A man wearing his face mask incorrectly sells dates at Mutrah Souq in the Omani capital Muscat on September 18, 2020. AFP
A man wearing his face mask incorrectly sells dates at Mutrah Souq in the Omani capital Muscat on September 18, 2020. AFP
A man wearing his face mask incorrectly sells dates at Mutrah Souq in the Omani capital Muscat on September 18, 2020. AFP
A man wearing his face mask incorrectly sells dates at Mutrah Souq in the Omani capital Muscat on September 18, 2020. AFP

Coronavirus: Oman to open field hospital as infections spike


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Oman will open a new hospital dedicated to Covid-19 patients next week to cope with the influx of new infections, the ministry of health said on Monday.

The 300-bed centre is located in the old Muscat Airport. Next door, the government has already built accommodation for passengers who must enter quarantine when they arrive in the country.

On Monday, Oman reported 576 new infections and seven deaths, taking the total number of cases in the country to 94,051, while 85,781 people have recovered from the virus. The total number of Covid-19 deaths has reached 853.

Infections in the country fell to fewer than 200 cases a day in the first week of September but despite the resurgence, most people in the sultanate no longer consider the pandemic to be a threat.

Muscat’s old airport is adjacent to the new one. Oman has already reported that it would open the airport from October 1 but passengers flying in would need a medical certificate declaring them free of the coronavirus.

The ministry of health said on Monday it expected to immunise some staff by the end of this year.

“In the beginning and because of its limitation in numbers, the vaccines would only be available to frontline workers, including medical staff, the police and the army,” a Ministry of Health statement said.

Last week, an Indian nurse was the first frontline worker in Oman to die of Covid-19.

With cases rising, the authorities issued a warning they will close shops and restaurants that break safety regulations.

Authorities penalised more than 25 businesses in the past week and issued cautions to many more. They also fined shoppers in malls for failing to practise social distancing. Some vendors were fined for not wearing masks.

Health inspectors visited more than 500 business premises in the past week to make sure shop assistants and their managers were following the rules.

Who has been sanctioned?

Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.

Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.

Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.

Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Six large-scale objects on show
  • Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
  • The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
  • A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
  • Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
  • A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
  • Torrijos Palace dome
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
LILO & STITCH

Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Rating: 4.5/5