CANBERRA: Sydney’s international airport came alive with tears, embraces and laughter on Monday as Australia’s border opened for the first time in 20 months, with some arriving travelers tearing away mandatory masks to see faces of loved ones they’ve been separated from for so long.
“Just being able to come home without having to go to quarantine is huge,” Carly Boyd, a passenger who had traveled from New York, told reporters at Sydney’s Kingsford-Smith Airport, where Peter Allen’s unofficial national anthem “I Still Call Australia Home” was playing.
“There’s a lot of people on that flight who have loved ones who are about to die or have people who died this week. So for them to be able to get off the plane and go see them straight away is pretty amazing,” Boyd added.
Australia is betting that vaccination rates are now high enough to mitigate the danger of allowing international visitors again after maintaining some of the lengthiest and strictest border controls anywhere during the coronavirus pandemic.
Thailand, too, was reopening its border Monday. Fully vaccinated tourists arriving by air from 46 countries and territories no longer have to quarantine and can move freely. And local restrictions such as a curfew in some areas were being lifted.
Before the pandemic, Sydney was Australia’s busiest international airport but until Monday had been almost deserted.
The new freedoms mean that outbound fully vaccinated Australian permanent residents and citizens can leave the country for any reason without asking the government for an exemption from a travel ban that has trapped most at home since March 25, 2020.
Incoming vaccinated Australians are able to come home without quarantining in a hotel for two weeks. The cap on hotel quarantine numbers had been a major obstacle for thousands of Australians stranded overseas. That cap now only applies to unvaccinated travelers.
Sydney was the first Australian airport to announce it would reopen Monday because New South Wales was the first state where 80 percent of the population aged 16 and older have been fully vaccinated. Melbourne and and the national capital Canberra also opened on Monday after Victoria state and the Australian Capital Territory achieved the vaccination benchmark.
Sydney had 16 scheduled inbound international flights on Monday and 14 outbound. Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, had five scheduled in and five out. Canberra had none.
The first regular international passenger flight to land in Australia was a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore that landed before 6 a.m. local time, followed by a Qantas Airways flight that had flown 15 hours from Los Angeles.
Qantas customer service manager Paul Wason said landing in Sydney was a “huge day” for passengers and crew alike.
“Very much mixed emotions, great emotions, lots of happiness, lots of sadness, lots of excitement as well,” Wason said.
An Australian who lives in San Francisco, who identified himself only as Jeremy, said he had been trying to fly back to Sydney with his wife and baby daughter since July. They had been prevented at short notice four times from flying, twice because flights were delayed and twice because quarantine caps had been reduced in response to the COVID-19 delta variant taking hold in Sydney in June.
“At every moment until we were sitting on the plane, it just felt like something was going to go wrong and I’m so glad that it all worked out and that we’re here,” Jeremy told Australian Broadcasting Corp. at Sydney’s airport.
Initially only Australian permanent residents and citizens will be free to enter the country. Fully vaccinated foreigners traveling on skilled worker and student visas will be given priority over international tourists.
But now the government expects Australia will welcome international tourists back before the year ends to some degree.
Some of Australia’s 1.6 million temporary residents feel left out of Australia’s reopening plan and unsure of their travel status.
“I think that it’s vague around the definition of residents and where we get to be involved in that national plan,” said Jennifer Clayburn, an American living with her family in Melbourne since January last year on a short-term visa for skilled workers.
“We have been doing it tough, alongside all Australians. We too want to be around the table at Christmas with our family, but we do not want to be summarily locked out of Australia upon return,” she added.
Graham Turner, chief executive of Australia largest travel agency Flight Center, said international travel to Australia was not expected to return to normal until mid-2024.
“It will come back quickly for those people who really want to travel. Initially. it’s the friends and relatives. People who haven’t seen each other for a long time,” Turner said.
“That will be the first wave. And the traveling wave will tend to come a little bit later, once people see what the scenario is like,” Turner added.
While Australians are now free to travel overseas, four Australian states and a territory place pandemic restrictions on crossing state lines.
Australian Ethen Carter, who landed at Sydney’s airport from Los Angeles expressed his frustration at having to apply for permission to visit his dying mother in Western Australia state.
Western Australia has little COVID-19 and has the nation’s lowest level of vaccinations, with only 63 percent of the target population fully vaccinated.
Carter pleaded through the media to Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan to let him in. McGowan has said the state border will not open this year.
“Mark, think of the people that are suffering, like, mentally to see their family. That’s also a health issue. And we know we’ve got to protect people’s lives, but you’ve got to bring families together again, you have to,” Carter said.
McGowan said his government would consider allowing Carter to enter the state if he applied for an exemption.
“These situations are very sad and very difficult and we’ve seen much of this over the course over the last two years,” McGowan said.
Australians reunite as border reopens after 20-month ban
https://arab.news/rv6wg
Australians reunite as border reopens after 20-month ban

- Australia is betting that vaccination rates are now high enough to mitigate the danger of allowing international visitors again
Dubai crown prince arrives in India on first state visit

- With over $3 billion in foreign direct investment, India was Dubai’s top investor in 2024
- Dubai crown prince will also take part in a business roundtable meeting in Mumbai
NEW DELHI: The crown prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday for his first state visit to India, where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and members of his cabinet.
Sheikh Hamdan is on a two-day visit to New Delhi and Mumbai, leading a delegation of ministers, senior government officials and business leaders.
India’s economic ties with Dubai have been growing rapidly, following the 2022 UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which has eliminated trade barriers, lowered tariffs and eased business operations, making it easier for companies in both countries to access each other’s markets.
“Dubai has played a key role in advancing the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This special visit reaffirms our deep-rooted friendship and paves the way for even stronger collaboration in the future,” Modi said on X after the meeting.
Trade volume between Dubai and India was worth around $45.4 billion in 2023, up from $36.7 billion in 2019, data from the emirate’s media office showed.
India was Dubai’s top investor in 2024, with over $3 billion in foreign direct investment across various sectors, such as business services, software and IT services, consumer products, food and beverages, and real estate.
As of last year, more than 70,000 Indian companies have joined the Dubai Chamber of Commerce.
The most populous of the UAE’s seven emirates is also home to the majority of India’s 4.3 million diaspora in the country.
“It was a pleasure meeting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi today in New Delhi,” Sheikh Hamdan wrote on X.
“Our conversations reaffirmed the strength of UAE–India ties, which is built on trust, shaped by history, and driven by a shared vision to create a future full of opportunity, innovation, and lasting prosperity.”
Sheikh Hamdan, who serves as UAE’s Defense Minister, also held meetings with both his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.
On the sidelines of his visit, representatives of the Dubai Chambers were presiding over a business forum in Mumbai to explore “new trade and investment prospects” with around 200 industry leaders, the Dubai Media Office said in a statement.
After Delhi, Sheikh Hamdan will continue his trip to Mumbai, where he will take part in a roundtable meeting with top business leaders from India and Dubai.
South Korean military fire warning shots after North Korean soldiers cross the border

- South Korea’s military said it is closely monitoring North Korean activities
- Bloodshed and violent confrontations have occasionally occurred at the Koreas’ heavily fortified border
SEOUL: South Korea’s military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the rivals’ tense border on Tuesday, South Korean officials said.
South Korea’s military said in a statement that about 10 North Korean soldiers returned to the North after South Korea made warning broadcasts and fired warning shots. It said the North Korean soldiers violated the military demarcation line at the eastern section of the border at 5 p.m.
South Korea’s military said it is closely monitoring North Korean activities.
Bloodshed and violent confrontations have occasionally occurred at the Koreas’ heavily fortified border, called the Demilitarized Zone. But when North Korean troops briefly violated the border in June last year and prompted South Korea to fire warning shots, it didn’t escalate into a major source of tensions. South Korean officials assessed that the soldiers didn’t deliberately commit the border intrusion and the site was a wooded area and military demarcation line signs there weren’t clearly visible. South Korea said the North Koreans were carrying construction tools.
The motive for Tuesday’s border crossing by North Korean soldiers wasn’t immediately clear.
The 248-kilometer (155-mile) -long, 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) -wide DMZ is the world’s most heavily armed border. An estimated 2 million mines are peppered inside and near the border, which is also guarded by barbed wire fences, tank traps and combat troops on both sides. It’s a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Animosities between the Koreas are running high now as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to flaunt his military nuclear capabilities and align with Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. Kim is also ignoring calls by Seoul and Washington to resume denuclearization negotiations.
Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, US President Donald Trump has said he would reach out to Kim again to revive diplomacy. North Korea has not responded to Trump’s remarks and says US hostilities against it have deepened since Trump’s inauguration.
South Korea, meanwhile, is experiencing a leadership vacuum after the ouster of President Yoon Suk Yeol last week over his ill-fated imposition of martial law.
Bangladesh police arrest former prosecutor for attempted murder

- The case is the latest in a string of detentions of people who had held senior positions during Hasina’s rule
- Tureen Afroz was arrested on Monday night on charges of attempted murder
DHAKA: Bangladeshi police said Tuesday they arrested a lawyer who served as a senior prosecutor at a court that sentenced Islamist leaders to death under the rule of ousted hard-line prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The case is the latest in a string of detentions of people who had held senior positions during Hasina’s rule, who is herself wanted on charges of crimes against humanity for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the unrest that toppled her government last August.
Tureen Afroz was arrested on Monday night on charges of attempted murder, in a case linked to the student-led uprising, said Muhidul Islam, police deputy commissioner in the capital Dhaka.
The case against Afroz was filed by Mohammed Jabbar, 21, who was shot last August as security forces sought to quash protests.
“She has several co-accused in this particular case, but none are as prominent as she is,” Muhidul told AFP.
Afroz was a prosecutor at Bangladesh’s domestic International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), which was set up by Hasina in 2010 to probe atrocities during the country’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.
The ICT sentenced numerous prominent political opponents to death over the following years and became widely seen as a means for Hasina to eliminate her rivals.
Afroz played a prominent role in the cases of at least six Islamist leaders, including several from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, who were sentenced to hang. All except Ghulam Azam were executed.
This is the first time a former ICT prosecutor has been arrested on such charges.
Hasina has defied extradition requests from Bangladesh to face charges — at the same ICT court she set up — after she fled to old ally India as crowds stormed her palace.
The court’s current chief prosecutor, Tajul Islam, previously served as a defense counsel representing several of those accused of 1971 war crimes.
South Korea sets snap presidential election for June 3, drawing out contenders

- President Yoon ousted last week after December martial law
- Multiple candidates emerge amid political turmoil
SEOUL: Leading contenders began to throw their hats in the ring on Tuesday as South Korea officially set June 3 for a snap presidential election triggered by last week’s removal from office of impeached leader Yoon Suk Yeol.
The power vacuum at the top of government has impeded Seoul’s efforts to negotiate with the administration of US President Donald Trump at a time of spiralling US tariffs and slowing growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Yoon was removed on Friday over his short-lived declaration of martial law in December that plunged the key US ally into crisis, triggering a new election that could reshape its foreign and domestic policy.
“The government intends to designate June 3 as the 21st presidential election day,” Acting President Han Duck-soo told a cabinet meeting, citing factors such as the time political parties need to prepare for the event.
Yoon’s labor minister Kim Moon-soo is among a handful of hopefuls who have signalled their intention to run, resigning his post on Tuesday and saying he would launch his campaign.
While not officially a member of Yoon’s People Power Party at the moment, Kim has been polling better than other conservative contenders.
“I tendered my resignation and decided to run because the people want it, people I know want it, and I feel a sense of responsibility to solve national difficulties,” Kim told reporters.
Economic conditions during a “severe national crisis” are hurting people’s livelihoods, he said.
“I thought that all politicians and people should unite to overcome the crisis and work together to help the country develop further,” Kim said.
Ahn Cheol-soo, a PPP lawmaker who was its first to vote for Yoon’s impeachment, also declared his intention to run on Tuesday, saying he was a “cleaner candidate than anyone else.”
He also vowed to secure new economic growth engines including artificial intelligence, to counter Trump’s trade policies.
Ahn fought the last three presidential elections, winning more than 21 percent of the popular vote in 2017, but dropping out and endorsing other candidates in the other two. He is not polling high enough to be included in most recent surveys.
Kim and Ahn will join a wide open field of conservative candidates trying to overcome their party’s second impeachment in as many presidencies.
Conservative Park Geun-hye was impeached, removed from office, and imprisoned in 2017 over a corruption scandal.
Lee Jae-myung, the populist leader of the liberal Democratic Party who lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is a clear front-runner, but faces legal challenges of his own.
These include multiple trials for charges such as violating the election law and bribery.
Nevertheless, he is expected to step down as DP leader and declare his candidacy as soon as this week.
A Gallup poll published on Friday showed 34 percent of respondents supported Lee as the next leader, while 9 percent backed Kim, 5 percent opted for former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, 4 percent chose Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo, and 2 percent plumped for Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon.
Yoon was removed by the Constitutional Court for violating his official duty by issuing a martial law decree on December 3 and mobilizing troops in a bid to halt parliamentary proceedings.
The law requires a new presidential election to be held within 60 days if the position becomes vacant.
Yoon still faces criminal insurrection charges, with arguments in his trial to begin on April 14.
South Korea has faced months of political turmoil since Yoon stunned the country by declaring martial law, triggering his impeachment by parliament and the impeachment of acting leader Han.
Han’s impeachment was later overturned by the Constitutional Court and he will stay in the role of acting president until the election.
US aid cuts a ‘death sentence’ for millions: UN

- The Trump administration has largely gutted USAID, the main US humanitarian assistance organization
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United States has ended emergency food aid for 14 countries, endangering the lives of millions of hungry or starving people, a United Nations agency said Monday.
The World Food Program (WFP), which was already grappling with a 40 percent drop in funding for this year, said it had been advised of the new American aid halt to 14 countries.
In comments on X, the agency did not name these countries.
“If implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” the agency said.
The WFP is not the only UN body hit by US funding cuts, as the United States under President Donald Trump turns sharply inward and stops trying to help other countries around the world as part of an isolationist agenda.
The Trump administration told the UN Population Fund, an agency dedicated to promoting sexual and reproductive health, that it was ending two programs, the organization told AFP Monday.
One of programs was for Afghanistan, while the other involved Syria.
Other countries besides the United States have also announced funding cuts in recent months, causing alarm among NGOs and international organizations.
The Trump administration has largely gutted USAID, the main US humanitarian assistance organization. It previously had a yearly budget of $42.8 billion, which was 42 percent of all aid money disbursed around the world.