World

DOHA — French President Emmanuel Macron, on a visit to the Gulf, expressed appreciation to Qatar on Saturday for helping to organise the latest evacuation to France of more than 250 threatened Afghans.

Qatar has played a significant role both in diplomacy and evacuations at the end of a 20-year war in Afghanistan by Western nations.

"I thank Qatar for the role it has played since the start of the crisis, and which permitted the organisation of several evacuations," said Macron, before heading to Saudi Arabia for the final leg of his two-day Gulf tour.

Macron met on Friday evening with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.

A flight chartered by Paris flew out the 258 Afghans who were "particularly threatened because of their activities, especially journalists, or because of their links to France, including former locally-recruited civilian personnel for our armies", the French foreign ministry said on Friday.

The same flight carried 11 French nationals and about 60 from The Netherlands, along with dependents.

The ministry said that since September 10, 110 French nationals and their dependents as well as 396 Afghans have been evacuated on 10 flights organised by Qatar.

"We are going to continue," Macron said.

Around half of the 124,000 Westerners and Western-allied Afghans flown out of Afghanistan in the waning days of the US-led military involvement in Afghanistan transited through Qatar.

Several European countries are considering opening a common site for diplomatic representation in the country's capital, Kabul, after the departure of their ambassadors following the capital's fall to the Islamist extremist Taliban in August, Macron said.

Qatar has long hosted a Taliban political office.

After his stay overnight Friday in Qatar, the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, Macron was heading to the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah on Saturday.

The United Arab Emirates signed a record 14-billion-euro ($15.8 billion) contract for 80 Rafale warplanes at the start of Macron's visit.

RIGA — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had seen "evidence" Russia could be planning an invasion on Ukraine, threatening Moscow with painful economic sanctions if it attacks.

Blinken accused Moscow of massing "tens of thousands of additional combat forces" near Ukraine's border as he geared up for talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Stockholm over the crisis.

"We're deeply concerned by evidence that Russia has made plans for significant aggressive moves against Ukraine, plans include efforts to destabilise Ukraine from within as well as large scale military operations," he said after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Latvia's capital Riga.

"Now, we don't know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he's putting in place the capacity to do so on short order, should he so decide," he said.

Blinken insisted "diplomacy is the only responsible way to resolve this potential crisis" but warned there would be "far-reaching and long-lasting consequences" for Moscow if it pushed ahead with any aggression.

"We made it clear to the Kremlin that we will respond resolutely, including with a range of high-impact economic measures that we've refrained from using in the past," Blinken said.

Kiev's Western allies have been sounding the alarm since last month over a fresh Russian troop buildup around Ukraine's borders and a possible winter invasion.

Russia, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backs separatists fighting Kiev, has strongly denied it is plotting an attack and blames NATO for fuelling tensions.

Ukraine seeks Russia talks 

Moscow on Wednesday hit back by accusing Ukraine of massing tens of thousands of troops in the country's east, as worries grow over an escalation.

The allegations came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for direct talks with Moscow over the festering conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east of his country.

"We must tell the truth that we will not be able to end the war without direct talks with Russia," Zelensky said during an annual address to lawmakers in Kiev.

More than 13,000 people have been killed in a war that began in 2014 between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists, who have carved out two “People’s Republics” in eastern Ukraine.

In Moscow, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to pour cold water on the idea, reiterating that the war was a domestic problem in Ukraine.

“We know of attempts to present Russia as a party to this conflict. This is not the case,” Peskov told reporters.

“The war in Donbass can only be stopped through negotiations between Ukrainians and Ukrainians.”

‘Red lines’ 

Putin has warned the West and Kiev against crossing the Kremlin’s “red lines” over staging military exercises and building up weaponry in Ukraine.

Blinken insisted in Riga that NATO allies were “making sure that Ukraine has the means to defend itself”.

And he said that the alliance would “look at what it needs to do in the event of further Russian aggression, to shore up its own defences” as NATO eyes bolstering forces along its eastern flank.

Blinken said Russia was using the same “playbook” it employed when it took control of Crimea, including by intensifying “disinformation” to portray Kiev as the “aggressor”.

The foreign minister of Ukraine — which has seen its bid for membership in NATO stall — urged the US-led alliance for a “deterrence package” to stop Russia as he attended the meeting in Riga.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also pledged the bloc “will be standing firmly and decisively with Ukraine in front of any attempt to undermine its territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

“Everything has to be done in order to make clear that any aggression against Ukraine will have a strong response.”

The trial is expected to last about two weeks.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission proposed on Wednesday letting member states bordering Belarus and facing migrant flows allegedly orchestrated by Minsk to keep arrivals' asylum claims in legal limbo for longer.

The measures would allow Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to extend the period allowed for new asylum claims to be registered from 10 days to four weeks, and to extend to four months the time limit for ruling on an application.

Migrant rights' groups slammed the changes as building up "Fortress Europe" and trashing the EU's reputation for humane treatment of asylum-seekers.

The EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, told a media conference the situation at the Belarus borders for those EU countries was "unprecedented... and that's why we are doing all these measures".

She noted the situation was "de-escalating", with EU pressure prompting migrant-origin countries such as Iraq to halt Belarus-bound flights and to take back some of the thousands of migrants already in Belarus.

But she said the pressure remained for "flexibility... to deal with a danger, with a difficult and stressing situation".

Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said the bloc was in "firefighting" mode to tackle the "hybrid threat" of Belarus directing migrants towards the EU's borders.

"We're providing a solution that addresses all the rights of people who want to apply for asylum under exceptional circumstances to do it," he said.

But Amnesty International said the situation was already "perfectly manageable with the rules as they stand".

"Today's proposals will further punish people for political gains, weaken asylum protections, and undermine the EU's standing at home and abroad," said Eve Geddie, director of the group's European office.

Erin McKay, migration campaign manager at Oxfam, another NGO, said: “This proposal weakens the fundamental rights of asylum seekers and strengthens Fortress Europe, and goes against everything that EU should stand for.”

The proposal needs approval from the EU’s member states to go ahead.

The European Parliament is to be “consulted” on it but has no power to derail it as it relies on a clause in an EU treaty that permits the “adoption of provisional measures in emergency migratory situations at the EU’s external borders”.

According to Commission figures, nearly 8,000 migrants have arrived in the EU from Belarus this year: 4,285 in Lithuania, 3,255 in Poland and 426 in Latvia.

Most of the irregular arrivals are from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, many of whom have told journalists they wanted to push further west into the EU — to Germany, Finland or other countries — to request asylum.

But Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have toughened their borders, deploying troops and barbed wire to try to prevent migrants crossing from Belarus.

Poland has taken the harshest stance, criminalising irregular border crossings and using a controversial state of emergency to impose a media blackout along its border region, preventing journalists or human rights organisations from witnessing the situation.

The state of emergency was on Wednesday extended for another three months, to the end of February.

Poland is also accused of forcibly pushing asylum-seekers who have irregularly entered its territory back over the border into Belarus — an act known as “refoulement” that is forbidden under EU and international law.

It has also rebuffed pleas from the European Union to have personnel from the EU’s Frontex border agency — based in Warsaw — help patrol its frontier.

Polish media estimate that at least 12 people have died on both sides of the border. Human Rights Watch this week accused both Warsaw and Minsk of serious human rights violations.

The commission said the proposed measures would be “time limited and targeted” and in “full respect of fundamental rights and international obligations, including the principle of non-refoulement”.

GENEVA — The World Health Organisation (WHO) called Tuesday for countries to keep calm and take "rational" measures in response to the new, fast-spreading COVID variant Omicron, which has sparked global panic.

"We call on all member states to take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to countries.

"The global response must be calm, coordinated and coherent."

First reported to the WHO in southern Africa less than a week ago, the new strain has rapidly spread across continents, with dozens of countries announcing travel restrictions.

The UN health agency has cautioned against such restrictions, fearing that blocking travel from countries where new variants are first spotted could be unfair and dissuade surveillance.

“I thank Botswana and South Africa for detecting, sequencing and reporting this variant so rapidly,” Tedros said, adding that it was “deeply concerning to me that those countries are now being penalised by others for doing the right thing”.

Scientists in South Africa said they had detected the new variant with at least 10 mutations, and WHO has cautioned that it poses a “very high” risk globally.

At the same time, Tedros stressed that it remains unclear how dangerous the variant is.

“We still have more questions than answers about the effect of Omicron on transmission, severity of disease, and the effectiveness of tests, therapeutics and vaccines,” he said.

The WHO chief said it was understandable that countries wanted to protect their citizens “against a variant that we don’t yet fully understand”.

“But I am equally concerned that several member states are introducing blunt, blanket measures that are not evidence-based or effective on their own, and which will only worsen inequities.”

Tedros also highlighted the glaring vaccine inequity that has seen abundant supplies in wealthy countries, which are rolling out booster shots, as even many of the most vulnerable in poorer nations are still waiting for their first jabs.

Health experts have long warned that allowing COVID to spread unabated in some places dramatically increases the chances that new, more dangerous variants could emerge, placing the entire world at risk.

“The longer we allow the pandemic to drag on, by failing to address vaccine inequity, or to implement public health and social measures in a tailored and consistent way, the more opportunity we give this virus to mutate in ways we cannot predict or prevent,” Tedros said.

JOHANNESBURG — South African scientists have discovered a new COVID-19 variant with multiple mutations, Omicron, which is thought to be highly contagious.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Monday that the Omicron variant poses a “very high” risk globally.

Many countries are racing to try to contain it, banning flights from South Africa and neighbouring countries.

Scientists are also working round the clock to analyse the variant and try to understand its behaviour.

Here is a brief explainer of what is known so far about Omicron — days after it emerged — as shared by scientists.

It is currently unclear where the variant originated, but the variant was “first described in Botswana and shortly thereafter in South Africa”, according to top South African Epidemiologist Professor Salim Abdool Karim.

South African scientists went on to announce the discovery on November 25.

By that time cases had been detected in Hong Kong.

Days later at least 11 countries including Israel, Belgium, the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Canada and Portugal had found infections with the variant.

Scientists discovered the new variant with a “very unusual constellation of mutations” on November 23.

Some of the mutations are already known, affecting transmissibility and immune evasion, but many others are new.

The WHO said on Monday the strain is a “highly divergent variant with a high number of mutations... some of which are concerning and may be associated with immune escape potential and higher transmissibility”.

It has the “most mutations we have seen to date”, said Professor Mosa Moshabela, deputy vice chancellor of research and innovation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

He said “some of these mutations we have seen before like in Delta and Beta,” but others are new to scientists and “we don’t know what the combination of those mutations will translate into”.

Leading virologist Tulio de Oliveira said there were around 50 mutations overall, including 30 on the spike protein, the focus of most vaccines as it is what enables the virus to enter cells.

Official statistics show that nearly three-quarters of the COVID-19 cases reported in South Africa in recent days are driven by the new variant.

Although not all are Omicron cases, the daily COVID positivity rate rose last week from 3.6 per cent on Wednesday to 6.5 per cent on Thursday, and by Sunday it hit 9.8 per cent.

It is forecast that actual numbers of daily infections could treble to around 10,000 by the end of this week.

“Some of the mutations that are expressed have previously been shown to enable the virus to spread easily and quickly, and because of that we suspect that the [new variant] is going to spread quickly,” said Moshabela.

Some of the genetic mutations shown by the virus are known to enable the virus to evade immunity.

It is still unclear what the impact will be on the protection provided by vaccines.

But “based on what we know, the vaccines should hold well in terms of preventing hospitalisation and severe disease because they depend on T-cell immunity and less on antibodies”, said Karim.

As for the severity of disease caused by the variant, scientists say there is not enough data yet.

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to hear the verdict in her incitement trial on Tuesday, the first in a catalogue of judgements to be handed down in a junta court that could jail her for decades.

The Nobel laureate has been detained since the generals ousted her government in the early hours of February 1, ending the Southeast Asian country's brief democratic interlude.

More than 1,200 people have been killed and over 10,000 arrested in a crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

Suu Kyi faces three years in jail if found guilty of incitement against the military — just one of the charges that analysts say are aimed at removing the democracy icon from the political arena for good.

But the junta's plans for Suu Kyi remain unknown, they add, and authorities could also delay the verdict.

Journalists have been barred from proceedings in the special court in the military-built capital Naypyidaw and her lawyers are banned from speaking to the media.

Days after the coup Suu Kyi was hit with obscure charges for possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies, and for violating coronavirus restrictions during elections her National League for Democracy (NLD) won in 2020.

The junta has steadily added a slew of other indictments, including violating the official secrets act, corruption and electoral fraud.

Suu Kyi now appears most weekdays at the junta courtroom, with her legal team saying last month the hectic schedule was taking a toll on the 76-year-old's health.

"I think it's almost certain Suu Kyi will get a harsh sentence," said David Mathieson, an analyst formerly based in Myanmar.

"The question is what will her incarceration look like?... will she get average convict treatment in a crowded women's cell block, or privilege in a VIP statehouse?"

Suu Kyi's long spells of house arrest under a previous junta were spent at her family's colonial-era mansion in Yangon, where she would appear before thousands gathered on the other side of her garden fence.

Min Aung Hlaing's regime has confined her to an undisclosed location in the isolated capital, along with a small staff.

Her link to the outside world has been limited to brief pre-trial meetings with her lawyers, who have brought her news and relayed messages to her supporters.

At her first court appearance, she used them to send a message of defiance, vowing the NLD would endure and asking the party faithful to remain united.

On her 76th birthday in June supporters across the country posted pictures on social media of themselves with flowers in their hair — long a signature Suu Kyi look.

Two days later, her legal team passed on a message from Suu Kyi thanking them for the gesture.

But in October her team were hit with a gag order after they relayed vivid testimony from deposed president Win Myint describing how he rejected a military offer to resign to save himself during the coup.

Meanwhile, the trials of other ranking members of Suu Kyi's NLD have wrapped up, with the junta doling out harsh sentences.

A former chief minister was sentenced to 75 years in jail earlier this month, while a close Suu Kyi aide was jailed for 20.

The generals could later reduce any sentence pronounced on the higher-profile Suu Kyi, said Mathieson, although he cautioned against expecting clemency from the junta and its leader.

"How much mercy does Min Aung Hlaing possess?"

THE HAGUE — A new, heavily mutated COVID-19 variant spread across the globe on Sunday, shutting borders, renewing curbs, and sparking fears for the fight against the nearly two-year-old coronavirus pandemic.

Dubbed Omicron, the strain has cast doubt on global efforts to battle the pandemic because of fears that it is highly infectious, forcing countries to reimpose measures many had hoped were a thing of the past.

Dutch health authorities said they had identified at least 13 cases of Omicron among 61 quarantined passengers who tested positive for coronavirus after arriving from South Africa.

"The investigation has not yet been completed. The new variant may be found in more test samples," the National Institute for Public Health warned.

Despite the alarm, in Austria tens of thousands rallied to protest against the government's introduction of compulsory vaccination — the first EU country to do so.

Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said it was "a minor interference" compared to the alternative for a country with one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe.

With many European nations, including Germany and France, already bringing back curbs to counter surges in infections, Swiss voters broadly backed a proposed COVID pass law in a referendum on Sunday.

In Britain, Health Secretary Avid Javid said new COVID rules will be enforced from Tuesday.

Mask-wearing will again be mandatory in shops and on public transport in England. All passengers arriving in Britain will have to take a PCR test and self-isolate until negative.

Scientists are racing to determine the threat posed by the heavily mutated strain, particularly whether it can evade existing vaccines.

But a long list of countries have already imposed travel restrictions on southern Africa, where it was first detected, including key travel hub Qatar, the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Netherlands.

Angola became the first southern African country to suspend all flights from its regional neighbours Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.

‘Very dangerous’ 

Israel announced some of the strictest curbs, closing the borders to all foreigners, just four weeks after reopening to tourists following a prolonged closure due to COVID.

“We are raising a red flag,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said. Ten million PCR test kits would be ordered to stem the “very dangerous” strain.

Israeli citizens will be required to present a negative PCR test and quarantine for three days if they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus and seven days if they have not.

But the virus strain has already slipped through the net, and has now been found everywhere from The Netherlands to Hong Kong and Australia, where authorities Sunday said they had detected it for the first time in two passengers from southern Africa who were tested after flying into Sydney.

The arrival of the new variant comes just a month after Australia lifted a ban on travelling overseas without permission.

Denmark confirmed its first Omicron infections, in two passengers who arrived on a flight from South Africa.

The speed at which governments slammed their borders shut took many by surprise, with travellers thronging Johannesburg international airport, desperate to squeeze onto the last flights to countries that had imposed sudden travel bans.

In Amsterdam, 61 passengers tested positive after arriving on two flights from South Africa in an ordeal one passenger described as “Dystopia Central Airline Hallway”.

New York Times global health reporter Stephanie Nolen said passengers, including babies and toddlers, were crammed together waiting to get tested, and “still 30 per cent of people are wearing no mask or only over mouth”.

Blame game 

Scientists in South Africa said they had last week detected the new B.1.1.529 variant with at least 10 mutations, compared with three for Beta or two for Delta, the strain that hit the global recovery hard and sent millions worldwide back into lockdown.

The variant has also revived geopolitical fault lines exacerbated by the pandemic, with the US quick to hail South Africa’s transparency, a thinly veiled jab at China’s handling of information about the original outbreak.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday “praised South Africa’s scientists for the quick identification of the Omicron variant and South Africa’s government for its transparency in sharing this information, which should serve as a model for the world”.

South Africa had complained it was being unfairly hit with “draconian” air travel bans for having first detected the strain, which the World Health Organisation considers a “variant of concern”.