With pilgrims banned from Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians already reeling from the pandemic are facing a lonely Christmas in the birthplace of Jesus.
Bethlehem was thrown into turmoil in early March, when a travel agent called the Angel Hotel to say that recent Greek guests had returned home with coronavirus.
“The hotel was full, I also had 45 rooms checking in that day,” said Mariana Al Arja, general manager of the family-run hotel. “It was a mess.”
The outbreak led pilgrims to flee Bethlehem, except for a group of American guests at the Angel who were quarantined with hotel staff.
“I stayed in my office for 14 days. I had the cameras in front of me, I slept on the couch and I stayed in contact with the people who were working here,” said Ms Al Arja, who caught coronavirus with more than half the hotel staff.
While the hotel entrance is devoid of festive decorations this year, a Christmas tree was erected beside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity where Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus.
"We will send a message to the world and to everybody, that Christmas will never be cancelled," Bethlehem's mayor, Anton Salman, said this month.
Over the festive period thousands of visitors usually stroll around Manger Square, where a Christmas market is set up.
But it is open only to Bethlehem residents because people living elsewhere in the Palestinian territories and Israel are banned from visiting under new measures announced by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Thursday.
More than 130,000 tourists travelled to Bethlehem last December, according to data from the municipality, while the total number of visitors topped 1.5 million during 2019.
Coronavirus has killed 1,016 people in the West Bank, World Health Organisation data show, in a Palestinian population of more than three million.
Christians are being encouraged to tune in online to watch events in Bethlehem, while Midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity will be attended only by clergy on Christmas Eve.
“Never, in our life, as Palestinians, will we celebrate Christmas in sadness,” said the mayor, who caught coronavirus last month. “We are always optimistic for a better future.”
But he admitted the pandemic had taken a significant toll on local businesses, estimating more than 200 souvenir shops have closed along with nearly 70 hotels.
Standing in a quiet Manger Square, mosaicist Khaldoun Balboul pointed to the shuttered shops and restaurants.
“If you look around, they all have relationships with tourists. If there are no tourists, they don’t have work,” said the 40-year-old, who has been shipping mosaic art abroad and running workshops during the pandemic.
Because the Palestinian Authority does not operate as a fully-functioning state with access to international financial markets, it has been unable to provide the economic support which other governments have offered their citizens.
At the Angel Hotel, the 25 employees received their salaries for March and April before being handed severance pay.
Ms Arja, 33, said she had received no financial help and has been indebted by the cost of adding a floor to the hotel, a decision taken when the local tourism industry was thriving.
“The occupancy rate in Bethlehem was above 90 per cent” when the pandemic hit, she said.
“We were coming up to the Easter season, all the hotels were overbooked.”
Rooms at the Angel now sit empty, with chequered bedspreads and towels piled up in the bathrooms.
Over the past few months, Ms Arja has completed the expansion, carried out a deep clean of the hotel and begun preparing for it to reopen. New health protocols will be in place, such as an end to the buffet service.
But it is unclear when tourists will return, because Israel, which controls access to the West Bank, has imposed a ban on foreign visitors since March.
“This is Bethlehem, it’s the place where Jesus was born, so it’s all about celebrations and gatherings and tourists. It’s really sad to see it empty,” Ms Arja said.
With so many residents reliant on work from tourism or industries that support the sector, the absence of visitors this Christmas is being felt across Bethlehem.
“I don’t think we can go on, I think people are struggling now,” said Ms Arja, who has packed boxes with the hotel’s remaining food supplies ready to donate.
“I really have no idea how people will survive.”
Hydrogen: Market potential
Hydrogen has an estimated $11 trillion market potential, according to Bank of America Securities and is expected to generate $2.5tn in direct revenues and $11tn of indirect infrastructure by 2050 as its production increases six-fold.
"We believe we are reaching the point of harnessing the element that comprises 90 per cent of the universe, effectively and economically,” the bank said in a recent report.
Falling costs of renewable energy and electrolysers used in green hydrogen production is one of the main catalysts for the increasingly bullish sentiment over the element.
The cost of electrolysers used in green hydrogen production has halved over the last five years and will fall to 60 to 90 per cent by the end of the decade, acceding to Haim Israel, equity strategist at Merrill Lynch. A global focus on decarbonisation and sustainability is also a big driver in its development.
Various Artists
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
RESULTS
6.30pm: Longines Conquest Classic Dh150,000 Maiden 1,200m.
Winner: Halima Hatun, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Ismail Mohammed (trainer).
7.05pm: Longines Gents La Grande Classique Dh155,000 Handicap 1,200m.
Winner: Moosir, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson.
7.40pm: Longines Equestrian Collection Dh150,000 Maiden 1,600m.
Winner: Mazeed, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar.
8.15pm: Longines Gents Master Collection Dh175,000 Handicap.
Winner: Thegreatcollection, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
8.50pm: Longines Ladies Master Collection Dh225,000 Conditions 1,600m.
Winner: Cosmo Charlie, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
9.25pm: Longines Ladies La Grande Classique Dh155,000 Handicap 1,600m.
Winner: Secret Trade, Tadhg O’Shea, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
10pm: Longines Moon Phase Master Collection Dh170,000 Handicap 2,000m.
Winner:
RESULT
Kolkata Knight Riders 169-7 (20 ovs)
Rajasthan Royals 144-4 (20 ovs)
Kolkata win by 25 runs
Next match
Sunrisers Hyderabad v Kolkata Knight Riders, Friday, 5.30pm
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
England XI for second Test
Rory Burns, Keaton Jennings, Ben Stokes, Joe Root (c), Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Ben Foakes (wk), Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Jack Leach, James Anderson
MATCH INFO
Champions League quarter-final, first leg
Manchester United v Barcelona, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
Match on BeIN Sports
