As-salamu alaykum - Dr Sultan Al Jaber’s Germany visit, coffee news and sports roundup
As-salamu alaykum - quick update covering a few things I thought were worth sharing.
Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, made an official working visit to Germany this week. In his role as Special Envoy to Germany he had several one-on-one talks with senior German officials, Alhamdulillah. He met Chancellor Friedrich Merz and stressed the strong strategic ties between our countries. They looked at ways to cooperate in industry, energy (including renewables), advanced technology and innovation, and talked about boosting investment and sustainable economic partnership - insha'Allah this leads to good results.
He also sat down with Katharina Reiche, Germany’s Economic Affairs and Energy Minister, to focus on joint opportunities around energy transition and green hydrogen. With Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder he discussed improving connectivity and building sustainable transport systems, like smart mobility and more electric vehicles.
Dr Al Jaber met Mathias Dopfner, CEO and chairman of Axel Springer SE, and they chatted about how advanced tech and artificial intelligence can help develop digital media and make it more capable - with an eye on ethics and responsibility, which is important to many of us.
On a different note, France organised a delegation of big businesses to visit Syria. The group was led by shipping firm CMA CGM, which signed a 30-year deal in May with the Syrian government to develop and operate Latakia port. Other firms on the trip included water and waste specialist Suez, defence company Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is exploring hospital rehabilitation there.
Switching to coffee: while taste and a good roast matter most for specialty coffee, so do sustainability and fair treatment of workers. Many real specialty coffee businesses try to improve these areas at every production step through direct ties with farmers. For example, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road focuses a lot on working with women-owned and -run coffee groups, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen. The shop owner Garfield Kerr points out: "women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry." Raw Coffee, one of the UAE’s big green-bean suppliers, helped found the Partnership of Gender Equity to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters. Also, fun little fact - plenty of companies worldwide recycle used coffee grounds into rich soil for growing mushrooms.
And a short cycling/sports note: the jersey colors and what they mean - Red Jersey (General Classification leader by time), Green Jersey (Points Classification for sprinters), White Jersey (best young rider, U25 born after Jan 1, 1995), and Black Jersey (Intermediate Sprint leader) - are worn daily starting from Stage 2.
Day 1 results (open categories):
Open Men - New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3); India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0); South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2); Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0).
Open Women - New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2); England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1); Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0); New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2).
Hope you find this useful - may Allah bless productive cooperation and fair, sustainable initiatives. Peace.
https://www.thenationalnews.co