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British tourists will be soon able to holiday in Dubai again, as the UAE prepares to throw open its doors to holidaymakers following one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. From July 7, tourists will be able to travel to Dubai, but they will have to meet a raft of stringent conditions or face heavy fines. About 1.5 million Brits visit the UAE every year, but the Covid-19 lockdown saw an almost complete shutdown of the tourist destination, with just a handful of flights repatriating citizens to their home countries. Visitors will now have to get themselves tested for Covid-19 no more than 72 hours before their flight, privately in the UK, and arrive in the Emirates equipped with a certificate showing they have swabbed negative - or they’ll face testing and self-quarantine on arrival. They’ll also be made to download a government’s tracing app to their mobile phone.  Those who don't follow the strict guidelines could see their holiday costs increase drastically -

Wondering whether it’s safe to go back to the gym? Norwegian gymgoers may have some good news for you. A study on the risk of coronavirus transmission in Oslo found that people who went to a gym were no more likely to get infected, or sick than people who didn’t. Norway has reopened its gyms based on the tentative results, which were published as a preprint yesterday and still need to go through peer review. But some epidemiologists aren’t so sure. It’s possible that no one was infected at those Oslo gyms because there were very few COVID-19 cases in the city when the study was done—not because working up a sweat on the treadmill or lifting weights in the midst of a pandemic is safe. So far, crucial decisions to reopen public spaces after lockdowns are being made on the basis of little evidence. Every child returning to school and every Zumba fan returning to class is taking part in a large, uncontrolled experiment. A much better approach is to carefully study the impact of e

American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter. The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year. Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion. The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the