Blog archive: All

  • 26th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    According to official figures, there are now almost 4,000 Covid-19 cases in Sudan – a third of them recorded during the past week. Those are the ones known to the authorities but health minister Akram Ali al-Tom readily acknowledges that the real number is higher. "The virus is running in...
  • 25th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    If official reports are to be believed it's now more than three weeks since any Syrian living under the Assad regime's rule has become infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus. Although confirmed cases in regime-controlled areas have now risen to 106 the most recent 63 of them were all...
  • 24th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Ramadan is over and now it's holiday time. As Muslims enjoy the three-day Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, hotels in Egypt – previously closed because of the coronavirus pandemic – are beginning to receive guests again. On Friday, for the first time since March, 68 visitors checked into...
  • 23rd May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Yesterday Tunisia's health ministry announced the results of 1,320 Covid-19 tests. Only six were positive and of those, only two were new cases. The other four were re-tests of people previously diagnosed with the virus. “Our country has succeeded in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic,” prime...
  • 22nd May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Covid-19 infections in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza have more than doubled over the last few days, rising from 20 to 55. The new cases were discovered among Gaza residents who recently returned from Egypt or Israel, and the Hamas authorities have responded by announcing that no one else...
  • 21st May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Faced with a shortage of places for quarantining Egyptians who return from abroad, the authorities have adopted an original – if dangerous – solution. To create more space, they have reduced the mandatory quarantine period from 14 days to seven. Egyptian citizens who test negative for Covid-...
  • 20th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Kuwait has assigned its National Guard to take over the running of supermarkets where staff have been struck down by the Covid-19 coronavirus. One of those placed under military operation and management is the Khaldiya Cooperative Society which closed its doors ten days ago following the...
  • 19th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    By May 6, Jordan had gone ten days without any Covid-19 infections coming to light inside the country. Since then, though, there have been 166 new cases – more half of them linked to a single truck driver in Mafraq province. After returning from Saudi Arabia the driver was sent into home...
  • 18th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    The wealthy Gulf state of Qatar – home to al-Jazeera television and controversial host for the 2022 World Cup – is offering to help the United States and other countries overcome the coronavirus crisis. That is the main story today on the front page of Qatar's The Peninsula newspaper. The...
  • 17th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Many people are dying in the Yemen's southern city of Aden and no one is quite sure why. Maybe it's coronavirus but it could be dengue fever, chikungunya, ebola, malaria, pneumonic plague or something else, according to the head of the National Emergency Committee. More than 500 deaths have been...
  • 16th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Coronavirus infections in Iran are increasing again and the country's epidemic looks to be heading for a second wave. The first wave peaked at the end of March when the daily count of new cases briefly rose above 3,000. Throughout the following month new cases dropped steadily, reaching a...
  • 15th May 2020
    By
    Brian Whitaker
    Unidentified militiamen entered the intensive care unit at al-Jala hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday and opened fire. Medical staff escaped with their lives but seven respirators were badly damaged, along with an ultrasound machine and several monitors. In Libya's internal...

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