Category: Human Rights

A solemn ceremony was held at Tehran's largest cemetery on Friday to mark the second anniversary of the downing of a Ukrainian airliner, which killed 176 people.

Speaking at the ceremony, which was attended by senior civilian and military officials, as well as families of the victims, Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh, who heads Iran's Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans, called it "one of the saddest days" in the country's history.

He expressed hope that investigations into the incident would be finished soon and perpetrators would be identified, echoing calls made by families of the victims.

The incident, which sent shockwaves across the world, came four days after Iran's top military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on Jan. 3, 2020 in Baghdad.

Two missiles struck a Ukrainian commercial flight after it had taken off from Tehran Airport, killing all people on board.

Iran called it a "human error," but countries such as Canada, the UK, Ukraine, and Sweden, whose citizens were killed in the incident, have repeatedly rejected Iran's explanation.

In a statement, Iran's Foreign Ministry said it was ready to hold talks with the countries concerned, provided the talks respect "sovereignty (of countries), domestic laws and international obligations".

It said a criminal investigation has been held into the case and the Iranian Cabinet on Jan. 21, 2021 agreed to pay $150,000 in reparations to each of the victims.

The statement came after Canada, Britain, Sweden, and Ukraine earlier this week said they had given up efforts to talk to Tehran about reparations and would resolve the matter in accordance with international law.

Meanwhile, many Iranians took to social media to pay tribute to the victims of the plane crash.

Javad Zarif, who served as Iran's foreign minister when the incident happened in early 2020, offered his "sincere condolences and apologies" to the families of victims.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued guidelines for keeping children in school even if they are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

During a virtual briefing by the White House COVID-19 response team, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the test-to-stay protocol involves testing twice in a seven-day period anyone who has had close contact with someone infected with COVID-19. She said if exposed children meet certain criteria and continue to test negative, they can stay in school instead of quarantining at home.

Walensky said numerous jurisdictions have been experimenting with test-to-stay strategies. Some were testing every day, some every other day, and some twice a week. From those experiments, she said, the CDC will recommend no less than twice-weekly testing to adequately adhere to test-to-stay protocols.

The CDC also published studies conducted in the United States and internationally that looked at how COVID-19 is spread in schools, which helped form the basis for test-to-stay recommendations.

Walensky reported at least 39 U.S. states have more than 75 confirmed cases involving the omicron variant. She said the delta variant continues to circulate widely and remains the dominant strain in the United States, but omicron is spreading rapidly and is expected to become the dominant strain in the coming weeks.

The CDC director said omicron has been found among those who are vaccinated and boosted, and health officials believe these cases are milder or asymptomatic because of vaccine protection. “What we do know is we have the tools to protect ourselves against COVID-19,” she said.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said the U.S. is fully prepared to confront the variant, with ample supplies of vaccines and boosters.

“This is not a moment to panic, because we know how to protect people,” Zients said. “And we have the tools to do it."

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON —

First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation remained at a low level last week as employers retained their workers and searched for more as the United States continues its economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Labor Department said Thursday that 222,000 jobless workers made first-time claims for unemployment compensation, up 28,000 from the revised figure of 194,000 the week before, which was a 52-year low.

Even with the increase in claims last week, the figures from both of the last two weeks were well below the 256,000 total in mid-March 2020 when the pandemic first swept into the country and employers started laying off workers by the hundreds of thousands.

The declining number of claims for unemployment benefits shows that many employers are hanging on to their workers even as millions have quit jobs to move to other companies offering higher pay and more benefits.

Many employers are looking for more workers, even as about 7.4 million workers remain unemployed in the United States.

There are 10.4 million available jobs in the country, but the skills of available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live. In addition, many of the available jobs are low-wage service positions that the jobless are shunning.

U.S. employers added 531,000 jobs in October, the biggest monthly gain in three months and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6%. But the U.S. economy is still short more than four million jobs since February 2020. The November jobs figure is set for release on Friday.

The U.S. economic advance is occurring even as President Joe Biden and Washington policy makers, along with consumers, voice concerns about the biggest increase in consumer prices in three decades and supply chain issues that have curtailed delivery of some products to retail store shelves.

Source: Voice of America

News outlets say the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to spend $5 billion to purchase Pfizer’s new experimental antiviral pill designed to treat COVID-19, enough to cover 10 million courses of treatment.

The revelation comes a day after the U.S. drugmaker announced it had signed a deal with Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed public health group, to authorize generic drugmakers to produce its experimental COVID-19 pill for 95 countries.

The deal will make the pill available for low- and middle-income countries comprising about 53% of the world’s population.

Pfizer says its new pill, called Paxlovid, reduces the risks of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% in people with mild to moderate coronavirus cases. Independent experts recommended ending Pfizer’s study because of its encouraging results.

Tuesday’s agreement between Pfizer and the Medicines Patent Pool coincided with Pfizer’s application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize use of the drug on an emergency basis.

“It’s quite significant that we will be able to provide access to a drug that appears to be effective and has just been developed, to more than 4 billion people,” said the Medicines Patent Pool’s Esteban Burrone.

Yuanqiong Hu, a senior legal policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders, said the organization is disappointed the agreement does not make the pill available to all countries.

“The world knows by now that access to COVID-19 medical tools needs to be guaranteed for everyone, everywhere, if we really want to control this pandemic,” she said.

Pfizer will not receive payments on sales in low-income countries, where fewer than 1% of its COVID-19 vaccine doses have been provided. It also will waive royalties on sales in all countries covered by the deal while COVID-19 remains a public health emergency.

The Medicines Patent Pool announced in October that another U.S. drugmaker, Merck, agreed to allow other companies to make its COVID-19 pill available in 105 poorer countries.

Merck says its antiviral pill reduces the risk of severe illness from COVID-19 by half when administered soon after the appearance of the first symptoms.

The Biden administration has pledged to spend about $2.2 billion to purchase about 3.1 million doses of Merck’s pill once it has been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration. An FDA advisory panel will meet on November 30 to discuss Merck’s COVID-19 pill. British drug regulators granted authorization for Merck’s pill earlier this month.

Despite decisions by Pfizer and Merck to share their COVID-19 drug patents, Pfizer and other vaccine-makers have refused to release their vaccine formulas for broader production.

Source: Voice of America

Five people were killed in a twin attack by suspected Daesh/ISIS militants in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province on Sunday, according to a local police officer.

A roadside bomb exploded at a civilian vehicle in the town of Had Akhder, northeast of Diyala, the officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

As security forces arrived at the scene, gunmen opened fire, causing the casualties, the officer added.

According to the source, a police officer was among the victims, while four people, including two security personnel, were injured in the attack.

In recent months, Daesh/ISIS terrorists have escalated their attacks, especially in the area between Kirkuk, Salahuddin, and Diyala, known as the Triangle of Death.

In 2017, Iraq declared victory over Daesh/ISIS by reclaiming all territories the terrorist group controlled since the summer of 2014, which was estimated to be about a third of the country’s territory.

The group, however, still maintains sleeper cells in large areas in Iraq and occasionally launches sporadic attacks.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Pakistani security forces on Sunday claimed to have killed the suspected mastermind of a 2018 election rally bombing that killed over 150 people and injured hundreds in the southwestern Balochistan province.

The alleged terrorist Mumtaz, also known as Mota Pehalwan, was killed in a security operation in Mastung district, located 50 kilometers (31miles), miles from the provincial capital, Quetta, the deputy commissioner of the district, Ilyas Kubzai, told reporters.

Over 150 people were killed and more than 200 injured on July 13, 2018, in a suicide blast targeting the election rally of a local politician in Mastung.

The Daesh terror group, also known as ISIS, had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Over the course of the last decade, Balochistan, and especially its capital Quetta, has faced a deadly wave of violence and bombings.

Aside from its rich mineral deposits, the province is also a key route of $64 billion megaproject, Pakistan-China Economic Corridor (PCEC), which aims to connect China's strategically important northwestern Xinxiang province to Balochistan's Gwadar port through a network of roads, railways, and pipelines to transport cargo, oil, and gas.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Five Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to Israeli media.

The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said the five lost their lives in an exchange of fire during an Israeli raid to arrest a number of Hamas members in the cities of Jenin and Ramallah.

According to the newspaper, three Palestinians were killed in the Bidu village, northwest Jerusalem, in an exchange of fire that erupted when Israeli forces surrounded a house in the village.

Two other Palestinians were killed in the village of Burqin, in southwestern Jenin city.

An Israeli military spokesman said the situation may escalate if Hamas fires rocket from the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, for its part, confirmed that five Palestinians were killed in the Israeli raids.

Jenin Governor Akram al-Rujoub said nine Palestinians were also injured by Israeli gunfire during the arrest campaign.

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian resistance group Hamas, confirmed that three members were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli forces in Bidu village.

The brigades identified in a statement the three as Ahmed Zahran, Zakaria Badwan and Mahmoud Ehmeidan.

It called on the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to “escalate all forms of resistance with a view to exhausting the [Israeli] enemy.”

Saraya al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad group, also confirmed that its member Osama Soboh was killed in clashes with Israeli forces in Jenin.

Source: Anadolu Agency