As parents you may not get many marks from your children for agreeing with this assessment in part or full but it is worth a debate. In a capsule, today’s children are not smarter than their parent’s generation. Sure, they have all that electronic trivia cramming their brains but look how much they have sacrificed in surrendering their prerogatives. For one, they read much less which is criminal in itself. Then they have surrogates to do their thinking for them. They can even take computers and calculators into exams while all we were allowed was a slide rule.
Among the many aspects in the UAE that are marked by a pursuit of excellence one that has not just stayed the course for years but become a sort of icon for the above board nature of business deals is the authenticity of the gold market. It was as early as the seventies and eighties that gold from the Emirates became a hallmark around the world for purity and dependability.
An attack on Jewish settlers by the Palestinian militant group Hamas has led to Washington issuing an appeal to Israel and the Palestinians to not let this derail the direct talks. Both the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are at present in the US capital on the invitation of President Barack Obama who is personally involved in restarting the stalled negotiations.
The RTA deserves to be congratulated for taking the very sensible step of bringing errant motorcar owners into line if they have failed to register their cars for over 24 months. There is nothing one can cavil about in this decision. On the contrary it is a gigantic step towards making roads safer.
It’s party time for the United States troops coming back home from Iraq. The formal end of combat operations and their withdrawal, in principle, is a welcome sign altogether. With this development, the Obama administration has fulfilled one of its electoral commitments to pull out of the war-weary Arab country. But has it made any difference for the Iraqis?
The direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel seem doomed to fail. While this may sound highly pessimistic, it is but a realistic assessment of how things stand at present.
On several occasions in the past so many years His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has reiterated the need for a healthy lifestyle to create a healthy country.
The devastating floods in Pakistan seem to have a long way to go before they end up in the Arabian Sea. After playing havoc with the northern provinces of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and Punjab, the deluge is now making life miserable for millions in the southern provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.
Fear of the unknown once again grips Iraq. With hardly 48-hours to go before US forces relinquish their mandate in the war-weary country, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki feels jittery. In an unprecedented warning, Maliki has put the nation on top alert for terror attacks.
