Dubai, May 19 : An environment campaign to enhance international efforts to combat the smuggling of elephant ivory tusks is being undertaken by the Dubai Police General Command.

The new campaign is part of an ongoing bid by Dubai authorities to clamp down on the illegal shipment of elephant tusks from Africa to the Far East.

According to Gulf News daily, the police awareness campaign was launched in Dubai's International Airport and Transit lounges.

Dubai, May 16 : The International Cricket Council (ICC) Thursday announced the names of the umpires and match referees for the June 6-23 Champions Trophy in England and Wales.

The match referees will be Chris Broad, Javagal Srinath and Andy Pycroft of the Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees.

The 12 Elite Panel of ICC Umpires are: Billy Bowden, Aleem Dar, Kumar Dharmasena, Steve Davis, Marais Erasmus, Ian Gould, Tony Hill, Richard Kettleborough, Nigel Llong, Bruce Oxenford, Asad Rauf and Rod Tucker.

Appointments for the semifinals and the final will be announced later.(IANS)

Dubai, May 6 : Singer Justin Bieber was attacked by a fan at his show here but security guards intervened and prevented the incident from disrupting the event.

The incident took place Sunday night when the 19-year-old pop star was performing one of his last songs, "Believe".

"A man ran on stage during 'Believe' and tried to grab Bieber and knocked the piano over," a source close to the singer told usmagazine. com.

"He was a fan. Security detained the young man. All was fine and Bieber continued the show," he added.(IANS)

Dubai, May 1 : The government of India plans to hire three legal firms to help Indian workers in Saudi Arabia who are facing problems after that country's implementation of a new labour policy.

India's Minister for Overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi told the media in Riyadh that the Indian embassy in the Saudi capital will engage three legal firms to help Indian workers in need of help.

"This is a work in progress and we will continue to enlarge this panel to include more legal firms and lawyers," he said.

Dubai, April 29 : Around 60,000 Indian workers have registered in the Indian embassy in Riyadh and the consulate general in Jeddah in the wake of the new Saudi labour policy, according to India's Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi.

These people have been rushing to take advantage of an amnesty scheme being offered by the country's ruler King Abdullah, the Saudi Gazette reported Monday.

The new policy, called Nitaqat, makes it mandatory for all Saudi companies to reserve 10 percent of jobs for Saudi nationals.

Dubai, April 23 : Flydubai, Dubai's innovative low-cost airline, has made its maiden flight to Juba, capital of South Sudan.

The inaugural flight, FZ61, touched down at Juba Airport Sunday with Ghaith Al Ghaith, Flydubai's chief executive officer on board.

"We are delighted to have started flights to Juba, which is our 56th destination in operation across our route network," said Ghaith Al Ghaith.

Sharjah, April 6 : International Master Narayanan Srinath retained his Asian Junior title while J. Saranya finished runner-up at the Asian Junior Championship that concluded here Saturday.

Srinath had won the Asian Junior at Tashkent in June 2012 and made his maiden Grand Master norm. He is also a former World Under-12 champion having won it at Belfort, France in 2005. Winning this title again in back-to-back years gives Srinath another Grand Master norm.

Abu Dhabi, March 28 - UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan has accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth to pay a state visit to Britain.

Sheikh Khalifa will visit the country April 30-May 1.

The British embassy in Abu Dhabi said in statement that Britain and the UAE share a longstanding and unique history and the forthcoming visit will mark an important milestone in that history and will be testimony to the strength of the friendship at the very highest level.

Dubai, March 27 : Consistent performances with the bat have helped India's Cheteshwar Pujara move into the top 10 of the ICC rankings for Test batsmen for the first-time in his career.

Pujara's unbeaten 82 helped India script a six-wicket win in the fourth Test against Australia in New Delhi, thereby registering a historic 4-0 series sweep. As a result, Pujara jumped five places, in the rankings released Wednesday, to a best seventh position with 777 ratings points.

South Africa's Hashim Amla continues to lead the batting table.

Another South African, Dale Steyn, leads the bowlers' table.

Dubai, March 26 : The battle for second place in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Test rankings at the 1 April cut-off date resulted in a photo-finish between England and India Tuesday.

In the end, the draw at Auckland in the third and final Test against New Zealand handed England the No. 2 rank while India finished third. South Africa had already sealed their position as the No. 1 ranked Test side, meaning they not only retained the Test mace but are also assured of $450,000.

England will receive $350,000 for finishing second while India get $250,000 for third.

Dubai, March 26 : The global regulator of web addresses, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has officially approved ".shabaka" or the Arabic translation of ".web" as a domain name.

Moving away from non-Arabic internet domain names such as .com, .net and .org, ".shabaka" beat around 1,900 other applicants globally.

The domain will be operational by the middle of this year.

Jet Airways and Etihad Airways have denied reports that the two carriers had called off their talks over a stake sale deal due to differences over the issue of protection to investment.

Etihad has been in stake sale deal talks with Jet since August last year. The Gulf carrier has reportedly plans to buy a 24 per cent stake in the Indian carrier, but differences over the bilateral investment promotion & protection agreement (BIPA) has so far been the biggest hurdle in the conclusion of the talks.

Abu Dhabi, March 17 - The Abu Dhabi international airport has been named the best in the Middle East by the Airport Council International.

This was announced in the Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Service Quality Survey, which gauges passenger satisfaction, a key benchmark for customer service in the global airports' industry.

The awards, announced by the ACI in Montreal, Canada, showed that the Abu Dhabi airport had the biggest overall improvement in ASQ satisfaction results in the region for 2012.

Dubai, March 11 : Cricket Scotland and Koninklijke Nederlandse Cricket Bond (KNCB) have been awarded $1.5 million over the next three years by the International Cricket Council (ICC) under its Targeted Assistance and Performance Programme (TAPP) agreement.

The $1.5 million award will be provided through to 2015, and will be used to help Cricket Scotland with a number of initiatives aimed at continuing the substantial development work being carried out throughout Scotland, which has seen both the profile of the sport grow significantly.

Dubai, March 9 : Afghanistan is on course for a place in the ICC World Cup 2015 after winning both its fifth round One-Day Internationals (ODI) in the ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Championship against Scotland at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Afghanistan beat Scotland by seven wickets in the first ODI Wednesday and then made it two out of two Friday by winning the second ODI by five wickets. The double-win means that Afghanistan joins Scotland on 11 points and both sides now share second position on the WCL Championship table.

Dubai, March 8 : South Africa enters the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series against Pakistan at Bloemfontein Sunday with an opportunity to reclaim the No. 1 ranking in the ICC ODI Championship Table.

South Africa is currently at fourth but can leapfrog India, England and Australia if it wins all five matches of the series. If the Proteas achieve this series result, then the side will win the ODI Shield as well as $175,000 as the top three sides have no ODIs scheduled before the April 1 cut-off.

South Africa has previously won the ODI Shield twice in 2008 and 2009.

Abu Dhabi, March 7 - Customs inspectors at the Abu Dhabi airport have foiled an attempt by two Asian passengers to smuggle a large quantity of cannabis seeds into the UAE.

A customs inspector said two passengers arriving on a flight from Nepal looked suspicious. The nationalities of the passengers were not known.

When they underwent inspection, two bags of cannabis seeds weighing around 260 grams were found in their luggage.

The inspectors referred the accused to the authorities for investigation and taking necessary legal action against them. (IANS)

Abu Dhabi, Mar 4 : World number one Novak Djokovic has urged the authorities to upgrade the Dubai Duty Free Men''s Open to an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in future.

Djokovic said there is not much to say except the fact that it''s elected for last nine years as the best tournament in the world in series of 500, adding it says enough about the quality of this tournament.

Dubai, Feb 26 : Opening batsman Johnson Charles has achieved the biggest gain for West Indian batsmen in the latest ICC ODI rankings.

Charles has climbed 30 places to number 63 after separate centuries for the West Indies in Australia and in the Caribbean earlier this month.

The St. Lucian batsman, who got to three figures in the final game of the five-match ODI series against Australia and again in the first ODI against Zimbabwe in Grenada last Friday, has now soared to 439 ratings points.

Dubai, Feb 25 : India have taken an outright lead on top of the ICC ODI rankings with 119 ratings points.

With India and Australia not scheduled to play any ODIs before the April 1 cut-off date, fourth-placed South Africa are the only side that can push India and England down the order when they take on Pakistan in a five-ODI series from March 10.