Saudi Arabia to hold downsized Hajj from Wednesday

Up to 10,000 people residing in the kingdom will participate in the Muslim ritual, a tiny fraction of the 2.5 million that attended last year, after what many saw as an opaque selection process that left a wave of applicants rejected. The foreign press are barred from this year's hajj, usually a huge global media event, as the government tightens access to the holy city of Makkah and puts in place strict health restrictions to prevent a virus outbreak during the five-day pilgrimage — a key pillar of Islam. Saudi Arabia has recorded more than 260,000 cases of the novel coronavirus, while the number of declared global infections exceeded 16 million on Sunday. Mask-clad pilgrims began trickling...