Dubai / WAM A wearable device that warns when social distancing is not being respected and a Jordanian programme helping vulnerable communities grow online businesses during lockdown are among five new projects selected from a call for Covid-19-related proposals from Expo 2020 Dubai’s Global Best Practice Programme. The hand-picked initiatives join 45 existing best practice projects, whose simple, effective and ...

Dubai / WAM DMCC, the world’s flagship Free Zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise, has announced the signing of a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with REIT Development to establish the largest precious metals refinery and storage facility across the GCC and the first to be completely enabled by blockchain in the GCC. As part ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Zakat Fund has signed a strategic Memorundum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MoFAIC), to improve services rendered to UAE nationals overseas. The agreement, signed by Abdullah bin Aqeedah Al Muhairi, Secretary-General of the Zakat Fund, and Khalid Abdullah Belhoul, Undersecretary of MoFAIC, embodies the directives of the UAE visionary ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Annual charity initiative ‘Ataya’ announced that its new online shopping destination will be launched on Thursday. Organised by Emirates Red Crescent, Ataya has become a pillar of the Abu Dhabi’s cultural calendar and a hallmark in the field of social and humanitarian work in the UAE and across the world, according to a press release issued ...

Bloomberg China says the United Nations and other international bodies should talk over Japan’s decision to dump wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean, further ramping up its criticism of Tokyo’s plans. “Japan is obliged to hold a full consultation with all stakeholders, especially neighbouring countries,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular press briefing ...

Bloomberg The European Union was poised to agree its first criteria for green investments on Wednesday, in a move that could set a benchmark for the world to follow. The stakes are high: the EU wants to raise up to 250 billion euros ($301 billion) using its first green bonds, and private funding is likely to follow into the approved ...

Bloomberg Achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is one of the greatest challenges of our time. But apparently not the greatest challenge. On current trends, the UK will have mostly given up fossil fuels before its North Sea oil and gas industry achieves gender parity, according to the sector’s trade body. “It will be well into the 2050s before the ...

India’s healthcare system is buckling under the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic: The country registered more than 1,500 deaths and nearly 300,000 infections on April 19 alone. Videos of crowded mortuaries and funeral sites, and grief-stricken relatives outside packed hospitals, are circulating among middle-class Indians. The Lancet says India could suffer more than 2,300 deaths every day by June. As ...

Get ready to pay more for some of the most utilitarian items on your shopping list. Consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble Co, maker of Pampers diapers and Tampax tampons, said that it would hike prices on items in its babycare, feminine-care and adult-incontinence divisions to cushion the blow of rising costs for raw materials such as pulp. The announcement comes ...

Already suffering from the world’s worst surge in coronavirus deaths, Brazil is now verging on political meltdown. Since late March, six members of President Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet and the heads of all three armed services have left office, raising fears that Bolsonaro, facing re-election next year, will exploit the crisis to tighten his grip on power. The possible unraveling of ...