PORTUGAL: More than 1,000 firefighters on Monday battled a giant forest fire that swept through central Portugal at the weekend, killing at least 62 people.
The country was in mourning after the deadliest such disaster in Portugal's recent history, with many victims burnt as they were trapped in their cars.
"The fire has reached a level of human tragedy that we have never seen before," said a visibly moved Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who announced three days of mourning from Sunday.
Portugal's national route 236 was transformed into a road of hell as the ferocious blaze ripped through the wooded countryside around the epicentre in Pedrogao Grande.
Although the searing temperatures in Portugal had dropped slightly on Monday, the fire was still raging, spreading to neighbouring regions of Castelo Branco and Coimbra.
Firefighters were continuing a grim search for bodies, with Costa warning on Sunday that the death toll could still rise.
Police chief Almeida Rodrigues blamed dry thunderstorms for the blaze which broke out on Saturday in Pedrogao Grande, saying a tree had been struck by lightning.
"Everything burnt very quickly given the strong winds. The flames passed within two or three kilometres of my house," said local resident Isabel Ferreira, 62.
"I knew several of the victims. One of my colleagues lost her mother and her four-year-old girl as she could not get them out of the back of the car."
The expanse of wooded hills in the area north of Lisbon, which 24 hours before had glowed bright green with eucalyptus plants and pine trees, was gutted by the flames.
A thick layer of white smoke blanketed either side of a motorway for about 20 kilometres (12 miles) on Sunday, as blackened trees leaned listlessly over charred soil.
A burnt-out car sat outside partly destroyed and abandoned houses, while a few metres away police in face masks surrounded the corpse of a man hidden under a white sheet.
Secretary of State for the Interior Jorge Gomes said 18 of those burned to death had been trapped in their cars engulfed by flames on the road between Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera.
Other bodies were found in houses in isolated areas. At least three villages near Pedrogao Grande were evacuated.
Another 62 people were injured, with five in a critical state including a child and four firefighters.
Luisilda Malheiro and her husband Eduardo Abreu, a couple of farmers, both 62, escaped the hellish route N-236.
"We escaped in time, me on the tractor and he with our van," Luisilda said.
"Our house is still there but we lost everything else: the chickens, the rabbits and the ducks. We were only able to save two goats," she said.
The international community stepped in to help, with the European Union and neighbouring Spain offering water-bombing planes
"I am shocked and horrified by the many lives claimed by today's devastating fires," said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who comes from Portugal.
"The United Nations stands ready to assist in any way possible," he said.
Portugal was sweltering under a severe heatwave over the weekend, with temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in several regions.
About 35 forest fires continued to burn across the country on Monday, with more than 2,000 firefighters and 660 vehicles mobilised.
Dozens of people who fled their homes were taken in by residents of the nearby municipality of Ansiao.
"There are people who arrived saying they didn't want to die in their homes, which were surrounded by flames," said Ansiao resident Ricardo Tristao.
President Marcelo Rebelo went to the Leiria region to meet victims' families, saying he was "sharing their pain in the name of all the Portuguese people".
Portugal was hit by a series of fires last year which devastated more than 100,000 hectares (1,000 square kilometres) of the mainland.
Fires on the tourist island of Madeira in August killed three people, while across 2016 around 40 homes were destroyed and 5,400 hectares of land burned.
In 1966, a blaze in the forest of Sintra, west of Lisbon killed 25 soldiers trying to battle the flames.
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Portugal in mourning as firefighters still battle deadly wildfire
Portugal in mourning as firefighters still battle deadly wildfire
Jakarta NGO to rebuild Indonesian hospital as Palestinians return to north Gaza
- Indonesia Hospital in North Gaza was opened in 2015, built from donations of the Indonesian people
- It was a frequent target of Israeli forces, who accused the facility of sheltering Palestinian armed groups
JAKARTA: A Jakarta-based nongovernmental organization has committed to rebuilding the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza as Palestinians began returning to the area on Monday.
The Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahiya, funded by the Indonesian NGO Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, was one of the first targets hit when Israel began its assault on Gaza in October 2023.
As relentless Israeli attacks pushed the enclave’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse, the Indonesia Hospital had stood as one of the last functioning health facilities in the north.
“Since the war started, the Indonesia Hospital has served as one of the main healthcare centers for residents of Gaza in the north. It has been attacked multiple times, damaging parts of the building itself and also various health equipment,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s board of trustees in Jakarta, told Arab News on Monday.
“We need to rebuild and fill it up with all the necessary health equipment … It is our moral commitment to rebuilding the hospital.”
Israel has frequently targeted medical facilities in the Gaza Strip, saying that they are used by Palestinian armed groups.
The Indonesia Hospital opened in 2015 and was officially inaugurated by the country’s then-Vice President Jusuf Kalla in 2016.
The four-story general hospital stands on a 16,200 sq. meter plot of land near the Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza, donated by the local government in 2009.
The hospital’s construction and equipment were financed from donations of the Asia nation’s people, as well as organizations including the Indonesian Red Cross Society.
Since it opened almost a decade ago, MER-C continued to send volunteers to help. A couple of them stayed in Gaza until late last year, as MER-C also sent medical volunteers to the besieged enclave since March as part of a larger emergency deployment led by the World Health Organization.
The Indonesia Hospital was treating about 1,000 people at one point during Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 47,300 people and injured over 111,000.
“Many Indonesians are looking forward for the Indonesia Hospital to return to normal operations again, and this is the trust that MER-C keeps close because the hospital is a symbol of unity between Indonesians and Palestinians,” Murad said.
“Healthcare is an urgent need for Palestinians, so we want to offer our support here in our field of expertise.”
Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians began returning to the remains of their destroyed homes in north Gaza on Monday, after Israel opened the Netzarim corridor, a 7 km strip of land controlled by Israeli forces that cuts off the enclave’s north from the rest of the territory.
“We hope Israel will continue to give access for Gaza residents to return to their homes in the north peacefully and not breach the ceasefire agreement in any way,” Murad said.
‘Tidal wave of Islamophobia’ in UK, says outgoing MCB chief
- Zara Mohammed’s 4-year tenure involved responses to nationwide rioting, COVID-19 pandemic
- ‘There has been such a normalization of Islamophobic rhetoric without it being challenged or condemned,’ she tells BBC
LONDON: The UK is suffering from a “tidal wave of Islamophobia,” the outgoing leader of one of the country’s largest Muslim bodies has warned.
Zara Mohammed has served as the first female leader of the Muslim Council of Britain since 2021, and through her tenure tackled nationwide riots last year, the COVID-19 pandemic, and being frozen out of government contact.
Ahead of her departure as MCB general secretary on Saturday, Mohammed spoke to the BBC about the difficulties she has faced over the last four years.
“It was the Southport riots for us that made it really quite alarming,” she said, referring to nationwide disorder last year in the wake of a stabbing attack in Southport.
“It was so visceral. We were watching on our screens: People breaking doors down, stopping cars, attacking taxi drivers, smashing windows, smashing mosques,” she told the BBC. “The kind of evil we saw was really terrifying and I felt like, am I even making a difference?”
The rioting was partly triggered by false online rumors that the attacker was a Muslim asylum-seeker.
Yet the government at the time had refused to engage with Mohammed, and the largest umbrella Muslim organization in Britain “wasn’t being talked to,” she said.
“The justification was there, the urgency, the necessity of engagement was there, British Muslims were under attack, mosques were under attack.”
In the year since the war in Gaza began, monitoring group Tell Mama UK recorded 4,971 instances of Islamophobic hate in Britain — the highest figure in 14 years.
The MCB had done “a lot of community building and political advocacy” in a bid to tackle the problem, yet this had failed to shift mainstream narratives surrounding British Muslims, Mohammed said.
“There has been such a normalization of Islamophobic rhetoric without it being challenged or condemned,” she added.
“We could say we’re making a difference but then what is being seen in national discourse does not seem to translate.”
Abuse of Muslim politicians across the UK, including former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, demonstrates a broader trend of rising Islamophobia, Mohammed said.
“You’re constantly firefighting. Did we make British Muslims’ lives better? On one hand, yes, because we raised these issues, we took them to a national platform. But with Islamophobia, we’re still having the same conversation,” she added.
“We still haven’t been able to break through, whether it’s government engagement, Islamophobia or social mobility.”
Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer
- Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
- A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on Monday appealed their convictions for graft, his lawyer said.
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.
Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Monday it had yet to receive any signals from the United States about arranging a possible meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, but remained ready to organize such an encounter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
