Rahul Gandhi's two-day UAE visit begins

Feb 17: Chinese authorities on Monday reported a slight upturn in new virus cases and 105 more deaths for a total of 1,770 since the outbreak began two months ago.

The 2,048 new cases followed three days of declines but was up by just 39 cases from the previous day’s figure. Another 10,844 people have recovered from COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, and have been discharged from hospitals, according to Monday’s figures.

The update followed the publication late Saturday in China’s official media of a recent speech by President Xi Jinping in which he indicated for the first time that he had led the response to the outbreak from early in the crisis. While the reports were an apparent attempt to demonstrate the Communist Party leadership acted decisively from the start, it also opened Xi up to criticism over why the public was not alerted sooner.

In his speech, Xi said he gave instructions on fighting the virus on Jan. 7 and ordered the shutdown of the most-affected cities that began on Jan. 23.

The disclosure of his speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity at least two weeks before such dangers were made known to the public. It was not until late January that officials said the virus can spread between humans and public alarm began to rise.

New cases in other countries are raising growing concerns about containment of the virus.

Taiwan on Sunday reported its first death from COVID-19, the fifth fatality outside of mainland China. Taiwan’s Central News Agency, citing health minister Chen Shih-chung, said the man who died was in his 60s and had not traveled overseas recently and had no known contact with virus patients.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an experts meeting to discuss containment measures in his country, where more than a dozen cases have emerged in the past few days without any obvious link to China.

“The situation surrounding this virus is changing by the minute,” Abe said.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country is “entering into a phase that is different from before,” requiring new steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Japan now has 413 confirmed cases, including 355 from a quarantined cruise ship, and one death from the virus. Its total is the highest number of cases among about two dozen countries outside of China where the illness has spread.

Hundreds of Americans from the cruise ship took charter flights home, as Japan announced another 70 infections had been confirmed on the Diamond Princess. Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights.

The 300 or so Americans flying on U.S.-government chartered aircraft back to the U.S. will face another 14-day quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in California and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The U.S. Embassy said the departure was offered because people on the ship were at a high risk of exposure to the virus. People with symptoms were banned from the flights.

About 255 Canadians and 330 Hong Kong residents are on board the ship or undergoing treatment in Japanese hospitals. There are also 35 Italians, of which 25 are crew members, including the captain.

In China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak began in December, all vehicle traffic will be banned in another containment measure. It expands a vehicle ban in the provincial capital, Wuhan, where public transportation, trains and planes have been halted for weeks.

Exceptions were being made for vehicles involved in epidemic prevention and transporting daily necessities.

Hubei has built new hospitals with thousands of patient beds and China has sent thousands of military medical personnel to staff the new facilities and help the overburdened health care system.

Last Thursday, Hubei changed how it recognized COVID-19 cases, accepting a doctor’s diagnosis rather than waiting for confirmed laboratory test results, in order to treat patients faster. The tally spiked by more than 15,000 cases under the new method.

Raipur, Mar 13: Calling Jyotiraditya Scindia a "power-hungry" leader, Chhattisgarh Minister and Congress leader TS Singh Deo on Friday said that if someone joins another party to occupy the top position of the state that he should never become a Chief Minister.

When enquired if Deo has any plans to join the BJP in the future, he quickly said that he would never be able to relate himself with the "ideology" of the party.

"People may make claims but I will never join BJP, even if I get 100 lives I will never associate with that ideology. A person who joins BJP for not being able to become Chief Minister should never become a Chief Minister," he said while speaking to media in Raipur.

"A single person does not remain as captain forever, Kapil Dev got his chance when Gavaskar was there. Currently, Virat Kohli is the captain but in T20 there are different captains. Will Kohli join Pakistan's team if he is not made the captain? This is beyond understanding."

On Wednesday, Scindia joined BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party President JP Nadda. He had resigned from Congress a day earlier after meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He will file his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections on March 13.

Dubai, Jan 4: Three UAE airlines have made it to lists of the safest carriers in 2020, reinforcing the value these companies provide passengers in the increasingly competitive aviation scene.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Dubai's Emirates are in the list of the top 20 safest airlines, while Sharjah-based Air Arabia is in the list of the top 10 low-cost carriers, safety and product rating website AirlineRatings.com reported on Thursday.

It named Qantas as the safest airline for 2020 out of the 405 carriers it monitors.

The top 20, in order, are Qantas, Air New Zealand, EVA Air, Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Virgin Australia, Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, TAP Portugal, SAS, Royal Jordanian, Swiss, Finnair, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus and KLM.

"These airlines are clear standouts in the airline industry and are at the forefront of safety," said AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas.

"For instance, Australia's Qantas has been recognised by the British Advertising Standards Association in a test case in 2008 as the world's most experienced airline."

"Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years and has not had a fatality in the pure-jet era," said Thomas.

AirlineRatings.com editors also identified their top 10 safest low-cost airlines; they are, in alphabetical order, Air Arabia, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, IndiGo, Jetblue, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz.

Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at StrategicAero Research in London, says that it isn't a surprise that UAE carriers are on those lists.

"UAE airlines almost always feature in the top rankings for safety because they value the equipment that they fly their passengers on each and every day," he told Khaleej Times on Thursday.

"All airlines do; but for the UAE, where airlines have expanded rapidly in the last couple of decades, it's an amazing feat that they rank so highly while inducting so many new aeroplanes."

There's little benefit to adding luxurious cabins if maintenance, security and safety protocols as well as routine engineering schedules are not adhered to, he stressed.

"And with the UAE itself sporting MRO activities as well as through companies like Strata, which supply components to Airbus and Boeing directly, airlines here have harnessed that tech-change to ensure that their fleets have the highest redundancy and safety checks at every possible chance," Ahmad added. "That translates into passenger confidence - and we can see the brand and loyalty strength across Emirates, flydubai, Air Arabia and Etihad; it's no surprise that each year, they all fly more and more passengers across their network."

In making its selections, AirlineRatings.com editors and its industry advisors take into account numerous critical factors that include: Audits from aviation's governing bodies and lead associations, government audits, airline's crash and serious incident record, fleet age, financial position and pilot training and culture.

"All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft or engine manufacture issues instead of airline operational problems. And it is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading," said Thomas.