The list of demands was meant to be rejected: Qatar FM

Agencies
July 2, 2017

Rome, Jul 2: Qatar's foreign minister has said Doha will not meet any of the 13 demands made by Saudi Arabia and its allies, offering instead "a proper condition for a dialogue" to resolve the Gulf crisis.ar

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, speaking at the news conference in the Italian capital Rome on Saturday, said the list "was meant to be rejected", pointing to the fact that it arrived with a 10-day expiration date.

"Everyone is aware that these demands are meant to infringe the sovereignty of the state of Qatar, shut the freedom of speech and impose auditing and probation mechanism for Qatar," he said.

"We believe that the world is not governed by ultimatums, we believe that the world is governed by the international law, it is governed by an order that does not allow large countries to bully small countries."

Sheikh Mohammed spoke less than 48 hours before the deadline for the demands issued last week was due to pass.

It was not clear what would come next. Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar did not fear any military retaliation for rejecting the ultimatum.

The list of demands include downgrading ties with Iran, shutting down Al Jazeera media network and Turkish military base in Doha.

The ultimatum came more than two weeks after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed sanctions, accusing it of supporting "terrorism".

Sheikh Mohammed said on Saturday that "those parties brand any party of state who opposes their designs as terrorists".

He also said that Trump was manipulated into believing that Qatar was not doing enough to crack down on funding "extremists".

"The United States administration and institutions firmly believe in the state of Qatar, yet the statement made by President [Donald] Trump was based on false allegations and the false impression given to him by the heads of states who imposed blockade on Qatar," he said.

Trump would be able to find "the true established facts" from the US institutions, according to Sheikh Mohammed.

"The state of Qatar has been subjected to unlawful measures on the basis of false allegations without the submission of evidence," he said.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
May 21,2020

The Tawakkalna application developed by Saudi Arabia's National Information Centre to processes requests for movement permits during the curfew to curb the spread of the virus has become a major helplnine for past few weeks. 

The application developed through the close cooperation between the Ministry of Health and the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) was launched on May 4.

According to Saudi Telecom Group, it handles 20,000 calls daily through the Tawakkalna platform by dedicating a call centre of 600 employees through its Contact Centre Company (CCC). 

The Tawakkalna app can be used to issue e-permits for a selected group of government and private sector employees who were exempted from the curfew, and individuals who have medical appointments as well as couriers.

Tawakkalna has features for the service of citizens and residents, for ensuring their safety and comfort that would contribute to facilitating the access of authorized persons to travel permits.

The official page about Tawakkalna on Twitter, says: “You must always keep in mind that pinpointing your exact location of residence is the only way for you to benefit from the app’s range of services and permits.”

The app will also provide the latest alerts and medical news issued by the Ministry of Health about the virus as well as about its spread, ways to prevent it and movement permits.

Tawakkalna can be used for self-disclosure for people who show signs of coronavirus infection and for requesting ambulance service and other important services for the community.

Through the app users can apply for a one-hour permit for a walk in the neighborhood on a daily basis, thereby encouraging walking during this period of lockdown.

Comments

muhammad Sheheryar
 - 
Sunday, 14 Jun 2020

sir,

 

 
i am facing problem for receiving OTP code during registration for my family. i am unable to get OTP code.

please assist. 

Abdulrazaq Yousef
 - 
Thursday, 4 Jun 2020

Entering date of birth is the big problem is the big problem of this app. 

 

Malik asif
 - 
Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Dob entering problem 

Thomas Philipose
 - 
Monday, 25 May 2020

Hi,

I am trying to register in the Tawakkalna app, but it keeps on throwing error. Any idea?

 

thanx

 

 

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Agencies
May 25,2020

Abu Dhabi, May 25: Dusty weather to persist in the UAE on Monday as well with a chance of rainfall in parts of the country, the national Met department reported.

According to the NCM, the weather today will be fair to partly cloudy, with a chance of some convective clouds formation by afternoon - eastward and northward - extending to some internal areas that may be associated with some rainfall.

The weather will get humid by night and Tuesday morning over some coastal areas.

NCM predicts a wet Eid break.

Sharjah Police issued a weather warning as heavy rain flooded roads in Sharjah's Kalba among other areas.

Moderate to fresh winds will gain strength during the day causing blowing dust and sand.

The sea will be slight to moderate in the Arabian Gulf and in Oman Sea.

Earlier on Sunday, a weather alert was issued by authorities as moderate to heavy rain - accompanied with hail - lashed parts of the UAE. A rainbow in Dubai skies cheered up residents, celebrating a unique Eid this year amid the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic - by mostly staying home.

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News Network
May 7,2020

Dubai, May 7: As India begins the world’s largest evacuation mission by repatriating its overseas citizens stranded due to COVID-19, as many as 354 of them from the UAE will fly into their home country in the first two flights to Kerala today.

An Air India Express flight, which is scheduled to take off from Abu Dhabi to Kochi at 4.15 pm is the first flight, which will be followed by a Dubai-Kozhikode flight of the same airline at 5.10pm. The Indian missions in the UAE finalised the list of passengers, who were chosen based on the compelling reasons they submitted while registering their names.

Selection criteria

These include pregnant women and their accompanying family members in some instances, people with medical emergencies, workers and housemaids in distress, families with cancelled visas, bereaved family members who couldn’t attend funerals back home, a few students and stranded visitors and tourists including two brothers who got stranded in Dubai International Airport for 50 days, the missions said.

Short-listing the first passengers from among a database of more than 200,000 applicants, who include around 6,500 pregnant women, has been a mammoth task which posed several challenges for the missions, Neeraj Agrawal, Consul Press, Information and Culture at the Indian Consulate in Dubai told Gulf News.

He said the consulate set up an operations room in a tie-up with community volunteers from Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre, Indian Association Ajman, AKCAF Task Force, the BAPS Mandir, Indian People’s Forum, and Tamil Ladies’ Sangam.

 “We are trying to accommodate as many deserving people as possible. We expect the understanding of the people. It has been very difficult to sort out everyone’s urgency.”

“We cannot do a lottery system in this and we had to make sub- categories to ensure there is a mix of people with different types of urgencies.”

“Though we want to give priority to pregnant women, it is practically not possible and not good for the health and safety of the applicants to allot a lot of them on the same flight.”

He said 11 pregnant women have been issued tickets on the Dubai-Kozhikode flight.

“That is the threshold we can allow on a flight.”

Volunteer support

The consul appreciated the support of the volunteers in finalising the flight manifest.

“But our response ratio was very less. Many people whose names came up on top of the list were not willing to go on the first flights.”

Due to various constraints like this and sometimes the details of accompanying persons not readily being available, he said the mission was not able to quickly reach out to who might be really in need.

“However, we have given due consideration to people who got in touch with us with their emergency needs. At the time of issuing tickets, we had about 20 such cases.”

He said the Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul led the entire operation and Pankaj Bodkhe, consul, education, was in charge of the Dubai flight.

A big challenge

“It has been a big challenge. Our only concern is that despite our best efforts, sometimes people with more compelling reasons might have got left out on the first flights because of the volume of people who have reached out to us.”

Since there is a chance that some passengers with tickets might not be allowed to fly if they fail the medical screening including blood tests to check antibodies for COVID-19, he said some applicants in the waiting list have been asked to be on standby at the airport.

People with emergencies wishing to fly to other destinations also could not be included, he pointed out.

“We had to ask them to wait. We are unable to send them to other destinations. We can see their desperation. We feel sorry and desperate.”

He said the government is trying to add more flights to un-chartered destinations and a new flight from Dubai to Kannur has been added on May 12.

Passengers of today’s flights have been urged to reach the airport four to five hours prior to departure to facilitate the medical screening.

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