Latest news with #checkpoints
Malay Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
On the radio and online: How Palestinians navigate Israel's West Bank roadblocks with live traffic updates and real-time reports
RAWABI (Palestinian Territories), July 8 — Radio presenter Hiba Eriqat broadcasts an unusual kind of traffic reports to her Palestinian listeners grappling with ever-increasing Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank. 'Deir Sharaf: traffic, Qalandia: open, Container: closed,' Eriqat reads out from drivers' live reports, enumerating checkpoints to let listeners know which of the West Bank's hundreds of checkpoints and gates are open, busy with traffic, or closed by the Israeli military. 'My mission is to help Palestinian citizens get home safely,' she told AFP in the radio studio in the city of Rawabi between her thrice-hourly broadcasts. 'Covering traffic in the West Bank is completely different from covering traffic anywhere else in the world.' The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has long been dotted with checkpoints, but obstacles to Palestinians' movement in the territory have proliferated since the 2023 start of the war in Gaza — a separate territory. In the West Bank, a territory roughly the size of the US state of Delaware, there are hundreds of new checkpoints and gates, but Israeli authorities do not provide updates about their status. 'The army might suddenly close a checkpoint, and the traffic jam would last an hour. Or they might just show up and then withdraw seconds later, and the checkpoint is cleared', Eriqat said. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in early 2025 there were 849 obstacles restricting the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including checkpoints, road gates, earth walls, trenches and roadblocks. Radio presenter Hiba Eriqat broadcasts an unusual kind of traffic reports to her Palestinian listeners grappling with ever-increasing Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank. — AFP pic 'Not a regular jam' To navigate, Palestinians often rely on minute-by-minute updates from drivers on WhatsApp and Telegram groups, some of which were created by Basma Radio to feed Eriqat's broadcasts. 'We turned to taxi drivers, truck drivers, private companies and even ordinary people,' said Eriqat, to create the West Bank's only traffic report of its kind. The updates were launched in October 2023 — the same month the Gaza war broke out — and are now broadcast by other Palestinian radio stations too. A Telegram group run by Basma Radio now has some 16,000 members. Fatima Barqawi, who runs news programmes at the station, said the team had created 'contact networks with people on the roads', also receiving regular updates from Palestinians who live near checkpoints and can see the traffic from their window. Beyond the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, the traffic reports sometimes feature warnings about roads blocked by Israeli settlers, whose attacks against Palestinians have also risen throughout the war. It is a constantly shifting roadscape, Eriqat said, complicating even what otherwise should have been a quick drive to work, home or to see family and friends. 'You might tell people the checkpoint is open now, but three minutes later, it's jammed again. And it's not a regular jam — it could last six or seven hours,' she said. Settler attacks and soldiers' 'mood' Maen, a 28-year-old video editor, used to tune in to Basma Radio to plan his weekly commute from Ramallah to his hometown of Bethlehem, but now prefers checking what other drivers have to say. 'I often call a friend who has Telegram while I'm on the road' and ask for updates from checkpoints, said Mazen, who asked to use his first name only for security reasons. He has deleted Telegram from his own phone after hearing about Palestinians getting into trouble with soldiers at checkpoints over the use of the messaging app. But in a sign of its popularity, one group in which drivers share their updates has 320,000 members — more than one-tenth of the West Bank's population. Israeli security forces close off a road leading to the site of a reported attack on a car belonging to Israeli settlers near Rawabi, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, December 18, 2023. — AFP pic Rami, an NGO worker living in Ramallah who also declined to give his full name, said he listened to the radio traffic reports but mainly relied on Telegram groups. Yet a safe journey is far from guaranteed. Rami told AFP he recently had to stop on the way to his hometown of Nablus. 'I pulled over, checked the news and saw that 100 settlers had gathered at a settlement's road junction and started throwing stones at Palestinian cars', recognisable by their green license plates, he said. And passing through a military checkpoint often 'depends on the soldier's mood', said Eriqat. 'That's the difficult part.' — AFP
Arab News
7 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
On the radio and online, Palestinians keep up with Israel's West Bank roadblocks
RAWABI: Radio presenter Hiba Eriqat broadcasts an unusual kind of traffic reports to her Palestinian listeners grappling with ever-increasing Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank. 'Deir Sharaf: traffic, Qalandia: open, Container: closed,' Eriqat reads out from drivers' live reports, enumerating checkpoints to let listeners know which of the West Bank's hundreds of checkpoints and gates are open, busy with traffic, or closed by the Israeli military. 'My mission is to help Palestinian citizens get home safely,' she told AFP in the radio studio in the city of Rawabi between her thrice-hourly broadcasts. 'Covering traffic in the West Bank is completely different from covering traffic anywhere else in the world.' The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has long been dotted with checkpoints, but obstacles to Palestinians' movement in the territory have proliferated since the 2023 start of the war in Gaza — a separate territory. In the West Bank, a territory roughly the size of the US state of Delaware, there are hundreds of new checkpoints and gates, but Israeli authorities do not provide updates about their status. 'The army might suddenly close a checkpoint, and the traffic jam would last an hour. Or they might just show up and then withdraw seconds later, and the checkpoint is cleared,' Eriqat said. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in early 2025 there were 849 obstacles restricting the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including checkpoints, road gates, earth walls, trenches and roadblocks. Updates on WhatsApp groups To navigate, Palestinians often rely on minute-by-minute updates from drivers on WhatsApp and Telegram groups, some of which were created by Basma Radio to feed Eriqat's broadcasts. 'We turned to taxi drivers, truck drivers, private companies and even ordinary people,' said Eriqat, to create the West Bank's only traffic report of its kind. The updates were launched in October 2023 — the same month the Gaza war broke out — and are now broadcast by other Palestinian radio stations too. A Telegram group run by Basma Radio now has some 16,000 members. Fatima Barqawi, who runs news programs at the station, said the team had created 'contact networks with people on the roads,' also receiving regular updates from Palestinians who live near checkpoints and can see the traffic from their window. Beyond the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, the traffic reports sometimes feature warnings about roads blocked by Israeli settlers, whose attacks against Palestinians have also risen throughout the war. It is a constantly shifting roadscape, Eriqat said, complicating even what otherwise should have been a quick drive to work, home or to see family and friends. 'You might tell people the checkpoint is open now, but three minutes later, it's jammed again. And it's not a regular jam — it could last six or seven hours,' she said. Safe journey 'not guaranteed' Maen, a 28-year-old video editor, used to tune in to Basma Radio to plan his weekly commute from Ramallah to his hometown of Bethlehem, but now prefers checking what other drivers have to say. 'I often call a friend who has Telegram while I'm on the road' and ask for updates from checkpoints, said Mazen, who asked to use his first name only for security reasons. He has deleted Telegram from his own phone after hearing about Palestinians getting into trouble with soldiers at checkpoints over the use of the messaging app. But in a sign of its popularity, one group in which drivers share their updates has 320,000 members — more than one-tenth of the West Bank's population. Rami, an NGO worker living in Ramallah who also declined to give his full name, said he listened to the radio traffic reports but mainly relied on Telegram groups. Yet a safe journey is far from guaranteed. Rami told AFP he recently had to stop on the way to his hometown of Nablus. 'I pulled over, checked the news and saw that 100 settlers had gathered at a settlement's road junction and started throwing stones at Palestinian cars,' recognizable by their green license plates, he said. And passing through a military checkpoint often 'depends on the soldier's mood,' said Eriqat. 'That's the difficult part.'
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
12 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets You Didn't Know About Race Across The World
Race Across The World might not have the Bushtucker Trials of I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! or the physical demands of SAS: Who Dares Wins, but there is no doubt it is one of the toughest shows on TV – both for the contestants and the production team. Now five seasons down and with a batch of famous faces getting ready for the third celebrity series, most viewers are now familiar with the rules of the BBC show. As the title suggests, five pairs are tasked with racing across the globe, from a designated start point to a finish line in another country over the other side of the world. On their journey, the teams cross various checkpoints, and are not allowed to use a smartphone or credit card, with only the cash equivalent of a one-way economy air ticket to their destination to pay for all travel, food and accommodation. But what about all the rules that we don't know about, and the planning that goes into making the show? Well, allow us to lift the lid… If you thought bosses just came up with a route for the contestants and hoped for the best, you'd be wrong. In fact, a whole team of people test it out beforehand. Line producer Maria Kennedy told Radio Times: 'You get some really brave people out on the road for a couple of months [from the production team]. [They tell us], 'Here are going to be the sticking points. This is quite tricky. This bit is amazing'.' She added: 'They do it all on a budget as well so they're not like going out and spending loads of money and having a great jolly. They're literally looking at the budget and seeing if it's possible to get by on less than 50 quid a day.' According to the Guardian, only two producers go on the dry run, only one of whom actually knows the route and which way they are going. 'The other person has no idea and that person is in charge of making the decisions,' series producer Lucy Curtis said. Each time travels with two members of the production crew, a local fixer and a security adviser, but they apparently keep enough distance to 'make the trip feel authentic', the Guardian reported. Executive producer Mark Saben also told BBC News that a medical support vehicle also travels an hour or so behind the teams in some countries. Mark Saben told Broadcast that a director of photography and a series director follow all the teams, capturing the atmospheric camera shots that showcase the destinations. He explained: 'Not only did they shoot those big sweeping drone shots that capture the beauty and scale of their surroundings, but also the on-the-ground shots that convey the hustle and bustle of travelling, so viewers would feel immersed in the competitors' journeys.' The production team have to stay quiet, even when it is clear that the teams are making mistakes. Mark told Broadcast: 'How they made their journey was up to them. This meant, as a production, we had to react to their decisions, however nonsensical. 'It was a nightmare for production management, as the competing contributors decided how and where to go. You cannot underestimate how challenging the journey could be at times.' Executive producer Stephen Day also told The Telegraph: 'We will intervene if they're in danger, and we have a real duty of care. 'If contestants – and there have been some – who are so focussed on budget that they're not eating then you have to get them to spend money on food.' However, producers accompanying the participants on the road are not allowed to outright give them food, either. Praising the embedded crews, exec Mark told the BBC: 'They had to do the same journey as them, sleeping alongside them on the bus, they weren't given a five-star hotel. So they were almost like a family, with its ups and downs. 'And while we had done recces, the teams found bits of the world which were totally surprising.' Having done the initial recce before filming began, executive producer Mark Saben told BBC News that 'one of the poor sods had to do the actual trip again', this time with the real contestants. 'He was very stoical and didn't tell them until the very end, though. As much as possible, we wanted it to feel like a dry run,' Mark added. Prior to filming, exec producer Mark said the first series was 'a year in the making', but added to the BBC: 'It's all very well doing theoretically, looking at timetables and things. But until someone does it for real, you don't know where the difficulties might lie.' Things like visas and vaccines 'for every conceivable country' were sorted in advance. He added to Broadcast that they also 'research every likely bus and train option, cost and connection'. 'We drew up protocols that set rules for how the teams could hitchhike, travel at night and cross borders safely,' he added. 'If there was a significant issue at home, we might allow them to speak to a nominated person but we really try to keep them in the bubble as much as possible,' Maria Kennedy explained (per Radio Times). While the pamphlet of job ads is created by bosses, all the jobs are 100% real. 'We don't go to any of those places and say, 'For the purposes of the show, can you provide this kind of service?'' BBC commissioner Michael Jochnowitz said, according to Radio Times. 'Those are real jobs, real places, real money or accommodation and things like that so again, because they don't have access to a phone or the internet, we basically just give them a guide of potential opportunities in the area.' Executive producer Mark Saben added: 'We use as a rule of thumb, it's like what you'd find on a board in a hostel or something like that so we want [it] to feel absolutely as authentic as it possibly can be.' With budgets extremely tight, eating can become a real issue for the teams, and while you might think they are being given extras off camera, this is not the case. Series two winner Emon Choudhury – who triumphed with his nephew Jamiul – said they would often ask strangers for food and water. He told the Daily Express: 'I lost over a stone, a stone and a half and the same with my nephew, he lost quite a bit as well. The food was an issue. 'You always think on these TV shows, you get a sandwich off-camera or water or a little snack here or there but no, it wasn't like that!' Series one winners Tony and Elaine Teasdale also told the Telegraph that during one leg, they 'wouldn't eat unless somebody fed us or we found super-cheap street food'. 'We'd buy little packs of rice for 20p each, then eat those for three meals a day. I went down a dress size from 14 to 12!' Elaine said. 'Water is more important. We took chlorine tablets, so we didn't have to buy bottled water. That saved both money and time because we never had to find shops. Kebabs in Europe, rice in Asia, and we never bought any drink.' While season one of Race Across The World saw contestants travel from London to Singapore, and season two saw them begin in Mexico and end in Argentina, the third series was contained to just one country – Canada. This was because when the show was filmed, there were still many Covid travel restrictions still in place, which would have been an added complication for the teams and the production. The third season and the celebrity edition were originally planned to air much earlier, but production was pulled early into the pandemic. Season three winners, Tricia Sail and Cathie Rowe revealed that they first applied for the show in 2019, but didn't hear anything back until 2021 because of Covid. Race Across The World concludes with the reunion special on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One, with a celebrity version due to air later in the year. Race Across The World Winners Reveal Sweet Plans For Their Prize Money Here's What These Former Race Across The World Finalists Did Next After Crossing The Finish Line Race Across The World Stars Caroline And Tom Take On 'Posh' Critics
Free Malaysia Today
01-06-2025
- General
- Free Malaysia Today
M'sian drivers who jump queue at S'pore checkpoints risk ban, warns ICA
The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said traffic is expected to be heavy at both land checkpoints during the June school holidays, particularly during the Hari Raya Haji weekend between June 6 and June 9. (Bernama pic) PETALING JAYA : Singapore has warned motorists, including Malaysians, that they risk severe penalties, including blacklisting and a possible ban, if they jump queue at the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said it will be on the lookout for inconsiderate drivers, especially in view of the June school holidays, The Straits Times reported. Mardiana Masdar, team leader at the integrated operations centre at the Woodlands checkpoint, said ground officers who spot vehicles jumping queue will alert the team at the operations centre. They will relay this information to traffic controllers near the checkpoint to direct them to make a U-turn to rejoin the queue. 'If they are non-compliant, we will refer them to our secondary office, where we are able to show them CCTV footage of them cutting queue,' she said. In June 2023, a Malaysian driver travelling from Singapore to Malaysia via the Woodlands checkpoint had refused to make a U-turn, and even drove off after being caught by ICA for trying to jump the queue. Because of his non-compliance and dangerous driving, the driver and car were banned from entering Singapore. The ICA said traffic is expected to be heavy at both land checkpoints during the June school holidays, particularly during the Hari Raya Haji weekend between June 6 and June 9. The authority said that during the long Wesak Day weekend between May 8 and May 13, more than three million travellers crossed the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints. The traffic volume peaked on May 9, with more than 546,000 travellers clearing immigration at both checkpoints in one day.
Malay Mail
01-06-2025
- General
- Malay Mail
Caught cutting the line at Woodlands or Tuas? Singapore's ICA says expect a U-turn or a blacklist
SINGAPORE, June 1 — As the June school holidays begin in Singapore, the country's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers are stepping up enforcement against motorists who attempt to jump queues at the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints. The Straits Times reported today that motorists caught trying to cut ahead in line risk being forced to make a U-turn to the back of the queue — and could face tougher penalties such as blacklisting or bans from entering via vehicle in future. Inspector Mardiana Masdar, team leader at the Integrated Operations Centre at Woodlands Checkpoint, said queue-jumping incidents spike during peak hours, when traffic congestion is most severe. Speaking at a virtual interview on May 28, she stressed the seriousness of such violations. 'If they are non-compliant, we will refer them to our Secondary Office, where we are able to show them CCTV footage of them cutting queues,' she was quoted as saying. She added that officers on the ground alert the control team when they spot such behaviour, who then direct the offending drivers to make a U-turn. Repeat offenders or those who refuse to comply may be banned from entering the checkpoint by vehicle and will have to use alternative transport. She cited a 2023 case involving a Malaysian driver who, after being caught queue-jumping, refused to turn back and drove off instead. 'Because of his non-compliance and dangerous driving, the driver and car were banned from entering Singapore,' she said. Traffic volume at land checkpoints is expected to be especially high from June 6 to 9, which includes the Hari Raya Haji weekend. ICA said in a May 23 statement that during the recent Wesak Day long weekend (May 8–13), over three million travellers cleared both checkpoints. On May 9 alone, more than 546,000 crossed the borders — one of the highest single-day figures this year. Crowds had also caused jams of up to five hours over the May 3 Polling Day weekend. Checkpoint officers are bracing themselves for similar or worse conditions during the June holidays. Inspector Eileen Neo Hui Xin, an assessment and investigation officer at Woodlands Checkpoint, said the long waits often lead to flared tempers. 'Everyone wants to travel smoothly. And during peak periods, it is very difficult to manage people's expectations and to manage the ground properly,' she was quoted as saying. 'Balancing efficiency with security standards is tough, but it also makes the work fulfilling.' Officers have also had to deal with motorists becoming verbally abusive, though Insp Neo noted most are ignored unless they cross the line. Wet weather further complicates clearance procedures — especially for motorcyclists, whose wet fingerprints may fail to register on automated lanes, leading to delays. To avoid unnecessary delays, travellers are urged not to carry prohibited items. Checkpoint Inspector (1) Kendri Parwira Suhairi, 38, a first response team officer, recalled stopping a Singaporean couple who brought batons they claimed were for home defect inspections. 'At one glance, I knew that was not the case,' he said. The couple were referred to police, and the items deemed controlled. CI (1) Kendri said, 'We remain vigilant 24/7. At the end of the day, we are the first line of defence at the border.'
