Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum inaugurated a free zone for e-commerce today, called Dubai Internet City. The preliminary stages of the project, the only one of its kind according to its designers, are estimated at $200 million. Sheikh Mohamed, who is also the Defense Minister of the United Arab Emirates, announced at the inauguration ceremony that "we want to make Dubai a new trading center." The minister, who has his own website, also said: "I want Dubai to be the best place in the world for state-of-the-art technology companies." He said companies engaged in e-commerce would be able to set up offices, employ staff and own equipment in the open zone, including fully-owned foreign companies. The e-commerce free zone is situated in north Dubai, near the industrial free zone in Jebel Ali, the top regional and tenth international leading area in container transit. The inauguration of Dubai Internet City coincides with the opening of an annual IT show in Dubai, the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (Gitex), the biggest in the Middle East.

Why was an e-commerce free zone inaugurated in Dubai?

What if you could drain all of Earths oceans? What would it look like? You might be really surprised. You see that the surface has two main features. It has continents and ocean basins. Continents are large land areas. These are the areas that are mostly above sea level. Ocean basins extend from the edges of continents. They include the ocean floor and Earths deep ocean trenches. You will also notice the ocean floor is not flat. It too has many Continents are much older than ocean basins. Some rocks on the continents are billions of years old. Ocean basins may only be millions of years old. Because the continents are so old, a lot has happened to them! As we view the land around us, we see landforms. Landforms are physical features on Earths surface. These features change over time, but how? There are actually two types of forces at work.

Which are older: continents or ocean basins?

(CNN) -- A Christian evangelical group said Thursday that a Bible school -- backed by American evangelist Franklin Graham -- was destroyed in the latest bombing raid to hit South Kordofan, an oil-rich Sudanese province that borders the newly created independent country of South Sudan. At least eight bombs were dropped in the area Wednesday during the school's first day of classes, according to a statement by Samaritan's Purse, Graham's Christian humanitarian group, which supports the school. Two bombs landed inside the compound -- located in the region's Nuba Mountains -- destroying two Heiban Bible College buildings and igniting grass fires across the area, the group said in a statement No injuries were reported. "It was a miracle that no one was injured," the statement added. Graham, who has called on the international community to take out Sudan's air assets and establish a no-fly zone in the region, said in a statement Thursday that he blamed Sudan's air force for the strike. At least four churches have been destroyed since August, the group said. "We are deeply concerned for the welfare and lives of the people of South Kordofan and we condemn the bombing of churches and Christian facilities," added Graham, son of the famed Rev. Billy Graham. More than 78,000 people have fled South Kordofan and Blue Nile states since August of last year after an armed rebellion took root, the United Nations reported. The Sudanese government is thought to have responded to the rebellion by conducting sustained air raids with the use of Russian-made Antonov bombers, which have raised concerns over civilian casualties. Decades of civil war between the north and south, costing as many as 2 million lives, formally ended with a U.S.-brokered peace treaty in 2005.
Which group reported that four churches have been destroyed since August?