Celebrating Tolerance: Religious Diversity in the United Arab Emirates, shares the stories of religious minorities in the UAE. The book, edited by Reverend Andy Thompson, chaplain at St Andrew’s Church in Abu Dhabi, was published during Pope Francis’ visit to the UAE. His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, Minister of Tolerance, writing the foreword to the book, stated “Without our active attention, tolerance can swiftly vanish. Let the essays in this book inspire tolerance in perpetuity."

The lives of ten communities in the UAE – Armenians, the Baha’i, Buddhists, the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, Evangelicals, Hindus, Jews, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Roman Catholicism and Sikhs – are showcased in the book. Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, spoke to The National about Jewish representation in the book, saying “There were Jews in Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt and across North Africa, but this corner they didn’t get to, so the fact the newest Jewish community is in an Arab country is a tremendous statement.”

A heatwave in the summer of 2017 left more than 90 percent of the coral reefs in Abu Dhabi bleached, with coral communities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar similarly damaged. Speaking to The National, NYU Abu Dhabi associate professor of biology Dr. John Burt said “The results were catastrophic, I had never seen anything like it in my career.”

Weak winds led to less evaporation from the sea, which consequently allowed the gulf to retain more heat, stressing the coral. More than ten years are needed for the coral to make a recovery, but the chances are slim due to increasingly frequent warming events.

The Ministry of Health and Prevention has launched an online service to register as an organ donor. People wishing to register can use the Hayat app or website. Users need to input their Emirates ID number, age, blood type and which organs they want to allow to donate from a list of five. These are the heart, kidneys, liver, and pancreas. Users will then be shown a copy of the Federal Decree Law No. 5 of 2016 on Regulation of Human Organs and Tissue Transplantation and asked to confirm their agreement to its terms. Finally, users have the option to provide contact information for the next-of-kin to make sure that someone in the user’s family knows about their registration beforehand. Users can opt-out at any time.