win top prizes in global science competitionTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Five scientific projects form Qatar Science and Technology Secondary School for Boys (QSTSS) participated in the Global Youth Science and Tech-nology Bowl (GYSTB), which was held virtually on August 1.

Qatari teams from QSTSS managed to secure the second and 3rd place prizes in this prestigious competition. Three additional projects by QSTSS students were awarded Hon-orable Mention certificates.

The 2nd place prize was awarded to the ‘Medicine Tracker Device for Improving Medication Adherence’ project, which was developed by Ghanim Al Marri and Yousef Ibrahim, under the supervision of Derar Mallah.

H a m a d A l H o r r ; Mohammad Al Saqtari and Abdulla Mahmoud won the 3rd place for their project ‘Smart School Bus’, which was developed under the super-vision of Essa Swaidan.

The Honorable Mention certificates for distinguished scientific ideas and project design were given to the fol-lowing projects:

The Application of Thermo-electric Generators Using ‘Sandwich’ Method was carried out by Fahad Al Hajri and Ahmad Al Zaman under the supervision of Zokir Abdul Rahmanov.

The use of Hydrogels for Agriculture and Flood Defence was carried out by Jassim Sultan and Jassim Mohammad under the supervision of Suliman Miah.

The Portable Fridge, which was carried out by Saud Al Malik and Abdulaziz Al Tamimi under the supervision of Nabil Ayub.

GYSTB is an international student science competition in biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. Organised by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, it aims to promote science and technology, pro-vides a platform for global youth to develop their crea-tivity and scientific mindsets and facilitate the exchange of scientific ideas, interests and abilities among young scien-tists worldwide.

Science talents from all around the world have com-peted for the grand prizes with their research reports and prototypes.

Qatari animator gives new take on classic tale in DFI’s Short Film of the WeekRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA

Pioneering Qatari animator Aisha Al Jaidah puts her own spin on the frame story of One Thousand and One Nights in her short animated fairytale 1001 Days which is Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) Short Film of the Week.

While the original col-lection of tales follows the story within a story framework, Al Jaidah ventures into telling a story behind a story.

“What I wanted to create was something new and with a twist. 1001 Days is a story behind a story. Yes, we know that King Shahryar was brutal and Sheherezade sacrificed herself to come up with 1001 stories to entertain the king, but we never really knew where she got her stories from and why the king was brutal as he was,” Al Jaidah, who directed and co-wrote the film, said.

Al Jaidah admits she had been obsessed with the story that she even did an animation back in 2009 when she was in university.

In her 2017 film, the film-maker said she had to include topics such as violence and empowerment and at the end

give strong messages such as equality, feminism and sacrifice.

The film, which was a recipient of Qatari Film Fund, took home the Special Jury Award when it participated in the 2017 Ajyal Film Festival.

“Ajyal Film Festival was a very exciting time for me. It was a very long journey. I worked on it for almost a year. It was exhausting, but it was worth it,” she said while thanking the DFI for its support.

“The most powerful lesson that I’ve learned as a film-maker is patience specially with animation you would need a lot of patience. It’s worth it in the end when you see the final outcome on the big screen. This made my family very proud and gave me the motivation to carry on with creating more animated films,” she said.

Al Jaidah is an illustrator and animator who began her career in 2010 as a motion graphics artist at Al Jazeera Children’s Channel. As a senior animation producer, she developed the first animated children’s series created by a Qatari.

She received a scholarship to study animation and grad-uated from Kingston

University London, an achievement that motivated her to launch her own ani-mation production company called Blue Penguin Ani-mation, which she hopes will be one of the first companies in Qatar to fully produce ani-mation locally.

1001 Days was uploaded on Thursday on DFI’s YouTube channel as part of its Short Film of the Week initiative.

Launched in April, the ini-tiative brings the very best of DFI-supported films for film enthusiasts to enjoy in the comfort of their own homes. The initiative aims at encour-aging people to stay home

amid COVID-19 pandemic while lending support to Qatari films and Arab cinema.

The series kicked off with the short narrative Al Johara helmed by Qatari filmmaker Nora Al Subai. Other films which had been featured were Amer: An Arabian Legend by Jassim Al Rumaihi, Red by Kholood Al Ali, Elevate by Hamida Issa, In the Middle by Mariam Al Dhubhani, The Unlucky Hamster by Abdulaziz Mohammed Khashabi, Gubgub by Nouf Al Sulaiti, Land of Pearls by Mohammed AlIb-rahim, Smicha by Amal Al Muftah, and Kashta by AJ Al Thani.

A still from Aisha Al Jaidah’s animated short 1001 Days, DFI’s Short Film of the Week.

251 new virus

cases; 301

recoveries: MoPH

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) yesterday announced the registration of 251 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country. Another 301 people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recovered cases in Qatar to 111,258. All new cases have been introduced to isolation and are receiving necessary healthcare according to their health status.

Generation Amazing

Instagram Live programmes

return after Eid break

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 legacy programme Generation Amazing has reconvened its weekly football for development sessions on Instagram Live following the Eid Al Adha holiday.

The social and legacy pro-gramme, which uses the power of football to teach key life skills to children and youth in Qatar and globally, hosted a special physical activity session on @GA4good with Generation Amazing Master Coach Michael Richardson on Wednesday afternoon.

The session included an endurance challenge which audiences could do at home to enhance focus and adaptability while developing skills such as communication, organisation and teamwork.

In the coming months, Gen-eration Amazing will continue to organise weekly live sessions which offer fitness drills that families can do at home, in addition to live discussions on the football for development movement and exclusive inter-views with football stars and G e n e r a t i o n A m a z i n g ambassadors.

Ahead of the new series of online sessions, Generation Amazing Marketing & Commu-nications Director, Moza Al Mohannadi, said: “We are

delighted with the level of out-reach that #GALive has achieved and welcome our audiences to continue to keep fit and healthy with us, as well as enjoy the variety of important conversa-tions we are having with football stars and crucial figures in the sport for development sectors.”

Generation Amazing Pro-grammes Director, Nasser Al Khori, said: “We look forward to rolling out a new programme schedule over the next few months and encourage the football community to stay tuned and check our social channels for exciting and valuable sessions to come, which will go on until the end of the year.”

In order to ensure Gener-ation Amazing continues to engage with its audiences, the programme launched online ses-sions following the onset of the global pandemic in April. Since then, more than 130,000 viewers have tuned in, while social media engagements have topped 18.8 million.

A host of football stars have taken part in the programmes, including Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy ambas-sadors Xavi Hernández, Cafu, Samuel Eto’o, Tim Cahill, Mubarak Mustafa, Khalid Salman, Ali Al Habsi, Younis Mahmoud and Wael Gomaa. Other guests have included Amalie Thestrup and Justin Kluivert, from AS Roma .

The Ministry urged people to please stay away from gatherings and follow COVID-19 control measures to protect the community from coronavirus.

HMC urges people to use onlineservice to renew health cardsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has urged citizens and residents to utilise the online service to renew their health cards without visiting any HMC facility.

To renew HMC health card via online, steps include filling out the online form with all the required information, enter Qatari ID number and select “Renew (Update Expiry Date)” in the “Card Information” page, then click on “Next”.

Select “Number of Required Years” to renew the card and enter telephone number in the “Application Form” page.

If you selected, “Yes” in the

question “Receive the receipt voucher by email”, simply enter your email address.

If you selected “Yes” in the question, “Receive SMS Noti-fication”, simply enter your cellphone number. Click on “Next” to move to the “Payment Details” page, then click on “Pay”.

Pay appropriate fees and submit your application. Applicable fees depend on the type of applicant as follows:

Qatari adults and children: QR50. GCC nationals, whether adults or children: QR50. Res-idents, whether adults or children: QR100.

Domestic staff: QR50. Renewing health cards online is available 24/7.

Ashghal starts

infra project in Al

Ebb and LeabaibFROM PAGE 1

Materials and elements that will be supplied from local manufacturers include gabbro, lighting poles and luminaires, directional signs in addition to sewage, surface water and rain water drainage pipes, asphalt, concrete, rebar and prefabri-cated manholes. The local Qatari component that will be used on the project is planned to reach 85 percent.

The Roads and Infra-structure in Al Ebb and Leabib Project is being implemented by Quality Based Structures (QBS), at a cost of approxi-mately QR587m and is part of the Local Areas Infrastructure Programme for Areas which is carried out by Ashghal and includes a number of road and infrastructure development projects across Qatar.

03SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020 HOME

Pakistan marks 74th Independence DayTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The 74th Independence Day of Pakistan was observed at the Embassy of Pakistan in Doha yesterday. The flag-hoisting ceremony was held at the Embassy in the morning.

Unlike previous years, when the event was held in a festive manner and attended by hun-dreds of community members, this year according to local reg-ulations pertaining to public gatherings in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic, the event was only attended by the Embassy staff and families, and media representatives.

Ambassador H E Syed Ahsan Raza Shah hoisted the Paki-stan’s national flag at the new Embassy premises in Doha’s

diplomatic area. National anthem was recited in unison by the assembled audience on the occasion.

In his message on the occasion,H E the Ambassador felicitated fellow Pakistanis stating that the day refreshes the enthusiasm and rejuvenates the resolve of the nation to work for the progress and pros-

perity of the motherland. He said that the day

inspired all Pakistanis to serve the country with greater dedi-cation and to carry the national flag, which symbolises nation’s hopes and aspirations, even higher.

He praised the Pakistani community in Qatar, which he said was imbibed with the love

of the country and filled with the zeal to participate in Paki-stan’s progress and development.

He expressed confidence that the Pakistani community, which is a living bridge between Pakistan and Qatar in their practices and dealings would present the true image of Pakistan in keeping with the spirit of the ideals and teachings of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

H E the Ambassador expressed gratitude to Amir H H Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the leadership of the State of Qatar for hosting the Pakistani community in Qatar and providing them with excellent employment oppor-

tunities and living conditions. H E Shah highlighted that

strong bonds of fraternal rela-tions between Pakistan and Qatar are based on historical bonds of a shared faith, heritage and culture. He said that the visits by the Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to Pakistan in June 2019 and by Pakistan Prime Minister H E Imran Khan to Qatar in January 2019 and February 2020 have further strengthened relations between the two nations.

In line with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s tree plantation campaign, several trees were planted at the Embassy on the occasion. The ceremony con-cluded with prayers for progress, prosperity and soli-darity with Pakistan.

Ambassador of Pakistan to Qatar, H E Syed Ahsan Raza Shah, hoists the national flag on the 74th Independence Day of Pakistan at the Embassy of Pakistan in Doha, yesterday. RIGHT: Children join H E Syed Ahsan Raza Shah in cutting a cake as part of Independence Day celebrations. ABDUL BASIT/THE PENINSULA

Consular section at new building ofPakistan Embassy inaugurated; to startdelivering services from tomorrowTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Consular Section at new premises of Pakistan Embassy was inaugurated yesterday and will start delivering services to the community from tomorrow (August 16).

Talking to the media after inaugurating the new state-of-the-art consular section at new building of the Embassy, Ambas-sador of Pakistan to Qatar, H E Syed Ahsan Raza Shah, said that the new premises of the Embassy was inaugurated in February by H E Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Foreign Minister of Pakistan during his visit to Doha but the consular services were delayed due to the situation arising from COVID-19 pandemic.

“The provision of consular services were delayed due to coronavirus pandemic but today we have inaugurated the new consular section and from tomorrow it will begin delivering

services to the Pakistani com-munity,” the Ambassador added.

He said that the community had complaints about space in consular section of the previous building. “Now new consular section is very spacious with good sitting arrangements and other facilities.”

The Ambassador further said that the Embassy celebrated Pakistan Independence Day with simplicity following measures to curb the spread of coronavirus infection.

Talking to media persons, Masood Gul, Deputy Head of Mission said that consular hall in new building of the Embassy could accommodate around 300 people. “Here all services are provided under one roof with different dedicated counters for different services like passport, attestation, power of attorney, NICOP, among others.”

He said that the new

consular section would have ATM facility and also visitors could pay fees through bank cards. He said that the section would open at 8pm on the working days to serve com-munity members. “If some vis-itors are present in the hall waiting to receive services we may extend time to facilitate them.”

H E Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, had formally inaugurated the new embassy premises in February this year. The new embassy premises are spread across an area of over 8,100sqm, much more than the existing building’s area of 4,500sqm, and the new consular halls can accommodate 300 visitors. There are separate waiting areas for women and men, and the hall for public meetings is also more spacious than the existing one.

A view of consular services section at the new building of Pakistan Embassy. ABDUL BASIT/THE PENINSULA

ABP records 2nd highest number of studentsaccepted to Education City universitiesTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Seventy-five members of the Academic Bridge Program – EC’s Class of 2020 have received 103 offers of admission to Education City universities, the second highest number in the 19-year history of the Academic Bridge Program.

The Academic Bridge Program (ABP) - EC, part of Qatar Foundation’s Pre-University Education, celebrated the grad-uation of 184 students in May, representing the highest number of graduates since 2015. Seventy-nine (43 percent) of those stu-dents graduated with Honors (no grade below 80 percent) or High Honors (no grade below 90 percent).

Several of this year’s grad-uates received multiple offers from Education City universities. Of the total number of graduates who received offers of admission to EC universities, 77 percent were Qatari and 23 percent were non-Qatari.

Misk Mohammed Abujbara was named the Valedictorian of the ABP-EC Class of 2020, with a GPA of 4.0 (95 percent). Abu-jbara has been accepted to Northwestern University in Qatar, where she will study Journalism.

“Even though it was only a year-long course, I learned a lot – both on an academic level, as well as a personal level. As I have always told my friends, appre-ciate moments and that’s what I did. I liked the educational system at the ABP, which made me want to continue my bach-elor’s degree at NUQ

“I have built many skills and friendships, not only with stu-dents but faculty members, too. My family and friends were always very supportive, and I thank them for always being there for me,” said Misk.

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of prepa-ration, hard work, and learning from failure,” said Sara Awadallah, Salutatorian of the

ABP-EC Class of 2020.Reyam Ahmed Al Jaafari, a

graduate from Class of 2020, added: “Due to my wonderful experience at the ABP, I suc-ceeded in getting accepted into Northwestern University in Qatar.”

The Academic Officer Program – ABP also graduated 53 officer cadets. These grad-uates have received offers of admission to EC universities, as well as universities in the UK and the US. An additional 26 cadets were admitted in January to uni-versities, as well as other spe-cialized military programs.

Twenty-four (45 percent) of the AOP-ABP Class of 2020 grad-uated with Honors or High Honors. The Valedictorian of the AOP-ABP Class of 2020 was Ibrahim Abdulrahman Al Kuwari. Ibrahim is going to study Cyber Security at the University of Northumbria, UK.

“I am so proud of our 237 ABP graduates, from our EC campus and the Academic Officer Program,” said Dr. Bryan Lewallen, Director, ABP.

The Academic Bridge Program is currently accepting applications for the 2020-2021 academic year. Prospective stu-dents may apply on-line at https://abp.openapply.eu/ .

Dr. Bryan Lewallen, Director, ABP

In his message on the occasion, the Ambassador felicitated fellow Pakistanis stating that the day refreshes the enthusiasm and rejuvenates the resolve of the nation to work for the progress and prosperity of the motherland. He said that the day inspired all Pakistanis to serve the country with greater dedication.

Texas A&M

at Qatar

programme

enters top

rankings again

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Programme at Texas A&M University at Qatar has been ranked in the top 75 of the best electrical and elec-t r o n i c s e n g i n e e r i n g programmes worldwide according to Shanghai Rank-ing’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020.

This is the second confir-mation of the elite status of Texas A&M at Qatar’s electrical engineering programme, which in 2019 was ranked 68th worldwide by US News & World Report in the category of Best Global Universities for Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Established 16 years ago, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Programme has evolved into a top programme because of the support offered by Qatar Foundation and Texas A&M’s main campus in College Station, Texas (USA), said pro-gramme chair Dr. Erchin Ser-pedin. Such success corrobo-rates the high quality of the research activities conducted in the department, which have been supported by grants offered by the Qatar National Research Fund.

One such recent success is the $3.2m international collab-oration led by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Pro-gramme for smart grid cyber-security infrastructure in Qatar, with the ultimate goal of pro-viding more safer, more reliable energy supply for the country.

Serpedin said the high level of education and research activities offered by the pro-gramme can be attributed to the excellent placement of its graduates in master’s and doc-toral programs at elite univer-sities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Ber-keley, Caltech, Georgia Tech, Columbia University and Uni-versity College London.

Qatar Airways to resume London Gatwick flightsFROM PAGE 1

“Alongside our airlines, Gatwick has implemented a number of extra measures to keep both passengers and staff as safe as possible travelling through Gatwick, which is helping to rebuild public confi-dence in air travel.”

Qatar Airways Cargo cur-rently operates eight freighter per week to London Heathrow and London Stansted in the UK. During the pandemic, the cargo carrier operated a large number

of charters and freight-only pas-senger aircraft to the UK to support British exporters and transport essential medical sup-plies and PPE to the region. With the resumption of passenger flights to London Gatwick, Qatar Airways Cargo will operate 74 weekly flights to the United Kingdom, providing more than 1,400 tonnes of weekly cargo capacity each way.

According to the latest IATA data, since April Qatar Airways has become the largest

international carrier, helping take home over two million people on over 20,000 flights. This has enabled the airline to accumulate unrivalled expe-rience in carrying passengers safely and reliably and uniquely positioned the airline to effec-tively rebuild its network.

The carrier has stringently implemented the most advanced safety and hygiene measures on board its aircraft and in Hamad International Airport.

04 SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Turkey may

suspend ties with

UAE over Israel

deal: Erdogan

REUTERS — ISTANBUL

Turkey is considering suspending diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and withdrawing its ambassador over the Gulf state’s accord to normalise ties with Israel, Pres-ident Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday.

The Turkish foreign min-istry said history would never forgive the UAE’s “hypocritical behaviour” in agreeing such a deal, which recasts the order of Middle East politics.

Under the US-brokered, the first between Israel and a Gulf Arab, the Jewish state agreed to suspend its planned annex-ation of areas of the occupied West Bank. Palestinian leaders have denounced it as a “stab in the back” to their cause.

“The move against Pal-estine is not a step that can be stomached. Now, Palestine is either closing or withdrawing its embassy. The same thing is valid for us now,” Erdogan said, adding he gave orders to his foreign minister.

“I told him we may also take a step in the direction of suspending diplomatic ties with the Abu Dhabi leadership or pulling back our ambassador,” he told reporters after Friday prayers.

The Foreign Ministry had earlier said Palestinians were right to reject the deal in which the UAE betrayed their cause.

“History and the con-science of the region’s peoples will not forget and never forgive this hypocritical behaviour,” it said.

“It is extremely worrying that the UAE should, with a uni-lateral action, try and do away with the (2002) Arab Peace Plan developed by the Arab League.”

Turkey has diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, but rela-tions have been strained for years. In 2010 Israeli com-mandos killed 10 Turkish activists trying to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Pales-tinian Islamist movement Hamas. The deal makes UAE the third Arab country to establish full relations with Israel, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

Russia, Turkey

halt patrols in

Syria’s Idlib over

militant attacks

REUTERS — MOSCOW/ANKARA,

Russia and Turkey have suspended joint military patrols carried out along the M4 highway in Syria’s northwestern region of Idlib over increasing militant attacks in the area, the Russian foreign ministry said.

Russia and Turkey began the patrols in March after they agreed a ceasefire in the region following weeks of clashes that brought Ankara and Moscow close to direct confrontation, and displaced nearly a million people.

Recent attacks by “radicals” have prompted a suspension of the patrols, the ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

“Terrorists have stepped up the amount of shelling on gov-ernment troops and nearby set-tlements, not ceasing their prov-ocations in the ‘security corridor’ along the M4 highway. Thus, the joint patrols have been sus-pended,” she told a news con-ference on Thursday.

US will do utmost to extend Iran arms embargo: PompeoREUTERS — VIENNA

The United States will do every-thing in its power to extend the international arms embargo on Iran under discussion at the United Nations, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday.

The UN Security Council has started voting on a US bid to extend the embargo on Iran, which is opposed by veto-powers Russia and China, with

results due on Friday.Pompeo, on a visit to Austria,

said Iran must also provide full and immediate cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear watchdog, whose head he was meeting in Vienna.

Some diplomats say the attempt to extend the ban is bound to fail and put an already fragile nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers further at risk.

“It makes no sense to permit the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to purchase and sell weapons systems,” Pompeo told a news conference. “I mean, that’s just nuts.” Pompeo said he was urging the rest of the world to support the US stance.

“We are going to do every-thing that we can within our dip-lomatic tool set to ensure that arms embargo doesn’t expire,” he said.

Israel strikes new Hamas targets in Gaza StripAFP — JERUSALEM

Fresh Israeli air strikes hit Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Israel’s army said, as a week of hostilities between the Jewish State and the Pales-tinian enclave raged on.

Israel says the strikes, and other measures including halting the territory’s fuel supply, are in retaliation for firebombs suspended from bal-loons that float over the border from Gaza.

The overnight attack on sites used by Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the enclave, was the fifth such oper-ation this week.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said a Hamas aerial defence post, observation posts and underground infrastruc-tures had been hit yesterday, and did not report any casualties.

“Over the last week, explosive and arson balloons have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory,” it said in a statement.

“In response, a short while ago, IDF fighter jets, attack hel-icopters and tanks struck a number of Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip.” A

similar attack the previous night caused no reported casualties but left an unexploded missile inside a UN-run school’s com-pound in a Gaza refugee camp.

Dozens of blazes have been reported this week in southern Israel, as makeshift firebombs attached to bunches of balloons or kites set agricultural fields and scrubland alight.

In response, Israel has closed its cargo crossing with Gaza and also reduced the ter-ritory’s permitted coastal fishing zone.

Hamas on Thursday con-demned Israel’s attacks on Gaza and its sanctions as “dangerous and aggressive behaviour”, warning of “consequences” the Jewish state will bear.

Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.

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

The Gaza Strip has a popu-lation of two million, more than half of whom live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

On Monday, Hamas fired several rockets into the sea as a warning “message” to Israel, a source close to the Islamist movement said.

Angolan court sentences former president’s son to 5 years for fraudAFP — LUANDA

Angola’s Supreme Court yesterday handed a five-year jail sentence to Jose Filomeno dos Santos, the son of the oil-rich country’s former president, for fraud when he headed the national sovereign wealth fund.

Dos Santos, 42, was sum-moned before court in December over allegations he tried to embezzle up to $1.5bn from the sovereign wealth fund, which he oversaw from 2013 to 2018.

Nicknamed “Zenu”, dos Santos was charged with stealing $500m from the fund and transferring it to a Swiss bank account.

“For the crime of fraud... and for the crime of peddling influence... the legal cumulus condemns him to a single sen-tence of five years in prison,”

judge Joao da Cruz Pitra said.Three co-defendants,

including the former governor of the national bank of Angola (BNA) Valter Filipe da Silva, were sentenced to between four and six years in prison for fraud, embezzlement and influence peddling.

All four were acquitted of money-laundering charges. They had previously denied any wrongdoing.

Zenu is the first member of the former presidential family to be prosecuted as part an anti-graft campaign led by President Joao Lourenco, who came to power in 2017.

In February, Angolan inves-tigators froze the assets of Zenu’s billionaire half-sister Isabel dos Santos.

She is being probed for a long list of crimes in Angola, including mismanagement,

embezzlement and money laun-dering during her stewardship of the state-run oil giant Sonangol.

Lourenco has mainly tar-geted the family members of his predecessor Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who appointed relatives and friends to key positions during his 38-year rule — leaving a legacy of poverty and nepotism.

Isabel has vehemently denied the accusations against her and denounced Luanda’s actions as a politically-moti-vated “witch-hunt”.

Only a small elite have ben-efitted from Angola’s vast oil and mineral reserves.

The southwest African country has been slow to recover from a 1975-2002 civil war. Large pockets of the pop-ulation live in poverty with limited access to basic services.

Jose Filomeno dos Santos gestures to journalists, in Luanda, Angola, yesterday.

Nigeria’s humanitarian needs hit record high: UNANATOLIA — LAGOS

The UN said yesterday that humanitarian needs in the Nigeria’s northeastern region wrecked by over a decade of terror attacks have hit record high.

In a statement, the UN Office for the Coordination of Human-itarian Affairs said more than 10.6 million people will be needing some form of

humanitarian assistance in 2020, close to 50 percent increase from last year.

“The number of people needing humanitarian assistance is the highest ever recorded in five years of a joint humanitarian response,” said Edward Kallon, the UN humanitarian coordi-nator in Nigeria. It came after a virtual meeting with the Nigerian humanitarian and disaster man-agement minister, governor of

Borno and other international aid groups held on Thursday.

The UN office said the dev-astating impacts of COVID-19 pandemic would further distress the country’s most fragile region and acerbate the humanitarian situation. It said those in urgent needs have increased from 7.1 million in the previous year to 7.8 million people due to an increase in attacks by non-state armed groups.

Putin proposes 7-way online summit

to avoid confrontation over IranREUTERS — MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday proposed holding a seven-way online summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council together with Germany and Iran, to outline steps aimed at avoiding a confrontation over the Iran arms embargo. “The situation is escalating. Unfounded accusations against Iran are being put forward,” said Putin, adding that Russia remained fully committed to the Iran nuclear deal. The 13-year-old arms embargo is due to expire in October under a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, Germany, Russia, China, Britain, France and the US that prevents Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief.

World must not play politics with Lebanon’s pain: Iranian FM ZarifREUTERS — BEIRUT

The global community should help Lebanon rather than impose its will on the country, Iran’s foreign minister said in Beirut yesterday, following the cata-strophic blast at the city’s port that killed 172 people and forced the government to resign.

Iran backs Lebanon’s pow-erful armed movement Hez-bollah, which along with its allies helped form the outgoing gov-ernment. The United States clas-sifies Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

Mohammed Javad Zarif was speaking after meeting President Michel Aoun, who had earlier met US and French officials in a flurry of Western diplomacy that has focused on urging Lebanon to fight corruption and enact long-delayed reforms to unlock foreign financial aid to tackle its economic crisis.

“There should be interna-tional efforts to help Lebanon, not to impose anything on it,” Zarif said in televised comments.

“It is not humane to exploit the pain and suffering of the people for political goals,” he said, adding that the Lebanese and their representatives should decide on the country’s future.

Iran is seen as a major player in Lebanon through backing, arming and funding Hezbollah, established by the Revolutionary Guards in 1982. The most pow-erful group in Lebanon, Hez-bollah exercises major sway over government.

Its role has led US-allied Gulf

Arab states in recent years to end financial support for Lebanon.

Visiting US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale said in televised comments later on Friday that Lebanon needs a government that “genu-inely commits to and acts for real change”.

He said concerted efforts were needed to root out cor-ruption, enact financial and eco-nomic reforms, establish state control over ports and borders and revamp the power sector.

Lebanese had been staging angry protests against a political elite blamed for the country’s many woes even before the August 4. blast, which injured 6,000, damaged swathes of the city and left 300,000 homeless. Some 30 people remain missing.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly, who also met Aoun, called for the formation of a government capable of taking “courageous decisions”.

International humanitarian aid has poured in but foreign states have linked financial assistance to reform of the Leb-anese state, which has defaulted on its huge sovereign debts.

Zarif said Tehran and private Iranian firms were ready to help

with rebuilding and rehabili-tating the electricity sector.

The explosion sharpened anger at the authorities.

“We can’t live like this. The West has to pressure our leaders to save us,” said Iyaam Ghanem, a Beirut pharmacist.

Hale has said the FBI will join a probe into the blast at a hangar in the port where Leb-anese authorities say more than 2,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that detonated had been stored for years without safety measures.

Aoun told Hale on Friday that Beirut needed help to

“understand the circumstances” under which the nitrate shipment came into the port and was unloaded, an official statement said.

The president has said the probe will look into whether the cause was negligence, an accident or “external interference”.

Victims and their represent-atives told reporters that only an independent probe would deliver justice, appealing to the UN Security Council for an inter-national investigation.

“Is it acceptable that people find their homes shattered, their

families killed, their hopes and their dreams killed, with no justice,” said Paul Najjar, whose three-year-old daughter Alex-andra died in the blast.

State news agency NNA said questioning of some ministers due on Friday had been post-poned as the judge appointed for the task said he did not have authority to question gov-ernment ministers.

The cabinet resignation has fuelled uncertainty. Agreement on a new government will likely be very difficult in a country with deep factional rifts and a sec-tarian power-sharing system.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (centre), mask-clad due to coronavirus pandemic, is welcomed at Lebanon’s foreign ministry headquarters, in Beirut, yesterday.

Zarif said Tehran and private Iranian firms were ready to help with rebuilding and rehabilitating the electricity sector.

05SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020 ASIA

Australian inquiry blasts officials over cruise ship that spread COVID-19REUTERS — SYDNEY/MELBOURNE

Health officials in Australia’s most populous state made “unjustifiable” and “inex-cusable” mistakes which allowed cruise ship passengers with COVID-19 to disembark in central Sydney, an inquiry said yesterday.

The Carnival Corp-owned Ruby Princess was for a time Australia’s biggest single source of infection, with more than 600 cases and over 20 deaths directly linked to those passengers.

Some 2,700 passengers, 120 of whom were feeling unwell, were allowed to leave the ship on March 19, helping spread the virus across the country and internationally.

New South Wales Health failed to ensure the ship knew of heightened screening for the virus or ensure that sick passengers were isolated in their cabins, a report by the inquiry concluded.

It also failed get quick test results for unwell passengers before they disembarked.

“The delay in obtaining test results for the swabs taken from the Ruby Princess on the morning of 19 March is

inexcusable. Those swabs should have been tested imme-diately,” the inquiry, led by high-profile lawyer Bret Walker, said in the report.

The “decision to assess the risk as ‘low risk’, meaning in effect ‘do nothing’, is as inexpli-cable as it is unjustifiable,” it added.

NSW Health directed media inquiries to the state premier, Gladys Berejiklian, who said in a statement she would read the report over the weekend before responding.

The 315-page report did not make formal recommendations and stopped short of calling for government resignations.

Carnival Corp said the report confirmed that none of its employees misled Australian authorities, which was “of great importance to us because it goes to the integrity of our people”.

“In our more than 20 years in Australia, we have always sought to cooperate honestly

and professionally with officials in accordance with the regu-latory environment,” Jan Swartz, president of Carnival’s Princess Cruises unit, said in a statement.

The Ruby Princess had com-pleted a Sydney-New Zealand round trip. Around two thirds of the passengers were Australian.

The report was published as neighbouring Victoria state, now home to Australia’s biggest

outbreak and which has put its capital under a hard lockdown, recorded 14 more deaths on Friday - one a man in his 20s, the country’s youngest fatality so far.

The state logged 372 new cases, a jump of nearly 100 from the previous day which was the lowest in more than three weeks. But that is still far off the peak of 725 new cases seen on August 5.

“We will see a levelling off

of hospitalisations for com-munity cases in the next couple of weeks and the same for deaths,” Victoria Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton told a media briefing.

Australia’s coronavirus tally stands at 22,739 infections and 375 deaths, most of them in Vic-toria. Other states have seen new case numbers in the low single digits or have had none. New South Wales reported just nine new cases yesterday.

A woman walks past a sign urging people to stay home in Melbourne yesterday as the Australian city battles an outbreak of the COVID-19.

One in five at

Kashmir jail tests

positive as India

virus cases soar

REUTERS — SRINAGAR

One in five prisoners at the largest jail in Indian Kashmir has tested positive for the coronavirus, authorities said yesterday, as the health ministry reported a daily nationwide rise of more than 60,000 cases for the third straight day.

India is the world’s third worst-hit country, behind only the United States and Brazil, with more than 2.4 million confirmed coronavirus cases, according to a tally.

And numbers are expected to rise in coming weeks, as infections move deeper into the vast hinterland.

Authorities at the central jail in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar said they were pre-paring to shift some prisoners after 102 of the 480 tested positive.

“We are taking extra care and all new entrants are being tested and then quarantined for two weeks,” V K Singh, Kashmir’s Additional Director General of Prisons, said.

The Kashmir valley has reported more than 20,000 cases, of which nearly 5,500 people remain currently infected.

Dr. Nisarul Hassan, an associate professor at Srina-gar’s Government Medical College that has around 2,200 beds, of which some 350 are for COVID-19 patients, said resources were stretched.

Lockdown in Auckland extended as virus cluster growsAP — WELLINGTON

New Zealand’s government yesterday extended a lockdown of its largest city Auckland for another 12 days as it tries to stamp out its first domestic coronavirus outbreak in more than three months.

The outbreak has grown to 30 people and extended beyond Auckland for the first time. Until the cluster was discovered on Tuesday, New Zealand had gone 102 days without infec-tions spreading in the

community. The only known cases were travellers quaran-tined after arriving from abroad.

Health authorities believe the virus must have been reintro-duced from overseas, but genome testing hasn’t found a link with any of the quarantined travellers. That has prompted authorities to investigate whether shipping workers were a source, after several employees at a food storage facility were infected.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said extending the Auckland lockdown would give

authorities time to get a handle on the virus cluster and isolate those infected.

“Together, we have got rid of COVID before,” Ardern said in a highly anticipated address. “We have kept it out for 102 days, longer than any other country. We have been world-leading in our COVID response, with the result that many lives were saved and our economy was getting going faster than almost anywhere else. We can do all of that again.”

All of the new cases in the

outbreak appear to be linked through family or work connec-tions. The only known infections outside Auckland are two people in the central North Island town of Tokoroa who were visited by infected family members from Auckland. Officials said they thought the chances were low the virus would spread further in Tokoroa.

Several of those infected work at an Americold food storage facility in the Auckland suburb of Mt Wellington. Offi-cials are looking at the possibility

that workers on a freight ship or at the port may have spread the infections, despite physical dis-tancing requirements at those sites and orders preventing ship workers coming ashore.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said they were doing rigorous testing at Auckland’s port “as part of our investigation just to follow that chain of the Americold goods that might have come in through the port and been transported to that Mt Wel-lington depot.”

India Independence Day rehearsal

Himachal Pradesh police personnel take part in a full dress rehearsal on the eve of the country’s Independence Day in Shimla, yesterday.

Top militant linked to murders surrenders in PhilippinesAP — MANILA

A leading militant suspect who has been linked to beheadings of hostages, including two Canadians and a Malaysian, in the southern Philippines has surrendered after being wounded in battle, officials said yesterday.

A commander of the rebel group Abu Sayyaf, Abduljihad Susukan, gave himself up on after negotiations with police in southern Davao city. He was served warrants for at least 23 cases of murder, six for attempted murder and five for kidnapping, national police chief General Archie Gamboa said.

He is the highest-ranking commander of the small but brutal group to be taken into custody this year.

The military has been bat-tling for years the Abu Sayyaf, which has been blacklisted by the United States and the Phil-ippines as a terrorist organi-zation over a series of bombings, ransom kidnappings

and beheadings. Many of its estimated 300 remaining gunmen, mostly poor villagers, have aligned themselves with the Islamic State group.

Security officials blame Susukan and his followers for taking part in cross-border kid-nappings of tourists and others from the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island. They included a Malaysian who was beheaded by the militants in 2015 in their jungle base in southern Sulu province on the day when Malaysia’s then-prime minister Najib Razak arrived in Manila to attend a regional summit.

Susukan also helped finance the kidnappings of two Canadian men who were sep-arately beheaded in Sulu in 2016 after the militants failed to get a huge ransom. Another Abu Sayyaf militant, Ben Yadah, killed the Canadians and remains at large, a military officer said.

Susukan surrendered to a Muslim rebel chief after an accidental explosion of his

M203 rifle grenade in a gun-battle with troops in Sulu severed his left arm. Military officials had believed he was killed but later learned he was in the custody of Nur Misuari, who leads an armed group which signed a 1996 peace deal with the government.

Misuari flew from Sulu to Davao city on a private plane with Susukan yesterday, sparking speculation he may be planning to present the suspect to President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte has been staying in his hometown in Davao, where Misuari also has a home. Although the president has appointed Misuari as a special envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Muslim rebel chief has not been clearly authorised to hold talks with suspected terrorists.

“His giving himself up to Mr. Misuari is not the surrender con-templated under the law and does not make him immune from arrest,” military spokesman Major General Edgard Arevalo said in a statement.

Indonesia takes part in China vaccine trial

AP — JAKARTA

More people in Indonesia rolled up their sleeves yesterday to test a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by a Chinese company.

The Indonesian government announced the partnership between state-owned enterprise Bio Farma and the Chinese company Sinovac BioTech in early July. As part of the deal, Indo-nesia recruited 1,620 volunteers for the trial. The first 20 were injected with the candidate vaccine in Bandung.

“We hope that this third clinical trial will be completed in six months. We hope that in January we can produce it and at the same time, if the production is ready, vaccinate all people in the country,” President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday.

After passing a medical and PCR test to confirm their health, volunteers were given a first dose of the experimental vaccine or a placebo, then a second dose 14 days later. “I am not worried about the vaccine trial as I have searched the information related to a Sinovac vaccine before,” said Rina Mardiana, 44.

Vietnam to buy Russian COVID-19 vaccineREUTERS — HANOI

Vietnam has registered to buy a Russian COVID-19 vaccine, state television reported yesterday, as it fights a new outbreak after going several months with no local cases.

Russia said on Wednesday it would roll out the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine within two weeks, rejecting the concerns of experts who said it should not have been approved before com-pleting large-scale trials.

“In the meantime, Vietnam will still continue developing the country’s own COVID-19 vaccine,” state broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) said, citing the Ministry of Health.

Vietnam has signed up for 50 million-150 million doses of the vaccine, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. Some will be a “donation” from Russia, Tuoi Tre said, with Vietnam paying for the rest.

Vietnam will also buy vaccines from Britain, where it has a partnership to develop a homegrown vaccine with the University of Bristol, the health ministry said in a statement.

Malaysia court rejects Najib’s bid to drop audit chargesBLOOMBERG — KUALA LUMPUR

A Malaysian court rejected former premier Najib Razak’s bid to drop charges related to an audit report of troubled state fund 1MDB after prosecutors made amendments to the accusations.

The bid is “premature” and should only be considered at the end of the trial’s prosecution stage, the judge said on Friday. This means Najib may make another bid to dismiss the charges.

Prosecutors had changed the wording in Najib’s charge sheet to say that he along with former 1MDB President Arul Kanda were involved in tampering with an audit report “finalised” by the Auditor General before it was “finalised again” and presented to the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. Najib responded by applying to strike out the allegations, with his lawyer arguing that a finalized report by definition can’t be revised.

Landslides kill

16 in Nepal

REUTERS — KATHMANDU

Landslides triggered by heavy rain swept away dozens of houses and killed at least 16 people in mountainous villages of Nepal yesterday and many people were missing, a home ministry official said.

Nepal suffers flash floods and landslides during the June-September rainy season, resulting in loss of life and property every year.

A massive landslide swept away dozens of houses, killing at least 10 people, early on Friday in Sindhupalshowk, near the capital Kathmandu, ministry official Murari Wasti said.

He said 28 people were missing. “Rescue work has been hampered by continuous rain and mud still falling from the hills,” Wasti said.

Six people, aged between 10 and 19, were killed in remote Kalikot in far west Nepal — four of them from the same family. Floods and landslides have so far killed 215 people this year, while 85 are missing, according to official data.

“The delay in obtaining test results for the swabs taken from the Ruby Princess on the morning of 19 March is inexcusable. Those swabs should have been tested immediately,” the inquiry, led by high-profile lawyer Bret Walker, said in the report.

06 SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020ASIA

Kabul begins release of final 400 Taliban inmates, talks to followAP — KABUL

Afghanistan has released the first 80 of a final 400 Taliban prisoners, paving the way for negotiations between the warring sides in Afghanistan’s protracted conflict, the government said yesterday.

Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Afghan National Security C o u n c i l , m a d e t h e announcement. Taliban offi-cials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said 86 prisoners were freed. It wasn’t immediately known when the remaining prisoners would be released.

Prisoner releases on both sides are part of an agreement signed in February between the US and the Taliban. It calls for the release of 5,000 Taliban held by the government and 1,000 government and military personnel held by the insurgent group as a good will gesture ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations.

Talks are expected to be held in Qatar. Several Afghan leaders said talks could begin by August 20.

The negotiations are to lay out a framework for a post-war Afghanistan. Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad spent a year and a half nego-tiating the peace deal aimed at allowing American troops to return home and end Amer-ica’s longest military engagement.

US troops have already begun leaving and by

November less than 5,000 troops are expected to still be in Afghanistan down from nearly 13,000 when the agreement was signed Feb. 29.

American and NATO troop withdrawal is contingent on the Taliban keeping their com-mitment not to allow militant groups to use Afghanistan against the United States or its allies. The withdrawal is not tied to successful talks between the warring sides.

Last weekend, Afghan Pres-ident Ashraf Ghani held a tradi-tional council meeting known as loya jirga to get a consensus on the release of a final 400 Taliban he said were accused of serious crimes, saying without expla-nation that he could not unilat-erally decide to release them.

Some of the 400 have been implicated in devastating bombings in Kabul, During a televised talk on Thursday with the US-based Council on

Foreign Relations, Ghani warned of dangers they could present to lasting peace in Afghanistan.

But for some in Afghanistan the talks with the Taliban mirror earlier negotiations with other insurgents, including warlord and US-designated ter-rorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who many say has a reputation for violence that exceeds the Taliban.

In 2016, Ghani negotiated a peace deal with Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-e-Islami group took responsibility for several bombings in Kabul, including one at a grocery story in the capital that killed a young family. The deal included removing Hekmatyar from the UN terrorist list. His group was also responsible for a 2008 attack on French soldiers — the largest international loss in a single battle in Afghanistan.

Also yesterday, a small bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded near a mosque in Kabul just as worshipers were finishing their prayers, wounding a police officer. No one immediately took respon-sibility but the Islamic State group has in the past targeted mosques in Afghanistan.

The IS affiliate in Afghan-istan has been targeted by Afghan security force, US troops and the Taliban. A Department of Defense official previously said the peace deal with the Taliban is also intended to recruit the insurgent group into a coordinated fight to rid the region of IS.

Cadets from the army, navy and air force march with officers to lay the wreaths at the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, during a ceremony to celebrate Pakistan’s 74th Independence Day, in Karachi, yesterday.

Pakistan marks 74th Independence DayANATOLIA — KARACHI

Rallies, flag-hoisting cere-monies and fireworks across the country marked the 74th Independence Day of Pakistan yesterday, amid a significant drop in the coronavirus casu-alties that have wreaked havoc on global lifestyle and econ-omies.

The day dawned with a 31-gun salute in capital Islamabad and a 21-gun salute in all the four provincial cap-itals, followed by change-of-guards ceremonies at the mau-soleums of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of South Asian nation, in the port city of Karachi, and Allama Mohammad Iqbal, the national poet, in northeastern city of Lahore.

Similar ceremonies were also held in Pakistan-adminis-tered Kashmir, state-run

Pakistan Television reported. The main ceremony was

held at the President Office where President Arif Alvi hoisted the national flag.

Heads of the lower house National Assembly, and the upper house Senate, chiefs of the three armed forces, min-isters, and senior government officials also attended the ceremony.

The highlight of the day was conferring the country’s the highest civilian award, Nishan-e-Pakistan (Order of Pakistan) upon pro-freedom Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani in rec-ognition of his “unmatched freedom struggle against Indian occupation”.

Kashmiri leaders based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir received the award on behalf of Geelani from President Alvi during the main flag hoisting ceremony at the president

house.Alvi, in his address, reit-

erated his country’s support to the “freedom” struggle of the people of Kashmir.

He also lauded the nation’s fight against the COVID-19 pan-demic, which has significantly been curbed in recent weeks. Currently, the country has around 17,000 active corona-virus cases, with 92 percent recoveries, according to the Health Ministry.

Alvi thanked Turkey, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the Organization of Islamic Coun-tries, and other friendly coun-try’s for supporting Islamabad’s stand on Kashmir.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a series of tweets, paid tribute to “all those sons of the soil who laid their lives while defending and protecting territorial as well as ideological frontiers of the motherland.”

China attacks new

US demand to

register Confucius

Institutes

AP — BEIJING

China accused the United States yesterday of trying to “demonise and stigmatise” relations between the two countries, in a scathing attack on the Trump administration’s designation of Chinese-funded language and culture programs in the US as foreign missions of the Chinese Communist Party.

Foreign ministry spokes-person Zhao Lijian said branches of the Confucius Institute US Center operating at US schools and colleges are a “bridge and link to help people from all over the world learn Chinese, understand China, and strengthen educa-tional and cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries.”

Zhao said the accusations against the institutes were without basis and were moti-vated by “ideological prejudice and self-interest.”

“The relevant US approach is to demonize and stigmatise the normal operation of China-US cooperation projects. We strongly deplore and oppose it,” Zhao said at a daily briefing. He said China would “reserve the right to make further responses to this matter.”

The designation requires the Confucius Institute US Center, based in Washington, to submit reports to the US government about its funding, personnel, curriculum and other activities in the United States.

Afghanistan forms new women’s council ahead of talksREUTERS — KABUL

The Afghan government has announced a new council to safeguard women’s rights and interests, amid fears peace talks with the Taliban could lead to the loss of hard-won gains.

President Ashraf Ghani said the council, announced late on Thursday, would “empower women”, promote their rights at home and implement Afghanistan’s international commitments on women’s rights.

The move came a day after a coalition of women’s rights activists wrote to Ghani demanding a place in the

historic talks with the militant group that once banished women from public life.

“We will not allow our place and contribution towards rebuilding our country to be erased or reversed,” they said.

The United States and the Taliban reached a peace deal in February, but many Afghan women worry that it does not include adequate safeguards for their rights.

They fear a US troop with-drawal, the winding down of international engagement and re-emergence of the Taliban in politics could destroy hard-won gains women have made

since 2001 — from education to freedom of movement.

The Taliban have said they will sit down with Afghanistan’s US-backed government in Qatar within a week of the release of the last of their pris-oners, a precondition to the talk, aimed at drawing a line under more than 40 years of war.

Lawmaker Fawzia Koofi, a vocal critic of the Taliban who has been involved in the peace process, said the council would help drive gender equality.

“In countries where gender disparities are huge due to many reasons, such steps can definitely change the status quo”, she said.

The president said the council would comprise repre-sentatives from at least 26 non-government and government bodies, including female deputy governors from various provinces.

But it was not clear what, if any, formal powers the council would have and Arezo Aasenat, a Kabul-based women’s rights activist, cau-tioned against putting too much faith in it.

“It is yet to be seen if this council can safeguard women’s rights in the face of the Taliban, who seem determined to roll back the gains of the past few years and force women and

girls to stay home”, she said.“Members of this council

must ensure the extremists do not sideline women in Afghanistan.”

The Taliban enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law that included public lashings, flogging and stonings.

Under their rule from 1996 to 2001, Afghan women were obliged to cover their faces and could not study, work or leave the house without a male relative.

The group has said it would now allow women to be edu-cated and employed, but within the limits of Islamic law and Afghan culture.

South Korean doctors protest medical school plan

Medical residents and doctors attend a 24-hour strike amid the coronavirus disease pandemic to protest a government plan to increase medical school admissions by 400 a year for the next decade to prepare for potential infectious disease outbreaks, in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday.

Thai student rallies continue despite activist’s arrestAP — BANGKOK

Student activists at Thailand’s most prestigious university defied a ban by college administrators and staged an anti-government rally yesterday, as a prominent protest leader was arrested else-where for his involvement in a previous demonstration.

Hundreds of students gathered in a hall on the campus of Chulalongkorn Uni-versity in central Bangkok to hear speeches calling for a new constitution and for the gov-ernment to resign. A heavy rain forced a change of venue from an outdoor plaza and may have discouraged attendance.

The rally was banned by the university, which said it allows nonviolent political gatherings but was given too short notice to ensure safety. Protest organ-isers announced they would go ahead with the event anyway, even though those taking part were threatened with possible punishment.

The rally was the latest in a series in several major cities around the country.

Several activists involved in organising earlier protests have been arrested on various charges, including sedition. Police yes-terday stopped a car carrying Parit

“Penguin” Chiwarak and arrested him on a sedition charge in con-nection with a July 18 protest.

His arrest in a northern suburb of Bangkok, as he was reportedly travelling to a protest at another university, was shown in a video on his Facebook page.

The protests have been gaining steam for several weeks but took a controversial turn on Monday, when some speakers at another university north of Bangkok openly crit-icized aspects of Thailand’s constitutional monarchy.

The openness of that chal-lenge to what is traditionally the country’s most revered insti-tution sent shock waves through the country. The monarchy is protected by a draconian defa-mation law that carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

It also put pressure on the government to crack down harder on the protest movement, at the risk of stoking further discontent among sup-porters of the student activists.

The wave of protests has pressured Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government, whose competence to run the economy was already in question before the pandemic, with growth strug-gling in comparison with Thai-land’s Asian neighbours.

N Korea lifts lockdown in town after suspected virus caseREUTERS — SEOUL

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has lifted a three-week lockdown in the city of Kaesong after a suspected case of the novel coronavirus there, state media reported yesterday, without saying if it had been confirmed or was a false alarm.

North Korea has not reported any cases of the coro-navirus and Kim told a ruling

party politburo meeting on Thursday the country had to be vigilant and decline any offer of foreign aid to battle flooding to keep the virus at bay.

“The worsening global sit-uation on the malignant virus requires us not to allow any outside aid for the flood damage but shut the border tighter and carry out strict anti-epidemic work,” Kim said in comments carried by the KCNA.

Authorities locked down Kaesong, on the border with South Korea, and declared an emergency in the area last month after a North Korean who had defected to the South slipped back into the town.

State media said the man had shown coronavirus symptoms. The World Health Organization said later test results on him were inconclusive.

Kim told the politburo that coronavirus prevention measures had stabilised the risk in the area but the border had to remain shut to any help in response to hardships brought by unusually long monsoon rains.

Floods have swamped farmland and inundated or destroyed 16,680 houses and 630 public buildings, and damaged bridges, railroads and power plants, KCNA said.

Taliban officials said 86 prisoners were freed as Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Afghan National Security Council announced the release. It wasn’t immediately known when the remaining prisoners would be released.

The UK government said the change will kick in at 0300 GMT today, likely sparking a mass exodus among the estimated 160,000 British holidaymakers currently in France, after a rise in coronavirus cases there.

07SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE

Britain adds France and Netherlands to travel quarantine listAFP — LONDON

British holidaymakers faced a scramble to get home yesterday after the government said it will reimpose a 14-day quarantine for travellers from France and the Netherlands, prompting Paris to quickly announce a “reciprocal measure”.

The UK government said the change will kick in at 0300 GMT today, likely sparking a mass exodus among the estimated 160,000 British holidaymakers currently in France, after a rise in coronavirus cases there.

“Data shows we need to remove France, the Nether-lands, Monaco, Malta, Turks & Caicos & Aruba from our list of coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN,” Transport Minister Grant Shapps wrote on Twitter.

“If you arrive in the UK after 0400 Saturday from these des-tinations, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days.”

French junior minister for European affairs Clement Beaune said it was “a British decision we regret and which will lead to a reciprocal measure”. France “hoped for a return to normal as soon as possible,” Beaune said on

Twitter. On Thursday, France recorded 2,669 new coronavirus infections, its highest daily number since May.

Britain had initially imposed a blanket quarantine on all vis-itors arriving in the country, but later carved out “travel corridors” which exempted travellers arriving from certain countries from having to self-isolate.

But it reintroduced the quarantine for travellers arriving from Spain in late July, catching airlines by surprise — as well as thousands of Britons leaving for their holidays.

Britain then reimposed

quarantine for travellers from Andorra, Belgium and the Bahamas last week.

Scientists at Britain’s Joint Biosecurity Centre advised the latest measures after France’s cases per 100,000 population rose above 20. “France is heading in the wrong direction...we have to act,” Shapps told the BBC yesterday. “The last thing we want to do is have people returning and bringing the infection with them,” he said, adding that there were around 160,000 Brits due to return from France in the near future.

With more than 41,000 deaths caused by the COVID-19 disease, Britain is the worst-hit country in Europe and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticised over his handling of the crisis. His government also announced on Thursday that bowling alleys will be allowed to reopen in England after being shut during the lockdown, but that those not wearing masks face harsher fines.

Skating rinks will also be allowed to reopen, and pilot schemes of larger crowds at sporting events will be intro-duced following a two-week delay to the initial plans caused

Passengers wearing facemasks as a precaution against the spread of the novel coronavirus walk through arrivals onto the main concourse at St Pancras International station in London yesterday after travelling to London on a Eurostar train from Paris.

by a spike in cases.“A number of remaining

aspects of England’s culture, sport, leisure and business sectors will be permitted to reopen from this weekend,” said a statement from Johnson’s Downing Street office.

“Two weeks ago the Office for National Statistics had expressed concerns about a slight increase in the number of people in England testing pos-itive. The situation now appears to have levelled off,” it added.

Indoor theatres, music and performance venues will be able to reopen with socially distanced audiences. The piloting of crowd-attended sporting events will

commence with the final of the World Snooker Championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre on August 15 and 16.

“We are able to announce some further changes which will allow more people to return to work and the public to get back to more of the things they have missed,” Johnson said. “However, as I have always said, we will not hesitate to put on the brakes if required,” he warned.

Along with the easing of lockdown measures, the gov-ernment also announced that the fine for those who “repeatedly flout face covering rules” will be doubled to a maximum of £3,200 ($4,200).

New fines will also be introduced for “people hosting raves or other unlawful gath-erings of more than 30 people”. “Most people in this country are following the rules and doing their bit to control the virus, but we must remain focused and we cannot be complacent,” Johnson said.

The loosening of lockdown rules will not apply to local hotspots that have seen more stringent measures applied to prevent community spread.

Although the Office for National Statistics said the “sit-uation had levelled off”, more than 1,000 people a day are still testing positive for the virus.

Irish women clingingto lobster pot savedafter 15 hours at seaAFP — DUBLIN

Two cousins who were blown out to sea paddle boarding off Ireland’s west coast were found clinging to a buoy on a lobster pot after a 15-hour ordeal, media reports said.

The Irish Coast Guard said the women aged 17 and 23 were rescued on Thursday after being reported missing the pre-vious evening, prompting an overnight air and sea search of Galway Bay. They survived heavy rain and strong winds without wetsuits, although they were wearing buoyancy aids, Barry Heskin from the RNLI lifeboat service told public broadcaster RTE.

A local fisherman even-tually tracked down the pair 27km from where they were last seen, having set off with his 18-year-old son to find them, RTE reported. “They were

waving their paddles up in the air, they had us spotted, well they were waving anyway and then we came alongside,” fish-erman Patrick Oliver told the broadcaster.

“They are weak and tired of course but they were sitting up and (we got) a little bit of chat out of them,” he said, adding that he and his son had brought the cousins to an island where they were picked up by a helicopter and taken to hospital.

Their paddle boards were inflatable, which meant the wind would have pushed them out to sea quicker, a local coastguard boss also told RTE.

Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he welcomed news of their rescue “very very warmly” and that it high-lighted the work of emergency services and voluntary groups nationwide.

Sarkozy’s ‘love story’ memoirstop French bestseller listAFP — PARIS

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s “love story” memoirs has topped the coun-try’s bestsellers list for a third straight week, according to the rankings yesterday.

“The Time of Storms” recounts the first two dramatic years of his presidency when his wife Cecilia left him and he married the singer and former model Carla Bruni after a whirlwind romance.

The book is far ahead of a bevy of novels for the beach by some of the country’s leading authors, according to the GfK/Livres Hebdo ranking.

Sarkozy’s publisher said that nearly a quarter of a million copies of the memoirs had been sold so far, and another reprint was on the way.

Despite his failure to revive his political career after his defeat by the Socialist Francois Hollande in 2012, Sarkozy — and particularly his private life — continues to fascinate the French. The new book also tells of how the mercurial leader had Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then seen as a possible future rival for the Elysee Palace, appointed to head the International Mon-etary Fund.

Strauss-Kahn was forced to resign in 2011 after he was arrested for the attempted rape of a hotel maid in New York. The charges were later dropped but DSK, as the Socialist politician is known, settled a civil case with the woman, reportedly for $1.5m.

Since then Sarkozy himself has been snagged in a series of corruption and illegal party funding scandals.

Sarkozy, now 65, will become France’s first former president to stand trial for alleged crimes while in office in October in a case where he is accused of trying to obtain classified infor-mation from a judge. Another trial on the alleged illegal financing of his 2012 campaign could also start later this year.

Yet the French public cannot get enough of Sarkozy’s literary output, with his “book on life”, “Passions”, shifting 200,000 copies last year, the kind of numbers that only cel-ebrated novelists are capable of selling.

Indeed, since 1994 Sarkozy has authored nearly a dozen tomes of various kinds, with his book “Testimony” in 2006, the year before he was elected president, selling some 350,000 copies.

In this file photo taken on July 24, 2020, former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, wearing a face mask, signs his new book “Le Temps des Tempetes” inside Baleone shopping center in Ajaccio, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Bomb disposal experts help dispose of chemicals at UK nuclear siteREUTERS — LONDON

Bomb disposal experts have been called to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant to help dispose of chemicals stored at the site that were discovered to have “changed state” during a routine inspection, the British government said yesterday.

The chemical, organic peroxide, is used across many indus-tries and was stored at the Magnox reprocessing site in northwest England, segregated from the nuclear operations of the plant.

“During a routine investigation we noted that the chemical had changed state,” Sellafield Ltd said. “The plan, as advised by EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), is to burn the chemicals in a prepared incineration pit on a part of the site away from any buildings or infrastructure.”

The reprocessing plant was evacuated as a precautionary measure on Thursday. Sellafield is a former nuclear power gen-erating site. The Magnox plant at the site is due to close this year. It processes and separates plutonium and uranium.

Calais major tells British PM to ‘calm down’ about migrantsAFP — CALAIS, FRANCE

The major of the French port city of Calais told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to “calm down” and change strategy in dealing with migrants crossing from France.

“I consider Boris Johnson’s pronouncements to be a prov-ocation,” said Natacha Bou-chart, mayor of the town which is a main embarcation point for the small, overcrowded migrant boats seeking to cross the English Channel this summer.

“I say clearly, that it’s a

declaration of maritime war since it is out of the question for naval ships to enter (French) territorial waters,” she told AFPTV.

Britain’s right-wing Con-servative Party government has looked to increase pressure on France to prevent migrants coming into UK waters.

Interior Minister Priti Patel and French counterpart Gerald Darmanin s igned an agreement last month creating a new joint police intelligence unit to combat migrant traf-fickers, but it is unclear whether

this has had any impact.Britain’s interior ministry

has also made a formal request for the Royal Navy to help, but campaigners warn any military intervention to stop boats could be dangerous and may face legal challenges.

The Sunday Telegraph news-paper reported that officials were planning for naval and border force vessels to pick up the migrants and take them directly back to northern France.

French officials insist France is doing all it can, with additional security forces deployed, to

prevent the crossings. But they acknowledge the numbers have increased sharply this year.

Since January 1, authorities in northern France have recorded around 350 attempts or crossings involving over 4,000 migrants, compared with 203 attempts and 2,294 migrants for the whole of 2019. The Calais mayor said the problem was of Britain’s own making. “If the migrants want to cross (the channel), it is because the British themselves put out the call. They have done so by failing to touch their leg-islation for 20 years,” she said.

“Therefore I appeal to Boris Johnson, saying you urgently need to calm down, and urgently need to change your methods of welcoming and dealing with migrants.”

Bouchart also had a message for Darmanin: “Do not give in, because the British don’t know how to negotiate. It’s only by standing firm that you achieve something.”

Johnson on Monday said illegal migrant crossings of the Channel, which have hit record numbers, were “very bad and dangerous”.

Germany to declare most of Spain a virusrisk regionREUTERS — BERLIN

Germany is declaring nearly all of Spain, including the tourist island of Mallorca, a coronavirus risk region fol-lowing a spike in cases there, government sources said yesterday.

The move deals a blow to hopes for a swift revival of mass tourism after months of lockdown to stop the spread of the virus all but wiped out this year’s high season for tourism in Europe.

Daily Bild had reported earlier that Mallorca had been added to the list of high-risk regions published by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s public health agency.

The sources said that all of Spain except for the Canary Islands would be included on RKI’s next list of risk regions.

Designations as risk regions are typically followed by the German Foreign Ministry warning against touristic travel to those areas and mean people returning from there face a coronavirus test or two weeks’ compulsory quarantine.

Infections in Spain have spiked in recent days following the end of Spain’s tough lockdown seven weeks ago. Yesterday's almost 3,000 new cases brought the cumulative total to 342,813 — the highest number in Western Europe.

Albanians rush to enter Greece as virus rules changeAFP — TIRANA

Thousands of Albanians formed an enormous queue of cars at the Greece border yes-terday as they rushed to re-enter the country for work ahead of new virus rules, police said.

Around 4,000 cars were jammed in a 20km-long line at the Kakavia border crossing in southern Albania, in a build up that has been growing since Greece announced tougher entry requirements at the start of the week to contain a surge in infections.

The changes came as thou-sands of Albanians who live and work in Greece, were preparing to return after summer holidays at home. Under Athens’ new rules, daily arrivals from Albania will be capped at 750 after August 16.

Some vaccines might not be that good at preventing infection, but would prevent severe cases. Those should be given to those most likely to die from the disease - older people or those with conditions associated with death from COVID-19.

08 SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMANDR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI

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

editorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED

m.salim@pen.com.qa

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

EDITORIAL

QATAR has yet again affirmed its commitment to support the work of the United Nations and the impor-tance of international cooperation to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis caused by the spread of coronavirus disease has been an utmost concern throughout the world.

In a virtual meeting by UN Security Council on “Pan-demics and the Challenges of Sustaining Peace”, Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani praised the steps and preventive measures taken by Qatar to combat the crisis. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Qatar took effective and precautionary measures and the harnessed all resources to enhance healthcare in the country and adopted other steps to reduce the effects of the disease, such as developing distance learning methods for students amid school closure. This proved to be a huge success.

A study issued by the World Health Organization and UNICEF revealed that the pandemic has created the largest disruption to education ever recorded, affecting nearly 1.6 billion students in more than 190 countries, according to UN data. The study reported that nearly 820 million children worldwide do not have basic necessities at school, putting them at increased risk of COVID-19 and other transmittable diseases.

The study stressed that governments seeking to control coronavirus spread must balance the need for implementing public health measures against the social and economic impacts of lockdown measures.

H E Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the UN said that the COVID-19 crisis is a burden on countries and societies affected by conflicts, countries in tran-sition and post-conflict countries, referring to the fra-gility of these countries’ economies, the deterioration of their health systems, humanitarian crises, and the social, security and logistical challenges that complicate and hinder preventive and remedial measures to con-front the virus and its effects.

H E Ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani stressed that the coronavirus is a global threat, stressing the importance of a joint international effort to address this pandemic. Attention must be given to the important role of the United Nations, its agencies and programs in coordinating efforts to address the spread of the virus and the effects it causes on the sus-tainability of peace and development.

In the light of these exceptional circumstances, H E Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the UN said what everyone needs is the necessity to harness all efforts and energies to confront the coronavirus and other global threats to security, peace and stability for all without discrimination.

Leading the way

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Quote of the day

You hear a lot of panic about COVID-19 vaccine

buying, deals, etc. But we have a couple of

months to work together as a global community.

Bruce Aylward, WHO Senior Adviser

FROM LEFT: Carlos Slim Domit, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Grupo Carso; Mexico President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador; Sylvia Varela, head of AstraZeneca Mexico; Mexico’s Health Minister Jorge Alcocer and Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard during a news conference about the production of a COVID-19 vaccine under an agreement between the Mexican and Argentine governments and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, yesterday.

Who should be at the front of the line if an effective COVID-19 vaccine emerges from testing? The answer depends on what we learn from the kind of field trials Russia is skipping.

Some vaccines might not be that good at preventing infection, but would prevent severe cases. Those should be given to those most likely to die from the disease - older people or those with condi-tions associated with death from COVID-19.

But if a vaccine actually prevents transmission, then

priority should go to those who transmit the disease most often: younger adults. Getting protected with a vaccine is a way of protecting others, since you can’t give anyone the disease if you never get it. And starting with younger people could be the fastest route to herd immunity - that phenomenon by which the virus is slowed by a lack of susceptible hosts.

Why give the vaccine to the people most likely to spread the disease rather than to the people most likely to die from it? Virologist David Sanders of Purdue explains that it’s likely that COVID-19 vaccines it won’t work as well in people with poorly functioning immune systems - those most vulnerable to the disease. That’s often the case with flu shots and other vaccines. But those people can still be pro-tected if enough healthy people get vaccinated to drive infec-tions way down. “Immuni-zation is not about protecting the individual - it’s about pro-tecting society,” he says.

But here’s the rub: If young, healthy people unlikely to die from the disease are being asked to step up and get vaccinated, the odds of any serious side effects have to be extremely low. And that’s why field testing is so important.

Skipping that kind of extensive field testing, as Russia is doing, could foil our chance to end the pandemic. Infectious disease specialist Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia says the early phases of the FDA’s required testing offer limited

information. Phase 1 deter-mines the optimal dose for a vaccine. Phase 2 enrolls hun-dreds of people, which can reveal common side effects and determine whether the vaccine prompts the body’s immune system to produce antibodies or T-cells capable of disabling the virus.

Those early trials have already revealed transient side effects, especially fever and the malaise that goes with it. But given the number of people dying from the disease, that’s probably going to be considered tolerable.

Phase 3 is the time-con-suming part, where a vaccine is compared to a placebo in the real world. Even with the expected 30,000 volunteers for each of several front runners, that could take a few months, depending on how much trans-mission is going on. At least a few people in the placebo group need to get infected to demonstrate efficacy.

This is the phase Russia is skipping, and it’s only during this phase that researchers can tell if people who get vac-cinated can still develop a mild or silent infection and transmit to others. The vac-cines generally prompt your body to produce antibodies to just one of the viral proteins, but the virus makes four pro-teins, and a natural infection will leave you with distinct, detectable antibodies to all of them.

Still, even enrolling tens of thousands of people in those trials may not be enough to reveal rare side effects, says Offit. The live polio vaccine caused a few children to get

polio - about 1 in 2.4 million. A swine flu vaccine deployed in 1976 caused a rare neuro-logical disorder called Guillain-Barré Syn-drome. About one in 100,000 people developed the con-dition, and while most recovered, a few died or suf-fered permanent paralysis. A further data-gathering phase - sometimes called Phase 4 - would have a better chance of catching anything that rare, and reduce any risk that a vaccine could hurt the healthy people being asked to get it.

Phase 4 isn’t part of the testing regimen required for licensure, but refers to post-licensure surveillance , said Harvard public health pro-fessor Barry Bloom, speaking at a Zoom press conference. Purdue’s Sanders says this phase should include health care workers and military personnel, since they can be closely tracked to provide crucial information.

It might seem counterin-tuitive to do extra testing in a situation this urgent it has prompted Russia to deploy a vaccine without the critical field testing the FDA requires. But additional testing wouldn’t have to slow down the benefits of a vaccine. Think of it as a hybrid between a final trial and the rollout itself, configured to gather important data.

This additional layer of testing could help prevent problems that might get in the way of widespread adoption of a COVID-19 vaccine. Offit says he’s worried that people will come to believe in severe side effects that don’t exist.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have pulled off a good public relations stunt on Tuesday, at least for the short term. He announced that the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbi-ology is first in the world to win approval for a corona-virus vaccine. The announcement of the new Sputnik V vaccinere called the glory of the Soviet Union’s pioneering orbital satellite. Let’s hope it works, but given the unknowns, Putin’s showy launch and promise of rapid distribution is reason for worry.

Along with the difficulty of creating an effective vaccine and the challenges of testing, manufacturing and distrib-uting it, it is essential to build and maintain public

confidence so enough people will accept inoculation to create herd immunity against the virus, perhaps two-thirds of a population. Many experi-mental vaccines are likely to fail in research or clinical trials; this is science at work. But that makes it doubly important that confidence not be shaken by hasty or unnec-essary political mistakes.

The Russian Sputnik V vaccine has so far been tested in trials with a small number of people; the institute planned to use only 38 volun-teers. No data has been pub-lished. Russia said next will be a larger trial of 2,000 people. This is well short of the rig-orous Phase 3 clinical trials with tens of thousands of people that are established practice in the U.S. and European vaccine regulatory systems. If something goes

wrong - serious side effects or inability to block the virus or mitigate symptoms - Putin’s glory-seeking will dissolve into mass disappointment.

Vaccine hesitancy is on the rise around the world, pro-pelled in part by an irrespon-sible anti-vaccine movement that spreads suspicion and conspiracy theories, often on social media. In a Gallup Poll survey taken July 20 to Aug. 2, only 65% of those questioned said they would take a corona-virus vaccine, while 35% said they would not. Compare that with real-world behavior: In the United States, 91.5% of children ages 19 months to 35 months get the measles, mumps and rubella shot; 92.7% get immunized against polio. Interestingly, Gallup points out that when adults were asked in 1954 about the then-new polio vaccine, just

60% said they would take it, while 31% said they would not.

The Trump administra-tion’s crash vaccine effort - “Operation Warp Speed” - gives rise to worry that someone might try to cut corners in advance of the November election. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn pledged in The Wash-ington Post recently that approval will be “based solely on good science and data.” Hahn must remain on guard against the kind of White House pressure that was applied on behalf of hydroxychloroquine.

To have any hope of beating the pandemic, vaccine development must retain public confidence. A slip-up that creates even a ripple of doubt could have catastrophic consequences.

Give the COVID-19 vaccine to healthy young people first

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No one wins vaccine race without public confidence

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FAYE FLAM BLOOMBERG

President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory but now faces the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule, with tens of thousands protesting for a sixth day running yesterday and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya calling for a recount of the votes.

09SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020 EUROPE / AMERICAS

EU takes first step to impose new sanctions on Belarus over vote

reuters — BRUSSELS

The European Union yes-terday took the first step to impose new sanctions on Belarus over a disputed election last Sunday and a crackdown on protests that followed, instructing its foreign policy arm to prepare a blacklist of responsible individuals.

President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory but now faces the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule, with tens of thousands protesting for a sixth day running yesterday and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya calling for a recount of the votes.

“EU will now initiate a process of sanctions against those responsible for the violence, arrests and fraud in connection with the election,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde said after emergency talks among all her EU peers yesterday.

The EU first imposed sanc-tions on Belarus in 2004. It tightened them in 2011 over

abuses of human rights and democratic standards, including vote rigging. Many were lifted after Lukashenko released political prisoners in 2016. But an arms embargo remains, as do sanctions on four people over the unresolved disappear-ances of two opposition activists, a journalist and a busi-

nessman, years ago.Lukashenko denies elec-

toral fraud. His government freed many detained demon-strators yesterday after issuing a rare public apology. However, citizens took to the streets again on Friday after at least two pro-testers were killed and thou-sands detained in a violent crackdown this week.

“What happened in Belarus in the last few days is com-pletely unacceptable and calls for a clear reaction of the EU,” Germany’s Haiko Maas told reporters.

Maas called on the Belarus government to release political prisoners and review the official election result, which gave Lukashenko 80%, triggering pro-tests in which security forces beat demonstrators and arrested several thousand people.

The top EU diplomat, Josep Borrell, said the bloc did not accept the official election results. Poland, the Czech Republic, the three Baltic states and Denmark also pushed for mediated talks

Demonstrators raise their hands during an opposition demonstration to protest against police violence and to reject the presidential election results near the Government House in Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, yesterday.between Lukashenko and the opposition.

Vilnius called for an EU fund to support victims of repression in Belarus while Warsaw said it would loosen visa restrictions, open its labour market for Bela-rusians and support civil society and independent media there.

“We... need to find a careful balance between pressure against and engagement with Belarus President Lukashenko. We believe the EU should

assume the role of a mediator as soon as possible,” the six countries said in a joint letter.

Their line reflects wariness of any repeat of the 2013/14 street protests in Kyiv, which the EU and the United States supported and Russia then used as an excuse to annex Crimea from Ukraine before backing separa-tists in the east of the country.

The new sanctions on Belarus would come in the form of visa bans and the freezing of any

assets held in the EU by the des-ignated individuals and could be finalised as soon as the end of the month, diplomatic sources said.

Charles Grant, director at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said the EU should also coordinate its response with the United States and Britain. “Ultimately, change in Belarus will depend on the Belarusian people, but Europe and the US can do their bit to help,” he said.

Asylum seekers on coronavirus frontlines to get Canada residencyAFP — MONTREAL

Canada is to offer permanent residency to asylum seekers who put themselves at risk to care for coronavirus patients, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said yesterday.

They will be able to apply for residency for themselves and their families if they had submitted their application by March 2020, even if their demand had already been rejected.

The measure will apply to asylum seekers who have helped directly care for the sick in a health clinic, a nursing home or a household, Men-dicino told a news conference.

“As these individuals face an uncertain future in Canada, the current circumstances merit exceptional measures, in recognition of their excep-tional service during the pan-demic,” Mendicino said.

“They put themselves at risk. And we are grateful for their service, for their sacrifice. And for their instinct to put the needs of community ahead of all else,” he said.

In May, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to con-sider a regularization program for people doing “heroic work” in the midst of the pandemic. The head of Quebec’s provincial government Francois Legault called them “guardian angels”.

The majority of the asylum seekers work in Quebec, the Canadian region worst hit by the pandemic, with close to 61,000 cases of Covid-19 and 5,715 deaths. Those numbers are roughly half of all infec-tions and deaths in Canada, which nationwide has recorded 121,000 cases with 9,050 fatalities.

US tightens chokehold on Cuba, blocks private charter flightsAFP — WASHINGTON

The United States announced late on Thursday that it is sus-pending all private charter flights to Cuba, intensifying its drive to starve the Havana gov-ernment of revenue over its human rights record and support for Venezuela’s leftist president.

The new punishment com-pletes travel sanctions under which all such charter flights had been banned except to Havana. Now, Cuba’s capital is off-limits as well.

Private charter travel to Havana was popular among Miami-area celebrities and

business executives.The move comes as Pres-

ident Donald Trump faces a tough re-election battle in which Florida — home to a large, conservative Cuban-American community that loathes the Havana government — is a must-win state.

Announcing the measure, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the communist regime of President Raul Castro for jailing reporters and pro-democracy activists, overseeing “horrific” physical abuse and propping up President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, among other offenses.

The announcement marks

the latest hardening of US policy toward Cuba under Trump, who reversed a thaw in relations with Havana that began under his predecessor Barack Obama.

“The suspension of private charter flights will deny eco-nomic resources to the Castro regime and inhibit its capacity to carry out abuses,” Pompeo said in a statement.

“This administration will continue to target and cut the revenue the Cuban government earns from landing fees, stays in regime-owned hotels, and other travel-related income,” Pompeo added.

Cuba’s top diplomat on rela-tions with the US, Carlos

Fernandez de Cossio, rejected the measure and said it will have “little practical impact.” Cuba’s Foreign Ministry also denounced the move, saying it “seeks to satisfy the electoral political machinery of south Florida”.

In October of last year, the United States had banned charter flights to Cuba except to Havana as it hammered away at the island’s economy.

This May, it set a limit of 3,600 flights per year to the Cuban capital. Still, the Trump administration has stopped short of ending regular com-mercial flights to Cuba, although now there are none because of

the pandemic. Cuba has been under a US embargo since 1962.

Pompeo said an exception remains for authorized public charter flights to and from Havana and other authorized private charter flights for emer-gency medical purposes, search and rescue, “and other travel deemed in the interest of the United States”.

“Our message to the Castro regime has been clear: The United States will continue to stand up for the Cuban people and against the regime’s abuses and its interference in Vene-zuela to prop up Maduro’s ille-gitimate hold on power,” Pompeo said.

Landslip blamed for Scottish train crash

AFP — LONDON

A passenger train that derailed in northeast Scotland earlier this week, killing three people, left the tracks after hitting a landslip, investigators said yesterday.

The service from Aberdeen to Glasgow came off the tracks on Wednesday morning near the town of Stonehaven, which had been hit by flooding fol-lowing heavy rain in the hours prior to the accident.

The driver, conductor and a passenger were killed and six people were hospitalised with minor injuries, while four firefighters were hurt battling the ensuing fire.

“At around 09:40 hrs on Wednesday 12 August 2020, all six vehicles of a passenger train derailed after striking a landslip,” the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said, in its first account of the tragedy. It added the train had been trying to return to Stone-haven after being alerted to another landslip further down the line when it derailed.

The train kept moving down the tracks as far as 90 metres despite derailing, before one of the two power cars and a car-riage fell down a wooded embankment. Another carriage came to rest on its roof, having rotated to be at right angles to the track, while the next car along also overturned onto its roof and came to rest on the first carriage.

“We are currently col-lecting evidence needed to identify factors relevant to the cause of the accident and its consequences,” the RAIB said.

The independent agency will publish its findings, including any recommenda-tions to improve safety, once it has concluded its probe.

Bulgaria in crisis as proposed new constitution rejectedAFP — SOFIA

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov yesterday attempted to end weeks of protests against corruption by proposing a new constitution, an idea rejected immediately by demonstrators and members of his own gov-erning coalition.

The mostly young pro-testers, who have taken to the streets over the last five weeks, demanding the resignation of Borisov’s conservative cabinet and of chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev, accusing them of being beholden to behind-the-scenes oligarchs.

“The political parties of the system can no longer stifle the

great desire for change in Bul-garia,” Borisov said in an appeal to the nation broadcast on radio and television. “I respect the revolt of the young people and everything is in their hands.”

Changing the constitution would make it possible, according to Borisov, to limit in particular the power of the pros-ecutors, who opponents see as prejudiced and in the exclusive service of part of the oligarchy.

Borisov, who has held power for almost 10 years, cur-rently leads a coalition of con-servatives and nationalists who immediately rejected the prime minister’s proposal.

They say they are in favour of simple constitutional

amendments to make voting compulsory, to restore military service and to ban same-sex unions.

The opposition Socialists and populist Volya parties also rejected the idea, meaning that Borisov would have no prospect of attaining the two-thirds majority in parliament nec-essary to start rewriting the constitution.

The main organisers of the demonstrations said in a statement to the media on Friday that they also rejected the idea of a new constitution and that they intend to continue taking to the streets until Borisov resigns.

The protests continued on

Friday with demonstrators blocking two motorways for several hours, as well as blocking the main border crossing points with Serbia and Romania. Bulgaria has had four different constitutions in its history so far.

The first Tarnovo Consti-tution came into being in 1879 at the end of Ottoman rule. It was changed in 1947 and 1971 under the communist regime and, most recently, for the tran-sition to a market economy in 1991.

Socialist-backed President Rumen Radev, who has often clashed with Borisov, said in a televised statement Friday that “the loss of confidence in the

government is irreversible”.“Any debate on the consti-

tution will only be held after early elections,” Radev said. Parliamentary elections are currently due to be held in spring 2021. In theory the process of rewriting the consti-tution would involve dissolving parliament and holding elec-tions held to create a “con-stituent” assembly.

That assembly would then be responsible for drafting and adopting the new constitution, a process that could take at least a year. Once a new con-stitution were adopted, the constituent assembly would in turn be dissolved and legis-lative elections held.

White House to host Kosovo, Serbia talks in SeptemberAFP — PRISTINA

Kosovo and Serbia leaders will meet at the White House next month as Washington renews its effort to tackle their troubled relationship after an earlier summit fell through, officials said yesterday.

The former Balkan war foes were supposed to meet in the US in June but the talks were aborted after Kosovo President Hashim Thaci cancelled his trip to face an indictment from special prosecutors in The Hague for war crimes linked to the late 1990s conflict.

More than 20 years after that war, the neighbours still have a tense relationship, with Serbia refusing to recognise the independence that Kosovo, a former province home to an ethnic Albanian majority, declared in 2008.

While Brussels has been leading negotiations between the two sides for nearly a decade, the US has recently sought a more publicly active

role under Richard Grenell, a special envoy appointed by President Donald Trump. “We are happy to announce that the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House for a negotiation on September 2,” Grenell wrote on Twitter.

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti confirmed his attendance and said the summit would focus on “major projects that will change the economic perspective of Kosovo and the region”.

Serbian President Vucic also said his side would “take part in the talks and the topics will be related to the economy”.

Grenellhas previously faced accusations of complicating the EU-led process to bring Belgrade and Pristina to an accord. He denies this and says Washington is focused on boosting economic links to improve relations between the neighbours.

The EU dialogue recently resumed in July following a nearly two-year stalemate trig-gered by a trade war.

Tribute to doctorsImages of the 125 doctors who have died during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru, are displayed outside Peru’s Medical College (CMP) in Lima. Peru is the third-worst affected country in Latin America — after Brazil and Mexico — by the pandemic with nearly half a million cases and more than 21,500 deaths.

Declaring that “every single American should be wearing a mask” while outside their home, Biden called on governors of all 50 states to institute a national mask mandate “starting immediately” as a way to halt the virus’s spread and save tens of thousands of lives.

"We have agreed to extend the limitation of non-essential travel at our shared land ports of entry through September 21," said Acting US Homeland Security Department Secretary Chad Wolf.

10 SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2020AMERICAS

Trump fans false birther theory about Kamala HarrisAFP — WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump has stoked false claims that Demo-cratic vice-presidential con-tender Kamala Harris is ineli-gible to hold that office because her parents were foreign born.

The claims about Harris — who was born in the United States, making her constitu-tionally eligible to be both vice-president and president — echo a baseless theory that Trump long promoted about his pred-ecessor Barack Obama.

“I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” Trump said at a White House news conference on Thursday, referring to an August 12

opinion article in Newsweek.The article by conservative

law professor John Eastman says that “before we so cavalierly accept Senator Harris’ eligibility for the office of vice president, we should ask her a few questions about the status of her parents at the time of her birth”.

Trump said that Eastman, of Chapman University “is a very highly qualified, very tal-ented lawyer. I have no idea if that’s right”. Eastman was also an unsuccessful Republican challenger, losing in the primary, for the 2010 California attorney general’s election won by Harris, who served in that post before becoming a US senator.

Harris, 55, was born in Oakland, California to a mother from India and a father from Jamaica.

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, 77, on Tuesday named Harris as his running mate to challenge Trump in the presidential election. She is the first black woman and woman of South Asian heritage to be given the honor.

Eastman’s article followed claims shared thousands of times on Facebook that Harris could not become president because her parents hailed from abroad.

Article 2, Section 1 of the US Constitution says that “no person except a natural born

citizen, or a citizen of the United States” shall be eligible for the presidency. They must also be at least 35 years old.

And Section 2 of the 14th Amendment says that: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Under that clause and an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, “anyone born on US soil and subject to its jurisdiction is a natural born citizen, regardless of parental citizenship,” Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute says. Harris could not become vice-president if she failed to meet requirements for the presidency.

David A Super, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics at the Geor-getown University Law Center, said that “no person constitu-tionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States,” according to the 12th Amendment to the Consti-tution. This means, Super said that “someone who is not a native-born US citizen, or someone who is not 35 years old, could not take office as vice president.”

As Trump parlayed his TV fame into a political career, he adopted and promoted the “birther” lie that Obama, Amer-ica’s first black president, was

not born in the United States.Obama was born in Hawaii

to a Kenyan father and a white American mother. Trump grudgingly acknowledged late in his 2016 presidential cam-paign that Obama was Amer-ican-born. Since then, Trump has faced accusations of racism, and has embraced other conspiracies.

Polls show him losing the November vote.

On Wednesday, he praised Georgia Republican congres-sional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory who has called white men the most oppressed group in America.

‘Be a patriot’: Biden backs nationwide mask mandate to fight virusAFP — WILMINGTON

White House hopeful Joe Biden called for a nationwide mask-wearing mandate for the next three months, drawing a con-trast with President Donald Trump as the challenger makes coronavirus pandemic recovery a focal point of his campaign.

Declaring that “every single American should be wearing a mask” while outside their home, Biden called on governors of all 50 states to institute a national mask mandate “starting imme-diately” as a way to halt the virus’s spread and save tens of thousands of lives.

“Look, this is America. Be a patriot,” Biden, with his newly named running mate Kamala Harris standing nearby and wearing a face covering, told reporters near his home in Del-aware. “Protect your fellow cit-izens, step up, do the right thing,” Biden added.

Health experts remain adamant about the need for people to wear masks and maintain social distance to defeat a pandemic that has already infected 20 million people and killed 750,000 worldwide.

Even as COVID-19 rages in the United States, Trump has steadfastly ignored recommen-dations that people wear masks. He himself did not wear one in public until July 11. “Americans

must have their freedoms,” Trump said at a White House press briefing, as he accused Biden of “playing politics with the virus” with his call for a mandate.

“We will continue to urge Americans to wear masks when they cannot socially distance, but we do not need to bring the full weight of the federal government down on law-abiding Americans to accomplish this.” The remarks, just 82 days before the election, highlight the political fault lines over health policy that have affected the presidential race.

Biden seeks to make a ref-erendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic, with polls showing that 57 percent of

Americans disapprove of the President’s coronavirus response, according to website FiveThirtyEight. Thirty-four states have mask mandates, mostly requiring facial cov-erings indoors or outdoors around other people, according to seniors organization AARP.

Some hotspots, like Florida and Georgia, have no mandate and their Republican governors have resisted pressure to impose one. Fresh off Wednes-day’s campaign rollout that fea-tured the Democratic ticket together for the first time, Biden, 77, and Harris, 55, held a coronavirus working group with health experts who partic-ipated remotely.

“As (Biden) has been saying since the beginning of this pan-demic, it should be the public health professionals that are leading policy in our country to address this lethal pandemic,” Harris said. Biden and Harris also held a session with experts, including former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, on the pan-demic’s impact on the economy.

Democrats widely accuse Trump of mishandling the US response to a pandemic that has claimed some 167,000 lives nationwide. By highlighting coro-navirus recovery at the start of their campaign, Biden and Harris are signaling to voters that the crisis is a top priority.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden signs official documents needed to receive his party’s official nomination next week during an event in Wilmington, Delaware, US, yesterday.

On Monday, the Democratic National Convention begins — online — to formally nominate Biden and his running mate. The party’s presidential hopeful introduced Harris at a rollout event on Wednesday near his home in Wilmington, at a gym-nasium with no public access due to coronavirus concerns.

At the rollout, Harris said Trump’s “mismanagement” of the pandemic has plunged the nation into its deepest health crisis in a century and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. “There’s a reason (the coronavirus) has hit America worse than any other

advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seri-ously from the start,” she said.

Harris lamented “his refusal to get testing up and running. His flip-flopping on social dis-tancing and wearing masks. His delusional belief that he knows better than the experts”.

Trump, meanwhile, said the economy was experiencing a “V-shaped recovery,” despite millions of American families suffering and analysts warning that the country remains in an unemployment crisis.

As for the coronavirus, “it will be going away,” Trump told Fox Business Network.

COVID-19 vaccine will be free for Americans: OfficialsAFP — WASHINGTON

If a COVID-19 vaccine is proven effective, the US will ensure it’s distributed for free to all Americans, officials said, underscoring there will be no shortcuts on safety.

“We are not at all reducing the regulatory rigor with which we will evaluate and hopefully approve vaccines,” Paul Mango, a senior health department official, said.

Washington has invested more than $10bn in six vaccine projects and signed contracts guaranteeing the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses should they be approved fol-lowing clinical trials.

The vaccine doses them-selves will be paid for by the government. Doctors or clinics that administer them will have to be paid but these costs should mostly be covered by private and public insurers.

“Most” commercial insurers have agreed to waive any out-of-pocket costs to their customers, said Mango. “We are on track to deliver hundreds of millions of doses by January 2021,” he added.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said he was “cautiously optimistic” that at least one of the six vaccines the US had invested in would come through by the end of the year.

Critics of President Donald Trump have expressed worries that the administration may bypass safety precautions to announce a vaccine is available before the election on November 3 — a charge Mango denied. “We are not at all reducing the regulatory rigor with which we will evaluate and hopefully approve vaccines,” he said.

Russia this week approved a vaccine even before the start of the last phase of clinical trials, in which the drug is injected into tens of thousands of volunteers to verify its effectiveness and safety.

“I hope that the Russians have actually definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective, but I seriously doubt that they’ve done that,” Anthony Fauci, the top infec-tious disease official said at a virtual panel hosted by National Geographic.

New Jersey to mail ballots to everyone in November pollREUTERS — WASHINGTON

New Jersey will mail a ballot to every voter in the state for November’s elections, as well as hold in-person voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, the state’s Democratic governor said yesterday.

Governor Phil Murphy’s announcement came as Repub-lican President Donald Trump stepped up his attacks on voting by mail, which is expected to increase dramatically this fall because of the coronavirus. Trump and his wife, none-theless, requested absentee ballots for next Tuesday’s

primary election in their adopted home state of Florida.

Trump has said the voting method is susceptible to large-scale fraud, though experts say voter fraud of any kind is extremely rare in United States.

New Jersey will use methods similar to what it employed for its primary vote in July, Murphy told CNN in an interview, with improvements based on lessons learned then.

“We’re going to have more presence of secure drop boxes, make sure there is that physical in-voting capacity,” he said, referring to in-person voting.

Residents who opt to go to their local polling places on November 3 will do so in “provi-sional voting”, meaning they must use paper ballots, not voting machines, so that officials can guard against duplicate voting, Murphy said. The process is “a little bit more cumbersome but it works,” he said.

Asked about potential voter fraud by using such a hybrid model, Murphy said: “I’m pretty sure that we have a higher probability of being hit by lightning than we do uncov-ering voter fraud.” He said the July vote was a resounding success, convincing officials

that was the way to go. New Jersey will join eight other states, including California and Nevada, that will offer universal mail-in balloting.

Election officials in most states have encouraged at-home voting as the highly contagious nature of the novel coronavirus has made voting in person a concern.

Trump’s re-election cam-paign and the national Repub-lican Party this month sued Nevada to block a law that will send a mail-in ballot to every voter before November’s election, saying it will result in “inevitable” voter fraud.

Travel restrictions tobe extended at USland borders: DHSREUTERS — WASHINGTON/OTTAWA

The United States will extend to a ban on non-essential travel at land borders with Canada and Mexico for another 30 days as several states struggle to contain a coronavirus out-break, a top US official con-firmed yesterday.

Acting US Homeland Security Department Secretary Chad Wolf confirmed the action on Twitter. “We continue to work with our Canadian and Mexican partners to slow the spread of #COVID19. Accord-ingly, we have agreed to extend the limitation of non-essential travel at our shared land ports of entry through September 21,” Wolf wrote.

The month-long ban — which does not cover trade or travel by air — was first imposed in March and has been rolled over several times as cases in the United States spike. The current range of restric-tions runs out on August 21.

A US official briefed on the matter said the measures could last several more months depending on the progression of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 165,000 Americans.

The premiers of several major Canadian provinces say they want to keep out US tourists until there is clear evi-dence the coronavirus

outbreak south of the border is under control.

A July 17 poll by Ipsos-Reid said 85% of Canadians think the land border should stay closed until at least the end of 2020.

Last month Canada tightened its rules for foreign travelers who must transit to get to Alaska after several US citizens were fined for making detours to sightsee.

The United States and Mexico agreed to similar clamp down on the border. Mexico has told the US government that it supports extending restrictions for an additional month, Mexican Foreign Min-ister Marcelo Ebrard said on Thursday.

Mexico has recorded over half a million official corona-virus cases and 55,000 deaths while Canada has had more success. The total number of Canadian cases is 121,234, with 9,015 deaths.

COVID-19 testingHealth workers provide COVID-19 testing on a street in Washington, DC, yesterday.