Category: Life & Style

The Goal Zero Consortium has launched Singapore’s first fully electric cargo vessel, the Hydromover.

The lightweight, 18.5m vessel is equipped with swappable batteries, allowing it to transport up to 25 tonnes of cargo. The all-electric vessel has zero emissions and targets to achieve up to 50% operational cost savings due to improved energy efficiency and lower maintenance costs. Its battery, when depleted, can be swapped within minutes to minimize operational downtime.

Singapore has played a pivotal role in advertising sustainable shipping practices, contributing $9 million in funding in 2021 to Goal Zero and two other consortiums led by Keppel Fels and Sembcorp Marine. Keppel aims to establish an electric vessel supply chain by 2025, while Seatrium has not revealed a completion target. “We are seeing a dramatic electrification of all modes of transport, so we started by focusing on the electrification of the marine area,” said Mr Barclay, who headed Yinson Holdings’ offshore production business before becoming YGT CEO in January.

Eng Dih Teo, CEO of the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore, launched this groundbreaking milestone, underlining that more electric vessels are expected to navigate Singapore’s waters in the coming months. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has mandated that by 2030, all new harbour craft in Singapore waters have to operate on low-carbon energy solutions and reduce emissions by 15% from 2021 levels. Looking further ahead, the ambitious goal is for all harbor craft to be fully electric or utilize net-zero fuels by 2050.

In a significant move to foster international tourism, Malaysia has officially lifted entry visa requirements for citizens of India and China. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim made the groundbreaking announcement during his closing speech at the annual congress of the People’s Justice Party in Putrajaya on November 26.

Starting from December 1, travellers from India and China can enjoy a 30-day visa exemption, a significant policy change in Malaysia’s approach to global tourism. While the visa requirement has been removed, the Malaysian government emphasizes that the issuance of visas will still be contingent upon security screening. This strategic move recognises the importance of Chinese and Indian tourists, who rank as Malaysia’s fourth and fifth-largest sources of tourist arrivals, respectively.

Between January and June of this year, Malaysia recorded 9.16 million tourist arrivals, with India contributing 283,885 during the same period. This policy shift solidifies Malaysia’s position as a welcoming destination, ready to embrace a diverse array of international visitors.

A bottle of The Macallan 1926 has set the record for the world’s most expensive whisky, having been sold at an auction in London for $2.7 million on November 18. One of the world’s most sought-after bottles of Scotch whisky was auctioned at a record-setting amount at Sotheby’s.

The rare 1926 Macallan single-malt whisky featured the label designed by Italian painter Valerio Adami. The bottle was initially expected to fetch between $934,275 and $1.49 million but ended up selling for more than double its estimated price. The sale set a new record for any bottle of spirit or wine sold at auction, according to a statement from Sotheby’s.

This is not the first time that a Macallan 1926 bottle has fetched a record-breaking amount at an auction. In 2019, another Macallan 1926 bottle went under the hammer for $1.86 million, setting the previous record for the most expensive bottle ever sold.

The whisky is said to have spent around six decades maturing in dark oak sherry casks before becoming one of just 40 bottles bottled in 1986. However, not all the bottles were for sale, as some were offered to The Macallan’s top clients.

Troops of Indian Armed Forces and Australian forces began their joint military exercise AustraHind on November 22 at Perth in Australia. The Indian contingent of 81 personnel, including 60 from the Indian Army, 20 from Indian Air Force and 1 from Indian Navy reached Perth on November 22. The 14-day joint military exercise aims to foster collaborative partnership and share best practices between the two sides.

The Australian contingent includes 20 personnel each from the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force.

The AustraHind exercise was inaugurated in 2022, with its first edition held in Mahajan, Rajasthan. It is planned as an annual training event to be conducted alternately in India and Australia.

It aims to promote interoperability while undertaking multi-domain operations in urban and semi-urban terrains under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter on peacekeeping operations. The joint exercise will facilitate the exchange of ideas and the joint rehearsal of tactics, techniques, and procedures for conducting tactical operations.

AustraHind’s training curriculum includes sniper firing and the joint operation of surveillance and communication equipment to achieve a high degree of situational awareness. In addition to tactical actions at the company or battalion level, the exercise also involves the rehearsal of casualty management and evacuation procedures.

Amazon India and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) have signed an agreement to allow the e-commerce company to use inland waterways for transporting customer packages. The company will work together with IWAI to build a network of inland waterways for cargo shipment. Amazon plans to launch a pilot route between Patna and Kolkata.

In a statement, Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, which runs IWAI, said that the focus of the government is on increasing cargo movement through river systems, which is a more sustainable and economical mode of transport.

Amazon India called this initiative a reinforcement of its commitment to building capacity to meet the increasing customer demand. “The aim is to also collaborate with government authorities to explore mutually beneficial projects for the e-commerce industry,” it said.

Inland waterways transport would ensure quicker, sustainable and more reliable delivery of customer packages and widen the reach of sellers, said the e-commerce company. It seeks to harness the potential of the country’s rivers, canals, and other water bodies to enhance logistics and transportation efficiency for the Indian e-commerce industry at large.

A hat belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte sold for 1.932 million euros ($2.1 million) at French auction house Osenat in Fontainebleau, Paris on November 19.

The black felt bicorn is one of some 20 hats said to still exist of Napoleon’s two-cornered military dress hats that he wore as part of his everyday uniform when he was French emperor. It is in his trademark colours — black, with the French flag’s colours blue-white-red as insignia — and attracted interest from collectors “the world over”, said Osenat, declining to give the identity or nationality of the eventual buyer.

The final price for the hat was more than double the estimate of 600,000 to 800,000 euros, and about four times the reserve price. It broke the previous record for a Napoleonic hat, held by Osenat, of 1.884 million euros in 2014 shelled out by a South Korean businessman.

The hat was last owned by businessman Jean-Louis Noisiez, who died last year.

Other Napoleon memorabilia from the Noisiez collection were also auctioned, including a Legion of Honour medal and a pair of silver spurs. Napoleon is believed to have owned around 120 such hats in total over 15 years, most of which are now lost.

Dubai International Airport is poised to surpass its pre-pandemic passenger records from 2019, said Paul Griffiths, CEO, Dubai Airports, at the Dubai Air Show at Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai World Central on November 15.

The Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel and home of the long-haul carrier Emirates, had 64.5 million passengers in the third quarter of this year. The number puts the airport on track to reach 86.8 million passengers for the year, which would exceed its 2019 figure of 86.3 million passengers.

The international airport had 66 million passengers last year. Its busiest year was 2018, when it hosted 89.1 million passengers.

Through the third quarter, Dubai’s main airport handled 3,08,000 total takeoffs and landings. India, long a key route for Emirates’ East-West travel strategy, was first among all countries in destinations, followed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the US, and Russia.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport remains the busiest passenger airport overall.

At this year’s Dubai Air Show, Emirates announced a $52 billion aircraft purchase deal with Boeing Co. Its sister airline FlyDubai bought $11 billion of aircraft from Boeing at the show.

Gunung Padang, a pyramid hidden within a hill on an island in West Java, Indonesia, could be the world’s oldest, says an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, geophysicists and geologists.

Sitting at the top of an extinct volcano, Gunung Padang is considered a sacred site by local people. Also known as “mountain of enlightenment,” it was declared a national cultural heritage site in 1998.

Over the years, there have been disagreements among scholars about the nature of the hill. Some suggested that it was a man-made pyramid, while others argued it was a natural geological formation. The researchers have now found that Gunung Padang was made mostly by human hands. They have also found evidence that the structure was built in stages thousands of years apart.

The oldest construction of the pyramid probably “originated as a natural lava hill before being sculpted and then architecturally enveloped” between 25,000 BC and 14,000 BC, said the researchers, making the pyramid at least 16,000 years old.

Gunung Padang was finished between 2,000 BC and 1,100 BC, according to the latest study. Its field survey began in October 2011 and ended in October 2014.

The research was published in the interdisciplinary archaeological journal Archaeological Prospection in October. 

The European Union on November 15 struck a deal on a law to tackle methane emissions from fossil fuels. Under the proposed law, coal, oil and gas companies would be required to report their methane emissions and take steps to avoid them. The measures under the first-of-its-kind law include finding and fixing leaks, and limiting wasteful practices such as venting and flaring gas by 2027.

While methane possesses more than 80 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, it dissipates more quickly in the atmosphere. Reducing methane emissions is viewed as a cost-effective and straightforward approach to immediately mitigate the intensification of extreme weather events.

The recently approved EU regulations, jointly agreed upon by the European Parliament and the European Council, stipulate that fossil fuel companies must address identified leaks within a maximum of five days and fully rectify them within a month. By the end of the coming year, operators are required to assess their existing facilities and submit plans outlining steps to identify and address methane leaks.

Additionally, the rules will tackle imported fuels, potentially setting a higher standard for fossil fuel enterprises globally.

Delhi’s annual butterfly census has documented 75 butterfly species in the city’s seven biodiversity parks. The census, conducted from 30 October to 4 November, recorded the first geographical record of the rare Blank Swift butterfly in the Aravalli Biodiversity Park.

The Plain Tiger was the most frequently sighted species, with a count of 1,119 butterflies. Other species recorded in significant numbers included the Yellow Orange Tip, Lemon Pansy, Common Gull, Zebra Blue, Rounded Pierrot, Striped Tiger, Common Emigrant, and the Common Grass Yellow. Individuals of all five butterfly families of India were recorded during this survey.

The Blank Swift butterfly is a rare species to the Northern Plains. It comes from the family of skipper butterflies and is commonly seen in high humidity areas.

Aravalli Biodiversity Park reported the highest number of species (65) of butterflies in the census, maintaining its previous year’s record. It is closely followed by the Northern Ridge (Kamala Nehru Ridge) with 48 species.

The census, conducted by the Centre for Environment Management of Degraded Ecosystems of Delhi University and the Delhi Development Authority, aims to assess butterfly species, their population, and habitat suitability.

Delhi’s Biodiversity Parks lie within two major habitats – the Yamuna river basin, an ideal habitat for the skipper group of butterflies, and the Aravalli hill ranges, a dense canopy providing protective homes for several species of butterflies. This habitat heterogeneity facilitates high diversity of butterfly species across the city.