The three cases are part of a campaign by Saudi women, who have been broadcasting daring videos with their cellphones, using Facebook to organize street protests and posting Twitter messages to challenge the very idea of male supremacy in their famously patriarchal society. Continue reading the main story The campaign, started by a loose network of activists who have enlisted young, media-savvy women, has gone far beyond […]
21 April 2017 Total has reinforced its ongoing commitment to research and development (R&D) at Heriot-Watt University after the energy company signed a five-year partnership agreement with the University’s Institute of Petroleum Engineering. Worth a minimum of £2.5m, the agreement follows over two decades of research partnership and recognises the world-class research being undertaken at the University which has a campus in Dubai. It will cover global […]
Photo A woman laid flowers at a makeshift memorial in front of the Reina nightclub in Istanbul in January. On April 6, United States Special Operations forces carried out a ground raid in Syria that killed Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, an ISIS militant who had helped plot the attack on the nightclub. Credit Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — United States Special Operations forces carried out a […]
Elon Musk has been working on a human-computer brain interface called Neuralink, aiming to link human brains to artificial intelligence. Neuralink aims to hook up the human brain to AI through micron-sized devices and the potential applications hold great promise. For instance, AI could serve as an extension of the human brain and help with certain brain injuries stemming from a stroke, cancer lesions, or other health […]
It is clear now that from the very start, the hunters’ abduction was linked to the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in regional powers in an increasingly complicated proxy war. On one side of the hostage negotiations were Shiite powers — Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah — which firmly support the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. On the other were the Sunni powers Qatar […]
Photo President Trump met with Aya Hijazi in the Oval Office on Friday. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times WASHINGTON — President Trump welcomed Aya Hijazi, an American aid worker detained for three years in Egypt, to the Oval Office on Friday after quietly working to secure her release this week. “We are very happy to have Aya back home and it’s a great honor […]
Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications Everyone experiences stiff muscles from time to time, whether after a rigorous workout, in cold weather, or after falling asleep in an unusual position. People with cerebral palsy, stroke and multiple sclerosis, however, live with stiff muscles every single day, making everyday tasks such as extending an arm extremely difficult and painful for them. And since there isn’t a foolproof way […]
Photo An image from a video, released on Thursday through a Muslim Brotherhood channel, appears to show Egyptian soldiers summarily executing unarmed detainees in the Sinai Peninsula. Credit Mekameleen TV, via Youtube A video has emerged that appears to show members of the Egyptian military shooting unarmed detainees to death at point-blank range in the Sinai Peninsula and staging the killings to look as if they had […]
TEHRAN — A council that vets Iran’s political candidates disqualified former two-term president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday — along with hundreds of others — from the presidential election next month. No official reason was given for the disqualifications in the May 19 election, which were announced on state television Thursday night by an election official, Ali Asghar Ahmadi. While Mr. Ahmadinejad’s disqualification was not unexpected, the timing […]
The biggest risk, critics say, is that Mr. Trump will talk himself into a war. Only slightly less dangerously, he could weaken the nation’s standing by backing off from a threat to use force. Continue reading the main story “In Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, they are recalibrating their strategies — you can’t deny it — because they don’t have any idea of how Trump will respond,” said Senator […]
“We lost everything,” said Hiba Beidak, 34, whose husband ran a pharmacy in the Syrian city of Aleppo. He had thyroid surgery before the war and needs medical care now, as does their 10-year-old daughter, who is unable to walk. Ms. Beidak brought her 6-year-old daughter on the tour. Ms. Taki’s older sister, Ghosoom Taki, 38, left the city of Homs for Jordan in 2011. She arrived […]
The defense secretary said Iranian support for the Houthis was destabilizing Yemen, and he talked up the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Relations are enjoying salad days in the Trump administration after years of friction between the Obama administration and the Saudi leadership, which thought Obama officials were too friendly with Iran. Continue reading the main story Mr. Mattis’s two-day visit, the start of […]
Photo The Monastery of St. Catherine, near Mount Sinai in Egypt, where a policeman was killed and four others were wounded on Monday. Credit Pedro Costa Gomes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — Gunmen attacked a checkpoint near the iconic St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, killing one police officer and wounding four others on Tuesday evening, Egypt’s Interior […]
Engineers have developed a prototype cheetah robot. They have constructed a scaled-down robotic version of the fastest land animal in the world, with a view to replicating its movements. Relatively speaking, the robot moves using only about fifteen percent more energy than a real cheetah. Source
Photo On Tuesday, the Islamic State released its first official statement on President Trump, though he was not called out by name. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Although members and supporters of the Islamic State have frequently commented on President Trump and his policies, analysts have been puzzled by the terrorist group’s official silence about him. Mr. Trump had not been mentioned in any of the […]
At the hospital in Reyhanli, a small Turkish border town that took in many of the victims, the mourners gathered outside mostly came from just two extended families, Mr. Youssef’s and the Abu Amash family. Continue reading the main story The families are connected by marriage and both come from Khan Sheikhoun, the village in rebel-held Idlib Province that residents said been hit with chemical weapons earlier […]
American tech workers are no doubt feeling vindicated, rejoicing at what they feel is a long-overdue, reversal of fortunes. You could not have a more ominous beginning to the beginning of the H-1B lottery than the events that transpired over the last few days. As ZDNet’s Stephanie Condon reports, on Friday last week, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a memo that revamped an outdated, […]
Photo A Boeing 737 MAX at Boeing Field in Seattle in January 2016. The company wants to sell up to 60 airliners to Iran. Credit Jason Redmond/Reuters The Boeing Company announced a tentative agreement on Tuesday to sell up to 60 737s to an Iranian airline, a transaction valued at $6 billion that appears very likely to test the Trump administration’s avowed hostility toward Iran. Boeing, the […]
Taking a cue from the Marvel Universe, researchers report that they have developed a self-healing polymeric material with an eye toward electronics and soft robotics that can repair themselves. The material is stretchable and transparent, conducts ions to generate current and could one day help your broken smartphone go back together again. (via WSJ)
Something is coming to Overwatch, as teased by Blizzard through a short video uploaded to the game’s official Twitter account. The tweet, a cryptic one as with previous Overwatch teasers, hints at a major announcement for the game on April 11. Blizzard ‘Overwatch’ Announcement On April 11 “Initiating archive declassification… Mission files unlock: April 11. RETWEET to confirm,” tweeted the official Overwatch account, accompanied by a short 20-second video that […]
Photo Rifaat al-Assad in Paris in 2011. A Spanish judge ordered the seizure of numerous properties associated with him or his family. Credit Michel Euler/Associated Press LONDON — Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, was named on Tuesday in a European money laundering investigation. A Spanish judge, José de la Mata Amaya, ordered the seizure of properties in Spain that are controlled by […]
Benjamin J. Rhodes, who was a foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter: “Kushner in Iraq before the National Security Advisor or Secretary of State. Totally normal.” Continue reading the main story That was not the only way the trip broke with usual government practice: On Sunday evening, as word of Mr. Kushner’s trip began to spread, the White House incorrectly told reporters on […]
An American of Iranian descent arrested in Iran in July and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment on dubious charges has been released on bail after he went on a hunger strike, rights activists reported on Monday. The American, Robin Shahini, who is 46 or 47, was released about two weeks ago, just before the start of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, according to the Center for Human […]
When we first wrote about Chowbotics, their salad-making robot, which was then just a prototype, stirred a bit of controversy. The company promises to bring nutritious dining options to offices that don’t have a big cafeteria and budget to employ full-time chefs. But, like other food automation technologies, their robot, Sally, threatens to put a number of people out of work if it replaces prep cooks in restaurants. […]
