Spain and neighbouring Portugal are fighting large wildfires, while three firefighters have been killed and two others seriously injured in a forest fire in Morocco.

Some 300 firefighters spent a difficult night battling a huge wildfire in southeastern Spain which has burnt through nearly 10,000 hectares in an area notoriously difficult to access, officials said on Tuesday.

"Three people suffered bad burn injuries," the regional health authorities said, adding one had to be evacuated by helicopter to the hospital. More than eight others were lightly injured.

"At the moment, we are talking about more than 9,500 hectares burnt with a perimeter of 65 kilometres," regional president Ximo Puig said late on Monday, describing the blaze as "absolutely huge".

"It's a very complicated situation... The fire is creating enormous difficulties that are absolutely impossible to tackle with the speed we would like."

Further north, firefighters in the Aragon region were battling another major blaze that broke out Saturday and has burnt more than 6,000 hectares of land, forcing at least 1,500 people from their homes.

Meanwhile, a huge wildfire in central Portugal that raged for a week in a UNESCO-designated natural park and was finally brought under control on Friday night flared up again on Tuesday, the civil protection authority said.

More than 1,200 firefighters had been drafted in to tackle the blaze, which has already consumed some 15,000 hectares and was "burning fiercely" with the flames whipped up by strong winds, the authority said.

Forest fire in Morocco

In North Africa, three firefighters died and two others were seriously injured in a forest fire in northern Morocco that was suspected to have been started deliberately, authorities said.

The firefighters were in a vehicle that plunged into a ravine while they were battling the blaze in M'diq-Fnideq province late on Monday, the authorities told the AFP news agency.

Four men suspected of starting the fire were arrested, they said.

Firefighting services, including Canadair water bombers, were being used on Tuesday to try to bring the flames under control and prevent them from spreading to populated areas.

The fire has so far destroyed about 120 hectares of forest land, according to the latest estimates.

Spain, Portugal, and Morocco have all been gripped by scorching temperatures, intense drought and stress on water supplies.

Wildfires so far this year have claimed 271,020 hectares of land in Spain, 84,827 hectares in Portugal, and more than 10,000 hectares in northern Morocco.

Source: AFP

A bombing at a mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul during evening prayers has killed at least 10 people, including a prominent cleric, and wounded at least 27, an eyewitness and police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's attack, the latest to strike the country in the year since the Taliban seized power. Several children were reported to be among the wounded.

There were fears the casualty numbers could rise further.

Al Jazeera quoted an unidentified official as giving a death toll of 20.

According to the eyewitness, a resident of the city's Khair Khana neighbourhood where the Siddiquiya Mosque was targeted, the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber. 

The slain cleric was Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, the eyewitness said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media. 

He added that more than 30 other people were wounded. The Italian Emergency hospital in Kabul said that at least 27 wounded civilians, including five children, were brought there from the site of the bomb blast. 

Khalid Zadran, the Taliban-appointed spokesperson for the Kabul police chief, confirmed an explosion inside a mosque in northern Kabul but would not provide a casualty toll or a breakdown of the dead and wounded.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also condemned the explosion and vowed that the "perpetrators of such crimes will soon be brought to justice and will be punished."

Daesh attacks

Daesh terror group's local affiliate has stepped up attacks targeting the Taliban and civilians since the Taliban's takeover last August as US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their withdrawal from the country. 

Last week, Daesh claimed responsibility for killing a prominent Taliban cleric at his religious centre in Kabul.

A US-led invasion toppled the previous Taliban government following September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. 

Since regaining power, Taliban has faced a crippling economic crisis as the international community, which does not recognise the Taliban government, froze funding to the country. 

Source: AP

El Salvador has arrested some 50,000 suspected gang members since President Nayib Bukele launched a "war on gangs" in March on criminal groups harassing the country, the head of the country's police force announced.

"We can inform the Salvadoran people that we have already reached 50,000 recorded detentions during the period of the emergency regime," said Mauricio Arriaza, director of the National Civil Police on Tuesday.

Arriaza, as well as Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro and Defence Minister Rene Merino, appeared on Tuesday in front of parliament to request an extension of the emergency powers, which have done away with the need for arrest warrants.

They were first enacted in March and have been prolonged on a month-by-month basis.

The small Central American country has also increased sentences for gang membership five-fold, to up to 45 years.

To house some of the detainees, Bukele ordered the construction of a gigantic prison for 40,000 gang members in a rural area of the city of Tecoluca, in the centre of the country, which should be ready before the end of the year.

"The results of the emergency regime have been overwhelming, we have had a strong impact on these terrorist structures," Villatoro said on Tuesday in his report on the gang crackdowns.

Surge in detentions

Almost 69 percent of the detainees are accused of belonging to the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang –– also known as MS-13 –– followed by the Surenos faction of the Barrio 18 gang (17.7 percent) and the Revolucionarios faction of the same group (12.7 percent).

Rights groups have denounced the arbitrary arrest of many people, including minors, with no gang links.

In different operations, the police and the army have seized more than a million dollars, in addition to 1,283 weapons.

More than 1,500 vehicles, as well as drugs and cell phones, have also been seized.

The wave of detentions is unprecedented in the country of 6.5 million people, who have suffered decades of violent crime driven by powerful gangs such as MS-13 and Barrio 18.

These gangs count some 70,000 members, most of them now behind bars, according to the authorities.

Source: AFP

Attacks on Brazil's Indigenous people and invasions of their lands by illegal miners and loggers – mainly in the Amazon – increased dramatically in 2021, escalating an already "terrifying" situation, the Catholic Church's Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi) has said.

In its annual report released on Wednesday, Cimi detailed a dramatic intensification of abuses in the third year of President Jair Bolsonaro's government, which has dismantled inspection and indigenous protection bodies. 

Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist, has encouraged the economic exploitation of Indigenous reservations with new legislation and proposals to allow mining on Indigenous lands, Cimi said.

"The invaders intensified their presence and brutality of their actions," and increasingly used heavy weapons to attack villages that resisted their advance, the report said.

With more than 20,000 illegal gold miners on the Yanomami reservation on the border with Venezuela, invaders have begun armed attacks against Indigenous communities, causing a climate of terror and deaths, including of children, Cimi said.

In Para state, where surging wildcat gold mining has destroyed forests and polluted rivers, invaders have attacked Munduruku community organisations and tried to prevent their leaders from travelling to demonstrations in the country's capital Brasilia, it said.

Bolsonaro's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Invasions, murders and abductions 

There were 305 invasions into Indigenous lands in 2021, compared to 263 cases the previous year, almost three times more than the cases reported by Cimi in 2018, when Bolsonaro was elected president.

There were 176 murders of Indigenous people, six fewer than in 2020, which had the highest number of homicides on record.

Suicides of Indigenous people rose to 148 last year, the highest ever recorded.

Cimi also reported cases of murders carried out with extreme cruelty and brutality, such as those of Raissa Cabreira Guarani Kaiowa, aged 11, and Daiane Gria Sales, 14, from the Kaingang people. Both Indigenous girls were raped and killed.

The government's Indigenous affairs agency Funai declined to comment, saying it had not seen the Cimi report.

Funai, created in 1967 to protect Brazil's 300 tribes, half of which live in the Amazon rainforest, said in a statement that it acts with environmental and law enforcement agencies to combat illegal activities on Indigenous lands.

To run Funai, Bolsonaro appointed a police officer known for helping farmers in land conflicts with Indigenous people. 

Source: Reuters

The Ministry of Health has introduced a number of aspects and control procedures when it comes to receiving medicines in batches distributed over the validity periods of contracts, in addition to the presence of part of them under the “quantities as needed” item to ensure the up-to-date validity date and dispensing them, storing on priority basis with regards to expiry dates within the framework of its role to protect public money and prevent waste.

A local Arabic daily noted among the effective measures that contributed to reducing waste was the inclusion of clauses in tender contracts that obligate suppliers to replace expired materials, as well as with some local suppliers, especially since most of those medicines are replaced with the same quantity and quality while those which cannot be replaced are credited to the account of suppliers.

The sources pointed to another aspect that contributed to reducing the rate of expired medicines, which is the estimation of annual needs according to the actual annual consumption rates received from hospitals, health centers and specialized medical departments, in addition to taking into account the strategic stock of some essential medicines, and the need to provide coverage for a period of time estimated between six months and a year for the need for strategic drug security for the state.

The sources touched on the mechanism of dealing with expired medicines, and explained that dealing with these medicines is done in two ways, the first is to replace the expired medicines of the same type with valid medicines or replace them with modern, more effective medicines registered with the ministry, and within the same financial cost as the contracts concluded, and the second is to destroy a percentage of those medicines inside the Ministry of Health incinerators without any financial costs.

Regarding the value of expired medicines, the sources provided the daily with some statistics that show a decline in the value of expired medicines, according to the following:

— During the year 2016-2017: it amounted 1.783 million dinars.

— During the year 2017-2018: it amounted 1,700,259 dinars.

— During the year 2018-2019: it amounted 1,174,088 dinars.

The sources explained that the stock in the pharmaceutical and medical equipment sector is divided into a stock that is periodically disbursed to all hospitals and health centers and is sufficient for six months, and a strategic stockpile to confront emergencies is sufficient for another six months, except that during the “Corona” pandemic and according to the instructions of the Ministry of Health needs team in the Council of Ministers.

Manner of dealing with expired medicines

1 – Replace it with medicines of the same type or more effective

2 – Destroying a percentage of it in the ministry’s incinerators

Three reasons for expiry of medicines

1 – Actual consumption is less than annual rates

2 – Inconsistency in requests received by the warehouse management

3 – Changing some treatment methods by specialists

Thousands of Kuwaitis are demanding basic rights for the country’s stateless bedoon community. Under the hashtag #Kuwaitis_demand_solution_for_ bedoon, more than 5,000 tweets have started to trend on Twitter. People are alarmed due to the rise of unjust actions toward bedoons in Kuwait.

Activist Khaled Al-Awadi affirmed that Kuwaiti citizens are demanding a solution for their bedoon brethren. “It is unreasonable that a humanitarian country does not have a solution for people living with us in solidarity. They do not have another place to live in other than this country. Kuwait must find a radical approach to this humanitarian issue,” he said.

Sheikh Fahad Duaij Al-Sabah said bedoons are Kuwaiti citizens. “We must be fair to them. I do not like this label, but they are citizens who have not yet obtained citizenship due to arbitrary procedures. This situation must come to an end. Most of them are highly qualified and experienced and wish to serve the country,” he noted.

Sanam Al-Majed tweeted: “Kuwait is always studying and researching the case of bedoons. Millions of dinars have been spent on authorities and departments in charge of these studies, and government has decided on more than one occasion that a number of them are entitled to naturalization. And yet no outcome. What is next?!”

For Waleed Al-Muhaini, the bedoon case seems like an endless issue. “We hope this issue will be resolved as soon as possible. Our families, brothers, cousins and neighbors understand that many of the bedoon contributed to the liberation of Kuwait, including bedoon martyrs, families and missing persons. I am fully confident that the new era will do them justice, hopefully,” he said.

Falah Al-Shammari tweeted: “Kuwaitis demand a solution to the bedoon case for the millionth time. I say all bedoons have the right to citizenship for a long time. They have the right to be compensated for all the years they have been wronged, and have the right to sue those who wronged them.” Sawsan said: “The case of the bedoons has been ongoing before I was born. Now I am old, and still the issue has not been resolved after so many generations. How many more generations have to suffer?”

Noorain tweeted: “We cannot depend on racists to resolve this 70-year-old catastrophe, because the racists are the ones who caused this crisis since the early sixties. They suspended naturalization in 1960 for five years that has continued until today, from which the catastrophe began and is still continuing today.”

Jazaa Al-Qahs demanded the Kuwaiti government should abolish the Central Agency for the Remedy of the Situation of Illegal Residents. He also called for accountability against all those who forged an official report against the bedoons, and to be fair to every woman who forfeits her right to marry because of the arbitrariness of this agency. Ahmad advised Kuwait in a tweet to be just towards bedoons and their grievances for Kuwait’s national security and reputation, saying this issue must be resolved.

Ali Al-Ali tweeted: “I congratulate the voice of truth of those who seek well for Kuwait, because they know that the bedoon are our brothers. I don’t agree with the voice of racists that many Kuwaitis are against. The more honorable Kuwaiti citizens stand by their partners in the homeland and call to make the bedoon issue a priority. They constantly demand a just and comprehensive solution to their issue. This will effectively contribute to putting pressure on the government and resolving their issue.”