Middle East & North Africa

ISTANBUL, Apr 2 (NNN-ANADOLU) – Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Wednesday, said, if the outbreak of COVID-19 becomes more widespread in the country, tighter measures will be inevitable.

“We have partially limited inter-city transportation and if needed, we can implement similar methods in urban transportation as well,” Erdogan said, while attending his party meeting via teleconference from Istanbul.

Erdogan reiterated his call on the nation, to stay at home and maintain social distance, as part of the measures taken to restrain the outbreak of COVID-19.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A rising death toll in the coronavirus crisis is forcing a change in Jewish and Muslim burial and mourning traditions in the Holy Land.

In Israel, Jewish dead are normally laid to rest in a cloth smock and shroud, without a coffin. Now, the bodies of coronavirus victims are taken for ritual washing - performed in full protective gear - wrapped in impermeable plastic.

They are wrapped again in plastic before interment.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A senior Saudi official Wednesday urged more than 1 million Muslims intending to perform the hajj to delay making plans this year — comments suggesting the pilgrimage could be cancelled due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

In February, the kingdom took the extraordinary decision to close off the holy cities of Mecca and Medina to foreigners over the virus, a step which wasn’t taken even during the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide.

BEIRUT (AP) — In the streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah paramedics and volunteers on trucks and on foot sprayed disinfectants on shops and buildings. At a hospital where it once treated its wounded fighters, the group’s medical staff set up beds for a center to deal with coronavirus patients.

Hezbollah says it is turning the organizational might it once deployed to fight Israel or in the civil war in neighboring Syria to battle the spread of the virus pandemic in Lebanon.

01 April 2020; MEMO: Developer Emaar Properties said on Tuesday it had suspended construction of a residential tower in a prime Dubai location near the world’s tallest building, showing how the coronavirus is deepening the emirate’s real estate downturn.

Dubai, a regional tourism, trade, and business hub, has faced a real estate slowdown for most of the past decade as the global financial crisis and weak oil prices burst a price bubble and left the market oversupplied with homes and offices.

01 April 2020; MEMO: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Tuesday urged citizens to be “disciplined” to help overcome the coronavirus outbreak even as the number of cases and deaths rose.

Tebboune said on state television that the government is still able to handle the situation despite a fall in energy earnings, the main source of state finances.

01 April 2020; MEMO: Turkish defence and electronics firms are teaming up to produce 5,000 ventilators to help treat coronavirus patients, the head of a military drone manufacturer said on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

Baykar Chief Executive Haluk Bayraktar said 100 engineers from his company, defence contractor Aselsan and household electronics maker Arcelik were working together to have the ventilators ready by the end of May.

01 April 2020; MEMO:Former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is living alone in complete isolation in his medically equipped home in Zeralda in Algiers, a year after he abdicated power under the pressure of people and the army.

JERUSALEM, Mar 31 (NNN-MA’AN) – A total of 448 people in Israel tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 4,695, the Israeli Ministry of Health said.

It said the death toll of the virus in the country has hit 16, adding, of the 527 patients being treated in hospitals across Israel, 79 are in serious condition.

Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced further measures to tighten the closure in the country.

ANKARA, Apr 1 (NNN-XINHUA) – The Turkish government is working on a bill, that would release tens of thousands of inmates from prisons, amid fears that the COVID-19 pandemic will carve a deadly path through cramped penitentiaries among prisoners and staff.

A first version of the draft, which caused outrage, reportedly included the release of sex offenders, domestic abusers and drug related prisoners.

However, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “categorically ruled out such a measure” during a cabinet meeting, daily Sabah reported.