One year ago on the eve of Eid, the only uncertainty at the Baniyas souq was whether the crescent moon would be sighted above Jebel Hafeet on Monday night or Tuesday.
Once the new moon was sighted and Eid Al Fitr had begun, everything else was a certainty, predetermined by tradition. Thousands gathered at the prayer grounds for the morning Eid prayers. Hundreds crossed the country and the Peninsula, from Oman and Yemen, to mark Eid celebrations with Abu Dhabi relatives. Cauldrons of halwa sweets and harees porridge simmered to feed guests and the gathering lasted days. In the three days before Eid Al Fitr, traders did a month’s worth of sales, or more. Every year it was the same.
Until now. The coronavirus pandemic had upended the Eid traditions as people stay at home to stem the deadly spread of the virus. For those at the Baniyas souq, this meant a struggle after an April lockdown and an Eid rush that never came.
Al Abeer Henna and Beauty Saloon reopened on Tuesday after a two month shutdown. Its beauticians waited from early morning until sunset for customers to appear. Not one graced the threshold.
“It’s sad,” said Shamim Abdul Qadr, a henna artist from Mumbai. “It’s not the same as before.”
The beauty parlour typically does three weeks worth of sales in the three days before the festival and stays open almost 24-hours a day to meet the demand of the Eid rush. The second day of business was little better than the first: five customers came.
Ms Abdul Qadr had been excited to work again. She spent the lockdown watching the Hindi-language crime series Crime Patrol on YouTube. Once a week, she went to Lulu Hypermarket for groceries.
“We want work,” said Ms Abdul Qadr. “It’s very difficult when we’re sitting in the house. When we’re in the house, the mind is going here and there.”
On the other side of the souq, the famed Omani sweet shop Abu Suroor had only a handful of customers before sunset. Usually, it is an essential Eid stop for the Baniyas shopper.
“We’ve prepared eight or 10 vats this Ramadan, each is 20 kilogrammes, and normally we do about 40 vats,” said Abdullah Najem, the owner. “But this Ramadan was as blessed as any other, for Ramadan is always blessing from God, praise be to God.”
His customer Refaa Al Mansoori, nodded her head. “This Ramadan was nice for one reason,” said Ms Al Mansoori, 40, a police officer from Baniyas. “Time. Usually in Ramadan I’m going here and there. This year, I had time to slow down.”
She bought two small bowls of saffron halwa for her immediate family. “We’re not able to do Eid, it’s social media only this year,” she said.
Mr Najem was resolute in his optimism. “I’ll do all the celebrations for Eid, we’ll give gifts, we’ll dress up, we’ll go to the sea.”
Only greengrocers and butchers were crowded, thanks to window displays of ripe watermelons and fresh camel meat.
Tailors and barbershops were closed by 6.30pm and shoppers carried a sober demeanour, for who wanted a new kandura or a shave for an Eid at home?
But two women were steadfast in their preparations. Sabreen Al Qorbi and her friend Liza could not wait to spend Eid at home.
The Yemeni human rights workers had spend two months in an Abu Dhabi hotel after flights were suspended in late March due to the pandemic. They had been en route to Yemen from a conference in Jordan when they got stuck in the UAE.
They had been well looked after but were ready to reunite with family. When they got news they would be repatriated by the Red Crescent before Eid, they taxied from downtown Abu Dhabi to the Baniyas souq to prepare.
Liza got her eyebrows done at a saloon. Then they bought matching thobes of bright orange and golden polka dots. “We will bake cookies and cakes and the children will ride camels,” said Liza. “It will be good to be home this Eid.”
Company profile
Name: Steppi
Founders: Joe Franklin and Milos Savic
Launched: February 2020
Size: 10,000 users by the end of July and a goal of 200,000 users by the end of the year
Employees: Five
Based: Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai
Financing stage: Two seed rounds – the first sourced from angel investors and the founders' personal savings
Second round raised Dh720,000 from silent investors in June this year
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Rain Management
Year started: 2017
Based: Bahrain
Employees: 100-120
Amount raised: $2.5m from BitMex Ventures and Blockwater. Another $6m raised from MEVP, Coinbase, Vision Ventures, CMT, Jimco and DIFC Fintech Fund
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
The figures behind the event
1) More than 300 in-house cleaning crew
2) 165 staff assigned to sanitise public areas throughout the show
3) 1,000 social distancing stickers
4) 809 hand sanitiser dispensers placed throughout the venue
What is an ETF?
An exchange traded fund is a type of investment fund that can be traded quickly and easily, just like stocks and shares. They come with no upfront costs aside from your brokerage's dealing charges and annual fees, which are far lower than on traditional mutual investment funds. Charges are as low as 0.03 per cent on one of the very cheapest (and most popular), Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, with the maximum around 0.75 per cent.
There is no fund manager deciding which stocks and other assets to invest in, instead they passively track their chosen index, country, region or commodity, regardless of whether it goes up or down.
The first ETF was launched as recently as 1993, but the sector boasted $5.78 billion in assets under management at the end of September as inflows hit record highs, according to the latest figures from ETFGI, a leading independent research and consultancy firm.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five largest providers BlackRock’s iShares, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisers, Deutsche Bank X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
While the best-known track major indices such as MSCI World, the S&P 500 and FTSE 100, you can also invest in specific countries or regions, large, medium or small companies, government bonds, gold, crude oil, cocoa, water, carbon, cattle, corn futures, currency shifts or even a stock market crash.
The five types of long-term residential visas
Obed Suhail of ServiceMarket, an online home services marketplace, outlines the five types of long-term residential visas:
Investors:
A 10-year residency visa can be obtained by investors who invest Dh10 million, out of which 60 per cent should not be in real estate. It can be a public investment through a deposit or in a business. Those who invest Dh5 million or more in property are eligible for a five-year residency visa. The invested amount should be completely owned by the investors, not loaned, and retained for at least three years.
Entrepreneurs:
A five-year multiple entry visa is available to entrepreneurs with a previous project worth Dh0.5m or those with the approval of an accredited business incubator in the UAE.
Specialists
Expats with specialised talents, including doctors, specialists, scientists, inventors, and creative individuals working in the field of culture and art are eligible for a 10-year visa, given that they have a valid employment contract in one of these fields in the country.
Outstanding students:
A five-year visa will be granted to outstanding students who have a grade of 95 per cent or higher in a secondary school, or those who graduate with a GPA of 3.75 from a university.
Retirees:
Expats who are at least 55 years old can obtain a five-year retirement visa if they invest Dh2m in property, have savings of Dh1m or more, or have a monthly income of at least Dh20,000.
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Mountain%20Boy
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PRO BASH
Thursday’s fixtures
6pm: Hyderabad Nawabs v Pakhtoon Warriors
10pm: Lahore Sikandars v Pakhtoon Blasters
Teams
Chennai Knights, Lahore Sikandars, Pakhtoon Blasters, Abu Dhabi Stars, Abu Dhabi Dragons, Pakhtoon Warriors and Hyderabad Nawabs.
Squad rules
All teams consist of 15-player squads that include those contracted in the diamond (3), platinum (2) and gold (2) categories, plus eight free to sign team members.
Tournament rules
The matches are of 25 over-a-side with an 8-over power play in which only two fielders allowed outside the 30-yard circle. Teams play in a single round robin league followed by the semi-finals and final. The league toppers will feature in the semi-final eliminator.
Ad Astra
Director: James Gray
Stars: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones
Five out of five stars
Abu Dhabi GP schedule
Friday: First practice - 1pm; Second practice - 5pm
Saturday: Final practice - 2pm; Qualifying - 5pm
Sunday: Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (55 laps) - 5.10pm
Results
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David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
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MATCH INFO
AC Milan v Inter, Sunday, 6pm (UAE), match live on BeIN Sports
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
