No future for Assad in Syria, reiterates Saudi Arabia

April 27, 2017

Moscow, Apr 27: Saudi Arabia reiterated Wednesday its stand on the Syrian president, saying that there is no place for Bashar Assad in the country’s future.

Arabia“We do not believe there is a future for Bashar in Syria,” said Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir during a press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

“Assad is responsible for the killing of 300,000 Syrian citizens. He is also to blame for the involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah in carrying out genocide crimes in Syria,” said the minister.

Al-Jubeir highlighted Riyadh-Moscow coordination regarding the Syrian crisis, confirming that the leaders of both countries are eager to enhance historical ties.

He said there are many obstacles that must be overcome via dialogue and mutual coordination. “I am convinced that there are many opportunities to achieve success,” Al-Jubeir added.

Lavrov said Russia and Saudi Arabia are part of the group of countries supporting Syria. He added that the Syrian crisis was a main point of discussion during his talks with Al-Jubeir.

Al-Jubeir also supported the idea of an international probe into a suspected chemical weapons attack in the town of Khan Sheikhun, but said the Kingdom still believes the Assad regime was behind the strike.

Meanwhile, hundreds of tearful mourners attended a mass funeral Wednesday for loved ones killed in a suicide bombing on a convoy of evacuees, in one of the Syrian war’s most gruesome attacks.

At least 150 people, including 72 children, were killed on April 15 in an explosion targeting evacuees from Foua and Kfraya, two Shiite-majority villages under siege in northwestern Syria.

Women, children and men — some of them in military uniform — began gathering at a mosque from the morning to take part in the funeral procession.

“There’s no worse feeling than this, than burying your sister without being able to see her,” said 19-year-old Abdelsalam Remman, his voice breaking.

He was carrying a poster of his 6-year-old sister Tuqa, who was killed in the attack after being evacuated with their mother, who was wounded.

“Our heart melted until we identified her” among those of the dead several days later, said Remman.

The suicide car bombing in Rashidin, west of Syria’s second city Aleppo, was one of the most devastating attacks of the six-year war that has killed at least 320,000.

It hit a convoy of evacuees from Foua and Kfraya, who had been bussed out of their besieged regime-held villages as part of an evacuation deal that also included two opposition-controlled towns surrounded by the regime.

The attacker appeared to lure children to his vehicle with bags of crisps, according to witnesses. Dozens of unidentified bodies remain at Aleppo’s government hospital, and many survivors said they had relatives who were still missing.

A pained expression on her face, Wafaa Homsi looked at the rows of coffins, one of which held her 13-year-old daughter Raghd.

“My daughter is being buried here. My husband and two of my sons are still missing. We’re waiting to hear something, anything, about them,” Homsi said.

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News Network
May 18,2020

Abu Dhabi, May 18: Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has recorded a special message for Indian expats in the UAE as the country fights the coronavirus pandemic.

Khan - one of the biggest stars of Bollywood for decades - enjoys a large fan following in the Gulf, which is why Abu Dhabi roped in the actor to record a special video message for expats, urging them to cooperate with authorities in the capital and the country as they carry out sanitisation and testing programmes.

In the video, tweeted by the Abu Dhabi Media Office on Sunday night, the superstar appeals to Indians in Abu Dhabi to become heroes by staying home (stepping out for essential work/errands only), following precautionary measures and simply 'do the right thing' by getting tested if they have any Covid-19-related symptoms.

Khan, who has shot his recent super hit films (Race 3) in the capital, assured expats that Abu Dhabi authorities will not leave the community in these challenging times as it is a hospitable city who takes care of all residents.

"Following preventive measures also protects your family from the virus - so do the right thing as heroes do," Khan concludes.

The second phase of Abu Dhabi's sanitisation and testing in labour areas is underway, which started on May 16. Special testing facilities have been set up in the city for this purpose that test thousands of workers everyday.

As of May 17, UAE has confirmed over 23,000 cases along with over 8,000 recoveries and 220 deaths.

The country recently made a breakthrough in treating Covid-19 by using stem cells to help with the recovery.

The UAE leadership has thanked citizens and residents for their cooperation and assured that the country will take care of everyone in the country - with food and medicines being the red line, and that there will be no shortage of either during the crisis. Stimulus packages have been announced to help businesses stay afloat.

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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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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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