MANILA: The Philippines approved measures on Saturday to slow the spread of new, more infectious coronavirus variants, as President Rodrigo Duterte warned of a second lockdown should cases spike before the country gets its first vaccines in May.
Countries around the world have in recent days closed their borders to flights from Britain and South Africa, where more infectious variants have been detected.
Duterte extended an existing a ban on flights from Britain by two weeks to mid-January, and said the Philippines would impose travel curbs on countries with local community transmission of the UK variant.
With more than 469,000 infections and 9,067 deaths, the Philippines has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases and casualties in Southeast Asia, next to Indonesia.
Neither the UK nor the South African variant have been detected there yet, however.
In an emergency meeting with health experts and government officials, Duterte also ordered a 14-day quarantine for passengers who have come from or transited through Britain, and from countries where the more infectious COVID-19 variant first identified there was detected, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan.
Duterte pledged free vaccines for the country's 108 million population, with shipments and inoculation to start in May.
"If (in the meantime) severity in numbers would demand that we take corrective measures immediately, then we should just have to go back to lockdown," he said.
In mid-March, the Philippines imposed one of the world's longest and toughest coronavirus lockdowns, which were gradually relaxed in June to allow a slow reopening of the economy.
The Philippines is in talks to acquire around 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including from Pfizer Inc, Moderna and Britain's AstraZeneca, as well as Johnson & Johnson, India's Novavax Inc, China's Sinovac and Russia's Gamaleya Institute.
Philippines eyes more COVID-19 curbs to halt new variants
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Philippines eyes more COVID-19 curbs to halt new variants
- Duterte ordered a 14-day quarantine for passengers that came from or transited in the UK
- Duterte pledged free vaccines for the country's 108 million population, with shipments and inoculation to start in May
UK car wash owners trafficked thousands of people from Middle East to Europe
- Migrants from Syria, Iraq, Iran offered different tiers of service
- Dilshad Shamo and Ali Khdir trafficked 100 people per per week in trucks, ships and by plane
LONDON: Thousands of people from the Middle East were trafficked into Europe through a vast people smuggling network based out of a British car wash.
In an operation that at times resembled a travel agency, people from Syria, Iraq and Iran were offered different tiers of service to be smuggled into Europe by various routes.
Two men pleaded guilty in a UK court on Friday to charges related to their roles in the people smuggling ring.
The UK’s National Crime Agency said Dilshad Shamo, 41, and Ali Khdir, 40, operated from the unlikely location of a car wash in Caerphilly, a town in Wales.
They were arrested in April 2023 after they had been placed under surveillance as part of an investigation that found they were trafficking about 100 people a week over a period of two years, the BBC reported.
The men used messaging and social media apps to advertise their services with videos from people who had made the journeys.
One video shows a man hidden in the back of a truck with other migrants.
“Lorry route agreement, crossing agreement with the knowledge of driver,” he says. “Here we have men, women and children. Thank God the route was easy and good.”
Another video shows a family traveling by plane. “We are very happy … this is the visa, may God bless him, we are really happy,” the migrant says.
Shamo and Khdir offered three tiers of service, the lowest being smuggling people into Europe by foot or vehicle; the next by cargo ships or yachts; and the highest level arranged travel by plane.
The smuggling routes went through Turkiye, Belarus, Moldova and Bosnia and ended in Italy, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Germany and France. The NCA said many of the migrants continued to the UK.
Payment was made using informal “hawala” money transfers through brokers based in Iraq and Istanbul.
Once a deposit was made, Shamo and Khdir would receive a message and arrange for the migrants to be transported by their specified route or timeframe. The two men used WhatsApp to communicate with people smugglers across Europe.
The NCA said they were part of a larger organized crime group and could have made hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds that is unlikely to be recovered, the BBC reported.
“Ali Khdir and Dilshad Shamo were leading a double life,” NCA Branch Commander Derek Evans said. “While on the surface they seemed to be operating a successful car wash, they were actually part of a prolific people smuggling group moving migrants across Europe and taking thousands in payment.
“We worked painstakingly to piece together their movements to prove their important roles in a group, from advertising their services through videos to boasting of successful trips on messaging groups.”
The UK’s Minister for Border Security and Asylum Angela Eagle said criminals like Khdir and Shamo put countless lives at risk by smuggling vulnerable people in a “shameless attempt to make cash.”
She added: “We are taking action against the people smuggling gangs and will stop at nothing to dismantle their networks and bring justice to the system.”
Shamo and Khdir pleaded guilty 10 days into their trial at Cardiff Crown Court and will be sentenced at a later date.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer made smashing people smuggling gangs a key pledge of his election campaign earlier this year.
He has vowed to treat traffickers like terrorists and announced a new Border Security Command with additional powers to track human traffickers and shut down their bank accounts.
Politicians in the EU are battling to stem public anger at rising immigration with more than 380,000 illegal border crossings made into the EU in 2023.
Many fear that if conflicts in the Middle East escalate, Europe could face a steep rise in illegal migration similar to 2015 at the height of the Syrian Civil War.
Putin says Russia will keep testing new missile in combat
- The Kremlin leader described the missile’s first use as a successful test, and said more would follow
- “We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are created for Russia,” he said
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would keep testing its new Oreshnik hypersonic missile in combat and had a stock ready for use.
Putin was speaking a day after Russia fired the new intermediate-range weapon into Ukraine for the first time, a step he said was prompted by Ukraine’s use of US ballistic missiles and British cruise missiles to hit Russia.
The Kremlin leader described the missile’s first use as a successful test, and said more would follow.
“We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are created for Russia,” he said in televised comments to defense officials and missile developers.
“Moreover, we have a stock of such products, a stock of such systems ready for use.”
A US official, however, said the weapon Russia used was an experimental one. The official said Russia has a limited number of them and that this is not a capability that Russia is able to regularly deploy on the battlefield.
Intermediate missiles have a range of 3,000-5,500 km (1,860-3,415 miles), which would enable them to strike anywhere in Europe or the western United States from Russia.
Security experts said the novel feature of the Oreshnik missile was that it carried multiple warheads capable of simultaneously striking different targets — something usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.
Ukraine said the missile reached a top speed of more than 13,000 kph (8,000 mph) and took about 15 minutes to reach its target from its launch.
The firing of the missile was part of a sharp rise in tensions this week as both Ukraine and Russia have struck each other’s territory with increasingly potent weapons.
Moscow says that by giving the green light for Ukraine to fire Western missiles deep inside Russia, the US and its allies are entering into direct conflict with Russia. On Tuesday, Putin approved policy changes that lowered the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with conventional weapons.
SEVERE ESCALATION
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s use of the new missile amounted to “a clear and severe escalation” in the war and called for strong worldwide condemnation. He said Ukraine was working on developing new types of air defense to counter “new risks.”
The Kremlin said the firing of the Oreshnik was a warning to the West against taking further “reckless” actions and decisions in support of Ukraine.
The Oreshnik was fired with conventional, not nuclear warheads. Putin said it was not a strategic nuclear weapon but its striking power and accuracy meant that its impact would be comparable, “especially when used in a massive group and in combination with other high-precision long-range systems.”
He said the missile was incapable of being shot down by an enemy.
“I will add that there is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasize once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production,” he said.
WHO keeps mpox at highest alert level
- “The decision was based on the rising number and continuing geographic spread of cases, operational challenges in the field,” WHO said
- The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the country hardest hit by the outbreak, followed by Burundi and Nigeria
GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Friday it had decided to keep its alert for the mpox epidemic at the highest level, as the number of cases and countries affected rises.
“The decision was based on the rising number and continuing geographic spread of cases, operational challenges in the field, and the need to mount and sustain a cohesive response across countries and partners,” it said in a statement.
“The WHO Director-General, agreeing with the advice of the (International Health Regulations) IHR Emergency Committee, has determined that the upsurge of mpox continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern,” it said, extending the emergency first declared on August 14.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the country hardest hit by the outbreak, followed by Burundi and Nigeria.
Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.
It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions, and can be deadly.
The August emergency declaration was in response to a surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries.
That and other mpox strains have been reported across 80 countries — 19 of them in Africa — so far this year, WHO has previously said.
London’s Gatwick Airport reopens terminal following security alert
- Police sent a bomb disposal team to deal with a suspected prohibited item that they said had been found in luggage at the airport’s south terminal, 30 miles south of London
- “The earlier security alert has now been resolved and cleared by police,” Gatwick said
LONDON: London’s Gatwick Airport, the second busiest airport in Britain, reopened a terminal on Friday after a security alert earlier in the day forced its evacuation and caused travel disruption for thousands of people.
Police sent a bomb disposal team to deal with a suspected prohibited item that they said had been found in luggage at the airport’s south terminal, 30 miles south of London.
“The earlier security alert has now been resolved and cleared by police,” Gatwick said in a statement. “The South Terminal is reopening to staff and will be open to passengers shortly.”
The incident disrupted weekend travel plans for thousands of passengers, with more than 600 flights due to land or take off on Friday from Gatwick, amounting to more than 121,000 passenger seats, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Thousands of passengers were seen outside the terminal and the surrounding area in videos posted online after the terminal shut for several hours. Emergency foil blankets were distributed to some of the passengers who were waiting in the cold, social media pictures showed.
In a separate incident earlier on Friday, London police carried out a controlled explosion near the US embassy in south London after discovering a suspect package. Police later said they believed it was a hoax.
New Bangladeshi tourism initiative empowers marginalized Indigenous groups
- BRAC’s Othiti program helps uplift rural communities and their traditional skills
- Pilot program is underway in Rajshahi district near the Bangladesh–India border
DHAKA: A new initiative by Bangladesh’s largest development organization is fostering community-based tourism in remote rural areas to empower Indigenous groups and help preserve their cultures.
There are more than 50 Indigenous groups in Bangladesh, most of whom, or about 1 million people, live in the flatland districts of the country’s north and southeast, and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, bordering India and Myanmar.
Launched in early November, the new tourism initiative spearheaded by BRAC is named Othiti, which means “guest” in Bengali.
The pilot program is underway in Rajshahi district on the northern bank of the Padma River, near the Bangladesh–India border.
“We started the journey of Othiti from Rajshahi. Tourists rarely visit this part of the country, but it is very rich, both culturally and historically. Starting from the mighty river Padma, there’s a lot of natural beauty over there,” Asif Saleh, BRAC executive director, told Arab News.
“We will not be confined within Rajshahi. There are plans to expand this tourism project in other parts of the country … in places like Sundarbans, Chottogram Hill Tracts, Cox’s Bazar. We will try to connect tourists particularly with the Indigenous communities of these areas to experience their traditions, culture, and customs. If tourists can experience the diversity of these areas, they can connect with them in a different way. It will make people prouder of the rich history and culture of our country.”
The project involves rural youth, students of the Rajshahi University, whom BRAC has employed as part-time guides to introduce visitors to their customs and traditional livelihoods.
“We have built a relationship of trust and reliability with these communities. We hope that tourists will become interested in the culture and customs of the Indigenous people, and have a better understanding and empathy towards them,” Saleh said.
“Our Othiti aims for the sector’s development as well as employment for the (local) people, which will benefit these communities … We began this project as a social enterprise. We may incur loss initially for many years, but ultimately, if the sector develops, it will attract many people.”
Indigenous communities in Bangladesh have been struggling with access to education, healthcare, and jobs. Many live in forest areas with inadequate infrastructure. Poverty and unemployment levels among these groups are much higher than among the non-Indigenous.
Moutushi Biswas, a BRAC consultant, said a number of initiatives under the Othiti program are meant to uplift the communities and their traditional skills.
For example, introducing tourists to the Premtoli village of potters helped increase demand for their earthenware and work.
“While visiting the pottery community, tourists are experiencing the craftsmanship of potters who have been engaged in this for many generations. They can experience it by themselves, making clay pots under the guidance of a traditional potter. It’s a very unique experience,” she said.
“This initiative is also strengthening the abilities of local communities … The locals who work with us are very enthusiastic about this. We are receiving huge cooperation from them.”
For Happy Soren, a 25-year-old student and Othiti guide, having tourists visit was not only strengthening the village’s economy but also helping raise awareness about her community.
“The tourists want to know our customs and religious beliefs. They want to know the reasons behind the special patterns and paintings on our houses … Our village becomes very festive when they visit us,” she said.
“We believe the tourists who experience our culture and heritage will play a role in developing our village after they go back to their own places and work. They will stand by our people.”
