Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. Manna Dey dies at 94. Angela Merkel accuses Barack Obama of spying. Dubai Smart City plan outlined. Syria in crisis. Emirates Airlines expects to fly 70m passengers by 2020. UAE coach takes blame for Fifa Under-17 World Cup losses. Abu Dhabi Film Festival kicks off. In UAE cinema's this weekend. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00Good day. Welcome to the Gulf News Update for Thursday, October the 24th. Here are the
00:09top stories at this hour.
00:11Furious German officials have said the US intelligence agencies may have been monitoring
00:15Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone, creating a fresh diplomatic headache for President
00:19Barack Obama. The allegations came after a week in which other close allies condemned
00:23the Obama administration over charges of spying misdeeds.
00:26Merkel called Obama yesterday about the issue, forcing him to assure a European leader for
00:31the second time this week that the US had not overstepped boundaries in its eavesdropping
00:35programmes.
00:37The Dubai smart city project got going yesterday with Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Rashid
00:41al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, outlining steps to implement the plan that will transform
00:45the city further. The mega project will be carried out in three phases, smart life, smart
00:51economy and smart tourism.
00:53Syria is set to hand over a detailed plan for destroying its chemical arsenal today,
00:57even as a rebel attack near Damascus triggered power outages across the country. Meanwhile,
01:02prospects for a UN-brokered peace conference look dim after key opposition leaders spurned
01:06efforts by Western and Arab powers to persuade them to attend.
01:10Famed Indian singer Manade, who recorded nearly 4,000 songs and can be heard in scores of
01:15Bollywood films, died in a Bangalore hospital early today. He was 94. Day's mastery in singing
01:20and classical music-based songs enthralled millions of music lovers. Day started his
01:24career in 1942, singing mainly in Hindi and Bengali languages.
01:30Emirates expects to fly 70 million passengers in 2020, nearly double the number it flew
01:35last year. Tim Clark, president of the airline, unveiled the plan yesterday at a presentation
01:40to delegates of the Bureau International des Expositions, who are visiting the UAE to make
01:45their final decision on the host city for the World Expo 2020.
01:50Sport and UAE coach Rashid Amr has said he will take the blame for the country's failure
01:54to progress to the knockout stages of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup. The tournament hosts
01:59failed to qualify from Group A after suffering three consecutive defeats, the last of which
02:04was a 2-0 loss to Slovakia last night.
02:07There's film fare for everyone this weekend with the start of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival,
02:11which opens with the US film Life of Crime and 92 other films from 52 countries running
02:16for the next week. Stars such as Forrest Whitaker, Hiem Abbas and Khalid Abol-Nagar
02:21will attend.
02:22At the cinema, check out Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in The
02:27Fifth Estate, while the Hindi film Shaheed, the real-life tale of an assassinated lawyer
02:32for Muslims accused of terrorism in India, finally gets its release in the UAE.
02:37And finally, the weather. Today's high across the UAE will be 33 degrees Celsius, dropping