Yandex. Taxi service began operating on Monday in Israel under the new Yango brand, Director of Yandex.Taxi international business development Olga Nikitushkina told TASS.

"Today at 11:00 (12:00 Moscow time) we launched our Yango service in Israel, it will work in the Gush Dan zone, in the coastal regions of the country - in Haifa, Ashkelon and Ashdod," she said.

"We hope to eventually occupy the leading position in Israel. Tourists from Russia will be able to use our service in Israel through the Yandex.Taxi app," Nikitushkina added.

Regional General manager of Yandex.Taxi in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Aram Sargsyan said at a press briefing on Monday that the Yango application for Israel has been available for several weeks in the AppStore and Google Play in Hebrew, Russian and other languages. It is fully compatible with Yandex.Taxi app. "We are bringing our technologies to Israel, including cartography and monitoring service. We hope that this will significantly improve the level of service," he added, noting that during peak hours and weekends in Israel it is almost impossible to get a taxi online due to insufficient offers on the market. According to Sargsyan, the company intends to add Jerusalem to its service in the near future.

In early November, Yandex.Taxi launched an online taxi service in Finland’s Helsinki also under the new brand Yango and announced testing the brand’s Abidjan, the capital of Cote d'Ivoire. Yandex.Taxi started working in March 2018 in Latvia. Before that, it was not available to users in any country of the European Union. Since May, Yandex.Taxi began operating in Estonia, in June it entered the Serbian market, in July - Lithuania.

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The administrator of German airline Air Berlin is suing Abu Dhabi-based Etihad for up to €2 billion in damages, a Berlin court heard on Friday.

The administrator alleges that the Abu Dhabi airline did not meet its financial obligations to Air Berlin, in which it was the majority shareholder.

“The claims are for payment of $500 million and the establishment that the defendant is obliged to pay further damages. The Chamber has provisionally set the amount in dispute at up to €2 billion,” the court said in a statement, Reuters reported.

"We confirm that we have received a claim filed at the Berlin Regional Court by the insolvency administrator of Air Berlin," Etihad said in a statement to Arab News. "We believe that the claim is without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously against it."

The carrier has until the end of January to respond to the claims, according to the court

Etihad owned a 29 percent stake in Air Berlin as part of its so-called “equity alliance” strategy.

Etihad told Air Berlin in April 2017 that it would provide funding to the German budget carrier for the next 18 months.

However the Abu Dhabi-based airline later said it would no longer provide funding as Air Berlin’s business had deteriorated at an unprecedented pace.
The administrator claims this sealed the fate of the German airline as its fundling lifeline was cut.

Unlike regional rivals Emirates and Qatar Airways, Etihad grew its business through a strategy of taking stakes in often struggling regional carriers, some of which were also heavily unionized. The carrier described such deals as “equity alliances” and they came to define the tenure of former chief executive James Hogan.

However the strategy ran into serious problems after it was forced to absorb massive losses from its investment in Air Berlin, Alitalia and other carriers.

But the airline is now reviewing that strategy after being forced to absorb huge losses from its investments in carriers such as Alitalia and Airberlin.
Like its regional rivals, the Abu Dhabi carrier has cut jobs over the last two years.

From :Arabnews

A UTair flight en route from the Siberian city of Tyumen to Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, has made an emergency landing at Koltsovo airport in the city of Yekaterinburg, the airport’s press service told reporters.

"The UT-125 flight from Tyumen to Ufa has made an emergency landing at Yekaterinburg due to technical issues," the press service said.

According to an emergency source, "the crew saw a crack in the windshield and it was decided that the plane would land in Yekaterinburg." The source added that the landing was normal.

There were 63 passengers and four crew members on board.

"All passengers are currently at the airport, waiting to depart for Ufa," the emergency source said.

Yandex. Taxi service began operating on Monday in Israel under the new Yango brand, Director of Yandex.Taxi international business development Olga Nikitushkina told TASS.

"Today at 11:00 (12:00 Moscow time) we launched our Yango service in Israel, it will work in the Gush Dan zone, in the coastal regions of the country - in Haifa, Ashkelon and Ashdod," she said.

"We hope to eventually occupy the leading position in Israel. Tourists from Russia will be able to use our service in Israel through the Yandex.Taxi app," Nikitushkina added.

Regional General manager of Yandex.Taxi in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Aram Sargsyan said at a press briefing on Monday that the Yango application for Israel has been available for several weeks in the AppStore and Google Play in Hebrew, Russian and other languages. It is fully compatible with Yandex.Taxi app. "We are bringing our technologies to Israel, including cartography and monitoring service. We hope that this will significantly improve the level of service," he added, noting that during peak hours and weekends in Israel it is almost impossible to get a taxi online due to insufficient offers on the market. According to Sargsyan, the company intends to add Jerusalem to its service in the near future.

In early November, Yandex.Taxi launched an online taxi service in Finland’s Helsinki also under the new brand Yango and announced testing the brand’s Abidjan, the capital of Cote d'Ivoire. Yandex.Taxi started working in March 2018 in Latvia. Before that, it was not available to users in any country of the European Union. Since May, Yandex.Taxi began operating in Estonia, in June it entered the Serbian market, in July - Lithuania.

All long-distance trains across Germany were cancelled early Monday after members of the railway and transport union EVG went on strike, Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail company said.

The strike, which began at 5 am (0400 GMT) was due to last until 9 am, but a spokesman for Deutsche Bahn said delays and cancellations would continue all day.

The strike comes after the union, which represents around 160,000 workers, walked away from salary negotiations with the rail company on Saturday saying the new pay scale offered was too low.

Regional trains were also badly affected, Deutsche Bahn said Monday, advising travellers to postpone their journeys until Tuesday.

No trains in the south-western state of Bavaria were running at all, and in Berlin all overground, or S-Bahn, trains were cancelled from 6 am.

At the weekend Deutsche Bahn called the strike a "totally unnecessary escalation."

"Leaving the negotiating table over this offer is incomprehensible and unsettles our customers unnecessarily in the middle of the Christmas season," Human resources chief Martin Seiler said.

Egyptian authorities have set up a special passport gate at Cairo International Airport for passengers from African Union countries.

The move is in compliance with an order by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to facilitate entry procedures for citizens of African countries as an expression of solidarity, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

A special committee has been formed to follow up on the implementation of the president's directives.

Egypt is preparing to chair the African Union for one year starting January 2019. Earlier this year, African leaders in Addis Ababa elected President El-Sisi as chairman of the African Union's upcoming 31st session.

The first half of 2018 saw 4,426 road accidents in Egypt, down from 5,836 in the same period in 2017; a drop of 24.2 percent, the state's statistics agency said.

In a report, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said that deaths from road accidents decreased to 1,560 in the first half of 2018, compared to 1,929 in the same period last year.

The number of accidents on highways was recorded at 24.6 accidents per day in the first half of 2018, compared to 32.4 over the same period last year.

The first half of 2018 also recorded 8.7 deaths from road accidents per day, compared to 10.7 over the same period last year.

Injuries from road accidents dropped to 33 per day, compared to 40.4 in the first half of 2017.

The report also showed that the main cause of road accidents was driver error, at 75.7 percent, followed by technical malfunctions, at 17.1 percent, and poor road maintenance at 2.9 percent.

The report also said that there was a spike in train accidents, reaching 1,082 accidents in the first half of 2018, compared to 793 in 2017; a 36.4 percent increase.

Deadly road accidents take place on a daily basis in Egypt due to poor road safety, badly maintained infrastructure, and loosely enforced traffic regulations.

However, Egypt has allocated millions of pounds on developing and expanding road networks in recent years.

In 2017, the government has also passed a new, comprehensive traffic law to crackdown on violators and enhance safety and security. 

The law will go into effect in 2020.

Last year, CAPMAS said that the number of road accidents which took place in Egypt in 2017 dropped to 11,000 from around 15,000 the previous year.

Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft and Slovenian Adria Airways inked an agreement of intent for purchase of fifteen Sukhoi SuperJet 100" (SSJ100) passenger jets, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said on Monday.

Deliveries are planned from early 2019. The parties also signed an agreement on a joint venture for maintenance and repair of SSJ100.

"Deliveries will start from 2019. First aircraft will be supplied under long-term leasing conditions. An agreement was also signed for establishment of a joint venture on aircraft maintenance and repair (M&R) in Ljubljana Airport (Slovenia) for servicing of SSJ100 type aircraft," Manturov said.

"This technical site will ensure reliability of SSJ100 airplanes operation in the territory of Europe," President of the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Alexander Rubtsov said in a comment.

Adria Airways was founded in 1961. The air carrier’s fleet currently consists of nineteen airplanes.

South and North Korea are in talks to launch a joint railway inspection this week as part of efforts to modernise and eventually connect railway systems of the two Koreas over their border, the unification ministry said Monday.

"The government has a stance to seek inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation within the framework of global sanctions," Baik Tae-hyun, a ministry spokesman, South Korean News Agency (Yonhap) reported.

"And relevant preparations are underway in order to make a (railway) joint survey take place this week through consultations with the North," he added.

The United Nations (UN) granted a sanction exemption, allowing the joint survey to be carried out on the railway across the border of the two Koreas.

The survey is part of a summit agreement between the two Koreas to modernise and connect their railways in both their eastern and western regions. They earlier agreed to hold a groundbreaking ceremony within this year.

In August, the US-led UN Command disapproved a plan to conduct a survey on a section of the railway from Seoul in South Korea to Sinuiju in North Korea, citing procedural problems.

The move was seen as reflecting Washington's displeasure with faster-paced inter-Korean cooperation and a possible violation of sanctions amid all but stalled denuclearisation talks with the North.

"We will have to fix the schedule for the joint survey through consultations with the North first and then push to have discussions with the UNC with that finalised timetable," the spokesman said.

"The two Koreas agreed in their Pyongyang Declaration to hold the groundbreaking ceremony within this year," he added.

"It is expected that the two Koreas will have close consultations as they carry out the joint survey to make such inter-Korean agreements implemented."

Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, who is also the housing minister, witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities and Niki Beach Hotels and Resorts, a division of Nikki Beach Worldwide, on Friday.

Under the terms of the MoU, the global brand will establish and operate a world-class tourist resort in Alamein in northern Egypt.

The signing ceremony was attended by Minister of Tourism Rania al-Mashat, who praised the partnership during a press conferencec held at the cabinet's headquarters in Cairo.

Hailing the deal, the CEO of Niki Beach Hotels and Resorts said that the company's decision to take over the project was based on extensive studies.

The thermometer shows minus 8 degrees Celsius. Our steps have left deep imprints in the snow and our breath leaves clouds of white in the air. But my 5-year-old is undeterred.

Dressed only in a swimming cap and bathing suit, she plunges into the water. "Look, mum," her 9-year-old sister calls. "Now we're even having a beach holiday."

We are in Iceland, and it's the middle of winter. We're trying out the Myvatn Nature Baths, with their waters of around 40 degrees, the smaller sibling of Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon spa, which is at the other end of the country.

The countryside around the Myvatn Lake is particularly full of variety. Bizarre lava formations topped with snow surround the lake like turrets. Waterfalls plummet into the depths and icicles sparkle. In hollows and crevices, boiling water bubbles.

"All of volcanic origin," says Halldor Ingvason. My eldest daughter listens attentively to the tour guide's every word, while her younger sister is eyeing up the the vehicles that he and his colleague have parked at the side of the street: black snowmobiles. 

They are each three metres long and weigh around 300 kilos, and they are our means of transport around the lake. "The coolest way to get from A to B in winter," he says.

We take off, passing by sheep that allow themselves to be stroked and island horses that can winter outside courtesy of their thick coats.

Finally, we go on a whale and sea fishing trip, setting off from the fishing village of Hauganes. 

While my eldest keeps a look out for humpback whales and dolphins, the youngest casts her rod into the water and promptly snags an arm-long cod, which we later eat for dinner.

We also visit the ski resort of Hlidarfjall, whose 14.9 kilometres of slopes are very manageable, though experienced skiers can ski from the mountain down to the ocean in many places.

In the evening, as we lie in the hot tub on the terrace of our accommodation, my youngest points at the sky and shouts, "coloured clouds!"

"The Northern Lights," my husband says. I briefly think about jumping out to get my camera but then think better of it, and lie back to enjoy the show. 

The first flight with a new 500 kW hybrid aircraft engine is scheduled for next year, CEO of the Zhukovsky Institute National Research Center Andrei Dutov said on Tuesday.

"A 500 kW electrical engine has been developed. Next year, we hope to carry out the first flight. This is a hybrid engine. In this area, we are even outpacing such rivals as Siemens and Airbus," the chief executive said.

The engine prototype was demonstrated at the Hydro-Aviation exhibition in the Black Sea town of Gelendzhik and at the MAKS air show outside Moscow, he said.

The engine will be the first step on the way of developing a fully electrical airplane, he added.

A technological breakthrough is expected in aircraft-building in about 2025. Specifically, aircraft producers plan to develop a 50-seat fully electrical regional plane by 2035, Dutov said.

The Zhukovsky Institute is also carrying out work on the concept of a fully electrical plane, he said.