The elite US special forces team that killed Osama bin Laden has now defeated Walt Disney.
Just hours after the unit carried out the raid in Pakistan, the Walt Disney Co filed an application to trademark "Seal Team 6" with the US Patent Office.
Now the US Navy has applied for a counter-trademark for the words "Navy Seal" and "Seal Team" that would give them exclusive use on such items as posters and clothing.
In the face of the navy move, Disney has now dropped its own application, which would have covered everything from video games to TV shows, Christmas tree decorations and sporting equipment.
A spokesman for Disney said: "Out of deference to the navy's application for these trademarks, we have withdrawn ours."
Vuvuzela etiquette 101
Blowing a vuvuzela at a sporting venue runs the risk of not just deafening your neighbours but also making them ill.
Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine claims that the plastic trumpets, which found fame during last year's World Cup in South Africa, can produce a shower of spittle calculated at four million droplets a second with every blast.
A team from the research institute calculated that 658,000 lung particles were expelled in every litre of air compared with 3,700 when shouting.
Ruth McNerney, who carried out the study, called for a "vuvuzela blowing etiquette" with the London Olympics in mind.
"Just as with coughs or sneezes, action should be taken to prevent disease transmission, and people with infections must be advised against blowing their vuvuzelas close to other people," she said.
PJs don't belong at school
Parents have been asked to stop wearing their pyjamas when taking their children to school.
Headteachers at 11 schools in Middlesbrough in north-east England have complained about the nightwear worn by parents for both the morning and afternoon drop-offs and pick-ups.
They have sent letters home asking them to wear "appropriate clothing". One headmaster said: "We all have the opinion that appearing at school dressed in pyjamas isn't the right way to go about things.
"It's about setting an example and having self-esteem."
Good idea. Shelve it
Japanese scientists have come up with a plan to solve the world's energy problems by building a belt of solar panels around the Moon.
According to the research department of Shimizu Corp, a belt of photovoltaic panels would be constructed and maintained by robots, with the 13,000 terrawatts of energy sent to Earth using lasers or microwaves.
The company says construction could begin by 2035, but admits the price tag would be so gigantic that "maybe this type of project could be out of range of cost considerations. We would have to find a new word for it."
Dictator in Aisle Four
A supermarket in China was asked to stay open until the early hours of the morning so that Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea, could buy salad dressing.
The Suguo supermarket in Yangzhou opened its doors at 4am and was greeted by the dictator asking: "Where can I find oil for a salad?" With many of his countrymen facing food shortages, exotic ingredients like olive oil are rarely seen in North Korea.
The 69-year-old "Dear Leader", who was on an official visit, left without making a purchase.
jlangton@thenational.ae
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
MATCH INFO
Championship play-offs, second legs:
Aston Villa 0
Middlesbrough 0
(Aston Villa advance 1-0 on aggregate)
Fulham 2
Sessegnon (47'), Odoi (66')
Derby County 0
(Fulham advance 2-1 on aggregate)
Final
Saturday, May 26, Wembley. Kick off 8pm (UAE)
The Energy Research Centre
Founded 50 years ago as a nuclear research institute, scientists at the centre believed nuclear would be the “solution for everything”.
Although they still do, they discovered in 1955 that the Netherlands had a lot of natural gas. “We still had the idea that, by 2000, it would all be nuclear,” said Harm Jeeninga, director of business and programme development at the centre.
"In the 1990s, we found out about global warming so we focused on energy savings and tackling the greenhouse gas effect.”
The energy centre’s research focuses on biomass, energy efficiency, the environment, wind and solar, as well as energy engineering and socio-economic research.
How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
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
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
