The UAE and New Zealand signed an air services agreement that will allow direct services by both countries’ airlines as soon the market justifies it. The agreement was signed by Ahmad Humaid Al Tayer, UAE Minister of Communications, and Dr Lockwood Smith (above centre), New Zealand’s Trade Minister, who is here on a visit. The visiting minister also called for Gulf investments in his country. “We need to work further on ensuring that visa issuance does not inhibit travel between the two regions. Auckland city and Dubai are separated by only one air stop — Bangkok or Singapore — and Emirates airline is already connected with Air New Zealand for onward flights out of Singapore,” Smith said. He expected the agreement to boost tourism.
Other important events:
1867 Nebraska becomes the 37th state of the USA.
1872 Yellowstone becomes the world’s first national park.
1896 Ethiopian forces defeat the Italians at Adwa, northern Ethiopia.
1919 Korean independence is declared in Seoul.
1936 The world’s first public videophone service is launched at the Leipzig Trade Fair in Germany.
1946 The Bank of England is nationalised
1947 The International Monetary Fund begins operations.
1952 Britain returns the island of Helgoland to West Germany.
1962 American Airlines 707 plunges nose first into Jamaica Bay, New York, killing 87 passengers.
1966 The Soviet Union lands a spacecraft on Venus.
1973 Palestinian militants invade diplomatic reception in Khartoum, Sudan, and capture five diplomats.
1981 Bobby Sands, a 26-year-old Irish Republican Army member begins a hunger strike at the Maze prison.
1985 Julio Sanguinetti takes office as President of Uruguay for the first time.
1988 South African government introduces bill to outlaw foreign funding of political activity.
1990 Fire rips through a five-star hotel in Cairo, killing at least 19 people.
1991 Colombia’s third largest rebel group, the Popular Liberation Army, formally lays down its arms.
1992 Bosnia and Herzegovina vote for independence from Yugoslavia.
1994 Israel releases more than 500 Palestinian prisoners to coax the PLO back to peace talks.
1995 Poland’s parliament elects its ex-communist speaker Jozef Oleksy as prime minister.
2002 US space shuttle Columbia carries out a mission to repair and refurbish the Earth-orbiting Hubble space telescope
2003 Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
2008 First paediatric kidney transplant is performed at Al Qasimi hospital in Sharjah.
2010 Taliban commander Mohammad Alan Binouri is killed in battle with security forces in Madyan, Pakistan.
2012 French President Nicolas Sarkozy takes refuge from angry protesters in a cafe while campaigning in the country’s south-west Basque region.
2013 Iraqi Finance Minister Rafa Al Essawi announces his resignation at an anti-government protest.
2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin secures his parliament’s authority to invade Ukraine.
2015 Mufti Mohammad Sayeed sworn in as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
2016 Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn proclaims King Rama X of Thailand.
