DUBAI // Dubai Police are looking into the possibility that its Twitter feed has been hacked after false tweets were posted with untrue claims that were immediately disowned by the force.
A tweet on the @dubaipolicehq feed said the "BlackBerry Messenger hacker", who was behind the spread of a malicious BBM message that bombarded police emergency lines with tens of thousands of calls, had been arrested.
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But police said no one had been arrested, and the officer responsible for the Twitter feed stressed the message had not been posted by him, or with his authority.
It raised a possibility that someone within the force, or a former employee, is making unauthorised and malicious use of the account.
On July 5, Abu Dhabi police announced they had received more than 13,000 calls in only five hours after a hoax message was sent out through BlackBerry messenger.
Between 5pm and 10pm that day Abu Dhabi police received 13,338 calls, more than 44 a minute and three times the normal rate. Dubai police also had thousands of calls.
The message read: "A person took a screenshot while he was calling the police, see what happened."
But the computer code within the link started with "tel://112" - meaning it triggered a call to the emergency number.
"When operators called back the numbers they discovered the callers had no idea what happened," said Brig Gen Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansoori, the head of Dubai CID.
At about 3pm yesterday, a message was tweeted on the "The Dubai Police Criminal Investigation Department has arrested a number of people who are suspected to have caused the 999 calls."
Another said: "Dubai Police and Canadian company RIM have blocked emergency calls to 911 today." A third read: "Brigadier General Al Mansoori: We are currently interrogating the suspects to know who was the main person behind the link that caused the 999 calls."
All were false, according to Brig Al Mansoori.
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When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
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Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
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The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
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Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
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Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
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