{"id":31285,"date":"2019-01-31T16:24:14","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T16:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31285"},"modified":"2019-01-31T16:24:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T16:24:14","slug":"sudans-bashir-says-border-with-eritrea-shut-for-a-year-reopens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31285","title":{"rendered":"Sudan\u2019s Bashir says border with Eritrea, shut for a year, reopens"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"101\">\n<p>\nDUBAI: Thousands of Catholics have been queueing for hours outside UAE churches, eagerly waiting to collect their tickets for Tuesday\u2019s historic papal mass.<\/p>\n<p>\nPope Francis will be the first pontiff to visit the Gulf peninsula when he arrives in Abu Dhabi late on Sunday night at the presidential airport.<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019 he will lead a mass before 135,000 worshippers at the Zayed Sports City Stadium in the UAE capital.<\/p>\n<p>\nAs the big day approaches, thousands of Catholics have been queueing outside Catholic churches across the country to pick up their tickets.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThere was already a long line by around 4:30 p.m., even though ticket distribution started later at 6 p.m.,\u201d said church volunteer Lucy Pascua, who was guiding the crowds at St Mary\u2019s Catholic Church in Dubai on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\nApproximately 36,000 tickets have to be distributed to individuals by the end of Friday, Pascua said.<\/p>\n<p>\nThere are 1 million Catholics living in the UAE according to estimates by the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia (AVOSA), the official church jurisdiction in charge of UAE, Oman, and Yemen.<\/p>\n<p>\nWith a limit of 135,000 tickets for Tuesday\u2019s mass, there are many people who will not be able to attend.<\/p>\n<p>\nTo ensure that the tickets were fairly distributed names were selected from a draw \u2013 but in some cases this has led to only one member of a family being granted access to the mass.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cI was here yesterday to claim my ticket. Now, I\u2019m with my husband, and we hope we could also get a ticket for him,\u201d Filipina, Lovely Medina told Arab News.<\/p>\n<p>\nMedina said she had previously queued for four hours to collect her ticket.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve been in the UAE for five years, but I\u2019ve never been to Abu Dhabi. Now I\u2019m going there, and I\u2019m going to see the pope,\u201d added the 28-year-old Filipina.<\/p>\n<p>\nBipin from India, said he had not expected to get three tickets \u2013 one for each member of his family.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cI would never get this chance again in my life, so I\u2019m really happy, especially that I\u2019ll be with my wife and child,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\nThose who won\u2019t be able to attend at the venue are still able to watch the pope\u2019s historic mass online and at venues set up by the various churches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DUBAI: Thousands of Catholics have been queueing for hours outside UAE churches, eagerly waiting to collect their tickets for Tuesday\u2019s historic papal mass. Pope Francis will be the first pontiff to visit the Gulf peninsula when he arrives in Abu Dhabi late on Sunday night at the presidential airport. And on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}