Saudi Arabia has offered services to seven million Umrah pilgrims from around the world in 2022. Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah allowed people with tourist visas to perform Umrah during their stay in the country for the first time last year, reports Al Arabiya News. The ministry also released 13 awareness guides, including Umrah comprehensive guide, for pilgrims in 14 different languages that facilitated pilgrims of all religious, medical, and procedural information before their arrival in the country. Read more: Route to Mecca: MoU signed to make Bangladeshi pilgrims' Saudi visits easier Citizens of 49 countries, who applied for tourist visas online and upon their arrival at airports, were also facilitated with service. It also facilitated pilgrims with all types of visas – instant visa on arrival, family visa, personal visa, and Schengen, UK and US visa holders, which were all issued electronically. Besides, the Umrah visa had been extended from 30 to 90 days. Read more: Joint working group to resolve passport renewal issues of Bangladeshis living in Saudi The ministry launched “Nusuk platform,” which includes 121 services to book and design the Umrah program and issue visas electronically to all countries, as per the media report. This platform has allowed five countries – Britain, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Kuwait – for the quick issuance of online visas through the Saudi Visa Bio smartphone application of the Saudi Foreign Ministry. A comprehensive insurance service for the pilgrims was also launched last year to cover the health emergencies, accidents and cancelling or delaying flights. Read More: How to Perform Umrah from Bangladesh?

Myanmar announced Thursday it will resume issuing visas for visitors in an effort to help its moribund tourism industry, devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and violent political unrest. Starting on Sunday, tourist “e-Visas” will be provided online in a move also intended to harmonize tourism with neighboring countries, according to a government notice in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper. Visitors need a certificate of vaccination, negative results from a COVID-19 RT-PCR test taken shortly before their flight and a travel insurance policy. They must also take an ATK rapid test after arrival. Myanmar on April 1 had already resumed issuing business visas, and on April 17 dropped a ban on international commercial flights. It had stopped issuing visas and suspended flight arrivals in March 2020. Tourism is an important source of revenue for most Southeast Asian nations but they banned almost all foreign visitors after the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020. In the past six months most have reopened and gradually dropped most or all testing requirements. Also Read: Rights group urges UN Security Council to impose binding arms embargo on Myanmar The pandemic and political instability have buffeted Myanmar’s economy, which was put under more pressure by economic sanctions imposed by Western nations targeting commercial holdings controlled by the army, which seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Myanmar hosted 4.36 million visitor arrivals in 2019, before the pandemic, but the number fell to 903,000 in 2020, the latest year for which official statistics are available. Peaceful opposition to the military takeover has turned into armed resistance, and the country is now in a state of civil war, according to some U.N. experts. The army is conducting large-scale offensives in the countryside while anti-government forces carry out scattered urban guerrilla attacks in the cities. The U.S. State Department advisory for Myanmar, which it calls by its old name Burma, is at its maximum alert Level 4. It advises against travel there “due to areas of civil unrest and armed conflict.” It also says “reconsider travel to Burma due to COVID-19-related restrictions.”