News has reached us that tickets to the March 29 peace concert by the Lebanese soprano Majida el Roumi, a UN goodwill ambassador, at the Emirates Palace hotel, have already sold out, as has the Pearl seating category for both performances of the Bolshoi Ballet's Giselle, to be held on March 25 and 26.
We panicked, fearing we might miss out on purchasing our tickets to Andrea Bocelli's first performance in the Arab world, but organisers put our minds at ease.
"Due to an overwhelming demand for tickets, we have increased the capacity of the Andrea Bocelli show," said John Lickrish, the managing director of the events company, Flash Entertainment.
"We've had so many calls and inquiries from people who had tried to buy in the Grandstand previously and were disappointed. They can now purchase these extra seats for Bocelli. People across the city have really got behind this show and I think many are now realising they may miss out," Mr Lickrish said.
The additional sales will double the size of the popular Italian tenor's audience for the open-air event on March 27, at what organisers believe will be "the biggest classical event in the country's history".
It will be the fourth leg of Bocelli's Incanto album tour and its only stop in the Middle East, and comes as part of the Sixth Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Festival, which runs from March 21 to April 2.
With only 10 days to go until the festival starts, we'll be rushing to purchase our tickets. See you in line!
You will never forgive yourself if you miss out on the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, commencing this Tuesday with 51 exhibitors from five countries lugging over thousands of titles from around the world. There will be book signings, panel discussions with celebrated writers, world-renowned chefs demonstrating how to cook the recipes that feature in their international cookbooks and the first antiquarian sale in the Middle East. If you do not make a stop at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre sometime between March 17 and 22, then you may just have wasted one of the best opportunities for cultural celebration to grace the capital. You have been warned.
An independent fringe art fair focusing international attention on Dubai's art and cultural agenda will begin for the third year tomorrow at 7pm, and will take place in the houses of Bastakiya - an older, historic area of Dubai.
Al Bastakiya Art Fair (BAF) will be open until March 22, from 9am to 8pm daily, and is running parallel to Art Dubai and Sharjah Biennial 2009. In the best tradition of all things fringe, it will provide a platform for young, innovative and emerging artistic talent by opening up the unique environment of Bastakiya to contemporary art. Involving international, regional and local galleries, artists and curators, the programme of events will include a vernissage, daily exhibitions and lectures.
Local artists are encouraged to take part in the exhibition, and are urged to use BAF as their platform to be heard. Contact XVA Gallery, the organisers of BAF, at 04-3535383 and launch that art career.
A drive to Dubai for those living outside the caffeine-driven city should perhaps be on the agenda for this week, given the plethora of activities on hand.
First off, this afternoon will be your last chance to stop by the Taste of Dubai exhibition, which started last Wedesday, to watch a live cooking demo that will introduce new concepts in healthy cuisine.
Chef Emad, one of the leading chefs from Al Mijana restaurant at Le Méridien Airport Dubai, will be participating and will offer a wealth of cookery advice, including recipes, techniques and practical tips and features useful to culinary students, housewives and food lovers alike.
Today's live cooking sessions will take place from 2 to 3.30pm and from 7.30 to 9.30pm. Whether you're a housewife, an aspiring chef, an amateur cook or a culinary student, it won't hurt to expand your recipe cache and partake in a little bit of culinary advice.
Between the two cooking sessions, find some time to nip over to the Hamleys toy store at Dubai Mall if you're a parent: the world's favourite fashion icon, Barbie, will be celebrating her 50th birthday from 4 to 6pm. Barbie fans should perhaps dress up, to fit in with the festivities.
End the day with a well-earned break at Lotus One, the fusion restaurant and lounge bar managed by George V Leisure and Hospitality. A feast of "Pot Stickers and Dumplings" awaits you all through the month, in celebration of a delicacy that marks an age-old belief that dumplings signify good fortune.
Pan-fried on the bottom and steamed on top, the dumplings, or gyoza, are called pot stickers because they tend to stick to the bottom of the pan; until, that is, they are scrapped off and on to your plate.
Three days of lectures on the Fear of the Other, organised by the Paris-Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi, will take place starting on March 17 at the Cultural Foundation in the capital. The general public are invited to come and listen to the wide variety of lectures by international panellists and scholars, who will discuss the different concepts of fear as they appear in literary texts - whether novels or poems.
Although most of the lectures will be in French, fear not; English and Arabic simultaneous translation will be provided.
hkhalaf@thenational.ae
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
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
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
Various Artists
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
Favourite things
Luxury: Enjoys window shopping for high-end bags and jewellery
Discount: She works in luxury retail, but is careful about spending, waits for sales, festivals and only buys on discount
University: The only person in her family to go to college, Jiang secured a bachelor’s degree in business management in China
Masters: Studying part-time for a master’s degree in international business marketing in Dubai
Vacation: Heads back home to see family in China
Community work: Member of the Chinese Business Women’s Association of the UAE to encourage other women entrepreneurs
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3EName%3A%20Cashew%0D%3Cbr%3EStarted%3A%202020%0D%3Cbr%3EFounders%3A%20Ibtissam%20Ouassif%20and%20Ammar%20Afif%0D%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3EIndustry%3A%20FinTech%0D%3Cbr%3EFunding%20size%3A%20%2410m%0D%3Cbr%3EInvestors%3A%20Mashreq%2C%20others%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Confirmed%20bouts%20(more%20to%20be%20added)
%3Cp%3ECory%20Sandhagen%20v%20Umar%20Nurmagomedov%0D%3Cbr%3ENick%20Diaz%20v%20Vicente%20Luque%0D%3Cbr%3EMichael%20Chiesa%20v%20Tony%20Ferguson%0D%3Cbr%3EDeiveson%20Figueiredo%20v%20Marlon%20Vera%0D%3Cbr%3EMackenzie%20Dern%20v%20Loopy%20Godinez%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ETickets%20for%20the%20August%203%20Fight%20Night%2C%20held%20in%20partnership%20with%20the%20Department%20of%20Culture%20and%20Tourism%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20went%20on%20sale%20earlier%20this%20month%2C%20through%20www.etihadarena.ae%20and%20www.ticketmaster.ae.%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Key products and UAE prices
iPhone XS
With a 5.8-inch screen, it will be an advance version of the iPhone X. It will be dual sim and comes with better battery life, a faster processor and better camera. A new gold colour will be available.
Price: Dh4,229
iPhone XS Max
It is expected to be a grander version of the iPhone X with a 6.5-inch screen; an inch bigger than the screen of the iPhone 8 Plus.
Price: Dh4,649
iPhone XR
A low-cost version of the iPhone X with a 6.1-inch screen, it is expected to attract mass attention. According to industry experts, it is likely to have aluminium edges instead of stainless steel.
Price: Dh3,179
Apple Watch Series 4
More comprehensive health device with edge-to-edge displays that are more than 30 per cent bigger than displays on current models.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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
