NEW DELHI: Temperatures in India’s capital soared to a record-high 49.9° Celsius on Tuesday, the government’s weather bureau said.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), which reported “severe heat-wave conditions,” recorded the temperatures at two Delhi suburbs stations at Narela and Mungeshpur.
Forecasters predict similar temperatures on Wednesday.
In May 2022, parts of Delhi hit 49.2° Celsius, Indian media reported at the time.
India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures.
But years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
New Delhi authorities have also warned of the risk of water shortages as the capital swelters in an intense heatwave — cutting supplies to some areas.
Water Minister Atishi Marlena has called for “collective responsibility” to stop wasteful water use, the Times of India newspaper reported Wednesday.
“To address the problem of water scarcity, we have taken a slew of measures such as reducing water supply from twice a day to once a day in many areas,” Atishi said, the Indian Express reported.
“The water thus saved will be rationed and supplied to the water-deficient areas where supply lasts only 15 to 20 minutes a day,” she added.
The IMD warned of the heat’s impact on health, especially for infants, the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
At the same time, West Bengal state and the northeastern state of Mizoram have been hit by gales and lashing rains from Cyclone Remal, which hit India and Bangladesh on Sunday, killing more than 38 people.
Bangladesh’s Meteorological Department said the cyclone was “one of longest in the country’s history,” blaming climate change for the shift.
Indian capital records highest-ever temperature at 49.9°Celsius: weather bureau
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Indian capital records highest-ever temperature at 49.9°Celsius: weather bureau
- New Delhi authorities have also warned of the risk of water shortages as the capital swelters in an intense heatwave
- Warnings on heat’s impact on health, especially for infants, the elderly and those with chronic diseases
Philippine food tourism sets sights on travelers from GCC
- Philippines this week hosts UN’s first regional forum on food travel
- Country expands halal tourism portfolio to attract more Muslim visitors
CEBU CITY: The Philippines is tapping into its diverse culinary heritage to attract visitors, especially from Gulf Cooperation Council countries, its tourism chief said, as the country hosted the UN’s first regional forum on food travel.
The conference in Cebu was held in conjunction with the UN Tourism’s annual joint meeting of the Commission for East Asia and the Pacific, and the Commission for South Asia.
Co-organized by the Philippine government, the forum focused on policies to advance the culinary tourism of the Asia-Pacific region.
“We greatly value the opportunity to expand Philippine tourism to the Middle Eastern market, especially by way of our Filipino flavors,” Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco told Arab News on the sidelines of the UN meetings on Friday.
She added that tourism arrivals from GCC countries had more than recovered following the global pandemic.
The COVID-19 outbreak dealt a major blow to the Philippine tourism industry — a main contributor to the economy — but after shutdowns in 2020 and 2021, it is back on track, and is forecast to soon meet its pre-pandemic level of 8.26 million visitor arrivals in 2019.
Part of the strategy to revive the sector was expanding the country’s halal tourism portfolio, which last month — for a second consecutive time — won the Philippines the Emerging Muslim-friendly non-Organization of Islamic Cooperation Destination award at the annual Halal in Travel Global Summit in Singapore.
The predominantly Catholic country, where Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the nearly 120 million population, has welcomed more than 2 million international travelers since the beginning of the year, with a 10 percent increase, compared with last year, in the number of visitors arriving from GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are among the Philippine government’s key emerging-market targets.
“We relish the opportunity to welcome our Middle Eastern friends to the country and we are now presently working on strategic partnerships,” Frasco said.
“We also possess tourism products that are quite attractive to the Middle Eastern market, especially in terms of our leisure tourism products, our sand and beach, our diving, as well as our luxury tourism destinations, and our health and wellness and medical tourism portfolio.”
As the Philippines hosted the UN Tourism Regional Forum on Gastronomy Tourism for Asia and the Pacific, its latest focus is food tourism — a burgeoning trend in the Middle East, where travelers seek authentic culinary experiences.
With about 2 million Filipinos living and working in the region, Philippine stakeholders understand their requirements.
“Our very talented Filipino chefs and support crew populate many kitchens all over the world as well as many tourism establishments, including those in the Middle East,” Frasco said.
“We hope to be able to fully open up opportunities for Filipino flavors to be known to the world especially.”
Saudi team trains Indonesian doctors in child heart surgery
- Surgeons, support staff sponsored by KSrelief arrived in Medan last month
- Only 50% of Indonesian children born with heart disease receive treatment
RIYADH: Saudi doctors are training their Indonesian colleagues in child heart surgery and helping expand access to pediatric cardiac care in the country’s northwest, the Indonesian Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
The 22-member surgical team arrived at Adam Malik Central General Hospital in Medan, North Sumatra province last month under a residence program arranged by Saudi aid agency KSrelief.
They began by performing free heart procedures on adult patients and last week switched focus to children with congenital heart disease, which in Indonesia often remains untreated due to a shortage of specialist wards.
An estimated 12,000 Indonesian children are born with heart disease each year. Only half of them are treated for it.
“The capacity of our doctors and hospitals is only 6,000 of the 12,000 each year. So, every year 6,000 children cannot be served and many of them die,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.
“We’ve been collaborating with foreign institutions willing to send their doctors to Indonesia to, in the first place, provide services that we have not been able to provide in certain regions and, in the second place, to speed up the specialist training of our doctors to carry out the much needed procedures.”
The Saudi team comprises surgeons, nurses, perfusionists and respiratory therapists from the King Faisal Cardiac Center in Jeddah and the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center in Riyadh.
The transfer of knowledge program sponsored by KSrelief supports Indonesia’s health system transformation plan, under which all regional government hospitals should become capable of carrying out open-heart surgery and pediatric heart surgery. Until now, cardiac procedures on children have been referred to hospitals in the capital, Jakarta, which is nearly 2,000 km away from Medan.
For many parents, like Rominu Marpaung, the cost of travel is impossible to bear.
Marpaung’s 15-year-old son, Binsar, was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve five years ago and referred for surgery in Jakarta, but the family could not afford to send him.
On Tuesday, he was operated on by the visiting Saudi team.
“Up until now, I was taking Binsar only for outpatient treatment. I took him to so many hospitals,” Marpaung said.
“Thank you to the team of doctors for helping my child.”
UK submission of arguments to ICC could delay Netanyahu, Gallant arrest warrants
- Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday that the British government was allowed to submit legal arguments to judges mulling
LONDON: A UK submission of arguments at the international criminal court could delay a decision on the issuance of arrest warrants against the Israeli prime minister and defense minister for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday that the British government was allowed to submit legal arguments to judges mulling prosecutor Karim Khan’s request issued in May for arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
Court documents made public on Thursday showed that UK, as an ICC member state, filed a request with the court earlier this month to provide written observations on whether “the court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals (under) the Oslo Accords.”
The court already has an ongoing investigation, launched in 2021, into any alleged crimes within its jurisdiction committed on Palestinian territory and by Palestinians on the territory of Israel.
In the same year, judges ruled that the court did have jurisdiction after the Palestinian authorities signed up to the court in 2015, after being granted United Nations observer state status.
The decision, however, left a ruling on the interpretation of the 1993 Oslo Accords regarding Palestinian jurisdiction over Israeli nationals for a later stage in the proceedings.
The British argument is that the Palestinian authorities cannot have jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the accords, and so it cannot transfer that jurisdiction over to the ICC to prosecute Israelis.
Experts told the Guardian newspaper on Friday that the decision to allow the UK to intervene on this issue might delay the arrest warrants case, though a former ICC official familiar with the 2021 case said the jurisdictional issues had been resolved and, if challenged, would be “dead on arrival.”
Mark Kersten, an ICC expert and criminal justice professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Canada, said “it would beggar belief” if judges ruled Palestine “could not ask the court to address atrocities committed on its territories because of a moribund Oslo peace process.”
Danya Chaikel, an International Federation for Human Rights’ representative at the ICC, said Britain’s attempt to challenge ICC jurisdiction citing the Oslo accords was “deeply troubling and unjust.”
Clive Baldwin, a senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch, also said the UK should not be “leading the charge for double standards in victims’ access to justice.”
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “The UK believes that the court has not yet engaged with the impact and effect of the Oslo accords on jurisdiction in this case and we think it is imperative that they do so at any early stage of proceedings.”
* With Reuters
Fourteen killed in Nigeria after truck driver ‘lost control’
- The goods-laden truck lost control and ran over worshippers leaving a mosque
- The truck “lost control and collided with pedestrians who had just concluded Friday prayers,” the statement said
The truck “lost control and collided with pedestrians who had just concluded Friday prayers,” the statement said
KANO, Nigeria: Fourteen people were killed when a truck plowed into Muslim worshippers outside the northern Nigerian city of Kano, Nigeria’s road safety agency said.
The goods-laden truck lost control and ran over worshippers leaving a mosque shortly after observing Friday prayers in Imawa village, 30 kilometers outside Kano, the Federal Road Safety Commission said in a statement late Friday.
The truck “lost control and collided with pedestrians who had just concluded Friday prayers,” the statement said.
“This unfortunate collision resulted in the tragic loss of 14 lives and left several others injured,” it added.
Accidents are common on Nigeria’s poorly maintained roads due largely to speeding and disregard for traffic rules.
According to the road safety commission, more than 5,000 people died in road accidents in 2023, after 6,500 road deaths the previous year.
However the World Health Organizations estimated in a report last year that annual deaths linked to road accidents in Nigeria are actually nearer 40,000, with most not reported to the authorities.
Moscow claims east Ukrainian village in offensive on Toretsk
- Toretsk lies north-west of the city of Gorlivka
- The city has been largely spared from the worst of the fighting
MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday claimed another village in eastern Ukraine as it pushes toward the city of Toretsk in a fresh local offensive in the embattled Donetsk region.
Toretsk lies north-west of the city of Gorlivka, which has been under separatist control since 2014.
The city has been largely spared from the worst of the fighting but that has changed in recent weeks after Moscow’s forces began advancing, taking Ukrainian forces by surprise.
Moscow’s defense ministry said Russian forces had “as a result of successful acts, liberated the settlement of Shumy” and gained a better “tactical position.”
Shumy lies less than 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Toretsk, a mining town which had a pre-war population of around 32,000.
Ukrainian forces have been particularly vulnerable since the end of 2023 because of major delays in European and US arms deliveries.
