Oh boy! Baby born in plane toilet named after Emirates airline

Filipina nurses on board assist in mid-air delivery; kept the newborn warm using LED reading lamps attached to passenger seats.

 An Emirates flight from Dubai to Manila was forced to make an emergency landing in Vietnam after a Filipina delivered a baby in the aircraft toilet, XPRESS has learnt.

Pilots landed the Boeing 777 (EK332) at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport after mid-day on August 22 to offload the Filipina mother, identified as ‘Nedz’, and her new-born son, whom the parents planned to name ‘EK’ (the Emirates airline code), for emergency treatment.

The baby was delivered thousands of feet over Indo-China and about two-and-a-half hours before expected touchdown in Manila. EK was born pre-term at 27 weeks.

The incident caused a minor commotion on board. Two Filipina nurses on the flight jumped out of their seats to assist in the mid-air delivery.

Higher calling

“I was sitting beside them,” Karen Caballes-Santos, one of the two nurses, told XPRESS. A licensed nurse in the Philippines, she flew back to Manila unexpectedly after finding a job in Dubai, though not as a nurse.

That day, she was supposed to fly to Kish Island in Iran for a visa-change run. “My visit visa was running out. But then, I found out that on the day I was supposed to fly to Kish there were just five months left on my passport’s validity. I was super sad because I went home empty-handed. Little did I know there was a ‘higher’ purpose for what happened.”

“When I saw the mother walking toward the toilet, she seemed to be in pain. The father was restless… walking back and forth, nearly in tears, so I offered to help,” she said.

Caballes-Santos said she found the baby inside the toilet turning bluish-brown. “He was in a cyanotic condition due to lack of oxygen.”

The nurses then helped aspirate amniotic fluid from the baby’s mouth, nose and ears. Four flight attendants also attended the mother after the delivery. Oxygen masks were given to the mother and child. “I told the mother, ‘Your baby is alive, don’t worry.’ That’s when they calmed a little.”

The nurses helped clean the baby with cabin blankets and wash the mother. They kept him warm with two LED reading lamps attached to the passenger seats. By the time the aircraft landed in Vietnam, the crew including the pilots happily posed with the baby for a souvenir shot.

The baby’s parents work as hotel staff in Dubai. The 35-year-old mother and her husband had decided to deliver their first-born at home in Manila to save on costs. In Vietnam, neonatal ICU care at Tudu Hospital costs around $800 (Dh2,938) per week and the bill for therapy and medicines cost the parents $700.

XPRESS has learnt the mother was discharged on Friday, but the baby remains in critical care.

Man arrested for buying stolen iPhone online in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi: Think twice before buying phones from unknown sources. You could land in jail.

An Asian executive thought he had bagged a great deal when he bought an iPhone through an online classified site. But his joy soon turned into horror when the Abu Dhabi police detained him over the weekend. It turned out that the iPhone was stolen.

The phone was put up for sale on an online classifieds site around May. The man bought it for Dh800 from a colleague who had snapped it up from the website for Dh1,200. No receipt or warranty was given.

Abu Dhabi police traced the executive in Dubai last week. He was detained for two nights before being released on bail on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear what version of iPhone it was. An iPhone 4s 16GB with warranty is advertised for Dh1,550 ($413), an iPhone 5, 16GB retails for Dh2,599 ($693).

An electronics industry executive said residents should be wary of buying second-hand handsets

Ashish Panjabi, chief operating officer of Jacky’s Electronics, said: “There is a Latin phrase, ‘caveat emptor’, which means ‘buyer beware’. As a buyer, you should always be aware of who and what you are buying as it may have serious ramifications going forward.

“If you do buy a smartphone device from a stranger, ask them to insert their SIM card into the phone to check if the phone is working. This will help register their phone onto the network and if you are later questioned by police, you can ask them to check if the phone was previously registered or used.

“At the minimum, keep a record of the seller, whether it be their e-mail address and mobile phone number as this can help authorities track down the concerned individual,” he said.

Trade in second-hand electronics — iPhones in particular — without receipts or warranties are widespread in the UAE, with hundreds of mobile phone products advertised on one UAE-based classifieds site alone.

XPRESS called a number of people who advertised iPhones online on the same site, but many said either they had no receipt and warranty card or had already lost them.

Lawyer Amer Syed Al Marzooqi warned buyers. He cited Article 407 of the UAE Penal Code which states that anyone who buys stolen objects such as a mobile phone knowing that the piece is stolen becomes a partner in the crime. “People should protect themselves and should always ask for a receipt of what he buys ... and avoid buying anything from street sellers.”

Recently, XPRESS ran pictures taken by a smartphone reportedly stolen from Spain showing ‘selfies’ taken by a man with UAE buildings in the background. A German woman who claimed to be the iPhone’s real owner said she found numerous pictures of the man taken by the phone in her personal online inbox.

Bank of Sharjah signs $200m club term loan

The two-year facility will be used by the Bank for its general corporate purposes, specifically for USD denominated transactions.

 The Bank of Sharjah has signed a $200 million Club Term loan facility with a Group of Local and International Mandated Lead Arrangers: National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC (acting as facility Agent and Coordinator), Commercial Bank of Dubai PSC, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, First Gulf Bank PJSC, and Wells Fargo Bank N.A.

The two-year facility will be used by the Bank for its general corporate purposes, specifically for USD denominated transactions.

The facility carries a margin of 1.25% per annum, with a reduction of 25 basis points compared to the pricing applied to the term loan signed in June 2011 by the Bank and fully repaid in August 2013.

Bank of Sharjah was the first commercial bank established in the Emirate of Sharjah, and the biggest in term of Total Assets. It is primarily a corporate Bank operating through five UAE branches and a subsidiary Emirates Lebanon Bank in Lebanon. The Bank launched in 2012 a cooperation agreement with Commerzbank, Luxembourg to offer Private Banking and Wealth Management Services.

The bank maintains an investment grade rating of BBB+ from Fitch. Total Assets at the end of 2012 amounted to $6.2 billion and the capital adequacy ratio stood at 23 per cent with a tier 1 capital ratio of 21.48 per cent.

Solid standing

Varouj Nerguizian, Executive Director & General Manager commented: “This financing initiative translates Bank of Sharjah’s solid standing among the country’s leading commercial banks and the respect it commends within the International banking community. The reduction of the pricing of this facility is a confirmation of the bank’s ever strengthening reputation, thanks to its healthy financial structure and sustained performance. The renewed vigor of the UAE economy is reflected in the Bank’s balance sheet, harnessing opportunities with solid corporate clients through sound lending practices. This financing commitment will allow Bank of Sharjah to continue to address its clients’ dollar funding requirements while facilitating new relationships.”

In closing V. Nerguizian added: “Bank of Sharjah’s sound lending and solid corporate governance practices remain the major components of success.”

£1.3b paid to customers by UK banks and credit card issuers

London: British insurer CPP and 13 high street banks and credit card issuers will pay up to £1.3 billion (Dh7.4 billion, $2 billion) to millions of customers who were mis-sold CPP credit card insurance policies.
The announcement by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Thursday heaps further embarrassment on British banks after a string of mis-selling scandals and huge compensation payments partly responsible for them having to increase their cash buffers.
Banks are still paying out for mis-selling payment protection insurance (PPI), with more than £10 billion paid so far.
In the latest scandal, CPP is unable to cover the compensation unaided and all parties have agreed to a voluntary “scheme of arrangement” — the first of its kind by the FCA — to make processing claims simpler and do away with the need for claims management companies that abounded in PPI cases.
“Seven million customers, who between them bought and renewed about 23 million policies, will soon receive a letter from CPP giving more information on the process,” the FCA said.
Responsibility
“The involvement of the banks and credit card issuers reflects the fact that they introduced customers to CPP’s products and so must share responsibility for putting things right.” Having earlier reported that it had swung to a £2.6 million first-half loss from a £4.4 million profit last year, CPP said its priority was to achieve the best outcome for customers.
By 1010 GMT the company’s shares had tumbled by more than 25 per cent to 15 pence.
Barclays, one of the banks involved in the latest mis-selling, said that without lenders’ agreement to pay compensation CPP would not be able to meet its financial obligations, “which would not be in the interest of our customers”.
Crackdown
In July CPP agreed a £36 million refinancing arrangement to help it to pay compensation, though this is a fraction of the likely bill.
Jeffries International analyst Joseph Dickerson said he expected “similar blanket agreements” for compensation in the future but that he does not expect this deal to have a material impact on banks’ earnings or capital.
The FCA has a remit to protect consumers as Britain tries to draw a line under years of mis-selling financial products, dating back to the sale of pensions and endowment mortgages in the 1980s.
Its broad crackdown includes a diverse range of products from mobile phones to holidays and interest rate swaps, which are meant to protect businesses against unexpected rate rises.
The Financial Services Authority, which was replaced by the FCA in April, fined CPP £10.5 million in November for mis-selling. Card protection insurance costs about £30 a year, with identity protection costing about £80.
The FCA said that customers were given misleading and unclear information about the policies and ended up buying card protection they did not need because they were already covered by their banks, while the risk of identity theft was overstated.
Customers will be contacted and must vote in favour of the scheme for it to go ahead. CPP, banks and credit card issuers will pay for advertisements to raise awareness among customers.
The banks and credit card issuers are Bank of Scotland , Barclays, Canada Square Operations, Capital One, Clydesdale Bank, Home Retail Group Insurance Services, HSBC , MBNA, Morgan Stanley, Nationwide, Santander, RBS and Tesco Personal Finance.
The FCA said the first payments are not due until spring 2014 and will cover sales going back to January 2005.
Lloyds said it does not expect the compensation payments to have a material impact on the group.