LONDON: Google’s latest phone, the Pixel 7, is set to be unveiled to the public in early October and the tech giant’s Japanese division has come up with a tasty way to ramp up interest ahead of the launch.

A new marketing campaign, titled “Google Original Chips,” will give 2,000 people the chance to win one of four limited edition potato chip boxes created specifically for the event.

Exclusively available in Japan, people have until Friday, Sept. 23 to enter a lottery via Google’s website.

The boxes come in a range of colors that match the Pixel 7 series, while the chips come in Snow Cheese, Obsidian Pepper, Hazel Onion and Salty Lemon flavors.

While Snow Cheese and Obsidian Pepper are offered across both models, Salty Lemon is available only for the Pixel 7 and Hazel Onion exclusively for the Pixel 7 Plus.

Last year, Google put together a similar campaign to support the launch of its Pixel 6, though the choice of flavors was limited to just one, Google Salty.

The visual feel of the potato chip boxes is inspired by the new model and features the visor of the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro on the front.

Google is using the buzz created by the campaign to highlight the phone’s new features, including the Tensor G2 chipset and its photographic and video capabilities.

People took to Twitter to comment on the marketing stunt with some suggesting it be rolled out to other countries.

This is an ever so Japanese, genius marketing gimmick! Wish it could make its way to the west. #marketing #pixel7 #Japan

— Rob Simpson (@Rob_Simpson94) September 13, 2022

This is not the first time Google has used food to promote its products. In 2019 it delivered its Pixel 4 devices in a cereal box-style package with marshmallows inside.

The latest promotion comes as Google struggles to find a place in the competitive smartphone market. The company is still a small player in the sector, with Japan being its most successful market outside the US.

ANAHEIM, California: Members of the Arab community along Brookhurst Street in Anaheim, California have been advocating for their neighborhood, nicknamed “Little Arabia,” to be officially recognized by the local government for two decades.

Now their efforts have made history.

The decision was recently made in an Anaheim City Council meeting where more than 100 people arrived to speak in favor of the designation.

Now they can look forward to signs and public notices recognizing Little Arabia, and they’re anticipating an increase in tourism. 

“For the first time in history, the designation of Little Arabia was actually being discussed at a city council floor in the United States of America, so not just in Anaheim, but in the United States,” Arab American Community leader and activist, Mirvette Judeh, said.

“We're going to have to have constant conversations and involvement and engage stakeholders to make sure that the study that they're doing is good for the people,” she added. 

Currently, Little Arabia accounts for the two blocks of Brookhurst Street where the majority of the area's Arab-owned businesses are, but the official boundaries could increase if recommended by a study which the local government will be conducting on the district.

“People from all over Southern California and outside of California come to Brookhurst Street because they know this is where they can get their Arabic groceries, the authentic Middle Eastern and Arabic food, and get their services here,” Rashad Al-Dabbagh, executive director of the Arab-American Civic Council, said.

“So it was always a Little Arabia for us, but it was time for the city to designate it,” he added.

DUBAI: A community cleanup campaign to mark world cleanup day has been held by the Sustainable City in Dubai, the first fully operational sustainable community in the Middle East.

The initiative took place on the city’s Kite Beach and was organized in collaboration with Dubai Municipality.

Members from The Sustainable City cleared rubbish from one of Dubai’s most popular beaches.

The event was also held with social inclusion in mind, meaning the activities were planned to be autism-friendly with participation from children from Sanad Village — the region’s largest center for people of determination.

Participants cleaned the beach and picked up items, such as cigarette butts, paper, plastic bags, and disposable cutlery from the popular shoreline.

Waste management has always been one of the key environmental priorities for the Sustainable City, with sufficient in-built recycling and disposable systems. Last year the community achieved an 89% waste diversion rate, making significant strides in its mission toward a more sustainable future.

The initiative is part of a global movement comprising 20 million people from over 180 countries that held cleanup activities to rid the planet of trash, cleaning up waste from many different locations worldwide.

WINDHOEK, Namibia: Eight Namibian cheetahs were on Friday airlifted to India, part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the big cats after they were driven to extinction there decades ago, officials and vets said. The wild cheetahs were moved by road from a game park north of the Namibian capital Windhoek to board a chartered Boeing 747 dubbed “Cat plane” for an 11-hour flight. They will be personally welcomed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, his 72nd birthday. He will swing open the gates of Kuno National Park, a new sanctuary created for the cats, 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of Delhi. The 750-square-kilometer (290-square-mile) protected park was selected as a home because of its abundant prey and grasslands. The project is the world’s first inter-continental translocation of cheetahs, the world’s fastest land animal, according to the Indian high commissioner to Namibia, Prashant Agrawal. “This is historic, global first. Game-changing,” he told AFP. “We are all the more excited because it is happening in the 75th year of Indian independence.” Critics have warned that the Namibian cheetahs may struggle to adapt to the Indian habitat and may clash with the significant number of leopards already present. But organizers are unfazed. “Cheetahs are very adaptable and (I’m) assuming that they will adapt well into this environment. So I don’t have a lot of worries,” said Dr. Laurie Marker, founder of the Namibia-based charity Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which has been central to the project logistics. The project has been in the making for more than a decade. Initial discussion started in the 1990s, she told AFP. India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah but it was declared extinct there by 1952. The critically endangered subspecies, which once roamed across the Middle East, Central Asia and India, are now only found, in very small numbers, in Iran. New Delhi has since 2020 been working to reintroduce the animals after the Supreme Court announced that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be settled in a “carefully chosen location” on an experimental basis. The five females and three males, aged between two and five and a half, will each be fitted with a satellite collar. They are a donation from the government of Namibia, one of a tiny handful of countries in Africa where the magnificent creature survives in the wild. Negotiations are ongoing for similar translocation from South Africa, a government official told AFP on Friday, with vets suggesting 12 cats could be moved. Cheetahs became extinct in India primarily because of habitat loss and hunting for their distinctive spotted coats. An Indian prince, the Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo, is widely believed to have killed the last three recorded cheetahs in India in the late 1940s. One of the oldest of the big cat species, with ancestors dating back about 8.5 million years, cheetahs once roamed widely throughout Asia and Africa in great numbers, said CCF. But today only around 7,000 remain, primarily in the African savannas. The cheetah is listed globally as “Vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. In North Africa and Asia it is “Critically Endangered.” Their survival is threatened primarily by dwindling natural habitat and loss of prey due to human hunting, the development of land for other purposes and climate change.

HANOI: Tourists and cafe owners along Hanoi’s “train street” spoke of their disappointment Friday as the hotspot was closed due to safety concerns, just weeks after reopening following a long Covid-19 closure. The narrow corridor in the Vietnamese capital drew hordes of tourists before the pandemic, each eager to grab a selfie or watch a train rumble past one of the fashionable eateries set just a meter from the track. Safety concerns prompted the street’s shutdown in 2019 but many businesses quietly opened in recent weeks, keen to cash in on the tourist revival after Vietnam reopened to visitors earlier this year. Nguyen Thi Thu had begun to see her cafe recover. “The tourists had come back and we were earning enough to make a living,” she said. Built by colonial rulers, the railway once transported goods and people across French Indochina and is still in use by communist Vietnam’s state-run rail company. The stretch of tracks on “train street,” once in an area occupied by drug users and squatters, was transformed after social media users began sharing photos and locals realized the business potential. On Friday, the kilometer-long line was blocked off by police — though a nearby section of track remained open. A local official told state media the businesses along the street were violating railway safety rules. Jay Arriola, from the UK, said he was miffed that the cafes were closed after being told about the site by his girlfriend. “It is a bit of a disappointment,” he said. “I wanted to go to a cafe that has a top level... (to have) a perspective on the train going through that trail between the houses,” adding that “a top deck might be safer.” Keeping customers safe had been part of cafe owner Thu’s daily routine. “When it was time for the train to pass by, we asked all guests to move in, there was no danger at all.”

DUBAI: Two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between the UAE and Israel, the UAE rabbi got married on Wednesday at the Hilton Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Rabbi Levi Duchman, 29, tied the knot with Lea Hadad, 27, the daughter of Rabbi Menachem Hadad, the chabad chief rabbi in Brussels.

The event, which purposefully coincided with the second anniversary of the accords, highlighted the growing presence of Jewish life in the Emirates where until just a few years ago Jews would have to keep their services almost hidden from the public.

About 1,500 guests attended the ceremony, including high-ranking officials from the UAE government and more than 20 ambassadors from France, Japan, South Korea, Finland and elsewhere. Prominent businessmen, including Emirati entrepreneur Mohamed Alabbar were also at the event, as were male and female Catholic priests, reflecting the UAE’s growing commitment to interfaith and co-existence.

“We are most fortunate to be in this great place the United Arab Emirates,” Rabbi Levi Banon of the chabad of Morocco — Duchman’s brother-in-law and master of ceremonies for the evening — told guests from the chuppah, or wedding canopy.

“We feel your motto of excellence and hospitality. Thank you for making us feel at home.”

While the exact number of Jews residing in the UAE is unknown, estimates range from 500 to 3,000 or more since the Abraham Accords were signed. Since normalization, the UAE has welcomed over 200,000 Jewish tourists, a figure that is on the rise given the increasing number of Israelis and Jews living in the UAE and establishing businesses there.

The welcoming ceremony in Abu Dhabi was attended by friends and family from around the world, some making their first trips since the start of the pandemic. During the ceremony, the mothers of the bride and groom “broke the glass,” — the Jewish tradition representing goodwill for a long-lasting marriage between their children.

Hundreds of guests watched as the couple were united in marriage in the chuppah, which symbolizes the home they will build together. Emiratis, Israelis, Americans and other nationalities mingled and conversed as they watched the young couple take their vows.

Rabbi Levi, who has lived in the UAE since 2014, is committed to serving the country’s growing Jewish community. Since his arrival, he has established communities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, including numerous places of worship, and founded Mini Miracles, the country’s only kosher multilingual nursery and preschool in the Jumeirah neighborhood of Dubai. A second branch is set to open in Abu Dhabi.

He also established a Hebrew supplemental school, a mikvah for the Jewish rite of purification and the government-licensed kosher agency, as well as bringing several rabbis to the UAE to join him in serving the community.

He also set up a training program for rabbinical interns and has helped Israeli and Jewish businesses take root in the Emirates following the accords.

“The couple’s commitment to get married in Abu Dhabi demonstrates their long-term commitment to serving the UAE’s growing Jewish community,” said a Jewish New Yorker who flew in for the occasion.

Rabbi Levi was born in Brooklyn and spent two years in Morocco with his sister Chana and her family. It was there that he was inspired to help grow Jewish life in the Arab world.

His father, Rabbi Sholom Duchman, is the director of the Colel chabad, which was founded in 1788 and is the oldest operating charity in Israel.

Hadad is of Moroccan heritage and was born and raised in Belgium. She is the daughter of Chief Rabbi Menachem Hadad. Her grandfather began the tradition of emissary work when he set up the chabad community in Milan.

“Rabbi Levi and Lea are a perfect couple,” said Alan Kay, a Jew from the UK who has lived in Abu Dhabi for 11 years.

“The fact that they chose their marriage to take place in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, is testament to their commitment to the country and to building the Jewish community here.”