Charity donations accepted by Britain's Prince Charles were handled correctly, his office said after a newspaper reported that he received 3 million euros ($3.2 million) in cash from a former Qatari prime minister, some of it in shopping bags.

The Sunday Times said that Charles accepted three lots of cash that were given to him personally by Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani between 2011 and 2015.

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"Charitable donations received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim were passed immediately to one of the prince's charities who carried out the appropriate governance and have assured us that all the correct processes were followed," the prince's office said in a statement on Sunday.

The Sunday Times said there was no suggestion the payments were illegal.

Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic said it would demand an investigation.

In November Michael Fawcett, the right-hand man to Prince Charles for decades, stepped down from his role running one of the British royal's main charities weeks after the Sunday Times said he had offered honours in return for donations.

Police and Britain's Charity Commission are investigating those claims.

A spokesman for the prince has said that Charles had no knowledge of the alleged offer of honours or citizenship on the basis of donations.

Fawcett has not commented publicly.

($1 = 0.9475 euros)

  A United Nations expert has joined global human rights groups in expressing concern over the arrest of Indian rights defender Teesta Setalvad a day after the country’s Supreme Court upheld the findings of a special investigation team (SIT) that cleared Prime Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in 2002 anti-Muslim riots.

Setalvad was picked by the anti-terrorism wing of the Gujarat police on Saturday afternoon from her home in Mumbai hours after India’s interior minister, Amit Shah, a close aide of Modi, accused her of giving baseless information to the police about the deadly anti-Muslim violence during Modi’s chief ministership of the state.

“Deeply concerned by reports of #WHRD [Human Rights Defender] Teesta Setalvad being detained by Anti Terrorism Sqaud [sic] of Gujarat police,” said Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, in a tweet describing Setalvad as “a strong voice against hatred and discrimination”.

Lawlor reiterated that defending human rights was not a crime as she urged the Indian authorities to release Setalvad and put “an end to [her] persecution by Indian state”.

On Sunday, Setalvad, who long campaigned to get justice for victims of the 2002 religious violence, was produced before a local court in Ahmedabad, the largest city of Gujarat. The police have accused her of “committing forgery and fabricating evidence”, among other charges.

Setalvad said, according to a complaint shared by her aide with Al Jazeera, that her detention was illegal and that the police assaulted her during the raid.

Deadly riots under Modi

The riots triggered by a train burning incident killed, according to some estimates, 2,000 people, a majority of them Muslim. Official figures stand at about 1,000.

In one episode, a Hindu mob stormed the Gulbarg Society complex – a cluster of buildings housing Muslim families – and burned and hacked to death 69 people hiding there, including a former member of parliament, Ehsan Jafri. He had allegedly made calls to the then Chief Minister Modi for help but was rebuked, according to media reports.

After local courts in Gujarat exonerated Modi of all wrongdoings, Jafri’s wife Zakia Jafri, 82, with assistance from Setalvad, moved the Supreme Court in 2013. On Friday, the court rejected the petition.

Jafri’s son, Tanvir Jafri, who is in Saudi Arabia on the Hajj pilgrimage, told Al Jazeera that the family is “extremely disappointed” by the judgement.

On Saturday, the Gujarat police opened investigations against Setalvad and two former top police officers – former Director General of Police RB Sreekumar and another former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt – alleging that they resorted to conspiracy and forgery to implicate innocent people.

Sreekumar was picked up from his home in the state capital, Gandhinagar, while Bhatt is already in jail undergoing life imprisonment in a separate case.

The police have cited observations from the judgement to justify the new case against the trio as the court said “all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with the law”.

‘Chilling effect’

However, Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer based in New Delhi, criticised the top court’s remarks as “totally unwarranted and arbitrary”.

“These people [Jafri and Setalvad] had gone to the court on the basis of voluminous evidence of different kinds on the basis of reports by independent commissions, court orders, testimonies of the accused in the violence, works of journalists.

“All these things were more than enough for Zakia Jafri to pursue the petition and Setalvad to have helped her in the petition through the courts,” Bhushan told Al Jazeera.

He said the judgement could prove a deterrent for people to file petitions for victims of violence.

“It is important for people to call out the Supreme Court on this,” Bhushan said.

Kavita Krishnan, a prominent civil liberties activist, termed these arrests a “revenge action” by the Modi government, accusing the court of paving the way for the case against Setalvad and two other officers.

She said the action will have a “chilling effect” on the civil society in the country already facing pressure.

“This regime is suppressing civil society that acts as a watchdog on the state.”

These arrests have evoked condemnation within the country and abroad as some groups have given a joint call for countrywide protests on Monday.

“Detention of prominent human rights activist Teesta Setalvad by the Indian authorities is a direct reprisal against those who dare to question their human rights record,” Amnesty India tweeted.

“Targeting human rights activists for their legitimate human rights work is unacceptable. The Indian authorities must immediately release Teesta Setalvad, and end the persecution of Indian civil society and human rights defenders.”

Front Line Defenders, an international human rights organisation in Dublin, issued an alert on Twitter, saying they were “alarmed” by the action against Setalvad.

“Gujarat Anti-Terror police, forcibly entered her home and detained her without basis. We call for her immediate release and an end to her legal persecution as punishment for her peaceful human rights work,” the group said.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders also expressed concern, calling for Setalvad’s “immediate release”.

Earlier in the day, Setalvad was taken for a medical checkup at Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad.

"They have done my medical. I have a big bruise on my hand, this is what the ATS did to me. They are taking me to the magistrate's court," said Teesta Setalvad had said after the medical checkup.

On Saturday, Gujarat Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS) team detained Setalvad from Mumbai in connection with a case on her NGO and later in the night she was taken to Ahmedabad.

The Gujarat ATS team took Teesta Setalvad to the Santacruz police station yesterday.

"I have read the judgement very carefully. The judgement clearly mentions the name of Teesta Setalvad. The NGO that was run being run by her - I don't remember the name of the NGO- had given baseless information about the riots to the police," Amit Shah, in an exclusive interview, told ANI.

The Supreme Court had on Friday, dismissed as "devoid of merit" an appeal by Zakia Jafri in a plea challenging SIT's clean chit to the then chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi and others in cases related to the riots. Zakia Jafri is the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the riots.

Asked about his mention of NGOs, Shah said: "I have read the judgment hurriedly but it clearly states the name of Teesta Setalvad. It was Setalvad's NGO that gave an application involving BJP workers in every police station and the pressure by the media was so immense that every application was treated as truth."

A three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar, upholding the Special Investigation Team or SIT's 2012 clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the then chief minister of Gujarat, in the Gujarat riots case, said that Setalvad, co-petitioner in the case, exploited the emotions of Zakia Jafri.

"All those involved in such abuse of process need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with the law," the judges said, adding that the appeal was filed under "dictation of someone."

"Antecedents of Teesta Setalvad need to be reckoned with and also because she has been vindictively persecuting this lis [dispute] for her ulterior design by exploiting the emotions and sentiments of Zakia Jafri, the real victim of the circumstances," the top court said in its order.

The case pertains to what came to be known as Gulbarg Society incident, in which 68 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, were killed in the riots triggered by the burning of a train coach in which 59 people perished in February 2002.

A decade later, the SIT report, exonerated Narendra Modi, citing "no prosecutable evidence" in the Gulbarg Society case.

On Friday, upholding the SIT clearance, the top court dismissed the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, saying that the plea was "to keep the pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design."

The SIT had opposed the plea of Jafri saying there is a sinister plot behind the complaint to probe the "larger conspiracy" behind the 2002 Gujarat riots and the original complaint by Jafri was directed by social activist Setalvad, who had also challenged an October 2017 order of the Gujarat High Court refusing to reopen the closure report of the SIT.

"The protagonists of the quest for justice sitting in a comfortable environment in their air-conditioned office may succeed in connecting failures of the state administration at different levels during such a horrendous situation, little knowing or even referring to the ground realities and the continual effort put in by the duty holders in controlling the spontaneous evolving situation unfolding aftermath mass violence across the state," the Supreme Court said./ aljazeera

Senior officials revealed that the government’s plan to restrict public hospitals, polyclinics and health centers to Kuwaitis only is still among the main goals of the workplan of the government and health ministry, but practical means to achieve this target are not available yet.

They said the plan aims at treating residents in the private sector, while public hospitals will be for citizens only, after criticisms by Kuwaitis of delays in obtaining appointments due to the large number of residents, whose numbers are double that of citizens, at the expense of services provided to Kuwaitis. This apart from the pressure on the ministry’s services and its infrastructure and its increasing budget every year.

The sources said among the reasons for not implementing the plan to treat expats in private clinics is that the health infrastructure of the private sector is still unable to absorb the more than three million residents living in Kuwait, which compels the health ministry to receive and treat expats. Moreover, despite the professionalism of Kuwait’s private healthcare sector, the difference in capabilities between it and the government’s health ministry is starkly clear.

The sources added the coming period will see international hospitals operating in Kuwait’s private sector as part of the government’s plan to attract foreign investors in the medical sector. This may lead the private sector to be able to accept large numbers of expat patients. They said the ministry is not considering increasing health fees for residents, but this is linked to future developments, explaining health fees in some sectors may witness a review of their current prices in the next period./KT

The juvenile welfare department organized on Sunday a drug prevention training workshop coinciding with the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, under the slogan “Protecting our youth is our responsibility”. Assistant Undersecretary for Social Welfare at the Ministry of Social Affairs Musallam Al-Subaei said social welfare has been keen to highlight this dangerous drug phenomenon that makes families suffer. “Preventing drug addiction and raising awareness of its danger is one of Kuwait’s priorities,” he said.

Subaei stressed the importance of confronting the drug phenomenon with the negative risks it poses to the individual and society, encouraging institutions to cooperate in order to confront drug addiction issues and continue their efforts in this field by issuing national legislation and projects to achieve security and psychological and social stability. He affirmed the ministry’s keenness to find appropriate solutions through training workshops that would be an addition to the state’s efforts to limit the spread of drugs in the society.

Director of the Juvenile Welfare Department Jassem Al-Kandari said the issue of drug abuse and addiction is one of the most important problems facing the entire world, as it has serious dimensions and effects in destroying the individual, family and society. “The drug phenomenon is one of the negative phenomena prevalent in Kuwaiti society. Studies and statistics show that numbers of addicts are constantly increasing, making it important for competent authorities in the country to shed light on this phenomenon to study its motives and how to confront it and protect society from it,” he noted.

Kandari pointed out that the juvenile care department is responsible for young people, whether they are delinquents or prone to delinquency. “We found the number of cases of abuse during the past four years exceeded 150 cases, which led to the establishment of specialized training courses to educate workers and community members to identify the causes of abuse, combat negative phenomena prevalent in Kuwaiti society, and protect the Kuwaiti family,” he added.

The Ministry of Social Affairs launches a four-day training workshops for drug prevention. It will include a set of eight training courses provided by specialists representing government agencies and relevant NGOs in this aspect from June 26-29. The workshops on Sunday discussed ways how to deal with an addict, how to deal with juvenile abuse in schools, how to treat cases of abuse and addiction and the role of the juvenile care department in rehabilitating cases of addiction./KT

 Like millions of other migrant laborers in the Gulf, one of the world’s hottest and driest regions, construction worker B Sajay does not welcome summer. “We work in very high temperatures, this is the nature of our work. And yes, we suffer from severe heat,” the Indian national told AFP in Muscat, the capital of Oman. Although summer has only just begun, temperatures have already topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in parts of the desert region, which is bearing the brunt of climate change.

Summer means suffering for anyone working outside, along with risks of dehydration, heat stroke and heart failure, and Gulf countries have banned working outside in the hottest hours of the day. “The only thing that relieves us is the period of rest… in the middle of the day,” said Sajay, who has been working on building sites for six years. Last year, a World Health Organization report found the risk of death doubling or tripling on extremely hot days in Kuwait, with a disproportionate effect on non-Kuwaiti men, who make up the bulk of outdoor workers.Workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are ubiquitous in the oil-rich Gulf countries, providing cheap labor and filling the jobs shunned by citizens in favor of high-paying government positions. The imported laborers typically work on construction sites or collect rubbish, sweep the roads or deliver food.

Unbearable even in the shade

Between June and August, the oil-producing Gulf countries — Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — ban working outside for about four hours starting from noon. Workers return to their dormitories or nestle in any shade they can find. But increasingly, it’s unbearable even in the shade.

On the first day of summer on Tuesday, temperatures reached 50 degrees Celsius in many places, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait which recorded in May the hottest temperature of the month worldwide, 53.2 degrees Celsius (128.8 Fahrenheit). “The last 10 years have been the hottest seen in Kuwait,” said Kuwaiti meteorologist Issa Ramadan, adding: “Summer in Kuwait now extends to September, and sometimes to parts of October.”

In Muscat, workers paving a road with asphalt covered their heads with colorful scarves and hats, while others found shade under date palms in the middle of a two-way street. Passersby held umbrellas to protect themselves from the scorching sun.

“In order to complete the eight-hour shift as early as possible, sometimes I start working from six in the morning, stop during the rest period, and then do two more hours,” said Muhammad Mukarram, a Bangladeshi construction worker. The region-wide problem has long drawn concern. Human rights groups have urged Qatar, host of this year’s World Cup, to investigate workers’ deaths connected to “heat distress”.

There are no reliable figures on the deaths of migrant workers in Gulf countries, which do not release statistics and have regularly contested estimates released by NGOs and the media. A recent study by the Vital Signs Partnership, a group of human rights organizations mainly from Asian countries, said that “as many as 10,000 migrant workers from south and southeast Asia die in the Gulf every year”. The March 2022 report said that more than half of the cases were recorded as “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest”.

Deadly heat

In 2020, a study published in the journal Science Advances found that the Gulf has the hottest and most humid weather anywhere on Earth. Scientists have calculated that even with shade and unlimited drinking water, a healthy adult will die if “wet-bulb” temperatures — which take into account factors such as humidity, wind speed and cloud cover — exceed 35 Celsius for six hours.

The study showed that there have only ever been 14 occasions on land when the measure exceeded 35C, all in the past two decades and eight of them in the Gulf. Another study in the journal Nature Climate Change found that “within this century, parts of the… Gulf region could be hit with unprecedented events of deadly heat as a result of climate change”.

“If we do not change course, these temperatures will keep rising over the years, reaching a level where outdoor human activities in the Gulf, such as the hajj pilgrimage, would be nearly impossible in summer,” said Julien Jreissati, program director at Greenpeace MENA. Saudi Arabia is preparing to welcome one million pilgrims next month to perform the annual Muslim rituals.

“The only solution is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels which are the main driver of climate change and transition gradually but quickly towards renewable energy,” said Jreissati. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain have pledged to reach net zero domestic carbon emissions in the coming decades, while expanding oil production. – AFP

Health Minister Dr Khaled Al-Saeed launched the fifth Expatriates Examination Center at Kuwait International Fairgrounds in Mishref on Sunday. The center, the fifth of its kind in Kuwait, has a daily capacity of 1,000 cases. Dr Saeed toured the site to inspect work following the operational opening of the center as well as the organizational mechanisms that are followed. He said the opening of the new center is part of the ministry’s continued efforts to reduce pressure on other centers.

Meanwhile, Director of Public Health Dr Mohammad Al-Suaidan said the center has 10 registration stations and a waiting area for 500 persons. It also has four x-ray rooms and 20 blood testing clinics, he added. He said the center is manned by 160 individuals including doctors, nurses, x-ray technicians and administrators. The center operates 12 hours per day, he further noted.