A powerful explosion ripped through a firework warehouse in Thailand on Saturday, killing nine people and injuring more than 100, a senior official said, as several nearby homes were levelled or damaged.
The blast in the town of Sungai Kolok in the province of Narathiwat is thought to have been caused by welding during construction work on the building.
"A warehouse storing firecrackers in Sungai Kolok exploded this afternoon, the latest number is nine dead and 115 injured," Narathiwat governor Sanan Pongaksorn told AFP.
"The fire is now under control. Preliminary investigation suggests the cause is a technical error during the steel welding process, as the building is under construction."
Footage on local media showed a huge plume of smoke rising into the air and numerous shops, homes and vehicles badly damaged by the force of the blast, some on fire and some with their roofs blown off.
Photos from the scene show the warehouse reduced to rubble and twisted metal.
Broadcaster Thai PBS reported that as many as 500 houses were damaged by the explosion in the border town on the frontier with Malaysia.
"I was playing with my phone inside the house then suddenly I heard a loud, thunderous noise and my whole house shook," said Seksan Taesen, who lives 100 metres away from the warehouse.
"Then I saw my roof was wide open. I looked outside and I saw houses collapsing and people lying on the ground everywhere. It was chaos."
Video showed a scene of turmoil at a local market, with dazed locals wandering around and emergency services rushing to help.
Broken glass, roof tiles and other debris littered the ground.
Thailand has a poor safety record in the construction sector and deadly accidents are common.
Last month two people were killed when a bridge under construction in Bangkok collapsed on to traffic.
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Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
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Brunch has been around, is some form or another, for more than a century. The word was first mentioned in print in an 1895 edition of Hunter’s Weekly, after making the rounds among university students in Britain. The article, entitled Brunch: A Plea, argued the case for a later, more sociable weekend meal. “By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well,” the piece read. “It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.” More than 100 years later, author Guy Beringer’s words still ring true, especially in the UAE, where brunches are often used to mark special, sociable occasions.
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
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