Malayalam, Urdu to be included in UAE Identity Authority web
Dubai: Five more foreign languages, including Malayalam and Urdu, would be included to the UAE’s website of identity authority to make its services easier and more accessible to expatriates residing in the Gulf Kingdom.
The Emirates Identity Authority has announced that it will add five more languages – Malayalam, Urdu, Tagalog (an Austronesian language), Russian and Mandarin – to its website, offering information and guidance on procedures. This is in addition to Arabic and English.
The Emirates ID said the decision to add new languages to its website was part of its efforts to make its services easier and more accessible to the various nationalities residing in the country.
Abdulaziz Al Maamari, Director of Government and Social Communication at the Emirates ID, said the decision was taken as a result of surveys and studies on the number and types of visitors to the website, the departments and services most frequently browsed and the queries and clarifications most sought.
“In the year 2014, nine millions visits from inside and outside the UAE happened on the website, by people speaking around ten languages,” he said.
Al Maamari said the addition of the new languages would allow the customers to learn in their own languages about the procedures for registration in the population register, issuance, renewal and replacement of identity cards, necessary documents for getting the services rendered and the fee for each service.
“The idea behind the initiative is to make our website and services more accessible and customer-friendly,” he said. (PTI)
Student armed with crossbow
kills teacher at Spain school
Barcelona: A 13-year-old boy armed with a crossbow and knife killed a teacher and wounded four others at his school in Barcelona on Tuesday before being subdued, police and witnesses said. It is the first documented case of a murder of a teacher at a school in Spain since the country returned to democracy after the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, according to Spain’s ANPE teachers’ union.
The attack, which took place just after classes began, sowed panic at the Joan Fuster secondary school, which has about 500 students and 40 teachers. “There were screams from another classroom, the teacher went out into the hall. We heard a really loud noise, we looked into the hall and saw the teacher lying on the ground,” said Maria Camila Ospina, a 13-year-old pupil. “We hid behind desks and chairs and the boy entered the classroom, he looked for a classmate and stabbed him in the thorax and went out into the hall again,” she told AFP. The boy had a crossbow and a knife, she said, adding that students piled desks and chairs against the classroom door, and ran out to the courtyard when the attacker was far away. (AFP)
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Egypt court sentences belly dancer for ‘insulting’ flag
Cairo: An Egyptian court has sentenced a popular Armenian belly dancer to six months in prison for “insulting the Egyptian flag” after she allegedly wore a tight dress in its red, white and black color scheme.
The court in Agouza, west of Cairo, said today that Sofinar Gourian, known popularly as “Safinaz,” was fined 15,000 pounds (almost USD 2,000) and paid another 10,000 pounds bail pending appeal.
The case had been initiated by a private complaint. Insulting the flag was made illegal by decree under Egyptian President Adly Mansour who ruled for a year after the army overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. Gourian, who lives in Egypt, had argued that she did not insult the flag intentionally and as a foreigner was less aware of Egyptian laws. (AP)
43 dinosaur egg
fossils unearthed in China
Beijing: A total of 43 dinosaur egg fossils has been found at a construction site in south China’s Guangdong Province. After two hours of effort, archaeologists from the city of Heyuan unearthed a nest of 43 dinosaur egg fossils at the site yesterday, 19 of which are intact.
“These eggs are large in size and one even has a diameter of 13 centimeters,” said Du Yanli, curator of the city’s dinosaur museum. All eggs have been sent to the museum for protection and further research. The city has unearthed nearly 17,000 dinosaur egg fossils since the first group of fossils was discovered in 1996 by children playing at a building site, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. In 2005, the museum had earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records with its 10,008 dinosaur egg fossils, the largest collection in the world. (PTI)
Farmer finds 100 mln-year-old marine predator fossil
Melbourne: A Queensland farmer has unearthed fossilised remains of a top marine predator that dominated Australia’s great inland sea between 110 and 115 million years ago. Robert Hacon discovered the 1.6 metre fossilised jaw of a Kronosaurus Queenslandicus, an 11 metre long apex predator, while working on his property. The Queenslandicus had a crocodile-like head, a body with four powerful flippers, jaws twice as powerful as those of a saltwater crocodile and curved teeth the size of bananas. “I was out poisoning prickly Acacia and saw some objects shining in the distance,” Hacon said.
“At first glance I thought they were fossilised mussel shells so I drove away. Ten minutes later my curiosity got the better of me and I turned back,” said Hacon. Hacon then contacted Dr Timothy Holland, curator of Richmond’s Kronosaurus Korner Museum. “The specimen represents the most complete mandible of a Kronosaurus Queenslandicus in the world, with most other examples being weathered, crushed or incomplete. This is the real deal,” Holland noted. The first recorded Kronosaurus Queenslandicus remains were discovered near Hughenden in 1899. However, a near-complete skeleton at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology is the most famous. “The mandible is just so robust, measuring 18cm deep in some places. (PTI)
Nepalese Sherpa dupes foreign climbers of Rs 120 million
Kathmandu: Nine foreign climbers, including an Indian woman, have been duped by a Nepalese expedition organiser of more than Rs 120 million, prompting police here to launch a manhunt. The nine were forced to cancel their expedition to the Mount Everest, from Tibet side, after they were cheated by the Kathmandu-based operator. According to reports, Tshering Dorje Sherpa of Himalayan Alpine Adventure Treks and Expedition duped eight Greek and and an Indian climber of more than Rs 120 million and disappeared. Nikolas Mangitsis, team leader of the Greek expedition, Hellas Everest Expedition 2015, told the Himalayan Times, Sherpa who accompanied them from the Tribhuvan International Airport to Manaslu Hotel in Kathmandu on April 14, collected USD 87,000 and Euro 11,500 from them for a 50 day expedition slated to begin on April 17. (PTI)
