Saudi Arabia has unveiled plans for a sprawling, oil rig-themed amusement park with flumes and jet skis, as the Gulf state attempts to boost Western tourism
The attraction, dubbed The Rig, will also include:
❌A ferris wheel
❌Three hotels
❌Eleven restaurants
An artist's impression of the resort shows guests shrieking on roller coasters and exploring the sea bed in miniature yellow submarines
🗣️"This project is a unique tourism attraction, expected to attract tourists from around the world," said a spokesman for the PIF, which is chaired by Mohammad bin Salman
Work is also already underway in Saudi Arabia on a high-tech mega-city known as Neom, which is due to be finished later in the decade
🔴Such projects are part of the Crown Prince's Vision 2030 scheme which aims to wean the Kingdom off oil and expand its tourism, education and health sector
🔎Read our Middle East correspondent James Rothwell’s full report here ⬇️
❌The rare tuskless genetic condition in Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique has become far more common after years of ivory hunters devastating the species
Around 90% of the country’s elephant population were slaughtered between 1977 to 1992 by Kalashnikov-wielding armed groups for ivory to fund a bloody Cold War-era conflict.
🐘The survivors were likely to share a key characteristic: half the females were naturally tuskless
Scientists are venturing inside otherworldly ice caves growing beneath Austria's doomed glaciers to study why they are melting even faster than expected
📸Lisi Niesner/Reuters
They are also trying to understand the fate that will befall glaciers elsewhere if climate change is not halted
🚀While the missile reportedly missed its target by about two dozen miles, the test shows China has made rapid progress on the lightning-fast weapons and is far more advanced than US intelligence officials had realised.
“We have no idea how they did this,” one official said
Drew Thompson, a former American defence department official with responsibility for China, said the test “really should change US calculations”.
“I think it is a game changer in a way that little else has really shifted the balance”
➡️There have been eight attacks in Mumbai's northwestern suburbs over the past month alone, sparking a debate on the future of the city's historic leopard population…
A 2018 Indian government report found there are only 12,852 of the cats left nationwide, a reduction of 90 percent since the 1990s, due to poaching and habitat destruction.
An Indian leopard in its natural habitat, Getty Images