Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday lashed out at criticism of authorities’ lagging response to the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, saying the government has to weigh economic concerns as it takes measures to contain the pandemic.
Syria meanwhile reported the first fatality from the virus in the war-torn country, which has five confirmed infections. The Syrian Arab News Agency said a woman died upon reaching an emergency room and tested positive for COVID-19, without saying where it happened.
Syria has closed schools, restaurants and nightclubs, and last week imposed a nighttime curfew to contain the virus’s spread. Its healthcare system has been battered by nearly a decade of civil war, leaving the country particularly vulnerable.
Photo: Reuters
Libya, which has also been mired in chaos since 2011, reported another five cases, bringing its total to eight. The country is split by rival governments, each backed by an array of militias, that have been battling over the capital, Tripoli, for nearly a year.
Rouhani said authorities had to consider the effect of mass quarantine efforts on Iran’s beleaguered economy, which is under heavy US sanctions. It is a dilemma playing out across the globe, as leaders struggle to strike a balance between restricting human contact and keeping their economies from crashing.
“Health is a principle for us, but the production and security of society is also a principle for us,” Rouhani said at a Cabinet meeting. “We must put these principles together to reach a final decision.”
“This is not the time to gather followers,” he added. “This is not a time for political war.”
Even before the pandemic, Rouhani was under fire for the unraveling of the 2015 nuclear deal he concluded with the US and other world powers. US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement and has imposed crippling sanctions on Iran that prevent it from selling oil on international markets. Iran has rejected US offers of humanitarian aid.
Iran Ministry of Health spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour yesterday announced 117 new deaths, bringing the official total number of fatalities to 2,757, and 3,186 more cases, raising total infections to 41,495.
Elsewhere in the region, Qatar late on Saturday reported its first death from the new coronavirus, saying the total number of reported cases there was at least 590.
The tiny, energy-rich nation said it flew 31 Bahrainis stranded in Iran into Doha on a state-run Qatar Airways flight. However, since Bahrain is one of four Arab countries that have been boycotting Qatar in a political dispute since 2017, Doha said it could not fly the 31 onward to the island kingdom.
“Bahraini officials have said they will send a flight for them at some undefined point in the future,” the Qatari government said in a statement.
Bahrain said it planned a flight on Sunday to pick up the stranded passengers. The kingdom said it had its own repatriation flights scheduled for those still stuck in Iran and warned Qatar that it “should stop interfering with these flights.”
In Egypt, at least 1,200 Sudanese were stranded at the border after Sudan closed all its crossings, Egyptian officials at one of the crossings said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Sudan, which is still reeling from the uprising that toppled then-president Omar al-Bashir last year, has six confirmed cases, including two fatalities. It is one of several countries in the region where the healthcare system has been degraded by years of war and sanctions. Authorities closed the borders to prevent any further spread.
The second death was announced as a positive coronavirus case earlier on Sunday, more than two weeks after the person’s return from the United Arab Emirates.
Sudanese Minister of Culture and Information Faisal Saleh said Sudanese authorities are looking for lodging in Egypt for the stranded passengers.
He said authorities have quarantined at least 160 undocumented migrants who were sent into Sudan from war-torn Libya earlier this month.
Residents in Egypt’s southern city of Luxor said they are providing shelter to the stranded Sudanese.
“We have provided food and medicine to the Sudanese brothers,” said Mahmoud Abdel-Rahim, a local farmer. “People hosted women, children and elders in their homes.”
Additional reporting by AFP
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to