00:00Good day, welcome to the Gulf News Update for Monday, March the 16th.
00:09Here are the top stories at this hour.
00:11A woman has been arrested after attempting to rob a money exchange in Abu Dhabi by threatening
00:16the staff with a gun that turned out to be a plastic toy.
00:19The suspect had worn a veil in a bid to avoid recognition, dressed in a white headdress
00:23and a black cloth around her face and gloves.
00:26The Filipino suspect was also found to be carrying a knife when she targeted the money
00:29exchange on Hamdam Street last week.
00:32U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that it is important to achieve a diplomatic
00:37solution for the Syrian conflict, and the negotiations should involve President Bashar
00:42al-Assad.
00:43However, State Department officials later said the U.S. was not open to direct talks
00:47with al-Assad, despite what Kerry appeared to suggest.
00:51Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to reappear in public today after an unusual
00:5510-day absence that unleashed frenzied speculation about the Russian strongman.
01:00Putin is scheduled to meet with the Kyrgyz president, al-Mazbek Atambayev, in St. Petersburg,
01:06and a Kremlin official confirmed that the meeting was on course.
01:09Putin, who is 62 years old, was last seen in public on March 5 at a news conference
01:14with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
01:18Abu Dhabi International Airport is likely to reach capacity by the end of 2016, seven
01:23months before a new 40-million-capacity terminal opens.
01:26The airport, home to Etihad Airways, expects to handle 27 million passengers in 2016.
01:34Sport
01:35Gareth Bale ended a nine-game goal drought by scoring twice as Real Madrid moved back
01:39to within a point of Barcelona at the top of La Liga.
01:42The Welshman silenced his critics as Madrid snapped a three-game winless streak with a
01:472-0 win over Levante last night.
01:50Elton John has called for a boycott of fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana
01:55for their endorsement of traditional families in a recent interview.
01:58The designers, under growing social media pressure, issued a statement saying their
02:02comments in an interview with an Italian magazine, Panorama, supporting traditional families
02:07weren't intended to judge the choices made by others.
02:11And finally, weather.
02:12Today's high across the UAE will be 28 degrees Celsius, dropping to 22 degrees at night.
02:18That's all for now.
02:19Thanks for watching and as always you can get the latest news at Gulfnews.com
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