Photo taken during the Apollo 11 space mission of Earth and the tropical storm Bernice in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California. Courtesy Nasa
Photo taken during the Apollo 11 space mission of Earth and the tropical storm Bernice in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California. Courtesy Nasa
Photo taken during the Apollo 11 space mission of Earth and the tropical storm Bernice in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California. Courtesy Nasa
Photo taken during the Apollo 11 space mission of Earth and the tropical storm Bernice in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California. Courtesy Nasa

Could patriotic fervour spark governments to combat global warming?


  • English
  • Arabic

When John F Kennedy announced, in May 1961, the American goal of putting a man on the Moon inside a decade, the context was clear. The United States was embroiled in perhaps the hottest moment of the four-decade-long Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The Berlin Wall would go up that summer; the Cuban Missile Crisis would follow the next October. In 1957, the Soviet Union had shocked the US with the launch of Sputnik, an unmanned satellite launched into orbit. Before anyone in the US was even aware that there was, or could be, such a thing as a “space race”, the country learnt that it was behind – perhaps irrevocably so. The nation fell into a panic over Soviet capabilities in maths and science, and schoolchildren were urged on in their studies, for the good of the nation.

The US fell further behind after the launch of Sputnik 2, bearing a dog named Laika, and the race seemed entirely over once Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April 1961. “They just beat the pants off us,” the astronaut John Glenn lamented after Gagarin’s successful mission. “There’s no kidding ourselves about that. But now that the space age has begun, there’s going to be plenty of work for everybody.”

Jerome B Wiesner, the head of President Kennedy’s science advisory committee, suggested that the Soviets were so far ahead in the space race that the country would be best off to “concentrate on aeronautics … and yield the space race to the Russians”. But Kennedy felt the long-term standing of the US depended on the achievements of its astronauts, and empowered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

Space was intended to be a realm beyond great power squabbles. On the day three Apollo 1 astronauts died in a launch-pad fire in January 1967, Neil Armstrong was at the White House with President Lyndon B Johnson, bearing witness to the signing of an international treaty that forbade any country from claiming land on the Moon, Mars or any other planet. The space programme was to be the pride of not just the American people, who had bankrolled the decade-long effort to reach the Moon, but the world.

And yet, when Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon on July 20, 1969, Jay Barbree informs us in his new biography, Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight, they also planted an American flag on its surface, one "stiffened with wire so that it would appear to fly on the airless Moon".

“For one priceless moment in the whole history of man,” President Richard Nixon said, lauding Armstrong and his fellow astronauts, “all the people on this Earth are truly one; one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.”

The Earth might be one, but the American flag appeared to fly on the Moon, nonetheless – a not-too-subtle reminder of which nation had pulled off the coup of journeying the 384,000 kilometres between our planet and its orbiting moon.

Armstrong wanted to take a photograph of the unprecedented occasion, but realised, to his dissatisfaction, that he had already erased his footprint by stepping again in the same spot. Instead, Armstrong left behind a series of keepsakes: mementoes of five dead astronauts, including Gagarin and the three Americans killed in Apollo 1; the diamond-encrusted pin that was to be worn by the Apollo 1 astronauts; and, Barbree hints, a private remembrance of his daughter, Karen Anne, who had died at the age of 2. This was a personal event for Armstrong, a national event, a universal event and a collaborative event among astronauts, all at once.

The speech, the treaty and the flag; herein, we have the mixed messages of the American campaign to emerge triumphant in the proxy war of space exploration. The US pledged to eschew nationalism in the supposedly collaborative, extranational, humanity-wide campaign to breach the frontiers of space, but felt the need, on Armstrong’s setting foot on the Moon, the culmination of this mission, to fly the country’s flag, thereby undercutting its message of humanity’s unity. It would be only too easy to critique American jingoism or the mixed messages that allowed the US to celebrate humankind being “truly one” while also planting its flag on the Moon. But would Armstrong ever have reached the Moon without the mental image of that flag prodding the US forward?

From our market-besotted, austerity-clipped era, it’s difficult to understand the space programme. How could so much time, so many resources and so much money be spent on such a noble but relatively pointless endeavour? And why was the US willing to bear so much of the cost by itself, rather than seeking to collaborate with, say, Britain or France? The answer lies in that wire-stiffened flag, and its implications may bear some indication of the role that nationalism can potentially play in the wildly expensive, universal, noble and entirely not-pointless endeavour of our time: combating climate change. Man reached the Moon because two nations with a deep-seated rivalry and the means to fight pitched combat on a variety of fronts were willing to finance a decade-and-a-half of research and exploration. The US spent approximately US$34 billion (Dh124.89bn) on the space programme in the years leading up to the moon landing. In retrospect, the idea is ludicrous: what strategic advantage was likely to be accrued from sending an astronaut into orbit, or planting a flag on the Moon? The answer is that it was less about any tangible benefit than the secondary effects of demonstrating the strengths of capitalism – or communism – to accomplish the seemingly impossible. The Soviet Union and the US invested precious resources in the space programme, rather than in combating poverty or building their nuclear arsenals, because they believed that it would reflect well on their countries and poorly on their rivals.

When Armstrong was asked why we should go to the Moon, he argued that it was “because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul. We’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream”. But how far would Armstrong, private citizen, have made it toward the Moon without the might of the US government, and its belief in the benefits of space travel, behind him?

The space race was a staggered, back-and-forth competition between warring superpowers. The US and the Soviet Union planned and launched missions in the hopes of trumping their rivals, and were bitterly disappointed by the numerous setbacks, both small and tragically large, along the way. “For us,” wrote one Soviet space official, Lev Kamanin, in his diary after one particularly bruising failure, “this day is darkened with the realisation of lost opportunities and with sadness that today the men flying to the Moon are named Borman, Lovell and ­Anders, and not Bykovsky, ­Popovich or ­Leonov”.

For the astronauts personally engaged in the race, though, dreams of individual triumph were superseded by the hope that there would be a victor. Hardly anyone today has heard of Alexei Leonov, although, if everything had gone according to plan, Leonov, and not Armstrong, would have been the first man on the Moon. But the Soviet N-1 rocket that he was to take into space exploded on the launch pad in February 1969, and it became clear that American astronauts would be the first to reach the Moon. “From his heart he offered good wishes and good luck to his brother,” Barbree writes of Leonov. “‘We ride with you, Neil Armstrong. Have a safe flight.’”

Today, the American space programme is in tatters, requiring rides on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the international community has gathered, in Kyoto, Copenhagen and elsewhere, with the best of intentions to once and for all place a roadblock in the way of climate change. But the treaties and accords have broken down by virtue of that same internationalism. Without everyone’s agreement, why bother to get serious about climate change? China or the US or India will only undo all the advances that others have made. The US is still burdened by fact-challenged debates over climate change, pitting hard science and countless studies on its effects against right-wing politicians and junk scientists peddling bad statistics and worse science. And other countries are reluctant to lead if the US, which produces far more than its share of carbon pollution, does not follow. Armstrong’s triumph, and the flag that he planted, hints that the solution may lie in embracing the cause of climate change as a distinctly national mission. In a world of renewed great-power rivalries, successes can serve as embarrassments for the laggards and prods to avoid the stain of failure.

Nations can not only spur on their own innovation, but transform the dilapidated world of climate-change negotiation into a race in which no one wants to bear the shame of coming in last. Climate change allows smaller countries to surge ahead. The UAE was singled out by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon as “a regional power, popularising actions on the ground.” Ban, visiting for the recent Abu Dhabi Ascent meeting, in advance of the climate meeting next month in New York, singled out the Shams 1 Solar Power Plant and the sustainable Masdar City development as examples of forward-thinking, energy-efficient projects.⊲⊲⊲

The West once believed in a post-superpower world, in which the US would reign unopposed, a silent, peaceful hegemon. The disastrous 2003 invasion and war in Iraq, China’s economic boom and Russia’s new claws-out brutality have rendered that worldview increasingly incorrect. Great-power policy is once more about proving a case: about demonstrating the efficacy, and the superiority, of a particular approach to governance. The US used the moon landing as part of a multifaceted, infinitely complex public-relations campaign arguing the benefits of democracy. Whatever Nixon might have said, reaching the Moon was not merely a human accomplishment; it was an American one.

Climate change offers a different set of factors. Without Armstrong setting foot on the Moon, the world would be entirely unchanged, if significantly poorer in spirit. But without serious, concerted efforts to combat climate change, the world will soon face irrevocable changes to its weather patterns, crop growth and the continued sustainability of its low-lying areas. Sceptics will pounce, but a 2012 study by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University and Stephen Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison argued that the warming temperatures in the arctic have led to an increase in disastrous weather – storms, hurricanes, tornadoes – in North America and Europe. And while total crop growth will only dip slightly because of climate change, a study by Cynthia Rosenzweig of Columbia and Oxford’s Martin L Parry argued that developing countries are likely to bear the worst of it, increasing the disparities in cereal growth between developed and developing countries. Low-lying island countries like Kiribati and the Maldives run the ever-increasing risk of disappearing entirely under the ocean because of the melting of the polar ice caps. These are just some of the many effects that scientists believe are due to arrive, or are already here, from climate change.

Three new books on climate change and its potential fallout by the veteran science writers Elizabeth Kolbert, Bill McKibben and Jeremy Shere testify to the risks of inaction, even as they concentrate primarily on American responses to environmental degradation. Climate change is no longer a threat, or even a potential outcome; it's a reality, and the only question is whether we're capable of facing up to its challenges, and how to efficiently change our dismal global record on the issue. In a world facing the imminent loss of at least 9 per cent, and as many as 52 per cent, of its animal species because of climate change, as Kolbert argues in her impassioned The Sixth Extinction, the time for dithering is long gone.

"Will American engineers fail to grasp this matter and carry it through to a successful completion?" Shere quotes an 1893 Chicago Tribune article in his book Renewable: The World-Changing Power of Alternative Energy, surveying the unprecedented achievement of using the falling water of Niagara Falls to power the World's Fair of that year. "And shall the proverbial confidence of American capitalists shrink from investment in an enterprise which, besides being almost sure of commercial success, will advertise American genius to the assembled nations of the world?" What was good for business was also good for advertising the country. And what better way to advertise national genius than to bear down on solving a problem of unique import for every country in the world?

Shere remains optimistic on his search of sustainable, expandable alternatives to fossil fuels. “Because energy is invisible and because we don’t have to think much about what energy is,” Shere argues, “how it’s made, and where it comes from, we tend to not think about energy at all or care about how it fits into and affects the bigger picture.”

Shere’s book is primarily a study of repeated failures – of turbine blades, installed just off the shore of Manhattan, broken by the force of the East River, or the 5,000 acres of land currently required to produce as much solar energy as one medium-sized coal plant. “Solar energy, like all renewable energy technologies, will have to struggle uphill to blossom,” Shere argues, even as he insists that “solar is on a roll the likes of which would have seemed utterly fantastic only a few decades ago”.

While still only producing less than one per cent of American energy, next-generation solar cells have ramped up the proportion of sunlight that they convert into electricity reaching an average of 20 per cent for commercial panels, with costs dropping in half in 2011 alone. But the US still lags far behind other countries in the percentage of its energy generated by renewables, producing only 6 per cent of its total energy from wind, solar, geothermal and biomass energy combined. Compare the US with Germany, which now produces 31 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

Shere tours tidal-energy turbines and wind farms and geothermal-heat-exchange systems, most the product of scientific entrepreneurs who skirt the boundary between the epoch-defining and the unavoidably niche. We hear occasionally of government encouragement, but the results are inefficient and often counterproductive, such as the wind-energy tax credits that primarily serve as a tax dodge for the wealthy. Shere mostly concentrates on the US, where conservative intransigence and a continuing paralysis on the subject of climate change have rendered the federal government mostly a bystander, limply encouraging the increasing adoption of renewable energy – at best. What is true for the US is true for the rest of the world, as well: that the success of renewable energy depends on concentrated government effort to support its growth.

The long-time environmental advocate McKibben, meanwhile, has lost whatever remaining confidence he once had in the power of individual action to combat climate change and, as he records in his memoir Oil and Honey, has commenced taking the fight to Washington. McKibben is consumed by one particular figure: the 2,795 gigatonnes of energy estimated to still be trapped in the Earth, waiting to be consumed. By McKibben's estimation, this $28 trillion of resources is five times what the environment can handle without suffering irreparable consequences, and Oil and Honey is the story of his quixotic effort as an impromptu activist to plead with the US government and, by extension, the private oil companies intent on reaping those profits, to cease and desist.

McKibben’s vision of “a nation of careful, small-scale farmers” is patently ludicrous, impossible to actually be put into place, and yet his insistence that climate change is set to wreak unprecedented damage without immediate intervention by national governments is palpable. McKibben has gone so far as to purchase a farm for a beekeeper of his acquaintance – the “honey” of his book’s title – as a future inheritance for his daughter and a hedge against climate change.

McKibben directs his fire at President Obama and the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline transmitting Canadian oil from the tar sands of Alberta, even as he acknowledges that we can either have “a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet, but now that we know the numbers it looks like you can’t have both”. McKibben grasps the international aspect of climate change as a thinker even as he concentrates solely on shifting the course of American policy – a substantial enough achievement in its own right – as an activist. McKibben’s book, frustrating and illuminating (do we need to know about every one of McKibben’s email blasts?), is testament that, for democratic governments, policy is often shaped by insistent lone voices.

But governments, to say nothing of their citizens, are unlikely to be guilted or shamed into acquiescence. The lure of cheap gas for their cars and cutting-edge electronics for their homes is too tempting to overcome. Instead, combating climate change must be linked to national pride and identity in the same way that Americans and Russians cheered on the accomplishments of their astronauts. Countries must seek to “win” climate change the way their predecessors sought to “win” the space race.⊲⊲⊲

Standing on the Moon, Armstrong realised that he was there to glance back at Earth, to see our fragile, beautiful planet in all its radiant wholeness.

“Neil recognised it mattered little if we were Republican, Democrat, independent, apolitical, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whomever the hell we liked or disliked,” Barbree writes.

“We lived on a vulnerable world and we needed to take care of its very definite resources; on a world where we all would suffer terrifying consequences if we destroyed its ability to sustain us, its ability to foster and nurture the very life we threatened to contaminate. Neil knew no matter how diligent, how great our effort to protect Earth, it was finite and one day if humans were to survive they would have to move on to new worlds. Helping to achieve that was what he and Buzz and all those who would follow were doing walking on the Moon.”

Armstrong’s mission retains its glimmer of magic because of its sheer glorious pointlessness. ­Humans went to the Moon primarily to prove we could. Doing so demonstrated for Armstrong how carefully we needed to protect and preserve our planet. If we fail to do so, the result will be a new space race, in which we search not for new horizons, but a new home to replace the one we needlessly squandered.

Saul Austerlitz is the author of Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy.

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Carzaty%2C%20now%20Kavak%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECarzaty%20launched%20in%202018%2C%20Kavak%20in%20the%20GCC%20launched%20in%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20140%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Automotive%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECarzaty%20raised%20%246m%20in%20equity%20and%20%244m%20in%20debt%3B%20Kavak%20plans%20%24130m%20investment%20in%20the%20GCC%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Specs

Engine: 51.5kW electric motor

Range: 400km

Power: 134bhp

Torque: 175Nm

Price: From Dh98,800

Available: Now

First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus 

23-man shortlist for next six Hall of Fame inductees

Tony Adams, David Beckham, Dennis Bergkamp, Sol Campbell, Eric Cantona, Andrew Cole, Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Les Ferdinand, Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard, Roy Keane, Frank Lampard, Matt Le Tissier, Michael Owen, Peter Schmeichel, Paul Scholes, John Terry, Robin van Persie, Nemanja Vidic, Patrick Viera, Ian Wright.

10 tips for entry-level job seekers
  • Have an up-to-date, professional LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, set one up today. Avoid poor-quality profile pictures with distracting backgrounds. Include a professional summary and begin to grow your network.
  • Keep track of the job trends in your sector through the news. Apply for job alerts at your dream organisations and the types of jobs you want – LinkedIn uses AI to share similar relevant jobs based on your selections.
  • Double check that you’ve highlighted relevant skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
  • For most entry-level jobs, your resume will first be filtered by an applicant tracking system for keywords. Look closely at the description of the job you are applying for and mirror the language as much as possible (while being honest and accurate about your skills and experience).
  • Keep your CV professional and in a simple format – make sure you tailor your cover letter and application to the company and role.
  • Go online and look for details on job specifications for your target position. Make a list of skills required and set yourself some learning goals to tick off all the necessary skills one by one.
  • Don’t be afraid to reach outside your immediate friends and family to other acquaintances and let them know you are looking for new opportunities.
  • Make sure you’ve set your LinkedIn profile to signal that you are “open to opportunities”. Also be sure to use LinkedIn to search for people who are still actively hiring by searching for those that have the headline “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring” in their profile.
  • Prepare for online interviews using mock interview tools. Even before landing interviews, it can be useful to start practising.
  • Be professional and patient. Always be professional with whoever you are interacting with throughout your search process, this will be remembered. You need to be patient, dedicated and not give up on your search. Candidates need to make sure they are following up appropriately for roles they have applied.

Arda Atalay, head of Mena private sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Rudy Bier, managing partner of Kinetic Business Solutions and Ben Kinerman Daltrey, co-founder of KinFitz

Stamp%20duty%20timeline
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDecember%202014%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%20Former%20UK%20chancellor%20of%20the%20Exchequer%20George%20Osborne%20reforms%20stamp%20duty%20land%20tax%20(SDLT)%2C%20replacing%20the%20slab%20system%20with%20a%20blended%20rate%20scheme%2C%20with%20the%20top%20rate%20increasing%20to%2012%20per%20cent%20from%2010%20per%20cent%3A%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EUp%20to%20%C2%A3125%2C000%20%E2%80%93%200%25%3B%20%C2%A3125%2C000%20to%20%C2%A3250%2C000%20%E2%80%93%202%25%3B%20%C2%A3250%2C000%20to%20%C2%A3925%2C000%20%E2%80%93%205%25%3B%20%C2%A3925%2C000%20to%20%C2%A31.5m%3A%2010%25%3B%20More%20than%20%C2%A31.5m%20%E2%80%93%2012%25%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EApril%202016%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20New%203%25%20surcharge%20applied%20to%20any%20buy-to-let%20properties%20or%20additional%20homes%20purchased.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EJuly%202020%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Chancellor%20Rishi%20Sunak%20unveils%20SDLT%20holiday%2C%20with%20no%20tax%20to%20pay%20on%20the%20first%20%C2%A3500%2C000%2C%20with%20buyers%20saving%20up%20to%20%C2%A315%2C000.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EMarch%202021%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mr%20Sunak%20extends%20the%20SDLT%20holiday%20at%20his%20March%203%20budget%20until%20the%20end%20of%20June.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EApril%202021%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202%25%20SDLT%20surcharge%20added%20to%20property%20transactions%20made%20by%20overseas%20buyers.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EJune%202021%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20SDLT%20holiday%20on%20transactions%20up%20to%20%C2%A3500%2C000%20expires%20on%20June%2030.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EJuly%202021%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Tax%20break%20on%20transactions%20between%20%C2%A3125%2C000%20to%20%C2%A3250%2C000%20starts%20on%20July%201%20and%20runs%20until%20September%2030.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Last 10 NBA champions

2017: Golden State bt Cleveland 4-1
2016: Cleveland bt Golden State 4-3
2015: Golden State bt Cleveland 4-2
2014: San Antonio bt Miami 4-1
2013: Miami bt San Antonio 4-3
2012: Miami bt Oklahoma City 4-1
2011: Dallas bt Miami 4-2
2010: Los Angeles Lakers bt Boston 4-3
2009: Los Angeles Lakers bt Orlando 4-1
2008: Boston bt Los Angeles Lakers 4-2

TCL INFO

Teams:
Punjabi Legends 
Owners: Inzamam-ul-Haq and Intizar-ul-Haq; Key player: Misbah-ul-Haq
Pakhtoons Owners: Habib Khan and Tajuddin Khan; Key player: Shahid Afridi
Maratha Arabians Owners: Sohail Khan, Ali Tumbi, Parvez Khan; Key player: Virender Sehwag
Bangla Tigers Owners: Shirajuddin Alam, Yasin Choudhary, Neelesh Bhatnager, Anis and Rizwan Sajan; Key player: TBC
Colombo Lions Owners: Sri Lanka Cricket; Key player: TBC
Kerala Kings Owners: Hussain Adam Ali and Shafi Ul Mulk; Key player: Eoin Morgan

Venue Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Format 10 overs per side, matches last for 90 minutes
Timeline October 25: Around 120 players to be entered into a draft, to be held in Dubai; December 21: Matches start; December 24: Finals

Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
if you go

The flights

Air Astana flies direct from Dubai to Almaty from Dh2,440 per person return, and to Astana (via Almaty) from Dh2,930 return, both including taxes. 

The hotels

Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Almaty cost from Dh1,944 per night including taxes; and in Astana the new Ritz-Carlton Astana (www.marriott) costs from Dh1,325; alternatively, the new St Regis Astana costs from Dh1,458 per night including taxes. 

When to visit

March-May and September-November

Visas

Citizens of many countries, including the UAE do not need a visa to enter Kazakhstan for up to 30 days. Contact the nearest Kazakhstan embassy or consulate.

How to apply for a drone permit
  • Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
  • Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
  • Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
  • Submit their request
What are the regulations?
  • Fly it within visual line of sight
  • Never over populated areas
  • Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
  • Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
  • Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
  • Should have a live feed of the drone flight
  • Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
THE POPE'S ITINERARY

Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
1pm: departure by plane from Rome / Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi
10pm: arrival at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport


Monday, February 4
12pm: welcome ceremony at the main entrance of the Presidential Palace
12.20pm: visit Abu Dhabi Crown Prince at Presidential Palace
5pm: private meeting with Muslim Council of Elders at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
6.10pm: Inter-religious in the Founder's Memorial


Tuesday, February 5 - Abu Dhabi to Rome
9.15am: private visit to undisclosed cathedral
10.30am: public mass at Zayed Sports City – with a homily by Pope Francis
12.40pm: farewell at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
1pm: departure by plane to Rome
5pm: arrival at the Rome / Ciampino International Airport

Itcan profile

Founders: Mansour Althani and Abdullah Althani

Based: Business Bay, with offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India

Sector: Technology, digital marketing and e-commerce

Size: 70 employees 

Revenue: On track to make Dh100 million in revenue this year since its 2015 launch

Funding: Self-funded to date

 

Brief scores:

Barcelona 3

Pique 38', Messi 51 (pen), Suarez 82'

Rayo Vallecano 1

De Tomas Gomez 24'

The specs

Engine: Two permanent-magnet synchronous AC motors

Transmission: two-speed

Power: 671hp

Torque: 849Nm

Range: 456km

Price: from Dh437,900 

On sale: now

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

Employment lawyer Meriel Schindler of Withers Worldwide shares her tips on achieving equal pay
 
Do your homework
Make sure that you are being offered a fair salary. There is lots of industry data available, and you can always talk to people who have come out of the organisation. Where I see people coming a cropper is where they haven’t done their homework.
 
Don’t be afraid to negotiate

It’s quite standard to negotiate if you think an offer is on the low side. The job is unlikely to be withdrawn if you ask for money, and if that did happen I’d question whether you want to work for an employer who is so hypersensitive.
 
Know your worth
Women tend to be a bit more reticent to talk about their achievements. In my experience they need to have more confidence in their own abilities – men will big up what they’ve done to get a pay rise, and to compete women need to turn up the volume.
 
Work together
If you suspect men in your organisation are being paid more, look your boss in the eye and say, “I want you to assure me that I’m paid equivalent to my peers”. If you’re not getting a straight answer, talk to your peer group and consider taking direct action to fix inequality.