BANGKOK: Thailand is redoubling efforts to stop the coronavirus spread in labor camps, factories and markets as the number of new reported cases surged Monday to the highest level so far.
A government spokesman said public health authorities met with labor and industry officials to discuss better ways to curb infections that are concentrated in crowded, high-risk places.
The government reported a record 5,485 new cases on Monday, with nearly 2,000 in prisons. Confirmed deaths increased by 19, bringing the total to 1,031 since the pandemic began.
Concern over the rising numbers prompted the government to overrule a plan by Bangkok’s governor to ease some pandemic restrictions in the capital, including the reopening of parks. The plan, which was to take effect on Tuesday, will be postponed 14 days.
Thailand had managed to keep outbreaks largely under control, at great economic cost especially for tourism, because foreign visitors were largely banned from entering the country. That changed in early April, when a cluster of cases centered on Bangkok bars and clubs spread as many people traveled during the weeklong Thai New Year holiday.
The total number of confirmed cases has now risen to 159,792, of which 82 percent occurred during the latest surge. Many of the cases are concentrated in prisons, housing for construction workers, factories, slums and low-income housing areas.
Last week, workers protested over conditions at the factory where they were working in Petchaburi, in central Thailand. Photos posted online showed workers quarantined in a big, empty building, with blankets laid in rows on a concrete floor.
The Cal-Comp Electronics (Thailand) factory, one of the largest suppliers of electronics to major companies like Western Digital, Seagate, Hewlett Packard and Panasonic, closed for 14 days beginning May 21 and as of Friday had reported 3,730 confirmed cases.
Officials at the company referred questions to the provincial government, which said a prolonged electricity outage had added to frustrations among the workers, but that conditions had been improved with provision of more water, better food, and fans to better circulate the air.
Bangkok reported 1,356 of the cases on Monday. A spokesperson for the government’s coronavirus center, Apisamai Srirangsan, said the capital is dealing with 45 clusters.
Authorities were analyzing how to stop infections from spreading between workers who live, work and commute in close quarters.
“We noticed that the workers from different factories sometimes live in the same area, and it made the virus spread to other places. Or another assumption is that a lot of them work as sub-contractors, so they have to move from one site to another all the time,” Apisamai said.
In some parts of Bangkok and elsewhere, workers have been ordered to stay inside construction sites.
So far, about 3.3 percent of the country’s roughly 69 million people have received at least one vaccine dose. The government has secured just 7 million vaccine doses in total.
The government has been negotiating to get more supplies that would allow it to fully inoculate about 70 percent of the population by the end of the year. Its earlier plans would have allowed only about 45 percent of the population to be inoculated.
The government has been inching toward reopening the country to tourism, even as it struggles to quash this latest, biggest outbreak, as the pandemic throttles the economy.
Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, governor of the central bank, estimated growth might not return to pre-pandemic levels until early 2023, the Bangkok Post and local other media cited him as saying at a seminar on Monday.
Thailand reports record virus cases; delays Bangkok easing
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Thailand reports record virus cases; delays Bangkok easing
- Government spokesman said public health authorities met with labor and industry officials to discuss better ways to curb infections
- Record 5,485 new cases, with nearly 2000 in prisons, were reported by the government on Monday
Pope Francis will be released from the hospital on Sunday, doctors say
- Gemelli medical director Dr. Sergio Alfieri said Saturday that Francis will require at least two months of rest and rehabilitation
- Pope Francis ‘ doctors provided their first in-person update on the pontiff’s condition in a month
ROME: Pope Francis will be released from the hospital on Sunday, after 38 days battling a life-threatening case of pneumonia in both lungs, his doctors said.
Gemelli medical director Dr. Sergio Alfieri said Saturday that Francis will require at least two months of rest and rehabilitation as he continues recovering back at the Vatican.
Francis was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a bout of bronchitis worsened. He later developed a life-threatening case of pneumonia.
Pope Francis ‘ doctors provided their first in-person update on the pontiff’s condition in a month, in a sign that he has made good and steady progress in his battle against double pneumonia.
The Saturday evening briefing is the first since Feb. 21, a week after the 88-year-old Francis was brought to Gemelli hospital. He subsequently experienced several respiratory crises that landed him in critical condition, though he has since stabilized.
In another development, the Vatican announced that Francis would appear on Sunday morning to bless faithful from his 10th floor suite at the hospital. While Francis released an audio message on March 6 and the Vatican distributed a photo of him March 16, Sunday’s blessing will be the first live appearance since Francis was admitted on Feb. 14 for what has become the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.
The Argentine pope, who has chronic lung disease, is prone to respiratory problems in winter and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted after a bout of bronchitis worsened.
Doctors first diagnosed a complex bacterial, viral and fungal respiratory tract infection and soon thereafter, pneumonia in both lungs. Blood tests showed signs of anemia, low blood platelets and the onset of kidney failure, all of which later resolved after two blood transfusions.
The most serious setbacks began on Feb. 28, when Francis experienced an acute coughing fit and inhaled vomit, requiring he use a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe. He suffered two more respiratory crises in the following days, which required doctors manually aspirate the mucus, at which point he began sleeping with the ventilation mask at night to help his lungs clear the accumulation of fluids.
At no point did he lose consciousness, and doctors reported he was alert and cooperative.
Over the past two weeks, he has stabilized and registered slight improvements, the Vatican press office has reported. He no longer needs to wear the ventilation mask at night, and is cutting back his reliance on high flows of supplemental oxygen during the day.
UK government considering offshore ‘migrant hubs’ for failed asylum seekers
- Potential partner nations include Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and North Macedonia
LONDON: The UK government is exploring the possibility of sending failed asylum seekers, including small boat arrivals, to overseas “migrant hubs,” Sky News reported on Saturday.
A Home Office source told political correspondent Amanda Akass that discussions were in the “very early stages,” with ministers closely examining Italy’s agreement with Albania, where two facilities process asylum seekers offshore.
Government sources also told The Times that potential partner nations include Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and North Macedonia, though officials have not confirmed which countries are under consideration.
“They don’t want to pre-empt any discussions which haven’t even officially begun yet,” according to the report.
The move follows a surge in Channel crossings, with 246 people arriving on Friday and 341 on Thursday, pushing the year’s total past 5,000 — the earliest in the year this milestone has been reached since records began in 2018.
The ruling Labour Party’s offshore processing plan is expected to differ from the previous Conservative government’s Rwanda scheme, which aimed to deport all illegal arrivals but was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court in 2023.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp of the opposition Conservative Party criticized the plan, calling it an admission of failure.
“This is Labour admitting they made a catastrophic mistake in canceling the Rwanda scheme before it even started. The fact they are now looking at offshore processing shows they were wrong to cancel Rwanda before it even started and shows their attempts to ‘smash the gangs’ have failed,” he said.
“In fact, illegal immigrants crossing the channel are up 28 percent since the election and this year has been the worst ever. Labour has lost control of our borders. They should urgently start the Rwanda removals scheme,” he added.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, meanwhile, welcomed the end of the Rwanda scheme but urged faster asylum processing, describing the number of people crossing the Channel so far this year as “really worrying.”
He added: “I’m actually glad that the government scrapped the Rwanda scheme because it wasn’t working as a deterrent. If they’ve got a better scheme that will work, we’ll look at that.”
He added that the previous scheme was ineffective as well as costing huge amounts of money.
“But they’ve also got to do quite a few other things. There’s too many hotels that are being used because people aren’t being processed quickly enough, and Liberal Democrats have argued for a long time that if you process people, you give them the right to work so they can actually contribute. That’s the way you could save a lot of money, and I think taxpayers would support that,” he said.
The UK recently signed an agreement with France to strengthen cooperation against people smuggling, while the government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill continues its passage through Parliament.
The Home Office was contacted for further comment but has so far failed to respond.
Venezuela agrees to again accept US deportation flights
- Washington deported 238 Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang
- “We have agreed with the US government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants with a first flight tomorrow,” Venezuelan top negotiator Jorge Rodriguez said
CARACAS: Venezuela announced Saturday it had reached an agreement with Washington to accept additional deportation flights from the United States, one week after more than 200 Venezuelans accused of being gang members were sent to El Salvador.
The flights were suspended last month when US President Donald Trump claimed Venezuela had not lived up to its promises, and Caracas subsequently said it would no longer accept the flights.
But then Washington deported 238 Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organization, to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a move deeply criticized by Caracas.
“In order to ensure the return of our countrymen with the protection of their human rights, we have agreed with the US government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants with a first flight tomorrow,” Venezuelan top negotiator Jorge Rodriguez said in a statement.
“Migrating is not a crime, and we will not rest until all those who want to return are home, and until we rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador,” said Rodriguez, who is also the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly.
Sunday’s trip will be the fifth flight of migrants arriving in Venezuela since Trump took office in January. Since February, about 900 Venezuelans have been repatriated, most from the United States and some from Mexico.
Last month, Trump revoked permission for oil giant Chevron to operate in Venezuela — a blow to Caracas’s wobbly economy. The Republican president said Maduro had failed to accept deported migrants “at the rapid pace” they agreed to.
The countries broke off diplomatic relations in 2019, during Trump’s first term, after Washington recognized then-opposition leader Juan Guaido as “interim president” following 2018 elections widely rejected as neither free nor fair.
Maduro nevertheless maintained his grip on power, and Joe Biden’s administration relaxed sanctions on Venezuelan oil as part of a deal for American prisoners and a promise to hold free elections. Those promised reforms never came.
Washington did not recognize Maduro’s 2024 reelection win.
There had been glimmers of hope for the relationship at the start of Trump’s new term, with US envoys in Caracas for talks.
Then Trump invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act to target Tren de Aragua, and sparked anger by reaching a deal with Salvadoran leader Nayib Bukele to use the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) outside San Salvador.
And on Friday, the United States said it was revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including from Venezuela, who had been granted entry under a plan launched by Biden in 2022.
They now have 30 days to leave the country.
Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American nations.
More than seven million Venezuelans have fled Venezuela over the last decade as their country’s oil-rich economy implodes under Maduro.
Family seeks India’s help after scholar detained in US over alleged Gaza support
- Badar Khan Suri is a fellow at Georgetown University, specializing in peace studies
- District court barred US administration from deporting him over political views
NEW DELHI: The family of an Indian scholar at Georgetown University is calling for New Delhi’s intervention after US agents detained him for deportation earlier this week despite a court order against the move.
Badar Khan Suri is an Indian national and a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in Washington, where he is studying and teaching on a student visa.
He was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents outside his home in northern Virginia on Monday.
A DHS assistant secretary said on X that Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” had “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist who is a senior adviser to Hamas,” and that his presence in the US rendered him “deportable.”
Suri is married to a Gazan woman whose father was a political adviser to Palestine’s former prime minister.
“His wife is from Palestine and his father-in-law is a supporter of Gaza and the Palestinian cause. This is the allegation against my son, and for this he has been arrested,” Suri’s father, Shamshad Ali Khan, told Arab News.
“The Indian government should intervene and ensure justice for him. My son has not committed any crime ... Is it a crime to talk about Palestine or get married to a Palestinian?”
Suri’s legal team and Georgetown’s administration have repeatedly denied the DHS claims on mainstream international TV channels, and on Thursday a US district judge in Virginia blocked the US administration’s attempt to deport him.
As of Saturday, he was still in detention.
Suri completed his Ph.D. in peace and conflict studies from Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, and was invited to become a fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center, a part of the university’s School of Foreign Service.
“My son has not committed any crime if he has spoken out for the helpless people of Palestine ... As a researcher in peace and conflict studies, it is his duty to talk about it and provide insight,” Khan said.
“I am proud of my son because he is a lecturer at Georgetown University. He is a brilliant student and scholar ... At the university, people are protesting in favor of my son. The students at the university, the faculty of the university, and even the court are in favor of my son.”
Suri’s father is in contact with his daughter-in-law, who has been seeking assistance of the Indian Embassy in the US.
“My daughter-in-law informed me that she has reached out to the Indian Embassy,” he said.
“I request the Indian government to come forward to help him. The Indian embassy in Washington should come forward and help my son.”
But India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Friday that knew about the detention only from the media and said that “when it comes to visa and immigration policy, it is something that lies within the sovereign functions of a country.”
However, top lawyers say that the government has a series of obligations it must fulfill.
“India is obliged, as all nations are, to protect its citizens anywhere in the world, so India must lodge a protest to the US, provide consular services to Mr. Suri and publicly mention that his detention is illegal,” Dushyant Dave, former Supreme Court Bar Association president and senior advocate, told Arab News.
According to another Supreme Court lawyer, Anas Tanveer, even if immigration policy is a sovereign function of the US, it is the duty of the embassy to act.
“The person there is not an illegal immigrant. He is on a scholarship, he is on a valid visa, and unless his conditions of admission and unemployment prohibit him (from expressing dissent) — and I don’t think it is possible in the US — he was very well within his rights,” he said.
“India must provide diplomatic access; India must provide legal help. The embassy must provide that. You can’t remain silent ... These are the principles of the Vienna Convention that every nation is a signatory to.”
Congo M23 rebels say they will withdraw from seized town to support peace push
- The government said it hoped the move would be translated into concrete action
- The Congo River Alliance, which includes M23, said in a statement on Saturday that it had “decided to reposition its forces” from Walikale
CONGO: Rwanda-backed M23 rebels staging an offensive in east Congo said on Saturday they would withdraw forces from the seized town of Walikale in support of peace efforts, having previously said they were leaving troops there as they pushed on to the capital.
The government said it hoped the move would be translated into concrete action, after M23 this week pulled out of planned talks with Congolese authorities at the last minute due to EU sanctions on some of its leaders and Rwandan officials.
It would have been their first direct engagement with Congo’s government after President Felix Tshisekedi reversed his longstanding refusal to speak to the rebels.
The Congo River Alliance, which includes M23, said in a statement on Saturday that it had “decided to reposition its forces” from Walikale and surrounding areas that M23 took control of this week.
This decision was in line with a ceasefire declared in February and in support of peace initiatives, it said in a statement that was greeted with skepticism by army officers.
A senior member of the alliance who did not wish to be named said repositioning meant withdrawing to “give peace a chance.” The source declined to say where M23 rebels would withdraw to.
“We are asking for Walikale and surroundings to remain demilitarised,” the source said. “If the FARDC (Congo’s army) and their allies come back, this means they want to relaunch hostilities.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told reporters: “We are going to see whether M23 will withdraw from Walikale and whether M23 will give priority to dialogue and peace ... So we hope that this will be translated into concrete action.”
PEACE EFFORTS
Congo’s army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An army officer said he was skeptical about the announced withdrawal. Another officer said M23 was advancing toward Mubi, another town in the area, after the army and pro-government militia bombed Walikale’s airport and cut off some of M23’s road access.
“They now have a provision problem,” said the second officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They will not withdraw. They will move in front of (Walikale) and behind it.”
A M23 officer told Walikale residents on Thursday they were leaving a small group of soldiers there to provide security, while other soldiers “continue all the way to Kinshasa.”
Walikale is the furthest west the rebels have reached in an unprecedented advance that has already overrun eastern Congo’s two largest cities since January.
Its capture put the rebels within 400 km (250 miles) of Kisangani, the country’s fourth-biggest city with a bustling port at the Congo River’s farthest navigable point upstream of the capital Kinshasa, some 1,500 km (930 miles) away.
There have been several attempts to resolve the spiralling conflict, rooted in the fallout from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and competition for mineral riches, including several ceasefires that were violated and regional summits to open up dialogue.
Congo, the United Nations and Western governments say Rwanda has been providing arms and troops to the ethnic Tutsi-led M23. Rwanda denies this, saying its military has been acting in self-defense against Congo’s army and a militia founded by perpetrators of the genocide.
The M23 alliance leader Corneille Naanga on Friday dismissed a joint call for an immediate ceasefire by Congo and Rwanda and reiterated demands for direct talks with Kinshasa, saying it was the only way to resolve the conflict.
