Kuwait’s Amir has sent a letter to Turkey’s president reaffirming his country’s desire to bolster ties with Ankara, Kuwaiti media reported on Friday.

The letter was delivered by Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser al-Sabah during his meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkish capital on Thursday, according to the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

The message from Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah conveyed Kuwait’s commitment to “close relations between the two friendly countries and means of boosting these ties in various spheres, as well as issues of common concern,” the report said.

Before meeting President Erdogan, the Kuwaiti foreign minister and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu co-chaired a meeting of the Turkey-Kuwait Joint Committee for Cooperation in Ankara on Thursday.

“Our goal is to come together more regularly in a way that reflects our relations, to use the mechanisms effectively, and to deepen relations,” Cavusoglu said at a news conference after the meeting.

The two sides agreed to boost cooperation in defense and military affairs, culture, education, and health, according to the Turkish official.

He also hailed Kuwait’s role as a mediator in regional affairs, especially in the normalization of relations between Gulf countries.

Al-Sabah said Turkey and Kuwait “have consensus on regional issues and international problems because we are trying to find a political solution to those issues.”/aa

A bid by the French Senate to ban girls under 18 from wearing the hijab in public has drawn condemnation, with the hashtag #HandsOffMyHijab circulating widely on social media.

The hijab is a headscarf worn by many Muslim women and has been the subject of a decades-long feud in France.

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The French Senate’s move comes as part of Paris’s push to introduce a so-called “anti-separatism” bill which it says aims to bolster the country’s secular system, but critics have denounced, arguing it singles out the minority Muslim population.

While debating the proposed legislation on March 30, senators approved an amendment to the bill calling for the “prohibition in the public space of any conspicuous religious sign by minors and of any dress or clothing which would signify inferiority of women over men”.

The ban is not yet law, with France’s National Assembly required to sign off on the change before it can take effect.

But a backlash to the amendment was swift, with some suggesting the proposed rule amounted to a “law against Islam”.

“Age to consent to sex in France: 15 Age to consent to hijab: 18 Let that sink in. It isn’t a law against the hijab. It’s a law against Islam. #Handsoffmyhijab #FranceHijabBan,” one Twitter user wrote.

Another posted: “I thought we already had this covered. Forcing a woman to wear a hijab is wrong. Just like forcing her to take it off is wrong. It’s HER choice.”

The issue also attracted the attention of several high-profile figures.

On Instagram, Olympic athlete Ibtihaj Muhammad shared a post suggesting the Senate’s amendment indicated “Islamophobia is deepening in France”.

“This is what happens when you normalize anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim hate speech, bias, discrimination, and hate crimes – Islamophobia written into law,” the post said.

Amani al-Khatahtbeh, founder of Muslim Women’s Day and the website Muslim Girl, also weighed in on the controversy.

“No government should regulate how a woman can dress, whether to keep it on or take it off,” she tweeted, referencing the hijab.

Somali-born model Rawdah Mohamed suggested the French Senate’s move had put it on “the wrong side of equality”.

“The Hijab ban is hateful rhetoric coming from the highest level of government and will go down as an enormous failure of religious values and equality,” she posted on Instagram.

The National Assembly, France’s lower chamber which is dominated by President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist La République En Marche (LREM) party, voted overwhelmingly in favour of the bill on February 16 before it was passed up to the conservative-led Senate.

The legislation has been debated in a highly charged atmosphere in France after three attacks late last year, including the beheading on October 16 of teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free speech.

The law does not specifically mention the word Islam, but French Muslims have for months protested against it, saying several of its measures single them out.

Amnesty International last month warned the proposed law posed a “serious attack on rights and freedoms in France” and called for “many problematic provisions” of the bill to be scrapped or amended.

As the coronavirus pandemic takes a toll on the frail health care system, the woes of people in the occupied territory have been somewhat alleviated by a modern hospital constructed by Turkey that treated thousands in one year.

The Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital in the Gaza Strip plays a key role in the Palestinian enclave’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 3,500 coronavirus patients have been treated at the hospital since last year. Its chief physician Marwan al-Hams says it has been instrumental in providing public access to health care in this new era.

The hospital, constructed by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), was opened in 2017 in the enclave, which has been suffering from a suffocating Israeli blockade – by land, sea and air – since 2006. The Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.1 million people, faces a dire outlook amid the pandemic. The latest figures by its health authority show 1,916 COVID-19 cases after 4,982 tests. Some 642 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic last year in the Gaza Strip while the total number of cases exceeded 75,000.

The hospital was transferred to the Palestinian authority running the enclave in March 2020 to be used as a “temporary quarantine hospital” for the pandemic. Currently, nearly 100 patients, including nine in the intensive care unit, are treated at the hospital, furnished with modern medical equipment. Turkey already sent a batch of medical aid to the Gaza Strip last year.

Al-Hams told Anadolu Agency (AA) Thursday that they have been caring for coronavirus patients since last year at the hospital and thanked Turkey for giving the “fully-equipped hospital” to the Gaza Strip. “It relieved our burden a lot,” he added. He says that the situation is critical in the enclave due to the blockade and the pandemic spreading fast.

“We are going through the worst times. We need more medical equipment as the cases are increasing,” he said. The hospital, the most modern and largest among other medical facilities in the larger Palestinian territories, is built on an area of 33,400 square meters. It consists of eight wards, four surgery rooms, intensive care units, laboratories and 180 patient rooms.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesperson for Health Ministry in Gaza, says the pandemic remains a concern for them and a further rise may create a problem in finding empty beds for patients at hospitals. The enclave is currently going through a “second wave” of the outbreak.

“We had 24 patients in critical condition early March and now this number is 226. The sharp rise in the number of cases stem from U.K. variant,” he said. Al-Qudra said they have been successful so far in responding to the pandemic and they still had beds for patients but a new surge may endanger this success.

He said the ongoing blockade deprived them of the means to help the patients. “We have a shortage of medical equipment and laboratories,” he pointed out. He called upon the locals to comply with rules to contain the pandemic and urged citizens above the age of 50 to get vaccinated.

The spike in the Gaza Strip stands in contrast to the slowdown in infections in Israel. The local government, which recently imposed a Saturday curfew, also ordered new restrictions on gatherings as of March.

In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian Authority Health Minister Mai al-Kaila told the official Voice of Palestine radio last month that the rate of increase was slowing, after a wave of infections packed local hospitals. In the West Bank, more than 175,000 people have been infected and 2,004 deaths have been recorded.

Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authority (PA) received 100,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm jab, the largest single batch of coronavirus vaccines yet to reach the Palestinian territories. The PA's vaccination campaign was launched this month after the delivery of thousands of vaccines through the United Nations' COVAX program for poorer nations.

The Palestinian vaccine rollout has lagged well behind that of Israel, which has faced criticism for excluding most Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip from its world-beating vaccination drive. The PA announced it had started vaccinating the over-75s and some medical patients on March 21 after receiving 60,000 vaccine doses through COVAX. More than 20,000 of those doses have been transferred to Gaza. An additional 60,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine have been delivered to Gaza from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). COVAX has also pledged doses to vaccinate another million Palestinians.

Israel has also vaccinated 105,000 Palestinians with permits to work in Israel or in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Rights groups have called on Israel, as the occupying power, to offer vaccines to all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel says the PA is responsible for health services across the Palestinian territories./agencies

Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Chadian authorities on Thursday to respect the right of assembly, investigate abuses and take urgent measures to prevent abuse during elections on April 11.

The global rights group said Chad's security forces have ruthlessly cracked down on protesters and political opposition in the lead-up to the presidential election.

“As many Chadians are bravely taking to the streets to peacefully call for change and respect of their basic rights, Chad’s authorities have responded by crushing dissent and hope of a fair or credible election,” said Ida Sawyer, deputy Africa director at HRW.

“The authorities should respect freedom of speech and assembly, ensure that police exercise restraint during opposition protests, and urgently investigate the deadly assault on the family of an opposition leader and other allegations of abuse,” added Sawyer.

The election campaign has been marred with controversies that included President Idriss Deby Itno's decision to run for a sixth term, and restrictions on opposition candidates.

Security forces killed presidential candidate Yaya Dillo’s 80-year-old mother and wounded five other family members during a raid in February.

Communications Minister Cherif Mahamat Zene said on Feb. 28 that the purpose of the raid was to arrest Dillo, who failed to comply with two judicial warrants.

He said Dillo “put up an armed resistance” and that two people were killed and five others injured in the fight, including three security forces members./aa