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Israeli defence minister threatens Iran with military action

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TEL AVIV: Israel’s defence minister warned Thursday that his country is prepared to strike Iran, issuing the threat against the Islamic Republic after a fatal drone strike on an oil tanker at sea that his nation blamed on Tehran.

The comments by Benny Gantz come as Israel meanwhile lobbies countries for action at the United Nations over last week’s attack on the oil tanker Mercer Street that killed two people.

The tanker struck off Oman in the Arabian Sea, is managed by a firm owned by an Israeli billionaire.

The US and the United Kingdom similarly blamed Iran for the attack, but no country has offered evidence or intelligence to support their claims.

Iran, which along with its regional militia allies has launched similar drone attacks, has denied being involved.

” “We are at a point where we need to take military action against Iran,” Gantz said.

“The world needs to take action against Iran now.”

Iran did not immediately respond to Gantz’s comments.

However, in a letter Wednesday to the UN Security Council, its chargé d’affaires in New York described Israel as “the main source of instability and insecurity in the Middle East and beyond for more than seven decades.

””This regime has a long dark record in attacking commercial navigation and civilian ships,” Zahra Ershadi wrote.

“”In less than two years, this regime has attacked over 10 commercial vessels carrying oil and humanitarian goods destined to Syria.”

”Ershadi’s comments refer to an ongoing shadow war being waged on Mideast waterways since 2019 that has seen both Iranian and Western-linked ships attacked.

Last week’s attack killed the vessel’s Romanian captain as well as a British crew member who worked for Ambrey, a maritime security firm.

In a statement Thursday, Ambrey identified the victim as Adrian Underwood, a former soldier in the British Army who started at the firm as a maritime security officer in 2020 before becoming a team leader.

“We continue to be in contact with Adrian’s family to offer support at this sad and difficult time,” said John Thompson, Ambrey’s management director.

The attacks began a year after then US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

US President Joe Biden has said he’s willing to rejoin the accord, but talks over salvaging the deal have stalled in Vienna.

COVID-19 virus leaked from China’s Wuhan lab: US Republican report

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WASHINGTON: A Republican lawmaker’s report investigating the origins of COVID-19 released on Monday has concluded that the pandemic outbreak stemmed from a genetically modified virus that leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, first detected in December 2019.

McCaul, in statements alongside the release of the report, has called for Congress to pass legislation sanctioning scientists at the Wuhan lab and Chinese Communist Party officials who were determined to have obstructed efforts to respond to the pandemic quickly and effectively.

The GOP investigation parallels efforts by the Biden administration and the international community to determine the origins of the pandemic outbreak, which has killed more than 4.2 million people across the world, infected nearly 200 million and upended global stability.

The Republican report is based on open-source material and draws conclusions from circumstantial reporting, also raises concern that the lab was conducting “gain of function” research, controversial medical research where scientists genetically modify a bacteria or virus to make it more infectious in an effort to study better preventative measures, in an unsafe environment, reported The Hill.

“We know gain-of-function research was happening at the WIV and we know it was being done in unsafe conditions,” McCaul said.

National security experts also raised the concern that the US must discipline China for failing to quickly and cooperatively alert the international community to the virus outbreak and its ongoing obstruction into the investigation into the origins of COVID-19, reported The Hill.

“The Biden administration has already — working through the World Health Organisation (WHO) and with the G-7 and with other countries — used diplomacy and tried to urge the Chinese to cooperate. They’ve given us their answer, their answer is no,” said Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

McCaul also called on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to subpoena Peter Daszak, an American scientist who has come under scrutiny for his connection with the Wuhan lab and involvement in publishing an open letter in February 2020 that rejected the lab theory as a xenophobic distraction from the pandemic response.

The letter, which was published in the Lancet medical journal, has since come under criticism as an attempt to divert attention from China’s responsibility for the virus outbreak.”Now is the time to use all of the tools the US government has to continue to root out the full truth of how this virus came to be,” McCaul said.

“That includes subpoenaing Peter Daszak to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to answer the many questions his inconsistent — and in some instances outright and knowingly inaccurate — statements have raised. It also includes Congress passing legislation to sanction scientists at the WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] and CCP [Chinese Communist Party] officials who participated in this coverup. This was the greatest coverup of all time and has caused the deaths of more than four million people around the world, and people must be held responsible.”

The Republican report doubles down on the idea that the virus likely emerged from the Wuhan laboratory, a theory that has gained increasing legitimacy, reported The Hill.

The lab leak theory is the idea that the virus emerged from the Wuhan scientific lab either due to a series of missteps and lax safety procedures or Chinese government and military tampering.

The Chinese government and Wuhan lab scientists have dismissed these allegations and maintain that the first cases likely emerged from animal-to-human transmission at a wet market in the city of Wuhan.

Leaked State Department cables from 2018 documented that American diplomats raised concern about safety and management procedures at the Wuhan lab that did not raise the level of need for the lab’s status as a BSL-4, the highest level of international bioresearch safety. The cables were first reported by The Washington Post in April 2020, reported The Hill.

The Republican report adds to this by raising concern over maintenance and renovation taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the adjacent lab, the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, related to its hazardous waste treatment system and air conditioning systems while carrying out research on coronaviruses. Such instances were taking place in the months preceding the first known cases of COVID-19, the report stated.

US to evacuate at-risk citizens including journalists, aid workers from Afghanistan

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WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Monday expanded its efforts to evacuate at-risk Afghan citizens from Afghanistan as Taliban violence increases ahead there of the US military pullout at the end of the month.

Current and former employees of the U.S. government and the NATO military operation who don’t meet the criteria for a dedicated program for such workers are also covered.

However, the move comes with a major caveat: applicants must leave Afghanistan to begin the adjudication process that may take 12-14 months in a third country, and the U.S. does not intend to support their departures or stays there.

Nevertheless, the State Department said the move will mean that “many thousands” of Afghans and their immediate families will now have the opportunity to be permanently resettled in the US as refugees.

It did not offer a more specific number of those who might be eligible for the programme.

“The US objective remains a peaceful, secure Afghanistan,” it said in a statement.

“However, in light of increased levels of Taliban violence, the US government is working to provide certain Afghans, including those who worked with the United States, the opportunity for refugee resettlement to the United States.”

The creation of a “Priority 2” category for Afghans within the US Refugee Admissions Program is intended for Afghans and their immediate families who “may be at risk due to their US affiliation” but aren’t able to get a Special Immigrant Visa because they did not work directly for the US government or didn’t hold their government jobs long enough.

To qualify for the Priority 2 category, Afghans must be nominated by a US government agency or by the most senior civilian US citizen employee of a US-based media outlet or nongovernmental organization.

The first group of Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants, most of whom served as translators or did other work for U.S. troops or diplomats, who have cleared security vetting arrived in the US on Friday.

That group of 221 people are among 2,500 who will be brought to the US in the coming days.

Another 4,000 SIV applicants, plus their families, who have not yet cleared the security screening are expected to be relocated to third countries ahead of the completion of the US withdrawal.

Roughly 20,000 Afghans have expressed interest in the programme.

Germany to offer Covid booster shots from September as Delta variant sparks concern

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WORLD: Germany will start offering Covid booster shots from September and make it easier for 12-to-17 year olds to get a jab, the health ministry said Monday, amid concerns about the spread of the Delta variant.

Mobile vaccination teams should be sent into care and nursing homes, the text says, to offer Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna booster shots to residents, regardless of which vaccine they had originally.

Doctors will also be able to administer booster jabs to those who qualify, including people with weakened immune systems.

A booster shot will also be offered to anyone who received the two-dose AstraZeneca or single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the document released by Spahn’s ministry said, “in the interests of preventative healthcare”.

Both AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are viral vector vaccines, whereas the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use novel mRNA technology that has shown high efficacy in studies.

The ministers also agreed to make the coronavirus vaccine more widely available to over-12s, going a step further than the country’s STIKO vaccines regulator.

The regulator currently only recommends the coronavirus vaccine for 12-17 year olds if they have pre-existing conditions or live with people at high risk from Covid.

Although adolescents who do not fall into those categories are still allowed to get vaccinated, in consultation with their parents and doctors, the cautious STIKO guidance has slowed take-up.

Germany’s health ministers agreed on Monday to encourage vaccination among teens by opening all the country’s vaccination centres to 12-17 year olds, alongside the possibility to get vaccinated at regular clinics.

The ministers stressed that the jab was voluntary but said getting children and teenagers vaccinated could “contribute significantly to a safe return to classrooms after the summer holidays”.

Although Germany is currently enjoying relatively low infection rates compared with neighbouring countries, case numbers have been creeping up in recent weeks mainly because of the more contagious Delta variant.

There are also concerns about a slowdown in the country’s vaccination rate, with just over 52 percent of the population fully inoculated. 

Within the European Union, the European Medicines Agency has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna shots for all over-12s.

STIKO head Thomas Mertens told public radio MDR that the body was still waiting for data from longer-term studies before deciding on issuing a more general vaccine recommendation for over-12s.

The problem, he added, “is not so much the children’s vaccinations”.

What is needed to help suppress a fourth Covid wave in Germany “is a high vaccination rate among 18-to-59 year olds”.

England player Stokes takes indefinite break from cricket to ‘prioritise’ mental wellbeing

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England's Ben Stokes

LONDON: Star England all-rounder Ben Stokes has taken an indefinite break from the game to “prioritise his mental wellbeing” and withdrawn from the home Test series against India beginning August 4.

In a statement, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has also said that Stokes has taken the break to also rest his left index finger, “which has not fully healed since his return to competitive cricket earlier this month”.

Mental health of cricketers in COVID times has become a topic of constant discussion with the players having to play in bio-bubbles for months.

Managing Director of England men’s cricket, Ashley Giles, said the ECB supports Stokes’ decision.

“Ben has shown tremendous courage to open up about his feelings and wellbeing. Our primary focus has always been and will continue to be the mental health and welfare of all of our people,” said Giles, also a former England spinner.

“The demands on our athletes to prepare and play elite sport are relentless in a typical environment, but the ongoing pandemic has acutely compounded this.”

“Spending significant amounts of time away from family, with minimal freedoms, is extremely challenging.

“The cumulative effect of operating almost continuously in these environments over the last 16 months has had a major impact on everyone’s wellbeing.”

Giles added that Stokes will be given all the time he needs to get back to his best shape both physically and mentally.

“Ben will be given as long as he needs, and we look forward to seeing him playing cricket for England in the future,” he said.

Craig Overton has replaced Stokes in the England squad for the India series.

First US evacuation flight brings 200 Afghans to new home

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WASHINGTON: The first flight evacuating Afghan interpreters and others who worked alongside Americans in Afghanistan landed early Friday at Washington Dulles International Airport, according to an internal US government document and a commercial flight tracking service.

An airliner carrying the 221 Afghans, including 57 children and 15 babies, according to the internal document obtained by The Associated Press, touched down at Washington Dulles International Airport in the early morning hours, according to tracking of the flight by FlightAware.

The evacuation flights, resettling former translators and others who fear retaliation from Afghanistan’s Taliban for having worked with American service members and civilians, are highlighting American uncertainty about how Afghanistan’s government and military will fare after the last US combat forces leave that country in coming weeks.

Family members are accompanying the interpreters and others on the flights out.

They were expected to stay at Fort Lee, Virginia for several days, U.S.officials said earlier this month.

Subsequent flights are due to bring more of the applicants who are farthest along in the process of getting visas, having already won approval and cleared security screening.

Biden asks states to offer the unvaccinated USD 100 to get Covid jabs

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President Joe Biden speaks about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, in the Cross Hall of the White House.

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden is asking states and localities to offer unvaccinated residents $100 to get their COVID-19 shots.

The cash reward for vaccination was one idea in Biden’s latest plan to boost lagging vaccination rates in many parts of the nation.

Rolled out Thursday, the core of his new plan is a requirement for federal workers to disclose their vaccination status to their agencies.

Biden is pointing to anecdotal evidence that a $100 reward will get results.

The White House says the Kroger grocery store chain tried it and saw vaccination rates jump to 75% from 50% among employees.

New Mexico, Ohio and Colorado have also experimented with the idea.

Biden says states and localities can use money from his COVID relief law to pay for the incentive programmes.

Australia to return 14 stolen or illegally exported artworks to India

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Melbourne: Australia will return to India another 14 culturally significant artworks, including bronze and stone sculptures, a painted scroll and photographs, some of which were likely stolen, illegally excavated or unethically acquired from the country.

The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) on Thursday announced it will return these works of art from its Asian art collection to the Indian Government.

The works of art being repatriated include 13 objects connected to Indian art dealer Subhash Kapoor through Art of the Past and one acquired from art dealer William Wolff.

It is the fourth time the NGA has handed the Indian government antiquities it bought from Kapoor, ABC News reported.

The works include six bronze or stone sculptures, a brass processional standard, a painted scroll and six photographs.

Kapoor is awaiting trial in India after being accused of running a global smuggling ring for artefacts.

Another three sculptures sourced from Art of the Past have also been removed from the collection.

Further research will be undertaken to identify their place of origin before they are repatriated.

Following this action, along with the repatriation of works in 2014, 2016 and 2019, the National Gallery will no longer hold any works acquired through Kapoor in its collection, NGA said in a statement.

“The decision to return the works is the culmination of years of research, due diligence and an evolving framework for decision-making that includes both legal principles and ethical considerations,” it said.

The National Gallery has introduced a new provenance assessment framework that considers available evidence about both the legal and ethical aspects of a work of art’s history.

“If on the balance of probability, it is considered likely that an item was stolen, illegally excavated, exported in contravention of the law of a foreign country, or unethically acquired, the National Gallery will take steps to deaccession and repatriate,” it said.

National Gallery of Australia Director Nick Mitzevich said these actions demonstrated the National Gallery’s commitment to being a leader in the ethical management of collections.

With these developments, provenance decision-making at the National Gallery will be determined by an evidence-based approach evaluated on the balance of probabilities, anchored in robust legal and ethical decision-making principles and considerations, he said.

As the first outcome of this change, the Gallery will be returning 14 objects from the Indian art collection to their country of origin,” he said.

This is the right thing to do, it’s culturally responsible and the result of collaboration between Australia and India. We are grateful to the Indian Government for their support and are pleased we can now return these culturally significant objects.

Mitzevich said the Gallery would continue its provenance research, including for the Asian art collection and resolve the status of any works of concern.

The Indian High Commissioner to Australia, Manpreet Vohra, welcomed the decision by the Australian Government and the National Gallery to return the works.

The Government of India is grateful for this extraordinary act of goodwill and gesture of friendship from Australia, Vohra said.

These are outstanding pieces: their return will be extremely well-received by the Government and people of India, he said in a statement.

This latest move follows years of significant research to determine the provenance of works in the Asian art collection, including two independent reviews conducted by former High Court Justice Susan Crennan.

This collection is the largest yet to be repatriated by the gallery.

NGA director Nick Mitzevich said the gallery believed six of the artworks were likely stolen or illegally removed from India.

While the gallery could not establish the provenance of another two items and did not have any evidence the six photos were stolen, Mitzevich told the ABC that they would also be returned to India because the NGA had no faith in Kapoor’s ethics.

“We have strengthened our processes and have zero-tolerance now for any inconsistencies in the provenance of a work of art,” he said.

“This is another step towards us building an ethical approach to managing our collections.”

The NGA spent 10.7 million dollars on 22 works from Kapoor’s “Art of the Past” gallery over several years, including a stunning 11th century Chola bronze sculpture, Shiva Nataraja, which the NGA purchased for more than 5 million dollars in 2008.

When Indian police arrested Kapoor in 2012 they listed the Dancing Shiva as one of the stolen items, and it soon became clear the sculpture had been ripped out of a temple in southern India.

In 2014 then-prime Australian minister Tony Abbott handed the Dancing Shiva to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.

Since then, the NGA has returned another five artworks it purchased from Kapoor to the Indian government, including a third-century rock carving and a series of exquisite stone sculptures.

Japanese officials alarmed as cases hit record highs in Tokyo amid Olympics

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TOKYO: Japanese officials sounded an alarm on Thursday, July 29, 2021, after Tokyo reported record-breaking coronavirus cases for two straight days with the Olympics well underway. 

“We have never experienced the expansion of the infections of this magnitude,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters. He said the new cases were soaring not only in the Tokyo area but across the country. 

Tokyo reported 3,177 new cases on Wednesday, up from 2,848 on Tuesday, setting an all-time high and exceeding 3,000 for the first time. 

Japan has kept its cases and deaths lower than many other countries, but its seven-day rolling average is growing and now stands at 28 per 100,000 people nationwide and 88 in Tokyo, according to the Health Ministry. This compares to 18.5 in the United States, 48 in Britain and 2.8 in India, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

“While almost nothing is helping to slow the infections, there are many factors that can accelerate them,” said Dr. Shigeru Omi, a top government medical adviser, noting the Olympics and summer vacation. “The biggest risk is the lack of a sense of crisis and without it, the infections will further expand and put medical systems under severe strain.”

Tokyo has been under its fourth state of emergency since July 12, ahead of the Olympics, which began last Friday despite widespread public opposition and concern that they Games could worsen the outbreak.

People are still roaming the streets despite stay-at-home requests, making the measures largely ineffective at a time the more infectious delta strain is spreading, he said. “We have never seen the infections spread so rapidly.”

Alarmed by the surge in Tokyo, the governors of three prefectures adjacent to the capital said they plan to ask Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to place their areas under the state of emergency too. 

Experts say Tokyo’s surge is being propelled by the delta variant of the virus and there is no evidence of the disease being transmitted from Olympic participants to the general public.

Tokyo officials said Thursday that two foreign Olympic athletes are currently hospitalized and 38 others are self-isolating at designated hotels in the city. Gov. Yuriko Koike urged the organizers to make sure not to burden Tokyo’s hospitals. 

Nationwide, Japan reported more than 9,500 confirmed cases, a new record, on Wednesday for a total of about 892,000, with about 15,000 deaths.

As of Wednesday, 26.3% of the Japanese population has been fully vaccinated. The percentage of the elderly who are fully vaccinated is 70%, or 24.8 million people.

New Zealand to accept alleged Islamic State militant, 2 kids

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WELLINGTON: New Zealand on Monday agreed to repatriate an alleged Islamic State militant and her two young children, who have been detained in Turkey since February.

The decision follows a bitter dispute with Australia over which country needed to shoulder responsibility for the woman, who had been a dual citizen of both countries until Australia stripped her citizenship under its anti-terrorism laws.

The woman and her children were arrested when they tried to illegally cross from Syria into Turkey, according to Turkey’s Defense Ministry. Turkey identified her only by her initials, S.A., while New Zealand media say she is Suhayra Aden, who was 26 at the time of her arrest.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand had taken into account its international responsibilities and could not remove citizenship from anybody if it left them stateless.

“I made very strong representations to Australia that she should be permitted to return there. Her family moved to Australia when she was 6 and she grew up there before departing for Syria in 2014 on an Australian passport,” Ardern said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Australia would not reverse the cancellation of citizenship.”

Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said the woman lost her citizenship as a result of her own actions, and that ending citizenship for dual nationals engaged in terrorist conduct was an integral part of Australia’s response to terrorist threats.

“The government’s first priority is always to protect the Australian community,” Andrews said in a statement. 

Ardern said the safety and wellbeing of New Zealanders was the government’s paramount concern. She said there had been extensive planning with the police and other agencies. 

“I can assure people great care is being taken as to how the woman and her young children are returned to New Zealand and how they will be managed in a way that minimizes any risk for New Zealanders,” Ardern said.

Authorities declined to say when the family would be repatriated, citing legal and security concerns.

Ardern said anybody suspected of being associated with a terrorist group should expect to be investigated under New Zealand laws, although the case remained a matter for the police. 

New Zealand police confirmed an investigation was underway but declined further comment on whether the woman would face any criminal charges.

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