World

Sandstorms have engulfed the Middle East in recent days, in a phenomenon experts warn could proliferate because of climate change, putting human health at grave risk.

At least 4,000 people went to hospital Monday for respiratory issues in Iraq where eight sandstorms have blanketed the country since mid-April.

That was on top of the more than 5,000 treated in Iraqi hospitals for similar respiratory ailments earlier this month.

The phenomenon has also smothered Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with more feared in the coming days.

Strong winds lift large amounts of sand and dust into the atmosphere, that can then travel hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres (miles).

Sandstorms have affected a total of 150 countries and regions, adversely impacting on the environment, health and the economy, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

“It’s a phenomenon that is both local and global, with a stronger intensity in areas of origin,” said Carlos Perez Garcia-Pando, a sand and dust storm expert at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies.

The storms originate in dry or semi-dry regions of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia and China.

Other less affected areas include Australia, the Americas and South Africa.

The UN agency WMO has warned of the “serious risks” posed by airborne dust.

The fine dust particles can cause health problems such as asthma and cardiovascular ailments, and also spread bacteria and viruses as well as pesticides and other toxins.

“Dust particle size is a key determinant of potential hazard to human health,” the WMO said.

Small particles that can be smaller than 10 micrometres can often become trapped in the nose, mouth and upper respiratory tract, and as a result it is associated with respiratory disorders such as asthma and pneumonia.

– ‘Unbreathable’ –

The most at-risk are the oldest and youngest as well as those struggling with respiratory and cardiac problems.

And the most affected are residents in countries regularly battered by sandstorms, unlike in Europe where dust coming from the Sahara is rare, like the incident in March.

Depending on the weather and climate conditions, sand dust can remain in the atmosphere for several days and travel great distances, at times picking up bacteria, pollen, fungi and viruses.

“However, the seriousness is less than with ultrafine particles, for example from road traffic, which can penetrate the brain or the blood system,” says Thomas Bourdrel, a radiologist, researcher at the University of Strasbourg and a member of Air Health Climate collective.

Even if the sand particles are less toxic than particles produced by combustion, their “extreme density during storms causes a fairly significant increase in cardio-respiratory mortality, especially among the most vulnerable,” he said.

With “a concentration of thousands of cubic micrometres in the air, it’s almost unbreathable”, said Garcia-Pando.

The sandstorms’ frequency and intensity could worsen because of climate change, say some scientists.

But the complex phenomenon is “full of uncertainties” and is affected by a cocktail of factors like heat, wind and agricultural practices, Garcia-Pando told AFP.

“In some areas, climate change could reduce the winds that cause storms, but extreme events could persist, even rise,” he said.

With global temperatures rising, it is very likely that more and more parts of the Earth will become drier.

“This year, a significant temperature anomaly was observed in East Africa, in the Middle East, in East Asia, and this drought affects plants, a factor that can increase sandstorms,” the Spanish researcher said.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Thursday his half-brother Prince Hamzah, accused of involvement in a coup plot last year, is in a state of “delusion” and will remain under house arrest.

Authorities in Jordan announced in April last year that they had foiled a bid to destabilise the Western-allied kingdom, marking a rare crisis in a nation seen as a pillar of regional stability.

Two former officials were sentenced to 15 years in jail in July after they were found guilty of conspiring to topple the king. Prince Hamzah escaped prosecution but was ordered into house arrest.

The king said in a statement released on Thursday that his half-brother would remain under house arrest, and that further restrictions would be imposed upon him.

“A Royal Decree was issued, approving the recommendation of the council formed in accordance with the Royal Family Law, to restrict the communications, place of residence, and movement of Prince Hamzah,” the statement from the royal palace said.

“We will provide Hamzah with all that he requires to live a comfortable life, but he will not have the space he once abused to offend the nation, its institutions, and his family, nor to undermine Jordan’s stability,” Abdullah II said, in a letter to the Jordanian people.

“I will never allow our country to be held hostage to the whims of someone who has done nothing to serve his country,” he added.

– ‘Stranger than fiction’ –

Hamzah, 42, had in April announced he was “renouncing the title of prince”, a month after a royal court statement said he had apologised to the king for “his actions and offences”.

But Abdullah II said on Thursday that Hamzah had during the past year or so “exhausted all opportunities to restore himself on the right path”.

“The delusion he lives in is not new,” the king said.

“Not long after vowing to renounce his erroneous ways, he goes back on his promises and returns to the path he chose years ago, putting his interests before the nation.”

The king appointed Hamzah as crown prince in 1999, at the request of his late father, King Hussein, but removed him from the post in 2004, later naming his son, Prince Hussein, as next in line to the Hashemite throne.

“Over the past years, I have exercised the highest degrees of tolerance, self-restraint, and patience with my brother… and have been disappointed time and again,” the king added.

Hamzah’s mother, American-born Queen Noor, said on Twitter shortly after the king’s announcement that “some truly bizarre and stranger than fiction stuff (is) circulating right now,” without elaborating.

The two officials convicted last year were former royal court chief Bassem Awadallah and an ex-envoy to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Sharif Hassan bin Zaid.

Both were reported to have had close ties to Riyadh, and were found guilty of “incitement against the ruling system” and “acts that could threaten society and create sedition”.

Hamzah was not charged in the trial, but the charge sheet said he was “determined to fulfil his personal ambition to rule, in violation of the Hashemite constitution and customs”.

In April last year, in a video message posted online, Hamzah accused Jordan’s rulers of corruption and ineptitude.

On Thursday, the royal palace said they would “not be surprised” if Hamzah were to release other messages.

“I, and our people, will not waste time responding to him,” Abdullah II said. “I am convinced he will continue to spread this false narrative, but we do not have the luxury of time to deal with it.”

President Joe Biden left Thursday for South Korea and Japan to cement US leadership in Asia at a time when the White House’s attention has been pulled back to Russia and Europe — and amid fears of a North Korean nuclear test during his trip.

Biden wants the trip to build on recent moves accelerating a years-long US pivot to Asia, where rising Chinese commercial and military power is undercutting Washington’s dominance.

But highlighting the competing demands from Europe, Biden met right before his departure with the leaders of Finland and Sweden to celebrate their applications for joining NATO — a seismic development sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Also overshadowing Biden’s first Asia trip as president is fear that the unpredictable leadership in North Korea will choose the moment to grab attention with a test of its nuclear capable missiles or even a test explosion.

Despite a spiralling Covid outbreak, Pyongyang’s “preparations for a nuclear test have been completed and they are only looking for the right time,” South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung said after being briefed by Seoul’s spy agency.

US intelligence also says there is a “genuine possibility” that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un could stage this “provocation” after Biden arrives in Seoul late Friday, a senior US official said.

Biden will head to Japan from South Korea on Sunday. He will hold talks with the leaders of both countries, as well as joining a regional summit of the Quad — a grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States — while in Tokyo.

During the first leg, he will visit US and South Korean troops, but will not make the traditional presidential trek to the fortified frontier known as the DMZ between South and North Korea, the White House said.

Hours ahead of Biden arriving, South Korea’s newly elected, strongly pro-US President Yoon Suk-yeol signaled a warm welcome, tweeting “A mountain shows its way to the summit to those who seek it. I am confident the ROK-US alliance that seeks to uphold the values of democracy and human rights shall only elevate in the future.” 

– Taiwan lessons? –

Briefing reporters on Wednesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Biden is bound for Asia with “the wind at our back” after successful US leadership in the Western response to President Vladimir Putin’s now almost three-month-long invasion of Ukraine.

The high military, diplomatic and economic cost imposed on Russia is seen in Washington as a cautionary tale for China, given Beijing’s stated ambitions to gain control over democratic-ruled Taiwan, even if that means going to war.

Earlier this month, CIA Director William Burns said Beijing is watching “carefully.”

“I think they’ve been struck by the way in which particularly the transatlantic alliance has come together to impose economic costs on Russia as a result of that aggression,” he said.

Sullivan said the administration wants not so much to confront China on the trip as to use Biden’s diplomacy to show that the West and its Asian partners will not be divided and weakened.

He pointed to cooperation from South Korea and Japan, among others, in the sanctions regime against Russia led by European powers and the United States. He also referred to Britain’s role in the recently created security partnership AUKUS.

This “powerful message” will be “heard in Beijing,” Sullivan said, “but it’s not a negative message and it’s not targeted at any one country.”

– North Korean wild card –

Officials say North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is a wild card on the trip.

Sullivan said it was possible that North Korea, which has defied UN sanctions in conducting an array of nuclear-capable missile tests this year, could use Biden’s visit to sabre rattle.

This could mean “further missile tests, long-range missile tests or a nuclear test, or frankly both, in the days leading into, on or after the president’s trip,” he said.

The Biden administration is prepared to “make both short and longer-term adjustments to our military posture” in response.

Sullivan said the situation was being “closely” coordinated with South Korea and Japan and that he had also spoken about the issue with his Chinese counterpart on Wednesday.

Sudanese security forces arrested leading anti-coup figures on Thursday, their party said, during protests by thousands against last year’s military takeover.

“Security forces raided the house of the political secretary of the Sudanese Communist Party Mohammed Mukhtar al-Khatib,” the party said in a statement. 

Another leading party member was also arrested at Khartoum airport, and the two men were taken to an “unknown location,” the party said. 

The arrests came despite a pledge by coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to free political detainees to set the stage for talks among Sudanese factions. 

Last month, authorities released several anti-coup civilian leaders arrested in a crackdown. 

The Communist Party members were detained following a trip to Juba, South Sudan where they met with rebel leader Abdel Wahid Nour who has refused to sign a landmark 2020 peace deal with the Sudanese government, according to the party statement. 

They also visited rebel-held areas in South Kordofan controlled by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, who also abstained from the 2020 deal, it said. 

Thousands of protesters on Thursday took to the streets, mainly in Khartoum but also elsewhere, to again call for civilian rule in the latest rally against the October coup led by Burhan, according to AFP correspondents. 

The pro-democracy Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said security forces fired tear gas “in large quantities” to quell the protests.

Regular mass demonstrations have rocked Sudan since the coup which derailed a fragile political transition set in motion after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

Demonstrations have been met by a violent crackdown which has so far killed at least 95 protesters and wounded hundreds of others, according to medics. 

The United Nations, along with the African Union and regional bloc IGAD, have been pushing to facilitate Sudanese-led talks to resolve the crisis after the northeast African country’s latest coup.

UN special representative Volker Perthes in late March said the country was heading towards “an economic and security collapse” unless its civilian-led transition was restored. 

Burhan threatened to expel Perthes for  alleged “interference” in the country’s affairs.