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Dominic Raab: “The current measures must remain in place for at least the next three weeks”

Lockdown restrictions in the UK will continue for “at least” another three weeks as it tackles the coronavirus outbreak, Dominic Raab has said.

The foreign secretary told the daily No 10 briefing that a review had concluded relaxing the measures now would risk harming public health and the economy.

“We still don’t have the infection rate down as far as we need to,” he said.

It comes as the UK recorded another 861 coronavirus deaths in hospital, taking the total to 13,729.

Strict limits on daily life – such as requiring people to stay at home, shutting many businesses and preventing gatherings of more than two people – were introduced on 23 March, as the government tried to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Ministers are required by law to assess whether the rules are working, based on expert advice, every three weeks.

Mr Raab, deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recovers from the illness, said: “There is light at the end of the tunnel but we are now at both a delicate and a dangerous stage in this pandemic.

“If we rush to relax the measures that we have in place we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress that has been made.

“That would risk a quick return to another lockdown with all the threat to life that a second peak to the virus would bring and all the economic damage that a second lockdown would carry.”

Mr Raab said the review concluded that the measures were working, but there was evidence the infection was spreading in hospitals and care homes.

He said five conditions needed to be met before the lockdown was eased:

  • Making sure the NHS could cope
  • A “sustained and consistent” fall in the daily death rate
  • Reliable data showing the rate of infection was decreasing to “manageable levels”
  • Ensuring the supply of tests and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) could meet future demand
  • Being confident any adjustments would not risk a second peak

He said he could not provide a definitive timeline, but said the prime minister’s warning at the outset of the epidemic that it would take about three months to come through the peak still applied.

“We know it is rough going. Every time I come to this lectern and read out the grim toll, I walk away and think of their sons and daughters going through this right now, their brothers, sisters, grandchildren, all those left behind,” Mr Raab said.

“It makes this government focus even harder on what we must do and I know together, united, we must keep up this national effort.”

Presentational grey line

‘Way out is staggered, gradual and cautious’

Analysis

It isn’t a surprise. But it is hugely significant for every single person in this country. The lockdown measures will go on for at least another three weeks.

Ministers from devolved administrations across the UK have agreed that as a united way forward. The PM’s deputy, Dominic Raab, said that we’ve sacrificed too much to ease up now.

And while ministers in Westminster have been very reluctant to talk about a future exit strategy – for fear it could distract from its core “stay at home” message – the foreign secretary did nod to how we could, in future, see measures relaxed in some areas while potentially strengthening them in others.

That may not sound like a lot of detail but it is possible to start tentatively piecing this exit strategy puzzle together. It’s important to say things could change as more information comes to light.

But, as things stand, it seems that the route out of this will be staggered, gradual and cautious.

The government’s clear and ongoing priority will be to avoid overwhelming the NHS. Increased testing will be an essential part of tackling the infection. And meanwhile the country, and indeed the world, waits for what appears to be the ultimate way out – a vaccine.

Presentational grey line

With Labour calling on the government to publish plans for easing the lockdown, Mr Raab said they were being as “open as we responsibly can” but they could not “prejudge” the evidence that their scientific advisers would consider at the next review in three weeks’ time.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said “the government is right” to extend the restrictions but he said any exit strategy would require mass testing in the community and it was “struggling” to reach its target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.

The UK now has the capacity to carry out 35,000 tests for coronavirus a day, Downing Street said, although the most recent figures showed they only carried out 18,665 in the last 24-hour period.

Sir Keir also told the BBC’s podcast Coronavirus Newscast that he suspected Mr Raab was “reluctant” to sign off an exit strategy without the prime minister in office.

Also speaking at the briefing, Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, played down suggestions that vulnerable groups such as the elderly could be kept under lockdown conditions for longer.

He said the aim was for “everything to start moving more towards normal, not to segregate certain groups”.

‘Too early to change course’

The government’s announcement in the UK comes after a meeting of the emergency Cobra committee, involving the first ministers of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

In Scotland, a further 80 people have died in hospitals. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the lockdown should continue because “we are not confident enough that the virus has been suppressed sufficiently”.

Wales recorded another 32 deaths, with First Minister Mark Drakeford saying it was “still too early to change course”.

Northern Ireland saw its highest daily toll, with a further 18 deaths in hospitals, and England recorded another 740 deaths.

The tallies for individual nations can differ from the UK-wide total, because they are calculated on a different timeframe.

At 20:00 BST for the fourth week running, people across the country gathered on doorsteps, balconies or in gardens to applaud workers in the NHS, care services and others helping during the crisis.

For a fourth week, people clap to show appreciation for health professionals and other key workers
People gather on the street to clap for the NHSPeople around the UK joined again to show their appreciation for those helping during the crisis
Nurse at Aintree University Hospital during Clap for CarersA nurse at Aintree University Hospital held up a tribute to the 99-year-old veteran who raised £15m for NHS charities

“It got really big, eh?” said Annemarie Plas, a Dutch woman living in London who began the weekly Clap for Carers ritual. “You can never say British people don’t have passion and spirit.”

Downing Street said Boris Johnson, who continues to recover from Covid-19, joined in the applause to thank the “incredible efforts” of NHS and care workers.

Call for mask-wearing

During the No 10 briefing, Prof Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical adviser, urged people to continue to attend hospital if they needed to for other emergencies, saying the NHS “is open for business”.

It comes after figures showed that visits to accident and emergency units have dropped sharply since the outbreak began.

Prof Whitty also said the government was reviewing whether there were any circumstances in which it should recommend people wear masks in public to prevent the virus spreading, but said “the evidence is weak” and it would be a “very bad thing” if increased demand created shortages for healthcare workers.

But London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC he wanted people in the capital to wear masks or face coverings whenever they leave the house.

“The evidence around the world is that this is effective, and I’m lobbying our government, our advisers to change their advice, and I want us to do that sooner rather than later,” he said.

Following reports that black, Asian and minority ethnic people were critically ill in disproportionately high numbers, Downing Street said the NHS and Public Health England would carry out a review into whether some ethnicities were particularly at risk from the virus.

Prof Whitty said that it was “absolutely critical” to determine which groups were most at risk, but said the evidence on ethnicity was “less clear” at the moment than other factors, such as age, sex and underlying illnesses.

Some countries across Europe which introduced lockdown measures before the UK are now beginning to ease them, including Austria, Italy and Germany.

However, they continue to require some social distancing measures, which reduce close contact between people and prevent large gatherings.

In other developments:

  • Police have issued guidelines on “reasonable excuses” to be out in the lockdown, which warn against long rests on park benches or buying paint supplies to redecorate the house
  • Captain Tom Moore, the 99-year-old war veteran and fundraiser for NHS charities, has raised a total of more than £16m
  • Coronavirus-related scams have cost people more than £2m, with experts warning they are spreading as fast as the virus itself
  • Plans to allow some Parliamentary business to take place via Zoom video-conferencing have been approved
  • Firefighters in Wales says arsonists are trying to cause “as much chaos as possible” by starting forest fires during the pandemic
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Foreign

Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

Published

3 years ago

on

15th January 2024

By

Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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