Lebanon seizes 2 tons of drugs aboard Saudi-bound jet

Dubai, Jun 5: A new set of coronavirus guidelines for UAE hotels has been published by the National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority.

The guidelines, released late Thursday, require all employees to be tested for Covid-19 before reopening, and to be re-tested every 15 days.

Hotels are expected to provide an infrared thermometer and thermal camera, with employee temperatures to be tested several times per working day.

Any guest or employee showing coronavirus symptoms will not be permitted to enter hotel facilities, the guidelines stress.

Hotels must also leave a 24-hour gap between guests leaving a room, and the next guests arriving.

Facilities such as restaurants, cafes, gyms, swimming pools and beaches in hotels will resume operation under a minimum capacity.

Customers must have their temperatures taken before they enter.

The working hours of restaurants and cafes will be from 6am until 9pm, allowing four people to sit at the same table with 2.5 metres left between tables. Menus must be sterilised after each use.

Dubai, Jan 8: A Ukrainian airliner crashed soon after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport on Wednesday, killing all 176 people aboard, Iran's state television and Ukraine's leaders said.

The Boeing 737 belonging to Ukraine International Airlines crashed near the airport and burst into flames. Ukraine's embassy in Iran, citing preliminary information, said the plane had suffered engine failure and the crash was not caused by "terrorism".

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said there were no survivors.

"My sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of all passengers and crew," Zelenskiy said in a statement, adding that Ukraine was seeking to establish the circumstances of the crash and the death toll.

Iranian TV said the crash was due to technical problems but did not elaborate. State broadcaster IRIB said on its website that one of the plane's two black boxes - the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder - had been found.

Iranian media quoted an Iranian aviation official as saying the pilot of the airliner did not declare an emergency.

There was no official word from Ukraine International Airlines. It was the Kiev-based airline's first fatal crash.

"The fire is so heavy that we cannot (do) any rescue... we have 22 ambulances, four bus ambulances and a helicopter at the site," Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency services, told Iranian state television.

Ukraine's prime minister and Iranian state TV said 167 passengers and 9 crew were on board. Iranian TV said 32 of those on board were foreigners.

Television footage showed debris and smouldering engine parts strewn across a field, and rescue workers with face masks retrieving bodies of the victims.

According to air tracking service FlightRadar24, the plane that crashed was Flight PS 752 and was flying to Kiev. The plane was three years old and was a Boeing 737-800NG, it said.

The model's twin engines are made by CFM International, a U.S.-French venture co-owned by General Electric and France's Safran.

Modern aircraft are designed and certified to cope with an engine failure shortly after take-off and to fly for extended periods on one engine. However, an uncontained engine failure releasing shrapnel can cause damage to other aircraft systems.

A spokesman for Boeing said the company was aware of media reports of a plane crash in Iran and was gathering more information. The plane manufacturer grounded its 737 MAX fleet in March after two crashes that killed 346 people.

The 737-800 is one of the world's most-flown models with a good safety record and which does not have the software feature implicated in crashes of the 737 MAX.

Under international rules overseen by the United Nations, Iran is responsible for leading the crash investigation.

Ukraine would be involved and the United States would usually be accredited as the country where the Boeing jet was designed and built. France, where the engine maker CFM has half its activities, may also be involved.

There was no immediate word on whether the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board would be involved in the probe amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The NTSB usually invites Boeing to give technical advice in such investigations.

Dubai, Apr 15: Saudi Arabia reported 493 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 5869, the Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday.

According to the ministry of health, the number of recoveries today are 42 cases, making total of recoveries in the kingdom 931. And 71 critical cases in intensive care.

The ministry also confirmed 6 deaths bringing the total number of deaths in the kingdom to 79.

Saudi Arabia imposed a 24-hour curfew and lockdown on the cities of Riyadh, Tabuk, Dammam, Dhahran and Hofuf and throughout the governorates of Jeddah, Taif, Qatif and Khobar. This week the curfew was extended until further notice.

Overall, Saudi Arabia has reported one of the lowest rates of infection in the region, with around 5,000 cases in a population of over 30 million. Mecca was one of the first Saudi cities to be placed under a full-day curfew, and authorities took unprecedented precautions, suspending religious tourism in February and closing mosques across the country in March.