Category: General

White-robed worshippers from around the world have packed the streets of Islam’s holiest city ahead of the biggest hajj pilgrimage since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Banners welcoming the faithful, including the first international visitors since 2019, adorned squares and alleys, while armed security forces patrolled the ancient city, birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed.

“This is pure joy,” Sudanese pilgrim Abdel Qader Kheder told AFP in Mecca, before the event that officially starts Wednesday. “I almost can’t believe I am here. I am enjoying every moment.”

One million people, including 850,000 from abroad, are allowed at this year’s hajj after two years of drastically curtailed numbers due to the pandemic. The pilgrimage is one of five pillars of Islam, which all able-bodied Muslims with the means are required to perform at least once.

On Monday afternoon, pilgrims carrying umbrellas to shield themselves from the scorching sun flocked to souvenir and barber shops in Mecca, while others shared meals under palm trees on streets close to the Grand Mosque.

Many new arrivals had already begun performing the first ritual, which requires walking seven times around the Kaaba, the large black cubic structure at the center of the Grand Mosque.

A picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows a general view of the Kaaba (C) at the Grand Mosque, in the holy city of Mecca.

A picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows a general view of the Kaaba (C) at the Grand Mosque, in the holy city of Mecca.

Made from granite and draped in a cloth featuring verses from the Koran, the Kaaba stands nearly 15 meters (50 feet) tall. It is the structure all Muslims turn toward to pray, no matter where they are in the world.

“When I first saw the Kaaba I felt something weird and started crying,” Egyptian pilgrim Mohammed Lotfi told AFP.

At least 650,000 overseas pilgrims have arrived so far in Saudi Arabia, authorities said on Sunday.

In 2019, about 2.5 million people took part in the rituals, which also include gathering at Mount Arafat and “stoning the devil” in Mina.

The following year, when the pandemic took hold, foreigners were barred and worshippers were restricted to just 10,000 to stop the hajj from turning into a global super-spreader.

That figure rose to 60,000 fully vaccinated Saudi citizens and residents in 2021.

FILE – Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, as they wear masks and keep social distancing, a day before the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, July 17, 2021.

FILE – Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, as they wear masks and keep social distancing, a day before the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, July 17, 2021.

Pilgrims this year — only those younger than 65 are allowed — will participate in the hajj under strict sanitary conditions.

The hajj has seen numerous disasters over the years, including a 2015 stampede that killed up to 2,300 people and a 1979 attack by hundreds of gunmen that, according to the official toll, left 153 dead.

Unaccompanied women

The pilgrimage is a powerful source of prestige for the conservative desert kingdom and its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is returning from the diplomatic wilderness.

Days after the hajj, Prince Mohammed will welcome U.S. President Joe Biden who, with oil prices soaring following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has reneged on a vow to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

The hajj, which costs at least $5,000 per person, is a money-spinner for the world’s biggest oil exporter trying to diversify its economy. In normal years the pilgrimage brings in billions of dollars.

It is also a chance to showcase the kingdom’s rapid social transformation, despite persistent complaints about human rights abuses and limits on personal freedoms.

Saudi Arabia — which has under recent reforms permitted raves in Riyadh and mixed-gender beaches in Jeddah — now allows women to attend the hajj unaccompanied by male relatives, a requirement that was dropped last year.

‘Serenity’

Masks are no longer compulsory in most enclosed spaces in Saudi Arabia but they will be mandatory at the Grand Mosque, the holiest site in Islam. Pilgrims from abroad will have to submit a negative PCR test result.

Muslim pilgrims visit Mount Al-Noor, where Muslims believe Prophet Mohammad received the first words of the Koran through Gabriel in the Hira cave, in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, July 4, 2022.

Muslim pilgrims visit Mount Al-Noor, where Muslims believe Prophet Mohammad received the first words of the Koran through Gabriel in the Hira cave, in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, July 4, 2022.

The Grand Mosque will be “washed 10 times a day … by more than 4,000 male and female workers,” with more than 130,000 liters (34,000 gallons) of disinfectant used each time, authorities said.

Since the start of the pandemic, Saudi Arabia has registered more than 795,000 coronavirus cases, 9,000 of them fatal, in a population of about 34 million.

Aside from COVID, another challenge is the scorching sun in one of the world’s hottest and driest regions, which is becoming even more extreme through the effects of climate change. Although summer has only just begun, temperatures have already topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in parts of Saudi Arabia.

But Iraqi pilgrim Ahmed Abdul-Hassan al-Fatlawi said the heat is the last thing he thinks of when in Mecca.

“I am 60 years old, so it’s normal if I get physically tired because of the hot weather, but I am in a state of serenity, and that’s all that matters to me,” he told AFP.

Source: Voice of America

China placed 1.7 million people under lockdown in central Anhui province, where authorities reported nearly 300 new cases Monday in the latest of a string of outbreaks testing Beijing’s no-tolerance approach to COVID-19.

The country is the last major economy wedded to a zero-COVID strategy, responding to all cases with strict isolation orders and tough testing campaigns.

The outbreak in Anhui — where officials first found hundreds of cases last week — comes as the Chinese economy begins to rebound from a months-long lockdown in Shanghai and disruptive COVID restrictions in the capital Beijing.

Two counties in the province — Sixian and Lingbi — announced lockdowns last week, with more than 1.7 million residents only permitted to leave their homes if they are getting tested.

Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed empty streets in Sixian over the weekend and people lining up for their sixth round of mass testing in recent days.

The province reported 287 new infections on Monday, including 258 people who had no symptoms, according to China’s National Health Commission, bringing the total cases found to just over 1,000.

Provincial governor Wang Qingxian urged local authorities to “seize every minute and earnestly implement quick screening” as well as rapid quarantine and reporting of cases, in a statement published by the Anhui government on Monday.

Neighboring Jiangsu province also reported 56 new local infections across four cities on Monday.

Photos shared widely online, verified by AFP Fact Check, showed hundreds of people in hazmat suits lining up in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu, appearing to be waiting for buses to quarantine facilities.

Some of the shots showed babies in blue protective clothing carried by people with suitcases waiting outside a hospital in sweltering heat.

Temperatures in Wuxi have recently reached up to 36° C (97° F).

While cases remain low relative to China’s vast population, officials insist the zero-COVID policy is necessary to prevent a healthcare calamity, pointing to unevenly distributed medical resources and low vaccination rates among the elderly.

But the strategy has hammered the world’s second-largest economy and heavy-handed enforcement has triggered rare protests in the tightly controlled country.

China’s international isolation has also prompted some foreign businesses and families with the financial means to make exit plans.

National authorities announced a reduced quarantine requirement for international arrivals last month, rallying most Asian markets as investors hoped the move could provide a boost for Beijing’s COVID-slumped economy.

But health official Lei Zhenglong has insisted the new quarantine policy was “absolutely not a loosening of (COVID) prevention and control.”

Source: Voice of America

Macau kicked off a new round of city-wide COVID-19 testing on Monday for its more than 600,000 residents, as officials raced to contain a spiraling number of cases in the worst outbreak to hit the world’s biggest gambling hub since the pandemic began.

Coronavirus testing for all residents will take place three times this week across the city, with people also required to take rapid antigen tests in between.

The move comes as the former Portuguese colony reported 90 new cases on Sunday, taking the total number of infections to 784 since the middle of June. More than 11,000 people are in quarantine.

While Macau, a Chinese special administrative region, has not introduced a full-scale lockdown seen in mainland Chinese cities like Shanghai, the city is already largely closed.

All non-essential government services are shut, schools, parks, sports and entertainment facilities are closed, and restaurants can only provide takeaway.

Casinos are allowed to remain open, but most staff have been asked to stay home, in line with instructions to the city’s residents. The government said it would not shut casinos to protect jobs.

The stringent measures come after Macau has been largely COVID-free since an outbreak in October 2021.

Macau adheres to China’s “zero-COVID” policy which aims to eradicate all outbreaks, at just about any cost, running counter to a global trend of trying to co-exist with the virus.

Macau’s cases are still far below daily infections in other places, including neighboring Hong Kong where cases have jumped to more than 2,000 a day this month.

However, it only has one public hospital, whose services are already stretched on a daily basis. The territory has an open border with mainland China, with many residents living and working in the adjoining city of Zhuhai.

Source: Voice of America

A Hong Kong lawmaker who posed for a group photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the leader’s visit to the financial hub this week confirmed Sunday he has since tested positive for coronavirus.

Xi visited Hong Kong under strict security measures to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain in his first trip outside mainland China since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Steven Ho, a 42-year-old member of Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing party who sits in the city’s rubber stamp legislature, was one of about 100 officials granted close contact with Xi for a photo call on Thursday afternoon.

Ho was standing two rows directly behind Xi, according to the photos released by the government.

The lawmaker tested negative on the first day of Xi’s visit on Thursday and returned an uncertain test on Friday, he said.

He did not take part in any events on Friday after the uncertain test result, he said in a statement on social media.

“The sample of July 1 was one with extremely low infectivity and it was categorized as ‘uncertain’, but for the sake of public security, I did not participate in the events on that day,” Ho wrote.

Ho was the second member of the DAB party to have tested positive around Xi’s visit.

Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole representative to Beijing’s top lawmaking body, tested positive on Thursday and was absent from all events.

China is the only major economy still pursuing a zero-Covid approach of eliminating outbreaks as they emerge, using snap lockdowns and mass testing.

Xi has not left China in nearly 900 days and the vast country’s borders have been largely sealed to most outsiders.

Hong Kong is pursuing a lighter version of zero-Covid but has kept heavy travel and gathering restrictions in place throughout the pandemic.

Extraordinarily tight rules were imposed to ensure both the coronavirus and political opposition were not in Xi’s orbit during his trip to the city, where a democracy movement has been crushed since huge protests three years ago.

Hundreds of government officials, legislators and other invited guests were forced into an anti-Covid “closed-loop” system, which included limiting their social contacts, taking daily PCR tests and checking into a quarantine hotel in the days leading up to the visit.

During the visit, parts of the city were shut down, prominent dissidents were placed under heavy police surveillance, and multiple journalists were barred from covering the official events.

Nine arrests were made by the city’s national security police in the week before Xi’s visit and at least two arrests were made on Friday.

Source: Voice of America

Today, the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced $35 million, subject to appropriations, in additional support for Malawi’s economic recovery. This five-year project will focus on empowering women and youth, expanding agricultural commercialization, increasing household and community resilience, and addressing the impacts from a changing climate. The new project will generate jobs and incomes for smallholder farmers and increase agricultural and food exports for the country, and is designed to complement the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s efforts in Malawi to reduce poverty through economic growth. USAID expects to award the new activity in the coming months as part of its support for Malawi 2063, Malawi’s vision to become a self-reliant, upper-middle income country over the next four decades.

The goal of the new initiative is to promote a more inclusive, gender equitable, diversified, and resilient private sector that drives sustainable wealth creation that includes Malawi’s diverse and under-resourced communities. The initiative will strengthen rural economic hubs around value chains or companies that act as anchors for an ecosystem of actors, from smallholder farmers, to service providers and value-added processing. Malawi’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture, with 80 percent of Malawians working in the sector, but productivity is constrained by declining farm sizes and degraded soils and watersheds. Most farming households in Malawi are extremely vulnerable to climatic shocks due to this severe environmental degradation combined with the ongoing impacts of climate change. Malawi’s agricultural industry is not sufficiently commercialized nor large enough to meet the needs of a growing population, which is projected to double to nearly 34 million people in just over two decades.

Source: US Agency for International Development

Luanda – The National Football Team coach, Pedro Gonçalves, disclosed, this Sunday, the definitive list of 23 players aiming the Cosafa Cup, from 05 to 17 July, in South Africa.

All the players are playing in the National Championship of I Division (Girabola).

In the continental competition, Angola is in Group A, with the likes of Comoros, Seychelles and Botswana.

In Group B, there are Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius and Eswaitni.

The National Team “Palancas Negras” includes the goalkeepers – Neblu (1º de Agosto), Cambila (R Libolo) and Mualucano (Petro de Luanda).

Defenders – Tó (Petro de Luanda), Denilson (Inter), Razão (Inter), Kinito (Petro), Gaspar (Sagrada Esperança), Paizo (1º de Agosto), Hossi (1º de Agosto).

Midfielders – Aisson (Bravos do Maquis), Higino (Inter), Herenilson, Mário (1º de Agosto), Maya, Megue (Petro de Luanda) and Vitoriano Lucoquessa (Sagrada Esperança).

Forwards – Zine, Bito (1º de Agosto), Julinho (Inter), Dilson (Académica do Lobito), Lepua (Sagrada Esperança) and Vanilson (Progresso).

The Palancas Negras embark, this Sunday, at 17h00, for the South African city of Durban, where they start competing, Tuesday, in the 21st edition of the Cosafa Cup.

In the opening round, the National Team plays against Comoros at 4pm at the King Zwelithini Stadium.

Source: Angola Press News Agency