Indians, UAE residents slam UK's new covid travel policy

News Network
September 21, 2021

Even after the UK announced easing of travel rules related to Covid-19, travellers who received their vaccines in the UAE, India and a few other countries will be considered ‘unvaccinated’ in the UK.

According to the rules, passengers who aren’t recognised as being fully vaccinated will have to take a pre-departure test, further PCR tests on Day 2 and Day 8 of arrival, and self-isolate at their given address for 10 days upon entry.

The rules announced last week will be effective October 4. Britain said it will recognise vaccinations given in 17 more countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. It had previously recognised only shots given in the UK, the US and the European Union.

However, James Cleverly, Minister for Middle East & North Africa in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, said the UK government is finalising arrangements to include the UAE in the plans. “We are finalising arrangements with UAE to include their nationals and residents in our plans to open up to the fully vaccinated from other countries from 4 October,” he said in a tweet.

UK expats residing in the UAE responded angrily to the tweet.

“I hope you’re right. I’m a UK citizen and resident vaccinated while in Dubai, had to do severe rounds of unnecessary quarantine not to mention the cost. It breaks my heart that I feel unwelcome in my own country. It makes no sense!,” said Twitter handle @nataliebirkett.

@EnsOrenda replied to Cleverly: “UAE has a very high vaccine rate, low case rates & v.low death rates. We are obliged to wear face mask in all public places still. The UAE represents a much lower risk than many approved countries. So, it makes sense to recognise Pfizer and AZ vaccines administered from UAE too.”

Aviation analyst Alex Macheras also criticised the policy, saying it is unnecessarily complicated.

“Quite something for UK to take such a stance against so many countries vaccine rollouts…especially those countries administering the exact same vaccines as UK (Pfizer/AZ/Moderna/etc). As we’ve come to expect, UK’s latest travel policy is as unnecessarily complicated as ever."

Author WIlliam Dalrymple used harsh words to slam the policy. “Idiotic UK arrogance & stupidity- especially when Boris was arguing that the Indian AstraZeneca vaccine was the same as the UK one earlier in the Summer,” he said in a tweet.

Meanwhile, former Indian ministers Jairam Ramesh and Shashi Tharoor slammed the UK’s travel rules under which Indians vaccinated with Covishield would still be treated as unvaccinated.

Ramesh called it “smacks of racism” while Tharoor said that because of the restrictions he had even pulled out of a debate at The Cambridge Union debating society and from the launch events for the UK edition of his book, The Battle Of Belonging.

From October 4, the current traffic light system of red, amber and green countries based on levels of Covid-19 risk will be scrapped in the UK and replaced with one red list only.

The scrapping of an amber list, which is what India is currently on, means reduced cost burden for travellers — especially for the Indian diaspora vaccinated in the UK — related to compulsory PCR tests.

However, an expanded list of countries whose vaccines are recognised in England does not include India, which means that Indians vaccinated with Covishield — the Serum Institute of India produced Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine — would still be subjected to the restrictions mandatory for those unvaccinated.

This new two-tiered system in the UK is expected to stay in place till the end of the year, with a further review planned for early in the New Year.

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News Network
April 29,2024

USprotests.jpg

At least 900 protesters have been arrested since the launch of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on university campuses across the US, where students are raging against the Israeli regime’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.

The Washington Post reported the tally on Sunday, the 10th straight day of the protests that began after Columbia University set up an encampment to demand cessation of the war and press the school to divest from Israeli financial interests.

The crackdown then started when university authorities called in the police, a move that sparked more than 100 arrests on the university’s Manhattan campus.

Two other highlights in the crackdown saw police forces rounding up roughly the same number of people at New York University and Emerson College in Boston.

Protests have also erupted across numerous other seats of learning, including Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and California State Polytechnic in Humboldt.

The ensuing countrywide counter-campaign of suppression has seen law enforcement resorting to riot control methods against the protesters.

The methods have featured “the same tools and tactics” that were deployed to confront the thousands-strong protests that sparked across the country after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd four years ago, the daily reported.

“At Emory University last week, Atlanta police said officers used ‘chemical irritants’ to clear an encampment, and a Georgia State Patrol officer was captured on video using a stun gun to subdue a man on the ground,” it said.

Academics have, meanwhile, been banding together throughout the US under the banner of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP).

Earlier in April, the FSJP’s Georgia chapter called on Morehouse College in Atlanta, which invited Joe Biden as its 2024 commencement speaker, to rescind its invitation as a means of objecting to the president’s role in enabling the Israeli genocide.

At Biden’s behest, the United States has been providing the Israeli war with unreserved military and intelligence support.

The US has also vetoed several United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in the brutal military onslaught that has so far claimed the lives of at least 34,454 Gazans, mostly women and children.

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News Network
April 27,2024

UScop.jpg

"I always wanted to be in a bar fight," said a US police official after pinning a Black man down on the ground and kneeling on his neck. The man later died at a hospital.

Ohio Police have come under intense scrutiny following the release of body camera footage showing officers pinning a Black man to the ground in a bar, reminiscent of the events that led to George Floyd's death in 2020.

The video, released by the Canton Police Department, captured the moments leading up to the death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old man suspected of leaving the scene of a single-car accident on April 18.

In the footage, officers are seen confronting Tyson inside a bar, where an altercation quickly ensues. Despite Tyson's pleas for help and his repeated cries of "I can't breathe," officers wrestle him to the ground and handcuff him, with one officer applying pressure to his back near his neck while saying, "You're fine." 

Tyson continues to plead for relief while lying on the floor. After several minutes, officers notice his lack of responsiveness and proceed to administer CPR. Paramedics arrive on the scene and transport Tyson to a local hospital, where he later dies.

In the body cam footage, one police officer can be heard bragging about how he always wanted to be in a "bar fight" with one of the patrons of the establishment. 

The circumstances surrounding Tyson's death draw chilling parallels to George Floyd's fatal encounter with Minneapolis Police in 2020 which sparked global outrage. 

The officers involved in Tyson's case, identified as Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch, have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. 

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News Network
April 27,2024

UScop.jpg

"I always wanted to be in a bar fight," said a US police official after pinning a Black man down on the ground and kneeling on his neck. The man later died at a hospital.

Ohio Police have come under intense scrutiny following the release of body camera footage showing officers pinning a Black man to the ground in a bar, reminiscent of the events that led to George Floyd's death in 2020.

The video, released by the Canton Police Department, captured the moments leading up to the death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old man suspected of leaving the scene of a single-car accident on April 18.

In the footage, officers are seen confronting Tyson inside a bar, where an altercation quickly ensues. Despite Tyson's pleas for help and his repeated cries of "I can't breathe," officers wrestle him to the ground and handcuff him, with one officer applying pressure to his back near his neck while saying, "You're fine." 

Tyson continues to plead for relief while lying on the floor. After several minutes, officers notice his lack of responsiveness and proceed to administer CPR. Paramedics arrive on the scene and transport Tyson to a local hospital, where he later dies.

In the body cam footage, one police officer can be heard bragging about how he always wanted to be in a "bar fight" with one of the patrons of the establishment. 

The circumstances surrounding Tyson's death draw chilling parallels to George Floyd's fatal encounter with Minneapolis Police in 2020 which sparked global outrage. 

The officers involved in Tyson's case, identified as Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch, have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. 

Comments

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  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
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