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Despair grows among civilians trapped in Aleppo

December 18, 2016

Aleppo, Dec 18: Desperation mounted today among thousands of hunger-stricken Syrian civilians trapped in the rebel enclave in Aleppo after their evacuation was delayed by a disagreement over the fate of other besieged areas.allepo

As international alarm grew over the plight of residents including women, children, the sick and wounded, the UN Security Council was to vote on whether to send observers to the battleground city.

An AFP correspondent who visited a hospital in the rebel sector saw appalling conditions with patients lying on the floor without food or water and almost no heating despite sub-zero temperatures at night.

Thousands of civilians and rebels had begun leaving Aleppo on Thursday under an evacuation deal allowing Syria's regime to take full control of the divided city after years of fighting.

But the operation was suspended the next day with both sides blaming each other.

The main obstacle to a resumption is a rift over the number of people to be evacuated in parallel from two Shiite villages, Fuaa and Kafraya, under rebel siege in northwestern Syria.

Under an agreement reached between Turkey, which backs the rebels, and regime allies Russia and Iran, those evacuations would take place at the same time as the Aleppo operation.

But differences remain over the number of people to leave the villages -- the rebels have agreed to 1,500 while Shiite Iran wants 4,000 people to be allowed out.

Al-Farook Abu Bakr, of the hardline Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, said a deal had been reached for the evacuations to resume and it was possible that they would happen today.

The UN Security Council was set to meet at 1600 GMT in New York to vote on French proposals to dispatch monitors to oversee evacuations and report on the protection of civilians.

The draft text said the council was "alarmed" by the worsening humanitarian crisis in Aleppo and by the fact that "tens of thousands of besieged Aleppo inhabitants" are in need of aid and evacuation.

"Our goal through this resolution is to avoid another Srebrenica in this phase immediately following the military operations," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told AFP, referring to a 1995 Bosnian war massacre.

But the proposals face resistance from veto-wielding Russia, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Families have been sheltering during the night in freezing temperatures in bombed out apartment blocks in Aleppo's Al-Amiriyah district, the departure point for evacuations before they were halted.

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Thursday, 9 Feb 2017

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News Network
April 27,2020

Riyadh, Apr 27: The government of Saudi Arabia has signed a SR995 million (approx. Dh972m) contract with China to provide Covid-19 tests for nine million people in the Kingdom.

The Saudi Press Agency, SPA, reported that the decision came "as a result of a phone call made today (Sunday) between the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Chinese President Xi Jinping."

The contract includes providing necessary equipment and supplies, making available of 500 Chinese specialists and technicians who are specialised in performing tests, establishing six large regional laboratories throughout the Kingdom; including a mobile laboratory with a capacity of performing 10,000 tests per day. Saudi cadres will also be trained to conduct daily tests and comprehensive field tests, under the new agreement

The contract was co-signed by the National Unified Procurement Company and Chinese company Huo-yan Laboratories by Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah, Advisor at the Royal Court, on behalf of the Government of Saudi Arabia, and Chinese Ambassador to the Kingdom Chen Weiqing, as a representative of the Chinese Government.

The contract is one of the largest contracts that will provide diagnostic tests for the novel Coronavirus.

Tests were also purchased from several other companies from the United States, Switzerland and South Korea, bringing the number of available tests to 14.5 million, covering around 40 percent of Saudi Arabia's population, SPA added.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Riyadh, Mar 25: A 46-year-old man died of coronavirus in Saudi Arabia, becoming the Kingdom’s second death, according to a health ministry’s spokesman.

The health ministry recorded 133 new infections, bringing the total to 900.

Of those newly confirmed cases, 18 are associated with recent travel, and were placed in quarantine upon their arrival in the Kingdom, the spokesman said.

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Agencies
April 2,2020

Ankara, Apr 2: Saudi Arabia on Thursday declared a 24-hour lockdown in all parts of Makkah and Medina cities as part of measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

"The 24-hour curfew will be imposed in all parts of the cities of Makkah and Medina, with a ban on entry and exit from both cities," the Saudi Interior Ministry said on Twitter.

The lockdown starts from Thursday “until further notice.”

All commercial activities inside the residential neighborhoods of the two cities were also prohibited, except for pharmacies, food products stores, gas stations and banking services, the ministry said.

After first appearing in Wuhan, China last December, the virus has spread to at least 180 countries and regions, according to U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

Its data shows the number of confirmed cases worldwide have surpassed 962,900, with the death toll over 49,100 and more than 202,700 recoveries.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.
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