Expo 2020 Dubai kicks off with lavish opening ceremony

DUBAI—The first world fair to be held in the Middle East, Expo 2020 Dubai, opened on Thursday with a lavish ceremony of fireworks, music and messaging about the power of global collaboration for a more sustainable future.

Stars headlining the opening ceremony, which was projected in public spaces around the UAE, included Italian tenor singer Andrea Bocelli, British singer Ellie Goulding, Chinese pianist Lang Lang and Saudi singer Mohammed Abdu.

Dubai, the region's tourism, trade and business hub, is hoping to boost its economy by attracting 25 million business and tourist visits to the world fair, which has been built from scratch on 4.3 square kilometers of desert.

Many countries and companies are also looking to the expo - the first major global event open to visitors since the coronavirus pandemic - to boost trade and investment. 

The full expo site will open its doors to exhibitors from almost 200 countries on Friday after being delayed for a year by the pandemic. Chosen eight years ago to follow the 2015 Expo in Milan, Italy, the event cost around $6.8 billion.

Dubai says it wants the Expo, an exhibition of culture, technology and architecture under the banner "Connecting Minds and Creating the Future", to be a demonstration of ingenuity, and a place where global challenges such as climate change, conflict and economic growth can be addressed together.

The event will probably contend with a global reluctance to travel and many events will be streamed live online. But Expo still officially expects to attract more visits than Milan received and more than twice the population of the UAE.

"We are quite confident...that by being responsible in how we manage the situation with COVIV but also in how we put forward an exciting program for visitors, we will hopefully be able to thread the needle by opening up but remaining at the same time conservative and keep public safety first and foremost," Reem Al Hashimy, Expo 2020 Dubai's Director General told Reuters.

The Gulf state has relaxed most coronavirus restrictions but Expo requires face masks to be worn and for visitors over 18 to be vaccinated against, or test negative for, COVID-19.

Before the pandemic, the consultancy EY forecast that the Expo would over the course of its six months contribute 1.5% of the UAE's gross domestic product. (Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

-reuters

Dubai starts tests in bid to become first city with flying taxis

DUBAI, UAE — Dubai staged a test flight on Monday for what it said would soon be the world’s first drone taxi service under an ambitious plan by the United Arab Emirates city to lead the Arab world in innovation.

The flying taxi developed by German drone firm Volocopter resembles a small, two-seater helicopter cabin topped by a wide hoop studded with 18 propellers.

It was unmanned for its maiden test run in a ceremony arranged for Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed.

Meant to fly without remote control guidance and with a maximum flight duration of 30 minutes, it comes with plenty of fail-safes in case of trouble: back-up batteries, rotors and, for a worst case scenario, a couple of parachutes.

Volocopter is in a race with more than a dozen well-funded European and U.S. firms, each with its own science fiction-inspired vision for creating a new form of urban transport that is a cross between a driverless electric car and a short-haul, vertical takeoff-and-landing aircraft.

These include aerospace giant Airbus, which aims to put a self-piloting taxi in the air by 2020; Kitty Hawk, a company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page; and Uber, which is working with partners on its own flying taxi strategy.

“Implementation would see you using your smartphone, having an app, and ordering a Volocopter to the next voloport near you. The volocopter would come and autonomously pick you up and take you to your destination,” CEO Florian Reuter said.

“It already is capable of flying based on GPS tracks today, and we will implement full sense capability, also dealing with unknown obstacles on the way,” he added, saying developers aimed to initiate the taxis within five years.

In Monday’s test flight, the device hovered upward about 200 meters and whirred for about five minutes over a windswept patch of sand astride the emirate’s Gulf coast.

Attired in crisp white robes and headdresses, Sheikh Hamdan and his entourage clapped approvingly from a nearby viewing deck as the craft alighted.

The UAE has sought to distinguish itself in a region mired in war and strife as a high-tech, forward-looking society.

It plans to send an unmanned probe to Mars by 2021, the Arab world’s first mission to space, and Dubai has in many ways led their showy march into the future by introducing the region’s first driverless metro and robot policemen prototypes.

“Encouraging innovation and adopting the latest technologies contributes not only to the country‘s development but also builds bridges into the future,” Sheikh Hamdan said in a statement.

source: interaksyon.com

Sri Lankan faces UAE court for making death threat vs. Pinay on Facebook

A Sri Lankan electrician faced a United Arab Emirates (UAE) court on Sunday for allegedly threatening to kill a Filipina co-worker via a post on the social networking site Facebook.

The Sri Lankan, 33, was also accused of making a similar threat to the Filipina waitress via text message, according to a report of the news site Khaleej Times on Monday.

He was charged the Court of First Instance for threatening to commit a crime supposedly after the Filipina turned down his marriage proposal, the report said.

The Filipina waitress, 24, told prosecutors that she saw the threatening message on Facebook in March.

She said she and the Sri Lankan used to work in the same hotel in Abu Dhabi.

While the Filipina was transferred to Dubai, the defendant allegedly kept calling her and sending her SMS messages.

The Filipina had her mobile number deactivated but later learned from a friend that the defendant posted on Facebook that he wanted to kill her.

After seeing the message, the Filipina sought police assistance and lodged a complaint.

Police in Jebel Ali arrested the defendant and seized his laptop in April.

For his part, the defendant said he and the Filipina met two-and-a-half years ago and entered into a relationship for one year.

He said he lent the Filipina Dh1,000 and she did not pay it back. He also claimed the Filipina ignored his calls.

But he admitted he wrote on his Facebook page that he wanted to kill her and asked people how he could do it. - VVP, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Pinay maid caught hiding stolen gold jewelry in bar of soap

A Filipina housemaid stole jewelry from her employer in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and hid them inside a bar of soap, a report of the news site Emirates 24/7 said.

The report said the 29-year-old Filipina was also accused of stealing cash from her employer and using a mobile phone to transfer the money to the Philippines.

The Filipina allegedly connived with the maid, 43, of the next-door neighbor who charged Dh20 for the prepaid telephone card used in the money transfer.

The Filipina's employer, an Emirati manager, 33, told the court that their family discovered gold jewelry missing from their house in February.

In March, the Emirati's mother also lost Dh2,000.

Suspecting that the maid was behind the missing items, the employer decided to trap her.

When she was confronted by her employers, the maid initially denied the crime but later confessed and handed over a blue bar of soap which contained the missing jewelry.

The maid cut the bar soap in half and made a hole in each half.

"She confessed to cutting the soap into two halves, making a hole in each half, stuffing the holes with jewellery and rejoining the two halves of the soap so as to make it easier to take it out of the house,” the Emirati told the court.

After conducting a search in the maid's room, the police found stolen money worth Dh1,000 and money transfers receipts.

The court is expected to hand its verdict on July 9. - VVP, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com