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MERS alert tightened as 100th case emerges

September 12, 2013

MERS_alertRiyadh, Sep 12: Saudi Arabia is deploying local and international resources to contain the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), says a top health official.

His remarks came as the Ministry of Health confirmed the 100th MERS case in the Kingdom.

The ministry has pledged to double its efforts to control the spread of the disease through continuous surveillance across the Kingdom.

The ministry reported four new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 100 cases, including 47 deaths.

A ministry official said two of the new cases were from Riyadh and the other two were reported in Madinah.

In Madinah, the victims included a 22-year-old male citizen who was in contact with a MERS patient and a 24-year-old male citizen working in the health sector in Madinah.

In Riyadh, two Saudi men, 60 and 47 years of age, had contracted the virus from MERS patients.

Dr. Ziad Al-Memish, undersecretary to the Ministry of Health for Public Health, told Arab News that the ministry had already advised people who had contracted the virus to postpone their pilgrimage.

He said the ministry would keep the people informed of any new developments.

Medical specialists are struggling to understand MERS, for which there is still no vaccine.

It also has an extremely high fatality rate of more than 51 percent.

It is considered a cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

The Ministry of Health recently traced MERS to bats in the Kingdom.

Scientists from the Kingdom and the US have found DNA matching the MERS virus in a sample taken from a bat in Saudi Arabia.

The study was initially conducted by a team of researchers from the Kingdom, as well as from Columbia University, who detected MERS in a bat near the home of a man who died from the disease. The team found a small fragment of the virus’s genes in the animal that matched those seen in the patient.

The study, headed by the Ministry of Health, was conducted from October to April. It was initially conducted on 76 bats from the areas, in which the virus cases were identified.

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Agencies
August 4,2020

Beirut, Aug 4: A massive explosion has shaken the Lebanese capital of Beirut, with a very high number of casualties expected.

A warehouse at the Beirut Port caught fire on Tuesday afternoon, triggering a huge explosion, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Several smaller explosions were heard before the bigger one occurred.

Abbas Ibrahim, the head of Lebanon’s General Security, said that “highly explosive materials” confiscated earlier had been stored at the site.

Footage shared on social media captured the moment of the bigger explosion, with a colossal shock wave seen traveling fast across several hundreds of meters and shrouding the area in thick smoke.

The blast left enormous material damage to the surrounding buildings and structures. But it was not immediately known how big an area was affected.

There was also no immediate casualty count. Graphic amateur video from the scene showed bodies strewn on the ground, with their clothes blown off.

The NNA said rescue operations were underway. Ambulances were seen heading toward the scene in central Beirut.

Lebanese LBC television channel quoted Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hasan as saying that the blast had caused a “very high number of injuries” and “extensive damage.”

Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud said an unspecified number of firefighters dispatched to extinguish the initial fire had been killed in the explosion.

“As they were putting out the fire, the explosion took place and we’ve [lost them],” he said, breaking down on live TV.

The explosion comes at a time when the Arab country is passing through its worst economic and financial crisis in decades, and amid rising tensions with Israel.

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News Network
May 5,2020

Dubai, May 5: A Saudi ministerial decision issued on Monday allows companies in the private sector to reduce salaries by 40 per cent and allows termination of contracts owing to the economic hardships resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to daily newspaper Al Sharq Awsat.

The new decision was still not published by the cabinet according to the newspaper.

The decision which the newspaper saw a copy of was signed by Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development to regulate the labour contract in the current period, allows employers to reduce the employees salaries by 40 percent of the actual effective wage for a period of 6 months, in proportion to the hours of work and allowing the termination of employee contract after 6 months of the COVID-19 circumstances.

The new decision has also included a provision in which the employer would be allowed to cut wages even he or she benefits from the subsidy provided by the goverment, such as those for helping pay workers wages or exemption from government fees.

The decision also stressed that employers are not allowed to terminate any employee, unless three conditions are met.

1.            First the passing of six months since the measures of salary cut has been taken

2.            Reducing pay, annual leave and exceptional leave were all used

3.            Company proves that its facing financial troubles due to the circumstances.

The memo, which goes into affect as soon as its published in the government’s official newspaper, ensures that the employee will receive his/her salary if on annual leave within the period of 6 months.

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Agencies
August 8,2020

Beirut, Aug 7: A devastating explosion that destroyed much of Beirut might have been the result of a missile attack or bomb, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said, as the death toll from the blast rose to 154.

More than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate had been sitting in a port warehouse for six years, but there have been conflicting accounts about why Lebanese authorities decided to empty the shipment of explosive material. The vessel carrying the flammable cargo was heading from Georgia to Mozambique when it stopped in the Lebanese port to load up on iron, according to the ship’s captain.

By Friday, 19 suspects had been arrested and Lebanon’s former director general of customs Chafic Merhy had been questioned by military police.

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