World Wednesday, September 1, 2021 05

DESTRUCTION ACROSS LOUISIANA News in brief

Israel announces COVID looms over rescue efforts record number of new COVID cases Tel Aviv: Israel announced nearly 11,000 new corona- virus cases within the past day on Tuesday, a new record amid Hurricane Ida’s devastation since the pandemic broke out - despite the country’s dpa ronment; it is a very difficult world-leading vaccination Laplace, Louisianna COVID environment, where campaign. 100 per cent of our cases are There were 10,947 new Residents struggled to attributable to this Delta vari- cases registered in the past find refuge on Monday after ant,” he said. day, the Health Ministry said. Ida, a Category 4 hurricane, Delta trouble “Everything we’re doing The latest figure is higher pounded this fragile, low-lying needs to be done with COVID than the previous record, stretch of southeast Louisiana Hospitals across New Orleans in mind, so it’s important we dating back to mid-January, with water and wind - flooding and the rest of southeastern mask and wash hands and when officials announced homes, tearing roofs off build- Louisiana were already close do all of these things to the some 10,100 cases. Fewer ings and leaving hundreds of to capacity as the highly maximum extent possible.” In tests were being carried out thousands without power - in infectious Delta variant spread LaPlace, many local officials at the time, however. More a region already overwhelmed among a population with one and volunteers did not wear than 1 million infections by a surge of COVID-19 cases. of the nation’s lowest masks as they scrambled to have been reported in Israel, Hospitals across New coordinate disaster relief for a nation of 9.4 million. (dpa) Orleans and the rest of south- vaccination rates residents. eastern Louisiana were al- “I’ll be honest with you: It’s ready close to capacity as the ing care they need,” he said - life over limb; we really didn’t S’pore, Aust agree highly infectious Delta variant including COVID patients on take too many COVID proto- Covid-19 vaccine spread among a population ventilators. “It’s just too soon cols,” Cain Dufrene, chief of exchange deal with one of the nation’s lowest right now to say when that operations for St. vaccination rates. power is going to be restored. John the Baptist Parish Bangkok: Singapore is to Coronavirus-positive cas- An awful lot of hospitals are Fire Services, said Monday in send half a million corona- es, hospitalisations and deaths on generator power.” Bel Ed- an interview at the command virus vaccine doses to Aus- soared in this Southern state wards said technicians were operation center. tralia as part of an exchange throughout much of August, People look at debris damage in Laplace, Louisiana on Monday. (afp) deployed to hospitals that Dufrene had worked that will see Canberra return with average new daily cases were relying on generator through Sunday night, pulling the favour in December. surpassing 5,000 midmonth. and some were forced to evac- outside Baton Rouge, La. struggling to bring hospitals power to ensure that backups a 30-hour shift as calls came Prime Minister Lee Hsien The state has made some pro- uate; shelters without power Local coroners expect to and dialysis centres back on- were available in case of fail- in from people worried about Loong said he was “glad to gress as cases have dropped and water struggled to enforce report more deaths in the line first, Bel Edwards said. ure. loved ones trapped in water- support” Australia’s vaccina- over the last week, but they social distancing, masking and days to come due to the cata- At least three hospitals had Almost 2,000 people logged homes. Like many of tion programme. remain high, at about 4,000 sanitary conditions. strophic damage to homes, to evacuate patients due to were at three dozen shelters the local officials and emer- “Countries must be per day. Still, in the immediate af- Louisiana Governor John Bel storm damage, and a fourth statewide, and many parishes gency workers huddled inside united in the battle to quell As Ida wreaked havoc and termath, Ida did not appear to Edwards said during a brief- was evacuating late Monday, were enforcing curfews Mon- the St. John command center, the pandemic, so that we destruction across Louisiana, take many lives. Two storm- ing on Monday afternoon. he said. day, Bel Edwards said, urging he did not wear a mask. can all move into the new the pandemic loomed over the related deaths were reported With power out for more “We really need our hos- people to take precautions to “We’re going to save the normal,” the prime minis- disaster relief effort: Hospitals on Monday: a motorist who than 1.1 million homes and pitals more than anything else guard against COVID-19. life rather than trying to worry ter said. Lee’s Australian brimming with COVID-19 pa- drowned in New Orleans and businesses in southeast- to come back up so that people “Whether we like it or not, too much about the COVID counterpart tients operated on generators, a person hit by a falling tree ern Louisiana, officials were in ICUs can receive the lifesav- we are still in a COVID envi- stuff,” he said. said the jabs “will be distrib- uted next week to states and territories on an equal population basis.” (dpa)

Outrage in India over revamp of colonial massacre site uses emergency rules dpa site of the tragedy, most of the ics accused the government of Seth said. to control prices New Delhi criticism was directed towards trying to distort the country’s Ruling party lawmaker the refurbishment of a pas- history. Shwait Malik, a member of the : Sri Lankan Pres- Indians are outraged over sage which British troops had “Devastated to hear that Jallianwala Trust defended ident Gotabaya the government revamp of a blocked, preventing the vic- Jallianwala Bagh... has been the makeover. has introduced emergency memorial park which was the tims’ escape. It has now been revamped - which means that “These sculptures in the regulations to control prices scene of the bloodiest mas- embellished with murals and the last traces of the event lane will make visitors con- of essential food items, of- sacre in British history, with sculptures and a shiny new have effectively been erased,” scious of those who walked in ficials said on Tuesday. many claiming that a gaudy floor has been laid. historian Kim Wagner wrote on that day... Earlier, people The regulations give light show and a new gateway The Marytrs’ Well, which on Twitter. He called it “part walked this narrow lane with- wide powers to officials to were “destroying history.” many people are believed to of the general Disneyfication out knowing its history, now seize food stocks held by Prime Minister Narendra have jumped into in order to of the old city of Amritsar.” “I they will walk with history.” traders, arrest people who Modi opened the renovated escape the bullets, has been don’t know who is the brain The massacre, carried out on hoard essential food and Jallianwala Bagh complex in covered with a transparent behind defacing the soul and orders by general Reginald for the government to fix the northern city of Amritsar barrier. body of Jallianwala Bagh. It Dyer, is considered to have controlled prices. The move on Saturday. Hundreds of un- Rahul Gandhi, leader of was and will remain sombre sparked the Indian independ- comes as prices of essen- armed Indians were gunned the main opposition Congress A view of the renovated Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs’ Memorial in and grave. People were mer- ence movement. tial food items including down by British troops while party, joined the criticism Amritsar recently. (AFP) cilessly killed. To have a son The British government rice, milk food, sugar and attending a public meeting at on Tuesday by condemning et lumiere and that wretched at the time put the death toll dhal are rising and short- the site on April 13, 1919. the revamp as an “insult to complex “will remind the new “the responsibility of every na- design shows how removed at 379 while Indian freedom ages are reported in the While some objected to a martyrs” and “indecent cru- generation about the history tion to preserve its history.” we are from any level of refine- fighters said nearly 1,000 peo- markets. (dpa) light and sound show at the elty.” Modi said the renovated of this holy place” and it was But historians and other crit- ment,” commentator Suhel ple died. B’desh court hands down Malaysia again death penalty for 6 militants postpones over murder of two activists parliament, dpa Dhaka citing COVID A court in ordered the death penalty for six Islamist militants for the dpa murder of two gay rights activists more Bangkok than five years ago, officials said on Tues- day. A planned first meeting of Malaysia’s parliament An anti-terrorism court in Dhaka hand- under new Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has ed down the penalty to Syed Md Ziaul Huq been postponed until mid-September due to pan- Zia, chief of banned Islamist group Ansar demic concerns. al-Islam, and five other members of the Ismail Sabri, who is in his second week in office, radical group for murdering Xulhaz Man- is in quarantine for two weeks after he was poten- nan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, prosecu- tially exposed to someone with the coronavirus. The tion lawyer Golam Sarwar Khan Zakir said. rescheduled session is due to run from September 12 Mannan, the editor of Bangladeshi to October 13 and will include two additional days of LGBT magazine Roopbaan, and Tonoy, a Police escort a militant (centre) of the Islam- debates. theatre activist, were hacked to death by ist group Ansar Al-Islam, at a special court in Lim Guan Eng, the leader of the Democratic Ac- the Islamists at their apartment in central Dhaka on Tuesday. (afp) tion Party (DAP), the biggest opposition faction, said Dhaka on April 25, 2016. the new premier, who is said to have a narrow par- The charges of terrorism and murder The Islamist group is also responsible liamentary majority of four, should face a confidence were proved beyond doubt for six of the for carrying out a series of machete attacks vote once the house reconvenes. eight who were accused, the lawyer said. on people it labelled “anti-Islamic ele- Ismail Sabri took over in the wake of predecessor The court acquitted the other two, he said. ments” in the South Asian country. quitting earlier this month ahead Four of the convicts were in the dock Bangladesh outlawed the group a year of a scheduled confidence vote, after at least 10 law- when the verdict was pronounced in a after the killing of the activists, who were makers said they would vote against him, making his crowded courtroom, he said. Two others, campaigning for the rights of lesbian, gay, defeat inevitable. including the group chief Zia, who is a re- bisexual and transgender people in the Muhyiddin was forced out in part over allega- tired army , are on the run, he added. Muslim-majority country. tions his government failed to curb the pandemic, Zakir said the court also observed that The group, which said it was affiliated despite imposing restrictions that included a ban on there was no scope for mercy given the se- with the Indian sub-continent’s arm of al- parliament meeting that ran from January until July. verity of the crimes, that sought to obstruct Qaeda, claimed the murders of Mannan Malaysia’s Health Ministry on Tuesday reported people’s free will by jeopardizing public and Tonoy. almost 21,000 new cases of the virus, around five safety in Bangladesh. In 2015 and 2016, Bangladesh wit- times the number as when a third pandemic lock- However the defence lawyers claimed nessed a wave of attacks against academ- down was imposed in May. On Monday, the ministry that the prosecution had failed to prove its ics, secularist bloggers, foreign nationals, reported 295 virus-related deaths. allegations. “We will challenge the verdict priests, rights activists and people of mi- Ismail Sabri’s quarantine forced him to skip in the higher court,” said defence lawyer nority faiths, that were claimed by Islamic Tuesday’s ceremonies marking Malaysian independ- Khairul Islam Liton. State and al-Qaeda or their local affiliates. ence from Britain in 1957.