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HH LATE EDITION

Schools to start after Eid
dEcision takEn aftEr ExtEnsivE talks appliEs to public and privatE institutions

aC T I n g

‘dancing around trees’ not for Irrfan
Dubai They may share the same last name, but Irrfan Khan is unlikely to pull off
a Shah Rukh act on the big screen. The Slumdog Millionaire star tells tabloid! he
prefers squeezing a trigger to the usual Bollywood fare of chasing girls around fields.
“I can’t do things which don’t come naturally to me. You will never see me
dancing around some trees like a hero.” The star plays his third hard-edged cop
in his new release, New York. — Manjusha Radhakrishnan, Staff Reporter See interview
in tabloid!

lonE yEmEnia survivor

By ABdullAh RAsheed
Abu Dhabi Editor

Abu Dhabi Public and private schools will open their doors for the next school year
only after Ramadan and Eid Al Fitr at the end of September, the Minister of Education
said. The decision to postpone the 2009-10 school year — for public and private
schools, including those that teach a non-ministry curriculum — “was taken following
extensive consultations with relevant bodies,” the minister, Humaid Mohammad Obaid
Al Qutami, told Gulf News yesterday. Ramadan is expected to begin on August 21 or
22 this year. Eid will probably be on September 20. Schools will begin on September
23. Administrative and teaching staff must report on September 13, Al Qutami said.
WAM reported public schools will start after Eid. But the minister said the decision
will be applied to all schools, public and private. Gulf News has learnt a government
committee had also been formed to seek the opinions of education experts through
an online survey. “The results showed that officials, teachers and parent council
members all agreed that it was best to postpone the school year in the interest of
pupils,” informed sources said. A request was then presented to the Cabinet. “Following
a thorough AFP study that took into account Miracle escape the impact of the month
Baya Bakari, 13, lies on her bed at the Moroni hospital yesterday after she miraculously
survived the Yemenia airliner of Ramadan on students, crash off the Comoros, during
which she was thrown out of the plane into the dark waters of the Indian Ocean. Baya,
coupled with the high temwho can barely swim, was found floating amid debris and
dead bodies on Tuesday after the aircraft tried to land with perature and humidity
on 153 people aboard. It was the second crash involving an Airbus in a month. the
ability of pupils, the For	more	reports	and	picture	gallery,	visit	www.gulfnews.com/gulf
See also Pages 13 & 48 government has decided to

I expect from our students a year filled with achievement and productivity. And I
strongly encourage high levels of preparation at all educational institutions.”
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s post on Facebook
postpone the school year,” added Al Qutami. Last week His Highness Shaikh Mohammad
Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai,
posted a question on his Facebook page, asking whether the school year should begin
after Eid. His query received a massive response with the majority of parents and
pupils saying it would be better to start the term after Eid. In his post yesterday,
Shaikh Mohammad thanked the respondents and said: “I appreciate these opinions
and insights from such a wide diversity of people in our society.” He responded
to students via his Facebook status update: “Since the date of the new academic
year has been announced, I expect from our students a year filled with achievement
and productivity. And I strongly encourage high levels of preparation at all educational
institutions around the UAE.” See also Page 4

sPorT

serena likes to tweet between sets
London The progress of Serena Williams into her sixth Wimbledon semifinal has been
so easy that she has taken to tweeting during the changeovers. Sportsmail obtained
the password yesterday in order to log into her tweets as she crushed Belarus teenager
Victoria Azarenka 6-2, 6-3 in little more than an hour. “Feel a bit of a prat wearing
the flasher’s fashion mac in this heat, but hey, Nike pay me very well and it is
not as bad as Roger’s gold bag.” “Goodness me, Azarenka makes some racket,
pun intended, when striking the ball. I am a bit of a grunter myself, of course.”
“That’s the first set over. Just 26 minutes. The girl won only four points in
the last four games. Much more of this and I will get back to the house in time to
write a television script before bedtime.” — Daily Mail See also Pages 49 & 56

n aT u r E

Plants saved Earth from eternal ice age
Paris Vegetation helped save Earth from runaway cooling that would have encased the
planet in ice, according to a study published yesterday. Around 50 million years
ago, the planet’s poles were ice-free and crocodiles roamed the Arctic. That was
followed by a long period of cooling. Climate scientists have long puzzled about
what happened at a key point in this weathering process. Around 25 million years
ago, Earth was wrenched by a period of mountain building that threw up the Himalayas
and the Andes. This created conditions that, in theory, should have sucked all CO2
out of the atmosphere and plunged the planet into a deep freeze. Yet it did not happen,
and the question is why. The answer, according to US geophysicists, lies in the buffering
power of plants. — AFP See also Page 18

CourT ruLIng

Suspension of Arabic daily upheld
Staff Report

Family sponsorship rule amended
Expatriates will now need minimum salary of dh10,000 per month to qualify
By ABdullAh RAsheed
Abu Dhabi Editor

Abu Dhabi The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal upheld a defamation conviction against
Arabic daily Emarat Al Youm, suspending the newspaper for 20 days and fining Editor-in-Chief
Sami Al Reyami Dh20,000 in a case raised by Warsan Stables’ owners. The case stems
from an October 2006 article that accused Warsan Stables of giving steroids to horses
in an Abu Dhabi race. Mohammad Yousuf, Chairman of the UAE Journalists Association,
said: “Although we do not have the right to object to a court ruling, we reiterate
our rejection of banning Emarat Al Youm or any other local newspaper from publishing.”
He noted that suspending a newspaper will damage the UAE’s reputation in international
freedom and human rights organisations, which will take advantage of this ruling
to criticise the UAE.
PrICE Bahrain:	 BD	0.300	 Oman:	 RO	0.300	 India:	 IRs	40.00	 UAE: Dh 3.00

Abu Dhabi Expatriate residents who want to bring their families into the country
should now earn a minimum monthly salary of Dh10,000 and provide their family with
independent accommodation, a senior official has said. Major General Nasser Al Awadi
Al Menhali, director general of the Naturalisation and Residency Department (NRD),
said the decision was made after

a study by the Ministry of Interior on the negative effects of allowing residents
to bring their families without sufficient income and a suitable place to stay. The
Ministry of Labour is not authorised to deal with the status of residents’ relatives
who come to the country on residents’ sponsorships, he added. Al Menhali said it
is best for the minimum wage to be raised to cope with the cost of living, rents,
school fees and health care. A resident should be able

to support his family and afford their living costs to enable them to live a decent
life, in line with labour and residency laws, he said. This change has become necessary
because of increasing violations when relatives become a burden to their sponsors,
he added. Previously the minimum salary requirement was Dh3,000, because this was
acceptable under previous conditions, he said. The amount was later raised to Dh4,000
and then Dh6,000 after rapid development

and economic growth. The new decision will come into effect after amending by-laws
of the residency law, Al Menhali said, adding that the NRD will not allow any resident
who does not rent an independent house or apartment to bring in family members. However,
he pointed out that the Interior Ministry does not mind studying the humanitarian
situation of any resident and helping them bring their family, if there is an urgent
humanitarian need.

bIzarrE TwIsTs

Jackson not father of children, report says
investigators find ‘extremely dangerous’ anaesthetic drug in house where king
of pop died
Los Angeles (Reuters) Bizarre in life, Michael Jackson’s complex personal affairs
are taking even stranger twists in death, with sketchy reports of plans for an elaborate
public memorial and questions over the parentage of his children. Celebrity website
TMZ. com, which broke the news of Jackson’s death, reported the entertainer was
not
the biological father of his three children and that his ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, was
not the genetic mother of the eldest two. TMZ.com also reported that a powerful drug
commonly used as a general anaesthetic before surgery was discovered by investigators
at Jackson’s home. Citing unidentif ied sources, TMZ said on Tuesday the drug Propofol
was found at Jackson’s rented mansion following his death from an apparent cardiac
arrest last Thursday at the age of 50. The website described the drug as an “extremely
dangerous and potent” substance which was only available to medical personnel.
“There is no conceivable way this drug can be properly prescribed for home use,”
a source said. Earlier, a former nurse who cared for Jackson told CNN the star pleaded
with her to provide him with Diprivan — the brand name for Propofol. Cherilyn Lee,
a health practitioner with more than 20 years experience, said she had refused his
request for the drug. See also Page 21 and tabloid!

on www.gulfnews.com
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