Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
An Israeli strike destroyed a bridge in the upper reaches of northern Lebanon, official media said on Sunday, in an expansion of an air campaign against Hezbollah supply lines from Syria.
Lebanon's National News Agency said that one child was killed in the attack on Akroum, in Akkar governorate, on the border with Syria. The attack destroyed a bridge linking the rugged area with the interior of Lebanon, local sources said.
Mohammad Yehia, a parliamentarian representing the mostly Sunni region, said the attack late on Saturday was part of Israeli's objective of "cutting off Lebanese areas from each other, and from the outside [world]". Historically, Akkar has been part of a lawless arc comprising northern and eastern Lebanese areas on the border with Syria, where smuggling of drugs, weapons and other contraband has been rife.
Mr Yehia called for "holding on to national unity". Sectarian tensions in Lebanon have risen since Hezbollah, a Shiite armed group supported by Iran that has members in parliament but operates outside the control of state authorities, started attacks on northern Israel in October last year. The Hezbollah-Israel war, the second since 2006, started a day after Hamas, another militant group supported by Iran, killed 1,200 people in an incursion into south Israel from Gaza on October 7. Israel retaliated with a military offensive in Gaza that is now in its 13th month.
Israel has carried out extensive air strikes in the Bekaa Valley, which is adjacent to Akkar, since launching an all-out offensive against Hezbollah in later September, after a year of limited exchanges across Lebanon's southern border.
Earlier that month, Israel reportedly sent its special forces into Syria to destroy an Iranian-controlled weapons development facility in Masyaf, a city in Hama province. The raid ushered in a concerted campaign to cut off Hezbollah weapon deliveries from Iran, focused on areas along the border between Lebanon and central Syria. Among the targets has been the Syrian city of Qusayr and its countryside, a Hezbollah stronghold near Akroum.
The Qusayr area has increasingly served as a supply route since Hezbollah captured the city from rebels fighting the Syrian army and allied pro-Iranian militia in 2013, security officials in the Middle East said. Hezbollah poured militiamen and hardware into Syria shortly after the 2011 revolt against President Bashar Al Assad.
During the course of the ensuing civil war, Hezbollah, along with Iraqi militias, became the enforcers of an Iranian-controlled corridor running across Syria from Iraq to Lebanon. Israel has struck targets in the corridor hundreds of times in the last decade.
The attack on Akroum was followed overnight by an Israeli strike on the Jusiya border crossing south of Qusayr, Telegram groups run by loyalists of Mr Al Assad said, without mentioning any casualties.
On Thursday, Israeli war planes struck a road and workshops in Qusayr, residents said on WhatsApp groups. Syrian media quoted a military official as saying Israel targeted residential buildings.
Precision missiles and drones, developed and assembled at Iranian-run sites in central Syria, have been flowing across the border to Hezbollah, Syrian opposition sources said, adding that Iraqi militias are involved in delivering the parts from Iran.
Iran has launched what it describes as a multi-front war by its proxies against Israel, in response to the war in Gaza. But Hezbollah has said in the recent weeks that it would accept a ceasefire with Israel even if the Gaza war continues, in a reversal of its previous stance.
The so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a collection of Iran-backed armed groups, said it had launched drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied area of the Golan Heights and on the Jordan Valley on the weekend. There were no reports of casualties, or any confirmation that the drones had reached their targets. They would need to pass over Jordan to do so.
In the past several weeks, Jordanian authorities have reported instances of drones falling in various areas of the country, warning people to stay away from the objects and to report any new occurrences. But officials have not said whether the drones were brought down by air defences, or who launched them.
Jordanian troops on Sunday foiled attempts by "several groups of smugglers" to infiltrate the kingdom's northern border with Syria, according to a military official quoted by state media. One smuggler was killed when the army engaged with the infiltrators at dawn, he said, without giving details.
Jordan has accused the Syrian military and its Iran-aligned militia allies of complicity in the cross border drug trafficking, especially of the amphetamine Captagon, which Arab security officials says constitutes a major source of financing for Tehran's allies in Syria and Lebanon. Mr Al Assad has denied that any official Syrian involvement.
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Company%20Profile
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Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
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Company name: baraka
Started: July 2020
Founders: Feras Jalbout and Kunal Taneja
Based: Dubai and Bahrain
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $150,000
Current staff: 12
Stage: Pre-seed capital raising of $1 million
Investors: Class 5 Global, FJ Labs, IMO Ventures, The Community Fund, VentureSouq, Fox Ventures, Dr Abdulla Elyas (private investment)
Company Profile
Company name: Big Farm Brothers
Started: September 2020
Founders: Vishal Mahajan and Navneet Kaur
Based: Dubai Investment Park 1
Industry: food and agriculture
Initial investment: $205,000
Current staff: eight to 10
Future plan: to expand to other GCC markets
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal / Ubisoft Toronto
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows
Release Date: April 10
Company profile
Name: Tharb
Started: December 2016
Founder: Eisa Alsubousi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: Luxury leather goods
Initial investment: Dh150,000 from personal savings
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
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Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
If you go
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Nairobi, with fares starting from Dh1,695. The resort can be reached from Nairobi via a 35-minute flight from Wilson Airport or Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or by road, which takes at least three hours.
The rooms
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya range from Dh1,870 per night for a deluxe room to Dh11,000 per night for the William Holden Cottage.
UAE’s revised Cricket World Cup League Two schedule
August, 2021: Host - United States; Teams - UAE, United States and Scotland
Between September and November, 2021 (dates TBC): Host - Namibia; Teams - Namibia, Oman, UAE
December, 2021: Host - UAE; Teams - UAE, Namibia, Oman
February, 2022: Hosts - Nepal; Teams - UAE, Nepal, PNG
June, 2022: Hosts - Scotland; Teams - UAE, United States, Scotland
September, 2022: Hosts - PNG; Teams - UAE, PNG, Nepal
February, 2023: Hosts - UAE; Teams - UAE, PNG, Nepal
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APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
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Players Selected for La Liga Trials
U18 Age Group
Name: Ahmed Salam (Malaga)
Position: Right Wing
Nationality: Jordanian
Name: Yahia Iraqi (Malaga)
Position: Left Wing
Nationality: Morocco
Name: Mohammed Bouherrafa (Almeria)
Position: Centre-Midfield
Nationality: French
Name: Mohammed Rajeh (Cadiz)
Position: Striker
Nationality: Jordanian
U16 Age Group
Name: Mehdi Elkhamlichi (Malaga)
Position: Lead Striker
Nationality: Morocco
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Fifa Club World Cup quarter-final
Kashima Antlers 3 (Nagaki 49’, Serginho 69’, Abe 84’)
Guadalajara 2 (Zaldivar 03’, Pulido 90')
The Dictionary of Animal Languages
Heidi Sopinka
Scribe
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-finals, second leg:
Liverpool (0) v Barcelona (3), Tuesday, 11pm UAE
Game is on BeIN Sports
Should late investors consider cryptocurrencies?
Wealth managers recommend late investors to have a balanced portfolio that typically includes traditional assets such as cash, government and corporate bonds, equities, commodities and commercial property.
They do not usually recommend investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies due to the risk and volatility associated with them.
“It has produced eye-watering returns for some, whereas others have lost substantially as this has all depended purely on timing and when the buy-in was. If someone still has about 20 to 25 years until retirement, there isn’t any need to take such risks,” Rupert Connor of Abacus Financial Consultant says.
He adds that if a person is interested in owning a business or growing a property portfolio to increase their retirement income, this can be encouraged provided they keep in mind the overall risk profile of these assets.
A%20QUIET%20PLACE
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Company%20profile
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