PRAYAGRAJ, India: Hundreds of thousands of Hindu worshippers gathered on the banks of India’s Ganges river on Friday for a holy bathe despite a 30-fold rise in coronavirus cases in the past month.
Hindus believe a bathe in the holy river on the Jan. 14 Makarsankranti festival washes away sins.
A large number of devotees were taking a dip in the sacred river where it flows through the eastern state of West Bengal, which is reporting the most number of cases in the country after Maharashtra state in the west.
In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, thousands of devotees, few wearing masks, thronged the river’s banks in the holy city of Prayagraj.
“I can’t breathe with a mask,” Ram Phal Tripathi, who came with his family from a village in Uttar Pradesh state, said after emerging from the river.
“Every year I come for a holy dip. How could I have missed it this year?“
India is again facing a surge in coronavirus cases, fueled mostly by the highly transmissible omicron variant, but hospitalizations are low, with most people recovering at home.
Doctors had appealed unsuccessfully to the West Bengal state high court to reverse a decision to allow the festival this year, worrying it will become a virus “super spreader” event.
Last year, a big religious gathering in northern India contributed to a record rise in coronavirus cases.
On Friday, the health ministry reported 264,202 new cases of the coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, taking India’s total tally to 36.58 million.
Deaths from COVID-19 rose by 315, with total now at 485,350, the ministry said.
Hundreds of thousands of Indians gather for Hindu festival, defying COVID-19 surge
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Hundreds of thousands of Indians gather for Hindu festival, defying COVID-19 surge
- India is again facing a surge in coronavirus cases, fueled mostly by the highly transmissible omicron variant
EU sanctions Rwandan officials ahead of Congo peace talks
KIGALI: The EU sanctioned nine people and a gold refinery on Monday in connection with a Rwanda-backed rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a day before peace talks scheduled in Angola between M23 rebels and the Congolese government.
The sanctions targeted M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa and Rwandan army commanders.
They were also applied to the CEO of Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board, and Gasabo Gold Refinery in Kigali, which the EU accused of illicitly exporting natural resources from Congo.
Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, a rebel alliance that includes M23 confirmed it would send a five-member delegation to Tuesday’s talks in Luanda, which could mark M23’s first direct negotiations with the Congolese government.
Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s office said on Sunday that Kinshasa would send representatives to Luanda, reversing the government’s long-standing vow not to negotiate with the group, which it has dismissed as a mere front for the Rwandan government.
Pressure has been growing on Tshisekedi to negotiate with M23 after a series of battlefield setbacks since January.
The rebels have seized eastern Congo’s two biggest cities and several smaller localities.
The fighting has killed at least 7,000 people this year, according to the Congolese government, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
The conflict is rooted in the spillover into Congo of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo’s vast mineral resources, many of which are used in batteries used for electric vehicles and other electronic products.
The UN and international powers accuse Rwanda of providing arms and sending soldiers to fight with the ethnic Tutsi-led M23.
Rwanda says its forces are acting in self-defense against Congo’s army and militias that are hostile to Kigali.
A Rwandan government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the EU sanctions.
Western countries have taken measures against Rwanda over the conflict, including the withholding of development aid by Britain and Germany, but Kigali has been defiant.
On Monday, it announced it was severing diplomatic relations with Belgium, the former colonial power in Rwanda and Congo, and giving Belgian diplomats 48 hours to leave.
Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry accused Belgium, which has called for strong EU action against Kigali, of “using lies and manipulation to secure an unjustified hostile opinion of Rwanda.”
Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prevot said Brussels would reciprocate by declaring Rwandan diplomats persona non grata, calling Kigali’s move “disproportionate.”
Previous rounds of EU sanctions have targeted M23 commanders and Rwandan army officers.
Zobel Behalal, a senior expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, said the latest sanctions were notable in going after Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board, and the Gasabo Gold Refinery.
“The EU sanctions ... are a recognition that profits from natural resources are one of the main motivations for Rwanda’s involvement in this conflict,” said Behalal.
The mines board and the gold refinery did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
UN experts slam US arrests of pro-Palestinian students
- “These actions are disproportionate, unnecessary, and discriminatory and will only lead to more trauma and polarization negatively impacting the learning environment within university campuses,” the UN experts said in a statement
- The Trump administration cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, accusing it of not sufficiently addressing anti-Semitism
GENEVA: UN-appointed experts on Monday branded US authorities’ arrests of foreign students for pro-Palestinian protests on campus “disproportionate” and called for their rights to be respected.
US campuses including Columbia University in New York were rocked by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas, drawing accusations of anti-Semitism.
Immigration officers arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of protests at Columbia, on the weekend of March 9-10 after US President Donald Trump vowed to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student demonstrators.
The White House later said authorities had supplied a list of other Columbia students that officers were seeking to deport over their alleged participation in protests.
“These actions are disproportionate, unnecessary, and discriminatory and will only lead to more trauma and polarization negatively impacting the learning environment within university campuses,” the UN experts said in a statement.
“These actions create a chilling effect on the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and of association,” they added.
The Trump administration has moved to revoke Khalil’s residency permit, accusing him of leading “activities aligned with Hamas.”
Khalil’s lawyer later told a court that he had been taken to Louisiana and denied legal advice.
The independent experts, appointed by the UN to report on rights issues, urged US authorities “to cease repression and retaliation, including in the form of arbitrary detention of US lawful permanent residents, and removal of international students who have participated in university protests.”
The Trump administration cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, accusing it of not sufficiently addressing anti-Semitism.
Columbia administrators later said they had suspended and expelled a number of students who had occupied a campus building last year.
Kenya urged to investigate mutilated bodies dumped in quarry
NAIROBI: Human Rights Watch has urged Kenya to conclude an investigation into mutilated bodies found in a quarry last year and address claims that police blocked recovery efforts.
There was shock and disgust last July in the East African country when 10 butchered female corpses and other unidentified body parts were recovered, mostly by volunteers, from an abandoned quarry in the Mukuru slum in the capital, Nairobi.
The discovery came as Kenya was gripped by deadly government protests, with rights groups alleging police brutality and the abduction of prominent protesters.
Authorities promised swift action and quickly arrested a man who they said had confessed to murdering and dismembering 42 women.
But around a month later, the suspect escaped police custody and disappeared without a trace.
“No prosecution has been initiated either for the bodies or this escape,” HRW and the Mukuru Community Center for Social Justice said in a joint statement.
HRW said volunteers at the quarry alleged that police officers had forced them to stop retrieving body parts.
Doctor deported to Lebanon had photos ‘sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on phone, US says
BOSTON: US authorities on Monday said they deported a Rhode Island doctor to Lebanon last week after discovering “sympathetic photos and videos” of the former longtime leader of Hezbollah and militants in her cell phone’s deleted items folder.
Alawieh had also told agents that while in Lebanon, she attended the funeral last month of Hezbollah’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom she supported from a “religious perspective.”
The US Department of Justice provided those details as it sought to assure a federal judge in Boston that US Customs and Border Protection did not willfully disobey an order he issued on Friday that should have halted Dr. Rasha Alawieh’s immediate removal.
The 34-year-old Lebanese citizen, who held an H-1B visa, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from a trip to Lebanon to see family.
Her cousin then filed a lawsuit seeking to halt her deportation.
In its first public explanation for her removal, the Justice Department said Alawieh, a kidney specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was denied re-entry to the US based on what CBP found on her phone and statements she made during an airport interview.
“It’s a purely religious thing,” she said about the funeral, according to a transcript of that interview reviewed by Reuters.
“He’s a very big figure in our community. For me it’s not political.”
Western governments including the US designate Hezbollah a terrorist group.
Malaysian rice porridge a ‘trademark’ Ramadan tradition
- Mosque volunteers use 140 kilogrammes (308 pounds) of rice daily to cook the porridge, which is served in bowls to prayer attendees or packed into 1,000 large plastic packets to be distributed to the public
KUALA LUMPUR: As dusk fell, hundreds of Muslims at a mosque in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur feast on bowls of fragrant rice porridge known locally as “bubur lambuk,” part of a Ramadan tradition dating back decades.
Slow-cooked with various spices in giant pots and stirred with oversized ladles, bubur lambuk is traditionally prepared by volunteers in mosque courtyards before being distributed to the public for iftar, the fast-breaking meal in the largely Islamic nation.
But the broth, specially prepared at Masjid India, a well-known Kuala Lumpur mosque, serves a unique version of the porridge using a recipe originating from India.
The recipe is known as Nombu Kanji, according to the mosque’s imam, Muhammad Nasrul Haq Abdul Latif.
“This tradition has been passed down from generation to generation, from the 60s to the 70,” he told AFP.
“So it has become a trademark. If it (Nombu Kanji) wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be complete.”
Mosque volunteers use 140 kilogrammes (308 pounds) of rice daily to cook the porridge, which is served in bowls to prayer attendees or packed into 1,000 large plastic packets to be distributed to the public.
Each packet is enough to feed a family of four.
“From the perspective of making things easier for the people in this area, sometimes the homeless who struggle to get food, low-income workers, and office workers who sometimes don’t have time to go home and cook benefit from this,” he said.
“So, the preparation of iftar meals by mosques helps make their daily lives more convenient (during Ramadan).”
Mohaiyadin Sahulhameed, a local resident originally from India, said the porridge served at the mosque reminded him of home.
“Back in our village, the way we cook is using large woks, with curry leaves, mustard seeds, cinnamon, and all sorts of ingredients mixed together. When combined with rice, it creates a rich aroma, quite similar to how it’s done here,” he said.
The mosque’s cook, Sathakkathullah Hameed, said he saw preparing the large pots of porridge daily as a religious calling.
“During this fasting month, I want to help others. Allah grants rewards, mercy, and blessings, and, God willing, He will provide sustenance,” he said.
“And when people eat the porridge I cook, they say ‘Bismillah,’ (in the name of God) and I respond with ‘Alhamdulillah’ (praise be to God).”
