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British newspapers have covered various topics related to the Middle East region, including an Amnesty International report on domestic workers’ rights violations in Qatar and research on possible genetic mutations of the Corona virus that may make it resistant to drugs. and vaccines.
It begins with The Independent and a report by Maya Oppenheim, a women’s affairs correspondent, on an Amnesty International report on the human rights violations faced by domestic workers in Qatar.
The correspondent says that a new report concluded that domestic workers are exposed to severe levels of abuse, as they are forced to work more than 18 hours a day and other violations.
The workers described how their employers belittled and raped them, with some pulling their hair and spitting on them, as well as hitting, kicking and punching them, according to the Amnesty International report.
The report indicated that female workers receive little or no protection from authorities in the host country of the 2022 World Cup.
The report noted that employers confiscate the passports of domestic workers, making it extremely difficult to escape abuse, adding that some of them had reached a “breaking point” due to overwork without time to rest.
Of the total of 105 interviews with women who worked as resident domestic workers, 15 women said they had been physically abused by their employer or their employer’s family.
Among those interviewed, 90 out of 105 workers said they work more than 14 hours a day, while half of the workers said they work more than 18 hours a day, twice the hours of their stipulated contract.
Several of the women said they did not take a single day off while working, and 89 of them said they work regularly seven days a week. And in most cases (87) their passports were illegally confiscated by their employers.
Genetic mutation Possible
And we passed to The Guardian newspaper and a report on possible genetic mutations of the Corona virus.
The newspaper says a team of researchers is studying and monitoring new coronavirus mutations, amid concerns that future virus strains may develop at least partial resistance to antibody treatments and Covid-19 vaccines. .
The newspaper says there is no evidence that the mutations observed so far can help the virus avoid vaccines or treatments now in development, but genetic analysis of circulating strains indicates that partially resistant variants could appear and spread among humans.
“Anything that affects the virus protein can change the way the immune or immune response caused by the vaccine,” said Geoffrey Barrett, a geneticist and member of the Sanger Institute consortium near Cambridge.
The newspaper says that the Corona virus that causes Covid 19 is genetically stable to some extent, but still acquires mutations, creating many strains that geneticists can use to track the virus around the world.
Conspiracy theories
We follow up with The Guardian and a report indicating that at least 70 works of art and antiques in three Berlin galleries were vandalized with an oily substance earlier this month.
The artifacts, which include ancient Egyptian coffins, stone sculptures and paintings dating back to the 19th century in three museums in the city, were damaged during the vandalism operation that took place on October 3.
In 2018, the newspaper says, two women were arrested in the Greek capital, Athens, after museum exhibits at the National Museum of History were mutilated with oil. The two women told police they doused the art with oil and myrrh “because the Bible says it is a miracle.”
But the German media linked what was exposed in Berlin museum collections to conspiracy theories about the Corona virus.
One of these theories claims that the Pergamon Museum in Berlin is a center of “devil worship” because it houses the altar of the ancient Greek pagan temple of Pergamum.