Tag Archives: Embassies

Weather and protests hamper Ukraine quarantine efforts

أخبار العالم, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

[ad_1]

Ukraine’s effort to evacuate more than 70 people from China due to the outbreak of a new virus has faced obstacles

February 20, 2020, 11:45 AM

3 min read

MOSCOW —
Ukraine’s effort to evacuate more than 70 people from China over the outbreak of a new virus faced setbacks Thursday as weather conditions delayed the return of the evacuees and protests broke out near a hospital where they are to be quarantined.

Dozens of local residents protested Thursday morning seeking to prevent the evacuees from being quarantined there because they fear being infected. People put up road blocks and burned tires, while Ukrainian media reported that there were clashes with police.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy weighed in saying that those demonstration show “not the best side of our character” and sought to assure people that the quarantined evacuees wouldn’t pose any danger to local residents.

In a statement published on his Facebook page, Zelenskiy said the people evacuated from China are healthy and will live in a closed medical center run by the National Guard in the village of Novi Sanzhary as a precaution.

“In the next two weeks it will probably be the most guarded facility in the country,” Zelenskiy said.

In the early hours of Thursday, a plan with plane with 45 Ukrainians and 27 other foreign nationals took off from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak that has infected more than 75,000 people worldwid e and killed over 2,100.

The plane stopped off in Kazakhstan to drop off two Kazakh passengers. Later, it sought to land in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine, but could not due to bad weather conditions.

Instead it flew to Kyiv to refuel, and eventually arrived inKharkiv.

Also Thursday, the Russian Embassy in Japan said that two more Russians aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have been diagnosed with the virus, the Russian Embassy in Japan said. That raises to three the number of Russians on the ship confirmed to have the virus.

The two will be transferred to a hospital in Japan for treatment, according to the embassy.

The Diamond Princess has been docked in the Yokohama port near Tokyo since Feb. 4, when 10 people on board tested positive for the virus. So far 621 cases of the virus, which has been named COVID-19, have been confirmed among the the Diamond Princess’s original 3,711 people on board.

Russia so far has reported only two cases of the disease on its soil. Two Chinese nationals diagnosed with the virus and hospitalized in two different regions of Siberia in late January have recovered and have been released from hospitals.

———

See more AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak

[ad_2]

Source link

Cruise ship turned away in other ports docks in Cambodia

أخبار العالم, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

[ad_1]

A cruise ship that had been stranded at sea for about two weeks after being refused entry by four Asian governments because of virus fears has finally docked in Cambodia

By

SOPHENG CHEANG AND GRANT PECK Associated Press

February 13, 2020, 4:30 PM

4 min read

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia —
A cruise ship that had been stranded at sea for about two weeks after being refused entry by four Asian governments because of virus fears finally docked Thursday in Cambodia.

Cambodia agreed to let the MS Westerdam dock at the port of Sihanoukville after Thailand barred it on Wednesday, following similar bans by Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. They kept the ship away over concerns that it would expose them to the new virus from China.

The Westerdam was unwelcome elsewhere even though operator Holland America Line said no cases of the COVID-19 viral illness have been confirmed among its 1,455 passengers and 802 crew members.

The ship initially anchored offshore, where a team of health officials began checks. It then moved at sunset to a berth at the port in the Gulf of Thailand.

“Landed!” passenger Lydia Miller, who runs a small farm and inn in Washington State, exclaimed on Twitter. “Thank you Cambodia! You believed in us when no one else would. We promise to spend lots of money in your country. #westerdam”

Once health checks and immigration procedures are completed, the passengers are to disembark and be taken to Sihanoukville airport, from where they will fly to the capital, Phnom Penh, to catch flights home.

Some 20 passengers have reported stomachaches or fever, Cambodian health officials said. The ship’s health staff considered them to be normal illnesses, but the ill passengers were being isolated from others, Health Ministry spokeswoman Or Vandine said.

A military helicopter was used to carry samples from those passengers to the Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh for analysis.

She said if tests show that any passengers have the disease, they’ll be allowed to receive treatment in the country.

A team from the U.S. Embassy with consular, logistics and health personnel was on site to assist U.S. citizens.

“From the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, we will stick with you as long as it takes,” U.S. Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy said a a video posted online.

Personnel from several European embassies were also at the scene.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on his Facebook page that he would come to Sihanoukville on Friday to meet the passengers.

Earlier, in his first public comments about the ship, he said Cambodia had let the Westerdam dock for humanitarian reasons.

A strong supporter of China, he has played down any threat from the new virus and even threatened to kick out reporters or officials seen wearing protective face masks.

“Like I said, the real disease is fear, not the virus. We want to eliminate the fear of disease,” he said in an interview with Fresh News, an online news service close to his government.

Unlike other Asian nations, he has declined to ban direct flights between Cambodia and China, saying that would disturb bilateral relations and hurt his country’s economy. Cambodia has one confirmed case of the virus, a visitor from China, despite its popularity with Chinese tourists.

“If no one allows entry, Cambodia does. The kingdom does not just cooperate with China, but with all nations,” Hun Sen said in the interview. “Coronavirus is a global challenge, and … our humanitarian affairs have no borders.”

Acting as a good Samaritan is an unusual role for Hun Sen, who is often accused of being an authoritarian leader who abuses human rights and democratic norms.

The ship’s request to remain in Cambodia has been approved through next Monday.

The Westerdam began its cruise in Singapore last month and its last stop before it was refused further landings was in Hong Kong, where 51 cases of the disease and one death have been confirmed.

The virus has sickened tens of thousands of people in China since December, and 218 cases have been confirmed on another cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, which made stops in Hong Kong and other ports before arriving in Japan last week.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier he was pleased Cambodia had agreed to accept the Westerdam and described it as an example of the international solidarity advocated by the U.N. health agency.

———

Peck reported from Bangkok.

[ad_2]

Source link

Finland agrees to return Native American stays to tribes

أخبار العالم, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

[ad_1]

The ancestral stays of Native American tribes that when referred to as the cliffs of Mesa Verde Nationwide Park house will likely be repatriated as a part of an settlement between Finland and the USA.

The White Home on Wednesday introduced the settlement involving the stays of about 20 folks and 28 funerary objects taken from the Mesa Verde space greater than 100 years in the past. The stays and artifacts have been unearthed throughout excavations by a Swedish researcher in 1891 and lots of of things finally grew to become a part of the gathering of the Nationwide Museum of Finland.

President Donald Trump and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto acknowledged the sanctity of the gadgets to the greater than two dozen tribes with cultural connections to the Mesa Verde area, finest recognized for lots of of stone dwellings that early inhabitants constructed in cliffsides, mentioned U.S. Inside Secretary David Bernhardt.

The settlement ensures the stays and gadgets will likely be introduced “to their correct resting place within the U.S,” Bernhardt mentioned.

Clark Tenakhongva, vice chairman of the Hopi Tribe, mentioned tribes hope to obtain the gathering by early subsequent yr and would guarantee funerary gadgets are buried with the stays within the common space the place they have been taken, accompanied by a ceremony.

“I do know we’ll work collectively as the assorted tribes which have curiosity in them,” Tenakhongva mentioned. “And the way we course of them would be the most fastidiously thought out plan in order that we don’t do any extra hurt than what’s already been performed.”

The precise burial location received’t be publicized to stop the positioning from being disturbed.

“They have to be returned there to allow them to security return to the spirit world, within the subsequent world,” he mentioned. “Hopi all the time consider, like most cultures and other people, once you move on you’re going to return to God or Jesus. And we return again to the arms of the creator who introduced us right here.”

The settlement comes as U.S. lawmakers have pushed for laws to ban collectors and distributors from exporting Native American ceremonial gadgets. The proposal would shut loopholes which have stifled efforts to retrieve Native American gadgets which have proven up on the public sale block in Paris.

In 2016, French sellers have been compelled to halt the sale of a ceremonial defend from Acoma Pueblo, a Native American village west of Albuquerque. Leaders from the New Mexico tribe mentioned the defend was taken from their village a long time in the past.

A federal court docket earlier this yr referred to as for the defend to be launched to the U.S. Embassy in Paris so it might be returned.

Efforts to return the Mesa Verde stays and gadgets began in 2016 when tribes related to the park started working with the Finnish museum to determine the gathering’s human stays and funerary objects. A list was accomplished final yr.

Federal officers should now craft a plan for the switch of the stays and gadgets to the tribes and pueblos.

The Hopi Tribe in northeastern Arizona was amongst these main the repatriation effort. The opposite tribes with hyperlinks to Mesa Verde embody the Navajo Nation, which spans components of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah; the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute in Colorado; 19 pueblos, and the Mescalero and Jicarilla Apache tribes in New Mexico; and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in Texas.

Navajo President Jonathan Nez mentioned the settlement is a step in the best route.

“That is an unlucky and longstanding difficulty that many tribes have handled together with the Navajo Nation,” he mentioned.

E. Paul Torres, chairman of the All Pueblo Council of Governors, mentioned tribal leaders look ahead to the repatriation and referred to the cultural gadgets as “the sacred residing footprints of our ancestors” and very important components of the legacy that tribes try to go away for future generations.

The excavations greater than a century in the past by the researcher Gustaf Nordenskiöld resulted in his arrest in 1891 when he tried to export the gathering. He was later launched as a result of no U.S. legal guidelines had been damaged.

Hopi officers mentioned the case helped to sway public notion concerning the significance of defending cultural assets. Later, the 1906 Antiquities Act was adopted, and Mesa Verde was established as a nationwide park.

———

Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona.

[ad_2]

Supply hyperlink

WikiLeaks’ Assange gets 50 weeks in prison for bail-jumping

أخبار العالم, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

[ad_1]

A British judge sentenced WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail seven years ago and holing up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Interested in WikiLeaks?

Add WikiLeaks as an interest to stay up to date on the latest WikiLeaks news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

Judge Deborah Taylor said it was hard to imagine a more serious version of the offense as she gave the 47-year-old hacker a sentence close to the maximum of a year in custody.

She said Assange’s seven years in the embassy had cost British taxpayers 16 million pounds ($21 million), and said he sought asylum as a “deliberate attempt to delay justice.”

Assange stood impassively with his hands clasped while the sentence was read. His supporters in the public gallery at Southwark Crown Court cheered for him as he left and chanted “Shame on you” at the judge as Assange was led away.

With his white hair freshly coiffed and wearing a black sports jacket and grey sweater, Assange looked much more youthful and healthier than when he was dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy by British police on April 11.

At the time, sporting an unkempt beard and long hair, he seemed wild-eyed and angry. This time he was composed and for the most part polite, although he did interrupt the judge to challenge her on her characterization of the sexual misconduct allegations he faced in Sweden.

His lawyer read out a brief letter from Assange to the judge in which he apologized “unreservedly” to anyone who felt his actions had been disrespectful.

“I found myself struggling with terrifying circumstances for which neither I nor those from whom I sought advice could work out any remedy,” he said in the letter. “I did what I thought at the time was the best and perhaps the only thing that could be done.”

The Australian secret-spiller sought asylum in the South American country’s London embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations made by two women.

Sweden suspended its investigation into possible sexual misconduct against Assange two years ago because he was beyond their reach while he was living in the embassy. Prosecutors have said that investigation could be revived if his situation changed.

Assange’s lawyer Mark Summers told a courtroom packed with journalists and WikiLeaks supporters that his client sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy because “he was living with overwhelming fear of being rendered to the U.S.” because of his WikiLeaks activities.

He said Assange had a “well-founded” fear that he would be mistreated and possibly sent to the U.S. detention camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Assange was arrested by British police April 11 after Ecuador revoked his political asylum, accusing him of everything from meddling in the nation’s foreign affairs to poor hygiene.

He faces a separate court hearing Thursday on a U.S. extradition request. American authorities have charged Assange with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system.

———

Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed.

[ad_2]

Source link

The Latest: Ecuador’s embassy quiet amid WikiLeaks tweets

أخبار العالم, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

[ad_1]

The Latest on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (all times local):

11:10 a.m.

Media are assembled outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after tweets from WikiLeaks quoted sources saying that Julian Assange could be kicked out of the building within “hours to days.”

The red-brick embassy building with white window frames and balconies was quiet Friday, but armed British police officers were stationed outside. No embassy official or any British authorities have commented.

Assange hasn’t left the embassy since August 2012, fearing if he steps off Ecuador’s diplomatic soil he will be arrested and extradited to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry issued a statement late Thursday saying it wouldn’t comment on what it called “rumors, theories or conjectures.”

Later, a senior official told The Associated Press that no decision had been taken to expel Assange from the embassy.

———

5 a.m.

A senior Ecuadorian official says no decision has been made to expel Julian Assange from the country’s London embassy despite tweets from Wikileaks that sources had told it he could be kicked out within “hours to days.”

A small group of protesters and supporters of Wikileaks’ founder gathered Thursday outside the embassy in London where Assange has been holed up since August 2012.

Earlier, Wikileaks tweeted: “BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days.” Another tweet said it had received a second confirmation.

A top Ecuadorian official denied WikiLeaks’ claim and said no decision had been taken to expel Assange. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter.

[ad_2]

Source link