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  Teams, groups and friend have found Dubai interesting to setup training camps because of the state of the heart facilities and the hospitality Dubai has to offer. Sheikh Mansoor Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, chairman of Dubai Sports Council, said the authority will continue working on the development of the sports sector by launching new initiates. Part of the strategy will include welcoming more international teams wishing to set up their training camps in Dubai or looking to compete in tournaments in Dubai. Already, many of the top teams from the English Premier League and Spain's La Liga are regular visitors to the emirate Why Europwan Teams are picking Dubai for training Short flight from Europe Minimal time difference Consistent weather: Minimal rain and temperatures above 25 deg c More than 160km of warm, flat Waters Professional equipment & Highly experienced staff High-quality yet affordable hotels within walking distance

  The 2020 Valencia Marathon winners Peres Jepchirchir and Vincent Kipchumba have been included in Kenya’s marathon team for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Making the announcement Tuesday, Athletics Kenya senior vice president, Paul Mutwii, disclosed that Kenya will be represented by four athletes each in the men and women’s categories. Jepchirchir, the World Half Marathon champion and Half Marathon World record holder, now joins World Marathon champion, Ruth Chepngétich, Marathon World record holder, Brigid Kosgei and multiple World champion and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic 5,000m gold medalist and 10,000m silver medalist, Vivian Cheruiyot. Kipchumba will team up with Olympic Marathon champion, Eliud Kipchoge, World Marathon bronze medallist, Amos Kipruto and 2019 Boston Marathon winner Lawrence Cherono. Four athletes, who were named as reserves in the original team that was named in January last year before the Tokyo Olympics were postponed owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, have b

Juja MP Francis Munyua has passed on, his family has confirmed. The lawmaker has battled brain cancer for more than three years. In September 2017, Munyua, who is fondly known as Wakapee was diagnosed with Stage 2 Brain Cancer. The diagnosis was accidental as he had shown no signs of illness. In a previous interview, the lawmaker said he was encouraged by his mother (who had battled brain cancer for 10 months) to undergo screening. The lawmaker spent seven weeks undergoing treatment in India in 2017. He spent most of last year battling the disease.  Wakapee lost his sister Cecelia Wambui, to Liver cancer in 2016. The father of four is the third lawmaker to die in the past week following the demise of Garissa Senator Yusuf Haji and Bonchari MP John Oroo on Monday last week. The Kenyan Parliament also lost Machakos Senator Boniface Mutinda Kabaka and MPs: Justus Murunga (Matungu) and James Mukwe (Kabuchai). The three by-elections are yet to be held.

  Kenya’s wildlife agency says two giraffes were electrocuted on Sunday when they walked into low-lying electric power transmission lines that pass through the Soysambu Conservancy in western Kenya. Trizer Mwakinya, head of communications at the Kenya Wildlife Service, said Monday that workers from the Kenya Power and Lighting Company “were on site” to rectify the problem. But conservationist Paula Kahumbu in tweets addressed to the power company and the wildlife agency said the power lines have been killing giraffes, vultures and flamingos. “Advice from experts was ignored. RIAs( Regulatory Impact Assessment) are notoriously poor on many development projects. Sad that it takes these kinds of deaths to wake some people up!” she said in a tweet. In an earlier tweet with a picture of two dead giraffes under an electric pole, Kahumbu said the two were of the Rothschild's giraffe species. The Kenya Wildlife Service says there are only 609 Rothschild's giraffes in th

  World Health Organisation (WHO) scientists tasked to investigate the origin of coronavirus in China have discovered that the virus outbreak was wider in Wuhan city in December 2019 than it was thought earlier. During their fact-finding mission in China, they established that dozen strains of the virus existed in Wuhan, sparking global debate over a new Covid-19 SARS-CoV-2 variant recently discovered in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. Health experts have warned that these viruses mutate and are known to be more contagious and transmissible. There are no studies that have proved the variants have any impact on vaccines efficacy. Remarkable progress has been made by global pharmaceutical giants towards developing Covid-19 vaccines. Last year, two leading vaccines Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have been approved and already administered across the world. This week on Monday, WHO approved AstraZeneca PLC’s vaccine for emergency use, paving way for vaccines shipments to the world’s poorest

  The Kenya-Uganda milk wars are back. Kenya is blocking imports of the milk to protect its local producers, who were being seriously undercut by the cheaper Ugandan imports. This milk thing is about something else. For that, we have to go back to Comrade Omwony Ojwok. At the time of his death on November 11, 2007, Omwony was State minister for Economic Monitoring, a job he held between 2001 and 2007, having been minister for Northern Rehabilitation between 1999 and 2001.  Before that, he headed the Uganda Aids Commission. And if you go even further back, Omwony was better known as one of the “Gang of Four” group of politicians (which included Dani Nabudere, Edward Rugumayo, and Yash Tandon) during the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), the government that took over after the ouster of Idi Amin. Omwony fled back into exile after the UNLF was overthrown by its Military Council in August 1980 when Godfrey Binaisa was president. Paulo Muwanga was chairman of the Military Council, an

  Mars is the place to be this month. Two spacecraft have already entered orbit around the red planet: China's Tianwen-1 got there on Feb. 10 and, a day earlier, the United Arab Emirates made history, sliding the Al Amal spacecraft into Martian orbit and becoming just the fifth country to reach Earth's dusty, barren neighbor.  The first Arab interplanetary mission has snapped a couple of images of Mars during its journey so far, but nothing quite like what it delivered Sunday. From a distance of around 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers), the probe's camera -- officially known as the Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI) -- captured a picturesque view of Mars as a yellowed semicircle against the black curtain of space. Some of Mars most famous features are visible in the image. Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano in the solar system peeks out at the terminator, where the sunlight wanes, while the three volcanoes of the Tharsis Montes dazzle under a mostly  dust-free  sky. 

The migration is the joint longest mammal migration on Earth. Contrary to popular belief, the wildebeest migration has a competitor for duration. The length of the migration is also mirrored by the lesser known zebra migration in Botswana which sees the striped horses of Africa migrate from the floodplains of Chobe to Nxai Pan. And back again. Both migrations have a journey length of roughly 500km which is no short distance. It is not just wildebeest that migrate in the Seregenti. The Great Migration contains over 2 million animals, including 300,000 zebras and a whole assortment of antelope such as impala, eland and Thompson’s gazelles. The migration sees the animals move in a general clockwise direction through the  Serengeti  National Park, following the rains. The migration is ALWAYS in Tanzania. No matter what time of year it is, the migration remains in Tanzania all year long. Parts of the migratory herds do move into the Masai Mara in Kenya from July until October; h

  Forces in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have accused the federal government of partnering with the United Arab Emirates to use weaponized drones stationed in Eritrea. A security analyst tells VOA the drones are in an Eritrean port city but there is no evidence they are being used in the Tigray conflict. Wim Zwijnenburg, a humanitarian disarmament project leader for PAX, an organization that studies global conflict and researches the use of military technologies, has been analyzing sa tellite imagery collected by the U.S. company Planet Lab. He determined that drones operated by the UAE are stationed in the Eritrean port city of Assab. The 20-meter wingspan, Chinese-made drones known as the  Wing Loong II  are capable of dropping bombs or shooting missiles. “It's true that there are Emirati drones based in Eritrea,” Zwijnenburg told VOA via Skype. “However, the next question is whether they have been used in Ethiopia. And, in that regard, we couldn't find any indication tha

  The Central Bank of Kenya says it will be  adopting Bitcoin as its reserve currency . Head of the bank, Patrick Njoroge said that adopting Bitcoin was a move taken to bring the currency out of recurrent debt and because of the shortage of foreign reserve currencies. He added that the increasing demand by the IMF to devalue the country’s currency, the Kenyan Shillong has made the country’s money to lose value increasingly and only Bitcoin can bring the nation out of debt and set it on a path to prosperity. U.S Dollar Loses Reserve Currency Status The United States Dollar has for centuries been recognized as the global reserve currency, but not anymore. This is because of the rising inflation that is making it less valuable by the day, caused mainly by indiscriminate printing of dollar bills. This was worsened by the COVID pandemic that made the government print trillions of dollars in cash as a stimulus package for its citizens. As noted above, Kenya’s choice of Bitcoi

  A robotic probe owned by the United Arab Emirates is preparing to jump into Mars orbit on Tuesday after launching from Earth last year. For mission managers in Dubai, it’s a nerve-racking climax in the UAE’s first mission to deep space. If successful, the Hope probe will survey the Martian atmosphere. The Emirati cabinet hopes the mission will also inspire a new science and technology sector as the Gulf state looks to wean its economy from oil dependence. The Hope probe launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center last July as Earth and Mars aligned in their orbits around the Sun. Now, having traveled over 300 million miles, Hope is set to carry out an intricate and fully autonomous maneuver called a Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) at 10:30AM ET. Mission control in Dubai won’t know if the MOI has begun until 10:42AM ET because of a 22-minute roundtrip communications delay through NASA’s Deep Space Network. Manual, real-time control is impossible, so Hope will need to carry out these or

  Today, history and the hopes of the Arab world will hang on the endurance and independence of six engines charged with steering an SUV-sized spacecraft into orbit around  Mars . The United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched that spacecraft, dubbed  Hope , in July 2020, lofting its first interplanetary mission a little more than a decade after becoming a spacefaring nation at all. Now, after a smooth seven-month cruise, the UAE is preparing for  Hope's arrival  at the Red Planet on Feb. 9. It's a complex maneuver that requires the spacecraft to complete an intense engine burn with no support from the mission's engineers, who are left anxiously awaiting bulletins that the solar system's geometry delays by 10 minutes. "What that means is 27 minutes of burning fuel, of using our thrusters, of the spacecraft undergoing one of the toughest challenges that it's been designed for," Sarah Al Amiri, chairperson of the UAE Space Agency, said during a virtual even

  Under the framework of the UAE’s efforts to support the Yemeni people, the country has contributed AED367 million, equivalent to US$100 million, to the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan in Yemen 2019, bringing the total aid contributed by the UAE to over AED22 billion (US$6 billion). Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support the UN plan. It was also signed by Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Al Hashemy stressed that the funding is part of the UAE's pledges to support the UN’s humanitarian efforts in Yemen to reach the neediest groups, especially women and children. Lowcock praised the UAE’s generous support for the plan, pointing out that the contribution will provide a lifeline for millions of Yemenis. The contribution will cover humanitarian

  The value of assistance provided by the UAE to Yemen from April 2015 through February 2020 amounted to over AED22 billion (US$6 billion), according to the Emirates Red Crescent's latest figures. The assistance included rehabilitating schools and hospitals, securing energy, rebuilding airports and ports, expansion of roads and building housing units, along with other projects aimed at ensuring livelihood for multiple segments of the Yemeni people, including widows, orphans and people of determination. Since April 2015 to date, the UAE has been maintaining positive channels of cooperation with key international and humanitarian organisations worldwide, to ensure concerted action toward all sectors and governorates of Yemen. Featuring high in the UAE aid progamme is a financial assistance of AED10.83 billion ($ 2.95 billion) to support public service programmes of essential importance to broad segments of Yemeni society, especially in the areas of health and education. T

  An endangered giraffe was rescued from a flooded island in Kenya with the use of a makeshift raft. Lbarnoti, a Rothschild giraffe, was ferried to safety across the crocodile-infested waters of Lake Baringo by conservationists. He was the third giraffe to have been rescued so far from Longicharo Island, a peninsula flooded because of heavy rains. The male was loaded on to the barge, created out of steel and empty drums, and carried one mile down the river to Roku Conservancy. He stood calmly during the short journey, ambling off once he reached the other side to join two other giraffes, Asiwa and Pasaka, which were rescued in December. Rescuers vowed to save the remaining six on the island, including Lbarnoti’s young calf, Noelle, born in December to mother Nkarikoni. “We must finish these rescues as quickly as possible,” Susan Myers, founder and chief executive of Save Giraffes Now, told the  Daily Mail  in the UK. The group teamed with members of the Kenya

  The United Arab Emirates announced that Emirati nationality will now be attainable for foreigners, in a major first for the Gulf region. The move is a significant change in direction for a country whose economy relies heavily on expatriates, for whom residency is typically contingent on their employment visas.  The UAE passport, which is ranked as one of the best in the world for mobility, will be offered to select foreigners and professionals including "investors, doctors, specialists, inventors, scientists, talents, intellectuals, artists and their families," according to the announcement.  "The United Arab Emirates has approved amendments ... allowing investors, professionals, special talents and their families to acquire the Emirati nationality and passport under certain conditions," the UAE government news agency WAM said in a release Saturday.  "The step aims at appreciating the talents and competencies present in the UAE and attracting more bright

  Twenty-nine more patients recovered from Covid-19 on Monday, pushing the number of recovered patients to 83,936. Thirteen of the patients were discharged from the hospital and the other 16 declared free of the virus from home.  “Another three patients have lost their lives to the disease, pushing the cumulative fatalities to 1,766. Our condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their loved ones,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said in a statement. Kagwe said 83 people had tested positive for the virus from a sample size of 1,732 tested in 24 hours. This represents a positivity rate of 4.7 per cent. The new cases comprised 46 men and 37 women aged between six and 88 years.  Twenty-two were foreigners. “There are 464 patients currently admitted to various health facilities countrywide while 1,407 are on home-based isolation and care. Twenty-three patients are in the Intensive Care Unit, 12 of whom are on ventilator support and 11 on supplemental oxygen,” Kagwe said. “

  An Irish man has died after he became ill while climbing Mount Kenya. The climber, 40, developed breathing issues at a stopover hut on the mountain, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service. A statement said the incident occurred at 6am on Thursday. A search and rescue team evacuated the man to Mackinder’s Camp and he was then airlifted to Nanyuki Cottage Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The man had been at Mount Kenya National Park since Monday. The service offered condolences to the man's family.

  The United Arab Emirates has provided urgent humanitarian aid to people affected by the recent earthquake that rocked the Indonesian island of Sulawesi recently. The initiative was launched on the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, with the monitoring of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler's Representative in the Al Dhafra Region and Chairman of the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC), to support those affected by the earthquake and offer them urgent relief aid. The ERC implemented the directives of the leadership by preparing an ambitious relief programme, which aims to provide large quantities of shelter materials, food, medical supplies and other basic needs to thousands of people affected by the disaster. The ERC coordinated with the UAE Embassy in Jakarta and relevant Indonesian authorities to ensure the fast delivery of the aid, to meet the needs of thos

  The Consolidated Fund Services (CFS), from which the State draws cash to repay public debt as well as meet other constitutional obligations such as retired civil servants' pensions, has received a whopping Sh724.5 billion; the single-biggest allocation of the different expenditure items listed in Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani's budget. The annual budget is ordinarily a strong indicator of any government's top priorities, given the fact that resources are one of the key determinants of quality of service or development projects. "Under-performance of the economy worsens the debt indicators, thus unsustainability. However, with fiscal consolidation, the government aims to contain the pace of borrowing and hence reduce the debt ratios," CS Yatani says in the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) document released on Monday. Marginal growth The education sector will cumulatively receive Sh510.5 billion, a marginal growth from the Sh505.1 billion all

  Israel opened an embassy in the United Arab Emirates Sunday, its foreign ministry said, in a historic move four months after the Jewish state and the Gulf country normalised ties. "Today the Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi has officially been opened, with the arrival of the mission head Eitan Naeh," the ministry said in a statement. "The Israeli embassy in the United Arab Emirates will advance relations between the countries on all levels." The UAE, along with  Bahrain , signed a US-brokered deal in September to  normalise relations with the Jewish state . The agreements, known as the "Abraham Accords", shattered a longstanding Arab consensus that there should be no normalisation with Israel until it reaches a comprehensive peace deal with the Palestinians. The Palestinians  condemned the agreements  as a "stab in the back". The Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi will be operating from "temporary offices" until locating a

  UAE opened two hospitals in the Horn of Africa nation through the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation. The hospitals are Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Hospital in the city of Berbera and another which will be specialised for women, childbirth and neonatal care in Burao town. The hospitals have been built thanks to the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the support of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and the direct follow up of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Chairman of the Foundation. It is part of the UAE’s humanitarian initiatives to alleviate the suffering of underprivileged people, especially given the challenges facing the health sector in Somaliland, and in light of the worsening health conditions the world is witnessing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Under an agreement struck between the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) on Monday, January 18, DEWA will supply EGA’s smelter with solar power from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, located in Dubai. The solar park has a current installed capacity of 1,013 megawatts using photovoltaic solar panels. DEWA is implementing an additional 1,850 megawatts of projects using solar panels and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Eventually, its capacity will reach 5,000MW by 2030. DEWA will supply EGA’s smelter with 560,000 megawatt hours of solar power annually from the facility, sufficient to produce 40,000 tonnes of aluminium in the first year itself. EGA will in turn supply this solar-powered aluminium to global customers under the new product name CelestiAL. The fourth phase of the solar park will, upon its completion, have the largest energy storage capacity in the world of 15 hours. It will be operational in stages