PATNA: Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has aroused controversy in India during a visit to Istanbul by meeting Turkey’s First Lady, Emine Erdogan.
Khan was in Turkey to find shooting locations for “Laal Singh Chaddha,” a remake of classic American comedy “Forrest Gump.” While 40 percent of the film has been shot in India in Punjab, the production team decided to film the remainder elsewhere over the coronavirus concerns.
Right-wing elements aligned with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expressed anger at his meeting the wife of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while others said the courtesy meeting was blown out of proportions and will have no effect on the well-known actor’s popularity.
“Turkey is among the most intolerant nations in the world. How can Aamir, who speaks out so strongly against intolerance, go to the home of the president of this intolerant nation and have coffee with his wife? This is the reason India is outraged,” filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, known for his open support of the BJP, told Arab News.
Agnihotri, who is a member of India’s Central Board of Film Certification, said that Aamir should apologize for his “cultural diplomacy.”
“President Erdogan has ordered the arrest and prosecution of thousands of dissenters,” Agnihotri said. “This is President Erdogan, whose wife Aamir went to have tea with? Turkey sponsors terrorism in India. Turkey is an enemy to India. Even an ordinary man in India knows this. How can an enlightened artist like Aamir Khan who addresses so many socio-political issues in India be ignorant?”
Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who used to be affiliated with the BJP but is now a part of the opposition Congress party, disagreed with Khan’s critics.
“Aamir is one of the most intelligent actors of India. He wouldn’t do anything to damage his image as a leading cultural ambassador of the country. So what if he had coffee with the First Lady in Turkey? Aamir had not gone to Turkey as a political representative of India. He was there to shoot a film. What’s wrong in paying a courtesy visit to the country’s president’s wife?
“Let’s not bring politics into cinema. If Aamir made a personal social visit, let’s not make it into a political issue,” he said.
The actor, who shot to fame in 1988 with the epochal love story “Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak,” is known for his game-changing performances in many Bollywood blockbusters.
One of India’s most beloved actors, he has been repeatedly accused of what attackers say is “anti-nationalism” since November 2015, when he admitted in an interview that his wife Kiran Rao was worried about the safety of their son because of India’s atmosphere of growing intolerance.
Film critics Raja Sen and Karan Anshuman played down the incident.
“This will have no effect on Aamir’s career,” Sen said. “Audiences only care about causes from time to time, but their allegiance to their favorite
stars is forever.”
For Anshuman, what should now matter during foreign visits, when all countries are facing the coronavirus pandemic, is that people take necessary precautions be kept when meeting others — in the literal sense: “Last I heard India is still a free country and people shouldn’t project their politics and beliefs onto others. Aamir Khan can do whatever he wants as long as he’s wearing a mask when in public.”
Singer-actor-politician Babul Supriyo, who is a BJP lawmaker and is currently serving as minister of environment, said that the government has not commented on Khan’s visit to Turkey.
“I don’t wish to comment on the rights or wrongs of it,” he said, observing that Bollywood stars are even more in the spotlight now due to social media activity and therefore subject to “immense” scrutiny. “One needs to be very cautious in one’s public conduct.”
Topics: AAMIR KHAN
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India sets world’s highest single-day rise with 78,761 new virus cases
India is already the world’s third-most infected nation with more than 3.5 million cases
The coronavirus has badly hit megacities such as financial hub Mumbai and the capital New Delhi
Updated 30 August 2020
AFP
August 30, 2020 05:13
457
NEW DELHI: India on Sunday set a new virus record when it reported 78,761 new infections in 24 hours, according to health ministry figures, passing the United States for the world’s highest single-day rise.
India, home to 1.3 billion people, is already the world’s third-most infected nation with more than 3.5 million cases, behind the US and Brazil.
It has also reported more than 63,000 deaths.
The US set the previous record on July 17 with 77,638 daily infections, according to an AFP tally.
India’s grim milestone came a day after the government further eased its coronavirus lockdown, in place since late March, to boost the struggling economy.
Millions have lost their jobs since the start of the lockdown, with the poor particularly hard hit.
The Home Affairs Ministry said gatherings of up to 100 people would be allowed with face masks and social distancing at cultural, entertainment, sports and political events from next month.
Metro train services would also resume “in a graded manner” in major cities.
The coronavirus has badly hit megacities such as financial hub Mumbai and the capital New Delhi, but is now also surging in smaller cities and rural areas.
Schools remain closed but students can meet teachers on a voluntary basis on school premises if needed, according to the new guidelines.
Topics: CORONAVIRUS
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Italian coast guard in mission to save 200 migrants stranded on ‘Banksy’ rescue boat
Distress calls from stricken vessel adrift in the Mediterranean after picking up refugees off coast of Libya
Updated 30 August 2020
ARAB NEWS
August 30, 2020 07:14
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JEDDAH: The Italian coast guard launched a rescue mission on Saturday to save more than 200 migrants stranded on an overloaded boat drifting in the Mediterranean.
The migrant recovery vessel Louise Michel, funded by the British street artist Banksy, sent out a series of distress calls after picking up 219 refugees since Thursday off the coast of Libya.
A coast guard patrol boat sent from the southern Italian island of Lampedusa took on board 49 of those considered most vulnerable, including 32 women and 13 children.
But despite the help from Italy, the Louise Michel, a former French navy boat with a crew of 10, said it had still not found a safe port for the rest of the mainly African migrants on board. The crew said its situation was worsening, and appealed for help from authorities in Italy, Malta and Germany.
“We are reaching a state of emergency. We need immediate assistance,” said one message. At least one migrant had died, it said.
FASTFACT
49
A coast guard patrol boat sent from the southern Italian island of Lampedusa took on board 49 of those considered most vulnerable, including 32 women and 13 children.
Another message said the boat was unable to move and “no longer the master of her own destiny” because of her overcrowded deck and a life raft deployed at her side, “but above all due to Europe ignoring our emergency calls for immediate assistance.”
Before Italy’s coast guard intervened, the Italian charity ship Mare Jonio left the Sicilian port of Augusta, much further away than Lampedusa, to offer assistance.
Two UN agencies called for the “urgent disembarkation” of the Louise Michel and two other ships in the Mediterranean carrying hundreds of migrants.
About 200 are on the Sea Watch 4, a German charity ship, and 27 have been on board the commercial tanker Maersk Etienne since their rescue on Aug. 5.
The International Organisation for Migration and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said they were “deeply concerned about the continued absence of dedicated EU-led search and rescue capacity in the central Mediterranean.”
“The humanitarian imperative of saving lives should not be penalized or stigmatized, especially in the absence of dedicated state-led efforts,” they said.
Topics: STRANDED MIGRANTS MV LOUISE MICHEL
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Europe still mired in division after migrant crisis
Europe still mired in division after migrant crisis
Initial openness to the newcomers foundered on the opposition of central European countries led by Viktor Orban’s Hungary
For lack of agreement, the Schengen free-movement zone was “significantly weakened, with controls reinstated on several frontiers” between members
Updated 30 August 2020
AFP
August 30, 2020 03:22
34
PARIS: Since taking in more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in 2015, Europe has stepped up border controls but still falls short on common migration and asylum policies.
At the time, the migrant crisis “laid bare Europe’s structural flaws and political divisions,” said Marie De Somer, a migration specialist at the European Policy Center.
Until 2015, the Dublin regulation had called for the first EU country where asylum seekers arrived to deal with their applications.
But the system “completely exploded” under the pressure that year, De Somer said.
Early on, images of columns of migrants trekking across Europe and the body of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Greek beach sparked sympathy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel set aside the rules in summer 2015 to allow 900,000 mostly Syrian asylum seekers in — soon followed by countries with less experience of mass arrivals like Austria and Sweden.
But a “quota” system to redistribute migrants among EU member countries, hastily cobbled together at Germany’s request, never moved the 160,000 people originally agreed on.
Initial openness to the newcomers foundered on the opposition of central European countries led by Viktor Orban’s Hungary — as well as a surge in support for anti-immigration populist parties in western Europe.
For lack of agreement, the Schengen free-movement zone was “significantly weakened, with controls reinstated on several frontiers” between members, a senior French official familiar with migration policy said on condition of anonymity.
Some migrants fell through gaps in the legal system, wandering from one EU country to another filing new asylum claims as previous ones were rejected.
Meanwhile national governments tightened their own laws piecemeal, limiting refuge rights or raising the bar for granting asylum.
Paris “above all tried to speed up processing of requests to quickly reject the ones without merit,” the French official said.
But informal refugee camps in the capital and northern port city Calais are now growing again — despite authorities doubling the number of places in state accommodation over five years.
“We have to stop this question from being a thorn in Europe’s side,” the official said. “We’re no longer in crisis and we should be able to manage today’s arrivals.”
Last year 612,000 people made initial asylum requests in Europe, according to statistics authority Eurostat — around half the numbers seen in 2015-16.
But the decline in arrivals was bought with “agreements with non-EU countries at a significant cost for European values, and put the EU in a weak position,” said Matthieu Tardis at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
An EU-Turkey deal struck in 2016 calls for Ankara to accept the return of migrants arriving in Greece, in exchange especially for financial aid.
But it cemented “terrible health conditions” in migrant camps in Greece and “became a lever” for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to exert pressure on Europe, Tardis said.
Erdogan flexed his muscles earlier this year by declaring his borders open, prompting tens of thousands of people to head for the Greek frontier.
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, the EU has backed a controversial agreement for Italy to finance and train the coast guard in Libya, torn by anarchy and civil war since 2011.
The EU “has notched up very few successes beyond beefing up Frontex,” said the European Policy Center’s De Somer.
By 2027, the Brussels agency is supposed to number 10,000 border and coast guards who can be sent to buttress struggling member states.
But the Commission is also due to propose yet another mechanism for European asylum cooperation this September.
In July, Germany suggested the plan should include more preliminary triage of asylum seekers at the EU’s external borders and call for Frontex to deport those whose applications are denied.
Berlin also hopes for a scheme to relocate migrants rescued at sea among roughly a dozen willing member countries, while those who refuse to take them in could contribute financial aid.
Even that compromise would not plug all the holes in the European system.
“There can’t be a common European policy without common criteria for accepting asylum requests,” said Didier Leschi, head of France’s immigration and integration authority.
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World’s total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases nears 25 million
US, Brazil remain in the top 1 and 2 position, with no sign of let-up in new cases
India, currently the third worst hit, has the world’s fastest growing number of recorded cases
Updated 30 August 2020
ARAB NEWS:
August 30, 2020 06:49
855
RIYADH: The global tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases was moving closer to the 25-million mark on Sunday, with the US keeping the dubious honor of topping the tally at 5,960,596, a tally by the John Hopkins coronavirus tracking center showed.
The worldwide death toll also surged to 841,507, with the US again having the most number at 182,752,
Brazil kept its dubious distinction as 2nd placer in both number of cases and deaths, registering 3,846,153 while crossing the grim threshold of 120,000 people killed by Covid-19 on Saturday, with no end in sight to the crisis.
Unlike in Europe and Asia, where the virus hit hard and then subsided, Brazil’s outbreak is advancing at a slow but devastating pace, said Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at public health institute Fiocruz.
“Brazil is unique in the world. Since the start of the pandemic, its curve has been different from other countries’, much slower,” he told AFP.
“It has stabilized now, but at a very dangerous level: nearly 1,000 deaths and 40,000 cases per day.... And Brazil still isn’t past the peak.”
India, currently the third worst hit, has the world’s fastest growing number of recorded cases, now at 3.5 million, and more than 62,000 pandemic deaths.
But the government faces pressure to free up the economy as millions have lost jobs since nationwide restrictions were first imposed in March.
The Home Affairs Ministry said that gatherings of up to 100 people would be allowed with face masks and social distancing at cultural, entertainment, sports and political events from next month.
Metro train services will also be allowed to resume “in a graded manner” in major cities.
The coronavirus has badly hit mega cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi, but is now surging in smaller cities and rural areas.
The new government guidelines ordered schools and colleges to remain closed but students can meet teachers on a voluntary basis on school premises if needed.
The government has resisted a mass campaign by students to postpone entrance exams for medical and engineering colleges due to be taken by about two million students next month.
Students say they fear catching the virus in exam halls across the country. Authorities say they are taking special measures for the exams.
Mexico's health ministry on Saturday reported 5,974 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infections and 673 additional fatalities, bringing the total to 591,712 cases and 63,819 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
Saudi Arabia was in 14th place in terms of confirmed cases (313,911) and 30th place in terms of deaths (3,840).
The total number of recoveries in the Kingdom, however, has increased to 287,403, according to the Saudi Ministry of Health.
(With AFP & Reuters)
Topics: CORONAVIRUS
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Kastellorizo, idyllic island at heart of Greece-Turkey row
In this photo provided by the Greek National Defense Ministry, an helicopter takes part in a Greek-US military exercise south of the island of Crete, on Monday, Aug. 24, 2020. (AP)
Kastellorizo is the Greek island furthest removed from the European mainland, a rocky, arid outcrop of around 9 square kilometers.
Updated 30 August 2020
AFP
August 30, 2020 01:39
2799
KASTELLORIZO, GREECE: The tiny island of Kastellorizo, peeking out of the turquoise waters of the Eastern Mediterranean just 2 km off the Turkish coast, may not look like the focus of an international incident.
And it does not feel that way to the sun-baked inhabitants, even as diplomatic tensions mount and Greece, Turkey and their allies mount rival military exercises in nearby waters in a row over gas exploration rights. “Nobody at all is afraid here,” says Giorgos Karagiannis.
The 45-year old says he is “used to these games that serve the politicians, but which don’t knock the islanders off course.”
Born on the island with its little harbor ringed with pastel-colored houses, Karagiannis’ boat plies the waters between Kastellorizo — with its two Greek flags painted onto the bare rock — and the Turkish mainland every day, carrying tourists to the island and islanders to do their shopping.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and my family were doing it before me. There’s no reason for it to change,” he insists.
At present, the only thing blocking exchanges with the town of Kas across the strait is the coronavirus pandemic.
With half of the island’s 500-strong population members of the armed forces, people in military uniforms and swimwear mingle on the waterfront of Kastellorizo’s little port.
But the mirror-smooth waters belie the fierce international staring match going on over the treasures to be found beneath.
Kastellorizo is the Greek island furthest removed from the European mainland, a rocky, arid outcrop of around 9 square kilometers.
Its inhabitants are “used to” being the pivot around which Greece and Turkey’s longstanding enmity turns, says 62-year-old Foteini Dritsa.
Outside her souvenir shop, modern semi-rigid Zodiac dinghies and traditional rowing boats are pulled up side by side on the beach.
Between the Greek islanders and their Turkish counterparts “there are ties and friendships,” Dritsa says.
Deputy mayor Stavros Amygdalos agrees that “we have very good relations with our neighbors; we’re twinned with the town opposite; we put on a cultural festival together; there are significant economic ties.”
As the political pressure mounts in far-off capitals, “we’re keeping an eye out, but we’re staying calm and not changing anything about our everyday life,” Amygdalos adds.
On August 10, Turkish navy ships escorted an exploration vessel, the Oruc Reis, into the waters south of Kastellorizo.
Four days before, Greece had signed an agreement with Egypt on the two countries’ respective maritime economic zones, which the parliament in Athens waved through on Thursday.
But its claim that the waters around the island are under Greek sovereignty had Ankara seeing red.
Recent discoveries of large gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean set the countries around the sea’s rim salivating.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fumed that acknowledging Greek jurisdiction in the region would mean “imprisoning Turkey within its coastline.”
“The way Greece laid out Kastellorizo’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) links Greece’s zone to Cyprus’s, de facto restricting Turkey’s to the Antalya bay area,” explains Panayotis Tsakonas, director of the security program at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
“If the two countries can’t agree, they’ll have to bring their dispute to an international tribunal that will set the dividing line,” Tsakonas predicted.
Ahead of any such move, both sides are flexing their muscles with military maneuvers, aiming also to draw allies to their side in mutual displays of force.
But the exercises are conducted “out on the open sea, and life on the island isn’t changing,” one coast guard who asked to remain anonymous tells AFP.
“It’s been the same thing ever since I was born,” says fisherman Dimitries Achladiotis with a smile from among his nets. “Tomorrow the Turks are going to invade the island!“
For now, the only things causing a ripple in the crystal-clear waters around Kastellorizo are the sea turtles.
Topics: KASTELLORIZO IDYLLIC ISLAND
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