China's Wuhan comes back to life as coronavirus lockdown lifts


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Tens of thousands of people left Wuhan on Wednesday after a 76-day travel ban was lifted on the Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged.

Previously quiet train and bus stations bustled as an exodus began from the city of 11 million, with some passengers wearing hazmat suits.

Up to 55,000 people are expected to leave Wuhan on Wednesday just by train, according to government estimates.

Steady streams of cars hit the road Wednesday morning, with barricades on the city's outskirts dismantled after the ban on outbound travel was lifted at midnight.

Ferries, trams and taxis resumed operations and the airport also opened again for domestic flights, with queueing passengers in protective wear wheeling cases and staff spraying disinfectant on the floor.

State news agency Xinhua said there would be around 200 flights on Wednesday.

A group of medics leaving Wuhan tearfully hugged colleagues from the city goodbye as they prepared to board flights home.

Wuhan led the world with an unprecedented quarantine lockdown on January 23 in a bid to stop the spread of the then-mysterious respiratory virus.

Chinese disease control officials said in January that the virus likely leapt from wildlife to humans at a Wuhan market that sold wild animals for food.

The rest of surrounding Hubei province quickly followed Wuhan, cutting tens of millions of people off from the world.

As the virus spread rapidly around the globe, around half of humanity has been forced into some form of lockdown.

Temperature checkpoints and posters telling workers in Wuhan to keep more than a metre apart at Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co's reopened plant in the Chinese city of Wuhan show how the coronavirus has created a new normal on the factory floor.

The plant, a Honda joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Group was shut in late January when authorities ordered a lockdown in Wuhan in a bid to snuff out the coronavirus, which emerged there late last year.

It reopened on March 11 to resume operations in stages and is now back to pre-virus production levels, Li Shiquan, assistant director of the joint venture's No. 2 final assembly plant, told reporters on Wednesday.

Shopping malls and the citys biggest shopping belt, the Chu River and Han street, reopened on March 30. Long queues, thanks to requirements that customers stand a metre apart, have formed at supermarkets while some residents have taken advantage of the warmer weather to resume their outdoor badminton games and dancing.

Wuhan has reported just three new confirmed infections in the past 21 days and only two in the past two weeks.

But even as Wuhan came back to life, new imported cases in the far northern province of Heilongjiang surged to a daily high of 25, fuelled by an influx of infected travellers crossing the border from Russia.

On Wednesday, Suifenhe city announced restrictions on the movement of citizens similar to the ones Wuhan has endured.

People must stay in their residential compounds and only one person per family can leave once every three days to buy necessities, and must return on the same day, state-run CCTV reported.

China is maintaining strict screening protocols, concerned about any resurgence in infections by virus carriers who exhibit no symptoms and infected travellers arriving from abroad.

China's new coronavirus cases doubled on Tuesday as the number of infected travellers from overseas surged, while new asymptomatic infections more than quadrupled.

New confirmed cases rose to 62 on Tuesday from 32 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said, the most since March 25. New imported infections accounted for 59 of the cases.

The number of new asymptomatic cases rose to 137 from 30 a day earlier, the health authority said on Wednesday, with incoming travellers accounting for 102 of the latest batch.

Authorities do not count asymptomatic cases in their tally of confirmed infections until patients show symptoms such as a fever or a cough. As of Tuesday, 1,095 asymptomatic patients were under medical observation, with 358 of them travellers arriving from abroad.

How England have scored their set-piece goals in Russia

Three Penalties

v Panama, Group Stage (Harry Kane)

v Panama, Group Stage (Kane)

v Colombia, Last 16 (Kane)

Four Corners

v Tunisia, Group Stage (Kane, via John Stones header, from Ashley Young corner)

v Tunisia, Group Stage (Kane, via Harry Maguire header, from Kieran Trippier corner)

v Panama, Group Stage (Stones, header, from Trippier corner)

v Sweden, Quarter-Final (Maguire, header, from Young corner)

One Free-Kick

v Panama, Group Stage (Stones, via Jordan Henderson, Kane header, and Raheem Sterling, from Tripper free-kick)

MATCH INFO

Uefa Champioons League semi-final:

First leg: Liverpool 5 Roma 2

Second leg: Wednesday, May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome

TV: BeIN Sports, 10.45pm (UAE)

The specs

Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo

Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed

Power: 271 and 409 horsepower

Torque: 385 and 650Nm

Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000

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The specs

Engine: 4-litre twin-turbo V8

Transmission: eight-speed PDK

Power: 630bhp

Torque: 820Nm

Price: Dh683,200

On sale: now

While you're here
BRIEF SCORES:

Toss: Nepal, chose to field

UAE 153-6: Shaiman (59), Usman (30); Regmi 2-23

Nepal 132-7: Jora 53 not out; Zahoor 2-17

Result: UAE won by 21 runs

Series: UAE lead 1-0

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. 

Results:

Men's wheelchair 800m T34: 1. Walid Ktila (TUN) 1.44.79; 2. Mohammed Al Hammadi (UAE) 1.45.88; 3. Isaac Towers (GBR) 1.46.46.

List of alleged parties

 May 15 2020: PM and Carrie attend 'work meeting' with at
least 17 staff members

May 20 2020: PM and Carrie attend 'bring your own booze'
party

Nov 27 2020: PM gives speech at leaving do for his staff

Dec 10 2020: Staff party held by then-education secretary
Gavin Williamson

Dec 13 2020: PM and Carrie throw a flat party

Dec 14 2020: London mayor candidate Shaun Bailey holds staff party at Conservative
Party headquarters

Dec 15 2020: PM takes part in a staff quiz

Dec 18 2020: Downing Street Christmas party

Five hymns the crowds can join in

Papal Mass will begin at 10.30am at the Zayed Sports City Stadium on Tuesday

Some 17 hymns will be sung by a 120-strong UAE choir

Five hymns will be rehearsed with crowds on Tuesday morning before the Pope arrives at stadium

‘Christ be our Light’ as the entrance song

‘All that I am’ for the offertory or during the symbolic offering of gifts at the altar

‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’ and ‘Soul of my Saviour’ for the communion

‘Tell out my Soul’ as the final hymn after the blessings from the Pope

The choir will also sing the hymn ‘Legions of Heaven’ in Arabic as ‘Assakiroo Sama’

There are 15 Arabic speakers from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan in the choir that comprises residents from the Philippines, India, France, Italy, America, Netherlands, Armenia and Indonesia

The choir will be accompanied by a brass ensemble and an organ

They will practice for the first time at the stadium on the eve of the public mass on Monday evening 

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Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Director: Venkat Prabhu
Rating: 2/5
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

Dhadak 2

Director: Shazia Iqbal

Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri 

Rating: 1/5

Revival
Eminem
Interscope

Company%20Profile
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Another way to earn air miles

In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.

An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.

“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.

'The Ice Road'

Director: Jonathan Hensleigh
Stars: Liam Neeson, Amber Midthunder, Laurence Fishburne

2/5

Why does a queen bee feast only on royal jelly?

Some facts about bees:

The queen bee eats only royal jelly, an extraordinary food created by worker bees so she lives much longer

The life cycle of a worker bee is from 40-60 days

A queen bee lives for 3-5 years

This allows her to lay millions of eggs and allows the continuity of the bee colony

About 20,000 honey bees and one queen populate each hive

Honey is packed with vital vitamins, minerals, enzymes, water and anti-oxidants.

Apart from honey, five other products are royal jelly, the special food bees feed their queen 

Pollen is their protein source, a super food that is nutritious, rich in amino acids

Beewax is used to construct the combs. Due to its anti-fungal, anti-bacterial elements, it is used in skin treatments

Propolis, a resin-like material produced by bees is used to make hives. It has natural antibiotic qualities so works to sterilize hive,  protects from disease, keeps their home free from germs. Also used to treat sores, infection, warts

Bee venom is used by bees to protect themselves. Has anti-inflammatory properties, sometimes used to relieve conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, nerve and muscle pain

Honey, royal jelly, pollen have health enhancing qualities

The other three products are used for therapeutic purposes

Is beekeeping dangerous?

As long as you deal with bees gently, you will be safe, says Mohammed Al Najeh, who has worked with bees since he was a boy.

“The biggest mistake people make is they panic when they see a bee. They are small but smart creatures. If you move your hand quickly to hit the bees, this is an aggressive action and bees will defend themselves. They can sense the adrenalin in our body. But if we are calm, they are move away.”

 

 

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SPECS%3A%20Polestar%203
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Cultural fiesta

What: The Al Burda Festival
When: November 14 (from 10am)
Where: Warehouse421,  Abu Dhabi
The Al Burda Festival is a celebration of Islamic art and culture, featuring talks, performances and exhibitions. Organised by the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, this one-day event opens with a session on the future of Islamic art. With this in mind, it is followed by a number of workshops and “masterclass” sessions in everything from calligraphy and typography to geometry and the origins of Islamic design. There will also be discussions on subjects including ‘Who is the Audience for Islamic Art?’ and ‘New Markets for Islamic Design.’ A live performance from Kuwaiti guitarist Yousif Yaseen should be one of the highlights of the day. 

Cricket World Cup League Two

Teams

Oman, UAE, Namibia

Al Amerat, Muscat

 

Results

Oman beat UAE by five wickets

UAE beat Namibia by eight runs

Namibia beat Oman by 52 runs

UAE beat Namibia by eight wickets

 

Fixtures

Saturday January 11 - UAE v Oman

Sunday January 12 – Oman v Namibia

When is VAR used?

Goals

Penalty decisions

Direct red-card incidents

Mistaken identity

Company profile

Company name: Dharma

Date started: 2018

Founders: Charaf El Mansouri, Nisma Benani, Leah Howe

Based: Abu Dhabi

Sector: TravelTech

Funding stage: Pre-series A 

Investors: Convivialite Ventures, BY Partners, Shorooq Partners, L& Ventures, Flat6Labs