Washington: The US will continue to maintain communication with India about its needs to address the COVID-19 crisis, the White House has said, as critical American aid supplies started arriving in the country.
Two American military aircraft on Friday brought to India large amounts of emergency medical supplies as part of the Biden administration's support to the country's fight against a devastating wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
The first consignment of the supplies was brought to Delhi in a C-5M Super Galaxy, one of the largest strategic airlift aircraft of the US Air Force, while the second shipment was delivered by a C-17 Globemaster.
“We will continue to communicate with India about their needs,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday.
The first military assistance flight that departed from Travis Air Force Base had cargo including 200 small oxygen cylinders, 223 large oxygen cylinders, regulators and pulse oximeters, she said.
It also included approximately 184,000 rapid diagnostic tests and 84,000 N-95s masks.
Psaki said that the Secretary of State Antony Blinken called his Indian counterpart External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to review ongoing US government efforts in support of the Indian government's response.
“He also noted the outpouring of support from US industries, our ongoing discussions, non-governmental institutions, and private citizens,” Psaki said.
In all, the United States expects to deliver more than USD 100 million in medical supplies to India.
The Pentagon said in the coming week, more oxygen cylinders will be sent, as will oxygen concentrators, oxygen generation units, additional personnel protective equipment, rapid diagnostic tests and therapeutics.
“The US is also providing vaccine manufacturing supplies. In fact, the US has redirected its order of AstraZeneca manufacturing supplies to India, which will enable the country to make more than 20 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine,” said the Department of Defence.
Meanwhile, top American Senator Elizabeth Warren in a letter to President Joe Biden urged him to leverage all tools and resources available to the United States to provide relief to India.
“In light of this growing humanitarian crisis, I urge you to leverage all tools and resources available to the United States to provide relief to India,” Warren said in a letter to Biden.
“While I am pleased by your commitment to providing transportation and logistics assistance as well as doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to India, there is a critical need for more to be done,” the top Democrat said.
She also encouraged Biden to divert any excess supply of ventilators, PPE, oxygen, diagnostic equipment, as well as vaccines to India to help treat those in need and mitigate the spread of the virus.
“India is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis that threatens its 1.4 billion citizens, and billions more around the world. I urge you to leverage all resources and explore all tools available to the United States to alleviate this crisis,” Warren said.
India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds
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Kabul: The death toll in a powerful suicide truck bombing that struck a guest house in eastern Afghanistan rose to 21 with as many as 90 others wounded, officials said Saturday.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the late Friday night bombing in Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar province. There was no indication why the guest house was targeted. In Afghanistan, guest houses are lodgings often provided for free by the government, usually for the poor, travelers and students.
The Interior Ministry quickly blamed the Taliban. There was no immediate response from the Taliban.
The attack came on the eve of the official date set for the start of the final withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. The Taliban, who had demanded that all U.S. troops pull out of Afghanistan by 1 May, have not offered any guarantees for the safety of the departing troops.
There was no indication the bombing was connected to the pullout and there are no U.S. or NATO troops in Logar province.
Hasib Stanikzai, head of the Logar provincial council, said that at the time of the attack, a group of local police were staying at the guest house, waiting for transportation home. Other rooms were occupied by students from more remote districts who had come to the provincial capital for university entrance exams.
Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said the attack was under investigation and that the roof of the guesthouse had collapsed in the bombing. There were fears bodies could be trapped beneath the rubble, he said.
After 20 years, Washington is ending its “forever war” in Afghanistan. Starting on Saturday, the last remaining 2,500 to 3,500 American troops will begin leaving the country, to be fully out by Sept. 11 at the latest.
The pullout comes amid a resurgent Taliban, who control or hold sway over half of Afghanistan.
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Washington: US President Joe Biden on Friday issued a proclamation, restricting travel to the United States of all non-citizens who have stayed in India in the past 14 days.
The proclamation, which comes into effect on May 4, has been issued due to the "extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in India".
US nationals, those on Green Cards, their non-citizen spouses and children below 21 years of age, are among the various categories exempted from the restrictions.
The new travel restrictions have been imposed for an indefinite period and will require another presidential proclamation to end it.
"I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to take action to restrict and suspend the entry into the United States, as nonimmigrants, of non-citizens of the United States who were physically present within the Republic of India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States," Biden said.
The decision has been taken at the recommendation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), within the Department of Health and Human Services, which determined India is experiencing widespread, person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
“The World Health Organization has reported that the Republic of India has had more than 18,375,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The magnitude and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic in India surging,” Biden said, adding that India accounts for over one-third of new global cases.
The number of new cases in India is accelerating at a rapid rate, he said. Biden said there have been more than 300,000 average new daily cases in India over the past week.
A variant strain of the virus, known as B.1.617, is also circulating in India, along with other variant strains, including B.1.1.7, first detected in the United Kingdom, and B.1.351, first detected in the Republic of South Africa.
“The CDC advises, based on work by public health and scientific experts, that these variants have characteristics of concern, which may make them more easily transmitted and have the potential for reduced protection afforded by some vaccines,” said the proclamation.
After reviewing the public health situation within India, the CDC has concluded that proactive measures are required to protect the nation''s public health from travellers entering the United States from that jurisdiction, he said
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Jerusalem: The holiday of Lag BaOmer is one of the happiest days on the calendar for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community — a time of mass celebrations in honour of a revered sage. But in a split second Friday, the festive gathering in northern Israel turned into one of the country’s worst-ever tragedies, with at least 45 people crushed to death and dozens injured in a stampede.
The disaster prompted a national outpouring of grief as devastated families rushed to identify their dead relatives and bury them ahead of the Jewish Sabbath. There was also anger toward authorities over an accident that experts had long feared, further clouding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes of remaining in office.
Netanyahu, who briefly visited Mount Meron at midday, offered his condolences. “In these moments our people unite and that is what we are doing at this moment as well,” he said.
He announced Sunday would be a day of national mourning and said he had joined the masses of people who donated blood for the victims. Israel's President Reuven Rivlin lit 45 candles in honour of the dead. Messages of condolences poured in from around the world.
President Joe Biden said he was heartbroken and had called Netanyahu to offer support. “The people of the United States and Israel are bound together by our families, our faiths, and our histories, and we will stand with our friends,” he said.
The stampede erupted around 1 am as people began to leave and thronged a narrow, tunnel-like passage. According to witnesses, people began to fall on a slippery ramp, causing others to trip and sparking panic.
Avigdor Hayut, who survived the stampede, described slipping on the ramp and getting trapped in the crowd with his two sons, ages 10 and 13.
“My son screamed, ‘I’m dying,’” he told Israel’s public TV station Kan. A policeman tried to pull him and his younger son out of the crowd but couldn't move them.
“The policeman threw up and started crying, and I understood what he was looking at, what I couldn’t see,” said Hayut, 36, who suffered a broken ankle and ribs. “I thought this was the end.”
He said he began to pray and “simply waited.”
Hours later, in hospital with Shmuel, his 10-year-old, they learned that his other son, Yedidya, had died.
Lag BaOmer is very popular with Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. The main event takes place each year at Mount Meron. Tens of thousands, mostly ultra-Orthodox, celebrate to honour Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a second-century sage and mystic who is believed to be buried there. This year, authorities said some one lakh people attended.
The crowds light bonfires, dance and have large festive meals as part of the celebrations. Across the country, even in secular areas, smaller groups gather in parks and forests for barbecues and bonfires.
Video footage from the scene of the disaster showed large numbers of people, most of them black-clad ultra-Orthodox men, squeezed in the tunnel. Witnesses complained that police barricades had prevented people from exiting properly.
“The officers who were there couldn’t care less,” said Velvel Brevda, a rabbi who witnessed the stampede. He blamed the government for the deaths of “beautiful holy Jews that were killed here for no reason whatsoever".
At least 45 people were killed, according to the Israeli Health Ministry, with four people remaining in critical condition and dozens more hospitalised.
Bodies were later taken to Israel’s central forensic institute for identification, where distraught families waited to identify their loved ones. Israel’s Army Radio said some 40 people remained unaccounted for.
By Friday night, 32 victims had been identified. Israeli media earlier published a partial list of the victims, including a 9-year-old boy, a pair of brothers, 12 and 14, and a father of 11 children. An unknown number of American citizens, two Canadians and an Argentinian were also among the dead.
In a race against time, a number of funerals were held before sundown Friday, the start of the Jewish Sabbath when burials do not take place. The death toll at Mount Meron exceeded the 44 people killed in a 2010 forest fire, previously believed to be Israel's deadliest civilian tragedy.
The Justice Ministry said the police were launching a probe into possible criminal misconduct by officers.
Experts have long warned that the Mount Meron celebrations were ripe for disaster due to the crowded conditions, large fires and hot weather. In a 2008 report, the state comptroller, a watchdog government office, warned conditions at the site, including escape routes, “endanger the public".
Last year, the celebrations were greatly scaled back due to coronavirus restrictions. But this year’s event marked the first religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted most restrictions in the wake of its successful vaccination programme.
According to Health Ministry guidelines, public gatherings continue to be limited to no more than 500 people. But Israeli media said that Netanyahu assured ultra-Orthodox leaders that the celebrations would take place, despite objections from public health officials. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The deadly stampede was bound to have political reverberations at a time of great uncertainty following an inconclusive March election, the fourth in two years.
Netanyahu has so far been unsuccessful in forming a governing coalition. His time to do so runs out on Tuesday. If he fails, his political rivals will get a chance to try to cobble together an alliance.
Netanyahu has long relied on powerful ultra-Orthodox parties as allies and will need their support if he wants to keep faint hopes alive of staying in power.
During Friday’s visit to Mount Meron, Netanyahu was jeered by dozens of religious protesters. If such sentiments spread, it could further hurt Netanyahu’s prospects.
The stampede also threatened to deepen a broad public backlash against the ultra-Orthodox.
Netanyahu came under heavy criticism over the past year for allowing ultra-Orthodox communities to flout safety guidelines by opening schools and synagogues and holding mass funerals. The ultra-Orthodox communities were among the country’s hardest hit by COVID-19.
Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at the Hebrew University and fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute said the coming days would see a battle over “framing” of the event. Netanyahu will call for national healing and unity, while his opponents will say he is unfit to remain in office and it's time for a change.
“There is a battle on the framing, who is to blame, not to blame,” he said. “Already we see the signs of it.”
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BRUSSELS — Dozens of cinemas, theaters and culture venues in Belgium are defying government orders and reopening their doors to protest the country’s ongoing shutdown of cultural activities.
Out of work for more than six months, owners united within the Still Standing For Culture collective said the current ban on indoor cultural events is proof of “an unacceptable inequality of treatment” amid the health crisis.
“There is no evidence that culture should take second place to supermarkets, zoos or any other activity that generates social contact,” they said. “The health situation does not explain why the fate of cultural venues has been systematically ignored for months, nor why new conditions are pulled out of the government’s hat when their reopening is finally discussed.”
Belgian authorities are organising test events in the culture field but have yet to provide clear perspective for the sector’s workers. Culture events can restart outdoors from 8 May, with a maximum of 50 mask-wearing people attending, and the federal government has announced that indoor shows could perhaps resume in June with a maximum of 200 people, but only if the pace of the pandemic slows down.
The collective said re-openings starting Friday for a week will take place under the health protocol set up by federal authorities to guarantee artists and attendees are safe.
“The cultural spring has finally arrived,” they said.
Belgium, a country of 11.5-million inhabitants, has been severely hit by the coronavirus, with 24,185 COVID-19-related deaths recorded so far. But infections and hospitalisations have been decreasing over the past week.
Despite their decision to reopen illegally, the venues involved in the collective action will keep receiving aid subsidies. They could, however, be fined by police.
In addition to the cultural action, Belgian authorities are also worried by an unauthorised gathering planned this weekend in one of Brussels’ biggest parks. After an April Fools’ party drew thousands of people to Brussels’ Bois de la Cambre and ended in clashes with police last month, a sequel to the the event has been advertised by a group called the Abyss, for Saturday in the same park. Brussels prosecutor’s office has already announced that anyone breaching COVID-19 restrictions could be prosecuted.
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Inside Ms Sadat’s Beauty Salon in Afghanistan’s capital, Sultana Karimi leans intently over a customer, meticulously shaping her eyebrows. Make-up and hairstyling is the 24-year-old’s passion, and she discovered it, along with a newfound confidence, here in the salon.
She and the other young women working or apprenticing in the salon never experienced the rule of the Taliban over Afghanistan.
But they all worry that their dreams will come to an end if the hard-line militants regain any power, even if peacefully as part of a new government.
“With the return of Taliban, society will be transformed and ruined,” Karimi said. “Women will be sent into hiding, they’ll be forced to wear the burqa to go out of their homes.”
She wore a bright yellow blouse that draped off her shoulders as she worked, a style that’s a bit daring even in the all-women space of the salon. It would have been totally out of the question under the Taliban, who ruled until the 2001 US-led invasion. In fact, the Taliban banned beauty salons in general, part of a notoriously harsh ideology that often hit women and girls the hardest, including forbidding them education and the right to work or even to travel outside their home unaccompanied by a male relative.
With US troops committed to leaving Afghanistan completely by 11 September, women are closely watching the stalemated peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the post-withdrawal future, said Mahbouba Seraj, a women’s rights activist.
The US is pressing for a power-sharing government that includes the Taliban. Seraj said women want written guarantees from the Taliban that they won’t reverse the gains made by women in the past 20 years, and they want the international community to hold the insurgent movement to its commitments.
“I am not frustrated that the Americans are leaving ... the time was coming that the Americans would go home,” said Seraj, the executive director of Afghan Women’s Skill Development.
But she had a message for the US and NATO: “We keep yelling and screaming and saying, for God’s sake, at least do something with the Taliban, take some kind of assurance from them ... a mechanism to be put in place” that guarantees women’s rights.
Last week the Taliban in a statement outlined the type of government they seek.
It promised that women “can serve their society in the education, business, health and social fields while maintaining correct Islamic hijab.” It promised girls would have the right to choose their own husbands, considered deeply unacceptable in many traditional and tribal homes in Afghanistan, where husbands are chosen by their parents.
But the statement offered few details, nor did it guarantee women could participate in politics or have the freedom to move unaccompanied by a male relative.
Many worry that the vague terms the Taliban use in their promises, like “correct hijab” or guaranteeing rights “provided under Islamic law” give them a wide margin to impose hard-line interpretations.
At the beauty salon, the owner Ms Sadat told how she was born in Iran to refugee parents. She was forbidden to own a business there, so she returned to a homeland she’d never seen to start her salon 10 years ago.
She asked not to be identified by her full name, fearing that attention could make her a target. She has become more cautious as violence and random bombings have increased in Kabul the past year — an augur of chaos when the Americans fully leave, many fear. She used to drive her own car. Not anymore.
The women building a future working or apprenticing in the salon all dreaded a restored Taliban — “Just the name of the Taliban horrifies us,” said one.
They’re left gaming out how much compromise of their rights they can endure. Tamila Pazhman said she doesn’t want “the old Afghanistan back,” but she does want peace.
“If we know we will have peace, we will wear the hijab while we work and study,” she said. “But there must be peace.”
In their early 20s, they all grew up amid the incremental, but important gains made by women since the Taliban’s ouster. Girls are now in school, and women are in Parliament, government and business.
They also know how reversible those gains are in an overwhelmingly male-dominated, deeply conservative society.
“Women in Afghanistan who raise their voices have been oppressed and ignored,” Karimi said. “The majority of Afghan women will be silent. They know they will never receive any support.”
Afghanistan remains one of the worst countries in the world for women, after only Yemen and Syria, according to an index kept by Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security.
In most rural areas, life has changed little in centuries. Women wake at dawn, do much of the heavy labour in the home and in the fields. They wear the traditional coverings that conceal them from head to toe. One in three girls is married before 18, most often in forced marriages, according to UN estimates.
Religious conservatives who dominate Parliament have prevented the passage of a Protection of Women bill.
Afghanistan’s broader statistics are also grim, with 54 percent of its 36 million people living below the poverty level of US$1.90 a day. Runaway government corruption has swallowed up hundreds of millions of dollars, rights workers and watchdogs say.
At a bakery in Kabul’s Karte Sakhi neighbourhood, 60-year-old Kobra squats in a brick shack blackened by soot in front of a clay oven dug into the floor.
The work is backbreaking, smoke fills her lungs, flames scorch her. She makes about 100 Afghanis a day, the equivalent of US$1.30, after paying for firewood. She is the only wage earner for her sick husband and five children.
Her 13-year-old daughter Zarmeena works by her side, helping bake and sweeping the soot-coated floor. Neighbourhood women bring their dough to be baked, and Zarmeena kneads it and puts it into the oven. They yell insults at her if she accidentally drops it into the fire.
Zameena has never been to school because her mother needs her in the bakery, though her younger brother, at 7, is in school. “If I could go ... I would be a doctor,” she said.
Nearly 3.7 million Afghan children between 7 and 17 are out of school, most of them girls, according to the United Nations Children Education Fund.
Kobra isn’t looking forward to a Taliban return. She’s Hazara, a largely Shiite ethnic minority that has faced violence from the Taliban and other Sunni groups.
But she also rails against the current government, accusing them of “eating all the money” sent for Afghanistan’s poor to feed their own corruption. For months, she has tried to collect a stipend for the poor worth about $77 but each time she is told her name is not on the list.
“Who took my name?” she said. “You have to know someone, have a contact in the government or you will never receive anything.”
***
Associated Press Writer Tameem Akhgar contributed to this report.
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday he expects to see COVID-19 restrictions lifted and the city “fully reopen” by 1 July.
“We are ready for stores to open, for businesses to open, offices, theaters, full strength,” the Democratic mayor said on MSNBC.
De Blasio cited rising COVID-19 vaccination rates and decreasing hospitalisation rates for his optimistic projection. About half of all adults in the city have now had at least one vaccine dose.
“What we can say with assurance is, we’re giving COVID no room to run in New York City,” de Blasio said.
At a virtual news briefing later Thursday, he added: “This is going to be the summer of New York City. We are all going to get to enjoy this city again, and people are going to flock here from all over the country to be a part of this amazing moment in New York City.
The mayor doesn’t have unilateral power to lift remaining pandemic restrictions. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has maintained throughout the pandemic that decisions on when restaurants, theaters, offices and other places can open at full capacity are his alone.
Asked at his briefing if he had spoken to the governor about his reopening plans, de Blasio said, “I have not, and I think the best way to proceed here is to set out the city’s vision.”
De Blasio said the city will work with the state and federal governments but added, “It’s quite clear, it’s time to set a goal and move on that goal.”
Cuomo said later Thursday that he would like to lift COVID-19 restrictions sooner than 1 July if possible, but he scoffed at the idea of the mayor making the call.
“I want to open up New York City Tuesday. I want to open it up Wednesday. I want Buffalo fully opened on Thursday,” the governor said at a briefing in Buffalo. “It’s a statewide management system and we are managing it by the science, by the data. You look at the number and you will see the rate of opening.”
Cuomo added, “I don’t want to wait that long. I think if we do what we have to do, we can be reopened earlier.”
Cuomo controls the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and has the power to restore 24-hour service on the subways, which are now closed from 2 to 4 am. De Blasio said he believes 1 July is “the right time” to bring 24-hour subway service back.
De Blasio said the goal for Broadway theaters is still to open fully in September. He said he hopes some smaller productions can open by July.
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PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the outdoor terraces of France’s cafes and restaurants will be allowed to reopen on 19 May along with museums, cinemas, theaters and concert halls under certain conditions.
In an interview with regional newspapers, Macron outlined a four-step plan to reopen the country and revive its economy. The French government is slowly starting to lift partial lockdowns, despite still high numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalised COVID-19 patients.
Reopening nurseries and primary schools this week was a priority, the president said.
“We have taken on the responsibility of the priority on education and the strategy of living with the virus, including with high numbers of infections, higher than those of our neighbours,” Macron said.
Students will go back to secondary and high schools next week, and a domestic travel ban will end, he confirmed. A 7 pm to 6 am curfew will remain in place.
Restaurants and cafes will be able to serve customers outdoors at tables seating a maximum of six people starting 19 May, when the nightly curfew will be pushed back to 9 pm. Non-essential shops also reopen, as well as cultural sites and sport facilities, which will have occupancy limits of 800 people indoors and 1,000 outdoors.
French authorities are anticipating the COVID-19 outlook in the country to be better next month, when a greater proportion of the population will be vaccinated.
The government’s plan provides for permitting foreign tourists back into France on 9 June as long as they hold a “sanitary pass” with proof of a COVID-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test.
On that same day, cafes and restaurants will be allowed to resume regular service until an 11 pm curfew. Events of up to 5,000 people will be allowed.
The final stage of the plan will see the end of the nighttime curfew and the lifting of most restrictions on 30 June, although nightclubs will remain closed.
France is reporting about 29,000 new confirmed cases each day, down from about 40,000 earlier this month. Over 5,800 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised in French intensive care units, a slight decrease from previous days. France has reported almost 104,000 virus-related deaths in the pandemic.
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Sao Paolo: Brazil on Thursday became the second country to officially top 4,00,000 COVID-19 deaths, losing another 1,00,000 lives in just one month, as some health experts warn there may be gruesome days ahead when the Southern Hemisphere enters winter.
April was Brazil’s deadliest month of the pandemic, with thousands of people losing their lives daily at crowded hospitals.
The country’s health ministry registered more than 4,000 deaths on two days early in the month, and its seven-day average topped out at above 3,100. That figure has tilted downward in the last two weeks, to less than 2,400 deaths per day, though on Thursday the Health Ministry announced another 3,001 deaths, bringing Brazil's total to 4,01,186.
Local health experts have celebrated the recent decline of cases and deaths, plus the eased pressure on the Brazilian health care system — but only modestly. They are apprehensive of another wave of the disease, like those seen in some European nations, due to a premature resumption of activity in states and cities combined with slow vaccination rollout.
Less than six percent of Brazilians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to Our World in Data, an online research site. President Jair Bolsonaro, who is now being investigated by a Senate panel over his administration's handling of the crisis, has repeated he will be the last to get a shot and he has attacked mayors and governors who enforce restrictions to control the virus' spread.
Shortly after the grim landmark was published, Bolsonaro said in a live broadcast on his social media channels that “a big number of deaths has been announced," adding that he is “sorry for every death." But he repeated his stance against social distancing measures.
“I pray to God so there is not a third wave” of the coronavirus, the president said. “But if the lockdown policies continue this country will be dragged to extreme poverty.”
Epidemiologist Wanderson Oliveira, one of the Health Ministry's top officials at the start of the pandemic, said he expects a third wave to hit by mid-June. He told radio station CBN on Tuesday that the country's immunisation effort won't prevent a new surge because many people won't receive shots before winter, when indoor gatherings and activities are more common even in the tropical nation.
“Our vaccination is such that in 2022 maybe we will have a much less tragic summer than we did now,” he said, referring to the last few months.
He added he expects limited help from local leaders’ partial shutdowns, which have yielded weaker results than European-style lockdowns. Many Brazilians flouted social distancing recommendations and partial shutdowns even in the throes of the pandemic's peak.
Brazil’s vaccination program, though a far cry from its triumphant campaigns of decades past, has slowed the pace of deaths among the nation’s elderly, according to death certificate data published on Monday. Younger people remain unprotected, and have begun falling ill in far greater numbers as a more transmissible variant circulates in Brazil.
Adding to concerns, Brazil's Health Ministry has repeatedly cut its outlook for vaccines in the short term. The country’s two biggest laboratories are facing supply constraints for imports from producers in China and India, which has become the pandemic's global epicenter.
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Meron: A massive stampede at a densely packed Jewish pilgrimage site killed dozens of people in northern Israel on Friday, leaving emergency workers scrambling to clear the area and evacuate the critically injured.
The disaster occurred in Meron at the site of the reputed tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a second-century Talmudic sage, where mainly ultra-Orthodox Jews flock to mark the Lag BaOmer holiday.
Closed last year due to coronavirus restrictions, this year's pilgrimage was the largest public gathering since the pandemic began.
Rescue workers had initially said that chaos erupted when a section of stadium seating collapsed but later revised that account to say the casualties had been caused by a stampede.
Israeli media published an image of a row of bodies covered in plastic bags on the ground.
The Magen David Adom, Israel's rescue service, reported dozens of dead and said it would "fight for the lives of dozens wounded, and will not give up until the last victim is evacuated."
Emergency services deployed six helicopters to evacuate the injured.
The army said its medical teams and "a number of Israeli Air Force helicopters with medical teams... are assisting in the mass casualty incident in Mount Meron."
"The forces are assisting in the evacuation of injured and killed civilians and providing medical treatment at the scene," it added.
"This is one of the worst tragedies that I have ever experienced," said Lazar Hyman of the United Hatzalah volunteer rescue service, who was at the scene.
"I have not seen anything like this since I entered into the field of emergency medicine," he added.
Yehuda Gottleib, one of the first responders from United Hatzalah, said he saw "dozens of people fall on top of one another during the collapse".
"A large number of them were crushed and lost consciousness."
Overcrowding
Israel has fully vaccinated more than half of its 9.3 million population against coronavirus, but restrictions on massive public gatherings remain in place to stem the spread of the virus.
Authorities had authorised 10,000 people to gather at the site of the tomb but organisers said more than 650 buses had been chartered from across the country, bringing 30,000 pilgrims to Meron.
The Meron pilgrimage is primarily attended by ultra-Orthodox Jews, a community that has at times resisted mandatory health and safety measures during the pandemic.
Around 5,000 police had been deployed to secure the event.
The area has since been closed, with rescue workers and security forces attempting to clear the area.
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Joe Rogan, on his The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) podcast, advised healthy people to not take the COVID-19 vaccine. He went on to talk about vaccinating children and spoke about his own kids' experience with the virus. Fellow comedian and podcaster Dave Smith joined him on the episode that aired on 23 April. The entire podcast spanned 193 minutes.
The three-hour podcast was two hours too long. The last time I willingly sat to watch anything that long was Snyder's Cut of Justice League, which was at least well worth the time spent.
The entire conversation, like most of Rogan's podcasts over the 12 years it has been active, was in a lighter vein. And that's what makes his podcasts so enjoyable for most of his 190 million listeners. He is clearly doing something right if he is one of Spotify's top listened-to podcasters in 2020. He was paid a whopping $100 million to make his audio-video podcast exclusive to the music platform.
This podcast, though, reeks of privilege and an ignorant person talking to another ignorant person about a situation they escaped unscathed, trivialising the pain and suffering of the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives or been greatly affected by the virus.
The first 20 minutes were boring, but it was at the 24-minute mark that the anti-vaxxer opinions started to flow and were dispersed throughout the episode. They started by talking about a mutual friend - Ari Shaffir - getting his Moderna shot.
Rogan said, "He (Shaffir) got shot up with the Moderna as soon as he got back."
"I'm like that's the one that is supposed to give you the worst side effects, buddy. Allegedly," he continued, with Smith 'hmm-ing' along.
Both comedians were on a roll, and the next thing Rogan talked about was "how masks do not work at all" and mentioned a doctor's YouTube video (Here is scientific information on how and why wearing a mask protects one from COVID-19).
If @Spotify were smart they would step in here because this is a public health issue as much as it’s anything.
There is plenty of back and forth between the two, with Rogan and Smith seemingly having an issue with anything and everything pandemic-related. During their entire tirade, all I could think of was – "Put that tin foil cap away, guys. Your paranoia is showing." An ironic thought, since they jokingly mentioned wearing tin foil hats several times on the episode.
Out of all the inane things said on this podcast, Rogan topped it off with "As a global pandemic, we got really lucky. I mean it could've been a Spanish flu, it could've been something that really does wipe out..." he stopped short of completing that sentence. Maybe common sense took hold.
The Spanish flu, according to some estimates, killed 50 million people. That is a lot higher than the three million deaths COVID-19 has caused so far. We have managed to avoid that number because governments put in place lockdown orders, mask-wearing and handwashing guidelines and pushed research in medicines and vaccines. Should we have waited and watched while people suffered? Isn’t this a good thing? Isn’t hindsight our biggest weapon against future outbreaks?
However, always the yes-man, Smith bemoaned the fact that he can't be vocal about his opinion as people won't like it. God forbid you’re not allowed to talk smack about people dying during the pandemic. How does one survive without an ounce of human decency?
If Rogan thinks this virus hasn’t had as significant an impact as it could have, here are a few India-specific numbers to open his eyes.
India, according to the Delhi High Court, is currently facing a “tsunami” of new COVID-19 cases. 3,79,257 fresh infections and 3,645 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. We have been recording over three lakh new cases every day for over a week now.
Over the course of their brain-melting conversation, they mentioned reading the science, listening to the science, following the science behind the virus and the vaccine. I couldn’t help but wonder if they had actually taken the time and effort to read the science, considering their stance, or did they just selectively read the stuff that supported the argument they want to make?
Science is never definite and is constantly changing. During a pandemic, it is changing even quicker with studies, analysis, and reports coming out daily. It is nearly impossible to keep up with everything, but if you are going to use your platform to put out strong opinions, it’s best you arm yourself with sufficient knowledge.
Special mention: JRE does have a producer/fact-checker/ Google master overseeing the operation. This entire podcast would’ve provided them with plenty of homework if they were up to it.
Smith said, “Well, imagine if kids died, how much worse the panic would be” with the same tonal voice one would use when discussing the weather or an irksome pet. And I would like to ask them - does mostly adults dying make this situation any better?
Rogan bragged that he hasn’t been sick in 15 years and went on to explain why. Along with popping vitamins, he also boasted that he does a daily sauna session, is on testosterone and exercises daily.
Well, good for you, Joe. You are taking care of yourself. But it would be unwise to overlook the fact that you can afford to do this. Not everyone has the same spending power, but that doesn't mean they deserve to suffer from the virus, or worse, die.
Rogan stated he is not against the vaccine. He tried to get it himself during the UFC 261 pay-per-view, but for some reason, couldn’t do so. He said his parents are vaccinated and said vulnerable people should take the vaccine. However, he added that if you’re 21 years old, exercising “all the time” and healthy, you don't need to get vaccinated. Smith also said something similar a little earlier in the podcast.
“I don't think you need to worry about this (COVID-19),” said Rogan.
Healthy young people DEFINITELY SHOULD get the vaccine. That’s how we stop the spread. Not rocket science guys. It’s about returning to normal and saving lives. In India they are literally burning bodies in the street while people like Joe Rogan encourage people not to vaccinate.
During his tirade, Rogan diminished the coronavirus experience because his children weren't affected too much, "akin to them getting a cold." Smith also firmly stated that he won’t be vaccinating his offspring, for the sake of virtue-signalling.
After their constant digs at White House’s chief medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci, the good doctor spoke to the Today show and said, “You’re talking about yourself in a vacuum. If you want to only worry about yourself and not society, then that’s OK.”
Fauci also added that healthy, young people should “absolutely” get vaccinated.
After this episode aired, there has been a lot of debate, with Twitter opinions split about the comedians’ stance. But when more than three million people have died because of this virus and the US is currently leading the charge, now is not the time to be a woke bro.
My feeling is that, no matter what your age, you should not take medical advice from Joe Rogan
Maybe Rogan needs a reminder that children and newborn babies have died because of this virus. Many young and healthy people have died or have been affected so badly they are still facing the effects of long COVID. Parents, grandparents, people of all races and ethnicities and age groups have died of this virus that started at the end of 2019.
Maybe Rogan needs a sign that says "Check your privilege" as a famous, rich, white male living in one of the most developed countries in the world with access to quality healthcare.
Rogan needs to remember that being humane, compassionate and kind are qualities everyone needs to possess during a time of global crisis.
He definitely needs someone to nudge him into using his platform to spread the right information in the midst of a worldwide humanitarian crisis that doesn't seem to have an end in sight.
An apology is in order for dismissing the experience of hundreds of people with a little "no offence but..."
Here is a list of other COVID-19-related thoughts that Rogan and Smith shared during the episode:
Ivermectin is 99 percent effective against COVID-19, but Rogan thinks no one is talking about it. This, he believes, is because it will somehow stop people from taking the vaccine if there is an effective medicine – This is completely untrue. Recently, WHO conducted an analysis of several studies and found Ivermectinis not as effective as some think it to be, and there isn’t enough evidence to suggest otherwise. Read the report here.
Lockdowns were ineffective and were done as a way to control us – Lockdowns were initiated as a way to stop the spread of the virus when not much was known about it. Studies have shown they saved lives and also managed to help the Earth heal for a brief period. They resulted in cleaner air and water, a drop in pollution levels and a growth in local wildlife. You can read an analysis of the lockdowns’ effectiveness here.
There was some talk about how the virus cannot spread via surfaces and everyone went berserk cleaning their groceries for no reason – There was a lot that was unknown at the start of the pandemic, but as studies were conducted, changes were made. It is not true that surface transmission cannot take place. However, the possibility is low. But why do we have an issue with hygiene and cleaning surfaces and groceries? Read an epidemiologist’s POV here.
Rogan mentioned that some doctors spoke about ventilators killing people during the pandemic, but that information was shut down and no one was talking about it – That is untrue. Some of the major news outlets spoke to doctors and reported on this topic. Read here.
Another nugget that Rogan so generously passed onto us was that one can fight COVID-19 by being outside in the sun and absorbing Vitamin D – Having a balance of all vitamins and minerals along with a healthy lifestyle will help in fighting all diseases. However, taking Vitamin D pills or even getting it naturally from the Sun will not help fight the virus. It will help if you have a deficiency. Read more here.
The most controversial of all statements on this podcast was Rogan telling “young and healthy” people to avoid getting vaccinated because they don't have to worry about getting infected – There is no scientific evidence to back this statement. People of all ages are contracting the virus. While it is true that the virus mostly harms the elderly, recent trends have shown that now even younger adults are getting infected. Read here.
from Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/3vnfYHw
Egypt's tradition of tahtib (stick fighting), popular at festivities and dating back at least 5,000 years, has become a modern martial art that enthusiasts hope will eventually make it to the Olympics.
French-Egyptian Adel Paul Boulad, who for some 15 years has been the driving force behind modern tahtib, calls the push a "unifying project" and a "cultural revolution".
The modern practice "is an updated sports version of a multi-millennial art", said the 69-year-old martial arts teacher.
"It is a sporting practice that is codified, structured... and which spans the entire history of Egypt," he told AFP.
In traditional tahtib, popular in Egypt's rural south, two men perform a dance while wielding bamboo-like rods, in a face-off somewhat resembling a fencing duel.
Folk musicians with loud drums accompany the performance, which is popular at weddings and festivities, and pump up the crowd encircling the men, who don traditional galabeya robes.
The UN cultural agency UNESCO in 2016 listed the martial art as "intangible cultural heritage of humanity".
'Get moving'
France-based Boulad, who was also behind tahtib's UNESCO candidacy, formalised its intricate moves and broke it down to 12 forms — the equivalent of katas in Japanese martial arts.
The "secrets of combat" were inscribed in stone on the walls of temples and tombs of ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom (2,700 to 2,200 BC) until the arrival of the Greeks, who conquered the North African country around 300 BC.
Boulad, who is also a business coach, wants to see tahtib included as a combat sport at the Olympics in the coming years.
Wearing a red belt with three tips — reminiscent of the style of ancient Egyptian warriors — and black outfits, competitors wield a 1.3-metre rattan stick.
Unlike traditional tahtib, women can participate in its modern version.
With exhibitions, notably at the International Martial Arts Festival in Paris in 2016, modern tahtib already has attracted followers internationally, but is still trying to gain a foothold in Egypt.
Boulad said he had given himself two to three years, with the help of private financing, to create "regional centres" across the world for spreading the sport further, including in Canada, Colombia and Hungary.
"I say to Egyptians, get moving, otherwise tahtib will go to the Olympics without an Egyptian team representing it," he said.
'Part of history'
In Cairo's upmarket eastern suburb of Rehab, a leisure park welcomes the first enthusiastic Egyptian instructors trained by Boulad, and their eager students.
Nasser Refai, 44, a physical education teacher and one of the trainers, said the Egyptian fighting style inherited from the time of the pharaohs was a "treasure".
"It's something we have to keep. Like any art form, if we don't practice, we lose it," added Refai, known affectionately as Captain Nasser to his students.
He and his associates have slowly started attracting young local admirers of the sport via social media.
"It's not just about fighting, it's about respecting and changing yourself," he told AFP, adding that it would be his "dream" to see tahtib recognised as an Olympic sport.
Stick in hand and wearing a headscarf, Jasmine Anwar, 25, is keenly taking part in her first training session.
"I will continue. I won't stop at just knowing how to hold the stick," the schoolteacher said.
New recruit, Jouba Ayoub Mohammed, a 27-year-old graphic designer, expressed interest in promoting the sport to others of his generation.
But "we must first let Egyptians know that tahtib is not a folk dance that is performed only at weddings and other cultural events," he said. "It's a part of ancient Egyptian history."
from Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/3xrTNlk
Five states have passed laws or implemented executive orders this year limiting the ability of transgender youths to play sports or receive certain medical treatment. There’s been a vehement outcry from supporters of transgender rights – but little in the way of tangible repercussions for those states.
It’s a striking contrast to the fate of North Carolina a few years ago. When its Legislature passed a bill in March 2016 limiting which public restrooms transgender people could use, there was a swift and powerful backlash. The NBA and NCAA relocated events; some companies scrapped expansion plans. By March 2017, the bill’s bathroom provisions were repealed.
So far this year, there’s been nothing comparable. Not even lawsuits, although activists predict some of the measures eventually will be challenged in court.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, says he’s surprised by the lack of backlash, but believes it will materialise as more people learn details about the legislation being approved.
“A lot of Americans are still getting to know trans people and they’re learning about these issues for the first time,” he said. “Over time, they get to know their trans neighbours, they get outraged by these bans, and corporations respond ... It’s just a matter of time.”
The president of a major national LGBTQ-rights organizations, Alphonso David of the Human Rights Campaign, attributed the lack of backlash to lack of awareness about the potential harm that these laws could cause to transgender young people.
“Some people in this country have not come to terms with treating trans people like human beings,” David said. “It’s now coming to a head.”
One batch of bills seeks to ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams in public schools. Such measures have been enacted in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, and implemented by an executive order from Gov Kristi Noem in South Dakota.
Another batch of bills seeks to ban gender-affirming medical treatments for trans minors – including the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Arkansas' legislators approved such a measure over the veto of Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and similar measures are pending in Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.
Echoing concerns of major medical associations, Dr. Michele Hutchison – who runs a transgender medicine clinic at Arkansas Children’s hospital — says the ban in her state is raising the risk of suicide among some of her patients and forcing some families to wonder if they should move to another state.
More than 400 companies — including Tesla, Pfizer, Delta Air Lines and Amazon — have signed on to support civil rights legislation for LGBTQ people that is moving through Congress, advocates said Tuesday.
And last week, the Human Rights Campaign took out a full-page ad in the New York Times appealing to corporations to denounce the anti-trans bills that have proliferated in Republican-controlled legislatures.
The letter, signed by David, urged corporate leaders “to take action now by publicly denouncing state legislation that discriminates against people, refusing to advance new business in states that are hostile to corporate values and refusing to support sporting events where transgender athletes are banned.”
More than 85 companies have signed a statement drafted by the HRC — including Amazon, American Airlines, Apple, AT&T, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Pfizer and Union Pacific. In polite language, the statement implies a threat: “As we make complex decisions about where to invest and grow, these issues can influence our decisions.”
Overall, the corporate response remains “insufficient,” David said. “But I think we are seeing a turning of the tide as we put more pressure on companies.”
One of the companies signing the HRC statement is the technology giant Oracle Corp, which is planning to bring 8,500 jobs and a $1.2 billion investment to Nashville, Tennessee, over the coming decade. Joe Woolley, who heads the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce, has expressed hope that Oracle — which has not threatened to cancel its plans — might use its leverage to prompt reconsideration of Tennessee’s anti-transgender legislation.
Woolley also says organizers of at least three conventions are considering pulling those events out of Nashville because of the bills, though he has declined to identify them.
Thus far, Tennessee Gov, Bill Lee has signalled that any criticism from the business community won’t sway him.
“Organisations have opportunities to weigh in on the legislative process but ultimately, Tennesseans, through their elected representatives, determine the law in our state,” said Casey Black, a spokesperson for Lee.
In Texas, a coalition called Texas Competes released a letter 19 April signed by more than 40 businesses and chambers of commerce in the state denouncing a batch of pending bills as “divisive, unnecessary and economically dangerous.”
Specifically, the letter denounced “efforts to exclude transgender youth from full participation in their communities.”
In Montana, where a transgender sports ban has won initial approval in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, lawmakers added an amendment stipulating that the measure would be nullified if the federal government withheld education funding from the state because of the policy.
The concern stems from an executive order signed by President Joe Biden banning discrimination based on gender. Montana universities receive around $350 million annually in federal funding, of which $250 million goes towards student loans and grants to cover tuition costs — money that university officials say could be at risk if the administration deemed the sports ban to be unacceptable discrimination.
The extent of any emerging backlash to the anti-trans laws will hinge in part on the NCAA, which played a pivotal role in the North Carolina case.
The NCAA’s Board of Governors issued a statement 12 April expressing strong support for the inclusion of transgender athletes.
“When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” the statement said. “We will continue to closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”
Alphonso David said the Human Rights Campaign welcomed the statement, but wanted an even tougher stance from the NCAA, with explicit warnings that events would not be held in states with anti-trans laws.
“The time for concrete actions is now,” David said Monday in a letter to NCCA leaders. “This is a national crisis, and one that necessitates united action, including from the NCAA.”
from Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/3aKmJva
Omaha, Neb: A 114-year-old Nebraska woman who has taken the title of America’s oldest living person says what she wants most is to eat with her friend after a year of pandemic restrictions.
Thelma Sutcliffe, of Omaha, became the nation’s oldest living person and seventh-oldest in the world on 17 April when Hester Ford, a 115-year-old woman, died in North Carolina, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
The Omaha World-Herald reports that Sutcliffe was born on 1 October 1906. Her longtime friend, Luella “Lou” Mason, said she is happy that the senior living center where Sutcliffe lives is locked down, but “Thelma is as determined as ever to do what she wants to do.”
Until visitors are allowed in the dining room, Thelma is taking all her meals in her room. Mason, who has Sutcliffe’s power of attorney, calls the senior living centre 24 hours ahead of time to schedule visits.
“She asks me every time I visit, ‘Are you going to eat with me today?’” Mason recalled. “It breaks my heart that I can’t.”
Sutcliffe’s hearing and sight are fading, Mason said, but her mind is still “very sharp.”
Sutcliffe received her COVID shots at the earliest opportunity, but testing for the coronavirus was a nonstarter.
Mason said Sutcliffe looked at the swab and said, “You’re not going to be sticking that thing up my nose. You can tell Lou to stick it up hers.”
from Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/3t3WBSc
Zagreb: Guards on the Croatia-Bosnia border have uncovered animal fossils dating back 15 million years in the boot of a car, Croatian police said on 28 April.
The remains included jawbones and teeth thought to be from ancestors of modern elephants, rhinoceroses, pigs and other extinct species, said Drazen Japundzic of Zagreb's Natural History Museum.
"These valuable fossil elements will certainly give us new scientific knowledge about the life, climate and environment of the Earth's prehistoric past," Japundzic was quoted as saying in a police statement.
The museum's experts were called in after Croatian border guards seized dozens of items from the boot of a car driven from Bosnia by a 46-year-old Slovenian man almost two weeks ago.
Police said the items would be "of interest to illegal dealers" but they did not say whether the Slovenian driver had been arrested or if he is suspected of a crime.
The fossils are believed to have come from a mine near the central Bosnian town of Bugojno.
Japundzic said the fragments date back to the Miocene period, some 15 million years ago, and came from species including Gomphotherium and Prodeinotherium, both ancestors of modern elephants.
Other fragments are thought to have come from rhinoceros and pig ancestors Brachypotherium and Conohyus.
The fossils will be temporarily stored at the Natural History Museum to "prevent deterioration", the police statement said.
from Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/3ntLzok
Tel Aviv: A turreted former Catholic girl’s school in Jaffa is being transformed into an exclusive Soho House club. Around the corner, a historic ex-convent is now a five-star hotel. Across the street, the glittering towers of the Andromeda Hill luxury residences overlook the Mediterranean.
But farther down Yefet Street, working class Arabs of Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood face a starkly different reality. With housing prices out of reach, discontent over the city’s rapid transformation into a bastion for Israel’s ultra-wealthy is reaching a boiling point. The crisis has taken on nationalistic overtones, with some Arab residents accusing the government of trying to push them out to make way for Jews.
“90 percent of people here barely make a living, from hand to mouth, they don’t have enough to eat,” said Jaffa resident Ibrahim Tartir. “For a young man looking to get married, it’s 5,000, 6,000 shekels ($1,800) for rent, not including water and electricity and the rest. How much does he earn? 6,000 a month. How can he live?”
Jaffa, the historic port at the core of the greater Tel Aviv metropolis, is home to around 20,000 Arab residents, remnants of the Palestinian population that lived there before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The district has undergone extensive gentrification in recent decades with government encouragement.
That trend has accelerated in the past several years as real estate prices have skyrocketed amid surging demand. As wealthy Israelis and foreigners move from other areas of Tel Aviv into Jaffa, its mostly working-class Arab residents have been pushed out. This has added ethnic tensions to an economic phenomenon familiar in other cities around the world.
“We’re reaching a point where Arab people can’t buy houses unless they are very rich,” said Youssef Masharawi, a Jaffa native and professor of physical therapy at Tel Aviv University. He said young Arabs in Jaffa have nowhere to go, unable to afford to start families in their hometown and facing discrimination in nearby Israeli cities with overwhelmingly Jewish populations.
The stress is starting to reach a breaking point.
Long smoldering tensions erupted last week after the rabbi and director of a pre-military religious seminary in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Ajami were assaulted by two Arab residents while visiting an apartment for sale.
Moshe Schendowich, chief executive of the Meirim B’Yafo seminary, was injured in the incident. He said that while there have been some disagreements with Arab neighbors, those conflicts “should be solved with speech, with talking, not with violence.”
Although the seminary says it isn’t out to push anyone out, some residents view it with suspicion. Its head rabbi is a former West Bank settler and was formally affiliated with Ateret Cohanim, a group that takes over Arab properties in Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers. The yeshiva’s website says its aim is to “strengthen Jewish identity and the voice of the Torah, (and) strengthen communities” in Jaffa.
The incident ignited an already flammable situation. In the days following, Arab residents and Jewish supporters faced off against Jewish nationalist counter-protesters. The demonstrations devolved into clashes with police.
Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai condemned the violence but insisted "what we are seeing is not a nationalist conflict between Jews and Arabs".
“It is the product of ongoing frustration of a whole generation of Jaffans that can’t continue to live there,” he said.
But in Israel, nationalist conflict is never far away.
Before Israel’s establishment in 1948, Jaffa was a predominantly Arab city of some 1,00,000 people. During the war surrounding Israel’s creation, tens of thousands of Palestinian residents fled or were forced from their homes.
Under a 1950 absentee property law, the new Israeli government confiscated thousands of empty properties and handed them to state-run public housing companies. Many of the Palestinians who remained in Jaffa ended up in these properties.
Since 2011, the Israeli government has pushed to sell off these properties to develop more housing. Although occupants are given an opportunity to buy these homes, the prices are often too high, forcing many longtime residents to move out.
Amidar, a public housing company that manages the buildings, said there is no intention to expel people. “The properties are offered for sale first to tenants at a significant discount and with professional guidance” and most are purchased by residents, it said.
Even with generous terms, however, many low-income residents cannot afford to buy their homes. Many properties have been bought up by developers, resulting in low-income Arab residents being forced out.
On Wednesday, Tel Aviv City Hall announced that it would be opening registration for an affordable housing lottery for 28 units in Jaffa for Arab residents.
“In addition to the project, approval has been granted for a public housing renewal program in Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood,” city hall said in a statement. “The program will enable 100 existing tenants to remain in renovated properties while increasing supply by a further 200 apartments.”
Ravit Hananel, a professor of urban policy at Tel Aviv University, said the Israeli government has been ridding itself of public housing since the 1980s as it abandoned the country’s socialist roots and adopted neo-liberal, capitalist policies.
She said the government pledged to address housing issues after mass social justice protests in 2011. But she said the response has been to push for more privatisation, further hurting the disadvantaged.
While this is the case across the country, Jaffa’s rapid gentrification is not simply a case of rich against poor, said Abed Abou Shhadeh, a Tel Aviv city councilman from Jaffa.
“It has a national background behind it, and it’s part of the conflict,” said Abou Shhadeh.
While some try to depoliticise the issue, he said “it’s more than a class war. There’s a very deep rooted political tension happening at the same time, which makes it much more difficult to come with a fair and equal solution.”
Organizers of a recent protest wrote on Facebook that the “economic expulsion and gentrification that’s pushing the Arab community — and also poor Jewish residents — out of the city for the sake of real estate deals continues what was started in 1948.” Graffiti on city walls say in Hebrew and Arabic: “Jaffa is not for sale.”
Masharawi, the Jaffa-born professor, called for the construction of affordable housing for young Arabs in Jaffa. He said he was determined to stand his ground against the rising tide of change.
“I will never leave Jaffa even if I am going to die within a small room in the end,” he said. “This is my home, my house, my way of life.”
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President Joe Biden announced an ambitious new national climate target at the world leaders’ climate summit on 22 April. He pledged to cut US carbon emissions in half by the end of this decade – a drop of 50-52 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels – and aim for net-zero emissions by 2050. The new goal is a big deal because it formally brings together the many different ideas on infrastructure, the budget, federal regulatory policy and disparate actions in the states and industry for transforming the US economy into a highly competitive, yet very green giant. It also signals to the rest of the world that “America is back” and prepared to work on climate change.
Stopping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius – the aim of the Paris climate agreement – will require an immediate global effort that can transform energy systems and make emissions plummet at rates never observed before in history. Statements from the 40 world leaders at the virtual summit reflected both ambitious visions for that future – and the reality that words don’t always match actions on the ground.
Formally, the new US target is what’s known under the Paris climate agreement as a “nationally determined contribution.” In effect, it is a nonbinding pledge to the rest of the world. Beyond the headline figures, Biden’s pledge pays attention to the need to adapt to the climate changes already underway and build resilience.
With the US pledge, about two-thirds of the current global emissions come from countries that have now committed to reach net zero emissions by mid-century.
We’ve both been involved with climate policy and international negotiations for decades, and these new goals show real momentum.
But will the new US pledge have an impact on emissions that’s as huge as the pledge sounds?
Our chief concern is industrial reality – cutting emissions by half within a decade implies transforming the electricity system, transportation, industry and agriculture.
These systems don’t turn on a dime. The goal setting is the easy part. It is largely a combination of technical feasibility with political palatability. The tough work is getting it done.
Pretty much everything will need to line up quickly — policies that are credible and durable, along with industrial responses. As often happens with technological change, most analysts are overestimating how quickly things can transform in the near term, and probably underestimating how profound change will have to be into the more distant future.
The Biden administration now has a goal for electricity to be carbon-free by 2035. Nearly every study that shows a 50 percent drop in US emissions is feasible is based on the observation that the power sector will cut emissions at a fast clip.
For all the progress in electricity, pushing that sector to be net zero soon will create tensions and tradeoffs. For example, distress from the sharp decline of the coal industry is already evident in communities across Appalachia.
Politics and a climate summit
The new commitments were announced in the context of the White House’s first major diplomatic event on climate change — a meeting of 40 major emitting countries, including China, Russia, India, the UK and several European countries.
The US is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, and one of the highest in emissions per person. But its emissions are less than 15 percent of the global total, so it is essential that whatever happens in the US be linked to a global effort. That’s why credibility matters so much. If the US is to re-establish leadership on climate change, its efforts are only as good as followership by the rest of the world.
But the Biden administration has to move carefully.
Tempting as it is to tighten the screws on emissions, efforts that are too aggressive will easily become fodder for the political opponents and industries that have undermined climate efforts in the past.
The shift in climate politics is important to watch. Biden has a barely functional majority on Capitol Hill, and the real politics of climate change aren’t simply about the technical scenarios of cutting emissions with cleaner technologies. They are also about how society transitions.
The US still needs to prove itself
The White House had high expectations for the summit, including expecting several countries to announce new commitments. The UK pledged just ahead of the summit to cut emissions 78 percentby 2035, and the EU announced a provisional deal on a 55 percent emissions cut by 2030.
The virtual summit also drew Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – three frequent US adversaries and major contributors to climate change through fossil fuels or deforestation. Putin promised big action and to “significantly cut the accumulated volume of net emissions” in Russia, and Bolsonaro promised to protect the Amazon rainforest, but not end illegal deforestation for another 10 years. Both highlight how easy it is to promise great things at climate summits even when one’s track record points in the opposite direction.
Grounding this frenzied ambition in the messy work of policy design and implementation is far removed from a virtual event.
One indicator of the actual success of the summit maybe China. US-China diplomacy in the run-up to the UN Paris climate meeting was widely seen as essential to its success five years ago. This year, when presidential climate envoy John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart a few days ahead of the April 22 summit, the joint statement concluded with a somewhat generic agreement to cooperate on climate change and ensure the world meets the Paris goals.
After four years of the Trump administration’s antagonism toward climate efforts, and undermining of US credibility overseas, and with so much domestic work on climate still needed, a US-hosted summit may have been premature. The intense diplomatic efforts to pressure other countries to make announcements at the event seemed out of touch with the US need to get its house in order first.
The White House pledge is bold, but it remains long on adjectives and short on credible verbs. Whether it will have an impact on either domestic action or helping to convince the world that the US is a trusted and durable partner on climate change remains to be seen.
Morgan Bazilian, Professor of Public Policy and Director, Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines and David Victor, Professor of International Relations, University of California San Diego
Reno, Nev: Burning Man organisers announced Tuesday they are cancelling this summer’s annual counter-culture festival in the Nevada desert for the second year in a row because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The San Francisco-based group posted a video on its website that said there are too many uncertainties to resolve in time to hold the event as scheduled 26 August to 3 September in the Black Rock Desert 100 miles (160 kilometres) north of Reno.
Burning Man CEO Marian Goodell said the “difficult decision” is “based on the best information available to us.”
“We know the need for community has never been stronger. And building community is what Burners do best. We also recognise the pandemic is not over,” she said. “We have decided to focus our energy on building Black Rock City 2022.”
The decision was based on a combination of factors, not a single issue, the group said.
“Although here in the United States we may be feeling the weight lifting and the light at the end of the tunnel brightening, we are still in the pandemic, and the uncertainties that need to be resolved are impossible to resolve in the time we have,” the statement said.
Goodell said earlier this month they were considering requiring attendees to prove they have been vaccinated for COVID-19 if they went forward with plans to hold the event. The organisers backed off an earlier statement indicating that they had already decided to make the shots mandatory.
The 35-year-old festival that draws as many as 80,000 people to the desert had planned on capping attendance at about 69,000 this year.
Goodell said they still intend to host local events around the world in conjunction with the week that typically leads up to Labor Day and culminates with the burning of a large wooden effigy.
“We’re not cancelling Burning Man. We’re just not doing Black Rock City,” she said Tuesday. “We are going to celebrate `Burn Week’ on line and off line.”
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China's response to the devastating second wave of COVID-19 in India has been a bundle of contradictions — from the Sichuan Airlines' flip-flop over cargo flights to attempts at stoking tensions between the US and India.
New Delhi currently appears to be reacting cautiously to Beijing's offers for assistance to deal with the crisis. On Tuesday, India did not attend a meeting hosted by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to discuss co-operation on COVID-19 with South Asian countries.
In the past few weeks, the COVID-19 situation in India has been the focus of much global attention, with several countries offering support. In this context, here is an overview of how China has responded to the ongoing health crisis in India.
Sichuan Airlines fiasco
On Monday, China's state-run Sichuan Airlines retracted its announcement to suspend cargo flights taking crucial supplies like oxygen concentrators to India and said that it was working out a new plan to resume the services.
A logistics arm under Sichuan Airlines said that it was discussing a new plan to resume cargo services to India, as the country has been going through a COVID-19 resurgence, state-run Global Times reported.
The response came after Indian media reported that Sichuan Airlines had suspended all its cargo flights to India for 15 days, and said that such a move brings "major disruption" to private traders' efforts to buy medical supplies, including oxygen concentrators, from China.
"We are re-evaluating the original plan of suspending cargo services to India, and actively discussing a new plan to guarantee cargo services to the region," the report quoted the airlines as saying.
The suspension of cargo flights came as a surprise to agents and freight forwarders who are frantically trying to procure the oxygen concentrators from China, as noted by PTI.
There have also been complaints of Chinese manufacturers jacking up the prices by 35 to 40 percent. The freight charges have been increased to over 20 percent, the agency quoted Siddharth Sinha of Sino Global Logistics, a Shanghai-based freight forwarding company, as saying.
The suspension of the flights is surprising as there is no crew change in India and the same crew flies the aircraft back, he said.
There are also virtually no Indians travelling to China from India other than diplomats as China has suspended visas for Indians since November and flights remained banned.
It is in this backdrop that Chinese propaganda outlets have targeted the United States for not doing enough to help India at its time of need. It appears plausible that this criticism is being made to divert attention from China's inconsistent response, as well as criticism over its attempts at vaccine diplomacy.
China takes aim at US
Chinese propaganda outlets have stridently criticised the US for its initially sluggish response to the emerging crisis in India. An article in Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times said that the response could be a 'slap in the face' for those who advocated for an alliance between India and the US.
The article, titled "Will US 'crocodile tears' prompt Indian elites to reflect on who their allies are?", remarked, "The rising anti-US sentiment will become an alarm bell to Indian elites. Over the past few years, India’s foreign policy, especially its US strategy, has been profoundly impacted by pro-US forces. The new development will at least prompt them to reflect. Yet it is too early to tell whether their pro-US stance will fundamentally change."
Another article in Global Times titled 'US selfishness hits partnership with India, but China blamed', struck a similar note as it said, "In the past few days as India is battling the deadly surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths, it has clearly felt how "unreliable" its close partner, the US, is. If there had not been pressure from China and other countries, the US may not offer any substantial assistance to India, not even a verbal promise."
Last week, China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing that Beijing expresses sincere sympathies to India over the deteriorating coronavirus situation in the country recently. "China is ready to provide support and help according to India's need, and is in communication with the Indian side on this. We believe that the Indian people will defeat the virus at an early date," Zhao said in response to a question from the official Chinese media if Beijing is having communications with New Delhi on providing help to India fight the pandemic.
However, China's expression of support to India is deeply ironical, coming as it does on the back of its aggressive posturing during the nine month-long military standoff along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh. That said, as noted by an article in Bloomberg, "The comments out of China, coupled with the severity of the crisis in India, show how the imbalance in vaccinations between richer and poorer nations has the potential to reshape geopolitics as parts of the world start to reopen. Washington and New Delhi have strengthened ties over the past year amid a border clash in the Himalayas and India's efforts to attract companies looking to diversify away from China."
While China has indeed offered support to India to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, its record elsewhere gives New Delhi reason to be wary. As noted by an article in Foreign Affairs, during the pandemic, China has exploited its dominance of manufacturing supply chains to win favor by donating masks and now vaccines to foreign countries. Chinese-developed vaccines have, however, been met with considerable skepticism due to questions about their distribution, effectiveness and pricing.
Thus, while the US was indeed initially hesitant to respond to the coronavirus' second wave in India, China's criticism of the US appears to be guided largely by a bid to divert attention from its own questionable actions.
With inputs from PTI
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China will press ahead with its multi-billion-dollar financing of coal plants in developing countries, a top climate official said Tuesday, despite Beijing's stated aim of slashing carbon emissions. In 2020, China opened three-quarters of the world's newly funded coal plants, according to the UK-based monitor CarbonBrief, and accounted for more than 80 percent of newly announced coal power projects. At home, however, President Xi Jinping has pledged to wean China off coal with a peak carbon emissions target of 2030 - and achieve carbon neutrality thirty years later.
Those ambitious targets have been met with international praise.
But China's overseas drive shows the complexity of untwining the economic drivers of coal power from environmental concerns.
"We cannot simply say that we'll stop supporting coal-fired electricity plants in developing countries," Li Gao, head of the climate change office at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, told reporters. "Combating climate change is also about letting people in developing countries live good lives."
Echoing Xi's comments at a recent climate summit hosted by US President Joe Biden, Li said poorer nations still need coal to power their economies.
"This is wholly in response to (foreign countries') actual needs, and we use very high standards (to build the plants)," he said.
Li also suggested that these countries were not sufficiently developed to be able to use renewable energy as their main sources of power.
China is the world's biggest polluter and emits a third of greenhouse gases globally.
It has also continued to fund dozens of coal plants abroad, from Zimbabwe to Indonesia, and environmentalists say they are set to produce more emissions than major developed nations.
China is making the overseas coal play as part of its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, a plan to fund infrastructure projects and increase its influence overseas.
In contrast, officials have pledged to "strictly control" coal use domestically to reach ambitious climate goals.
Just under 60 percent of power in China still comes from coal, but a new five-year national development plan unveiled in March set a target of generating 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2025.
China will continue to build smaller-scale coal plants to ensure reliable power supply across the grid, but their "emissions will not be as large" as traditional coal plants, according to Li.
"We will no longer continue large-scale development of coal-fired power plants, this is very clear."
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