Dhaka eyes opportunity to send health workers to Saudi Arabia

Special Dhaka eyes opportunity to send health workers to Saudi Arabia
The MoU signing to establish a Saudi-Bangladesh business council. (SPA)
Short Url
Updated 01 November 2022

Dhaka eyes opportunity to send health workers to Saudi Arabia

Dhaka eyes opportunity to send health workers to Saudi Arabia
  • Only about 50 Bangladeshi clinicians reside in the Kingdom
  • Bangladesh health sector struggling to employ medical graduates

DHAKA: Bangladesh is eyeing a new opportunity to send its clinicians to Saudi Arabia, officials said on Wednesday, after an initial agreement was reached during a Bangladesh-Saudi Arabia Joint Commission meeting in Riyadh.

The 14th session of the joint commission took place on Oct. 30-31, focusing on wide-ranging cooperation, including in the fields of energy, security, labor, investment and health.

During the meeting, the two countries agreed to form a business council to increase trade and a task force to enhance energy cooperation. The two sides also signed an expedited memorandum of understanding for the recruitment of Bangladeshi medics.

“We agreed to initiate an executive program to bring Bangladeshi health sector professionals into the Kingdom. Under this program, Bangladeshi doctors, nurses and other health professionals will get the opportunity to work in the Kingdom,” Dr. Mohammad Javed Patwary, Bangladeshi envoy to Riyadh and permanent representative to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, told Arab News.

“A big development took place on this point,” he added.

“I hope this program will move forward very fast. It’s almost final and I hope the deal will be signed shortly.”

According to Bangladesh Medical Association data, only about 50 Bangladeshi clinicians reside the Kingdom, which otherwise is home to some 2.5 million expat workers from the South Asian country.

The potential to increase that number would not only enhance the Kingdom’s workforce in the health sector, but would also be an investment in the quality of Bangladeshi medics, given the top quality of equipment at Saudi clinics, according to Dr. Ehteshamul Huq Choudhury, the medical association’s secretary general.

“Sending health workers to the Kingdom will create win-win opportunities for both countries. Hospitals in the Kingdom are very well equipped with state-of-the-art technology. When our doctors and nurses work with this equipment, it will obviously increase their skills also,” Choudhury told Arab News.

“Eventually, when they return home with these skills, they will be able to serve the people back home.”

Employment abroad would also help them to retain their profession, as thousands of medical graduates in Bangladesh are now without jobs despite their high education levels.

Bangladesh’s more than 100 medical colleges produce large numbers of certified doctors, and many nursing graduates have completed master’s degrees. But the country’s health infrastructure is unable to accommodate them all.

“At present we have 110,000 registered doctors in the country while there are 123,000 trained nurses. Of them, the government health sector employs 40,000 doctors. The rest are either employed by the private sector or remain unemployed,” Choudhury said.

“As per my knowledge, around 30,000 doctors are currently unemployed,” he added.

“If these health workers remain unemployed for a longer period of time, their knowledge and skills will somehow derail.”

The number of clinicians Bangladesh could send to Saudi Arabia would depend on demand.

“But I think Saudi Arabia is in need of expert doctors, nurses and health technologists. This sort of shortage is seen in many parts of the world now, like in the UK, Australia etc.,” Choudhury said.

“Since we have a huge number of skilled doctors and trained nurses, we can send as many as the Kingdom requires.”


How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America

How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America
Updated 9 min 50 sec ago

How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America

How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America
  • Egyptian-American Bolingbrook Illinois Mayor Mary Basta says connecting with local community paves the way for a better understanding of Arab immigrants with Middle Eastern roots

CHICAGO: An Egyptian-American immigrant successful in US political and activism life says that the key to countering pro-Israel propaganda is to make a direct connection with Americans and educate them on the truth about the Middle East conflict.

Mary Basta, who came to America from Egypt in the 1970s at the age of five, pursued a career in hospitality in Nashville, Tennessee, but quickly found herself rising in local politics to become the mayor of the 16th-largest city in Illinois, a state that has 1,456 cities.

Basta told Arab News on Wednesday (June 7) that she achieved her meteoric rise in American politics by focusing on “American interests” first before focusing on the interests of her former homeland Egypt — though not forgetting that heritage either.

“Egyptians and Middle Eastern in general is a little bit unique. We have a hard time because we can’t let go. We always carry the burden on our shoulders of where we are from and the issues that we face. We underwent a revolution and we changed two presidents. And you are always carrying that and you always feel like this is my home, this is my country and my culture and what can I do to help. But for us, we have lots of different issues that we encounter here. Both, one, we aren’t pure Americans so therefore you always feel you have to work harder. You have to achieve more. And then from our family, you always have to be this engineer, or doctor, dentist or this lawyer, because anything else you haven’t been successful in your life,” Basta said.

“So, there are definitely some high benchmarks that we instill in ourselves, and our families instill in us, and trying to live up to those expectations is very hard, while still trying to maintain our traditions and our cultures. Some people hold on to those like they are holding on to life, and some people are glad to get rid of them as soon as possible. So, it is hard to navigate between being true to yourself, your culture, as well as what we are thinking and where your current situation is. It’s not always when in Rome do as the Romans do. Sometimes you have to do as the Greeks do.”

Basta told Arab News that she and her family came to the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook in 2003 to find a better life, volunteering to assist the local schools and local government to help her children.

Less than 16 years later, Basta entered local politics — what she prefers to call “public service” — serving as a volunteer on several Bolingbrook commissions, including the powerful Zoning Board, which oversees community and business expansion.

She quickly was named chairwoman. Soon after, in 2019, she was named by the city’s mayor and board to fill a vacancy as one of the village’s six trustees. Within a year, after the mayor left office, in 2020, her board colleagues elected her as mayor. And the following year, in 2021, was elected by a majority of the village’s 75,000 residents to a four-year term as the mayor, which she is now serving.

Basta said that her rapid rise in politics, which dwarfs the decades-long efforts of other Arab Americans to enter politics, is different because she focused her attention first on serving the residents of Bolingbrook rather than dedicating her life to changing the politics of the Middle East more than 9,000 miles away.

“This will always be home to my children, where I can say Egypt is my home or even Nashville, but Bolingbrook will be where my kids were born and where they grew up and where they graduated from. So I want that to be a place that they are proud of to bring their kids back here, even grandkids, and say this is where I grew up, this is where I was born, this is my soccer field, this is my school. For that to be something to be proud of it takes effort and it takes work and it takes long-term planning and thinking. So, putting the right people in place, putting the right policies in place, and then watching them getting carried out from that point,” Basta said.

“It’s not about me, it is about we. It’s not what I want but it’s what is better for the community.”

Basta said that running for American political office is much like running a business. It takes “a thick skin” to withstand the criticism, as well as a local focus on the community that elected you. She said that she did face the same discrimination and stereotype “bullying” many Arabs, Christian and Muslims have faced, but she persevered.

“Today’s kids have not seen bullying until you see a little foreign girl growing up in a very white, I am going to use the term redneck, portion of Nashville, Tennessee. So, I definitely know what bullying is. I definitely felt it growing up as being someone who is different. Not just in the way that I looked but also in the culture. As you know, Middle Eastern culture is very different from that in the US, especially for females,” Basta said.

Basta made her comments during an appearance on “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” broadcast Wednesday May 31 live in Detroit and Washington D.C. on the US Arab Radio Network and sponsored by Arab News.

You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.


Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab

Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab
Updated 10 June 2023

Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab

Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab
  • Rebels have been waging an insurgency against the government for more than 15 years and have often targeted hotels

MOGADISHU: Somali security forces brought to an end the siege of a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, state media said Saturday, after the Islamist Al-Shabab group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The rebels, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, have been waging an insurgency against the internationally backed federal government for more than 15 years and have often targeted hotels, which tend to host high-ranking Somali and foreign officials.
The security forces “shot and killed” rebels who carried out “the desperate terrorist attack on the Pearl Beach... in Mogadishu,” SNTV reported on Saturday.
It added that security forces had rescued “many civilians from inside the hotel” and “shot and killed” those responsible.
Security and intelligence sources confirmed the end of the attack to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Witnesses reported hearing gunfire and explosions at the hotel on Lido beach.
“I was near the Pearl Beach restaurant when (a) heavy explosion occurred in front of the building,” witness Abdirahim Ali said.
“I have managed to flee but there was heavy gunfire afterwards and the security forces rushed to the area.”
Yaasin Nur was at the restaurant and said it was “full of people as it was recently renovated.”
“I’m worried because there are several of my colleagues who went there and two of them are not responding to their phones,” he said.
Several ambulances were also parked nearby, an AFP journalist saw.
Al-Shabab has been driven out of Somalia’s main towns and cities but retains power in large swathes of rural areas, and continues to carry out attacks against security and civilian targets, including in the capital.
In August 2020, Al-Shabab launched a large-scale attack on the Elite, another hotel at Lido beach popular with officials, killing 10 civilians and a police officer.
It took security forces four hours to regain control over the site in that attack.
The latest attack at Lido beach highlights the endemic security problems in the Horn of Africa country as it struggles to emerge from decades of conflict and natural disasters.
Last year, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud launched an “all-out war” against Al-Shabab, rallying Somalis to help flush out members of the jihadist group he described as “bedbugs.”
His pledge came after 21 people were killed and 117 others were wounded in an Al-Shabab siege on a Mogadishu hotel in August 2022 that lasted 30 hours.
The attack raised serious questions about the security forces, who failed to protect a heavily guarded administrative district.
In October 2022, twin car bombings in Mogadishu killed 121 people and injured 333, in the country’s deadliest attack in five years.
The army and militias known as “macawisley” have in recent months retaken swathes of territory in the center of the country in an operation backed by the African Union mission ATMIS and US air strikes.
But Al-Shabab fighters killed 54 Ugandan peacekeepers in an attack on an African Union base in the southern town of Bulo Marer last month.


No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK

No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK
Updated 10 June 2023

No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK

No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK
  • Incident led to the closure of one of four runways at the airport

TOKYO: Some flights were delayed at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Saturday after two planes appeared to have collided on the ground near a taxiway, public broadcaster NHK reported, citing Japan’s transport ministry.
No injuries occurred, NHK said, but the incident led to the closure of one of four runways at the airport at about 11 a.m. (0200 GMT).
The broadcaster showed footage of Eva Airways and Thai Airways jets on the ground.
Part of the wing of the Thai Airways plane looked to be broken, and what appeared to be fragments could be seen near the runway.
Japan’s transport ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment.


US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18
Updated 10 June 2023

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18
  • First trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China next week, rescheduling a visit that was canceled in February after a saga over a suspected surveillance balloon, US officials said Friday.
Blinken is expected to arrive in Beijing on June 18, the first trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018, US officials said on condition of anonymity.
The State Department has not officially announced his travel. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently said the United States would announce travel by senior officials “in the near future” without giving details.
Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in Bali in November and agreed to try to stop high tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Blinken to Beijing.
Blinken abruptly canceled a trip scheduled in early February after the United States said it detected — and later shot down — a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US mainland, drawing fury from US lawmakers and denials by Beijing.
But the two sides have more recently looked again to keep tensions in check including with an extensive, closed-door meeting between Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna last month.
Tensions have risen sharply between the world’s two largest economies in recent years, especially over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims and has not ruled out seizing by force.
The two countries are also at odds over China’s increasingly assertive posture in the region and over trade and human rights.
Biden, however, has looked to limited areas for cooperation with China, such as climate change, in contrast with the more fully adversarial position adopted at the end of the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump.


UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack

UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack
Updated 10 June 2023

UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack

UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack
  • Mali, ruled by a military junta since a 2020 coup against an elected president, has faced destabilizing attacks by armed extremist groups since 2013

UNITED NATIONS: Attackers killed one UN peacekeeper and seriously injured eight others Friday in Mali’s northern Timbuktu region, an area where extremists continue to operate, the United Nations said.

The peacekeepers were part of a security patrol that was targeted first by an improvised explosive device and then by direct fire in the town of Ber, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The United Nations joins the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, in srongly condemning the attack, Dujarric said.
Mali has been ruled by a military junta since a 2020 coup against an elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. It has faced destabilizing attacks by armed extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group since 2013.
In 2021, France and its European partners engaged in the fight against extremists in Mali’s north withdrew from the country after the junta brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group.
The United States warned Mali’s military government in April that it would be “irresponsible” for the United Nations to continue deploying its more than 15,000 peacekeepers unless the western African nation ends restrictions, including on operating reconnaissance drones, and carries out political commitments toward peace and elections in March 2024.
The warning came as the UN Security Council considers three options proposed by Secretary-General António Guterres for the peacekeeping mission’s future: increase its size, reduce its footprint, or withdraw troops and police and turn it into a political mission. Its current mandate expires on June 30.
Dujarric said the peacekeeper killed on Friday was the ninth to die in Mali this year.
“This tragic loss is a stark reminder of the risks that peacekeepers in Mali and other places around the world face while tirelessly working to bring stability and peace to the people of Mali,” he said.