Category: General

At least 91 irregular migrants were held on Thursday across southern Turkey, according to security sources.

Acting on a tip, provincial gendarmerie teams in southwestern Mugla province went to Seydikemer district and held 74 migrants, said a source, asking not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

The migrants, found in forestland, included 61 Afghan, 12 Pakistani and an Iranian nationals, it added.

There were also children among them.

Separately, border guards in the southeastern Sanliurfa province searched a car disguised as an intelligence vehicle.

Some 17 irregular migrants, including four children, were caught in the vehicle without a license plate, said a security source on condition of anonymity.

The vehicle, driven by a Syrian national who was subsequently arrested, was on course to the northern Syria border town of Tal Abyad, it added.

All irregular migrants were referred to provincial migration offices.

Source: Anadolu Agency

At least 20 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails on Thursday announced an open hunger strike, demanding the release of Palestinian detainee al-Ghadanfar Abu Atwan who enters 65th day of hunger strike.

In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said the 20 Palestinian detainees who are in Ofer prison, western Ramallah, central West Bank, and in Negev prison, southern Israel, demanded the Israeli authorities release Abu Atwan who is suffering from serious health conditions due to hunger strike.

The PPS warned that Abu Atwan is at risk of serious health complication or death.

According to the PPS, Abu Atwan, 28, from Dura town, southern West Bank, went on hunger strike in protest against his administrative detention in October 2020 with no charge or trial.

Palestinian official figures say that Israel has detained 5,300 Palestinians, including 40 women and 250 children, with 520 held with no charges or trials under the Israeli policy of administrative detention.

Administrative detention allows the Israeli authorities to extend the detention of a prisoner without charge after the expiry of a sentence that ranges between two to six months.

Source: Anadolu Agency

After coming to a halt in early June, the COVID-19 vaccine shipments to Africa are gathering momentum, a World Health Organization official said on Thursday.

At a media briefing, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said more than 1.6 million doses have been delivered to Africa through the COVAX, a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, in the last two weeks.

So far, 50 million doses have been administered in Africa, accounting for just 1.6% of doses given globally. About 16 million (less than 2%) of Africans are now fully vaccinated, according to Moeti. “This means that hundreds of millions of people are still vulnerable to infection.”

She added: “Africa has just marked its worst pandemic week ever, surpassing the second wave peak. During the week which ended on July 4, there were more than 251 000 cases – a 20% increase over the previous week.”

Moeti said new cases have increased for the seventh week running. For Africa, the worst is yet to come as the third wave continues to gain speed and new ground, she added.

Sixteen African countries are now facing a resurgence, with Malawi and Senegal added this week, and the Delta variant has been detected in 10 of these countries, the health official said.

“The continent still struggles to gather the information needed. The identification of which variants are circulating in a community has an immediate value to national response teams.”

There are over 5.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases on the African continent, with more than 4.9 million recoveries and 147,000 deaths, according to WHO.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Afghanistan’s president received the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for conflict mediation Wednesday.

Mutlaq bin Majid Al Qahtan delivered a written message from Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani to President Ashraf Ghani, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The message concerned bilateral relations between the two countries and ways to support and develop them, the statement noted.

During the meeting, Al Qahtan and Ghani also reviewed the latest developments in Afghanistan and discussed the ongoing peace negotiations in Doha.

*Writing by Ahmet Gencturk

Source: Anadolu Agency

Pandemic cases are on surge at one of the largest refugee camps of the world in Bangladesh, where more than 1.1 million persecuted Rohingya Muslims have been living stateless for years.

According to the latest report of the Bangladeshi refugee commissioner’s office released early Thursday, 48 Rohingya have been infected by coronavirus in the last 24 hours, pushing the total cases in the refugee settlements to 1,921.

So far, 20 Rohingya in Bangladesh have died due to the virus in the camps located in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar, also the country’s main tourist hub.

To stem the spread of the virus in the squalid Rohingya makeshift tents, 744 Rohingya, including 58 who have been sent to isolation in the last 24 hours, are currently under quarantine.

“The cumulative number of contacts quarantined is 6,098,” the report added.

Meanwhile, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have also been demanding to be included in the vaccination drive.

“We are living here in Bangladesh’s camps in a very congested environment. On average, five to six people live in a single room while our tents are located in a row side by side. We frequently meet each other. So it’s urgent to vaccinate us immediately to avert any untoward consequences in near future,” Abdur Rohim, a Rohingya refugee at the Kutupalang camp, told Anadolu Agency.

Underlining the risk factors Rohingya have been facing, he added: “It’s really tougher for us to maintain social distance and other COVID-19 health instructions due to the congested environment and so we are at high risk of being contaminated by the viruses.”

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Abu Toha MR Bhuiyan, the chief health coordinator of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, however, said the issue of Rohingya vaccination is under active consideration of Bangladesh.

“We expect that in collaboration with international aid agencies we will be able to launch the COVID-19 vaccination drive for Rohingya people soon,” Bhuiyan said.

Referring to the role of Turkey as the first respondent to the Rohingya crisis, he said they are also urging Turkey to help the launch of inoculation for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world’s most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.1 million.

Source: Anadolu Agency

India approved a 23,000 billion rupees ($3.2 billion) relief package to combat issues related to the coronavirus pandemic that occurred during a second wave, according to a statement Thursday.

The package “will be used by the Union and state governments to boost emergency health infrastructure,” newly appointed Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

The package was announced one day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reshuffled the cabinet following the resignation of 12 ministers, including health, IT and oil, as the country battered by COVID-19.

Former Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, along with 11 other ministers, resigned Wednesday.

Vardhan was believed to have been dismissed because of mismanagement during the second wave.

The government faced tough questions for the grim situation during April and May, as it was blamed for failing to manage the pandemic.

India struggled with the deadly second wave that severely strained its health system, leading to shortages of oxygen supplies at hospitals as well as beds and coronavirus treatment drugs such as Remdesivir.

“Resignation by the health minister proves that the government has accepted the fact that they had failed to manage the situation during the second wave of the pandemic,” Amulya Nidhi, national co-convener of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, or Public Health Campaign, told Anadolu Agency.

“Harsh Vardhan was the government representative as the health minister so seeking his resignation means he failed to perform his duties,” said Nidhi.

When the situation was out of control, Vardhan blamed Indians for the spread of the virus.

Modi was also criticized as Indians died in the absence of beds and oxygen at hospitals.

Among those sacked was Law and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

Prasad was engaged in a bitter row with Twitter about new Information Technology rules introduced by the government.

Forty-three new ministers were sworn in on Wednesday with the president administering the oath of office and secrecy to members of the Council of Ministers at a ceremony in the President’s house.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Gastronomy is one of the most authentic expressions of the cultural richness of Colombia, Colombia’s envoy to Turkey said Thursday.

During an address to the online conference, “Colombia: The New Destination for Gastronomic Tourism,” in cooperation with the Colombian Embassy in Turkey and Bilkent University in Ankara, Julio Anibal Riano invited gastronomy lovers to visit Colombia that has “quite mad landscapes and cultural manifestations.”

He said Colombia has become an attractive gastronomic destination, as well as Turkey.

Veronica Socarras, a member of a non-governmental organization that promotes Colombian gastronomy and tourism, said: “Food tourism is a type of tourism, where people want to get to know the country through its food, through its cuisine.”

“It is an immersion to the local culture by visiting markets, tasting typical food, eating what locals do,” she said. “It is about knowing the culture, recipes, everything about the local food.”

Socarras said it has positive effects on people. “It revitalizes local economies and contributes to the image of the country.”

She explained different types of tourists in terms of the main characteristics they have in common.

Emphasizing that her group started the journey in food tourism by thinking about the fact that people need to eat wherever they go to stay alive.

Food tourism “is a cultural expression that brings everything together, revitalizes local communities, while also it generates a greater connection with the culture and the people of the country,” said Socarras. “The gastronomic experience is as important as visiting a museum, enjoying music or admiring the architecture of a destination.”

– Why Colombia?

Asked why people should visit Colombia, Socarras said because it is “the second most biodiverse country in the world, along with having a diverse range of affordable tourist attractions, and gastronomy.”

“Colombian gastronomy is a cultural expression as colorful as its people and its traditions, festivities and landscape,” she said of the South American country with a population of almost 50 million.

Restaurants are listed among the best across Latin America, she said, and Colombia also has “talented local chefs that are changing the restaurant scene in the country.”

After naming a few internationally famous restaurants in Colombia, Socarras said the country has all climates and benefits from the diversity in the products it uses in food.

She said it has more than 400 types of fruits. “Some people talk about 2,000 varieties of fruit all year long.”

Socarras also underlined national dishes, the importance of coffee, literature and other gastronomical and cultural riches that Colombia has and invited all to come, visit, see and taste everything first-hand.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Activity returned to Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port on Thursday after a fire on a container ship was put out.

Bloomberg quoted port workers saying that work returned to normal as it was before the Wednesday evening fire, which was extinguished early Thursday.

Authorities said early Thursday the fire was under control.

No causalities have been reported from the fire, which was caused by an explosion, the Dubai Media Office said in a statement.

The statement added that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the normal movement of ships in the port continues without any disruption.

Dubai Police Commander Lt. Gen. Abdullah al-Marri said the fire was caused by flammable materials in a number of ship containers which were preparing to dock near one of the berths of the port.

The fire may have been due to friction or high temperatures, he added.

The port is 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) from the center of Dubai and is the most prominent in the UAE. It is one of the busiest ports in the world, as it handled 71 million 20-foot (6.1-meter) equivalent containers in 2020, according to DP World.

*Mahmoud Barakat contributed to this report from Ankara

Source: Anadolu Agency

Bangladesh directed local administrations on Thursday to increase oxygen supplies and coronavirus-dedicated beds at divisional and district hospitals as demand for critical medical support mounts amid a new peak in infections.

Shortage at hospitals has already created a crisis in the capital, Dhaka, for incentive care units and virus-dedicated beds as patients are rushing to facilities in an effort to save lives.

The prime minister’s office, in a virtual meeting with divisional and district commissioners, issued the directives as the situation continues to worsen.

The Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Ahmad Kaikaus presided over the meeting and directed administrations to incorporate health safety protocols and increase efforts to keep those who are infected in isolation. He urged all to follow government directives to keep residents safe.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to recruit an additional 8,500 nurses under an arrangement with the Public Service Commission.

Hospitals have been facing a shortage of health workers during the pandemic.

Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) spokesperson, Dr. Nazmul Islam, told Anadolu Agency that officials already prepared a procurement plan to reserve more oxygen at several hospitals amid soaring demand.

The DGHS said it can provide 210 – 220 tons of liquid oxygen daily. But experts and media reports estimated the daily demand for oxygen has surpassed 230 tons amid surging infections last week.

Bangladesh imposed a nationwide lockdown on July 1 and extended until July 14 the closure of all government, semi-government and private offices. It also asked residents to stay at home unless there was an emergency.

Police arrested 1,077 people in Dhaka on Thursday for violating the lockdown and fined 318 others. Law enforcement agencies also fined about 1,000 vehicles for similar offenses, according to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Bangladesh reported its highest daily infections with 11,651 and 199 deaths on Thursday, taking the caseload to 989,219 with 15,792 fatalities.

Source: Anadolu Agency