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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008850

LONDON – British police said Monday that a car explosion that killed one person and injured another Sunday outside a hospital in northwestern England was a “terrorist incident,” although a precise motive remains unclear.

The blast occurred on Sunday just before 11 a.m. local time as a taxi pulled up outside an entrance of Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Video footage shared on social media shows the blast ripping through the vehicle, which then bursts into flames. One passenger, who has not been publicly identified, was declared dead at the scene.

“Although the motivation for this incident is yet to be understood, given all the circumstances, it has been declared a terrorist incident and counterterrorism policing are continuing with the investigation,” Russ Jackson, head of counterterrorism policing in northwestern England, said Monday.

Police arrested three men under the country’s terrorism legislation on Sunday. The Greater Manchester Police said the men, ages 29, 26 and 21, were arrested in Kensington, an area of Liverpool that has a high poverty rate. Jackson said Monday that a fourth man, age 20, was also arrested under the Terrorism Act.

The taxi driver picked up a passenger about 10 minutes away from the hospital, and an explosion occurred within the car as the taxi approached the drop-off point, police said. Jackson said the incident involved the ignition of an explosive device that was brought into the cab by the passenger.

“Our enquiries will now continue to seek to understand how the device was built, the motivation for the incident and to understand if anyone else was involved in it,” Jackson said in a statement he read out at a news briefing.

The driver, who was able to escape, was hospitalized in stable condition and was subsequently released.

He was praised for his apparent efforts to limit the impact of the explosion in his vehicle by reportedly locking the passenger inside the cab.

“It does look as though the taxi driver in question did behave with incredible presence of mind and bravery,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday. He noted that the investigation is ongoing and said it was premature to share further details.

Johnson’s office said he will chair a meeting of the government’s crisis committee on Monday afternoon in response to the attack.

Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program that the taxi driver had “stood out and locked the doors” of his cab, and in his “heroic efforts, has managed to divert what could have been an absolutely awful disaster at the hospital.”

Questions have been raised about the timing of the explosion, which occurred on Remembrance Sunday, a day when Britain pays tribute to its war dead by observing two minutes of silence starting at 11 a.m. Officers said they have not drawn any link between the occasion and the incident but that it remains a “line of inquiry.”

Police and firefighters arrived shortly after 11 a.m. Sunday and extinguished the fire engulfing the taxi.

Carl Bessant was inside the hospital at the time of the blast with his wife, who had just given birth. He said his wife was shaken up by the incident, which occurred as she was feeding their new baby.

“We were so close. … We heard a loud bang and looked out of the window,” he told state broadcaster BBC. “We saw the car on fire and someone jump out … screaming, and there was someone inside the car.”

Johnson said on Twitter that his “thoughts are with those affected by the awful incident,” and he thanked emergency services for their swift response.

Detectives from Counter Terrorism Policing North West said they were working with local and regional police and continuing to “keep an open mind about the cause of the explosion,” the BBC reported.

“We would urge the public to remain calm but vigilant,” Chief Constable Serena Kennedy of the Merseyside Police said at a news conference.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital said it would restrict visiting hours until further notice.

Published : November 16, 2021

By : THE NATION

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008836

A new wave of Covid-19 infections in Europe has forced nine countries to reimpose lockdown measures, which is getting people to wonder if relying on Covid-19 vaccines is enough to contain the spread of the virus?

The vaccination rate in Europe has declined in the winter months as approximately 65 per cent of the population has already been double jabbed.

However, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on Friday that the Covid-19 situation in Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia is worsening.

Meanwhile, lockdown measures have been reimposed in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Latvia, Czech Republic, Russia, Slovakia, Norway and Iceland.

Rising Covid cases force 9 European countries to go under lockdown again

Related stories:

• U.S. Democrats propose COVID-19 vaccine mandate for domestic air travel amid concerns
• Restaurants urged to strictly comply with rules for Covid-Free Setting
• CCSA rejects proposal to conduct rapid tests on foreign tourists, rule of first night in hotel stays

Published : November 15, 2021

By : THE NATION

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008834

U.S. Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to expand COVID-19 vaccine requirements for international air travelers to people traveling within the United States so as to minimize the risk of spikes in COVID-19 cases after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Democratic lawmakers are urging U.S. President Joe Biden to require that all airline passengers either show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative coronavirus test before boarding a domestic flight, reported Business Insider on Sunday.

“This is a necessary and long overdue step toward ensuring all Americans feel safe and confident while traveling and reduce the chances of yet another devastating winter surge,” said a request letter signed by more than 30 Democrats and sent to Biden on Nov. 11.

The letter came as millions plan to travel for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. An estimation from the American Automobile Association said over 53 million people were planning to travel to see loved ones for Thanksgiving this year. Of that, about 4.2 million people were expected to travel by air.

Travelers walk through terminals at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, the United States, Nov. 8, 2021. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised people to avoid taking domestic flights unless they are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. The White House announced last month that international travelers coming into the United States must show proof of full vaccination to enter.

The Democrats who signed on the letter are urging that Biden expand that mandate to people traveling within the United States so as to minimize the risk of spikes in COVID-19 cases after the holiday.

“We applaud your adoption of vaccine requirements for international air travelers coming to the United States. It is in the best interest of our nation’s public health to adopt these vaccination requirements for U.S. air travel,” said the letter.

Tourists spend time on the National Mall in Washington D.C., the United States on Oct. 30, 2021, one day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children 5 through 11 years of age. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

GOOD NEWS

The United States administered over 9.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the past seven days, the highest weekly total since late May, the White House’s COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar tweeted on Saturday. Vaccinations of children ages 5 to 11, which became widely available this week, likely contributed to the total.

On Sunday, the CDC updated that 226,157,226 people had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, making up 68.1 percent of the whole U.S. population. Fully vaccinated people stood at 194,951,106, accounting for 58.7 percent of the total. A total of 28,571,625 people, or 14.7 percent of fully vaccinated group, received booster shots.

New York State has opened 10 of its COVID-19 mass vaccination sites to children ages 5 to 11 who become newly eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as it seeks to expand access beyond a network of doctors’ offices, local health departments, health centers and pharmacies. Over 50,000 children in the state have received at least one shot since Pfizer’s vaccine was approved for the age group.

On Saturday, Governor Kathy Hochul said that she had instructed the mass vaccination sites to acquire pediatric doses and prepare to administer them at those locations, adding the state aims to eventually offer the shots at all 13 of its vaccination sites in the days ahead.

California is among three U.S. states allowing coronavirus booster shots for all adults even though federal health officials recommend limiting doses to those considered most at risk.

The nation’s most populous state, along with Colorado and New Mexico, instituted the policies to try to head off a feared surge around the end-of-year holidays when more people are gathering inside.

SAD STORIES

COVID-19 cases are still climbing in places like the upper Midwest, Southwest and parts of the Northeast, “hindering the nation’s progress in ending a surge triggered by the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus,” reported The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Nationally, the seven-day average of new cases appears to be edging back up after hovering just above 70,000 for several weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, halting what had been a decline from the Delta-fueled peak that began in September, it added.

Between Nov. 3 and 4, an estimated 112 children ages 5 to 11 were incorrectly administered a COVID-19 vaccine dose intended for people ages 12 and older at Ted Pharmacy in Aldie of Virginia, said the Virginia Department of Health in a statement on earlier this week.

“Our understanding is that Ted Pharmacy attempted to give the correct 10 microgram dosage to those under 12 by administering 0.1 ml of the adult formulation,” said David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Health Department. “Due to the very small volume used, and concerns raised by some parents as to whether 0.1 ml was actually administered, it is possible some children were under-dosed.”

The Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska announced Friday evening that three of its snow leopards had died of complications from COVID-19, adding that two Sumatran tigers who contracted the virus at the zoo had “seemingly” recovered.

“Our leopards, Ranney, Everest, and Makaly, were beloved by our entire community inside and outside of the zoo,” the zoo said in a statement. “This loss is truly heartbreaking, and we are all grieving together.” The zoo first reported that the tigers and snow leopards tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 13. 

Published : November 15, 2021

By : Xinhua

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008832

The capitalistic cruelty is exposed at the beginning of the series. In the first episode, participants are gunned down in the red light, green light game when an eerie schoolgirl doll finds them moving, indicating that falling behind in the competition of capitalistic society leads to a survival contest.

ASouth Korean drama “Squid Game” has drawn worldwide attention as it vividly depicts the cruelty of capitalistic society through children’s games played by a group of debt-ridden underdogs for money.

The dystopian drama, which debuted on Netflix on Sept. 17, attracted over 111 million views in less than four weeks, becoming the streaming service’s most-watched series.

Created by South Korean director Hwang Dong-hyuk, “Squid Game” tells the story of 456 people in various types of financial stress who enter a survival tournament, composed of children’s games, in hopes of winning a cash prize of 45.6 billion won (38.7 million U.S. dollars).

A poster for South Korean drama “Squid Game”. (Xinhua)

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The capitalistic cruelty is exposed at the beginning of the series. In the first episode, participants are gunned down in the red light, green light game when an eerie schoolgirl doll finds them moving, indicating that falling behind in the competition of capitalistic society leads to a survival contest.

In the second episode, the survivors from the first game decide by vote to leave the competition, but they voluntarily and inevitably return to risk their lives for the money as their reality is no better than the life-and-death sick game.

A person watches the South Korean drama “Squid Game” at home in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 15, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Yiliang)

“Squid Game” overcame cultural and language barriers to achieve a worldwide success as it tells the story of ill-fated people, with whom the global audience can empathize and sympathize.

“Since the (COVID-19) pandemic breakout, wealth disparity widened in the world amid the rising number of people who suffer from economic hardships. Even vaccines cannot be supplied properly to poor countries,” director Hwang said in an interview with local broadcaster JTBC.

“Characters in ‘Squid Game’ are closely akin to people in the real world, so (global viewers) seem to empathize with the characters. Because the same thing is happening around the world, (the series) seem to win worldwide empathy,” said the director.

The story is told mainly through the perspective of Seong Gi-hun who was fired from an automaker after protesting against the corporate restructuring. He is harassed and beaten by moneylenders but still gambles to pay back debt. He has a sick mother and does not have even money to buy a birthday gift for his daughter living with his divorced wife.

In the competition, Seong encounters his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo, who was an elite working for a securities company after graduating from a prestigious university but is now wanted by the police for the embezzlement of millions of dollars after failure in speculative investment in stock futures.

The participants, including Seong and Cho, form alliances to survive but are eventually forced to betray even friends in the sixth episode, titled “Gganbu,” a South Korean slang used by the older generation that means a close friend with whom you can share everything.

In the sixth episode, Seong and Cho select their respective Gganbu to pair up with before starting the game of marbles. They belatedly realize that they chose opponents rather than teammates and they can save themselves with the death of their Gganbu.

Seong survives by deceiving an elderly man, who was aware of the deception but willingly lost the game because he regarded Seong as Gganbu, while Cho betrays a naive Pakistani immigrant laborer who trusted him to the end in gratitude for Cho’s provision of money for bus.

As the game goes on, the contestants increasingly lose humanity, and the dehumanization peaks when “VIPs” arrive at the game site and start betting on which one would die next.

“I’d like to ask questions once in a while about why we were driven into this hyper-competitive society and who laid down the rules of the game. Those are questions about politics and also about the system,” said the director.

“Questions should continue to be asked about why the society works like it. When we live as if we’re being chased, we may die as pieces on a (Korean) chessboard,” he noted.

A street vendor makes a dalgona candy in Myeongdong Shopping Street in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 13, 2021. Dalgona was a significant element of South Korean drama “Squid Game,” with a deadly version of the Dalgona challenge being the second game played in the series. (Xinhua/Wang Yiliang)

The VIP appearance raise suspicions among the audience that they may be one of pieces on the chessboard of the real world like the participants in “Squid Game,” where underdogs are pitted against each other to survive as a tiny number of rich people orchestrated it to toy with poor people’s lives for fun.

The elderly man, who lost the game of marbles to Seong, turns out to be an apex predator in the social strata as the elderly does not need to die for defeat in the game, designed and operated by himself, due to his possession of wealth.

The game contestants, who represent the have-nots, have no individuality as seen in costumes. They wear the same green track suits and are addressed as numbers without names, indicating their insignificance and replaceability.

The guards, who represent collaborators for the rich, wear the same pink jumpsuits with guns, but their faces are covered with masks. The Front Man, the leader of the guards, wears a more distinctive mask, donning a hoody with matching trousers and leather gloves.

The VIPs, played by white Western actors, wear different types of dazzling animal masks to show individuality clearly, while the apex predator enjoys a complete freedom from what to wear as he is dressed in green track suits to join the game.

A South Korean movie critic was quoted by a local media as saying that “Squid Game” blatantly reveals the violence of the times as seen in characters who voluntarily became the pieces of the chessboard in thrall to capital.

Published : November 15, 2021

By : Xinhua

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008806

The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 13.59 million across Southeast Asia, with 26,176 new cases reported on Sunday (November 14), lower than Saturday’s tally at 27,967. New deaths are at 525, increasing from Saturday’s number of 473. Total Covid-19 deaths in Asean are now at 284,525.

Laos’ Public Health Ministry has allowed Covid-19 patients who have mild or no symptoms to receive treatment at home. The ministry’s regulations stipulate that to be eligible for home treatment, the patients must be fully vaccinated, have 95 per cent or higher blood oxygen level, have no respiratory problems or chronic diseases, aged under 60 years and not pregnant.

Vietnam welcomes first foreign tourists in nearly 20 months. Two charter flights brought more than 400 South Korean and Japanese fully vaccinated passengers from Seoul and Tokyo on Thursday to the southern resort city of Nha Trang. The flights came ahead of Vietnam’s plans to reopen the resort island of Phu Quoc to vaccinated foreign visitors on November 20 – with hopes to welcome at least 5,000 travellers in coming months.

Foreign tourists seeking to enter Vietnam must show Covid-19 vaccination certificates and negative pre-departure coronavirus test results.
 

Published : November 15, 2021

By : THE NATION

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008804

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Libyas former ruler Moammar Gadhafi, filed paperwork Sunday to run for president, adding to an increasingly tense dynamic ahead of elections scheduled for Dec. 24.

Gadhafi’s father, a notorious dictator who ruled Libya with an iron fist, was captured and killed in October 2011, eight months into an Arab Spring uprising against his decades-long regime. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the younger Gadhafi that year on two counts of crimes against humanity for alleged murder and persecution.

The younger Gadhafi was never extradited to face the charges. He was held by rebel forces for several years after his father died and since his release has remained largely out of the public eye, even as Libya fell into chaos.

On Sunday, in the southern town of Sabha, he registered as a candidate in the country’s upcoming election – a vote that has made many Libyans and observers wary, but that foreign powers insist is necessary to stabilize the country after years of war.

Hanan Salah, senior Libya researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Gadhafi’s move showed the lawlessness in the country.”In my view, the next police officer in Sabha should be arresting him,” Salah said.

Gadhafi’s appearance at the registration center in Sabhamade for a fairly unremarkable scene – but it could have significant consequences in Libya.

News footage showed him dressed in a brown turban and robe, with glasses and a beard, calmly signing his name on documents at the guidance of election officials.

“The political crisis in Libya just went from hot to incendiary,” tweeted Claudia Gazzini, senior Libya analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Gadhafi’s registration, although not entirely unexpected, “adds a further layer of complication to an already heavily disputed electoral process,” said Mary Fitzgerald, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. “Other prospective candidates may fear that he can split their vote so we could see a reconfiguring of alliances in the next weeks.”

Armed groups and mercenaries remain rife throughout the country. Khalifa Hifter, who leads the Libyan National Army in the country’s east and has received backing from Russian mercenaries, is also expected to announce a bid for the presidency.

Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the Government of National Accord prime minister since March, is also seen as a potential candidate.

The United Nations installed the Government of National Accord in Tripoli in 2016 in a bid to unify the country, which in the years after the elder Gadhafi’s ouster had descended into chaotic rivalries between militias. The instability also helped giverise to the Islamic State, which found a foothold in Libya.

Hifter, meanwhile, returned to Libya from the United States and became aligned with a rival government in the east. In 2019, his forces launched a violent offensive on Tripoli. Fighting between Hifter’s forces and militias supporting the U.N.-backed government besieged the city.

In 2020, pro-government forces pushed Hifter’sforces out of his last western stronghold in Tarhuna, southeast of Tripoli. This year, he temporarily stepped down from his official role in the east, raising speculation he intends to qualify for the presidential election, which requires that candidates leaveother official duties three months before the vote.

After years of war and unrest, the international community has thrown its support behind the election as the key to future Libyan stability.

But “the timing couldn’t be more sensitive,” Salah said. Many of the country’s old fault lines remain omnipresent.

It was not immediately clear what impact the ICC warrant would have on the younger Gadhafi’s eligibility to run for president.

“He has yet to address the Libyan people directly,” Fitzgerald said. “Key to his electoral chances will be how he chooses to frame the past decade and whether he adopts a conciliatory approach or the opposite.”

Observers have expressed concern over whether the December elections will be free and fair. But Salah said those fears have “completely been brushed aside and it’s become this obsession with Dec. 24, which is a completely random date.”

Leaders from several countries threatened last week to push for sanctions on any parties that interfere in the country’s democratic transition.

Published : November 15, 2021

By : The Washington Post