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Air Transat Faces Flight Suspensions Amid Pilot Strike Notice

  Air Transat has announced it will gradually suspend flights starting Monday following a 72-hour strike notice issued by its pilots’ union. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), representing roughly 700 pilots, delivered the notice after nearly a year of unsuccessful negotiations with the airline’s parent company, Transat A.T. Inc. Background The union filed the strike notice on Sunday, giving pilots the legal right to walk off the job as early as Wednesday. Last week, pilots voted 99% in favor of strike action , underscoring their frustration over stalled contract talks. ALPA leaders emphasized that pilots do not want to strike but feel compelled to act after management failed to meet demands for a modernized agreement. Airline Response Air Transat confirmed it will begin suspending flights gradually between December 8 and 9 to prepare for a possible full shutdown. The company stated it is working “around the clock” to reach a deal and minimize disruption for trave...
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Unlocking Invisible Spaces: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honors Metal–Organic Frameworks

                                            Dubai Ruler hails Omar Yaghi's Nobel Prize a source of pride for Arab world

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi for their pioneering work on metal–organic frameworks (MOFs)—a revolutionary class of materials that combine metals with organic molecules to create highly porous structures.

Often described as “molecular architecture,” MOFs are remarkable for their ability to pack vast internal surface areas into tiny volumes. Just one gram of a MOF can contain as much internal surface as a football field. This unique property allows them to trap, store, and release gases with extraordinary efficiency.

The Nobel Committee highlighted the transformative potential of MOFs in addressing global challenges. These materials can:

  • Capture carbon dioxide to combat climate change
  • Harvest water from desert air
  • Store hydrogen for clean energy
  • Filter pollutants and toxic gases
  • Catalyze chemical reactions for greener industrial processes

The laureates’ discoveries, spanning from Robson’s early structural insights in the 1970s to Yaghi’s creation of stable, functional frameworks, have opened the door to more than 100,000 variations of MOFs worldwide. Their work exemplifies how curiosity-driven science can lead to solutions for some of humanity’s most urgent problems.

As the Nobel Committee put it, MOFs are like “tiny hotels for molecules,” offering rooms where gases and chemicals can check in and out—an elegant metaphor for a breakthrough that could reshape the future of energy, environment, and materials science.


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