The sprawling, omnipresent environs of Formula One will swallow up Abu Dhabi next year, but members of an advance party representing this sport yesterday began to voyage to these parts. This was an engrossing sort of afternoon with Kimi Raikkonen, the world champion of an unruly, elite and sometimes deadly pursuit, occupying the role of a chief explorer.
A cavalcade of media, public relations people and other distinguished folk with monetary interests in the first staging of next year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix clamping themselves to the Emirates Palace.
The airline Etihad wheeled a Formula One car into a ballroom, and a posse of local schoolchildren turned up to pose Raikkonen questions. It was all very contrived, a little manic but naturally Formula One.
Like some sort of pioneer, Raikkonen looked as if he had washed up at the Palace's beach, rather than jetting into the UAE by private jet at the back of 6am.
Etihad may have threw their lot, and a serious pot of money, into associating their brand with a grand prix at the Yas Marina circuit to which they own the title deeds over the next three years, but this is a man who flies beyond first class.
Raikkonen, 28, who won the world title in his first year with Ferrari, is predicting a bright future for the growth of the event in Abu Dhabi.
"It's going to be interesting to see the changes here next year," he said. "There have already been a lot of changes since I first came here three years ago.
"I heard a lot of things about Dubai, but Abu Dhabi continues to change. It's going to be an amazing place. It is amazing now, but even more maybe in 10 years when everything is built here."
Dripping with opulence, others would harshly called it Kitsch, the Emirates Palace was the correct venue to house an event for a man whose basic salary last year was a paltry US$51m (Dh187m).
In the learned Forbes 2007 rich list for the world's 100 highest celebrity earners, Raikkonen occupied 40th place, sandwiched between George Clooney and Jerry Seinfeld.
At such times, Formula One's marriage to Abu Dhabi seems like a match made in some type of cash-littered heaven.
The cost of the Yas Island development was an estimated $40bn, but that is already leaping off the Richter scale.
While the capital of the UAE is used as a traditional overnight stopover for passengers journeying to the heart of Asia, Raikkonen opted to spend a day before continuing onwards to Singapore.
Raikkonen is not a morning person, so the night staging of the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday will fit snugly into his plans.
He appeared to manage his itinerary with dexterity and as much watchfulness as he manages a race car, despite his travels turning into travails in the defence of his title.
He is 21 points behind the leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren in the world championship standings, but in his own Finnish and solemn manner, found a few points of his own at a press conference housed in the type of suite that makes your standard granny flat seem like a bolt-hole.
Raikkonen went through a routine in which he is well rehearsed and versed, responding courteously to questions.
One could depict him as tedious in speaking as he is tenacious in competition, but he is affable and his monosyllabic persona is typically Scandinavian. One that can be mistaken for coolness or even disinterest.
The Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo is happy that the partnership of Raikkonen and Felipe Massa will continue until the end of the 2010 season, despite the slipping of his world halo. "Kimi is like those great forwards in football who can't score for a while," he opined.
"Sooner or later they find their way to the goal again, which is good for them and their teams." In hindsight, Raikkonen would have been preferred to be compared to an ice hockey player or even a snowboarder.
He admitted to one child yesterday that he is not overly keen on football.
After fulfilling with some aplomb his role of trying to promote the staging of the grand prix, he managed to limp onwards to plant other Ferrari flags later in the day at Marina Mall in Abu Dhabi, and the under construction Yas Island circuit which he viewed from above in a helicopter.
Planted on him was more product placement than you would find in a James Bond movie.
It would not be wrong to say that blue-chip sponsors appear to fall over themselves be linked with Ferrari.
The Italian firm are building a new US$600m theme park on Yas Island which is due to open next year, while Raikkonen sports a hat with the name of Mubadala, the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, plastered on it.
The company purchased a five percent stake in Ferrari three years ago.
One may have learned next to nothing new about Raikkonen during his visit, but Formula One manages to reinforce the belief that it is a sport about the haves and have mores.
@Email:dkane@thenational.ae
Fixtures
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More coverage from the Future Forum
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
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How Islam's view of posthumous transplant surgery changed
Transplants from the deceased have been carried out in hospitals across the globe for decades, but in some countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, the practise was banned until relatively recently.
Opinion has been divided as to whether organ donations from a deceased person is permissible in Islam.
The body is viewed as sacred, during and after death, thus prohibiting cremation and tattoos.
One school of thought viewed the removal of organs after death as equally impermissible.
That view has largely changed, and among scholars and indeed many in society, to be seen as permissible to save another life.
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Men's wheelchair 800m T34: 1. Walid Ktila (TUN) 1.44.79; 2. Mohammed Al Hammadi (UAE) 1.45.88; 3. Isaac Towers (GBR) 1.46.46.
Seven tips from Emirates NBD
1. Never respond to e-mails, calls or messages asking for account, card or internet banking details
2. Never store a card PIN (personal identification number) in your mobile or in your wallet
3. Ensure online shopping websites are secure and verified before providing card details
4. Change passwords periodically as a precautionary measure
5. Never share authentication data such as passwords, card PINs and OTPs (one-time passwords) with third parties
6. Track bank notifications regarding transaction discrepancies
7. Report lost or stolen debit and credit cards immediately
Who is Allegra Stratton?
- Previously worked at The Guardian, BBC’s Newsnight programme and ITV News
- Took up a public relations role for Chancellor Rishi Sunak in April 2020
- In October 2020 she was hired to lead No 10’s planned daily televised press briefings
- The idea was later scrapped and she was appointed spokeswoman for Cop26
- Ms Stratton, 41, is married to James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator
- She has strong connections to the Conservative establishment
- Mr Sunak served as best man at her 2011 wedding to Mr Forsyth
Women%E2%80%99s%20T20%20World%20Cup%20Qualifier
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'Morbius'
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Stars: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona
Rating: 2/5
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
Three ways to boost your credit score
Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;
3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
Draw for Europa League last-16
Istanbul Basaksehir v Copenhagen; Olympiakos Piraeus v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Rangers v Bayer Leverkusen; VfL Wolfsburg v Shakhtar Donetsk; Inter Milan v Getafe
Sevilla v AS Roma; Eintracht Frankfurt or Salzburg v Basel; LASK v Manchester United
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)
The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Trailblazer
Price, base / as tested Dh99,000 / Dh132,000
Engine 3.6L V6
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Power 275hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque 350Nm @ 3,700rpm
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Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Explainer: Tanween Design Programme
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The trio have been guided by experts from the industry over the course of nine months, as they developed their own products that merge their unique styles with traditional elements of Emirati design. This includes laboratory sessions, experimental and collaborative practice, investigation of new business models and evaluation.
It is led by British contemporary design project specialist Helen Voce and mentor Kevin Badni, and offers participants access to experts from across the world, including the likes of UK designer Gareth Neal and multidisciplinary designer and entrepreneur, Sheikh Salem Al Qassimi.
The final pieces are being revealed in a worldwide limited-edition release on the first day of Downtown Designs at Dubai Design Week 2019. Tashkeel will be at stand E31 at the exhibition.
Lisa Ball-Lechgar, deputy director of Tashkeel, said: “The diversity and calibre of the applicants this year … is reflective of the dynamic change that the UAE art and design industry is witnessing, with young creators resolute in making their bold design ideas a reality.”
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Pathaan
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Jewel of the Expo 2020
252 projectors installed on Al Wasl dome
13.6km of steel used in the structure that makes it equal in length to 16 Burj Khalifas
550 tonnes of moulded steel were raised last year to cap the dome
724,000 cubic metres is the space it encloses
Stands taller than the leaning tower of Pisa
Steel trellis dome is one of the largest single structures on site
The size of 16 tennis courts and weighs as much as 500 elephants
Al Wasl means connection in Arabic
World’s largest 360-degree projection surface
The currency conundrum
Russ Mould, investment director at online trading platform AJ Bell, says almost every major currency has challenges right now. “The US has a huge budget deficit, the euro faces political friction and poor growth, sterling is bogged down by Brexit, China’s renminbi is hit by debt fears while slowing Chinese growth is hurting commodity exporters like Australia and Canada.”
Most countries now actively want a weak currency to make their exports more competitive. “China seems happy to let the renminbi drift lower, the Swiss are still running quantitative easing at full tilt and central bankers everywhere are actively talking down their currencies or offering only limited support," says Mr Mould.
This is a race to the bottom, and everybody wants to be a winner.
