Bangladesh launches app for coronavirus tests

Bangladesh has devised an app which allows people to check for symptoms of the coronavirus disease. The country has identified 123 COVID-19 patients, twelve have died. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 06 April 2020
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Bangladesh launches app for coronavirus tests

  • Hopes that ‘Coronavirus Identifier’ will tell people their infection status

DHAKA: Bangladesh has devised an app which allows people to check for symptoms of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by uploading a chest X-ray, with test results available through artificial intelligence within minutes, officials told Arab News on Monday.

Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar said the app will be operated by state-run mobile telecom operator, Teletalk, and will also provide information about COVID-19 hotspots.

“Our technical team is working on fine tuning the app. It’s an extraordinary emergency situation and we all are working hurriedly to meet the emergency,” Jabbar told Arab News, adding that once fully operational, the app was “absolutely safe to use.”

The minister said: “People have nothing to worry about with regards to the safety of their personal data as it will be operated by the government and the data will be 100 percent protected.”

The app will work using bluetooth and location data, mimicking actions of other countries like China, South Korea and Germany.

Delwar Hossain Faruk, chairman of Radison Technologies — a telecoms company which developed the app and offered it at free of cost to the government — told Arab News: “A team of 30 experts from our company have worked around the clock over the last 15 days to develop the app. It will collect data of COVID-19 infected people in the country from the government’s disease control department and update the app constantly. Whenever people come into contact with any COVID-19 patients, the app will send notifications to the user and alert them.”

The app will use different colors — red, yellow and green — to identify three groups of people: Those infected with COVID-19, people in quarantine and the healthy.

“The app will help people and the authorities ensure home quarantine as law enforcement agencies will now be able to monitor people from their offices,” Faruk said.

Jabbar said: “The accuracy level will be more than 90 percent. Singapore has had good success through this process.”

However experts said that people should use lab tests for a confirmed diagnosis. 

“This app will be good for people who don’t have any other respiratory diseases. But people with asthma and other respiratory problems can’t fully rely on any COVID-19 test based on artificial intelligence,” Dr. Ayesha Akther, assistant director of the health emergency operation center of the Directorate General of Health Services, told Arab News. 

Bangladesh has identified 123 COVID-19 patients. Twelve have died.


UN rights chief demands US withdraw sanctions on ICC judges

Updated 3 sec ago
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UN rights chief demands US withdraw sanctions on ICC judges

  • Volker Turk: ‘I call for the prompt reconsideration and withdrawal of these latest measures’
GENEVA: The United Nations human rights chief on Friday demanded the United States lift sanctions it imposed on four International Criminal Court judges, saying they were contrary to the rule of law.
“I call for the prompt reconsideration and withdrawal of these latest measures,” Volker Turk said in a statement to media. “Attacks against judges for performance of their judicial functions, at national or international levels, run directly counter to respect for the rule of law and the equal protection of the law – values for which the US has long stood.”

Lufthansa to restart Tel Aviv flights on June 23

Updated 6 min 51 sec ago
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Lufthansa to restart Tel Aviv flights on June 23

  • Lufthansa suspended its flights to Israel’s main airport following a May 4 rocket attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and extended the suspension several times since

BERLIN: Germany’s Lufthansa airline group said Friday it would restart flights to and from Tel Aviv on June 23, having suspended them early last month amid the ongoing regional conflict.

The group said in a statement that the decision would affect Lufthansa, Austrian, SWISS, Brussels Airlines Eurowings, ITA and Lufthansa Cargo but that “for operational reasons,” the individual airlines would only resume services “gradually.”

“The decision is based on an extensive security analysis and in coordination with the relevant authorities,” it added.

The group suspended its flights to Israel’s main airport following a May 4 rocket attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and extended the suspension several times since.

The missile landed near a car park at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport and injured six people, the first time a missile had penetrated the airport perimeter.

The Houthis have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since the war in Gaza began in October 2023 with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but began again after Israel resumed its military campaign in the territory.

The Israeli army has reported several such launches in recent days, with most of the projectiles being intercepted.


Japan allows longer nuclear plant lifespans

Updated 16 min 48 sec ago
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Japan allows longer nuclear plant lifespans

  • The world’s fourth-largest economy is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 but remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels
  • Many of the country’s nuclear reactors were taken offline after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown

TOKYO: A law allowing nuclear reactors to operate beyond 60 years took effect in Japan on Friday, as the government turns back to atomic energy 14 years after the Fukushima catastrophe.

The world’s fourth-largest economy is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 but remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels – partly because many nuclear reactors were taken offline after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown.

The government now plans to increase its reliance on nuclear power, in part to help meet growing energy demand from artificial intelligence and microchip factories.

The 60-year limit was brought in after the 2011 disaster, which was triggered by a devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan.

Under the amended law, nuclear plants’ operating period may be extended beyond 60 years – in a system similar to extra time in football games – to compensate for stoppages caused by “unforeseeable circumstances,” the government says.

This means, for example, that one reactor in central Japan’s Fukui region, suspended for 12 years after the Fukushima crisis, will now be able to operate up until 2047 – 72 years after its debut, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.

But operators require approval from Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog for the exemption. The law also includes measures intended to strengthen safety checks at aging reactors.

The legal revision is also aimed at helping Japan better cope with power crunches, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked energy market turmoil.

Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan had previously vowed to “reduce reliance on nuclear power as much as possible.”

But this pledge was dropped from the latest version approved in February, which includes an intention to make renewables the country’s top power source by 2040.

Under the plan, nuclear power will account for around 20 percent of Japan’s energy supply by 2040 – up from 5.6 percent in 2022.

Also in February, Japan pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent in the next decade from 2013 levels, a target decried by campaigners as far short of what was needed under the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

Japan is the world’s fifth largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the United States, India and Russia.


Three Serbs charged over paint attack on France Jewish sites

Updated 23 min 59 sec ago
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Three Serbs charged over paint attack on France Jewish sites

  • France’s Holocaust memorial, three Paris synagogues and a restaurant were vandalized with paint in the night of Friday to Saturday

PARIS: A French judge has charged three Serbs with vandalizing Jewish sites with paint at the weekend “to serve the interests of a foreign power,” a judicial source said Friday.

A source close to the case said investigators suspect Russia is behind the attacks for which the men were charged on Thursday evening.

They had exchanged messages on Telegram with other individuals not yet apprehended, it added.

France’s Holocaust memorial, three Paris synagogues and a restaurant were vandalized with paint in the night of Friday to Saturday, in what the Israeli embassy denounced as a “coordinated anti-Semitic attack.”

The source following the case described the three suspects, two born in 1995 and one born in 2003, as having completed a task motivated by financial compensation, but without being aware of any geopolitical implications.

They were two brothers and a third person who had lived in France for several years, the source said.

They were arrested on Monday in southeast France as they tried to leave the country.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said he was “deeply disgusted by these heinous acts targeting the Jewish community.”

Israeli’s President Isaac Herzog said Saturday he was “dismayed” by the Paris vandalism, noting that his great-grandfather had been a rabbi at one of the synagogues.

In the run-up to the Summer Olympics in Paris last year, several high-profile stunts intended to influence French public opinion led French officials to point the finger at Moscow.

They included red hands tagged on Paris’s main Holocaust memorial in May 2024.

In October 2023, soon after the Palestinian militant attack on Israel that sparked the latest Gaza war, stars of David were tagged on buildings in the Paris region, with two Moldovans suspected of working for the Russian FSB security service later arrested.

Russia has previously denied any involvement in any of the plots attributed to it by French officials.


Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong faces second charge under national security law

Updated 33 min 6 sec ago
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Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong faces second charge under national security law

  • Activist Wong faced a new charge of conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security

HONG KONG: Hong Kong authorities once again arrested prominent activist Joshua Wong on Friday and charged him with conspiracy to collude with a foreign country under a Beijing-imposed national security law.
Wong, 28, was originally set to be released in January 2027 from a 56-month jail sentence he is serving under the same law for conspiracy to commit subversion after he participated in an unofficial primary election.
Taken to the West Kowloon magistrates’ courts, Wong faced a new charge of conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.
The former student pro-democracy activist, who wore a blue shirt and appeared noticeably thinner than before, replied, “Understand,” when the clerk read out the charge and details of the offense.
Wong did not apply for bail, and the case was adjourned to August 8. Before returning to custody, he waved, shrugged, and shook his head in the direction of the public gallery.
In a statement, Hong Kong’s national security police said they had arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of the offense, as well as for “dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offense.”
A charge sheet seen by Reuters accuses Wong of having conspired with exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, institutions, organizations, or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades.
Such actions against Hong Kong or China, along with other hostile activities targeting them, took place in 2020, between July 1 and November 23, it added.
The National Security Law, which punishes offenses such as acts of subversion, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorism, with terms of up to life in jail, was imposed by Beijing on the former British colony in 2020.
The Chinese and Hong Kong governments say the law is necessary to restore stability following anti-government protests in 2019.
But some Western governments have criticized it as being used to suppress free speech and dissent.