2001 - As part of an ongoing exercise aimed at presenting its modern face, The National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah has unveiled a new identity under the branding Rakbank. Bank executives explained that while its old title remains the official name, Rakbank will henceforth be its new corporate identity and will appear on all marketing communications, advertisements, branch signage and documents. An amount of Dh5 million is being budgeted for advertising, Graham Honeybill, general manager, explained. He pointed out that the bank last year started RAKdirect, a 24-hour telebanking service, with bank representatives also visiting customers at their home or office to assist with a range of transactions. Other recent products include RAKvantage and Al Momiaz premier banking. Online banking services are also in the pipeline, with the Net primarily to be used as an alternative delivery channel. Further, it intends to roll out financial products by end-year, as the next part of its evolution.
Other important events
1801 Thomas Jefferson is elected as president of the US.
1817 A street in Baltimore becomes the first to be lighted with gas from America’s first gas company.
1897 Britain rejects Austro-Russian proposal for blockade of Piraeus in Greece.
1916 British and French forces complete capture of Germany’s African colony of Cameroon during First World War
1947 The Voice of America begins its radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union.
1949 Richard Button retains world figure skating championship in Paris.
1963 Toru Terasawa runs world record marathon 2:15:15.8.
1965 US spacecraft Ranger 8 is launched.
1983 UAE and Pakistan sign five-year protocol on agricultural cooperation
1989 Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia sign the founding treaty for the Arab Maghreb Union.
1995 Peru and Ecuador sign a peace treaty, ending a five-week border war that killed 78.
1996 World chess champion Garry Kasparov beats IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue,” winning a six-game match in Philadelphia.
1997 Nawaz Sharif is sworn in as Pakistan’s Prime Minister.
1998 US athletes compete in Iran for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
2001 The Centre for Alternative Medicine opens at Ajman University of Science and Technology.
2003 Twenty-one people are crushed to death when a panic-stricken crowd tries to exit a nightclub in Chicago.
2002 Maoist rebels kill 137 people in raids on a town and an airport in the northwest of Nepal.
2008 Kosovo declares independence from Serbia.
2008 Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage announces that artefacts, dating back to more than 150,000 years have been discovered in Abu Dhabi.
2009 US President Barack Obama signs a massive $787 billion package to revive country’s economy.
2009 Famous Arab novelist Tayeb Salih dies in London at 80.
2011 A tourist boat sinks in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, killing 11.
2013 Country music star Mindy McCready is found dead at her home in Arkansas from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
2014 A co-pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane flying from Addis Ababa to Rome hijacks to Geneva in asylum bid.
2015 A suicide bomber kills at least eight people near police headquarters in Lahore, Pakistan.
