DUBAI // Hanan Al Attar has made it her life’s work to ensure children with special needs feel included in mainstream education. Ms Al Attar created a programme using music and interactive games to teach children with physical or mental disabilities basic lessons in mathematics, Arabic and English. “For a Child’s Smile”, is used in most schools in the Sharjah Educational Zone and won Ms Al Attar […]
ABU DHABI // If Daniel Bekai has his way, robots will be common features in homes of the future. Daniel, 16, wants to live in a world where humans command robots to perform the mundane tasks that an artificially intelligent machine would be better at anyway. “Suppose you’re in your house and you want some yogurt, you can build a robot that gets yogurt from your fridge […]
PARIS — The three young Frenchmen were arrested as they tried to make their way to Syria to wage jihad. They had not harmed anyone in France or made plans to do so, according to the evidence at their trial in January, but in France these days, seeking to fight in Syria is enough to bring a charge of plotting terrorism — and in this case sentences […]
Inside a nondescript office building in central London, a roomful of men and women sit at computer screens and talk over Skype with people in faraway places. Sharp-edged Cantonese fills the air, and a flat-screen TV emits a continuous din. It’s the chanting, singing Midlands crowd at Birmingham, England’s Villa Park Stadium: Liverpool at Aston Villa. The match has just kicked off. The name of the company, […]
CAIRO — Mohamed Morsi did not enjoy being ridiculed on television as president. With the election of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the laughter has stopped. Bassem Youssef, a comedian whose satire of the politically powerful became emblematic of freedom in post-revolutionary Egypt, said Monday that he was ending his popular weekly television show, citing unspecified political pressure and threats. “We consider the shutting down of the show a […]
DUBAI // Private schools in Dubai “must address the shortcomings of teaching Arabic as a first and additional language as a matter of urgency”, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority has said in a report. The warning, issued on Monday in the KHDA’s annual report, Key Findings: 2013-2014 Inspection of Private Schools, outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the 141 private schools inspected by the agency and […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE’s support for women in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) was discussed at a meeting of the United Nations commission on the status of women. At the session held in New York this year, Dr Lamya Fawwaz, the executive director of public affairs at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, talked about the participation of women and girls in those areas, including […]
CAIRO — The Benghazi militant group Ansar al-Shariah is under attack by a renegade former general trying to rid Libya of political Islam. But in response, the militia has taken aim squarely at Washington. “We remind America of their defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia,” Mohammed Ali al-Zahawi, the leader of Ansar al-Shariah, declared this week in a videotaped statement, warning that the United States would face […]
ABU DHABI // Education, wise leadership and a fair constitution are the key reasons for women’s empowerment in the country. Female pioneers in politics say they are equal partners in UAE life and that is the reason for their success. Dr Nidhal Al Tenaiji, general manager at the Zayed Cultural Foundation and a former Federal National Council member, said the huge development of the UAE in a […]
DUBAI // Engineering student Chibuke Enekwechi has plans to develop a drone that could be used to monitor pupils sitting exams instead of relying on teachers to do the job. The final-year student from the American University in Dubai said on Tuesday that he hoped to come up with a winning design that could help him bag Dh1 million and possibly a further US$1m (Dh3.6m) in the […]
Nigeria’s military has located nearly 300 school girls abducted by Boko Haram almost seven weeks ago, the country’s chief of defence said. Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, said on Monday that any potential armed rescue operation was fraught with danger as the 223 girls still held hostage could be caught in the crossfire. Boko Haram fighters kidnapped 276 girls from the remote northeastern town […]
Nigeria’s military has located nearly 300 school girls abducted by Boko Haram six weeks ago but fears using force to try to free them could get them killed, the country’s chief of defence said. Air Marshall Alex Barde told demonstrators supporting the much-criticised military on Monday that Nigerian troops could save the girls. But he added: “We can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them […]
DUBAI // Safety on the country’s roads is a major concern for two thirds of the UAE, according to a YouGov survey on road safety. The survey, commissioned by The National, revealed that 73 per cent of residents in Dubai were worried about road safety, 71 per cent in Sharjah and 65 per cent in Abu Dhabi. Those most concerned were Asians, with 83 per cent, and […]
ABU DHABI // Technical faults and human error are the two major causes of bus accidents, according to the drivers of labourers’ buses. They said that mobile-phone use while driving, drivers not getting enough sleep and older buses with outdated braking equipment also play a role. Most of the buses are fitted with air braking systems, which often fail, the drivers said. “All workers’ buses should be […]
CAIRO — Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former army officer soon to be Egypt’s president, promises to remedy Egypt’s crippling fuel shortage by installing energy-efficient bulbs in every home socket, even if he has to send a government employee to screw in each one. “I’m not leaving a chance for people to act on their own,” Mr. Sisi said in his first and most extensive television interview. “My […]
ON THE EAST BANK OF THE JORDAN RIVER — After visiting a site on Saturday where Jesus is believed to have been baptized, Pope Francis spoke about Jesus’s humility, “the fact that he bends down to wounded humanity in order to heal us.” So when some burly men prepared to carry a doctor in a wheelchair up four steps to the stage for a blessing, perhaps it […]
Sour gripes: Gwyneth Paltrow’s lament has won little support from Angelina Jolie, above Photo: Getty Images Cat fight! Angelina Jolie has gone head to head with Gwyneth Paltrow; which would be pretty much every man’s brunette-on-blonde fantasy, were it not for the fact that one is so skeletal and the other so skinny that there’s a genuine risk their A-list bones might splinter into a million tiny […]
Elaine Paige: ‘I do regret the fact that I never married and had a family of my own,’ she said. ‘But I’m of the belief that you can’t have it all’ Photo: David Rose When I heard what actress Elaine Paige said earlier this week, it struck a chord with me. “I do regret the fact that I never married and had a family of my own,” she […]
Malaysia’s Securities Commission has tightened rules on bai inah, a popular but divisive Islamic financing contract, in a fresh sign that standards in the world’s two main centres for sharia-compliant banking are slowly converging. Regulators and scholars in Malaysia and the Gulf have contrasting approaches to Islamic finance; the Gulf tends to be stricter in defining permissible transactions, and banks in the region have therefore shunned bai […]
|TAP Special| Sharjah might soon have its own Metro, which could be linked to Etihad Rai, as part of a massive plan to develop the emirate’s transport infrastructure, according to sources familiar with the plan. The newly-created Sharjah Roads and Transport Authority has been tasked with the responsibility of undertaking the feasibility studies in this regard. The plan also includes the development of new road networks and […]
GAZA — For 14-year-old Aseel Radi, the promised reconciliation between warring Palestinian political factions is viewed through a forlorn fountain in a crowded market on the eastern side of Gaza City. Aseel used to visit the fountain in what is known as Palestine Square with her father, Maher, a member of the Fatah faction’s armed wing who was killed by militants from its rival, Hamas, during the […]
King Abdullah has approved a five-year plan worth more than 80 billion riyals ($21.33 billion) to develop Saudi Arabia’s education sector, state news agency SPA reported on Monday. The plan includes building 1,500 nurseries, providing training for about 25,000 teachers and establishing educational centers and other related projects, Education Minister Prince Khaled al-Faisal was cited by SPA as saying. The 80 billion riyals are in addition to […]
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The strike had entered its second day when construction workers at Labor Camp 42 got word that their bosses from the BK Gulf corporation had come to negotiate. Mohammed Amir Waheed Sirkar, an electrician from Bangladesh, scrambled down the stairs to meet them. But when he got to the courtyard, he saw the truth: It wasn’t the bosses who had come. […]
Happier days: Nick Clegg and David Cameron in 2010 agree to form a coalition government Photo: Getty Images Just before the general election, the Conservatives released a party political broadcast warning that a coalition would bring disaster. “Under-the-table deals will be the order of the day,” we were told. The fate awaiting savers was depicted by a hammer smashing a piggy bank. The process of proper government would […]
