Dubai police seize 81 cars for running without number plates
DUBAI: Dubai police have seized 81 vehicles for alleged "reckless driving" the authorities said, in a crackdown on street racing among youth in the wealthy Gulf emirate.
The vehicles were impounded for being driven at speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour), and without number plates.
"Dubai traffic patrols tracked a number of reckless drivers and seized 81 vehicles," Dubai police commander-in-chief Major General Khamis al-Muzainah said in a statement Saturday, without specifying over what period these seizures were made.
Among the other allegations they face is driving without headlights switched on, according to media reports.
"Motorists who participate in racing without permission will have to pay a 100,000 dirham ($27,000) fine to release the confiscated vehicle, while owners of seized bikes will need to pay a 50,000 dirham ($13,600) fine," said the Khaleej Times newspaper.
By law, police can sell the seized cars if their owners did not approach the police within three months from the date of confiscation, the daily added.
The Roads and Transport Authority said last year that the number of vehicles in Dubai had doubled in the past eight years giving the emirate more cars per person than New York or London.
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Rivals in lather over recipe for France's most famous soap
MARSEILLE, FRANCE: It is as French as baguette, and as emblematic of the country's southern Provence region as lavender fields and cicadas.
But a dispute over the 'official' recipe for the region's famed traditional soap, 'savon de Marseille' has producers in a froth.
With cheap Chinese and Turkish soaps flooding the market, manufacturers want Marseille soap to be granted a 'geographical indication' (GI) so consumers can tell the difference between the real thing and cheap imports.
But a dispute over how 'true Marseille soap' should be made has the producers themselves at each others throats.
In one camp are a dozen soap makers from across the southeast of France led by the cosmetics giant Occitane who have formed the Association of Makers of Savon de Marseille (AFSM).
It was they who filed the bid in October to have the soap recognised as a GI, a designation which already protects many French wines and cheeses.
In the other corner are four die-hard traditionalists, master soap makers from the Marseille area itself who want to bring the product back to its artisanal roots.
Their supporters in the Mediterranean city started a petition on change.org that has gotten more than 123,000 signatures to back their demand for a return to something closer to the original recipe, first officialised under the 'Sun King' Louis XIV in 1688.
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Pioneering dolar pilots 'Make Sci-Fi a Reality'
NEW YORK: The Swiss pilot readying to cross the Atlantic in a solar-powered plane on the next leg of a record-breaking, round-the-world mission says he is making science fiction reality.
Bertrand Piccard, a psychiatrist and balloonist, will next command Solar Impulse 2 when meteorologists determine the best five-to-six day window for the ocean crossing from New York to either Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal or Morocco, depending on the wind and the weather.
"It gives the sensation of being in a science fiction story because you look at the sun and you understand that it's your only source of power," the explorer and father of three told AFP in New York.
"You see left and right, your four props turning with electrical motors, with no noise and it's a vision of future," he added in an interview at John F Kennedy International Airport.
Piccard, and Swiss entrepreneur and engineer Andre Borschberg, are two thirds of the way through circumnavigating the Earth in a bid to inspire a future powered by renewable energy technologies.
Their single-seater plane, which they take it in turns to fly, weighs the same as a car but has the wingspan of a Boeing 747.
They take off at night with a fully-charged battery and climb to 28,000 feet (9,000 meters) in the day before descending to 5,000-6,000 feet, then catching the next sunrise, going up and down in waves.
The journey began on March 9, 2015 from Abu Dhabi, flying across Asia, the Pacific and the United States. They must now cross the Atlantic, fly through Europe and return to the Middle East.
