New rules to stop coronavirus variant stoke chaos at Indian airports

Agencies
December 23, 2020

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Mumbai, Dec 23: Passengers flying into India's biggest airports on Wednesday complained of long waits and confusion as authorities sought to impose rules to try to stop the spread of a new more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.

Like many countries, India has suspended flights from Britain, where cases have soared because of the variant.

People arriving from Britain before the ban came into force on Wednesday were being tested, including Kamini Saraswat whose plane landed in New Delhi just before midnight.

Despite pre-booking a test, her turn came nine hours after arrival and she told Reuters she was still stuck at the airport waiting for the result.

"There is no clear communication," said Saraswat, 28. "There is no social distancing."

Cellphone footage taken by Saraswat, shared with Reuters, showed long lines of passengers and crowds packed together around desks to get themselves tested.

India's hardest-hit state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, has taken additional measures, quarantining most passengers arriving from Europe and the Middle East for a week. Many European and Middle Eastern countries have also suspended flights from Britain, but act as transit hubs for the big airlines flying into India.

Ishwari Gaurav Naik, who arrived in Mumbai from Dubai at around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, said she had to wait more than six hours before authorities sent her and three family members to a quarantine facility.

"There was huge chaos there," Naik said from her temporary accommodation at a school. "Nobody knows anything. There is no coordination between staff."

Delhi and Mumbai airport officials declined to comment, and local officials in both cities and India's federal health ministry did not respond to questions from Reuters.

Federal authorities have said that all required measures will be undertaken but have given few details of how the extra checks will be staffed.

India's plan to track down and screen all arrivals from Britain since Nov. 25 is also getting stretched.

Immigration officials are tasked to provide the details of all travellers from Britain since then. They will be then contacted by state and district health officials.

A 54-year-old British citizen who flew into Mumbai on Monday morning said he was yet to receive either the result of his airport coronavirus test or any follow-up calls.

"The intention may be very good, but it is all down to the execution," he said, declining to be named.

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News Network
November 26,2024

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The extremist Israeli finance minister has called for the occupation of the Gaza Strip and halving the population of the Palestinian territory that is reeling from almost 14 months of genocide.  

Bezalel Smotrich, who has a history of racist statements against Palestinians, made the controversial remarks during a conference of the Yesha Council settler group on Monday.

“We can occupy Gaza and thin the population by half within two years,” through encouraging the so-called “voluntary emigration," he said.

The racist minister also urged the Tel Aviv regime to use its favorable ties with the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump to implement the plan.

“Occupying Gaza is not a dirty word,” he further claimed.

Once the success of the “voluntary emigration" is proven in the besieged Gaza Strip, it can be replicated in the occupied West Bank, he added.

Last month, Smotrich urged the full annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, asserting that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

Israel launched its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

However, nearly 14 months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its declared objectives of finding captives held in Gaza and eliminating Hamas.

So far, the occupying regime has killed at least 44,235 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 104,638 others, in Gaza. 

It has been committing the war crimes of starvation and of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population in the besieged territory.

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News Network
November 18,2024

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Mangaluru: The Ullal police have arrested Manohar, the owner of Vazco Beach Resort, and its manager Bharath in connection with the drowning of three college girls from Mysuru at the resort’s swimming pool on November 17.

City Commissioner of Police Anupam Agrawal confirmed the arrests, stating that a case has been registered under Section 106 of BNS. The bodies of the victims, all in their twenties, have been handed over to their parents. The women had arrived at the resort for a weekend getaway on November 16.

Following the tragic incident, the resort was sealed by officials led by Mangaluru Assistant Commissioner Harshavardhan. The trade license of the resort, issued on June 13, 2024, has been suspended, and the tourism department has temporarily revoked the resort's registration. These actions prohibit the resort from engaging in any tourism-related activities until further notice.

Someshwara TMC Chief Officer stated that the suspension was due to the resort's failure to implement adequate safety measures, which resulted in the loss of three lives. Further investigations are underway.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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