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RIYADH: Saudi government on Monday announced its much-awaited decision on Hajj 2020, announcing to hold the annual pilgrimage in a limited manner amid COVID-19 pandemic, ARY NEWS reported. The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry took to Twitter to convey the official decision on Hajj 2020. Citing a rise in COVID-19 cases globally, it was decided that people from different nationalities living in Saudi Arabia will only be allowed to perform Hajj this year. The statement from Saudi Hajj and Umrah Ministry while sharing global COVID-19 figures said that death related to it has reached almost half a million and over 7 million cases have been confirmed globally. Citing risks stemming from the pandemic and lack of available vaccinations, the ministry said that the kingdom’s top priority was to always enable Muslim pilgrims to perform Hajj and Umrah rites safely. Announcing its decision to only allow a limited number of pilgrims from various nationalities living in Saudi Arabia, the ministry said ...

Global coronavirus infections topped nine million on Monday as the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic was accelerating. France took its biggest step yet back to normality by allowing millions of children to return to school. But despite Europe further easing lockdowns, cases are still rising around the world, especially in Latin America with Brazil now registering more than 50,000 deaths. And there are fears of new clusters in Melbourne and Lisbon as well as renewed outbreaks in Beijing and other parts of Asia. “The pandemic is still accelerating,” WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual health forum organised by Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Tedros said the greatest threat facing the world was not the virus itself, which has now killed over 465,000 people and infected nine million, but “the lack of global solidarity and global leadership.” “We cannot defeat this pandemic with a divided world,” he said. “The politicisation of the pandem...