Tulsa-Smith:- emotional...: SAFE HAVEN FOR SHOPPERS STILL?

Monday, March 12, 2007

SAFE HAVEN FOR SHOPPERS STILL?

Many people in some countries head for Dubai, United Arab Emirates for luxury goods, serene environments, and wonderful private or business shopping opportunities. That's the good news first. Now, the bad news:

[
Last Updated: Monday, 12 March 2007, 11:31 GMT

Dubai airport shut after accident

Dubai international airport was forced to close for more than seven hours after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane aborted its take-off on the runway.

Up to 15 people were slightly injured in the accident, in which the plane's nose suddenly dived towards the ground and it skidded to a halt.

One unconfirmed report said the accident was caused by a wheel failure.

Some 71 flights to and from the airport - the busiest hub in the Middle East - had to be diverted or cancelled.

"There was a failure to take off and then the nose of the plane hit the ground," a spokeswoman for the United Arab Emirates civil aviation department, Shamma Lootahshe, told the AFP news agency.

Flight BG006 from Dubai to Dhaka was carrying 236 passengers and crew, all of whom were hurriedly evacuated from the plane.

Ground emergency crews swarmed round the aircraft, which left huge black skid marks on the runway.

"Fifteen people on board were slightly injured, most of them in the panic that erupted when the accident occurred, and have been taken to hospital," Ms Lootahshe said, adding that most of the passengers were Bangladeshis.

Passengers stranded

Some 35 incoming flights were rerouted to neighbouring airports while 36 departures were cancelled, a spokesman told BBC News.

The accident took place around 0630 (0230 GMT), and the airport did not re-open until after 1400 (1000 GMT).

Some tourists found themselves stranded.

"We were told that the flight was cancelled and to go the ticket desk to rebook. But there are no seats today or tomorrow. We have nowhere to go. They said hotels are all full," said British visitor Rachel Blackwell.

A spokesman said it was not clear how long the backlog would take to clear. ]

SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6440747.stm

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Greenville, Rhode Island bakery owned by the Cavanagh family, which uses the plant to produce church communion bread from just water and bread. That business is known to produce about 850 million sacramental wafers annually and to supply 80% of the Holy Communion bread used in American, Australian, Canadian, and British churches. The only middlemen in the supply chain are nuns living in convents! Now they want to expand to West Africa with their Christian sacramental ware for Pentecostal, Catholic, 'New Wave', and Orthodox church offerings. I make reference to the so-called New Wave churches - my term for those churches that broke away from the orthodoxy of the Protestant fold, just as the latter roke off from the Catholic church by virtue of the exploits of Martin Luther centuries ago. Many new-wave and other church goers in the generally undeveloped West African subregion of Africa pay more to religious organizations in monthly tithes and offerings than they do to their government in personal income and value added taxes. Now, that last fact is quite interesting because it is an admission that a bakery in Rhode Island has seen a huge market in the center of Black Africa for small white perfectly laminated and non-crumbly holy wheat bread, reportedly costing "less than a penny" apiece, for the use of both the bible-reading and the bible-believing religious organizations. However, the picture from the Cavanagh's factory floor speaks volumes, in my own opinion, about the need for the company to watch its business ethics and to treat all customers equally irrespective of location, creed, or other discriminatory demographic information or criteria. So, I just hope and pray that the wafers falling off the conveyor belt and by the way side are not destined for West Africa and that the actual wafers delivered will be wheat bread and water, and not just glutamate-free bread and 'pure' water, if you get my point, even if so requested by some shady, greedy, and unethical businessmen over in West Africa. Posted by Okonkwo O. Awa on Sunday, December 28, 2008.

In the summer of 2007, Pope Benedict XVI (BXVI) encouraged The Church to reach out to young people using new technologies, as he himself learned to send out cellphone text messages to the faithful. So in obedience, a tech savvy evangelizing Catholic priest got some help from a Web designer in order to write all the daily books of prayers into a low-cost computer software application downloadable onto the iPhone. Rev. Paolo Padrini's iTunes prayer book was officially approved by The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications in December 2008. Of course, all proceeds from the electronic prayer book venture will go to charity. Speaking of charitable behavior, The Holy See has seen it fit after 400 years to honor Galileo Galilei in 2009 as the "patron" of the non-mutual exclusivity of the faith versus reason dichotomy. That is very appropriate in this age of new technology, even though The Church still smarts from its error of judgment in calling the famous astronomer a heretic after he publicly embarrassed The Church by reporting that his scientific observations in Astronomy with his unique telescope had led him inexorably to believe that the Earth actually revolved around the sun, in direct opposition to the teaching of The Church at the time that Planet Earth was the center of the universe. In seeking to paint the Church in a new light of worldly knowledge by distancing itself from a past of imbibing pure dogma, The Vatican may have ventured to cross the final frontier and boundary between Science and Christianity by acknowledging recently that there could be life on planets other than the Earth! Posted by O. O. Awa on Wednesday, December 24, 2008.