Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service has been activated in another Middle East and North Africa country, continuing its recent run of providing advanced communications in the region.
The company, a subsidiary of Texas-based SpaceX, said in an X post on Friday that its services have been activated in Bahrain, after Oman in March and Jordan in April.
Bahrain joins Oman, Qatar and Yemen as Middle East countries with access to the service.
Kuwait is also expected to have Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency internet service at some point in 2025, according to Starlink’s website.
The satellite internet service is coming soon in Saudi Arabia's aviation and maritime sectors too, Mr Musk revealed in Riyadh this week, as part of US President Donald Trump's tour of the Gulf.
While it is not available in the UAE, Starlink in 2023 had teamed up with Dubai-based marine electronics company Elcome International to provide internet services to the maritime industry.
The kingdom and the Emirates are listed as "pending regulatory approval", according to Starlink's website.
Starlink is hastening its growth as it pushes to gain a bigger foothold of the market and try to fend off rising competition.
What is Starlink?
Starlink is a satellite constellation service that provides internet access using satellites that orbit the planet at between heights of 200km and 2,000km.
For perspective, the International Space Station is at 408km, while Hubble Space Telescope is at 547km.
The service provides high-speed, low-latency broadband internet. Within each coverage area, orders are fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis.
How fast is Starlink?
Starlink users "typically experience" download speeds between 25 and 220Mbps, with a majority of users experiencing speeds over 100Mbps, according to its website.
The company intends to reach speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.
Latest figures show that there are more than 7,100 Starlink satellites in service − with the company aiming for a total of 42,000.
The launch of more satellites and fine-tuning of the service is expected to increase speeds further.
How does satellite internet differ from 5G service?
To have access to the internet using a 5G connection − or any broadband connection − you need to be within range of a cell tower. The closer you are, the better and faster your connection should be.
With a satellite, you can gain access to the internet, even in the middle of nowhere.
And, in terms of speed, this is a no-contest as 5G, which is up to 20 times faster than 4G, can provide download speeds of anywhere between 1Gbps to 10Gbps, depending on how close you are to a cell tower.
Starlink's planned top speed is at the low end of 5G at this point.
How much is a Starlink subscription?
Starlink has two main subscription categories: personal and business.
Based on US pricing, under personal, there's residential, with monthly plans at $80 and $120, and roam, costing $50 and $165 for unlimited data.
In business, the local priority tier ranges from $65 to $540, while the top-tier global priority – "best for maritime and global connectivity" – starts at $250 and tops out at $2,150.
These fees are in addition to hardware costs – routers, cables, etc. – which start at $349.
Does Starlink have any competitors?
Yes. In the US, it is up against Viasat and HughesNet, both veterans in the industry, having been founded in 1986 and 1971, respectively.
And, of course, there's Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos has been challenging Mr Musk in the space race.
In its latest move, Mr Bezos launched the first 27 internet satellites of Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation in April.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champioons League semi-final:
First leg: Liverpool 5 Roma 2
Second leg: Wednesday, May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome
TV: BeIN Sports, 10.45pm (UAE)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona
Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate
Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid
UFC Fight Night 2
1am – Early prelims
2am – Prelims
4am-7am – Main card
7:30am-9am – press cons
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 4/5
UAE squad
Esha Oza (captain), Al Maseera Jahangir, Emily Thomas, Heena Hotchandani, Indhuja Nandakumar, Katie Thompson, Lavanya Keny, Mehak Thakur, Michelle Botha, Rinitha Rajith, Samaira Dharnidharka, Siya Gokhale, Sashikala Silva, Suraksha Kotte, Theertha Satish (wicketkeeper) Udeni Kuruppuarachchige, Vaishnave Mahesh.
UAE tour of Zimbabwe
All matches in Bulawayo
Friday, Sept 26 – First ODI
Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
Sunday, Oct 5 – First T20I
Monday, Oct 6 – Second T20I
Reputation
Taylor Swift
(Big Machine Records)
Set-jetting on the Emerald Isle
Other shows filmed in Ireland include: Vikings (County Wicklow), The Fall (Belfast), Line of Duty (Belfast), Penny Dreadful (Dublin), Ripper Street (Dublin), Krypton (Belfast)
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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GIANT REVIEW
Starring: Amir El-Masry, Pierce Brosnan
Director: Athale
Rating: 4/5
The Lowdown
Kesari
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Produced by: Dharma Productions, Azure Entertainment
Directed by: Anubhav Singh
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Parineeti Chopra
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
MATCH INFO
Burnley 1 (Brady 89')
Manchester City 4 (Jesus 24', 50', Rodri 68', Mahrez 87')
What is tokenisation?
Tokenisation refers to the issuance of a blockchain token, which represents a virtually tradable real, tangible asset. A tokenised asset is easily transferable, offers good liquidity, returns and is easily traded on the secondary markets.
