France and Algeria mend ties after visa row

France and Algeria mend ties after visa row
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced a return “to a normal consular relationship” with Algeria. (File/AFP)
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Updated 19 December 2022
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France and Algeria mend ties after visa row

France and Algeria mend ties after visa row
  • France reduced visas granted to Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians last year to encourage countries’ cooperation against irregular migration

ALGIERS: France said Sunday it had ended months of tensions over a visa dispute with Algeria, just days after Paris and Rabat made a similar announcement.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, on a visit to the capital Algiers, announced a return “to a normal consular relationship” with Algeria, according to a statement posted on Twitter.
In September 2021, Paris reduced visa quotas to its former colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, in a bid to encourage the countries to cooperate against irregular migration.
Paris slashed rates by 30 percent for Tunisia, and 50 percent for Algeria and Morocco, in the hopes the countries would repatriate their citizens living in France as irregular migrants.
The move sparked widespread public anger.
France restored visa rates with Tunisia to pre-Covid levels in August, and on Friday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Paris had returned to “full consular cooperation” with Morocco.
Consular ties with both Algeria and Morocco were effective since December 12, Paris has said.
On Sunday, Darmanin praised an “extremely strong relationship” between Paris and Algiers.


WHO says more contaminated medicinal syrups found in new regions

WHO says more contaminated medicinal syrups found in new regions
Updated 28 sec ago
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WHO says more contaminated medicinal syrups found in new regions

WHO says more contaminated medicinal syrups found in new regions

The World Health Organization on Thursday said several contaminated syrups and suspension medicines had been identified in countries in the WHO regions of the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific.
The affected products were manufactured by Pharmix Laboratories in Pakistan, the WHO said, and were first identified in the Maldives and Pakistan. Some of the tainted products have also been found in Belize, Fiji and Laos. Pharmix was not immediately available for comment.
The medicines, liquids containing active ingredients to treat various conditions, contained unacceptable levels of the contaminant ethylene glycol, WHO said.
The alert is the latest in a line of warnings from WHO about similarly contaminated medicines made in India and Indonesia, which were linked to the deaths of around 300 children worldwide last year.
No adverse events have been reported to the WHO regarding the Pakistan-made syrups, the agency’s statement said, but it urged countries to step up vigilance and test products made by the company between December 2021 and December 2022.
The contamination was found in Alergo syrup in a routine examination by the Maldives Food and Drug Authority in November, and confirmed by the Australian regulator.
A follow-up inspection at Pharmix manufacturing facilities, conducted by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, found that a number of other products were also contaminated. It has ordered the company to stop making all oral liquid medicines and issued a recall alert in November.
A total of 23 batches of Alergo syrup, Emidone suspension, Mucorid syrup, Ulcofin suspension and Zincell syrup are affected, the WHO said. Only Alergo so far has been found outside Pakistan.
The contamination levels ranged from 0.62 percent to 0.82 percent, compared to the accepted level of not more than 0.10 percent, according to the alert. The products are variously designed to treat allergies, coughs and other health issues.
“The substandard products referenced in this alert are unsafe and their use, especially in children, may result in serious injury or death,” the WHO warned.


Two months of war in Gaza leave elderly and newborns destitute and displaced

Two months of war in Gaza leave elderly and newborns destitute and displaced
Updated 1 min 28 sec ago
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Two months of war in Gaza leave elderly and newborns destitute and displaced

Two months of war in Gaza leave elderly and newborns destitute and displaced
  • With no real sign of any imminent respite, Palestinians are living with little food or clean water, often on the street, trying to calm screaming children at night as bombs and shells fall

GAZA: After two months of war in Gaza, most of its people are homeless, crammed by a pounding Israeli bombardment into yet smaller areas of an already tiny enclave where the elderly and newborns live alike in tents amid the rubble.
Three women pushed from their homes in the Gaza Strip over 61 days of fighting have now ended up desperate for shelter and safety after fleeing from one place to another under air strikes and shellfire.
Zainab Khalil, 57, is seeking to move for a fourth time as Israeli tanks roll into the southern city of Khan Younis. Israa Al-Jamala, 28, lives in a tent tending her infant daughter who was born the night a short-lived truce began. And Mai Salim walks by the Egyptian border fearing she and her family will be forced across it into a life of permanent exile.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were taken unawares by the sudden disaster that began to unfold for them on Oct. 7 as Israeli jets began strikes to retaliate for a surprise Hamas attack across the border that Israel says killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The Israeli military has vowed to crush Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza and is pledged to Israel’s destruction, but says the group hides its weapons, command centers and fighters among a civilian population it uses as “human shields.” Hamas denies this.
Four-fifths of Gaza residents have now been displaced, many of them several times over. Their homes, businesses, mosques and schools have been damaged, destroyed or abandoned as too dangerous in the face of the Israeli assault. Health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say 17,177 people have been killed there.
With no real sign of any imminent respite, Palestinians are living with little food or clean water, often on the street, trying to calm screaming children at night as bombs and shells fall.
“A new mother should be in her home raising the child with her mother, with her family,” said Jamala, cradling her tiny daughter, also called Israa, amid the tents that have sprung up around a hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.
After the Jamala home was shelled, the family moved into the makeshift camp outside Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital, she said. Little Israa was born there on Nov. 24, the night a week-long truce began, raising hope that the conflict might relent.
But after a week, fighting resumed and the family remains in the tent, a carpet covering the sand and Israa sleeping in a small cot.
Like others in Gaza they struggle to find food and other necessities. “See how much we’re in need. There’s no milk. No powdered milk,” Jamala said.
Even when the war finally ends, she does not know what she will do as their home was shelled. “Where will we stay? Where can we raise this baby? Where can we live?” she said.

BOMBARDMENT
Khalil lived in Sheikh Radwan, a suburb of Gaza City near Beach Refugee Camp in the enclave’s north. Israel started telling residents to go south in mid-October, though it continued with air strikes across the territory.
She did not want to leave, calling it the most difficult decision of her life. She finally moved to a shelter nearby where she thought she would be safer from bombardment, but as air strikes intensified over 10 days she decided to move on.
“A journey mixed with fear, despair, displacement and sadness under heavy bombardment,” was how she described her odyssey from shelter to shelter.
When Israeli troops pushed into Gaza City and surrounded Al-Shifa Hospital, she headed south with a friend and her family, alternately walking and riding in a donkey cart.
As they crossed a front line, Israeli soldiers ordered them to “walk a bit and stop, walk and stop” over four hours, she said.
She wound up living in a school in Khan Younis being used as a shelter for around 30 displaced people, where some of her nieces had already ended up. “In this war, who doesn’t get killed by bombs gets killed by disease, sadness and despair,” she said.
But Israel’s military is now ordering people in Khan Younis too to leave and Khalil must look for a new place to stay.
The only major town left to run to is Rafah, hard against the border with Egypt. Most Gaza residents are descended from refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel during the war of 1948. Many are terrified they will end up as refugees again, forced from Gaza altogether.
Walking by the border fence, Salim and a friend peered over toward Egypt. She had fled her home in Gaza City, moving first to Nuseirat and later to Khan Younis before finally ending up in Rafah after the Israeli military ordered people to move again.
“For us, this is the last stop. After that, if they want to forcibly displace us we will not leave. They can kill us right here but we will not leave our land and our entire lives. We will not do that,” she said.

 

 


Biden stresses ‘critical need to protect civilians’ in Netanyahu call

Biden stresses ‘critical need to protect civilians’ in Netanyahu call
Updated 49 min 25 sec ago
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Biden stresses ‘critical need to protect civilians’ in Netanyahu call

Biden stresses ‘critical need to protect civilians’ in Netanyahu call

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday it was “critical” to protect civilians in Gaza and said much more aid must be allowed in, the White House said.
Biden, who was speaking by telephone to Netanyahu for the first time since November 26, called for the creation of humanitarian corridors to “separate the civilian population from Hamas.”
“The president emphasized the critical need to protect civilians and to separate the civilian population from Hamas including through corridors that allow people to move safely from defined areas of hostilities,” the White House said in a statement.
The United States has strongly defended Israel’s right to defend itself after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed while 138 people remain as hostages.
But the Biden administration says that too many Palestinian civilians are dying in Israel’s attacks. The Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll had risen to 17,177 by Thursday.
It has also told Israel, which is now attacking southern Gaza following the breakdown of a shortlived truce last week, that numbers of casualties and displacements should not be as great as during its initial assault on the north.
As heavy urban combat raged in and around Gaza’s biggest cities on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel needed to do more.
“It remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Blinken said during a press conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Thursday.
“There does remain a gap between... the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
The United States has also been pushing to get more aid into Gaza.
Biden welcomed Israel’s decision to let more fuel in following the breakdown of a truce “but stressed that much more assistance was urgently required across the board,” the White House said.
He also called on Hamas to allow the Red Cross access to hostages that the Palestinian militant group still holds.
Biden separately spoke to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, as efforts continue to restore the short-lived truce that broke down last week, the White House said.
The two leaders agreed to work for a “durable and sustainable peace in the Middle East to include the establishment of a Palestinian state,” it said.


Son of Israeli minister killed in Gaza battles -statement

Son of Israeli minister killed in Gaza battles -statement
Updated 08 December 2023
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Son of Israeli minister killed in Gaza battles -statement

Son of Israeli minister killed in Gaza battles -statement
  • More than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry there, and around 1.9 million people, 85 percent of the population, have been displaced

JERUSALEM: The son of Israeli cabinet minister and former military chief Gadi Eizenkot was killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity Party, said on Thursday.
Party members Eizenkot and Gantz, also a former army chief, joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government shortly after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack which prompted an Israeli air, ground and sea offensive in the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military did not provide precise details about the death of Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, other than to say he was killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip.
“Together with all of Israel I send my support to Gadi and to his entire family, and a big hug. We are all committed to keep fighting for the sacred cause for which Gal died,” Gantz said in a statement.
In a condolence message, Netanyahu said he was heartbroken.
Israel has vowed to annihilate the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas after its fighters killed 1,200 people in Israel and dragged 240 more back to Gaza as hostages, according to an Israeli tally.
More than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry there, and around 1.9 million people, 85 percent of the population, have been displaced.
Hamas, designated as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western countries, is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

 

 


Gaza children sleep hungry and wake hungry in Rafah camp

Gaza children sleep hungry and wake hungry in Rafah camp
Updated 08 December 2023
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Gaza children sleep hungry and wake hungry in Rafah camp

Gaza children sleep hungry and wake hungry in Rafah camp
  • Food shortages have been a problem throughout the two-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, but have worsened since the end of a week-long truce on Dec. 1 as the number of aid trucks entering from Egypt has fallen

RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Displaced Gazans sheltering in a school courtyard in Rafah were resorting to desperate measures such as diluting baby milk powder in too much water or giving children one meal a day because there was not enough food to go around.
At the southern tip of Gaza, on the border with Egypt, the Rafah area was the only one in the whole of the Palestinian enclave to have received limited aid deliveries over the past four days, the UN humanitarian office said on Thursday.
But there was still not enough food for everyone and parents said their children were getting sick and losing weight.
Sitting on a mat in front of his family’s tent in a makeshift displacement camp, Zakaria Rehan held his baby boy, Yazan, and a feeding bottle with a small amount of liquid.
“This is basically water with a spoonful of powder, even less than a spoonful, anything so it just smells like milk, just so I can trick him into thinking it is milk so he can drink it,” said Rehan. “But it isn’t healthy, it doesn’t give him any nutrition.”
Rehan said all the families in the camp were facing a daily struggle to find food and a means to cook it. He said he had eaten raw beans from a can that came in an aid delivery because there was no fuel for a fire.
“Yes, there is aid that comes in, but it isn’t enough at all. It isn’t enough for all the families. You get a can of beans, or a can of meat, for 10 people. Even if one person was to eat this alone, it wouldn’t satiate him.”
Food shortages have been a problem throughout the two-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, but have worsened since the end of a week-long truce on Dec. 1 as the number of aid trucks entering from Egypt has fallen and distribution has been hindered by intense combat, including in southern Gaza.

ONLY MEAL OF THE DAY
In the mouth of another tent at the Rafah school camp, three children were eating rice out of a single pan. Their mother, Yosra Al-Deeb, said they would have nothing else for the rest of the day.
“The children sleep hungry and wake up hungry. I made them a meal, and that’s the only meal they eat in a day, the rest of the day they don’t eat,” she said, her anger and exhaustion showing in her face.
“At home, I used to feed them a nutritious meal, they never got sick. But here, they’re always sick, every day they have stomach flu,” she said.
In another part of the camp, Naji Shallah had chopped some tomatoes and a green pepper and was preparing to cook them in a small pan. He too said this would be his children’s only meal of the day.
“If I could find bread for my children, it would be like having a pound of gold,” he said, adding they were dehydrated from lack of food and water and that one of his sons had lost a lot of weight.
“And if I secure bread, I can only give my child half a loaf, because if he were to eat the whole loaf, he won’t eat the next day.”
The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people including babies and children and kidnapping 240 hostages of all ages, according to Israeli figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, Israel launched a military assault on Gaza that has killed more than 17,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
UN humanitarian chief Volker Turk has described living conditions in the bombarded strip as “apocalyptic.”