SYDNEY: Thousands of children returned to school in Sydney on Monday after months of home learning as Australia’s largest city, buoyed by rising vaccination rates, eased more COVID-19 restrictions.
Masks will no longer be mandatory in offices and more people will be allowed to gather in homes and outdoors after New South Wales state, home to Sydney, reached an 80 percent double dose inoculation rate for people aged over 16 over the weekend.
The latest in a series of planned easing of restrictions marks a shift by Australia’s largest cities to living with the virus, a strategy officials have warned will bring a greater number of COVID-19 cases in coming weeks.
“This is not over, there is a long journey to go,” New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said on Monday, urging people to strictly follow the remaining health rules.
Retail stores, pubs and gyms can allow more vaccinated patrons and nightclubs can reopen for seated drinking, while weddings can have unlimited guests. However, all must follow social distancing measures.
The return to the classroom has been staggered, with the youngest and eldest students — those in kindergarten, year 1 and year 12 — returning on Monday. All others return next week.
New South Wales reported 265 new cases on Monday, the lowest single-day rise in 10 weeks and well below a high of 1,599 in early September.
Neighboring Victoria reported 1,903 new cases, up from 1,838 a day earlier. State capital Melbourne is on track to begin exiting its lockdown on Friday as full vaccination levels near 70 percent. The city has endured around nine months under strict stay-home orders since March 2020 — the longest in the world, according to Australian media.
Some virus-free states, however, have flagged they will keep internal borders closed amid fears that reopening could overwhelm their health systems.
By contrast, the federal government said it would roll out its vaccination passport for international travel from Tuesday, a key step in its plan to allow Australian citizens to travel abroad from next month.
Authorities said last week that vaccinated international travelers, initially only citizens and permanent residents, will be allowed to enter Sydney from Nov. 1 without the need to quarantine.
With some 145,000 cases and 1,543 deaths, Australia’s exposure to the coronavirus pandemic has been relatively low.
Sydney eases more COVID-19 curbs as vaccinations pass milestone
https://arab.news/g6c76
Sydney eases more COVID-19 curbs as vaccinations pass milestone
- Masks will no longer be mandatory in offices and more people will be allowed to gather in homes and outdoors
At least three die, including two children, in Libya-Italy crossing
- The migrants were intercepted on Saturday on a rubber boat floating adrift south of the Italian island of Lampedusa that had been spotted by a surveillance aircraft of the EU border agency Frontex
ROME: At least three people have died, including two children aged 3 and 4, in a Mediterranean sea crossing from Libya to Italy, a German sea rescue charity said on Sunday, adding that it had rescued 59 survivors.
The migrants were intercepted on Saturday on a rubber boat floating adrift south of the Italian island of Lampedusa that had been spotted by a surveillance aircraft of the EU border agency Frontex.
“By the time (we) reached the rubber boat at around 4.30pm (1430 GMT), it was too late to help some of the people,” the RESQSHIP charity said in a statement.
“Two bodies of infants aged 3 and 4 were handed over to us,” the charity quoted one of its paramedics identified only as Rania as saying. “They had died the day before, probably of thirst.”
A man was found unconscious and declared dead after attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, RESQSHIP said, adding that it was told by survivors that another migrant had drowned on Friday after going overboard.
Many of the survivors, who were taken to Lampedusa, suffered chemical burns from salt water and fuel, the group said. Two children and four adults in critical condition were handed over to the Italian coast guard to be brought ashore more quickly.
The rubber boat had set off from the port of Zawiya in western Libya on Wednesday, but its engine failed after one day of navigation, leaving the migrants on board exposed to wind and weather, the NGO said.
Lampedusa lies between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily and is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the EU from North Africa, in what has become one of the world’s deadliest sea crossings.
Almost 25,000 migrants have died or gone missing on this central Mediterranean route since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, including around 1,700 last year and 378 so far this year.
Passenger bus skids off a cliff in Sri Lanka, killing 21
- Deadly bus accidents are common in Sri Lanka, especially in the mountainous regions
COLOMBO: A passenger bus skidded off a cliff in Sri Lanka’s tea-growing hill country on Sunday, killing 21 people and injuring at least 14 others, an official said.
The accident occurred in the early hours of Sunday near the town of Kotmale, about 140 kilometers (86 miles) east of Colombo, the capital, in a mountainous area of central Sri Lanka, police said.
Deputy Minister of Transport and Highways Prasanna Gunasena told the media that 21 people died in the accident and 14 others are being treated in hospitals.
Local television showed the bus lying overturned at the bottom of a precipice while workers and others helped remove injured people from the rubble.
The driver was injured and among those admitted to the hospital for treatment. At the time of the accident, nearly 50 people were traveling on the bus.
The bus was operated by a state-run bus company, police said.
Deadly bus accidents are common in Sri Lanka, especially in the mountainous regions, often due to reckless driving and poorly maintained and narrow roads.
Zelensky says he will meet Putin after Trump tells him not to await truce
- Russian president proposed that Ukraine and Russia hold direct talks in Istanbul next Thursday, May 15
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would agree to meet Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in Turkiye on Thursday after US President Donald Trump told him immediately to accept Putin’s proposal of direct talks.
The Ukrainian leader had responded guardedly earlier on Sunday after the Russian president, in a night-time televised statement that coincided with prime time in the US, proposed that Ukraine and Russia hold direct talks in Istanbul next Thursday, May 15.
It was not clear that Putin had proposed to attend in person, however.
“I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Putin’s proposal came hours after major European powers demanded on Saturday in Kyiv that Putin agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face “massive” new sanctions, a position that Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg endorsed on Sunday.
Zelensky too had said Ukraine would be ready for talks with Russia, but only after Moscow agreed to the 30-day ceasefire.
But Trump, who has the power to continue or sever Washington’s crucial supply of arms to Ukraine, took a different line.
“President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkiye, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!“
Putin sent Russia’s armed forces into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
With Russian forces grinding forward, the Kremlin chief has offered few, if any, concessions so far.
In his overnight address, he proposed what he said would be “direct negotiations without any preconditions.”
But almost immediately, senior Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the talks must take into account both an abandoned 2022 draft peace deal and the current situation on the ground.
This language is shorthand for Kyiv agreeing to permanent neutrality in return for a security guarantee and accepting that Russia controls swathes of Ukraine.
Putin also dismissed what he said was an attempt to lay down “ultimatums” in the form of Western European and Ukrainian demands for a ceasefire starting on Monday. His foreign ministry spelled out that talks about the root causes of the conflict must precede discussions of a ceasefire.
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker and has repeatedly promised to end the war, earlier responded to Putin’s address by saying that this could be “A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!.”
Taliban govt suspends chess in Afghanistan over gambling
- Gambling is illegal under the Taliban government’s morality law
- An Afghani cafe owner said he would respect the suspension but that it would hurt his business and those who enjoyed the game
KABUL: Taliban authorities have barred chess across Afghanistan until further notice over concerns it is a source of gambling, which is illegal under the government’s morality law, a sports official said on Sunday.
The Taliban government has steadily imposed laws and regulations that reflect its austere vision of Islamic law since seizing power in 2021.
“Chess in sharia (Islamic law) is considered a means of gambling,” which is prohibited according to the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice law announced last year, sports directorate spokesperson Atal Mashwani told AFP.
“There are religious considerations regarding the sport of chess,” he said.
“Until these considerations are addressed, the sport of chess is suspended in Afghanistan,” he added.
Mashwani said the national chess federation had not held any official events for around two years and “had some issues on the leadership level.”
Azizullah Gulzada owns a cafe in Kabul that has hosted informal chess competitions in recent years, but denied any gambling took place and noted chess was played in other Muslim-majority countries.
“Many other Islamic countries have players on an international level,” he told AFP.
He said he would respect the suspension but that it would hurt his business and those who enjoyed the game.
“Young people don’t have a lot of activities these days, so many came here everyday,” he told AFP.
“They would have a cup of tea and challenge their friends to a game of chess.”
Afghanistan’s authorities have restricted other sports in recent years and women have been essentially barred from participating in sport altogether in the country.
Last year, the authorities banned free fighting such as mixed martial arts (MMA) in professional competition, saying it was too “violent” and “problematic with respect to sharia.”
Some Ukrainian soldiers say Russians must withdraw before any peace talks
- Soldiers in drone unit say Russians must withdraw before peace talks
- Insist Russia pull back to Ukraine’s 1991 borders and say there was no three-day ceasefire
ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION, Ukraine: After fending off attacks during a three-day weekend ceasefire declared by Russia, some Ukrainian soldiers fighting near the front line had advice for their president, Volodymyr Zelensky: don’t talk to Moscow until Russian troops withdraw.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed direct talks with Ukraine just over an hour after his ceasefire ended, something Zelensky said was possible, but only after Moscow agreed to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire from Monday.
Preparing drones to observe Russian troop movements as the ceasefire was ending, the commander of a drone unit in Ukraine’s national guard, using the call sign Chepa, told Reuters any talks could only start with a full Russian withdrawal to Ukraine’s borders when the country won independence in 1991.
“As a soldier and a citizen of Ukraine I believe that before we sit down at the negotiation table we should go back to the borders of 1991,” Chepa said in a bunker near the front line.
“That’s it. Full withdrawal of all troops from the territory of Ukraine. Then when we can talk. Whatever he (Putin) is thinking of, take certain regions or divide territories, nobody has given him the right to do it.”
Chepa’s views were echoed by others in the unit.
Russia occupies nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory and has repeatedly said Kyiv must recognize the “reality on the ground.”
Zelensky has acknowledged that at least some of Ukraine’s occupied territory will have to be retaken through diplomacy. But Kyiv cannot legally recognize Russian control over any Ukrainian territory because of the constitution.
Zelensky has said any discussion about territory can only take place after a ceasefire is in place.
Putin used a late night press conference to make his proposal for talks, which he said, should be based on a draft deal negotiated in 2022, under which Ukraine would agree to permanent neutrality.
That would contradict Ukraine’s constitution, amended in 2019 to include the goal of “fully-fledged membership” of NATO.
Zelensky received a show of support from European powers on Saturday, when the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland backed an unconditional ceasefire beginning on Monday.
Chepa said he also wanted negotiations but feared they would never come about.
“Yes, we do need negotiations. But he (Putin) is scared of talks,” Chepa said, adding his brigade had seen no evidence of a ceasefire over the weekend.
“We have not seen any ceasefire, there were continuous attacks by howitzers, rocket launchers, they used it all. We have not experienced any ceasefire.”
The Russian movements continued into Sunday, after the Russian-declared ceasefire ran out at midnight (2100 GMT), when the reconnaissance drones flew over a nearby village.
“There is a lot of movement there of military as well as civilian vehicles,” Chepa said. “Interesting that so close to the contact line there is a civilian car. Not damaged, mind you. They must be making good use of it.”
