CAIRO: Egypt has identified its first case of coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The virus was discovered in a foreigner whose identity and nationality have not been officially disclosed. However, a source suggested that the individual was from China.
Meanwhile, France also reported the first fatality from the new coronavirus outside Asia on Saturday, as the death toll from the outbreak jumped past 1,500 in China. More than 66,000 people have now been infected in China from a virus that emerged in central Hubei province in December before spreading across the country and some two dozen countries.
Egypt, however, took all preventive measures in cooperation with WHO, said Media Adviser to Minister of Health Khaled Mugahed and added that the WHO was informed immediately of the case, as the patient was taken to hospital where he is in isolation and is having constant checkups. Mugahed said the patient had not shown any signs of deterioration and was “completely stable.”
He said the ministry had adopted strict preventive measures for those who came in contact with the patient by conducting the necessary tests, which came back negative.
People who came in contact with the patient were quarantined in their homes for 14 days as a precautionary measure.
Those in isolation are being checked every eight hours and given instructions regarding their health. Among the preventive measures was the disinfection of the building in which the residents were living.
Mugahed said that the foreign patient tested positive for coronavirus even though he failed to show symptoms.
A source from the MOHP told Arab News that the foreign carrier of the virus is Chinese and was monitored during the past few days using periodic follow-up cards that are given to passengers at airports coming from abroad.
The source said the carrier of the virus was transferred to Al-Nujaila Hospital by ambulance. The carrier then went through further medical examinations.
A team from WHO is monitoring the patient’s condition. Official sources at the Ministry of Aviation confirmed that all precautionary measures have been taken at Cairo Airport.
John Gabor, a WHO representative in Egypt, praised the speed and transparency of the Egyptian government in dealing with the situation as well as its keenness to inform the organization of the patient as soon as it was suspected.

Gabor stressed that Egypt was one of the first countries to develop a good preventive plan to address the emerging coronavirus and deal with infected cases once they are discovered.
Egypt’s Health Minister Hala Zayed held a meeting with the ministry’s leaders to follow up the implementation of the ministry’s plan to deal with the coronavirus.
Zayed added that results will be known after the 14-day incubation period of the virus.
WHO confirmed that a coronavirus carrier cannot be infected as long as the person does not show symptoms of the disease because it is possible that his immunity will overcome the virus before infection.
Zayed said the problem is not that a person is infected with the coronavirus and does not know it, but in the inability to manage the crisis in a way that prevents the spread of infection.
The minister said Egypt was fully prepared to deal with the epidemic and prevent its spread, and that there are other countries that are, up until now, not as well equipped.
The death toll from the virus has neared 1,400 cases, almost exclusively in China where it was first identified. It has infected more than 64,000 people globally.

ANKARA: Turkey on Saturday hit back at Russian accusations of failing to honor a 2018 deal by insisting it carried out its responsibilities in Idlib, Syria’s last major opposition bastion. “Observation posts were set up and the regime had to stay outside of this area. Russia and Iran were to ensure the regime stayed outside, Turkey had responsibilities too, Turkey fulfilled these,” Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told NTV broadcaster.

“Undertaking an extremely risky and difficult duty, Turkey took real initiative to stop the bloodshed of civilians, to prevent a new migration wave and to ensure it did not become a terror nest.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the situation in Idlib will not be resolved until Syrian regime forces withdraw beyond the borders that Turkey and Russia outlined in a 2018 agreement. Otherwise, he warned, Ankara will “take matters into its own hands.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, said the victory over terrorists is “unavoidable” in Idlib. He called the area “one of the last hotbeds of terrorism” in war-ravaged Syria. 

Erdogan discussed with US counterpart Donald Trump ways to end the crisis and condemned attacks by President Bashar Assad’s forces there.

“Stressing that the regime’s most recent attacks are unacceptable, the president and Trump exchanged views on ways to end the crisis in Idlib without further delay,” the presidency said after the two leaders spoke on the phone.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile has intensified its criticism against Devlet Bahceli, the leader of a Turkish party allied to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who said that Russia did not have good intentions in Syria because it was playing both sides.

Syrian regime as their target instead of Russia, according to an expert.

“We won’t be reassured until the killer (President Bashar) Assad goes away,” Bahceli said during a parliamentary meeting. 

“Assad is a killer and the source of enmity. Russia, which tries to handle Turkey and Syria at the same time, does not have good intentions. It’s our sincere wish for the government to revise its relations with Russia.”

Moscow called on Turkey to refrain from making provocative statements on Idlib that undermined the “constructive dialogue between the two countries.”

Sezer said that the Kremlin had criticized Bahceli because any statement coming from him was seen as coming from the Turkish government.

The Russian-backed Syrian military offensive had achieved its core aim of securing the M5 highway between Damascus and Aleppo, according to independent Syria analyst Danny Makki, and he said it was possible there would be an advance into Idlib city, the provincial capital held by the opposition since 2015, to try and break Idlib into two.

“However, this all rests on the level of Turkish resistance they will face,” Makki told Arab News. “So far, any genuine Turkish military confrontation will come at a high loss of the Syrian army, and despite the fact that it has numerous Turkish observation posts surrounded, Turkey can still stall the Idlib offensive if it chooses to.”

Assassination threats
Meanwhile, Turkey has increased security around Russia’s embassy after its ambassador said he had received death threats.

Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Alexei Yerkhov, told Sputnik Turkey that he had been verbally threatened amid nosediving bilateral relations.

He said that the messages told him to “say goodbye to life” and that it was time for him to “burn.” 

His predecessor Andrei Karlov was assassinated in Ankara by an off-duty policeman during the opening of an exhibition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow expected Ankara to ensure the safety of all Russians, as well as embassy staff, living in Turkey. But members of Russia’s State Duma had tougher words.

“Is that such a Turkish diplomatic tradition?” State Duma Deputy Alexei Zhuravlev wrote on Facebook. “The Russian Foreign Ministry needs to demand from Ankara the security of our ambassador and the entire Russian diplomatic corps in this country. 

In the absence of mutual understanding, diplomatic relations can be frozen. The life of our people is more dear!”

Aydin Sezer, an Ankara-based analyst on Turkey-Russia relations, said that Idlib and diplomatic missions may turn into a critical target for those wishing to sabotage ties between the two countries. 

“I think that such threats, if they are real, could come from specific segments, like jihadists groups and some intelligence groups,” he told Arab News. “If they succeed … it would create significant outcomes regarding Turkey’s diplomatic representations.”

He added that Turkish authorities had in the last few days opted for a milder tone regarding their messaging on Idlib, positioning the Syrian regime as their target instead of Russia.

DUBAI: Youth unemployment may be a challenge in many parts of the world, but in the Middle East, where 65 percent of the population is younger than 30, it is an overarching policy priority.
According to World Bank research, the highest unemployment rate in the world — 30 percent of 18-24-year-olds being out of work — is in the Middle and North Africa (MENA) region, which has a total population of 578 million.
Small wonder that survey after survey shows unemployment as one of the top concerns of Arab youth, alongside rising costs of living and corruption.
Unemployment also ranked second in the list of concerns in a recent pan-Arab study commissioned by Arab News, affecting people in the 18-25 age bracket most.
The opinion poll, conducted by YouGov last year, found unemployment to be a main concern most prominently among nationals of Morocco (68 percent) and Oman (65 percent).
Mohammed Alardhi, the Omani executive chairman of Investcorp, a leading Gulf provider and manager of alternative investment products, sees the gap between young populations and employment opportunities as one of the Arab world’s megatrends.
“While the rest of the world is facing ageing, which comes with lower productivity of labor, this region is the opposite,” he said at the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi last week.
While education and training will be crucial to the wellbeing of new generations, geopolitical factors particular to the Arab world must also be taken into consideration, Alardhi added.
He said the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states have shown themselves to be “resilient” in the sense that despite the many regional sources of tension, the bloc has “proved in the last 50 years that it’s a place that maintains stability, growth and development.”

Alardhi identified urbanization as another megatrend of the Arab world, noting for instance that the GCC countries are 80 percent urbanized as against the global average of 50 percent.
He said despite the challenges confronting them, the GCC states’ accelerating pace of technological advancement is a bright spot, so they must focus on developing local talent and creating knowledge-based economies.

A surprising finding of the Arab News-YouGov study is that economic challenges are felt to be a problem for those living in the comparatively prosperous GCC bloc (30 percent), more than the rest of the Arab world (27 percent in North Africa and 25 percent in the Levant).

Separately, the ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey of 2019 found that young Arabs in GCC states continue to look to their governments as a source of employment, with seven out of 10 wanting to work in the public sector.
Abdulla Mohammed Al-Zamil, board member and CEO of Saudi Arabia’s Zamil Industrial PJSC, says unemployment will be a challenge for the Kingdom at a time of change driven by the Vision 2030 reform plan and the growth of the private sector.
Saying that job creation needs to be looked at first, he told the Milken Summit that the drop reported in 2019 in Saudi Arabia’s unemployment rate — from 12.9 percent to 12 percent — indicates “early signs of recovery” in a “transition period.”
He said: “Today a university graduate in Saudi Arabia has never held a job, while in many countries around the world graduates have already worked, even if in voluntary positions.”
In his opinion, fresh graduates in Saudi Arabia must have a strong work ethic and professional discipline to be able to do the jobs they desire.
Expansion of the private sector as a result of economic diversification was mentioned by Al-Zamil as one of the solutions to the Kingdom’s employment challenge.
He also underscored the need for creating high-quality, long-lasting jobs that require specific skill sets in new and growing industries such as manufacturing.
By way of example, he pointed to job opportunities expected to be created by the Neom smart-city in Saudi Arabia, among other projects under Vision 2030.
He recalled that when the plan was first announced in 2015-2016, the Saudi private sector faced some challenges “because companies had been doing business in a certain way for over 40 years.”
In this context, Al-Zamil highlighted a SR72 billion ($19 billion) incentive package that followed the launch of Vision 2030, with the aim of facilitating the Saudi private sector’s transition into the new economy.

With such a transformation, “it will take time for the government and private sector to reap the benefits,” he said.
“On the private sector side, we need to adapt, and before learning new things, we need to unlearn the past, because things will no longer be the same. I think that will be a challenge.”
He said the Saudi private sector is gradually adapting to changes in regulations, the introduction of value-added tax and increasing global investments in the Kingdom.
However, he cautioned against developing dependence on “non-oil income through taxation,” calling it a “dangerous move.”
He said: “Non-oil income doesn’t necessarily mean additional taxes. That’s the danger and trap we’re continuously being put in by the likes of the International Monetary Fund.”
On the subject of taxation in the GCC, Al-Zamil’s view was echoed Khalid Al-Rumaihi, CEO of Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, who said finding a way to cover a country’s budget deficit “doesn’t happen through taxes” but by reviewing services.
“If you tax too aggressively, capital will flee. It’s a very delicate balance, and it’s going to take governments a couple of years to transition,” he added.
Al-Rumaihi recalled Bahrain’s economic dependence in the 1920s on pearling, an industry that “dissipated” with the introduction of the technology to create cultured pearls.
“There’s a lesson to be learned from history. As we think of our commodity-based economies today, we should be wary of what will happen to the oil industry in the coming 20-30 years,” he told the Milken Summit.
He added that Bahrain’s economy had gone through several stages of diversification, starting with the introduction of the banking industry in the 1970s, followed by the aviation industry in the 1980s and the deregulation of the telecoms sector in 2004.
Al-Rumaihi said deregulation saw employment in the telecoms industry grow by 70 percent, prices of mobile phones fall by 50 percent, and the sector’s gross domestic product share rise from 4 percent to 8 percent, in tandem with an increase in the number of operators from one to 20.
Moving forward, he suggested two primary ways to tackle youth unemployment in Bahrain: Enhancing job opportunities in growth sectors, and offering higher wages to attract nationals.
At the same time, there is a need for a change of mindset, more vocational education and a stable environment, he said.
Al-Rumaihi ended on an understandably cautionary note, saying: “While we want to move to a market-based economy, it’s important to remember that we have to think of the country (as a whole) and not (just) about our national assets.”

TUNIS: Designated Tunisian prime minister Elyes Fakhfakh proposed the line-up of a new government on Saturday and then said negotiations would continue after the Ennahda party, the biggest in parliament, rejected it.
The proposed government must be approved by the deeply fragmented parliament in two weeks or there will be a new election.
Fakhfakh submitted a list of cabinet nominees to President Kais Saied, with Nizar Yaich as finance minister, Nourredine Erray as foreign minister and Imed Hazgui as defence minister.
But with the largest parties either opposed to his coalition or unenthusiastic about its composition, Fakhfakh may struggle to gain the strong parliamentary majority needed for any significant political programme.
The moderate Islamist Ennahda party, with 53 seats, said it would only join a unity government that brings together parties from across Tunisia’s political spectrum.
“This decision will put the country in a difficult situation,” Fakhfakh said in speech.
Heart of Tunisia, the second biggest party with 38 seats, also said it would not back the government after Fakhfakh excluded it from the coalition.
Tunisia faces a series of long-term economic challenges which threaten to undermine public trust in the young democracy, and which demand political decisions that could be unpopular.
Since the 2011 revolution, unemployment has been high and growth low, while the government has sunk further into debt with a series of big budget deficits that foreign lenders demand it bring under control.
Elections in September and October returned Saied, a political independent, as president, and a parliament in which Ennahda held fewer than a quarter of the seats.
Ennahda’s nominee for prime minister, Habib Jemli, proposed a coalition government that was rejected by parliament in a confidence vote last month, giving Saied the chance to ask his own candidate, Fakhfakh, to form a cabinet.
If Fakhfakh’s proposal is also rejected by parliament next week, a new parliamentary election must follow within three months.
Fakhfakh had already promised to name a government that would draw only from parties he considered aligned with the goals of the revolution and committed to rooting out corruption. 

AL-MUKALLA: Yemeni soldiers have asked international monitors stationed in the southern port city of Hodeida to visit their observation posts to document daily cease-fire breaches by Houthi militia.

Baha Khalefa, one of 10 government soldiers deployed at the joint observation posts, said the team faced death every day due to thousands of landmines and from sporadic shelling by Houthis.
“We have sent reports to our seniors complaining about the violations,” Khalefa told Arab News by telephone from Hodeida. “We are walking on fields of landmines that put our lives at risk.”
Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthi militants set up observation posts to monitor a cease-fire in the city’s main frontlines as part of a UN-brokered agreement signed in Stockholm.

The agency’s observers were tasked to monitor the truce and troop withdrawal from frontlines in Hodeida and the three ports in the city.
But soldiers say that international monitors in Hodeida have never visited their posts at former flashpoints.
The government has long cast doubt on the Houthis’ adherence to the agreement, saying they were using the cease-fire to mobilize forces and dig new trenches.
Khalefa said that Houthis had mostly refused to defuse landmines or open key roads leading to Sanaa that go through government-controlled areas in the city.
“We want the international monitors to independently see the firsthand risks that we encounter. Our demining engineers defuse at least as many as 150 landmines every day. The Houthis refuse to remove landmines and reopen Al-Khameri and Kilo 16 roads.”
Houthis have planted thousands of landmines along the country’s western coast to slow down a major offensive by government forces aimed at liberating Hodeida. Yemeni government officials think that the UN has restricted movements of its monitoring team in Hodeida due to security concerns and landmines.