#Title

More than 12,000
FROM PAGE 16
“Most of the Bangladeshi migrants applied to the domestic work sector as caregivers,” he said over a WhatsApp call.
Asked whether all will be regularised, the mission official said there is a condition for the domestic work sector that workers have to apply under the specific employer, which the authorities will verify afterwards.
So, it cannot be said at this stage how many have fulfilled the condition, he added.
He added that the Bangladesh mission was trying to help the undocumented workers process their papers properly.
The Italian government declared amnesty for undocumented migrants from June 1 amid the coronavirus pandemic. The last time it announced a similar amnesty was in 2012, said the mission official.
Under the latest amnesty, the authorities also gave workers scope to be regularised in the agriculture sector. Besides, those who are currently unemployed are also getting the opportunity.
Like the domestic work sector, workers in the agriculture sector have to apply under the specific employer, while the unemployed have the scope to get work permits at a fee of 130 euros each.
As of July 16, the Italian interior ministry received 123,429 requests for the regularisation programme, according to ANSA, a well-reputed wire service in Italy.
Cleaners and caregivers made up the bulk of the requests, ANSA said in a report.
Alongside Bangladeshis, Ukrainians and Moroccans mostly requested permits as cleaners or carers. Besides, Albanians, Moroccans, and Indians mostly requested permits as agricultural workers, it added.
The number of Bangladeshi workers seeking regularisation was 12,746 until July 31, said Bangladesh mission official Arfanul, adding that it was made available by the Italian interior ministry.
Italy is home to about 1.45 lakh Bangladeshi migrants with valid documents, he said, citing the data of the Italian ministry of labour and social policies.
Besides, an estimated 20,000 more Bangladeshis live and work in that country without valid documents.
According to a mission official, the Bangladeshi community in Italy said the number could be 50,000.
Arfanul said following the coronavirus outbreak, the Italian government announced different stimulus packages, including that for low-paid workers with work permits.
Such workers, including foreign nationals, had the opportunity to receive financial support from the Italian government, he said.
He added that many restrictions imposed by the Italian government to contain the spread of coronavirus had recently been lifted.
As a result, the low-paid workers and self-employed vendors, who were affected severely, get the scope for earnings, he said.

WHO downplays
FROM PAGE 16
of food. There is no evidence that food or the food chain is participating in the transmission of this virus.
“Our food, from a Covid perspective, is safe.”
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said the United Nations health agency was aware of the reports and understood that China was looking for the virus on food packaging.
“They’ve tested a few hundred thousand samples of looking at packaging and have found very, very few, less than 10 positive in doing that,” she said.
“We know that the virus can remain on surfaces for some time.
“If the virus is actually in food -- and we have no examples of where this virus has been transmitted as a food-borne, whereas someone has consumed a food product -- the viruses can be killed, like other viruses as well, if the meat is cooked.”
SHARED VACCINE SEARCH
Meanwhile, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday urged countries to invest billions of dollars in searching for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments -- calling it a snip compared to the vast economic cost of the coronavirus crisis.
The global health body insisted it was a smarter bet than the trillions of dollars being thrown at handling the consequences of the global pandemic.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded for investment into the WHO-led ACT-Accelerator programme, which aims to share global research and development, manufacturing and procurement in a bid to beat Covid-19.
NZ EXTENDS CURB
In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a lockdown in New Zealand’s largest city yesterday, giving health authorities more time to trace and contain a strain of coronavirus previously unseen in the country.
Ardern said stay-at-home orders would remain in force across Auckland until August 26 in a bid to prevent a mystery outbreak from becoming a fully-blown second wave.
Genomic tests indicated the latest infections were not the same strain of coronavirus recorded in New Zealand earlier this year.
The pandemic has killed at least 759,000 people worldwide since surfacing in China late last year, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP yesterday.
In Britain, the government reimposed a 14-day quarantine for travellers arriving from France, prompting Paris to promise a “reciprocal measure”. The Netherlands and Malta are also removed from the UK’s list of countries exempted from quarantine.