• The Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force air acrobatics team, fly over Montreal in a morale-building tour of Canada called "Operation Inspiration" as Canadians entered their third month of social distancing, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 7. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP
    The Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force air acrobatics team, fly over Montreal in a morale-building tour of Canada called "Operation Inspiration" as Canadians entered their third month of social distancing, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 7. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP
  • Manager Rob Lambert cuts Justin Ludwig's hair at Crows Nest Barbershop, Vancouver, May 19. British Columbia began phase two of the reopening of its economy on Tuesday, allowing certain businesses to open their doors to customers if new health and safety regulations were followed. Darryl Dyck / AP
    Manager Rob Lambert cuts Justin Ludwig's hair at Crows Nest Barbershop, Vancouver, May 19. British Columbia began phase two of the reopening of its economy on Tuesday, allowing certain businesses to open their doors to customers if new health and safety regulations were followed. Darryl Dyck / AP
  • Nicole Greer grooms Oogi, a Coton De Tulear dog (left), and Deidre Howard grooms Oliver, a Bichon Frise, at Tail Spin Dog Spa as Toronto begins to re-open, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
    Nicole Greer grooms Oogi, a Coton De Tulear dog (left), and Deidre Howard grooms Oliver, a Bichon Frise, at Tail Spin Dog Spa as Toronto begins to re-open, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
  • Earls restaurant, Vancouver, May 19. Darryl Dyck / AP
    Earls restaurant, Vancouver, May 19. Darryl Dyck / AP
  • An employee at Zara puts up a sign during a phased reopening in Toronto, Ontario, Canada May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
    An employee at Zara puts up a sign during a phased reopening in Toronto, Ontario, Canada May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
  • Nick Abrantes after buying three pairs of shoes once the restrictions were eased in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
    Nick Abrantes after buying three pairs of shoes once the restrictions were eased in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
  • Canadian Armed Forces medical personnel arrive at Villa Val des Arbres, a seniors' long-term care centre to help amid the outbreak of the coronavirus, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 20. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
    Canadian Armed Forces medical personnel arrive at Villa Val des Arbres, a seniors' long-term care centre to help amid the outbreak of the coronavirus, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 20. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
  • Outside the Camilla Care Community in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, May 19, 2020. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
    Outside the Camilla Care Community in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, May 19, 2020. Carlos Osorio / Reuters
  • A Canadian soldier aids a senior citizen at the Vigi Queen Elizabeth Residential and Long-Term Care Centre in Montreal, Quebec, May 10. AFP
    A Canadian soldier aids a senior citizen at the Vigi Queen Elizabeth Residential and Long-Term Care Centre in Montreal, Quebec, May 10. AFP
  • A city park in Montreal, Canada, May 18. Graham Hughes / AP
    A city park in Montreal, Canada, May 18. Graham Hughes / AP
  • A pupil escorted into the schoolyard by a teacher as schools outside the greater Montreal region begin to reopen, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, May 11. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
    A pupil escorted into the schoolyard by a teacher as schools outside the greater Montreal region begin to reopen, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, May 11. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
  • A pupil has her hands sanitised in the schoolyard, as schools outside the greater Montreal region begin to reopen their doors, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, May 11. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
    A pupil has her hands sanitised in the schoolyard, as schools outside the greater Montreal region begin to reopen their doors, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, May 11. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
  • Andre Laliberte with a jar of fruit preserves next to his banner, a play on words in French reading 'let's preserve life', by artist Patsy Van Roos on May 6, Montreal. Artist Patsy Van Roost was brightening up Montreal balconies and putting smiles on pandemic-weary passers-by with a litany of personalised messages on multicoloured banners hung across the city. "The idea is to spread a little love for people during their solo walks," she told AFP. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP
    Andre Laliberte with a jar of fruit preserves next to his banner, a play on words in French reading 'let's preserve life', by artist Patsy Van Roos on May 6, Montreal. Artist Patsy Van Roost was brightening up Montreal balconies and putting smiles on pandemic-weary passers-by with a litany of personalised messages on multicoloured banners hung across the city. "The idea is to spread a little love for people during their solo walks," she told AFP. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP
  • Artist Patsy Van Roost on her balcony with a banner she created during the pandemic on May 6, Montreal. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP
    Artist Patsy Van Roost on her balcony with a banner she created during the pandemic on May 6, Montreal. Sebastien St-Jean / AFP
  • A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Quebec, May 6. Graham Hughes / AP
    A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Quebec, May 6. Graham Hughes / AP

Hard-hit Canada is springing back to life – or to the already cliched 'new normal'


  • English
  • Arabic

Taking an afternoon stroll in the small park near our house in Montreal, it is tempting to think that normality is within reach. The city has finally shaken off the last vestiges of its long winter. Leaves have sprouted on trees almost overnight.

Grass is filling out patches of brown earth. The warmth of the Sun is invigorating, more so following weeks of confinement and the season’s shift. It feels like the first sip of water after days of fasting and privation.

More restaurant and cafe owners are opening their storefronts for takeout. You can pick up a coffee from Starbucks (at the entrance, after dropping your contactless credit card in a clear box to a masked barista) and sip it on a park bench. Most people walk around in solitude or in pairs, and maybe a third are wearing masks.

There are occasional glimpses of people flouting the rules of gathering too close. Some chat while their children frolic with squirrels nearby.

A young man and a woman sit together on a bench, talking, and then walk off in different directions to their respective homes.
The halting return to normality is startling because the province of Quebec is the scene of Canada's worst coronavirus outbreak.

There are signs that the danger is abating, but until a few days ago, it was one of the hardest hit places in the world, with Montreal at the centre.

There have been over 44,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and over 3,600 have died in Quebec. Over half of the cases, around 22,000, are in Montreal, as well as two thirds of the deaths in the province.

The daily death toll has slowed down but Montreal alone, at 2,200 deaths, accounts for over a third of Canada’s coronavirus fatalities.

There appear to be two main reasons for Montreal's predicament. Last month, the Montreal Gazette published an expose that revealed the deadly mismanagement and abandonment of elderly people at a nursing home in the city where the virus had spread.

I am reading that it is too soon, that there will probably be another wave and another lockdown

Subsequent revelations showed similarly dire conditions in other nursing homes in Montreal and other cities in Canada.

Deaths in those homes account for a scandalous 80 per cent of all deaths in the country, and there are 126 retirement homes and long-term care facilities with at least one confirmed case of infection by the coronavirus in Montreal.

The percentage is much higher than in Europe, and those conditions affect the elderly, the most vulnerable among us.


There is also a class component to the crisis. Lower income areas are more deeply affected, which echoes the inequalities that have come to the fore in the West because of the pandemic, such as the disproportionate number of deaths among African Americans in the US.
Despite all this, somehow, the death toll is stabilising. Quebec as a province has reopened businesses and daycares, and Montreal is supposed to follow suit next week with the reopening of retail stores, and daycares in the beginning of June.

Social distancing is supposed to be observed in all these situations. Emergency services have not been overwhelmed so far.
Montreal is so eclectic that it is hard to really describe it in a way that broadly captures its essence. But there is an unpretentious joy and embrace of living within it (despite the winter months) that is difficult to capture unless you have experienced it.

Trinity Bellwoods Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Ontario entered its first stage of reopening many businesses such as retail stores Tuesday, even as the number of new Covid-19 cases rose and the province extended its emergency orders, Canadian Press reported. Cole Burston / Bloomberg
Trinity Bellwoods Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 19. Ontario entered its first stage of reopening many businesses such as retail stores Tuesday, even as the number of new Covid-19 cases rose and the province extended its emergency orders, Canadian Press reported. Cole Burston / Bloomberg

The hum of conversation and the giggles of children in the park in the late afternoon in summer, the buzz of the Old Town, an espresso with cannoli in Little Italy, the light show in the Notre Dame cathedral, and the music all around.
The walks in the park, the gardens flowering again in the front yards, the takeout meal from your favourite date night restaurant, the tentative steps that we associate with normal, are seduction incarnate to souls hungry for the evolutionary imperative of social contact.

Is it the right thing to do? I am not an epidemiologist, though what I am reading tells me that it is too soon, that there will probably be another wave and another lockdown.

There are all these conversations happening about the "new normal," a phrase that's already become cliched, about the future of work, about whether we'll ever have offices again, how classes at McGill University and Concordia will resume in the autumn, about handshakes and masks and whether you should worry about delivery packages, if you should order in, and where you can find Lysol wipes, and on and on.

But it is easy to drown out all that for just a moment when you pick up the scent of grass through the haze of hand sanitiser. Because that whiff is a fitful glimpse at the light at the far, far end of the tunnel, and it is a little easier for a moment to have to be so far away from loved ones.
I just hope we take it slow, so we do not have to mourn so many between now and when we get there.

Kareem Shaheen is a former Middle East correspondent based in Canada

2021 World Triathlon Championship Series

May 15: Yokohama, Japan
June 5: Leeds, UK
June 24: Montreal, Canada
July 10: Hamburg, Germany
Aug 17-22: Edmonton, Canada (World Triathlon Championship Final)
Nov 5-6 : Abu Dhabi, UAE
Date TBC: Chengdu, China

A cryptocurrency primer for beginners

Cryptocurrency Investing  for Dummies – by Kiana Danial 

There are several primers for investing in cryptocurrencies available online, including e-books written by people whose credentials fall apart on the second page of your preferred search engine. 

Ms Danial is a finance coach and former currency analyst who writes for Nasdaq. Her broad-strokes primer (2019) breaks down investing in cryptocurrency into baby steps, while explaining the terms and technologies involved.

Although cryptocurrencies are a fast evolving world, this  book offers a good insight into the game as well as providing some basic tips, strategies and warning signs.

Begin your cryptocurrency journey here. 

Available at Magrudy’s , Dh104 

A Bad Moms Christmas
Dir: John Lucas and Scott Moore
Starring: Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell, Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines
Two stars

The specs

Engine: 3.8-litre V6

Power: 295hp at 6,000rpm

Torque: 355Nm at 5,200rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 10.7L/100km

Price: Dh179,999-plus

On sale: now 

Skoda Superb Specs

Engine: 2-litre TSI petrol

Power: 190hp

Torque: 320Nm

Price: From Dh147,000

Available: Now

GAC GS8 Specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh149,900

BMW M5 specs

Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor

Power: 727hp

Torque: 1,000Nm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh650,000

Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.

The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?

My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.

The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.

So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.

 

 

CABINET%20OF%20CURIOSITIES%20EPISODE%201%3A%20LOT%2036
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EGuillermo%20del%20Toro%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Tim%20Blake%20Nelson%2C%20Sebastian%20Roche%2C%20Elpidia%20Carrillo%3Cbr%3ERating%3A%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Lexus LX700h specs

Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor

Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm

Transmission: 10-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh590,000

Oppenheimer
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EChristopher%20Nolan%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECillian%20Murphy%2C%20Emily%20Blunt%2C%20Robert%20Downey%20Jr%2C%20Florence%20Pugh%2C%20Matt%20Damon%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E5%2F5%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Who's who in Yemen conflict

Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government

Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council

Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south

Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory

The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo

The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Power: 350hp @ 7,400rpm
Torque: 374Nm @ 5,200rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
​​​​​​​Fuel consumption, combined: 10.5L / 100km

The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

Dunki
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Rajkumar%20Hirani%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Shah%20Rukh%20Khan%2C%20Taapsee%20Pannu%2C%20Vikram%20Kochhar%20and%20Anil%20Grover%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
How%20to%20avoid%20getting%20scammed
%3Cul%3E%0A%3Cli%3ENever%20click%20on%20links%20provided%20via%20app%20or%20SMS%2C%20even%20if%20they%20seem%20to%20come%20from%20authorised%20senders%20at%20first%20glance%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EAlways%20double-check%20the%20authenticity%20of%20websites%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EEnable%20Two-Factor%20Authentication%20(2FA)%20for%20all%20your%20working%20and%20personal%20services%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EOnly%20use%20official%20links%20published%20by%20the%20respective%20entity%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EDouble-check%20the%20web%20addresses%20to%20reduce%20exposure%20to%20fake%20sites%20created%20with%20domain%20names%20containing%20spelling%20errors%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3C%2Ful%3E%0A
U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES

UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)

  • Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs 
  • Thursday 20 January: v England 
  • Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh 

UAE squad:

Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith  

Sinopharm vaccine explained

The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades. 

“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.

"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."

This is then injected into the body.

"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.

"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."

The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.

Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.

“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.

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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E3.0-litre%20twin-turbo%20V6%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E10-speed%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E400bhp%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E563Nm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDh320%2C000%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A