The first iftar or fast-breaking meal of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was held in camps in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province where civilians displaced by the Bashar al-Assad regime’s attacks took refuge. 

Internally displaced civilians in Syria, which has been ravaged by a civil war since 2011, entered Ramadan in the grip of poverty.

Gade Mustafa, a mother of six who fled regime attacks and settled in Idlib's Maarat Misrin camp, broke her first fast away from her home and family.

“We are far from our family and relatives. I don't know anyone from my village in this camp. I'm alone,” Mustafa said.

“We miss the Ramadan meetings in our village. Nobody asks about us. Everything used to be cheap. Now everything is expensive. We cannot feed our children with fruit. I hope everyone will return to their homes. May God help the displaced,” she added.

Syria has been embroiled in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to UN estimates./aa

The government of Canada issued a warning Tuesday to Canadian companies that they are to respect sanctions, export controls and ensure “high standards of human rights” when dealing with Myanmar firms. 

The warning comes as a result of the Feb. 1 military coup that deposed Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party after she and the party won a general election by a landslide. The military said there was widespread election fraud, a claim that has been rejected by an internal election commission and many countries.

Hundreds of people have been killed protesting the takeover.

Canada joined with the UK and the US in sanctioning nine Myanmar military officials.

To date, Canada has sanctioned a total of 54 individuals and 44 entities (companies).

“I am deeply disturbed by the increasing deadly violence against protestors; the crackdown on freedom of expression, including through the Internet blackout and draconian changes to the law that repress free speech; and the continuing arbitrary detention of innocent civilians in Myanmar,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement obtained by Anadolu Agency. “Canada stands with the people of Myanmar and their quest to restore democracy.”

He said Canadian companies should act under the same guiding rules when dealing with Myanmar entities as they do when doing business at home.

“The Government of Canada expects Canadian companies active abroad, in any market or country, to respect human rights, operate lawfully, conduct their activities in a responsible manner and adopt voluntary best practices and internationally respected guidelines,” the Global Affairs statement said.

In addition, the statement said that Canadian companies that have operations in Myanmar should “assess their operations, take any appropriate action to comply with Canadian sanctions measures and export controls, and uphold high standards of human rights and responsible business conduct.”

UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said in a statement Tuesday, as reported by Al Jazeera, that 3,080 people have been detained and 23 have received death sentences during secret trials and she worried that the conflict could lead to a situation like the deadly and prolonged conflict in Syria./aa

With the announcement of Turkey’s National Space Program, the implementation of programs for the creation of satellites for various purposes has accelerated. 

Turkey's first communication satellite -- TURKSAT 1A -- was launched on Jan. 24, 1994 but fell into the ocean after 12 minutes and 12 seconds due to a fault with a thruster rocket. 

The incident did not affect Ankara's position in any way and the country continued to invest in satellite technology. On Aug. 10 of the same year, a new telecommunications satellite, TURKSAT 1B, was launched into orbit. 

As of Jan. 8, 2021, the number of active Turkish satellites in Earth orbit had reached seven, which became possible thanks to the successful launch of the fifth generation telecommunications satellite TURKSAT 5A. 

The launch of a geostationary communications satellite, which was created by specialists from Airbus and D&S for the needs of Turkey, was carried out from the cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral in Florida. TURKSAT 5A will start operating in the second half of this year.

The TURKSAT 5B communication satellite is also expected to be launched in the last quarter of 2021.

Under the leadership of the TUBITAK Space Technologies Research Institute, or TUBITAK UZAY for short, and with the support of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, work continues on the project of the first domestically produced telecommunications satellite -- TURKSAT 6A. This satellite is planned to be launched into orbit in 2022.

Turkey will cover Europe, Africa and western and southern parts of Asia including Indonesia and excluding Russia and China in the communication field with its TURKSAT satellites.

RASAT: Turkey’s 1st locally made observation satellite

The RASAT observation satellite is the second remote sensing satellite of TUBITAK UZAY after Turkey’s first earth observation satellite Bilsat. Designed and manufactured in Turkey, the RASAT reconnaissance satellite was launched from Russia on Aug. 17, 2011.

Although the original design life of the RASAT satellite was three years, it successfully completed its ninth year in orbit as of Aug. 17, 2020 by revolving 51,000 times around the world, scanning a field of 17.2 million square kilometers (6.64 million square miles) and transferring 3,284 lane images to the earth station.

The RASAT satellite, in circular Sun-synchronized orbit and at an altitude of 700 kilometers (435 miles), operates with 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) of a monochrome and 15 meters (49.2 feet) of a multiband spatial resolution push-broom camera.

The RASAT, which has a four-day revisit period, can be controlled with a three-axis magnetometer. Each frame image has 30x30 kilometer (18.6x18.6 mile) dimension. Lane images up to 960 kilometers (596.5 miles) can be transferred from the satellite.

As part of the RASAT project, more than 100 satellite design, production and test experts were trained and satellite montage, integration and test laboratories were enlarged.

Images from the RASAT, which were received by TUBITAK UZAY’s earth station, will be uploaded to Turkey's first space image portal Gezgin, which provides images freely through the country's electronic state website. 

GOKTURK-2: Turkey’s first high-resolution observation/surveillance satellite

Turkey’s first high-resolution observation and surveillance satellite GOKTURK-2 was launched on Dec. 18, 2012.

It was produced with an agreement between TUBITAK, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), TUBITAK UZAY and the National Defense Ministry.

It can provide digital and geographical data production with the target intelligence needed by the Turkish Armed Forces and the Air Force Command in particular. It will provide satellite images also for other institutions and universities.

The satellite, which was produced with a high indigenousness rate, meets Turkey's needs in the defense, environment, urbanization, agriculture and forestry fields with a 2.5-meter (8.2-foot) resolution.

The satellite, which has high-speed data communication that can download an image of a nearly 640-kilometer (397-mile) lane in a single pass, has a capacity for taking images from all around the globe and transfer them.

The GOKTURK-2 project aimed to develop technology, expert manpower and infrastructure for space and satellite systems and to meet the observation and research needs of public institutions and organizations with national capabilities. At this point, expert manpower has been trained to take part in future satellite projects within TUBITAK UZAY and TAI and infrastructure and capabilities have been gained for designing, producing, analyzing, assembling, integrating and testing satellites and equipment.

Turkey’s other earth observation satellite GOKTURK-1, aimed at meeting high-resolution image needs of the Turkish Armed Forces for target intelligence, was launched in 2016.

Settled at a low altitude earth orbit, the satellite can perform various remote sensing tasks such as monitoring the environment and housing, agricultural yield detection, municipal practices, border control and cadastral activities for public institutions and organizations.

The life of a 0.5-meter (1.64-foot) resolution satellite, designed to conduct exploration at any location in the world without geographical restrictions, is predicted to be seven years.

Under-meter-resolution observation satellite: IMECE

With subsystems production under the IMECE Infrastructure Project, which aims to meet Turkey's high-resolution image needs, Turkey aims to reduce foreign dependence on critical space technologies to a minimum level.

Under the IMECE Satellite Project developed by TUBITAK UZAY, equipment qualifications and flight model production remain while structural qualification, electrical model integration and radiofrequency antenna model tests have been completed successfully.

The National Earth Station, of which the project started in 2015, is targeted to conduct the RASAT, GOKTURK-2 and IMECE, which is under construction, and future observation satellites.

Space studies accelerate

While the Turkish Space Agency was established on Dec. 13, 2018 with a decree, the country determined its vision, strategy, target and projects in the space policies field with its National Space Program, which was revealed in February 2021 by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As part of the program's first goal of a Moon mission, the spacecraft is targeted to reach the Moon at the end of 2023 and make a soft landing on the Moon in 2028.

Sending Turkish scientists to the International Space Station is also among the goals. After a training process, the most successful candidate will be chosen for conducting scientific studies in space and sent to space on the 100th anniversary of the Republic./aa

Turkish Coast Guard teams rescued at least 117 asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea off Turkey’s western province of Izmir in two separate incidents, military sources said Tuesday.

Having detected a boat full of asylum seekers off Cesme district, a reconnaissance plane of the Turkish Coast Guard informed patrolling boats at sea. The coast guard boat that arrived at the scene located and eventually rescued 94 asylum seekers who were illegally pushed into Turkish territorial waters by Greek Coast Guard units.

In the second incident, Turkish Coast Guard units recovered 23 asylum seekers who were illegally pushed into Turkish waters by Greece off Dikili district.

After routine checks, the migrants were taken to the provincial migration authority.

Turkey has repeatedly condemned Greece’s illegal practice of pushing back asylum seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers aiming to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution./aa

South Africa has temporarily suspended the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told reporters late Tuesday.   

Mkhize said the decision was taken after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended the temporary suspension of the vaccine’s use in the United States following reports of six women developing unusual blood clots with low platelets after receiving it. 

‘‘In South Africa, we have not had any reports of clots that have formed after vaccination, and this is after having inoculated 289,787 health care workers under the Sisonke Protocol,” he said. 

Mkhize said that after seeing the advisory from the FDA, he held urgent consultations with South African scientists, who advised that the country cannot take the decision made by the FDA lightly. 

“Based on their advice, we have determined to voluntarily suspend our rollout until the causal relationship between the development of clots and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is sufficiently interrogated,” he added. 

South Africa has the highest number of COVID-19 cases on the continent with 1,559,960 infections and 53,423 deaths. Over 1.4 million people have recovered. 

Mkhize said the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) will collate information from Johnson & Johnson, the FDA and other regulatory bodies to make a thorough assessment of the situation and advise South Africa as a regulatory body that has exercised its authoritative powers on the approval of the vaccine in their own right. 

“I humbly call for calm and patience as we ensure that we continue to be properly guided by science in ensuring the safety of our people as we roll out the vaccine campaign.”  

South Africa has so far acquired 30 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as well as 30 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, enough for this financial year.  

Mkhize said the availability of Pfizer doses reassures them that in the extremely unlikely event that the Johnson & Johnson rollout is completely halted, they will not have any impediment to proceed with Phase Two of the rollout with Pfizer.

“We are confident that the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will resume, and so with 30 million doses of Johnson & Johnson and 30 million doses of Pfizer secured, we now have enough doses to exceed the 40 million we were targeting this year,” he said./aa

The Pfizer vaccine is highly effective in preventing COVID-19 infections, deaths, and hospitalizations, according to a new study in Spain. 

The investigation followed more than 116,000 nursing home residents, staff, and healthcare workers who were vaccinated in Catalonia starting late last December.

Not only did the study confirm the results of Pfizer’s clinical trial in terms of the vaccine’s ability to prevent severe COVID-19 and deaths, but it also found that the vaccine was “highly effective” in protecting against infections in nursing homes.

The study was recently published as a preprint in the Lancet medical journal and is affiliated with the Catalan Health Department, the Catalan Institute of Health, the University of Oxford, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Researchers found that after two doses, total coronavirus infections – symptomatic and asymptomatic – dropped by 88% in nursing home residents, 92% in nursing home staff, and 95% in healthcare workers.

After the first dose, contagions dropped by a more modest 35% to 42% across all groups.

In light of the evidence, the study recommends that people must protect themselves from the virus between vaccine doses, particularly in the first two weeks after the initial jab.

After two doses, the study also found a “striking” 97% and 98% reduction in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

Researchers in Israel and Scotland have carried out similar real-life studies on vaccines, but this is the first focusing on nursing homes in Spain.

According to the report, nursing home residents are “extremely vulnerable to severe and lethal forms of COVID-19” and have been “under-represented in previous studies.”

The researchers said they will continue following up on the participants to keep track of the long-term effects of vaccines.

They also acknowledged that around 15% to 20% of the drop in infections could be attributed to other factors, such as community contagion rates or extra protective measures.

However, the researchers stressed that the findings should “reassure the population of the major benefits associated with the ongoing vaccination campaign in Spain and elsewhere.”/aa

Pakistan has condemned the “extra-judicial killings” of three Kashmiris by Indian forces in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. 

“Pakistan strongly condemns the extra-judicial killings of three Kashmiris, including a 14-year-old juvenile and a student of grade 10 by the Indian forces in a so-called ‘cordon-and-search' operation in Shopian, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK),” said a Foreign Ministry statement Monday.

Kashmir regional police said on Sunday in the capital city of Srinagar that Faisal Bashir, 14, who reportedly had recently joined militant ranks, was killed along with 11 other suspected militants in separate gunfights during the past four days.

According to media reports, Bashir was his parents' only son along with four daughters. He went missing three days ago.

Moreover, two militants were killed in the early hours of Sunday in the Bijbehara area of south Kashmir.

At least 36 militants have been killed in the restive region in 2021 so far, according to the police. 

‘Fake’ encounters

“The further intensification of fake encounters is a matter of grave concern. Extra-judicial killings of young men, including teenage boys, and refusal to return human remains of those martyred is completely unlawful and reflects the moral bankruptcy of the Indian occupation forces,” the statement said.

It added that Pakistan has repeatedly called for independent investigations, under international scrutiny, into the “extra-judicial killings” of all innocent Kashmiris.

“We call upon the international community to hold India accountable for the gross and systematic human rights violations in IIOJK and work for peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” it urged.

Relations between India and Pakistan plummeted to a new low after August 2019, when India scrapped the longstanding special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

The two neighbors, however, last month agreed to honor the 2003 cease-fire along the Line of Control – a de facto border that divides the picturesque Himalayan valley between the two countries – followed by an exchange of letters between the two premiers and unconfirmed reports of "backdoor" contacts to stem the escalating tensions.

Islamabad, nonetheless, has reiterated that normalization of ties with New Delhi is linked to review of the Aug. 5 decision, and ultimate resolution of the Kashmir dispute. 

Disputed region

Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of the region is also controlled by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965, and 1971 – two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights groups, thousands of people have been killed and tortured in the conflict since 1989./aa

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday reiterated its call for a ban on the sale of live wild mammals in traditional food markets to prevent future crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Animals, particularly wild animals, are the source of more than 70% of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, many of which are caused by novel viruses,” the agency said in a joint statement with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP).

“Wild mammals, in particular, pose a risk for the emergence of new diseases. They come into markets without any way to check if they carry dangerous viruses.”

The organizations said most emerging infectious diseases – such as Lassa fever, Marburg hemorrhagic fever, and Nipah viral infections – have wildlife origins.

“Within the coronavirus family, zoonotic viruses were linked to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which was first detected in 2012,” the agencies said.

Fadela Chaib, a WHO spokesperson, said it is vital to understand that most emerging infectious diseases originate in wild animals, so curbing the trade of these animals will reduce the chances of a future virus spillover.

“This is not a new recommendation, but COVID-19 has brought new attention to this threat, given the magnitude of its consequences,” Chaib said at a news briefing.

Such markets exist in China, where COVID-19 was first discovered at the end of 2019, and there was also one in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have made the jump to humans.

According to the WHO, one theory is that COVID-19 was initially transmitted to human beings through an intermediary animal host that is still unidentified.

“Another possibility is that the virus was transmitted directly from a host species of animal to humans,” the statement said.

There is risk of direct transmission to humans that come into contact with the saliva, blood, urine, mucus, feces, or other body fluids of an infected animal, according to the WHO.

There is also risk of infection through contact with areas where animals are housed in markets or contaminated objects or surfaces.

Acknowledging the “central role” of traditional markets in providing food and livelihoods, the statement pointed out that stopping the sale of these animals will help protect the health of people working and shopping at these markets./aa

The Indonesian government sent humanitarian assistance to Mozambique and Zimbabwe to help them recover from the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai.

"Indonesia hopes that this grant will contribute greatly to the recovery and reconstruction efforts,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters in a virtual press conference on Tuesday.

The cyclone claimed nearly 1,300 lives when it struck Africa in March 2019.

“We need to stand together and share our burden through cooperation and solidarity," she said, adding that Indonesia and Africa share strong historical bonds, which must be echoed by efforts in handling the impact of natural disasters and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic./aa

The official spokesman for the Ministry of Health (MoH), Dr. Abdullah Al-Sanad, announced the working hours of the Covid-19 vaccination centers during the holy month of Ramadan, Al-Rai reported.

Al-Sanad said in a statement, on Monday evening, that the vaccination timings at the Kuwait Vaccination Center (Fairgrounds) will be from 10 am to 10 pm, and at the Naseem and Masayel Health Centers in two shifts from 9 am to 1 pm, and from 8 pm to 12 at night.

He explained that the vaccination timings at primary health care centers and school vaccination centers will be from 8 pm to 12 at night, stressing the need to adhere to attendance at the time and place specified in the text message./ agencies