Rolls-royce to power Dubai water taxis

A fleet of new water taxis powered by Rolls-Royce waterjets is being introduced here by the Road Transport Authority to help improve transport infrastructure in this gulf city. This is the first order for waterjets for water taxis in the UAE where Rolls-Royce is already a supplier of marine, aerospace and energy power systems in the region. The first of ten catamaran-based vessels, a modern version of the traditional water taxi, is scheduled to carry out sea trials in August 2009. The Deliveries are due to be completed by early 2010. "Waterjets are ideal for these taxis because they are most efficient at speeds of about 30 knots and upwards," Esa Uotinen, the regional manager Marine, at Rolls-Royce said. "They are lightweight, simple to maintain and enables vessels excellent manoeuvre ability coupled with high speed," he said. Each water taxi is capable of more than 30 knots and will be able to carry 11 passengers. They will work around the Dubai Creek as well as the Dubai coast to provide a more modern, flexible and integrated public transport service.  The heart of a waterjet unit is a pump, usually driven by a shaft from a diesel engine or gas turbine, which draws in water through a sloping intake duct from under the boat's hull, and discharges it through an aft-facing nozzle.  The result is a thrust that drives the vessel forward. Fast patrol boats built by Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB) here are already powered by Rolls-Royce waterjets. Earlier, ADSB and Rolls-Royce signed a service agreement covering waterjets in the region and a new Marine Service Facility is expected to come up soon in Dubai.

Under Sea Cable Cut Disrupts Internet in Middle East and South Asia

Since last one day or two, I noticed that my BSNL broadband connection was too slow and I was wondering whether there is some problem in my local exchange, in the mean time I came across an article where in it was mentioned about the faulty optical fibres that prevented Internet users to have a consistent and speedy Internet connectivity. Also, those optical fibres break resulted in disruption of International telephone services.

As per the statement:

Breaks in three submarine cables which link Europe and the Middle East have disrupted Internet and telephone services in the Middle East and South Asia, officials said on Saturday. The disruption reduced Egypt’s Internet capacity by about 80 percent. Technicians were restoring some capacity by diverting communications traffic through the Red Sea.

So, not only India, people of many other countries as well, are suffering from Internet outage atleast, if not long distance phone calls. Though, the exact cause of break in sub-marine cables is not yet known, but according to experts, due to such disruption in services, the economy of these countries will surely be affected. The statement added, it may take few more days to the respective agencies to fix those faulty lines.

So all internet users out there, are requested not to panic if you too are suffering from slow internet connection, and wait until it takes the respective officials to restore the connectivity to normal condition.