Mount Lavinia / AFP Tourists have flocked back to Sri Lanka’s palm-fringed beaches since a bloody civil war ended in 2009, but environmentalists warn unchecked development means some areas are now so polluted, swimming there is a health hazard. Sewage from thriving hotels and guesthouses pours, often untreated, out into the water polluting the sea and shore. Even the ...

  Montevideo / AFP Alvaro Brusti had never worked in his life before he wound up behind bars for armed robbery. Now after five years inside, the 34-year-old is running his own company, in an unusual scheme at a Uruguayan jail. The Punta de Rieles prison east of the capital Montevideo looks like many other penitentiaries from the outside, with ...

  DUBAI / WAM Al Tayer Group, a UAE-based business group, donated 10 Ford E-350 DRW ambulances to Emirates Red Crescent (ERC). The cut-away units were especially converted into ambulances by Horton Emergency Vehicles in Ohio, USA. Ahmed Al Tayer, Director of the Al Tayer Group, handed over the ambulances to Mohammed Abdullah Alhaj Al Zaroni, Manager of the Dubai ...

DUBAI / WAM The Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection (CCCP) sector in the Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai announced the launch of an ‘Intellectual Property Gateway’ for receiving complaints on trademark infringement via the DED website. The gateway automates all procedures relating to intellectual property (IP) issues, starting from receiving complaints and opening files to receiving reports from ...

  ABU DHABI / WAM President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan sent a congratulatory cable to President of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, on the occasion of the country’s Independence Day. Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed ...

  Dubai / WAM Khalid Mohamed Sharif Al Awadhi, Executive Director of Food Safety Department at Dubai Municipality, has won the International Leadership Award for Food Protection 2016. He was honoured in St. Louis, Missouri, US, at the annual conference, in the presence of over 2, 000 participants, including food experts. The conference has been hosted by the Assembly for ...

  Can messy, polarized democracies ever get anything done? Could real reformist laws ever be passed by legislatures obsessed with partisan point-scoring? Across the liberal-democratic world, it seems that obstructing legislation by any means necessary is now part of politics as usual. Partisan gamesmanship, increasingly, looks like a genuine threat to the legitimacy of legislatures — and of democracy itself. ...

  Pankaj Mishra Political life in the West, it is safe to say, has not witnessed a figure such as Donald Trump for decades. His attacks on the parents of Army Captain Humayun Khan, who died on duty in Iraq in 2004, is the latest jaw-dropping episode from his presidential campaign. But as he lurches toward what one hopes will ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM HH Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairwoman of the General Women’s Union, Supreme Chairwoman of the Family Development Foundation and President of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, said that the August 6, 1966, the date of the late Sheikh Zayed’s accession as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, was the date of a new dawn in the ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) revealed statistics for the first quarter of 2016 on the nation’s most popular mobile phone handsets, social networking platforms and applications websites. The report reveals the market share of mobile phones in the UAE by manufacturer and model, and according to the report, between January 1 and March 30, 68.91 percent ...