ROME: The World Health Organization (WHO) must safeguard its independence to retain credibility, claims an official who accuses the UN agency of censoring a report into Italy’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Francesco Zambon, a WHO coordinator based in Venice, is currently embroiled in an internal dispute over his allegations that the agency pulled the study at the request of a top Italian official who risked being embarrassed by its contents.
The WHO and the official deny any wrongdoing, but Zambon says what he sees as the failure to properly address his concerns has wider consequences for the agency.
“Now that we are about to go on mission to China, we must be sure that the WHO is free of any external influence, otherwise its independence is at risk,” he said in a telephone interview.
WHO experts probing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic were this week denied entry to China, which has appeared reluctant to allow an independent investigation.
The UN agency previously faced strong criticism, led by the US, for seemingly being too soft on China and its lack of transparency on the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
“I believe that the world needs a WHO free of conflicts of interests, not just concerning the partners it works with ... but starting with its own staff,” Zambon said.
The Italian, 47, has worked at the WHO since 2008, first in Moscow and most recently as coordinator at the body’s European Office for Investment for Health and Development in Venice.
He coordinated work on a 102-page document analyzing Italy’s coronavirus response, after it became the first country outside China to face a major wave of infections.
The document was withdrawn a day after its release on May 13 — a decision that Zambon claims was to avoid embarrassing Ranieri Guerra, a senior WHO official who was previously a key player in Italy’s pandemic planning.
Guerra, director general for preventive health at the Italian health ministry during 2014-17 and now a WHO assistant director general, denies any wrongdoing.
WHO Europe meanwhile said last month that the Italy report was pulled because it contained “factual inaccuracies.”
“There were no political considerations, I can reassure you,” the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said this week.
Zambon said there was an error in the report, but it was quickly fixed — and argued that publication would have helped other countries dealing with coronavirus.
“The entire world was looking at Italy,” he said.
Nevertheless, the document was released when most of Europe was already deep into the pandemic, and contained mostly familiar advice and recommendations.
The WHO said the report was never republished because by then the agency had found new ways for countries to share experiences of the pandemic.
Last month it made the document available to journalists to counter accusations of a cover-up.
The report said Italy’s pandemic preparedness plan had not been updated since 2006, and the initial reaction of its hospitals was “improvised, chaotic and creative.”
The controversy has caught the attention of prosecutors in Bergamo, the northern city that was the epicenter of Italy’s initial coronavirus outbreak.
Both Guerra and Zambon have been questioned as part of an investigation into what went wrong in the early stages of a pandemic that has so far killed more than 77,000 people in Italy.
“I have great confidence in Italian justice,” said Zambon.
He believes his revelations have now caused him to be sidelined at the WHO, but claims his complaints have gone nowhere.
“I can no longer work in Europe because I’ve been isolated — the typical fate of the whistleblower,” he said.
WHO Europe has refused to comment on any issues surrounding individual staff members.
Zambon added: “The risks for me are quite irrelevant, what I don’t want is all this to be swept under the carpet.
“It is a question of conflicts of interest and internal compliance mechanisms.”
WHO ‘must protect its independence’: UN official
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WHO ‘must protect its independence’: UN official
Russians throng to display of Western ‘trophy’ tanks captured in Ukraine
- Long queues of people formed on what was a sunny May Day public holiday at the entrance to the exhibition, entitled “Trophies of the Russian Army“
- “History is repeating itself,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement
MOSCOW: Western tanks and military hardware captured by Russian forces in Ukraine went on display in Moscow on Wednesday at an exhibition the Russian military said showed Western help would not stop it winning the war.
Long queues of people formed on what was a sunny May Day public holiday at the entrance to the exhibition, entitled “Trophies of the Russian Army,” which is being held outside a museum celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
“History is repeating itself,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that the Soviet Union had in 1943 also put on a display of captured tanks and hardware, in this case from the German army.
“Strength is in the truth. It’s always been that way. In 1943 and today. These war trophies reflect our strength. The more of them there are, the stronger we are,” the ministry stated, predicting a Russian victory in what it officially calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“No Western military equipment will change the situation on the battlefield,” the statement added.
According to Western and Ukrainian critics, much of Russia’s military hardware is old or outdated, and Russian battlefield gains have resulted from sheer force of numbers and high casualties. Both sides keep the number of dead and injured a secret but are known to have suffered heavy losses.
The Moscow display, which includes US, German and French tanks supplied to Ukraine, came days after the US approved a $61 billion aid package for Kyiv and after Russia made some swift but incremental territorial gains in eastern Ukraine at a time when Kyiv’s forces say they lack ammo and manpower.
Ukraine, whose President Volodymyr Zelensky says it will eventually push Russian forces from its soil, held a similar exhibition along Kyiv’s central boulevard last summer featuring burnt-out husks of Russian tanks and fighting vehicles.
Russia, says the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has itself lost over 3,000 tanks in Ukraine amounting to its entire pre-war active inventory, but has enough lower-quality armored vehicles in storage for years of replacement and says it is now ramping up production of new tanks.
In addition to tanks, British and Australian armored vehicles seized in Ukraine are on display in Moscow along with military hardware made in Turkiye, Sweden, Austria, Finland, South Africa and the Czech Republic.
State TV’s Channel One said the star of the show was a captured American M1 Abrams battle tank, which it said had been taken out by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine using a guided rocket and kamikaze drones.
Clambering over the Abrams holding his microphone, a state TV correspondent told Russians that the tank had been billed in the United States as an indestructible “wonder weapon.”
“But that was all nonsense — look at this — all of its reputation has been destroyed,” he said.
Pet dogs and strays suffer in Asia heatwave
- Increasing number of animals suffer nosebleeds, severe skin rashes in Kolkata in heatwave
- Experts say climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, longer and more intense
Kolkata: Soaring temperatures across Kolkata have brought life in much of the Indian megacity to a standstill, but veterinarian Partha Das cannot recall a time when he was more busy.
His clinic has been swamped by distressed members of the public carrying in beloved pets suffering nosebleeds, severe skin rashes and lapses into unconsciousness in a relentless heatwave suffocating much of South and Southeastern Asia over the past week.
“Many pets are also hospitalized for three or four consecutive days, and they are taking a long time to get back to normal,” the 57-year-old told AFP from his surgery.
“We are getting several heatstroke cases in a day. It’s unprecedented.”
Kolkata has sweltered through days of punishing heat, peaking at 43 degrees Celsius for the hottest single April day since 1954, according to the city’s weather bureau.
Streets of the normally bustling colonial-era capital have been almost deserted in the afternoons as its 15 million people do what they can to stay out of the sun.
But even cats and dogs lucky enough to have an owner have been susceptible to falling ill, with Das saying the heat had triggered a surge in dehydration-related illnesses in pets from around the city.
Teacher Sriparna Bose said her two cats had become sullen and withdrawn in a way she hadn’t seen before when the heatwave hit.
“They are refusing food,” she said. “They hide in dark, cold corners of the room and won’t come out.”
The situation is worse for the 70,000 stray dogs estimated to live on city streets by municipal authorities, which have no owner but are often fed and tended to by nearby residents.
Many are spending the day taking refuge from the sun under parked cars, while a lucky few are hosed down by sympathetic humans to help them cool off.
“They are finding it difficult to stand on their soft paws because the roads are so hot,” said Gurshaan Kohli of Humanimal Foundation, a local animal welfare charity for stray animals.
“Scores of dogs and cats have died” even though he and his colleagues had rushed them to clinics for treatment, he added.
Large swathes of South and Southeast Asia are struggling through a heatwave that has broken temperature records and forced millions of children to stay home as schools close across the region.
Experts say climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, longer and more intense, while the El Nino phenomenon is also driving this year’s exceptionally warm weather.
The heat has taken its toll on animals across the continent.
“They are eating less, and they are reluctant to move,” Henna Pekko of Rescue PAWS, which operates an animal shelter near Thailand’s capital Bangkok, told AFP.
With temperatures in Thailand exceeding 40 degrees Celsius over the past week, Pekko said her charity had taken to bringing its rescues to the ocean to cool down with a swim, while older dogs were being kept indoors.
“We are definitely taking extra precautions because of this weather,” she told AFP, adding that the stress on animals from the heat was the worst she had experienced in the kingdom.
“Last year was bad. This year was worse.”
Minnesota man who regrets joining Daesh group faces sentencing on terrorism charge
- Federal prosecutors have recommended 12 years for Abelhamid Al-Madioum in recognition both of the seriousness of his crime and the help has he given the US
- Al-Madioum was 18 in 2014 when Daesh recruited him
MINNEAPOLIS, USA: A Minnesota man who once fought for the Daesh group in Syria but now expresses remorse for joining a “death cult” and has been cooperating with federal authorities will learn Wednesday how much prison time he faces.
Federal prosecutors have recommended 12 years for Abelhamid Al-Madioum in recognition both of the seriousness of his crime and the help has he given the US and other governments. His attorney says seven years is enough and that Al-Madioum, 27, stopped believing in the group’s extremist ideology years ago.
Al-Madioum was 18 in 2014 when Daesh recruited him. The college student slipped away from his family on a visit to their native Morocco in 2015. Making his way to Syria, he became a soldier for Daesh, until he was maimed in an explosion in Iraq. Unable to fight, he used his computer skills to serve the group. He surrendered to US-backed rebels in 2019 and was imprisoned under harsh conditions.
Al-Madioum returned to the US in 2020 and pleaded guilty in 2021 to providing material support to a designated terrorist organization. According to court filings, he has been cooperating with US authorities and allied governments. The defense says he hopes to work in future counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts.
“The person who left was young, ignorant, and misguided,” Al-Madioum said in a letter to US District Judge Ann Montgomery, who will sentence him.
“I’ve been changed by life experience: by the treachery I endured as a member of Daesh, by becoming a father of four, a husband, an amputee, a prisoner of war, a malnourished supplicant, by seeing the pain and anguish and gnashing of teeth that terrorism causes, the humiliation, the tears, the shame,” he added. “I joined a death cult, and it was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Prosecutors acknowledge that Al-Madioum has provided useful assistance to US authorities in several national security investigations and prosecutions, that he accepted responsibility for his crime and pleaded guilty promptly on his return to the US But they say they factored his cooperation into their recommended sentence of 12 years instead of the statutory maximum of 20 years.
“The defendant did much more than harbor extremist beliefs,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. “He chose violent action by taking up arms for Daesh.”
A naturalized US citizen, Al-Madioum was among several Minnesotans suspected of leaving the US to join the Daesh group, along with thousands of fighters from other countries worldwide. Roughly three dozen people are known to have left Minnesota to join militant groups in Somalia or Syria. In 2016, nine Minnesota men were sentenced on federal charges of conspiring to join Daesh.
But Al-Madioum is one of the relatively few Americans who’ve been brought back to the US who actually fought for the group. According to a defense sentencing memo, he’s one of 11 adults as of 2023 to be formally repatriated to the US from the conflict in Syria and Iraq to face charges for terrorist-related crimes and alleged affiliations with Daesh. Others received sentences ranging from four years to life plus 70 years.
Al-Madioum grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park in a loving and nonreligious family, the defense memo said. He joined Daesh because he wanted to help Muslims who he believed were being slaughtered by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in that country’s civil war. Daesh recruiters persuaded him “to test his faith and become a real Muslim.”
But he was a fighter for less than two months before he lost his right arm below the elbow in the explosion that also left him with two badly broken legs and other severe injuries. He may still require amputation of one leg, the defense says.
While recuperating in 2016, he met his first wife Fatima, an Daesh widow who already had a son and bore him another in 2017. They lived in poverty and under constant airstrikes. He was unable to work, and his stipend from Daesh stopped in 2018. They lived in a makeshift tent, the defense says.
He married his second wife, Fozia, in 2018. She also was a Daesh widow and already had a 4-year-old daughter. They had separated by early 2019. He heard later she and their daughter together had died. The first wife also is dead, having been shot in front of Al-Madioum by either rebel forces or an Daesh fighter in 2019, the defense says.
The day after that shooting, he walked with his sons and surrendered to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which held him under conditions the defense described as “heinous” for 18 months until the FBI returned him to the US
As for Al-Madioum’s children, the defense memo said they were eventually found in a Syrian orphanage and his parents will be their foster parents when they arrive in the US.
Polish officials condemn arson attack on Warsaw synagogue
- Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, quoting the country’s chief rabbi, said “someone tried to set fire to the Nozyk synagogue with a Molotov cocktail“
- A statement from the Jewish community in Warsaw expressed its “concern and indignation” at the attack
WARSAW: Polish authorities on Wednesday condemned an arson attack against a Warsaw synagogue.
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, quoting the country’s chief rabbi, said “someone tried to set fire to the Nozyk synagogue with a Molotov cocktail.”
“Thank God no-one was hurt,” the minister added in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“I condemn this shameful attack on the Nozyk synagogue in Warsaw,” Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote on X. “Anti-Semitism has no place in Poland. There is no place for hate in Poland.”
An AFP journalist at the scene saw a black stain across a window that appeared to have been caused by flames, but there was no major damage to the synagogue.
A statement from the Jewish community in Warsaw to AFP expressed its “concern and indignation” at the attack.
“Fortunately, the synagogue was empty at night and the material damage is minor,” it added.
The fire from the Molotov cocktail burned itself out outside the building, said the text, from Eliza Panek, vice president of the Jewish community in Warsaw.
“For the moment, we don’t know anything about the person or persons behind the attack, or their motives,” she added.
Warsaw police told AFP they “always take this kind of incident seriously” and the would do everything to ensure those responsible were punished.
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
But Sikorski’s message speculated on who might have carried out the attack on the 20th anniversary of Poland’s membership of the European Union.
“Maybe the same ones who scrawled the Stars of David in Paris?” he said.
French prosecutors started an investigation after several dozen Jewish symbols were daubed on buildings in Paris in October as tensions increased amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
France believes that Russian security services were behind the vandalism, an official French source said, but Russia has denied any involvement.
Saudi tourism launches first travel show in Indonesia
- Over 1.5 million Indonesians visited Saudi Arabia in 2023
- Saudi Tourism Authority exhibit in Jakarta runs until May 5
JAKARTA: The Saudi Tourism Authority launched on Wednesday its first show exhibition in Indonesia to introduce the Kingdom’s cultural and adventure destinations to visitors from the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.
The tourism sector has been booming under Vision 2030, as the Kingdom positions itself as a dynamic, diverse, year-round tourism destination and market that will contribute 10 percent to the gross domestic product by 2030.
Welcomed with dates and qahwa — traditional Arabic coffee — Indonesians flocked the STA exhibition inaugurated by Saudi Hajj and Umrah Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah and Alhasan Aldabbagh, STA president for Asia-Pacific markets, at the Kota Kasablanka Mall in South Jakarta.
“Saudi and Indonesia are good countries that have enjoyed social and economic ties for many, many years, and we have been receiving and welcoming many Indonesian travelers who are going for Umrah and Hajj,” Aldabbagh told reporters.
“We want to attract even more Indonesians, not just to do Umrah but to explore other places … Indonesia is a special market for us because of this strong relationship.”
More than 1.5 million Indonesians visited the Kingdom in 2023, but as most of them traveled for Umrah and focused on pilgrimage sites, Saudi authorities are hoping that they will begin to also explore the country’s rich history and heritage.
Aldabbagh was expecting about 10,000 visitors daily at the Jakarta exhibition, which will run until May 5.
“We want people to learn about all the attractions that we have in Saudi … to come with their families and enjoy and discover,” he said, giving as examples Jeddah and AlUla.
A historical city on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, Jeddah from the 7th century has been a major port for Indian Ocean trade routes and also the gateway for Muslim pilgrims to Makkah.
Featured on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Jeddah has a distinctive architectural tradition, with influences from along the ancient trade routes.
AlUla, another UNESCO site, is an ancient desert oasis and one of the most significant cultural cradles in the Arabian Peninsula.
The ancient kingdoms flourished in the AlUla Valley between 800 and 100 B.C. and were followed by Hegra — Saudi Arabia’s first location registered on the World Heritage List — was a major city of the Nabataean civilization whose capital, Petra, was located in present-day Jordan.
The Saudi travel show in Jakarta has already drawn interest from prospective visitors, who said they are intrigued by the variety of destinations the Kingdom had to offer.
“This is good for us to gain more information because we’ve never had this before, this is rare. Usually, we’ll get information from travel agencies, but this is coming straight from the Saudi authorities,” said Yudi Prasetyo, a Jakarta resident.
Another visitor, Linda Wardani, was curious to explore the Kingdom’s ancient sites, which she has so far known only from social media channels.
“We are curious to see AlUla looking so wonderful,” she said. “We are even more curious about other destinations in Saudi Arabia because when it comes to Umrah, the destinations are commonly known, but aside from that, we’re seeing the growth of Saudi Arabia and there are other tourist sites to see.”
Halid Umar Bakadam, CEO of Dream Tour travel agency, has also observed a growing interest beyond Umrah. His company now offers extended tours, where visitors can go and see other destinations in the Kingdom.
“They are welcoming more tourists,” he said. “For the new destinations, there are quite many people showing interest.”
