Saudi Arabia has begun issuing hajj pilgrims with identification bracelets one year after a stampede killed about 2,300 people.
The bracelets are a reassurance to some pilgrims, though their distribution has been far from systematic ahead of the formal start of the hajj today.
Saudi Arabia announced an investigation into last year’s stampede which happened during the hajj stoning ritual, but no findings have ever been published.
Photo: AFP
Public statements and Saudi press reports show that changes have been made to prevent overcrowding, even though no one was blamed for the tragedy.
After the disaster, the worst ever in hajj history, some foreign officials voiced concern about difficulties in identifying the dead.
Each plasticized paper bracelet carries a bar code readable by smartphone. It indicates the pilgrim’s identity, nationality and place of lodging in Mecca.
Additional data includes a contact in the pilgrim’s delegation and details provided when his or her visa was issued, Saudi Vice Secretary of the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah Issa Rawas said.
“The aim is to equip all pilgrims” from abroad, who are expected to number more than 1.4 million, he said.
Rawas did not specify the number of bracelets issued so far.
Nabil Melhem, 61, a Palestinian bricklayer, wears one of the official bracelets, which he said cost about 2 riyals (US$0.53).
It is “like a passport,” said Melhem, of the occupied West Bank.
The bracelet is 2cm wide and colored green for pilgrims from Arab nations.
“If we get lost, if we die, if we are sick or unable to talk, they can contact our delegation thanks to the bracelet,” he said.
In the crowds which fill the Grand Mosque and its surroundings day and night, there were numerous pilgrims wearing bracelets, but some were issued by travel agents and did not include the data recorded on the government’s bracelet.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS