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Dubai's DEWA utility goes public after raising $6B in IPO

Dubai's Water and Electricity Authority, known as DEWA, began trading for the first time on Tuesday, after raising just over $6 billion during its initial public offering, making it the second largest offering ever in the Middle East.

While that figure still trails far below the record $29.4 billion raised by Saudi oil giant Aramco, it marks an inflection point for Dubai at a time when high oil prices are buoying the economies and spending power of energy-producing Gulf Arab states.

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Iran summons Afghan envoy over attack on diplomatic missions

Iran on Tuesday summoned Afghanistan's envoy in Tehran over attacks the previous day on Iranian diplomatic missions in the neighboring country, state media in Iran reported.

According to the reports, Iran's foreign ministry summoned the Afghan chargé d'affaires in protest over Monday's attacks on the Iranian Embassy in Kabul and the Iranian Consulate in Herat, where protests had turned aggressive. In Herat, angry Afghan protesters pelted the consulate with rocks.

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Search for survivors in Philippine villages hit by landslides, as death rises to 42

Rescuers hampered by mud and rain on Tuesday used their bare hands and shovels to search for survivors of landslides that smashed into villages in the central Philippines, as the death toll from tropical storm Megi rose to 42. 

More than 17,000 people fled their homes as the storm pummeled the disaster-prone region in recent days, flooding houses, severing roads and knocking out power.

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Huge blast in Sidon town kills Amal member, injures at least 5

An explosion ripped through a building in southern Lebanon early on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding several others, a Lebanese security official said.

The blast in the town of Banaafoul, near the port city of Sidon, demolished the two-floor building that had served as the local municipality headquarters and a scout center for the Amal Movement headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

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Spain probes private taxidermy museum with 1,000 animals

Spain's Civil Guard says it is investigating a businessman in the eastern Valencia region who owned a private taxidermy collection with more than 1,000 stuffed animals, including just over 400 from protected species and at least one specimen of a North African oryx, already extinct.

The collection would fetch 29 million euros ($31.5 million) on the black market, the Civil Guard said Sunday in a statement, adding that its owner could be charged with trafficking and other crimes against the environment.

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German minister faces heat over vacation after deadly floods

A German Cabinet minister has apologized for taking a long vacation shortly after devastating floods last year in the state where she was then a senior official, but it isn't clear whether the move will help relieve pressure on her.

Anne Spiegel became the minister for families and women in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Cabinet in December. Before that, she was the environment minister and deputy governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state — the region worst hit by floods in July that killed more than 180 people in Germany.

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India's northwest reels under unusual early heat wave

An unusually early heat wave brought more extreme temperatures Monday to a large swath of India's northwest, raising concerns that such weather conditions could become typical.

The India Meteorological Department forecast that the temperature in New Delhi would reach 41.8 degrees Celsius (107.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, nearly eight degrees above normal.

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'Dancing With the Stars' moves from ABC to sibling Disney+

"Dancing With the Stars" will waltz away from its longtime ABC home and over to streaming service Disney+, the network's corporate sibling.

The competition series, which debuted on the broadcast network in 2005, will be on Disney+ starting this fall in the U.S. and Canada, the company said.

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Camila Cabello finds joy in her roots for new studio album

Camila Cabello says she found joy in her roots while working on "Familia," her new studio album. The pop singer and songwriter, born in Havana to a Cuban mother and a Mexican father, immersed herself in the music she listened to while growing up and even ventured to write for the first time a couple of songs fully in Spanish.

"I was curious what the process would be, because my process in English is very like me on a mic, and I just sing whatever kind of comes to my head, including lyrics. So I was like, 'I wonder what's gonna come out in Spanish,'" she said in a recent interview via Zoom from Los Angeles.

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Will Smith gets 10-year Oscars ban over Chris Rock slap

The motion picture academy has banned Will Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years following his slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.

The move comes after a meeting of the academy's Board of Governors to discuss a response to Smith's actions.

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