Editor John Peter

  Twenty-nine participants, including the hosts, have already been confirmed, while the remaining three will be finalised by June this year. The final draw for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will take place in Doha on Friday. The 32-team football event will kick off in Qatar on November 21, with the final taking place on December 18. Twenty-nine participants, including the hosts, have already been confirmed, while the remaining three will be finalised by June this year. How does the seeding and pots work? Qatar, as hosts, will take position A1 from Pot 1. The other 28 already qualified teams are allocated pots based on the FIFA rankings released on Thursday. In Pot 1, Qatar will be joined by the seven highest-ranked teams. The teams ranked eight to 15 will be allocated Pot 2, 16 to 23 will be in Pot 3 while Pot 4 will include the qualified teams in positions 24 to 28 as well as placeholders for the remaining three slots — two winners of the intercontinental playoffs and the rem...

  Italian aid worker spent 14 months in captivity and experienced brutality at the hands of ISIS members Federico Motka’s abductors greeted him in English after he and his colleagues were kidnapped near a refugee camp on the Turkish border, telling him: “Welcome to Syria , you mutt.” El Shafee Elsheikh is shown on a screen during an online hearing in a court in Virginia For the Italian aid worker, it was the beginning of 14 months of brutality at the hands of ISIS . Mr Motka gave evidence about the ordeal on Thursday at the terrorism trial of El Shafee Elsheikh , a British citizen charged with taking a leading role in an ISIS kidnapping scheme that took more than 20 westerners hostage between 2012 and 2015. Four Americans — journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller — were among them. Foley, Sotloff and Kassig were decapitated. Mueller was forced into slavery and raped repeatedly by ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi before s...

  Angel Argueta Anariba fled a 1998 hurricane in Honduras, only to get lashed by one while detained by ICE two decades later. WHEN HURRICANE LAURA slammed into Louisiana in the summer of 2020, it was the strongest storm in the state since U.S. record-keeping began. For 42-year-old Angel Argueta Anariba, it was the beginning of a period of misery: the first of three major storms to hit Central Louisiana’s Catahoula Correctional Center, where he was detained. More than 20 years earlier, another climate catastrophe had upended Argueta Anariba’s life. In November 1998, he had fled Honduras in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. Now he found himself confronting new climate nightmares in Louisiana, with no possibility of escape. The privately run facility where Argueta Anariba was held was one of several new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Louisiana . The implications of caging thousands of people in a state that’s notorious for extreme weather crystallized wit...

  Ukraine’s commitment to the laws of war is being tested by how it responds to video that appears to show its forces shooting Russian prisoners. AMID OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that Russian forces have committed war crimes during an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials were confronted this week with video that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting captive Russian soldiers in the legs. Although Ukraine’s senior military leader and its domestic intelligence agency both insisted that the video posted on social networks on Sunday was “a fake” produced by Russia, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised that the government would investigate and punish those responsible if the incident did take place. On Monday, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, Yuri Butusov, published graphic video showing the charred remains of three men he identified as Russian soldiers, as Ukrainian forces recaptured the town of Malaya Rohan, outside Kharkiv, over t...

Mr. Shyam Maheshwari serves as Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Partner of SSG Capital Management (Singapore) Pte. Limited   Shyam Maheshwari serves as Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Partner of SSG Capital Management (Singapore) Pte. Limited, and is primarily responsible for SSG’s investment activities in India. He has 17 years of experience in the deal sourcing, analysis and investing industry. Previously, Mr Maheshwari served as a Senior Member of the Lehman Brothers Asia Special Situations Group primarily responsible for making principal investments in India, where he oversaw the efforts to build the India business and initiated pan-Asian ventures in mining and power assets with a focus on Indonesia. He initially joined Lehman Brothers in 1999 as a Credit Analyst in the Asia Credit Research team and later moved to Credit Trading in early 2005. He served as Fixed Income Analyst of Barclays Capital, Research Division. He worked at Barclays PLC, Research Division. He was...

  Drivers have been told to turn off their engines when they are not moving London ’s nine million inhabitants have been urged to avoid unnecessary car journeys to combat the “toxic air” circulating in the city as part of the first major warning over pollution in two years. Sadiq Khan , the mayor of the UK capital, issued the alert, asking Londoners to walk, cycle or use public transport rather than use private vehicles. Drivers should also refrain from idling with their engines on and people should not burn wood or garden waste, he said. “Toxic air is dangerous, particularly for those with heart and lung problems,” Mr Khan tweeted. “A high pollution episode is forecast from now to Thursday. Please look after each other by walking, cycling, avoiding unnecessary car trips, stopping engine idling and not burning wood or garden waste.” The alert issued on Tuesday is set to expire on Thursday. It was triggered by an Imperial College London forecast that imported pollution will ad...

  Foreign minister accuses US of delaying nuclear deal amid complications over Ukraine-linked sanctions on Russia Iran is “closer than ever” to reviving Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said while visiting Damascus where he welcomed recent moves to reconcile Arab relations with Syria. He also discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine during talks with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and top security official Maj Gen Ali Mamlouk in the Syrian capital on Wednesday. Iran and Russia have supported Mr Al Assad through much of Syria’s civil war, which began with peaceful protests in 2011. The government’s violent response to the demonstrations led to the international isolation of Syria, which included its suspension from the Arab League. Mr Amirabdollahian’s visit to Damascus came days after the UAE hosted Mr Al Assad on his first visit to an Arab state since 2011. “We welcome and we are satisfied with wha...

  Suspected intercontinental ballistic missile test thought to be first since 2017 The US has condemned North Korea’s test -firing of a new intercontinental ballistic missile. The American government on Thursday urged the world to hold Pyongyang responsible for breaching UN Security Council resolutions. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington “strongly condemns the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for its test of a long-range ballistic missile”. “This launch is a brazen violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilising the security situation in the region.” South Korea and Japan reported the launch of a suspected ICBM, thought to be for the first time since 2017. The US Armed Forces’ Indo-Pacific Command said the launch did not pose an immediate threat to US territory or personnel, or its allies. It said North Korea must stop such destabilising acts. North Korea on Thursday conducted what is thought t...

A China Eastern Airlines Corp. Boeing Co. 737-800NG plane carrying 132 people has crashed in China’s southwestern province of Guangxi. According to FlightRadar24, China Eastern flight MU5735 was traveling from Kunming to Guangzhou, and radar tracking shows the aircraft taking a steep descent. Eyewitness videos posted to social media showed a mountainous crash that sparked a fire, with flames and smoke billowing from the scene. CCTV said the forest fire that was triggered by the crash has now been put out. China Eastern’s website, mobile app and some of its social media platforms were turned to black and white in a sign of mourning. The crash was confirmed by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which said there were 123 passengers and nine crew members on board. China Eastern lost contact with the aircraft over Wuzhou, CAAC said. China’s aviation regulator said it has initiated its emergency response and dispatched a working group to the scene. Representatives for China Eastern ...

  Frank Lampard’s team take on Palace on Sunday after more-boosting win over Newcastle Everton manager Frank Lampard was cautiously optimistic as he aimed to build on a morale-boosting win over Newcastle in the club’s bid to save their season. Everton are locked in a Premier League relegation battle with Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final at Crystal Palace possibly a distraction, but Lampard hopes gaining any sort of momentum can be beneficial. Thursday’s win was just the club’s fifth in all competitions since September with the manager stating that the boost it had given the squad should not be wasted. “When you have a night like we had on Thursday, it’s important you take the benefits from it, which is an understanding of what winning feels like,” Lampard was quoted as saying by the Press Association. “Here this season, we haven’t won enough games. There has been a losing feeling too much. The winning feeling and the togetherness and effort that goes into that is an important thing ...

  The senior Emirati official says a practical and logical approach can be used without compromising the efforts of those who are working to restore peace Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to President Sheikh Khalifa, said on Saturday the UAE continues to adopt a realistic policy that can help reduce tensions in the region. The senior Emirati official said communication and dialogue can resolve crises in the Arab world. Dr Gargash tweeted a “practical and logical approach” can be used without compromising the efforts of those who are working to reduce strife. He said Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s visit to the UAE on Friday was an example. The Emirates want to play an important role in reducing tensions in Syria and believe political communication, openness and dialogue can work to restore peace.

  The Russian TV producer who held up an anti-war sign during a live broadcast is an outlier in not just her homeland. YOU’D NEED A heart made of granite not to be moved by Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian television producer who on Monday jumped onto the set of the state-run network Channel One during a live broadcast and shouted, “Stop the war, no to war!” Perhaps the most touching aspect of Ovsyannikova’s action was the nature of the sign she held, which featured small Ukrainian and Russian flags and the words “No war. Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They lie to you here. Russians against war.” It wasn’t a slickly designed placard, produced by graphic designers paid by an NGO funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Instead, it was hand-drawn, with some letters getting narrower near the right margin as she realized she was running out of space. Did she make this at home on her dining room table? Did she have an office at work with a door she could lock? At some point the p...

  On March 17, the Sensex ended 1,047.28 points, or 1.84 percent higher, at 57,863.93, and the Nifty was up 311.70 points, or 1.84 percent, at 17,287. The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) and BSE will remain closed on March 18 on account of Holi. Wholesale commodity markets, including metal and bullion, will also remain shut. There will be no trading activity in the forex and commodity futures markets either. On March 17, the Sensex ended 1,047.28 points, or 1.84 percent higher, at 57,863.93, and the Nifty was up 311.70 points, or 1.84 percent, at 17,287. However, for the week BSE Sensex rose 2,313.63 points (4.16 percent) to end at 57,863.93 , while the Nifty50 added 656.6 points (3.94 percent) to end at 17,287.05 levels. HDFC, JSW Steel, Titan Company, SBI Life Insurance and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top Nifty gainers, while losers were Infosys, Cipla, IOC, Coal India and HCL Technologies. All sectoral indices ended in the green, with Nifty auto and e...

  About 70 per cent of expo visitors have been from the UAE Expo 2020 Dubai has reached an impressive milestone of 20 million visits, as the mega event nears the finish line. The achievement will be celebrated on Saturday at 8.30pm, with a special projection on Al Wasl dome and a fireworks show. Scores of people have been rushing to the world’s fair in Dubai South , with only 12 days left until the expo closes its doors. About 70 per cent of the total expo visitors have been from the UAE . The latest figures also show children under the age of 18 have visited more than 2.8 million times. Total visits include virtual numbers. Organisers said the expo hit the milestone of 20 million visits on Saturday, calling it “an amazing achievement” and “bringing the world together in the UAE for the largest global gathering since the start of the pandemic”. “When we started this journey in 2013, and even before then as we prepared the bid for Expo 2020 Dubai, we had a dream to welcome the...

Anurag Batra  Anurag Batra says that the Business world is a Business Media platform but business recycling also has an impact on the environment and as we move towards sustainability, the last 21 months have taught us that all of us are more connected and what happened in one part of the world impacts all of us. He thinks the value of sustainability and recycling is becoming more and more important and each stakeholder is taking his or her duty of contributing to a better greener environmentand to a greener economy that is sustainable over time.The recycling summit for a greener tomorrow is an initiative by the BW business world in that direction to be able to contribute to the consciousness of recycling and sustainability. People today can understand the recycling domain and the business domain.When broadly contextualised, we don’t think of recycling as a business and we don’t think that recycling can be done in many forms and with many materials, says Anurag Batra. Thebiggest r...

  Belarus has also been banned amid the invasion of Ukraine and will be replaced by Belgium The International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced on Monday that Australia will replace the suspended Russia team in the Billie Jean King Cup Finals. Russia was banned from defending its Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup titles following the country’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Belarus, a key staging area for the invasion, which Russia says is a “special operation”, has also been banned from the international team competitions. The Australian team were the highest ranked side among the losing semi-finalists in 2021 and will take Russia’s automatic spot in this year’s Finals of the tournament, formerly known as the Fed Cup. Slovakia, who were scheduled to play Australia in next month’s qualifiers for the women’s team event, will get a bye and also advance directly to the 2022 Finals, scheduled to be held in November. Also advancing to the Finals — for which the host country has ...

  The number AA90 fetched the highest amount of Dh2.7 million A licence plate auction in Dubai on Sunday fetched about Dh30 million, the emirate’s Roads and Transport Authority said. It was the 109th public auction and was held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. The number AA90 fetched the highest amount of Dh2.7m. Plate number M73 was sold for Dh2.36m while W55555 and X800 fetched Dh1.71m and Dh1.02m, respectively. Plates on offer had two-, three-, four- and five-digit numbers, with the AA, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X and YZ codes. A plate’s value is determined by the emirate, series and number. Letters high up on the alphabet are usually worth more. Certain letters such as O and W, which is pronounced in Arabic as “wow”, carry a prestige of their own. The agency sold 100 plates and raised Dh36.5m at its previous auction on December 19, 2021. Plate Z 31 was sold for Dh2.82m and V10000 for Dh920,000. W500 and O66666 each fetched Dh840,000. Car number plates garner ...

  The company, founded during the pandemic, raised $1m last month As experienced restaurateurs, Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice were acutely aware of the pain points of their business. “The most challenging part of being a restaurateur in Egypt has been sourcing the supplies due to the inefficient and inconsistent supply chain in our part of the world,” says Mr Amer, a restaurateur with nearly 25 years of experience. “I have waited for years for a Sysco type company to open in Egypt but it didn’t happen, so I decided to do something about it.” The duo founded OneOrder, an online business-to-business platform that facilitates order processing and communication between restaurants and suppliers. Founded in October last year, the Cairo-based company aims to address inefficiencies and structural problems faced by restaurants when sourcing supplies, such as inconsistent prices, unreliable quality and irregular delivery timings. “ This type of service did not exist in Egypt before,” M...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the aim of his negotiators is to arrange for him to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin A new round of talks between Ukraine and Russia will start on Monday even as Russian troops edge closer to Kyiv and keep up their relentless bombardment of the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. Talks are set to begin via video link at 10.30am Kyiv time (8.30am GMT), said Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister. Neither side has said what they would cover, Reuters reported. Three rounds of talks between the two sides in Belarus, most recently last Monday, focused mainly on humanitarian issues. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the countries’ delegations have been speaking daily by video and a clear aim of his negotiators was to “do everything” to arrange for him to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Amid the diplomatic efforts, fighting has continued to rage. The Antonov aircraft plant in Kyiv has been shel...

  Halle Berry is grateful to be living at a time when women are standing up and telling their own stories. “We will write, we will produce, we will direct and if we’re brave enough we’ll star in it all at the same time,” Berry said while accepting the SeeHer trophy at the 2022 Critics Choice Awards on Sunday. The award is given in recognition of those who are working to authentically portray women and girls in advertising and media. Berry marked her directorial debut this year with Bruised , a sports drama that follows a disgraced MMA fighter, played by the actress, as she battles her inner demons to make a comeback in the octagon. The role, Berry said in her speech, was not originally written for someone “who looked like me.” “So I went to the producers and I said, ‘Why not me? Why can’t it be a black woman?’ They said, ‘Why not?’” Berry then adapted the role to suit herself and took on the project as director. The Academy Award-winning actress said when the film came out, she a...