In December 2017, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, posted a tweet, inviting young Emiratis to register in the UAE Astronaut Programme at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.
The tweet awoke a sense of possibility in many Emiratis, Hazza Al Mansouri said during a talk on Sunday at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. For the first time, the Earth’s atmosphere could be a traversable line. Outer space was within reach.
“Many thought it impossible five years ago,” Al Mansouri said in the panel discussion, which also included Nasa astronaut and author Nicole Stott. “That tweet switched the minds of everyone in this country. Without hesitation, I applied. More than 4,000 applied.”
The first time you enter the space station, you feel like a fish
Hazza Al Mansouri,
astronaut
A former F-16 pilot, Al Mansouri became the country’s first astronaut and the first Arab aboard the International Space Station on September 25, 2019. Al Mansouri spent eight days aboard the space station, which he said was like “a house with five bedrooms”.
“It is located 400 kilometres above Earth and going at a speed of 20,000km an hour,” he said. “I remember when I first floated in, I was so happy. The first time you enter the space station, you feel like a fish.”
Even after years of training and consulting others who had gone through the experience, Al Mansouri said nothing could prepare him for actually being aboard the ISS.
“It is an overwhelming moment,” he said. “You are there, floating. You are watching Earth changing between night and day. At first, you are looking at the United Arab Emirates. And after that, you just zoom out. You see the continents and oceans, and you realise there is only one border – the atmosphere.”
The astronaut said it was a privilege to be the first Arabic speaker aboard the ISS. To communicate from the station with people in the UAE and the wider region in Arabic was a profound experience.
Though he was the first Emirati to venture into space, he won’t be the last, he said.
“We now have four astronauts. We are really growing in the astronaut programme.
“Sultan [Al Neyadi] and I just finished our training at Nasa. In the future, we can go and participate in six-month missions, doing spacewalks. For children in my country, they can now say: 'We can be astronauts.' Something that was impossible before.”
Stott, a Nasa astronaut and and author of Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – and Our Mission to Protect It, also spoke at the event.
During her time with Nasa, she lived and worked in space for 104 days on the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle, and spent 18 days under water in the Aquarius undersea laboratory.
“There’s an overwhelming intensity to the beauty that you can see when you look at the window," she said, speaking of her first experience of going to space and witnessing the planet from above.
"It’s certainly a completely different look at Earth than we’ve seen before. I just remember being stunned by it. And every single time I looked out the window, I felt that way. Like there was something new to discover.”
She returned to Earth with the notion that humanity should be behaving like crew mates, not passengers, if the planet was to thrive. But we don't have to view Earth from above to feel that connection and sense of unity with the planet.
“I'd like to think that I didn't have to go to space to figure that out. But as a result of that I certainly want to share as much as I can with everyone about the experience.
"You can walk outside right here, in the nature that surrounds us, the sky that is above us and find your own way to appreciate the awe and wonder that surrounds us every day. There are otherworldly places on this planet that I think are there to surprise us, to make us more curious about where we live on this planet and how we live on this planet, and share it with the other life that is here with us.”
PROFILE
Name: Enhance Fitness
Year started: 2018
Based: UAE
Employees: 200
Amount raised: $3m
Investors: Global Ventures and angel investors
Company profile
Name: Fruitful Day
Founders: Marie-Christine Luijckx, Lyla Dalal AlRawi, Lindsey Fournie
Based: Dubai, UAE
Founded: 2015
Number of employees: 30
Sector: F&B
Funding so far: Dh3 million
Future funding plans: None at present
Future markets: Saudi Arabia, potentially Kuwait and other GCC countries
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 247hp at 6,500rpm
Torque: 370Nm from 1,500-3,500rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 7.8L/100km
Price: from Dh94,900
On sale: now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh650,000
The five pillars of Islam
Destroyer
Director: Karyn Kusama
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Sebastian Stan
Rating: 3/5
UAE release: January 31
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Film: Raid
Dir: Rajkumar Gupta
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'cruz and Saurabh Shukla
Verdict: Three stars
'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore'
Rating: 3/5
Directed by: David Yates
Starring: Mads Mikkelson, Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller, Jude Law
CABINET%20OF%20CURIOSITIES%20EPISODE%201%3A%20LOT%2036
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SPECS
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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
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Ovasave%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20November%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Majd%20Abu%20Zant%20and%20Torkia%20Mahloul%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abu%20Dhabi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Healthtech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Three%20employees%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Pre-seed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%24400%2C000%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Dr Graham's three goals
Short term
Establish logistics and systems needed to globally deploy vaccines
Intermediate term
Build biomedical workforces in low- and middle-income nations
Long term
A prototype pathogen approach for pandemic preparedness
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The Details
Article 15
Produced by: Carnival Cinemas, Zee Studios
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5
The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
Match info
Manchester United 1
Fred (18')
Wolves 1
Moutinho (53')
MATCH INFO
First Test at Barbados
West Indies won by 381 runs
Second Test at Antigua
West Indies won by 10 wickets
Third Test at St Lucia
February 9-13
'Nope'
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RIDE%20ON
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Glossary of a stock market revolution
Reddit
A discussion website
Redditor
The users of Reddit
Robinhood
A smartphone app for buying and selling shares
Short seller
Selling a stock today in the belief its price will fall in the future
Short squeeze
Traders forced to buy a stock they are shorting
Naked short
An illegal practice
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
Company profile
Name: Thndr
Started: October 2020
Founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: pre-seed of $800,000
Funding stage: series A; $20 million
Investors: Tiger Global, Beco Capital, Prosus Ventures, Y Combinator, Global Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel, Endure Capital, 4DX Ventures, Plus VC, Rabacap and MSA Capital
