Tag Archives: business
Residents asked to use resources ‘sensibly’
Residents asked to use resources ‘sensibly’ Nivriti Butalia / 30 January 2014 Dewa chief says authority to intensify efforts to conserve water, aims to reduce line loss by 6% in two years. Water losses in the city are going to see a drastic cut if the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has its way. Managing Director and CEO of Dewa, Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer told Khaleej Times that the authority is going to intensify efforts to conserve water. Fact box > Through 8 recycling programmes last year, Emirates Environmental Group collected 1.6m kg of waste > 1,190,000 kg of paper has been collected for recycling > More than 25,000kg of aluminium cans have been collected for recycling > More than 80,000kg of plastic have been collected and recycled “By 2016 we are going to reduce line loss by 6 per cent,” he told this newspaper, while also advocating that people in villas should conserve resources and use water sensibly. Line loss refers to the water lost in the pipeline itself. Addressing worries of residents, Al Tayer also told Khaleej Times that tap water in Dubai is 100 per cent safe and drinkable. He, however, asked residents to check with the management of residential buildings to see if the buildings tanks were regularly cleaned and not corroded. In a build up to the ‘World Green Economy Summit’ (WGES) to be held in Dubai in April, Al Tayer on Wednesday spoke about ‘Green’ being a national strategy for UAE. He spoke of ‘smart city projects’ and the promotion of sustainability across the Middle East. Al Tayer also announced a new initiative by Dewa, to organise one week of green events in Dubai under the theme ‘Dubai Green Week’ from April 13-17, 2014, to be held annually and coincide with both Water, Energy, Technology, and Environment Exhibition (WETEX) and the ‘World Green Economy Summit’. “Specialised forums and events will be held with the aim to increase participation from all segments of society, particularly young entrepreneurs, university students and the media among others. The activities and events of Dubai Green Week will be announced in the comin weeks,” said Al Tayer. The summit programme this year is co-developed with a high profile advisory board. The partners are United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), State of Green – Denmark, Regions of Climate Change (R20), World Bank, International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) and Carbon Disclosure Report (CDR). “The WGES 2014 programme has five pillars, namely Green Regulation, Green Finance, Green Innovation, Green Partnerships and Green Marketplace,” said Waleed Salman, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the organising committee. There was also a small signing ceremony at the event, to ink a partnership between WGES and Irena to work in collaboration in the region on issues related to energy. Recycling pays off Besides water conservation efforts, the UAE has also seen a revolution in terms of recycling thanks to the Emirates Environment Group (EEG). Habiba Al Marashi, chairperson of EEG, stated: “Last year, we were able to collect 1,190,000kg of paper with the cooperation of 878 participating entities from the public, private, household and educational sectors all over the United Arab Emirates.” She said: “We were also able to collect more than 25,000kg of aluminium cans with the help of 450 participants, and 8,917 printer cartridges”. “As for batteries and juice cartons, 73 participants were able to collect a grand 2,773kg, and 91 participants collected 5,507kg accordingly. In our Mobile Phone Recycling Campaign, volunteers collected 1,984 mobile phones.” “Moreover, aluminium is precious and can be 100 per cent recyclable. The recycling process for aluminium can save up to 95 per cent of the energy needed for its production”. The statistics in the UAE indicate that there are more than 12 million plastic containers sold every day, thus recycling this huge number will save a large quantity of petroleum needed to produce new plastic containers. news@khaleejtimes.com For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Beware, Angry Birds are spying on you!
Beware, Angry Birds are spying on you! (Reuters) / 29 January 2014 Among these new intelligence tools were “leaky” apps on smartphones that could disclose users’ locations, age, gender and other personal information. US and British intelligence agencies have plotted ways to gather data from Angry Birds and other smartphone apps that leak users’ personal information onto global networks, the New York Times reported on Monday. It was citing previously undisclosed intelligence documents made available by fugitive American spy agency contractor Edward Snowden. The Times said the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, had tried to exploit increasing volumes of personal data that spill onto networks from new generations of mobile phone technology. Among these new intelligence tools were “leaky” apps on smartphones that could disclose users’ locations, age, gender and other personal information. The US and British agencies were working together on ways to collect and store data from smartphone apps by 2007, the newspaper reported. The agencies have traded methods for collecting location data from a user of Google Maps and for gathering address books, buddy lists, phone logs and geographic data embedded in photos when a user posts to the mobile versions of Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter and other services, the Times said. Snowden, who is living in asylum in Russian, faces espionage charges in the United States after disclosing the NSA’s massive telephone and Internet surveillance programmes last year. His revelations and the resulting firestorm of criticism from politicians and privacy rights activists prompted US President Barack Obama to announce intelligence-gather reforms on January 17, including a ban on eavesdropping on the leaders of close allies and limits on the collection of telephone data. The Times report said the scale of the data collection from smartphones was not clear but the documents showed that the two national agencies routinely obtained information from certain apps, including some of the earliest ones introduced to mobile phones. The documents did not say how many users were affected or whether they included Americans. White House spokesman Jay Carney said US surveillance agencies were only interested in collecting data on people considered a threat to the United States. “To the extent data is collected by the NSA through whatever means, we are not interested in the communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets, and we are not after the information of ordinary Americans,” Carney told a regular White House news conference. Any such surveillance was focused on “valid foreign intelligence targets … I mean terrorists, proliferators, other bad actors (who) use the same communications tools that others use,” he said. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
Syria peace talks take tentative step forward
Syria peace talks take tentative step forward (Reuters) / 29 January 2014 Both sides agree to use the Geneva communique as the basis of discussions, though they disagree about how the negotiations should proceed. Talks aimed at ending the war in Syria took a first tentative step forward on Wednesday as both sides agreed to use the same document as the basis of discussions, although they disagreed about how the negotiations should proceed. Louay Safi, spokesperson for the Syrian National Coalition, answers journalists’ questions at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. -AP Both sides said they agreed to use the “Geneva communique”, a document agreed at a previous international conference in Geneva in June 2012, and which sets out the stages needed for an end to the fighting and a political transition. “We have agreed that Geneva 1 is the basis of the talks,” opposition spokesman Louay Al Safi told reporters, referring to the 2012 communique. Bouthaina Shaaban, a Syrian presidential adviser, said there was agreement on using the text, but with some reservations. While the opposition wants to start by addressing the question of the transitional governing body that the talks aim to create, the government insists that the first step is to discuss “terrorism”, and not jump into the middle of the text. The government describes those fighting to overthrow President Bashar Al Assad as terrorists. The opposition says transitional arrangements must include the removal of Assad, which the government rejects. Despite the differing interpretations of Geneva 1, organisers of the talks at United Nations headquarters in Geneva have been at pains to keep the process going and dissuade either of the sides from walking out. Syrian state television said the government wanted to discuss the text of Geneva 1 “paragraph by paragraph”. “Mr Brahimi said tomorrow they are going to discuss terrorism because stopping terrorism is the first issue that should be handled,” Shaaban said. “Even in Geneva 1 the first item is to stop violence which has turned to terrorism.” There was no immediate confirmation from international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who is chairing the talks. On Tuesday he said both sides were talking to the media too much and should respect the confidentiality of the talks and not overstate their case. For more news from Khaleej Times, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes , and on Twitter at @khaleejtimes Continue reading
