Dubai, Sept 20: Emirates and Etihad, two state-owned airlines in the United Arab Emirates, denied on Thursday a Bloomberg report which quoted unnamed sources as saying Emirates was seeking to take over Etihad to create the world's largest airline.
"There is no truth to this rumour," an Emirates spokeswoman said.
Etihad made a similar statement.
Dubai, Apr 13: The UAE plans to impose "strict restrictions" on countries reluctant to take back their nationals working in the Gulf country in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak and restructure its cooperation and labour relations with them, a state-run media report said on Sunday.
Indian expatriate community of nearly 33 lakh is the largest ethnic community in UAE constituting roughly about 30 per cent of the country’s population. Among the Indian states, Kerala is the most represented followed by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
The options being considered by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation include "imposing strict future restrictions on the recruitment" of workers from these countries and activating the "quota" system in recruitment operations, state-run WAM news agency reported, citing an official.
It said the options also include suspending memoranda of understanding signed between the ministry and concerned authorities in these countries.
Citing the unnamed official, it said these options are being considered after many countries did not respond to requests by their nationals to return home following the coronavirus outbreak.
The official made it clear that all countries of foreign workers in the UAE should be responsible for their nationals wishing to return to their countries as part of the humanitarian initiative launched recently by the ministry.
Earlier this month, the ministry launched the initiative to enable residents who work in the UAE and wish to return to their countries to do so during the period of precautionary measures undertaken in the UAE to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Employees will be asked to submit their annual leave dates or agree with their employers on unpaid leave.
UAE's Ambassador to India Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al Banna has said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MOFAIC) had sent out a “note verbale” to all the embassies in the UAE, including the Indian mission, during the past couple of weeks on the issue.
“We have sent the note verbale and all the embassies have been informed including the Indian embassy in the UAE and even the Ministry of External Affairs in India,” Al Banna told Gulf News over phone on Saturday.
He said the UAE has offered to test those who want to be evacuated.
“We are assuring everybody that we have the best of the facilities, the best of the testing centres and we have tested more than 500,000 people,” he said.
“We are assuring them also of our cooperation to fly those who got stranded in the UAE for some reasons. Some got stuck because of the lockdown and closure of airports in India. Some were visiting the UAE.”
“We are offering our system and making sure that they are good (to fly) by doing all the tests and transport them according to the request of their own government,” he said.
The envoy said those who test positive for COVID-19 will remain in the UAE. “They will be treated in our home facilities,” he added.
The Kerala High Court on Saturday sought the central government's response to a petition seeking a direction to bring back Indians stranded in the UAE in view of the coronavirus outbreak in the gulf nation.
Considering the plea by Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) in Dubai, the court directed the Centre to file an affidavit on the steps taken by it to ensure the safety of Indians living there and bring back those stuck in the Gulf countries.
In its plea, KMCC, the organisation for non-resident Indians from Kerala, sought directions to the Ministries of External Affairs and Civil Aviation to provide exemptions in the international air travel ban to bring back those Indians stranded in the UAE.
Abu Dhabi, May 17: Another 731 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UAE, pushing the total number of COVID-19 infections to 23,358, the Ministry of Health and Prevention announced on Sunday.
Six more deaths from the novel coronavirus have been also confirmed, taking the country’s death toll to 220.
The ministry also announced the full recovery of 581 new cases after receiving the necessary treatment, taking that number up to 8,512 of total recovered patients.
New tests conducted
The latest coronavirus patients, all of whom are in a stable condition and receiving the necessary care, were identified after conducting more than 40,000 additional COVID-19 tests among UAE citizens and residents over the past few days, the ministry said.
It expressed its sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and wished a speedy recovery to all patients, calling on the public to cooperate with health authorities and comply with all precautionary measures, particularly social distancing protocols, to ensure the safety and protection of the public.
New Delhi, Jun 7: India registered its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday, with 9,971 new infections taking the country's tally to 2,46,628, while the death toll rose to 6,929, according to the Union Health Ministry.
India registered 287 deaths in the 24 hours since Saturday morning.
India had raced past Spain on Saturday to become the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, only the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK are ahead of it.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stands at 1,20,406, according to the Health Ministry.
A total of 1,19,292 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the Ministry said.
During the last 24 hours, a total of 5,220 COVID-19 patients have been cured, the ministry said.
"Thus, around 48.37 per cent patients have recovered so far," a senior ministry official said.
The tally of confirmed cases includes foreigners.
The Indian Council of Medical Research has further ramped up the testing capacity for detecting the novel coronavirus in infected persons.
The number of government labs has been increased to 531 and private labs to 228, taking the total number of labs to 759.
As many as 1,42,069 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of samples tested till now to 46,66,386.
Deaths in India per lakh population (0.49) are much lower than the world average of 5.17 and are the lowest among countries that have eased lockdown such as Germany (10.35), Italy (55.78), the UK (59.62) and Spain (58.06), as per a WHO situation report cited by the Health Ministry.
Cases in India per lakh population (17.32) are much lower than the world average of 87.74 and are the lowest among countries that have eased lockdown such as Germany (219.93), Italy (387.33), the UK (419.54) and Spain (515.61).
Of the 287 deaths reported since Saturday morning, 120 were from Maharashtra, 53 from Delhi, 29 from Gujarat, 19 from Tamil Nadu, 17 from West Bengal, 15 from Madhya Pradesh, 13 from Rajasthan, 10 from Telangana, three from Jammu and Kashmir, two each from Karnataka, Punjab and Chhattisgarh and one each from Kerala and Bihar.
Of the total 6,929 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 2,969 deaths, followed by Gujarat with 1,219 deaths, Delhi with 761, Madhya Pradesh with 399, West Bengal with 383, Uttar Pradesh with 257, Tamil Nadu with 251, Rajasthan with 231, Telangana with 123 and Andhra Pradesh with 73 deaths.
The death toll reached 59 in Karnataka and 50 in Punjab.
Jammu and Kashmir has reported 39 fatalities due to the disease, Bihar has 30, Haryana has 24 deaths, Kerala has 15, Uttarakhand has 11, Odisha has eight and Jharkhand has reported seven deaths so far.
Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each. Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each.
Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one COVID-19 fatality each, according to the Health Ministry data.
According to the Ministry's website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities.
The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 82,968, followed by Tamil Nadu at 30,152, Delhi at 27,654, Gujarat at 19,592, Rajasthan at 10,331, Uttar Pradesh at 9,733 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,228, according to the Health Ministry data updated in the morning.
The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 7,738 in West Bengal, 5,213 in Karnataka, 4,915 in Bihar and 4,510 in Andhra Pradesh.
It has risen to 3,952 in Haryana, 3,496 in Telangana, 3,467 in Jammu and Kashmir and 2,781 in Odisha.
Punjab has reported 2,515 coronavirus infections so far, while Assam has 2,397 cases. A total of 1,807 people have been infected with the virus in Kerala and 1,303 in Uttarakhand.
Jharkhand has registered 1,000 cases, Chhattisgarh has 923, Tripura has 747, Himachal Pradesh has 400, Chandigarh has 309 cases, Goa has 267, Manipur has 157, Nagaland has 107, and Puducherry and Ladakh have 99 cases.
Arunachal Pradesh has 47 COVID-19 cases, while Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Meghalaya have registered 33 infections each.
Mizoram has reported 24 cases and Dadar and Nagar Haveli has 19 cases, while Sikkim has reported seven cases till now.
"8,605 cases are being reassigned to states," the Ministry said on its website adding, "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR."
State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it added.
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