South Africa’s president announced tighter restrictions late Monday due to the coronavirus pandemic, including possible arrest for not wearing a face mask in public.  

“From now on, it is compulsory for every person to wear a mask in a public space. A person who does not wear a cloth mask covering over the nose and mouth in a public place will be committing an offence,” Cyril Ramaphosa said a televised address.

Ramaphosa said those found not wearing a mask in public could be arrested and prosecuted.

“On conviction, they will be liable to a fine or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months, or to both a fine and imprisonment,” he said.

The South African leader said although this is a drastic measure, it is now necessary to ensure compliance with the most basic of preventative measures.  

South Africa on Sunday reported over one million COVID-19 cases -- the highest number on the continent.

Ramaphosa also announced that the nationwide curfew will be extended from 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) to 6 a.m. (0400 GMT).

He said only permitted workers including medical and security personnel or emergency staff may move during the curfew hours, but nobody else is allowed outside their place of residence during the curfew.

The new rules will last for 14 days, the president said.

“Non-essential establishments – including shops, restaurants, bars and all cultural venues – must close at 8 p.m.,” Ramaphosa said. 

He further announced that the sale of alcohol from retail outlets and on-site consumption of alcohol will not be permitted. 

“The prohibition on consuming alcohol in public spaces like parks and beaches remains,” he said. “Distribution and transportation will be prohibited with exceptions that will be explained by the minister [later in the week]”. 

The president also said that night clubs and businesses engaged in the sale and transportation of liquor will not be allowed to operate. 

He said these regulations may be reviewed within the next few weeks if they see a sustained decline in infections and hospital admissions.

South Africa, which is currently battling its second wave of COVID-19, has 1,011,871 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 27,071 deaths reported. Nearly 850,000 people have recovered./aa

Russia has resorted to disinformation about other vaccines to promote its own coronavirus vaccine, the top EU diplomat claimed Monday. 

Writing on his official blog about the threat of disinformation, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote: “Some foreign actors, be they state or non-state, even engage in disinformation campaigns, deliberately spreading false or misleading information,”

He continued: “For example, the Western vaccine developers are openly mocked on multi-lingual Russian state-controlled media, which has in some cases led to as absurd claims that vaccines will turn people into monkeys. Such narratives are apparently directed at countries where Russia wants to sell its own vaccine, Sputnik V.”

Borell did not cite any specific media or outlets where such misinformation is allegedly spread.

He further warned: “In the current pandemic, any attempt to instigate such unfounded doubts threatens public health. Terrorist organisations, such as Da’esh [also known as ISIS], have also used the confusion in the Corona-situation to spread their own propaganda.” /aa

A Sudanese citizen was tortured to death in a facility belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Sudan's attorney general said Monday. 

“The attorney general has received the medical report, which proves the victim was tortured, and a case has been opened against the force that arrested the victim,” the statement said.

Bahaa el-Din Nouri died last week, a development that led to wide anger among protesters, activists and political groups that oppose the army.

The RSF has also admitted that the victim was killed after his arrest by intelligence personnel last week.

The 41-year-old was found dead in a Khartoum morgue after he went missing from his neighborhood in Kalakla area of the capital.

Sudanese protesters have been demanding an acceleration of reforms promised since the ouster of former ruler Omar al-Bashir. The veteran leader was deposed by the military in April 2019 after months of mass demonstrations.

The citizens are unhappy with the progress under the transitional government that has struggled to fix the economic crisis.

The government was formed under a three-year power sharing agreement between the military and civilian groups to hold presidential and parliamentary elections./aa

Accusing the United Arab Emirates of running dozens of secret prisons in Yemen, a human rights group on Monday called on the Gulf country to close all such facilities.

The Geneva-based SAM for Rights and Liberties said Emirati forces intentionally hold in these prisons "thousands of Yemenis, including political opponents, opinion-makers, and even civilians, without any charge or presentation to judicial authorities."

It called on the UN Security Council to work to close such prisons, and ensure that the violators are brought to justice.

In a video statement on Dec. 26, the group cited one of its September reports on prisons in Yemen supervised by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, saying that dozens of detainees are subjected to "cruel forms of torture."

It called for an urgent settlement of the detainees' cases, and those forcibly disappeared, and ensuring all their rights, including a fair trial.

Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest countries, has been devastated by a civil war since 2014, when Iranian-backed Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led Arab coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.

According to the UN, the conflict has so far claimed the lives of over 200,000 people, along with a worsening humanitarian crisis, now exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Last week a new Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik, was formed under the Riyadh Agreement between the Yemeni government and separatist Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the UAE./aa

Turkish gendarmerie forces seized a cache of arms, ammunition, and explosives belonging to the terrorist group PKK, officials in the eastern Hakkari province said on Monday.

The materials were seized over the weekend in the village of Kavakli in the Katomarinos district, said a provincial governorship statement.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and EU – has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants./aa

Over the last 18 years, Turkey’s Justice and Development (AK) Party governments have brought back some 4,440 artifacts to the land where they belong, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the State Museum of Paintings and Sculptures in the capital Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey embraces everything which belongs to its land as part of its wealth.

"We support all kinds of qualified works that will add additional value to the cultural and artistic life of our country and expand diversity in this field," he said.

Building a civilization is a tough task that demands huge time and effort, he said, adding that protecting the patterns and culture of a civilization, keeping it alive, and further contributing to heritage are very significant issues as well.

"Our ancestors put their seal on the land they conquered with their magnificent work reflecting the splendor of our civilization along with their high culture," Erdogan added.

He emphasized that the cultural heritage that flows through history is being enriched and sustained through the contributions of new generations.

"For a while, work on museums was made into a means of contention with the nation's sacred [values], as seen in the Hagia Sophia Mosque," he said.

Earlier this year, Hagia Sophia was transitioned from a museum back into a mosque.

On July 24, Friday prayers in Hagia Sophia marked the first Muslim acts of worship there in 86 years.

Hagia Sophia served as a church for 916 years until the conquest of Istanbul, and a mosque from 1453 to 1934 – nearly 500 years – and most recently as a museum for 86 years./aa

As militant activity grows in the Southern African nation of Mozambique, a UN report warned that a crisis there has caused mass insecurity and violence leading to an estimated 1.3 million people in need of humanitarian aid and protection in the coming year.

The new humanitarian response plan report compiled by the UN and various humanitarian groups warned that women and girls in the northern Cabo Delgado region are the most affected.

“Reports of violations against civilians, including killings, beheadings and kidnappings, increased in 2020,” the report said, noting that militant attacks rose in intensity and expanded geographically in 2020.

Many of the displaced were the main source of food for the farming and fishing economy in Mozambique, experts said, warning that with the farmers away from their homes, there is a looming threat of food insecurity as an influx of displaced people leads to fights for scarce resources such as water and food.

The number of people displaced by the crisis more than quadrupled from March (over 110,400) to November (nearly 530,000), with children accounting for an estimated 45% of the displaced.

Sanitation and education were been affected, the report added, warning that health, water, sanitation, and hygiene, as well as education services across Cabo Delgado – already stretched – have been significantly impacted by the escalating violence.

Aid agencies say that in 2021, humanitarian partners will require $254.4 million to assist nearly 1.1 million people out of an estimated 1.3 million in need of humanitarian assistance in Cabo Delgado and neighboring provinces.

An armed militant group believed to be affiliated to the Daesh/ISIS terrorist organization decapitated more than 50 people in Cabo Delgado in November and has wreaked havoc in northern Mozambique since late 2017, killing hundreds, displacing communities, and capturing towns.

The group is locally known as al-Shabaab, but with no established links to the armed militant group of the same name in Somalia. It says it wants to establish a so-called “Islamic caliphate” in northern Mozambique, where it has exploited people’s desperate poverty and unemployment to recruit in large numbers./aa

Vietnam on Sunday reported economic growth of 2.91 percent in 2020, the slowest rate in more than 30 years as the country battled the coronavirus pandemic.

The communist state has long been among Asia's fastest-growing economies, and the 2020 figure marked a sharp fall from last year's GDP growth of seven percent.

But Vietnam's performance looks rosy in the context of a global recession triggered by the pandemic, and officials hailed it as a "huge success".

The Hanoi-based General Statistics Office (GSO) said in a statement Sunday that growth for the final quarter was 4.48 percent, contributing to the year-end figure of 2.91 percent.

"In the context of complicated development of the Covid-19 pandemic that badly impacts the socio-economic situation, this was a huge success for Vietnam," GSO said in the statement.

While many countries have suffered from high infection and mortality rates, Vietnam -- population 96 million -- has recorded fewer than 1,500 coronavirus cases and only 35 deaths.

Mass quarantines, extensive contact-tracing and strict controls on movement have allowed the country to keep factories largely open and get people back to work swiftly.

The official figures beat the International Monetary Fund's forecast of 2.4 percent growth for Vietnam. The IMF has predicted a global contraction of 4.4 percent.

The World Bank says Vietnam may enjoy more success in 2021.

"Looking ahead, Vietnam's prospects appear positive as the economy is projected to grow by about 6.8 percent in 2021 and thereafter stabilise at around 6.5 percent," the Bank said in a recent report./aa

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is set to move a second batch of Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar to the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal this month, officials said on Sunday, despite calls by rights groups not to carry out further relocations.

Around 1,000 Rohingya refugees, members of a Muslim minority who have fled Myanmar, will be moved to the island in the next few days after Bangladesh relocated more than 1,600 early this month, two officials with the direct knowledge of the matter said.

"They will be moved to Chittagong first and then to Bhasan Char, depending on the high tide," one of the officials said. The officials declined to be named as the issue had not been made public.

Mohammed Shamsud Douza, the deputy Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees, said the relocation was voluntary. "They will not be sent against their will."

The United Nations has said it has not been allowed to carry out a technical and safety assessment of Bhasan Char, a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, and was not involved in the transfer of refugees there.

Bangladesh says it is transferring only people who are willing to go and the move will ease chronic overcrowding in camps that are home to more than 1 million Rohingya.

But refugees and humanitarian workers say some of the Rohingya have been coerced into going to the island, which emerged from the sea 20 years ago.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdul Momen told Reuters earlier this month the United Nations should first assess and verify how conducive the environment in Myanmar's Rakhine state was for repatriating the refugees, before carrying out an assessment of Bhasan Char.

Several attempts to kickstart repatriation of Rohingya to Myanmar have failed after refugees said they were too fearful of further violence to return.