MANILA: The Philippines urged its large Muslim minority yesterday to reconsider plans to join pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia this year due to a deadly virus outbreak there.
About 6,500 Filipinos who are set to join the annual Haj pilgrimage in October are being urged to go next year instead, when the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is expected to be under control, health department spokesman Lyndon Lee Suy said.
“We know it’s a religious custom, but it is also our duty to provide health advisories,” Lee Suy said.
“It’s an appeal for them to delay the trip if possible due to the MERS virus.... If possible, they should go next year.”
Millions of pilgrims visit holy sites in western Saudi Arabia, the country worst hit by the disease, for the annual Haj, the major Muslim pilgrimage that this year will take place in October, and for the Umrah, which is performed throughout the year.
The World Health Organisation said last month that the surge in MERS cases has receded, but countries must maintain vigilance for the Muslim pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.
TOKYO: A Japanese city yesterday sought a court injunction to prevent a nuclear plant from being built, in a country that remains deeply suspicious of the technology three years after Fukushima.
Toshiki Kudo, Mayor of Hakodate in Japan’s north, appeared at Tokyo District Court yesterday afternoon to demand an indefinite freeze on construction of the nearby Oma nuclear plant.
After a hiatus, building work resumed at Oma in October 2012, even as all Japan’s viable reactors were shut down amid safety concerns in the aftermath of the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant.
The city mayor has said Oma’s operator, J-Power -- a formerly state-owned electricity wholesaler -- and Japan as a whole, have failed to learn the lessons from the crisis and are not doing enough to ensure communities near the power station are safe.
“After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the government expanded the zone expected to be severely affected in the case of a nuclear accident from eight to 10 kilometres to 30 kilometres around the site,” Kudo said on the city’s official website. Agencies
