UAE: Extreme weather condition over – for now, but chance of rain in coming days

A two-day sandstorm in the UAE earlier this week hampered visibility and caused disruption. (AFP)
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Updated 17 August 2022
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UAE: Extreme weather condition over – for now, but chance of rain in coming days

  • Weather center also said some parts of the country would experience dusty winds for the rest of the week

DUBAI: UAE authorities say the extreme weather conditions across the country have ended, after a two-day sandstorm earlier this week hampered visibility and caused disruption.
The National Center of Meteorology (NCM) however said there was still a chance that some local convective clouds will form over some eastern and southern regions, in addition to Al-Ain and Al-Dhafra region, with a possibility of rain in the coming days.
The weather center also said some parts of the country would experience dusty winds for the rest of the week.
“Fair to partly cloudy in general and dusty at times, with a probability of convective clouds formation Eastwards by afternoon, may be associated with rainfall. Light to moderate winds, fresh at times, causing blowing dust during daytime. The sea will be slight in the Arabian Gulf and in Oman Sea,” NCM said in its weather bulletin for Wednesday, Aug. 17.
Temperatures could reach as high as 47°C in internal areas of the UAE and as low as 24°C in mountain areas, the center added.


Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users

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Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users

WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media ​app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US ‌over the weekend.
“The challenges ‌US TikTok users may be experiencing ‌are the ⁠result ​of technical ‌issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had ⁠said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned ‌joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture ‍LLC that will secure US ‍data, to avert a ban on the short video app used ‍by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this  is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of ​the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm ⁠MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government ‌over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.