My office is on a busy downtown street and we are all used to the incessant honking and screeching of brakes that assaults our ears from the thousands of cars that each day zoom by under our window.
There is one sound, though, that I particularly dread - the piercing wail of an ambulance's siren.
In Egypt, you see, the traffic doesn't part to let emergency vehicles pass quickly through. The congestion is so acute that the ambulance, carrying its ailing or injured patient to hospital, can be trapped for seemingly hours, with the densely packed cars simply having nowhere to go to clear a lane.
The blaring siren goes on and on and on, making my colleagues and I pause for a moment and whisper a silent thank you that it isn't us inside that ambulance.
I have always found the thought of falling sick in Egypt rather frightening. During a bad dose of the flu particularly, the lack of family nearby makes the experience even more lonely and as you lie in the throes of fever-induced delirium, you begin to imagine the final days of your life. This could be it, you think to yourself as, eyes watering, you reach for your Tylenol Cold and Flu, praying: "Please God, let me not need an ambulance and die in traffic."
Melodramatic? Well yes, but such fears are not entirely groundless. Health care in Egypt has always left quite a lot to be desired, even though as an expat the treatment you receive is likely to be much better than the average Egyptian can expect.
Having had a few run-ins with the health system here has made me regimental about taking my daily vitamin supplement. I now wash my hands like someone with obsessive compulsive disorder.
My first visit to an Egyptian hospital was two years ago when I was sent out on a story about an Egyptian woman who had given birth to seven healthy babies at once. She and her husband lived in a one-bedroom house in a poor village, and she was spending her days in an Alexandria hospital until her babies could leave the incubator.
To consider why the woman should go on to fertility pills having already giving birth to two girls would require another column, but it was the condition of the hospital that caught my attention when I interviewed her that morning. Her room was cramped with one bed and a few chairs occupied by members of her family members who looked as though they had not managed much sleep for a while.
It was August, there was no air conditioning and the only open window which did nothing to cool the room. The poor mother lay limp in her bed under cheap blankets, sweating profusely with only a rattly electric fan providing any source of coolness.
As we talked, a cockroach crawled up the wall behind her head, while nurses chewing gum and wearing dirty scrubs leaned against the doorway chatting, "Yup, that's the woman who just had seven.. can you believe it?" pointing at the mother like she was a circus freak. The paint in the hospital hallways was chipping off, there were no soap dispensers, and the only air conditioner I saw was in the hospital director's office when I went to interview him.
My second shock came nearly a year later when I had to have a vaccination before the Haj. I had to get a meningitis jab and a booster shot and was told I would need to go to a public hospital. Entering the hospital I had to walk past sick people lying by the garden wall waiting to see a doctor, a bale of hay and nurses milling around drinking tea and spitting out watermelon seeds.
Inside a room that smelt like a public baths, a woman sat in what was now an off-white medical robe chatting to a man who was smoking a cigarette at a desk. Surrounding them in the room were boxes of medical equipment and an ancient doctor's screen. I told them why I was there, and paid the smoker my fee.
The woman then took me behind the screen. I asked her if she was going to wash her hands. She gave me a dirty look, picked up a bottle of water she was drinking from and splashed it on her hands. As I bared my arm, alarms kept going off in my head but I ignored them as she opened up a new needle.
I told myself that as long as the needle was clean I was probably going to be OK ... I hoped. Was she was going to wear gloves or disinfect my arm, I asked. At that point she breathed heavily to show her annoyance at my finickiness and asked me if I had any disinfectant. But you're the nurse, I replied. Well, I don't have anything, she said as she looked me in the eye and jabbed my arm.
Luckily, I lived, but it will be the last time I leave my hand-sanitiser at home.
Hadeel al Shalchi is a writer for the Associated Press, based in Cairo.
3%20Body%20Problem
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KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
The%20specs
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Your Guide to the Home
- Level 1 has a valet service if you choose not to park in the basement level. This level houses all the kitchenware, including covetable brand French Bull, along with a wide array of outdoor furnishings, lamps and lighting solutions, textiles like curtains, towels, cushions and bedding, and plenty of other home accessories.
- Level 2 features curated inspiration zones and solutions for bedrooms, living rooms and dining spaces. This is also where you’d go to customise your sofas and beds, and pick and choose from more than a dozen mattress options.
- Level 3 features The Home’s “man cave” set-up and a display of industrial and rustic furnishings. This level also has a mother’s room, a play area for children with staff to watch over the kids, furniture for nurseries and children’s rooms, and the store’s design studio.
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
Specs – Taycan 4S
Engine: Electric
Transmission: 2-speed auto
Power: 571bhp
Torque: 650Nm
Price: Dh431,800
Specs – Panamera
Engine: 3-litre V6 with 100kW electric motor
Transmission: 2-speed auto
Power: 455bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: from Dh431,800
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates, Etihad and Swiss fly direct from the UAE to Zurich from Dh2,855 return, including taxes.
The chalet
Chalet N is currently open in winter only, between now and April 21. During the ski season, starting on December 11, a week’s rental costs from €210,000 (Dh898,431) per week for the whole property, which has 22 beds in total, across six suites, three double rooms and a children’s suite. The price includes all scheduled meals, a week’s ski pass, Wi-Fi, parking, transfers between Munich, Innsbruck or Zurich airports and one 50-minute massage per person. Private ski lessons cost from €360 (Dh1,541) per day. Halal food is available on request.
Read more about the coronavirus
Company%20Profile
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
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.
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.
INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
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