Search form

You are here

  • Home
  • UAE confirms record 3,529 new COVID-19 cases plus 4 more deaths


UAE confirms record 3,529 new COVID-19 cases plus 4 more deaths

The General Department of Punitive and Correctional Institutions in Dubai Police has started to give the coronavirus vaccine to inmates of penal and correctional institutions. (WAM)
Short Url

https://arab.news/zk4he

Updated 22 January 2021
Arab News
Follow

UAE confirms record 3,529 new COVID-19 cases plus 4 more deaths

  • Dubai Economy issued 2,100 fines and warnings, and closed down 175 businesses in 2020
  • Kuwait records 570 cases, Oman reports 169 cases and 1 death
Updated 22 January 2021
Arab News

DUBAI: Authorities in the UAE on Thursday recorded 3,529 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the highest daily count to date, and four more deaths related to the disease.
Officials from the Ministry of Health and Prevention said the total number of cases in the country has reached 267,258, while the death toll stands at 766. A total of 239,322 patients have recovered from the disease, including 3,901 in the past 24 hours.
Dubai Economy, the emirate’s economic development authority, said it carried out 140,000 inspection visits last year, as a result of which it issued 2,100 fines and warnings, and closed down 175 businesses for failing to comply with precautionary measures designed to slow the spread of the virus.

During their latest daily inspection tours, the authority’s officials ordered one business to close, and issued 23 fines and two warnings for not following the health precautions.
Meanwhile Dubai Municipality announced it has stepped up its inspection campaigns. It added that five businesses were ordered to close, 18 were fined, and warnings were issued to 31 for lack of compliance with precautionary measures.
Dubai Tourism said it has issued more than 200 violation notices during the past three weeks and closed down about 20 establishments. It also announced that all previously issued entertainment permits are “on hold, effective immediately,” and added it will continue to evaluate the situation in consultation with the health authorities.
The General Department of Punitive and Correctional Institutions in Dubai Police has started to give the coronavirus vaccine to inmates of penal and correctional institutions, as part of the emirate’s efforts to achieve acquired immunity, according to a report by state news agency WAM.

Inmates reportedly said they were happy to be vaccinated and praised Dubai Police and medical staff in the prisons for providing them with the vaccinations, medical advice and check ups.
The Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination, in cooperation with the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company, has launched a campaign to vaccinate people with disabilities, and their families. The effort will begin at the organization’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi, before expanding to Al-Ain and Al-Dhafra regions.

Abdullah Abdul Ali Al-Humaidan, the organization’s secretary-general, said that the vaccine is the safest and most effective way to limit the spread of COVID-19 and maintain the health and safety of the public.
Meanwhile, Umm Al-Quwain’s Executive Council informed all government agencies in the emirate that anti-coronavirus measures due to be implemented from Jan. 24 are being amended. The notice said all government employees will be required to take a PCR test every seven days, at their own expense, if they have not received the required two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. This also applies to outsourced employees and public-service companies.
The council also urged all government agencies in the emirate to encourage their employees and workers to get the vaccination, which is available to everyone free of charge.
Elsewhere, Kuwait reported 570 new cases of COVID-19, raising the total in the country to 159,834. The death toll remains at 951, with no additional deaths reported in the previous 24 hours.

Oman’s health ministry confirmed 169 new cases and one additional death, bringing the national totals to 132,486 and 1,517, respectively.

In Bahrain the death toll stands at 366 after no new deaths were reported. The number of confirmed cases in the country increased by 305.

 

Topics: UAE COVID-19 Coronavirus Ministry of Health and Prevention Kuwait Bahrain Dubai Tourism Dubai Municipality

Related

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia announces 4 more COVID-19 deaths
Update
Middle-East
UAE and Hungary approve use of Russian Sputnik V vaccine

Arab cities rank among top 10 friendliest in the world for expats

Updated 20 sec ago
Arab News
Follow

Arab cities rank among top 10 friendliest in the world for expats

  • Emirati city of Ras Al-Khaimah in 5th place, Oman’s capital Muscat ranks 10th
  • Saudi capital among ‘the biggest winners in 2024,’ jumping 10 places to rank 12th: Index
Updated 20 sec ago
Arab News

LONDON: The Emirati city of Ras Al-Khaimah and Oman’s capital Muscat have been ranked among the top 10 friendliest destinations in the world for expats.

The Ease of Settling In Index 2024 by InterNations, which describes itself as “the largest global expat network” with 5.6 million members, includes 53 cities and comprises three subcategories: culture and welcome, local friendliness and finding friends.

Ras Al-Khaimah ranked fifth overall while Muscat ranked 10th, closely followed by the Emirati city of Dubai (11th), the Saudi capital Riyadh (12th), the UAE capital Abu Dhabi (14th) and Qatar’s capital Doha (15th).

Ras Al-Khaimah and Muscat “perform well across the index but stand out especially for how easy expats find it to get used to the local culture … as well as for the general friendliness of the population,” according to the index.

InterNations described Riyadh as one of “the biggest winners in 2024,” jumping 10 places from the 2023 rankings and improving “across all factors of the index.”

Riyadh’s biggest gains were in the culture and welcome subcategory, rising from 30th in 2023 to 14th last year.

Topics: Ras Al-Khaimah UAE Oman muscat

Related

video
Middle-East
UAE’s Ras al Khaimah reveals 20 attractions to get pulse racing
Lifestyle
UAE’s Ras Al-Khaimah makes Time magazine’s list of world’s best places

Lacking aid, Syrians do what they can to rebuild devastated Aleppo

Updated 32 min 51 sec ago
Reuters
Follow

Lacking aid, Syrians do what they can to rebuild devastated Aleppo

  • Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and a UNESCO World Heritage site, was deeply scarred by more than a decade of war
  • While Syria lobbies for sanctions relief, the grassroots reconstruction drive is gaining momentum and providing work opportunities
Updated 32 min 51 sec ago
Reuters

ALEPPO: Moussa Hajj Khalil is among many Syrians rebuilding their homes from the rubble of the historic and economically important city of Aleppo, as Syria’s new leaders struggle to kick-start large-scale reconstruction efforts.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and a UNESCO World Heritage site, was deeply scarred by more than a decade of war between government and rebel forces, suffering battles, a siege, Russian air strikes and barrel bomb attacks.
Now, its people are trying to restore their lives with their own means, unwilling to wait and see if the efforts of Syria’s new Islamist-led government to secure international funding come to fruition.
“Nobody is helping us, no states, no organizations,” said Khalil, 65, who spent seven years in a displacement camp in Al-Haramain on the Syrian-Turkish border.
Impoverished residents have “come and tried to restore a room to stay in with their children, which is better than life in camps,” he said, as he observed workers repairing his destroyed home in Ratyan, a suburb in northwestern Aleppo.
Khalil returned alone a month ago to rebuild the house so he can bring his family back from the camp.
Aleppo was the first major city seized by the rebels when they launched an offensive to topple then-leader Bashar Assad in late November.
Assad was ousted less than two weeks later, ending a 14-year war that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and left much of Syria in ruins.

’DOING WHAT WE CAN’
While Syria lobbies for sanctions relief, the grassroots reconstruction drive is gaining momentum and providing work opportunities.
Contractors labor around the clock to meet the growing demand, salvaging materials like broken blocks and cement found between the rubble to repair homes.
“There is building activity now. We are working lots, thank God!” Syrian contractor Maher Rajoub said.
But the scale of the task is huge.
The United Nations Development Programme is hoping to deliver $1.3 billion over three years to support Syria, including by rebuilding infrastructure, its assistant secretary-general told Reuters earlier this month.
Other financial institutions and Gulf countries like Qatar have made pledges to help Syria, but are hampered by US sanctions.
The United States and other Western countries have set conditions for lifting sanctions, insisting that Syria’s new rulers, led by a faction formerly affiliated to Al-Qaeda, demonstrate a commitment to peaceful and inclusive rule.
A temporary suspension of some US sanctions to encourage aid has had limited effect, leaving Aleppo’s residents largely fending for themselves.
“We lived in the camps under the sun and the heat,” said Mustafa Marouch, a 50-year-old vegetable shop owner. “We returned and are doing what we can to fix our situation.”

Topics: Syria

Related

Middle-East
Syria FM says he wants to ‘strengthen relations’ with China
Special photos
Middle-East
How doctors from Syria’s diaspora are helping Homs rebuild its shattered health system

Syrian Druze leaders slam ‘unjustified armed attack’ near Damascus

Updated 46 min 22 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Syrian Druze leaders slam ‘unjustified armed attack’ near Damascus

  • The clashes reportedly left at least four Druze fighters dead
Updated 46 min 22 sec ago
AFP

DAMASCUS: Syrian Druze leaders on Tuesday condemned an “unjustified armed attack” overnight on the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, after clashes with security forces that a war monitor said killed at least four Druze fighters.
Jaramana’s Druze religious leadership in a statement condemned “the unjustified armed attack” that “targeted innocent civilians and terrorized” residents, adding that the Syrian authorities bore “full responsibility for the incident and for any further developments or worsening of the crisis.”

Topics: Syria Druze

Related

video
Middle-East
Hundreds of Syrian Druze clerics head to Israel on pilgrimage
video
Middle-East
Syrian Druze cross armistice line for pilgrimage to Israel

Tunisia’s Saied slams ‘blatant interference’ after international criticism

Updated 50 min 7 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Tunisia’s Saied slams ‘blatant interference’ after international criticism

  • Tunisian President Kais Saied rejected foreign criticism of opposition trials, calling it unacceptable interference in internal affairs
Updated 50 min 7 sec ago
AFP

TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied on Tuesday lashed out at “comments and statements by foreign parties” following sharp international criticism of a mass trial targeting opposition figures.
“The comments and statements by foreign parties are unacceptable... and constitute blatant interference in Tunisia’s internal affairs,” he said in a statement posted on the presidency’s Facebook page.
“While some have expressed regret over the exclusion of international observers, Tunisia could also send observers to these parties, who have expressed their concerns... and also demand that they change their legislation and amend their procedures,” he added.
Earlier this month, a Tunisian court handed down sentences of between 13 and 66 years to defendants accused of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group.”
The trial involved about 40 defendants, including well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people, with some already in prison for two years and others in exile or still free.
Those abroad were tried in absentia, including French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy who received a 33-year jail term, lawyers said.
The United Nations and Western countries including France and Germany criticized the trial.
“The process was marred by violations of fair trial and due process rights, raising serious concerns about political motivations,” said the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
In a statement on Thursday, Turk urged “Tunisia to refrain from using broad national security and counterterrorism legislation to silence dissent and curb civic space.”
Germany meanwhile said it regretted the “exclusion of international observers from the final day of the trial,” including representatives from the German embassy in Tunis.
Since Saied launched a power grab in the summer of 2021 and assumed total control, rights advocates and opposition figures have decried a rollback of freedoms in the North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings began.

Topics: Tunisia

Related

Middle-East
Tunisia mass conspiracy trial ‘marred by violations’: UN rights chief
Middle-East
Lawyers denounce ‘fabricated’ Tunisia trial of opposition

France tries Syrian Islamist rebel ex-spokesman on war crime charges

Updated 29 April 2025
AFP
Follow

France tries Syrian Islamist rebel ex-spokesman on war crime charges

  • French authorities arrested Majdi Nema in the southern city of Marseille in 2020
  • He was spokesman for a Syrian Islamist rebel group called Jaish Al-Islam
Updated 29 April 2025
AFP

PARIS: A Syrian Islamist rebel ex-spokesman is to go on trial in France on Tuesday under the principle of universal jurisdiction, accused of complicity in war crimes during Syria’s civil war.
French authorities arrested Majdi Nema, now 36, in the southern city of Marseille in 2020, after he traveled to the country on a student exchange program.
He was detained and charged under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to prosecute suspects accused of serious crimes regardless of where they were committed.
This is the first time that crimes committed in Syria’s civil war have been tried in France under the universal jurisdiction.
Nema – better known by his nom-de-guerre of Islam Alloush – has been charged with complicity in war crimes between 2013 and 2016, when he was spokesman for a Syrian Islamist rebel group called Jaish Al-Islam.
However, Nema has said he only had a “limited role” in the armed opposition group that held sway in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus during that period.
Jaish Al-Islam was one of the main opposition groups fighting Bashar Assad’s government before Islamist-led fighters toppled him in December but it has also been accused of terrorizing civilians in areas it controlled.
Nema, who faces up to 20 years in jail if found guilty, has in particular been accused of helping recruit children and teenagers to fight for the group.
His arrest came after rights groups, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), filed a criminal complaint in France in 2019 against members of Jaish Al-Islam for their alleged crimes.
It was the FIDH that discovered Nema was in France during research into Jaish Al-Islam’s hierarchy and informed the French authorities.
Marc Bailly, a lawyer for the FIDH and some civil parties in the trial that runs to May 27, said the case would be “the opportunity to shed light on all the complexity of the Syrian conflict, which did not just involve regime crimes.”
Born in 1988, Nema was a captain in the Syrian armed forces before defecting in 2012 and joining the group that would in 2013 become known as Jaish Al-Islam.
He told investigators that he left Eastern Ghouta in May 2013 and crossed the border to Turkiye, where he worked as the group’s spokesman, before leaving the group in 2016.
He has cited his presence in Turkiye as part of his defense.
Nema traveled to France in November 2019 under a university exchange program and was arrested in January 2020.
The defendant was initially indicted for complicity in the enforced disappearances of four activists in Eastern Ghouta in late 2013 – including prominent rights defender Razan Zaitouneh – but those charges have since been dropped on procedural grounds.
Jaish Al-Islam has been accused of involvement in the abduction, though it has denied this.
France has since 2010 been able to try cases under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which argues some crimes are so serious that all states have the obligation to prosecute offenders.
The country’s highest court upheld this principle in 2023, allowing for the investigation into Nema to continue.
A previous trial in May of Syrians charged over their actions in the war took place because French nationals were the victims, rather than under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
A Paris court in that trial ordered life sentences for three top Syrian security officials linked to the former Assad government for their role in the torture and disappearance of a French-Syrian father and son in Syria in 2013.
They were tried in absentia.
Syria’s conflict has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more from their homes since it erupted in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

Topics: France Syria

Related

Update
Middle-East
Syrian rebel Jaish Al-Islam wants negotiations: official
Update
Middle-East
Syrian government reaches agreement with faction of Jaish Al-Islam to begin Douma evacuation

Latest updates

Spain’s power supply is almost fully restored after one of Europe’s most severe blackouts
Power outage still affecting Madrid Open tennis tournament. Opening of the gates delayed on Tuesday.
IMF Executive Board to meet on May 9 to review Pakistan’s loan programs
Lacking aid, Syrians do what they can to rebuild devastated Aleppo
Kashmir attack unites political foes in India, Pakistan

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2025 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.