Pompeo Israel visit: US Secretary of State lands for talks
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Israel on Wednesday morning for talks on regional security and the country's controversial plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
In a rare foreign trip during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Pompeo is to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and incoming defence minister Benny Gantz, a day before a unity government is scheduled to be sworn in.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Pompeo, speaking from Jerusalem, slammed Iran for "using the ayatollah regime's resources to foment terror across the world" even as its people face the Middle East's deadliest coronavirus outbreak.
ISIS war crimes investigators in Iraq get boost from mobile phone data
Mobile phone records have given UN investigators looking at ISIS war crimes in Iraq a major boost, the body’s annual report to the security council said this week.
Authored by Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, the team’s fourth annual report said that “there has been “significant progress in the identification and the recovery of new evidence”. Presented to the security council on Monday and seen by AFP news agency on Tuesday, Mr Khan’s team attributed the gains to increased co-operation with Iraqi authorities in its mission to “obtain recordings of call data” of mobile phones from Iraqi companies.
The collaboration enabled the collection of data from mobile phones, SIM cards and electronic storage used by ISIS, said the UN team leader.
Pompeo urges Kabul and Taliban co-operation after 'appalling' attack
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday urged the Afghan government and Taliban to co-operate after deadly attacks on a maternity hospital and a funeral hurt prospects of ending the war.
Mr Pompeo called the twin assaults appalling but said the Taliban, who signed a February 29 accord with the US in his presence in Qatar, denied carrying them out.
“The United States condemns in the strongest terms the two horrific terrorist attacks in Afghanistan today,” he said. “During the holy month of Ramadan and amid the threat of Covid-19, these dual attacks are particularly appalling."
Russia and China boycott UN Security Council meeting on Syria
Russia and China on Tuesday boycotted what Moscow called an "unacceptable" closed-door video conference of the UN Security Council on chemical weapons in Syria.
Russia's UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, later said Moscow wanted the discussion to be open.
"Regrettably, our western partners and their allies insisted on holding this meeting behind closed doors in an informal setting, despite the slogans of openness and transparency of the Security Council," Mr Nebenzia said.
What is a Ponzi scheme?
A fraudulent investment operation where the scammer provides fake reports and generates returns for old investors through money paid by new investors, rather than through ligitimate business activities.
The permutations for UAE going to the 2018 World Cup finals
To qualify automatically
UAE must beat Iraq.
Australia must lose in Japan and at home to Thailand, with their losing margins and the UAE's winning margin over Iraq being enough to overturn a goal difference gap of eight.
Saudi Arabia must lose to Japan, with their losing margin and the UAE's winning margin over Iraq being enough to overturn a goal difference gap of eight.
To finish third and go into a play-off with the other third-placed AFC side for a chance to reach the inter-confederation play-off match
UAE must beat Iraq.
Saudi Arabia must lose to Japan, with their losing margin and the UAE's winning margin over Iraq being enough to overturn a goal difference gap of eight.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Schedule:
Friday, January 12: Six fourball matches
Saturday, January 13: Six foursome (alternate shot) matches
Sunday, January 14: 12 singles
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
MATCH SCHEDULE
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Tuesday, April 24 (10.45pm)
Liverpool v Roma
Wednesday, April 25
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid (10.45pm)
Europa League semi-final, first leg
Thursday, April 26
Arsenal v Atletico Madrid (11.05pm)
Marseille v Salzburg (11.05pm)
The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 582bhp
Torque: 730Nm
Price: Dh649,000
On sale: now
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.
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