2nd US case of MERS confirmed; KSA deaths rise to 147

May 13, 2014

Riyadh, May 13: Five people died and eight were infected with the MERS coronavirus on Monday, bringing the death toll to 147 since September 2012.

The new cases included five women, according to the Health Ministry. Four patients, all women, were diagnosed in Riyadh, while two were reported in Jeddah and two in Madinah. Patients in Riyadh were aged 31, 60, 74 and 80, one of whom died at a private hospital and two of whom are in ICU, while the fourth is said to be stable.

In another development, a man has died in Jordan after being infected with the MERS virus, the government said Monday, on the eve of an important WHO emergency meeting.

The latest death brings to five the number of fatalities in Jordan from the coronavirus since it first emerged in 2012. The man, in his 50s, worked in a private hospital and died on Sunday, the Health Ministry said.

Meanwhile, British and US health authorities said on Monday they had found a second case of the virus in a person who flew from Jeddah to the US transiting through London on May 1.

The passenger, who is the second known MERS infected patient to have flown to the US, was on Saudi Airlines Flight 113 from Jeddah to London, and transferred at Heathrow for onward travel, Public Health England (PHE) said in statement.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the patient is a health care worker employed at a Saudi facility which was taking care of MERS patients.

A CDC official said the patient traveled from Saudi Arabia to London to Boston to Atlanta to Orlando.

“Risk of transmission is considered extremely low but as a precautionary measure, PHE is working with the airline to be able to contact UK passengers who were sitting in the vicinity of the affected passenger,” the PHE statement added.

Earlier this month a first US case was diagnosed in a man who traveled from Saudi Arabia to Indiana. That man was a health-care worker at a hospital in Riyadh, who flew to the United States on April 24. After landing in Chicago, the man took a bus to Munster, Indiana, where he became sick and went to a hospital on April 28.

The man, an American, improved and was released from the hospital late last week. Tests of people who were around the man have all proved negative, health officials have said.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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