Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri will launch Expo City Dubai’s Connecting Minds Book Club at the Terra Auditorium on June 1, spearheading a movement that will celebrate the power of books to catalyse awareness and action around climate change and sustainability.
The Book Club, in collaboration with the Emirates Literature Foundation, will connect a community of readers to stories that matter and offer opportunities for everyone to engage with some of the world’s most thought-provoking authors. The series begins with the global launch of Okri’s Tiger Work – a blend of fiction, essays and poetry inspired by environmental activism and a powerful and personal appeal for climate course-correction.
For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. Ben Okri said: “Climate change is the single most important issue of our time and I feel a great responsibility to draw attention to it using the immense powers of literature. Introducing Tiger Work to the world at Expo City Dubai, an innovative city committed to advancing sustainability, makes the launch even more meaningful. It is important to be having these conversations in advance of COP28 to lay a solid foundation.
Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri. (Supplied)
“For me, it is all about perspective and consciousness. With the right perspective, we can see that it is possible to alter our path and make a new destiny for humanity. With the right consciousness, we can act with love and courage to save our world. We need greater awareness, but a quantum leap in action.”
Poised to become a home for some of the greatest storytellers from across the globe, the Connecting Minds Book Club will regularly feature talks, author signings and children’s workshops, with more details on upcoming events and prominent writers to be revealed soon.
Its launch begins on May 31 with a series of events that includes Okri teaming up with the Expo School Programme to host a workshop with UAE students, evoking the magic of nature with a talk focused on his 2021 children’s book Every Leaf a Hallelujah. It culminates at 1900 on June 1, when the Nigerian-British author will unveil Tiger Work during a discussion moderated by Emirates Literature Foundation CEO Ahlam Bolooki.
Nadia Verjee, Executive Director, Expo Dubai Group, Expo City Dubai, said: “The Connecting Minds Book Club brings together a community of book lovers committed to harnessing the power of stories to inform, inspire and spark action on our changing climate. I can think of no better author to raise the curtain on this exciting new cultural series than Ben Okri.
“As Expo 2020 Dubai showed, there is a large community of people making a difference every day in the UAE. Expo City Dubai looks forward to bringing them together for a wide range of programmes and events at COP28 and beyond.”
Ahlam Bolooki, Chief Executive Officer, Emirates Literature Foundation, said: “As a foundation, we believe culture is a human right. And as a book lover, I believe that the answers to all big questions can be found between the covers of a book. Climate action is the most pressing issue of our times, and we are pleased to set the wheels in motion for our ground-breaking collaboration with Expo City Dubai.”
The combination of the PGA Tour and rival LIV circuit is an intriguing merger, putting an end to a long-term rivalry between Saudi Arabia’s LIV and the nonprofit PGA Tour.
WHAT IS THE DEAL PRICE?
The two golf tournament organizers agreed to the merger without pinning down financial terms, in a bid to end a long-running legal dispute. LIV had filed an antitrust lawsuit in the United States seeking punitive damages against the PGA Tour for its “tortious interference” with contracts with golfers. PGA Tour had countersued, making similar claims.
PGA Tour and LIV have now signed a framework agreement that calls for investment banks M Klein & Co. and Allen & Co. to carry out a valuation analysis of the assets of LIV and PGA Tour, respectively. It is not clear how the two sides would proceed if disagreements arise over the valuations.
A new company will be created that will be majority-owned by the existing PGA Tour, which is a nonprofit. The new company, however, will operate for profit and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which currently owns more than 90% of LIV, will take a large minority stake in the combined entity. The exact stake that PIF will assume in the new company will depend on how much it will invest — an amount expected to be in the billions of dollars. PGA Tour and PIF will negotiate how much money the new company should start off with.
Blind mystic who predicted ISIS, COVID-19 says nuclear disaster impending in 2023
The famous mystic Baba Vanga, who reportedly predicted the 9/11 attacks, the existence of ISIS and COVID-19, has reportedly foreseen a nuclear disaster by the end of 2023.
Also known as the Nostradamus of the Balkans, the blind woman died in 1996. Before her passing, she has predicted various world events, some of which have come true, including the Fukushima nuclear spill, according to a New York Post report.
The latest prediction claimed by her followers foresees a “devastating nuclear disaster” that would cause “toxic clouds to settle over Asia.”
In addition, Vanga also reportedly predicted “a powerful solar storm that will rock the climate in 2023” and a “biological weapon will be used by a superpower in 2023, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths,” according to the same report.
Some have supposedly interpreted her words to mean that a solar tsunami is imminent, which could result in major technology failure. Usually, minor storms of this kind occur frequently without a problem.
Vanga also predicted that natural pregnancies would be banned and babies would be grown in labs in 2023. She reportedly claimed that world leaders would choose who is born, and parents would be able to customize their offspring’s traits and appearance.
Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova reportedly lost her eyesight during a dust storm at the age of 12 in Romania. Her followers claim that she received her powers during this time.
As for her 9/11 terrorist attack predictions, her exact words, as the New York Post recounted, were: “The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds.”
“The wolves will be howling in a bush, and innocent blood will be gushing.”
While many of Vanga’s predictions came true based on inference of the claim, some predictions, such as a nuclear war between 2010 and 2014 and the end of Europe in 2016, when Brexit took place, did not come true.
There were also claims that the 45th US President, Donald Trump, would face a crisis that would “bring the country down.”
Some unverified predictions include the presidency of Barack Obama, the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the death of Princess Diana.
Innovative solution: Nigerian fourth-grader’s education funded by recycling waste
Nigerian fourth-grader Fawas Adeosun often used to get sent home from school through the gritty streets of Lagos because his mother, Fatimoh, had not paid his fees, until he enrolled in a different school offering a novel solution.
Elizabeth Samuel, 37, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable waste as payment, arranges used plastic bottles into a sack in her home in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
My Dream Stead school, in the sprawling, impoverished Ajegunle neighborhood where the Adeosuns live, is one of 40 low-cost schools in Nigeria’s commercial capital that accept recyclable waste as payment.
A recyclable waste collector weighs a sack of plastic containers submitted by Fatimoh Adeosun, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable waste as payment, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
For the past four years, a local environmental organization called African Cleanup Initiative has been collecting bottles, cans, drink cartons and plastic containers brought into the schools by parents and selling them to recyclers.
Elizabeth Samuel, 37, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable wastes as payment, carries sacks of plastic waste for submission in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
The proceeds of the sales pay for teacher salaries, children’s uniforms, books and pens, among other expenses.
The scheme aims to reduce the number of children out of school as well as the amount of trash on the streets of Lagos, said Alexander Akhigbe, founder of the environmental group.
Students attend classes at My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable waste as payment, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
Tuition fees at My Dream Stead stand at $130 per year and the school is expanding into a second apartment block to accommodate its 120 students. Only seven children were enrolled when it opened in 2019.
Fatimoh Adeosun, 48, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable wastes as payment, sorts plastic waste for submission, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
Some mornings, Fatimoh and Fawas walk to the school together with bulging sacks of trash over their shoulders. The waste is weighed on school premises and its sales value added to Fawas’ account.
“Sometimes if he wants to buy sportswear, the school will tell me the amount I need to bring,” said Fatimoh, a 48-year-old hairdresser who cares for six children on her own.
Fatimoh Adeosun, 48, a parent of a student of My Dream Stead, a low-cost school that accepts recyclable wastes as payment, sorts plastic waste for submission, in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
Providing for Fawas, the youngest, has been particularly difficult since she was forced to vacate the room she used as a salon in 2018.
“When I discovered that they could collect the plastics from me to keep my child in school, it made my burden lighter,” she said as she scoured bins on the streets for recyclables on her way back from the school.