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UAE develops space industry

Alex Kayle
By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist
Johannesburg, 15 Apr 2009

UAE develops space industry

The UAE is forging ahead with the development of a national space industry and its pioneering role can help accelerate the establishment of a Pan-Arab space agency which would reduce the cost of sending satellites into orbit, states Albawaba.

The establishment of an Arab Space Research Agency is seen as essential to combine talent, information and technology between countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and plans have already been submitted to governments across the region.

Nick Webb, director of Streamline Marketing Group, organisers of the Global Space Technology Forum, says: “The Middle East, North Africa and Indian subcontinent as a whole are keen to enter the space age in a big way in order to benefit from the enormous opportunities offered by next-generation space research and commercial space applications”.

Alcatel-Lucent, WACS to deploy cable

The West Africa Cable System (WACS) consortium and Alcatel-Lucent have signed a multi-million dollar contract to deploy a submarine cable network to enable connectivity between Southern Africa and Europe, says TMCNet.

The 14 000 km-long WACS is expected to enhance Internet and communication capabilities to and from the African continent.

The 11-party consortium includes Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.

PC programme benefits African schools

Fourth and fifth grade students at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis have donated their unwanted computers to schools in Senegal, West Africa, reports Indystar.com.

In cooperation with Work Force and Wings for West Africa, donations from all parts of Indianapolis and surrounding areas are welcomed in this programme, which has been hailed as a responsible way to recycle unwanted computer equipment.

The equipment is reformatted and refurbished to good working order, including cleaning any remaining data from hard drives, and distributed to rural schools in Senegal by Wings for West Africa.

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