Airports step up alert to keep MERS away

May 16, 2014

Riyadh, May 16: Health authorities on Thursday announced the deaths of another three people from the MERS respiratory virus, taking the country's toll to 160.

The death toll rose as US reports said airline crews have also been told to be on the lookout for passengers suffering from symptoms and report them to the authorities if they appear ill.

Asian transport hub Singapore said it will begin checking travelers from the Middle East for fever, tightening its guard against the MERS virus.

"We intend to commence temperature screening at air checkpoints for passengers arriving from affected countries in the Middle East from May 18, 2014," the health ministry said in a statement.

The Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, advised travelers not to change their travel plans for fear of the virus since risks remain low and the virus tends to spread through close person-to-person contact, usually relatives or health care workers.

According to reports from the US, the CDC has stopped short of calling the recent outbreak a public health emergency, while expressing its concerns about the virus.

The Health Ministry here said four patients in Riyadh and four in Jeddah, among whom six women, were discharged after making a full recovery.

The three newly infected patients in Riyadh are all women, aged 39, 54 and 70. The 39-year-old and the 70-year-old are both diabetic.

A 54-year-old woman suffering from diabetes, hypertension and chronic renal failure was among the three victims who succumbed to the deadly disease.

She had been admitted to a government hospital in Riyadh on May 3 due to clotting between an artery and a vein.

The patient had then developed respiratory symptoms on May 5.

Her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to the intensive care unit of a local hospital, but succumbed to the virus on May 13.

The other two deaths include a 72-year-old woman, who died in a government hospital in Jeddah, and another 63-year-old man, who was admitted to a government hospital in Jeddah on May 4 and died 10 days later.

US federal health officials have posted warnings at nearly two dozen airports and have reminded customs staff to be on alert for ill travelers following the diagnosis of the second MERS case on US soil.

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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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