KUWAIT: His Highness the Deputy Amir and Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received a phone call on Monday from His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, informing him, Sheikhs, government and National Assembly members on the successful medical tests he went over, extending his greetings to all Kuwaiti citizens and residents alike.
In turn, His Highness the Deputy Amir and Crown Prince expressed his thanks and appreciation for this kind gesture, wishing him a continuous good health and thrive to continue fulfilling his mission and progress for the wellbeing of the country.
Meanwhile, His Highness the Deputy Amir and Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received at Bayan Palace yesterday Director General of Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science (KFAS) Dr Khaled Al-Fadhel. Fadhel presented Fatma Qarashi and Majed Al-Muneefi who won international awards, as well as their excellence at KFAS’ Giftedness and Creativity school.
His Highness the Deputy Amir and Crown Prince congratulated the two students for their achievements, and urged them to continue their hard work. In the meantime, His Highness Sheikh Mishal received His Highness Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. – KUNA
Thousands of Egyptians plan to leave Kuwait permanently
July 07, 2021KUWAIT CITY: Thousands of Egyptians working in Kuwait intend to leave the country permanently within the coming months because of the corona crisis, which has been going on for more than 18 months now, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting an official source from the Egyptian Ministry of Immigration. In an exclusive statement to the daily, the source revealed that every day, the ministry receives inquiries from thousands of Egyptians residing in Kuwait who have expressed their desire to return home permanently.
The source said these Egyptians asked about various procedures, especially those related to transferring their children to schools and universities in Egypt. Many of them are participating in the ministry’s initiative on supporting those returning to their homeland and helping them make the best decisions, the source added. The source pointed out that thousands of Egyptians have permanently left Kuwait since the beginning of the corona pandemic and he expects this to continue in the coming months. The source affirmed the ministry supports the returnees and it is keen on opening fields of work for them or to let them invest in the Egyptian market if they wish to do so. On the other hand, thousands of stranded people in Egypt, who were vaccinated with approved vaccines, are preparing to return to their jobs in Kuwait starting from Aug 1./AT
Kuwait records 20 deaths, 1,993 new COVID cases
July 07, 2021KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Ministry of Health yesterday reported 18 deaths related to the novel coronavirus that were recorded over the previous 24 hours; the highest single-day record since the disease spread in the country. The ministry also reported 1,718 new cases; up from 1,652 the previous day which saw 10 deaths registered. Of yesterday’s reported deaths, 17 were for people unvaccinated against COVID-19 while one had taken a single dose. Total deaths have reached 1,961 and cases jumped to 354,851 as of yesterday.
In the meantime, the number of patients in intensive care units also climbed to 288 from 280 the previous day, while the total number of active cases went down from around 19,000 to 18,445, the health ministry said in its daily bulletin. The percentage of daily new cases to daily tests reached 12 as 14,314 swab tests were taken in the past 24 hours, the ministry said yesterday.
In the meantime, total recoveries reached 334,445 after 1,767 fresh recoveries were registered within the same period. Thirty three percent of new COVID-19 cases were registered in the Ahmadi Governorate, while 24 percent were registered in Hawally, 18 percent in Farwaniya, 14 percent in Jahra and 11 percent in the Capital./agencies
After 70 years, the Cowessess First Nation has retaken control over its children’s welfare under a historic agreement signed Tuesday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe signed the deal with Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme during a ceremony at the First Nation’s Pow Wow Arbour on the Cowessess reserve which lies 112 miles (180 kilometers) northeast of the province’s capital of Regina.
The agreement officially restores the power of the First Nation to be responsible for its children, which was taken from the Cowessess 70 years ago.
But while the gathering was to herald the first agreement to restore child welfare to a First Nations band, the legacy of Indian residential schools was also on the agenda.
“Canada must acknowledge the truth,” Trudeau said to about 150 people in the gathering of Cowessess citizens. “We [must] come to terms [with it] as a nation – recognizing past wrongs.”
There were 139 Indian residential schools, with the first one opening in the 1820s and the last closing in 1996-97. During those years, about 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their parents and forced into the schools, where officials tried to instill white culture into them.
The children were in many cases ill-treated, malnourished and beaten. Disease was rampant, and about 4,000 died and were often buried in graves at the schools.
In all, 1,148 unmarked graves were located at three former residential school sites since late May, including 751 at unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School at Cowessess First Nation. Most were thought to be children, but teachers and others were sometimes buried at the schools too.
Chief Cadmus Delorme, before introducing Trudeau, said there was “still healing to do” for the families of First Nations people who were subjected to the often-brutal residential schools and those who are still alive today, survivors of the system.
Part of that healing is taking back the care of their children at Cowessess, the chief said.
“Today, we give birth to a new horizon,” Delorme said.
“Since 1951, the jurisdiction of children in care was removed from Cowessess First Nation and the final decision-making responsibility and judicial decision-making power was driven by non-Cowessess First Nations laws,” he said in a statement made the day before the signing.
Cowessess became the first of the Indigenous bands to assert its rights to take control over its children in 2020. Tuesday’s signing made it official, and it is the first of many agreements the government is likely to sign restoring child welfare to various First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples.
Delorme has estimated that there are about 165 Cowessess children under government care.
He said regaining responsibility of the children advances First Nations rights.
“This responsibility is a part of our long-term goal of controlling our own plan to self-government based on our Inherent Rights and Treaty relationship,” Delorme said in an earlier statement.
At Tuesday’s ceremony, Trudeau said the government would provide $38.7 million to fund the Cowessess child welfare program.
Before the signing, Trudeau, Moe and the assembled media watched First Nations men, women and children dressed in traditional garb performing age-old Indigenous dances that long predated the arrival of European settlers in what is now Canada.
Following the signing ceremony, Trudeau visited the nearby site of the Marieval school, which operated from 1899 to 1996-7, and spoke to some survivors. The school was run by a Catholic religious order./agencies
The ongoing conflict in Yemen has displaced at least 40,824 people since January, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday.
Between Jan.1 and July 3, some 6,804 households which consisted of 40,824 people have experienced displacement at least once, it said in a statement.
Nothing that from June 27 to July 3, a total of 81 households which included 1,086 people had been displaced at least once, the statement indicated that the highest number of displacements occurred in Al Dhale, Marib and Al Hudaydah provinces during the period.
Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when Houthi militias overran much of the country, including the capital, Sana’a. The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the conflict has claimed more than 233,000 lives./aa
Biden ups effort to get vaccine into arms
July 07, 2021In another plea to get Americans vaccinated for the coronavirus, US President Joe Biden announced a five-point plan Tuesday to target locations where low vaccination rates are colliding with the surging Delta variant -- sometimes with deadly effect.
Biden met his COVID-19 experts and said in a televised address that "now we need to go community to community, door-to-door, literally knocking on doors" to get the vaccine to Americans.
Biden said that half of all coronavirus cases now come from the Delta variant, which is more easily transmissible and potentially more dangerous. And experts say the vast majority of current deaths and hospitalizations are occurring among those who are unvaccinated.
Biden urged younger Americans to get the vaccine, and he laid out, in general terms, how the government is tackling a "final push" to get shots into arms.
He said with mass vaccination sites winding down, 42,000 pharmacies around the nation would be stepping up work to get anyone vaccinated, even those just going to buy toothpaste.
He said his COVID-19 task force would put a renewed emphasis on those getting shots at doctors' offices. That includes allowing children aged 12 to 18 to get the vaccine when they get back-to-school checkups or when student-athletes get physicals to play sports.
Biden said his administration would be working with employers to allow workers to get the vaccine at job sites and will be sending mobile vaccination clinics to special events, festivals, places of worship, "where ever people are gathered."
He said a "COVID Surge Response Team," made up of workers from the Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, would travel to places where the Delta variant is hitting hardest among the unvaccinated.
The total number of cases recorded in the US is now just under 33 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, with the number of infections on the rise in the states of Arkansas and Florida. The US death toll stands at 605,000. Johns Hopkins reports that 157 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, a bit short of Biden's goal of 160 million fully vaccinated by July 4.
Biden touted that by the end of this week, 160 million Americans will be fully vaccinated, a bit later than his original goal, but still up from the roughly 3 million fully vaccinated when he took office.
He also mentioned that cases and deaths are down 90% from January.
And he once again compared getting the vaccine to a "war-time effort."
"It sounds corny," he said, "but it's a patriotic thing to do./aa
Following a settlement between the company and canal authorities, an Egyptian court on Tuesday ordered the release of the container ship that blocked the Suez Canal this March, local media reported.
“The ruling allows the ship to move starting from Wednesday to any destination it wants after reaching a fair and amicable settlement between the authority and the owner company,” news outlet Al-Shorouk said.
On Sunday, UK Club, an insurance company that insures the Ever Given vessel, announced that it had reached a formal solution with the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
"Preparations for the release of the vessel will be made and an event marking the agreement will be held at the authority's headquarters in Ismailia in due course," UK Club said in a statement.
It also noted that the two sides agreed the negotiation details “remain confidential.”
On March 25, the 400-meter-long (1,312-foot) Ever Given, owned by Japanese firm Shoei Kisen KK, was sailing from China to the Netherlands with almost 220,000 tons of goods when it ran aground in the canal.
The accident blocked international trade in one of the main waterways in the world, with more than 320 ships, including oil tankers, stuck at the entrances of the canal, sparking a crisis in the world supply chain, especially in Europe.
It took six days of joint efforts to pull the stuck loose and successfully refloat it.
The canal authority initially demanded $916.6 million in compensation but later lowered it to $550 million./aa
The oxygen supply at the COVID-19 hospitals in Bangladesh is feared to run out, while hospitals in the capital Dhaka are nearing a breaking point as a new peak has hit the country.
The country’s health officials said it would be difficult to address the demand for oxygen supply if the daily infections continue to remain around 7,000 for so many days.
The South Asian country of 165 million population, however, registered a record high 11,525 infections on Tuesday, taking the caseload to 966,406.
Some 163 people also died in the past 24 hours taking the death toll to 15,392, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The country has a total of 1,217 incentive care unit (ICU) beds. Dhaka alone has 839 ICU beds, which has created a huge pressure on the capital and disparity among cities. Of the total, some 356 ICU beds were available as of Tuesday.
Belal Hossain Rahat, 30, a resident of the southwestern Jhenaidah district, told Anadolu Agency that both his father and mother developed breathing difficulties and high fever due to COVID-19 and are currently under treatment at their home.
There is no ICU facility at the Jhenaidah government district hospital, according to DGHS data.
“The existing poor and faint conditions in the district hospital have forced us to arrange their (parents') treatment at home. We have already taken the necessary preparations. And, if their condition remains unchanged we will have to move to Dhaka for better treatment,” Rahat continued.
Referring to the current situation in the government hospitals at the districts level, DGHS spokesperson Dr. Nazmul Islam told Anadolu Agency that the doctor-patient ratio in Bangladesh is only 5.26 per 10,000 population -- a gap in providing treatment.
Most specialized hospitals have been built in Dhaka and major cities. So, people often move to Dhaka for better treatment, he added.
“Till now, there is no serious oxygen supply crisis but if the infection figure continues to manifold and people need oxygen then it certainly will be difficult to address the demand,” he claimed, adding: “We have already prepared a procurement plan to reserve more oxygen at a number of hospitals.”
The DGHS said it has a capacity of providing about 210-220 tons of liquid oxygen daily. But experts and media reports estimated that the daily demand for oxygen has crossed 230 tons amid the surging infections since last week./aa
A group of press freedom organizations wrote a letter Tuesday to King Mswati III of Eswatini, urging him to guarantee the safety and security of journalists and media workers.
More than 20 groups expressed profound concerns to the king following an increase in cases of media freedom violations in Eswatini during recent pro-democracy protests in Africa’s last absolute monarchy.
“We are deeply worried by the turn of events in Eswatini and call upon the authorities to do everything possible to ensure that media workers are protected and are not subject to wanton attacks by security forces,” they said in the letter.
It said that since late June, security forces have been firing tear gas at reporters and partially shut down the internet amid protests.
The groups said authorities also detained and allegedly abused in custody, two South African journalists working for the New Frame website, according to reports.
“We appeal to your Majesty to halt these media violations in Eswatini. In the past week alone, two reporters were shot at by the police in Eswatini, with one of them sustaining serious injuries. This is grossly unacceptable and goes against the values that the Kingdom claims to uphold,” according to the letter.
Youths and activists have been protesting for more than a week in the tiny southern African kingdom led by Mswati, demanding the lifting of a ban on political parties and other rights such as freedom of expression.
They have called for political reforms to end Mswati's rule, claiming that the current royal political systems have failed to meet their needs and only enrich the king and his family.
The 53-year-old king ascended the throne 35 years ago. He is accused of leading a lavish lifestyle and treating opponents harshly.
Protestors have looted and destroyed several businesses, while security forces have been accused of using excessive force to quell protestors, which injuring many.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of deaths but authorities deny anyone was killed during protests./aa
A Houthi-controlled court sentenced five Yemenis to death on Tuesday, five months after the start of trials, according to reports.
"The Specialized Criminal Court of First Instance in Sanaa has sentenced five Yemenis accused of spying and sabotage for British intelligence officers," the Houthi-affiliated Saba News Agency reported.
It did not clarify if the sentences were final for Arafat Qassem Abdullah Al-Hashidi, Ali Muhammad Abdullah Al-Jamani, Bassem Ali Al-Kharjha, Salim Abdullah Yahya Habeish, and Ayman Mujahid Qaid Harish.
The court also sentenced Muhammad Sharaf Qaid to a five-year prison term while placing him under police supervision for three years, and took guarantees and pledges that he would not disturb security and the public order, according to the news agency.
The Yemeni government and international human rights organizations usually confirm the invalidity of the legitimacy of Houthi-run courts and decisions issued.
The Houthi group began the trial of the six defendants in February on charges of spying for the British intelligence service on Yemeni soil.
Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when Houthis overran much of the country, including the capital, Sanaa. The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.
The conflict has claimed more than 233,000 lives, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs./aa
