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DHAKA: Bangladeshi drivers in Doha have received special language and culture training ahead of the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Around 1.5 million people from all over the world are expected to visit Qatar — increasing its population by 50 percent — during the tournament, which runs from Nov. 20 through Dec. 20.
Drivers are among the many service workers in Qatar who will be at the forefront of welcoming football fans to the country. Some 8,000 of them — employed by taxi companies and ride-hailing services — are Bangladeshis.
So the Bangladeshi Embassy in Doha recently ran a three-week training course for Bangladeshi drivers to improve their etiquette and English-language skills.
“If our drivers can deliver good services to the tourists, it will also be positive country branding for Bangladesh,” Dr. Muhammad Mustafizur Rahman, the embassy’s charge d’affaires, told Arab News.
Bangladeshi teachers from Qatari universities delivered the training to 420 participants employed by 15 transportation companies. The training is also available online for those who could not attend in person.
“We do have some limitations in communicating with passengers,” said Abdul Motaleb, one of the drivers who took part in the training. He has been working in Qatar for nearly a decade.
“We received some language tips on greeting the passengers and sharing some basic information about the country,” he continued. “I can’t express how helpful it was.”
For his fellow driver Saydul Islam, the course helped him overcome his shyness when interacting with foreigners.
“Earlier, I was afraid of talking to passengers in English,” he said. “After the training, it became easier.”
The program has also served as a pilot for future training programs for migrant workers in the Gulf state, which is home to 400,000 Bangladeshis, with many also employed in the construction, healthcare, and hospitality sectors.
“We received highly positive responses from the participants,” Rahman said. “The embassy will offer this kind of upskilling program for (those) working in other sectors.”
LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced new questions on Saturday over his choice of senior officials after his No. 2 was accused of behaving aggressively toward staff.
The controversy over Dominic Raab, who is deputy prime minister and justice secretary, came after fellow Sunak ally Gavin Williamson was forced out of the new government because of alleged bullying.
Raab, Sunak’s most vocal supporter in the summer Conservative leadership race against Liz Truss, was brought back into the Cabinet when Truss was forced out as prime minister after just six weeks.
Sunak restored him to his previous role of justice secretary, where he had presided over a “culture of fear,” according to the Guardian newspaper.
Some 15 senior civil servants at the ministry were offered a “route out” to different government jobs if they felt unable to serve under Raab because of his past behavior, it said.
The controversy over Dominic Raab came after fellow Rishi Sunak ally Gavin Williamson was forced out of the new government because of alleged bullying.
The Sun newspaper meanwhile reported that Raab had once hurled tomatoes from a salad across a room in a fit of anger during a meeting — which a spokesman for the minister said was “nonsense.”
More generally, the spokesman said: “Dominic has high standards, works hard, and expects a lot from his team as well as himself. He has worked well with officials to drive the government’s agenda across Whitehall in multiple government departments and always acts with the utmost professionalism.”
Sunak was already under fire for reappointing Williamson to a ministerial role despite being told he was under investigation for allegedly bullying another senior Conservative.
The prime minister also faced criticism for reinstating Suella Braverman as interior minister just six days after she was forced to quit the Truss Cabinet over a security breach.
The opposition Labour Party pointed to those controversies as it termed the latest accusations “deeply troubling,” demanding Sunak launch an inquiry.
“With each new scandal and grubby deal, it becomes more obvious that he is a weak leader who puts party management before the national interest,” Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said.
There was no immediate comment from Sunak, who is preparing next week to unveil an emergency economic package after a tax-slashing budget by Truss sparked a financial crisis.
TOULON: Tensions over migration flared between EU countries on Saturday after people on board a rescue ship turned back by Italy disembarked in France.
The Ocean Viking, operated by a French NGO, had picked up more than 230 migrants at sea near the Libyan coast before spending weeks seeking a port to accept them.
France allowed the boat to dock at the southern port of Toulon on Friday after Rome denied it access.
The stand-off has inflamed a dispute over the way EU countries handle migration across the Mediterranean.
Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta on Saturday slammed the EU’s system for managing migrant flows and called for the EU Commission to intervene.
They hit out at the “disappointing” results of previous EU commitments to a scheme that in its initial year would have seen 10,000 people relocated from the European countries they first reached.
“The mechanism is slow” and the figure of 10,000 relocations, which was not met, “represents only a very small part of the actual figure of irregular arrivals during this year,” they said.
The Greek migration minister and the interior ministers of Cyprus, Italy and Malta made the comments in a joint statement issued in Rome.
These countries have argued for years in favor of a compulsory relocation system.
They said that as states where migrants first enter Europe, they bear “the most difficult burden in the management of migratory flows in the Mediterranean, in full respect of international obligations and EU rules.”
And they pointed the finger at humanitarian NGOs, saying their “private vessels act in total autonomy from the competent state authorities.”
The Ocean Viking vessel , run by SOS Mediterranee, left to undergo maintenance at another port after the migrants disembarked at Toulon, authorities said.
In a few weeks’ time it is set to return to save more migrants in the Mediterranean.
French authorities said the last of the 230 passengers disembarked late Friday. Four others were evacuated by helicopter earlier in the week.
Of the passengers, 189 people — including 23 women and 13 minors — were taken to a holiday camp turned shelter on the Giens Peninsula some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the military port of Toulon.
Among them was an 18-year-old from Pakistan, who clutched a binbag containing his only belongings. Imran — a pseudonym — said he had spent 21 days at sea and felt exhausted.
He wondered how long he would be able to stay in France.
“They haven’t told us anything,” he said.
“As long as we are no longer in Libya or at sea, I am fine with anything. I needed to be on dry land.”
His most pressing concern, he said, was to let his family know he is still alive.
The shelter has been designated a special “international waiting zone” that is not part of French territory and from which the migrants are not allowed to leave until their request for asylum has been processed.
French authorities said all new arrivals had expressed the wish to seek asylum.
They will have to undergo security checks, including from French domestic intelligence, before they can be interviewed by the country’s refugee agency, whose representatives were expected to arrive on Saturday.
Another passenger, the first let off the Ocean Viking on Friday, is being treated in a French hospital for poor health.
A total of 44 unaccompanied minors — mostly “young teenagers” — have been handed over to French social services and are not staying at the Giens shelter, local official Evence Richard said.
Of all the disembarked passengers, 175 are to leave France and head to 11 other countries.
Germany is to receive 80 of the migrants, while Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Romania have also agreed to take in a share.
The Ocean Viking initially sought access to Italy’s coast, which is closest to where the migrants were picked up, saying health and sanitary conditions onboard were rapidly worsening.
Italy refused, saying other nations needed to shoulder more of the burden for taking in the thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa every year.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration says 1,891 migrants have died or disappeared so far this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life in Europe.
DUBAI: Russian forces destroyed the critical infrastructure in the southern city of Kherson before fleeing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, adding that local authorities were starting to stabilize the city.
Jubilant residents welcomed troops arriving in the center of Kherson on Friday after Russia abandoned the only regional capital it had captured since the start of the war.
“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all the critical infrastructure: communications, water, heat, electricity,” Zelensky said in a video address.
“(Russians) everywhere have the same goal: to humiliate people as much as possible. But we will restore everything, believe me,” he continued.
Zelensky said Ukrainian troops had taken control of more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region.
“Police have launched stabilization measures. Stabilization measures are also underway in Kherson,” he said.
TEHRAN: Iran has indicted 11 people over the murder of a Basij paramilitary force member during a ceremony last week in honour of a slain protester, a judiciary official said Saturday.
The incident happened on November 3 in Karaj, capital of Alborz province, when mourners were paying tribute to Hadis Najafi at the cemetery to mark 40 days after she was killed in the city.
Her death on September 21 came five days into nationwide protests that erupted after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran’s hijab dress rules for women.
Eleven people, including a woman, had been summoned and charged over the killing of Basij member Ruhollah Ajamian, said Alborz province’s judiciary chief Hossein Fazeli Harikandi.
The indictments followed an investigation launched after images posted on social media networks showed “a group of rioters assaulting and killing” Ajamian, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website quoted him as saying.
“Rioters attacked this security officer, who was unarmed, stripped him naked, stabbed him with knives, beat him with brass knuckles, stones, and kicks, and then dragged his naked and half-dead body on the asphalt street and between cars in a horrific manner,” Harikandi added.
Some face charges of “corruption on earth”, one of the most serious offenses under Iranian law which is punishable by death.
They are also accused of serious disturbance of public order leading to murder, gathering with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s security, and propaganda against the state.
Amini, 22, died on September 16 in the custody of the morality police three days after falling into a coma, sparking street violence across the Islamic republic.
Dozens of people, mainly demonstrators but also security personnel, have been killed during the demonstrations, which the authorities have dubbed “riots”, and hundreds more have been arrested.
The Basij is a state-sanctioned volunteer force that is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
PHNOM PENH: Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pressed Southeast Asian countries for political and material support in his county’s fight against Russia, while accusing Moscow on Saturday of playing “hunger games” with the world by holding up shipments of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products.
Kuleba told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit that with a deal allowing Ukraine to export grain and fertilizer due to expire Nov. 19, the world needed to pressure Russia not to object to its extension, saying Ukrainian products were critical in Africa and Asia.
More than just continuing the deal, however, Kuleba accused Russian inspectors of “quiet sabotage,” saying they were intentionally dragging their feet in allowing shipments through.
Not only does Russia have “to remain part of the initiative, it also has to instruct its inspectors to act in good faith and to avoid any measures, any steps, that create obstacles and hinder the export of Ukrainian agricultural goods to the global market,” he said.
“Russia should — must — stop playing hunger games with the world.”
Kuleba’s country was invited to the ASEAN summit for the first time this year and signed a peace accord with the group of nations with a combined population of nearly 700 million people.
Many of the member nations have thus far been reserved in their stance toward the invasion, condemning the war but generally trying to avoid assigning blame. Eight of 10 ASEAN countries did vote in favor of the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression, with Vietnam and Laos abstaining.
Kuleba said signing the accord with ASEAN was a strong message of support from the group, though added that “the litmus test is the … voting in the UN General Assembly for resolutions related to Ukraine.”
ASEAN is made up of Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei and Myanmar, though Myanmar’s leaders are not being allowed to participate in the current meetings due to ongoing violence in the country and its lack of effort in implementing the group’s peace plan following the 2021 military takeover.
Kuleba said he is using the opportunity of the Phnom Penh summit as “an Asian tour,” meeting with ASEAN members and non-members like Australia to plead for more political support, material aid — like transformers and generators to repair those destroyed in the fighting — and improvements of food security and trade.
He spoke on the day US President Joe Biden arrived at the talks, and was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines.
He said he had hoped to meet with China’s foreign minister but was told he would not be present. Kuleba added that Ukraine was maintaining a dialogue with China to push Beijing to “use its leverage on Russia to make them stop the war. ”
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also on hand at the ASEAN meetings, and Kuleba said if Lavrov asked to meet him, he would be willing to consider the request but accused Russia thus far of using talks as a “smokescreen for its continued aggression on the ground.”
“Ukraine will prevail, it’s only a matter of time and the price,” he said. “And yes, some gains are being achieved militarily, but some gains of Ukraine will be achieved diplomatically.”
But, he said, in any talks the “territorial integrity of Ukraine is not something that can be discussed.”